The Shaming of American Defense Intelligence
Some in the American Defense Intelligence community and Apparatchiks at the State Department have reduced themselves and their trade to a criminal activity. Not by upholding their oaths and performing the expected duties of true US Intelligence Professionals, but by ignoring the oaths they swore, the creeds they were forced to memorize, with little to fear from the system that granted them the right to see secrets that protect people’s lives.
The Military Intelligence Corp’s Creed states, in portion, the following:
To find, know, and never lose the enemy.
With a sense of urgency and of tenacity, professional and physical fitness,
and above all, INTEGRITY, for in truth lies victory.
The last few years have seen a deluge of intelligence leaks, many from senior sources. The Bradley Mannings of the world sit in solitary confinement for breaching America’s trust and breaking the law. And so it should be. But as the saying goes, Privates get into more trouble for losing their rifles than Generals do for losing wars. A series of leaks from the Pentagon and State Department regarding the possibility of an Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear facilities likely has purely political motivations: The current administration does not want to be drawn into another war before the next US election.
Whatever the motivation for the leaks, Americans should be concerned. Not about black helicopters, CIA assassins, and 9-11 conspiracies, but because many in the intelligence community don’t care about their oaths or the lives of Americans or their allies. For votes and political sway, secrets are sold–and no one goes to jail but the Army Private with a lot of personal and psychological problems. I want to see the GS-15 analyst from the Pentagon, or Colonel, hauled off in chains for giving away secrets. I’m not even sure there’s an investigation to try to weed out these creeps. But if they were E3s who inserted a thumb drive into a government computer–to the gallows!
If these people will give secrets to the media, either just to get a thrill of seeing their deeds in the news or to ensure the success of their man in the upcoming elections, imagine what they’d do for a large chunk of change offered by a foreign spy.
What if Israel attacks Iran?
Rumors are flying that the recent Israeli swap of over a 1000 Palestinians in exchange for one Israeli soldier is a prelude to an Israeli attack on Iran. The hypothesis states that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu wanted to ensure the safety of the captive soldier before taking aggressive steps against Hamas’s sponsor, Iran.
What we can probably be certain of is that Israel wants to attack Iran’s growing nuclear facilities. After all, Israel already destroyed a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007. Interestingly, Syria didn’t protest the destruction, most probably because doing so would have been an acknowledgement of nuclear ambitions. But there are a couple of key differences between the problem with Iran, and the growing Syrian problem in 2007.
First, America has a different president in the White House who has made it clear that he does not want Israel to preemptively strike Iran without an international mandate. The relationship between Obama and Netanyahu is reportedly frosty. What would Obama do should Israel strike Iran? Suppose America actually withdrew its diplomats in protest, or significantly reduced aid. This could encourage Israel’s enemies to attack, sensing a weakening relationship between Israel and her American protectorate. Egypt presents a worrisome problem. Things are getting so bad there that some Egyptians are demanding the military hand over power to civilian leadership. The Egyptian military may feel that war with Israel would serve as a distraction from growing internal unrest. The Egyptian government could use an attack on Iran as an excuse for Egyptian aggression. This is a truly frightening thought as the future of much of the Arab world remains liquid after the Arab spring, and war against Israel could serve to unify a fractured Arabia.
Secondly, Iran, obviously, is not Syria. Iran’s tendrils run distant and deep through the Middle East and Central Asia. Iran has meddled in Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Afghanistan, and Bahrain, among other places. They have promoted terrorism throughout the world, and even planned the assassination of the Saudi diplomat to the US, most likely in response to the Saudi’s helping crush unrest in Bahrain. Iran has oil and lots of it. They have the ability to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, at least temporarily, which would skyrocket oil prices all over the world. The announcement that America will withdraw all of its troops from Shia dominated Iraq will give Iran even more leverage in that country; US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta even warned Iran against meddling in Iraq, though his warning seemed to carry the assumption that America would have a long-term presence in the country. This turned out not to be true.
