Free Republic

And “burned” will be the same fate of any organization that runs covert operations.

Do anything a lib does not like and it will be leaked to a more than willing MSM outlet that will splash the details all over the front page,

we also need to decimate the liberals who do not believe in covert actions and military tribunals

I doubt 10% would be enough to fix the problem.

This sounds like duplicating capabilities and missions, while diluting a very small pool of personnel. If the problem is organizational, it can be fixed by erasing and drawing lines on a chart--but I don't think it's organizational. It's political. If we don't have the political will to conduct a worldwide war on terror with DOD's counterterror elements and the CIA's Special Activities Division, then we won't have the political will to use OSS2, either. If we do have that will--if we have supportive leadership in the White House and on the Hill--then the uniformed services and the National Clandestine Service will rise to the occasion. I think they have demonstrated that in recent years.

First, any new agency will devolve into the same morass as the CIA, FBI, etc. Why? Because all the political appointees and union members are the cancer inside these agencies and if you sweep them out, then these agencies will return to their aggressive, no-holds-barred approach to our enemies.

Second, expanding gov’t is never the answer.

Third, we also need to decimate the liberals who do not believe in covert actions and military tribunals before we will ever be serious about destroying international terrorism.

The article is correct that the CIA, having been burned by the government has lost its capacity for direct action due to their risk aversion.

We can't leave out congressional oversight either or the current DCI, Leon E. Panetta - a long time professional politician and Clinton's chief of staff.

Combined MI & SOCOM Ping

.

MEL’ -PASSION- sparked by -WE WERE SOLDIERS-

http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1085111/posts

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For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Chuck him out, the brute!”
But it’s “Saviour of ‘is country,” when the guns begin to shoot;
An’ it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ anything you please;
But Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool - you bet that Tommy sees!

http://www.web-books.com/Classics/Poetry/Anthology/Kipling/Tommy.htm

Time for a new OSS: We need an agency that can take on al Qaeda

Any financing towards covert operations/operatives during this administration would inevitably be directed at the American people, not their enemies.

Perhaps a czar....

/smirk

Just read a Vince Flynn novel and your half way home to dealing with the situation today.
The OSS was formed to work behind enemy lines in occupied countries, not quite the same situation as we have today.
The article is correct that the CIA, having been burned by the government has lost its capacity for direct action due to their risk aversion.

http://www.wnyc.org/news/articles/145559

“More Charges Expected in Zazi Case”
by Ailsa Chang

SNIPPET: “NEW YORK, NY December 04, 2009 —Federal prosecutors expect to file more charges against Najibullah Zazi who’s accused of conspiring to make homemade bombs as part of an alleged terror plot. They’ve told a federal judge in a pretrial hearing in Brooklyn, that the charges will appear in another indictment. Zazi’s lawyer, J. Michael Dowling:”

There is a HUGE Polish heritage in America.

My real Gr grandmothers last name was Rudnick, (or something very close), and I remember a time I was like 6 when she was teaching me to count my toes in Polish...
Funny how those things come back.

You sound like one of those yankee retards, who think that Captain America is lighting up the sun every morning.

ping

Thank you for posting Peggy, although I’m not always sure she knows what she’s trying to say... let alone saying it.

“Faux eloquence” seems to hve suddenly become a popular phrase. Some of us have ridiculed our “faux president” for some time. I love it when good ideas spread!

Regarding “What would you do?” while listening to the bore-in-chief: Before Vietnam, movie companies used to use real military as extras in war flicks, and the extras almost always managed to find a propitious moment at which to flip the cameraman the bird. I wonder if the cadets...?

Poor Obummer. Turning left or turning right, he draws fire from the right, left, or (more often) both. He doesn’t just paint himself into corners; he paints himself into well bottoms. You say this isn’t a well, but a latrine? Ugh!

I don’t think Peggy is playing conservative again.

She’s simply pouting out her broken heart since Obama has not thrown her loving kisses or invited her to share Kobe Beef with the other beautiful people.

Much like a jilted lover, Peggy is simply throwing a temper tantrum.

Is Peggy pretending she is a Conservative again ???

I remember way,WAY back when Peggy was a