In other words, Iran has real power and Syria does not and did not in 2007.
Israel finds itself in a very difficult position. No one really knows the American position on Iran’s nuclear research. Would President Obama really endorse a cooperative military strike on Iran should Iran reach the zero-hour of nuclear weapons’ development? Or is he merely using populist rhetoric in demanding Israel wait for a coalition of the willing? Since Israel cannot know Obama’s true intentions, it has no way of forming a deterministic model. Perhaps Netanyahu wants to wait until the results of the 2012 American presidential elections are in, hoping that a president more sympathetic to Israeli interests sits in the White House. An attack on Iran would be a huge gamble, but so would allowing Iran to possess nuclear weapons.
We can blame ourselves for this
The Iranians are sending escorts for new aid ships to Gaza.
We can blame ourselves. Our weak response in backing the Israelis two weeks ago may actually initiate a war.
The Inevitability of Armageddon
“Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. 16 And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. 17 And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. 18 And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.”~The Book of Revelations
The recent incident involving the aid-for-Gaza ship illustrates the inevitability of a catastrophic war in the Middle East. Israel can only fight a defensive war, fending off attack after attack, responding to past damages. Israel’s enemies on the other hand, can repeatedly attack Israel and than scream bloody-murder when Israel responds. And the media cooperates.
Israel cannot, for political reasons, preemptively attack, with the intent to eliminate, its enemies. To do so would risk losing America as an ally. Should America disown Israel, Israel will cease to exist as a Jewish state; her enemies are too numerous. The Israeli government is forced to rely on retributive and defensive operations which do not root out the enemy’s hive, but only swat at individual wasps in a swarm. While the hive exists, there will always be more swarms.
Various Islamic nations call for the destruction of Israel, all the while attacking her through proxy terror organizations such as Hezbollah. And yet, the call now is for Israel to rid itself of nuclear weapons. Iran, it is now believed, has enough fissile material to produce two nuclear weapons. Given the nature of suicide attacks, even the threat of a massive nuclear retaliatory strike against Iran may not be enough to stave off an initial nuclear attack on Israeli soil. Though many reports focus on Iran’s nuclear delivery systems, those systems are not nearly as important to Islamic fundamentalists as the weapons themselves. A suicide bomber is the ultimate smart weapon. In addition, an atomic suicide bomber presents a greater chance of plausible deniability. A missile launch would be easily traceable as to its origin. A man annihilated in a nuclear blast passes into oblivion.
So because Israel cannot destroy her enemies before they build an ultimate weapon, Israel can only wait until the ultimate weapon is used. Her enemies repeatedly remind us that the destruction of Israel is at the top of their wish list. Not world peace, not that their hungry are fed, not education of the masses, but the death of millions of Jews. The calls for the destruction of Israel occur so frequently that the threats seem to mean nothing. Many assume that the promises of this destruction are only rants or calls for attention. The Arab-Israeli Wars, the thousands of rocket attacks and suicide bombings, the incessant political posturing, all of that means nothing to the cynics. Too many believe that Israel merely wishes to make Palestinians suffer for no real reason. So much so, that the reports of suffering have become hyperbolic and the aid and concessions given to Palestinians are all but unreported.
And it is clear what Israel will do if her existential fears materialize. They will use their own ultimate weapons, just as we would. And then we shall see the prophecy recorded in the Book of Revelations become reality. Some will say it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, that religious zealots read the prophecy and did what they could to make it happen. I’ll say a self-fulfilling prophecy is nonetheless a prophecy fulfilled.
Fair play with the bomb?
Do you want a convicted murderer, recently released from prison, to be able to carry a firearm at his discretion? Probably not. How much less do we want criminal states with deployable nuclear weaponry?
There’s a fad argument afoot. It states that we should allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons, because anything else would prove us to be hippocrits. Though intellectuals use this argument often, it is actually incredibly shallow and short sighted. It is quite clear to most, that if an American city is incinerated by a nuclear bomb, the last thing anyone watching the horror on the news will think is: “At least we were fair and allowed them to have nukes.”
Do we worry about Britain dropping The Bomb on us? France? Clearly this is not just about us having nukes and no one else. It’s about abiding by a realist’s outlook: That those who state their emnity with you and ignore the most basic of human rights should not be allowed to have such powerful weapons.
Most likely, even the fairness argument is just a facet of the fashionable (for about the last 50 years) habit of criticizing America but ignoring mass murder in the rest of the world. Ask the cursed people of Darfur what a rabid anti-neocon ever did for them.
War Deniers
George Orwell said that the quickest way to end a war is to lose it.
The left has a way of helping us end wars: They deny they even exist. They’ve mocked the term: “Global War on Terror”. It was a denial of its existence. They fail to see or even feel, the boiling hatred of Wahhabism. And when they do, they join the Wahhabists in blaming America.
Islam is being swallowed by the ultra-violent sects. If it were not so, a man could not walk into a mosque, detonate himself in the name of Allah, and fail to rouse anti-extremist fervor amongst Muslims. Instead, there’s barely a murmur. There are however a few speeches given by the War Deniers assuring us that: “This isn’t really Islam.”
What is it then?
Diplomacy will not stop Iran from building a bomb.
The United States has been in talks with Iran for over thirty years. These talks have enabled Iran at every turn to appear to want peace and negotiation, but in the end talking has proven a distraction.
One of the largest strawmen that the Left has constructed is this: The Right does not talk, it only bombs. We must talk, they say, as if we never have. They conveniently forget that the Berlin Wall fell without a shot fired.
This accusation is really a reflexive lashing out, a displayed frustration at the fact that many times, perhaps most times, talking with totalitarian regimes doesn’t produce the results America wants. Is it so profound to think that regimes and leaders who practice genocide, ethnic cleansing, brutal suppression of dissent and hold to near-future visions of Apocalypse may not be so sensitive as to cease these activities merely because they were told to do so?
What exactly is it that those who worship at the alter of diplomacy wish to negotiate with Iran? What can we say that Ahmadinejad hasn’t heard before?
We’ve dithered long enough. The Left will squeal and kick should we take military action. This we know. And we should ignore it. But the fact is, too many words have made us look indecisive and weak; perhaps the hallmark of this administration. This kind of operation is exactly the kind at which our small, capable military excels: Hit hard and leave.
Israel will be the martyr for NATO’s cause in Iran
As I said here, I don’t think Obama will do anything militarily to Iran. The administration has known of the secret nuclear research facilities for two months now. Still nothing.
We’ll wait for Israel to pull the trigger, then sit back and watch the media frenzy and fundamentalist attention-mongers cry foul. Israel takes even more heat than the US does.
Or Iran will have nukes. And from there, it’s a nuclear armed Hezbollah.
Want to hear Ralph Peter’s prediction? It’s scary.
“How will it end? With desperate Israeli attacks that do only part of the job, followed by Iranian counterstrikes on Persian Gulf oil facilities, the closure of the Straits of Hormuz and oil above $400 a barrel.”~Ralph Peters, New York Post, Sept. 2009.
Should Israel attack Iran?
And so do I at this point. The Iranian regime has made it clear what it thinks about Israel’s existence and what it will do with nukes should it get some. The Obama Administration is unlikely to take any military action, regardless of the threat posed. Iran will lie and lie and this president will keep being a True Believer.
Now is not the time for talk of regime change in Iran
For thirty years now, we’ve known what kind of country Iran is. There are reactionary forces amongst Democrats and Republicans who espouse regime change in Iran, now that the news has displayed the corpse of a beautiful Persian woman, shot dead by… well no one really knows.
I like John Bolton, former ambassador to the United Nations under George Bush. His candid speech as to the corruption and fecklessness of the UN earned him a quick hook, stage left. Here, he writes an article stating that it’s time to get rid of the mullah’s regime in Iran. He makes some good points about how this should have been handles decades ago, and the abject foolishness of Obama’s belief that talking with the Iranian government will amount to anything but anti-American spin and distraction from what Iran really desires: The Bomb.
Bolton is not entirely clear as to how the mullahs should be overthrown, but he seems to imply a direct military action, as shown in this quote from the article:
“Of course, these various sources of discontent are not entirely reinforcing, and are sometimes in conflict, which indicates how difficult it is for a purely internal Iranian opposition to coalesce. Had the U.S. and others over the last 30 years done more to help Iranian dissidents, overtly and covertly, we might be in a different place today. The question is whether we are prepared to do now what we should have been doing for some time.” (Bolton, LA Times, June, 2009)
It seems to me common sense that America cannot afford to throw away time, Soldiers and money on yet another attempt to save a country composed of desperate Islamic factions. As Bolton states, only 50% of Iran’s population is Persian. Arab citizens resent the Persians and vice versa. Removing the mullahs will create a power vacuum. When we entered Iraq, we knew that Saddam Hussein had used WMDs before. He refused all cooperation with UN inspectors. We moved on what we thought was a threat. Iran has no nukes; we know this. We know where they are attempting to develop the nukes, and an airstrike on these laboratories would put a serious dent in their venture. I’m not against military strikes. But regime change with America doing the world’s dirty work–yet again–is a bad idea.
I think that Europe would actually stand behind drone or airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The same cannot be said for another invasion, which would be spun as one more example of American imperialism. Europe is content to sway in the tides of Pax Americana. She can never be counted on to help maintain the peace, however, so it’s best we just kill the right people and destroy the right stuff without worrying about making a Persian Oasis in what has always been the haunt of the Djinn.
Hopes of a revolution in Iran are a pipe dream
Coups happen when armies decide they want to run the show. Riots are not revolution. True, the Shah of Iran was removed from power by what started as rioting. But the mullahs used the power of Islamic zeal to destroy the Shah. The Shah also didn’t make things easy on himself by severely abusing the populace, despite the fact that he wanted to cooperate with the West. His abuses opened the portals of revolution. Now though, religion is already in power, and I see little reason to think that anything will change in Iran. The mullahs are there to stay.
I’ve made it clear that I have no tolerance for the Shia Theocrats that run Iran. But I find it irritating that only now, after an election in which no one really knows the true outcome, that some are showing disdain for this regime. US troops died because of Iran, but now that the government tries to stop violent protests, the regime is portrayed as an oppressive regime co-opted by apocalyptic mullahs.
Which it is.
In truth, the anti-riot forces have shown restraint. While thousands protested (and not really all that peacefully), 17 people died. Western nations would not have handled these riots much differently, except of course the media would never have been shut down.
Presidential candidate Mousavi would have been no better. He is an Islamist, plain and simple. Does anyone really think that Mousavi would have cut off Hezbollah’s state funding or stopped providing weapons to Hamas?
The world is now what people thought it was 6 years ago.
“Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions.” ~ Augustus Caesar after the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, in which three Roman Legions were slaughtered in ambush by an array of Germanic Barbarians.
People thought the world was really, really bad 6 years ago. They were wrong.
Then Obama took office. And the rest of the world has set about to test him. Now the world is really, really bad.
North Korea defies the entire world, and launches a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
Tehran is lying and weaseling its way to a nuclear bomb. We swallowed their lie and enemies of the Bush administration did everything they could to make intelligence reports that showed the Iranian governement was attempting to build a nuclear weapon, appear wrong. Now it may once again fall on Israel to be the bad guy.
Russia is doubling its military draft numbers.
Pakistan and Mexico both teeter on the edge of failed-statehood.
The new Euro-American alliance will get us only a more European America, not an Americanized Europe. That is, moral and military weakness, post-modern self-hatred, an abandonment of traditional values, specifically of the Judeo-Christian ethic and finally a world that is more unstable because we pandered to the worst because they were loudest.
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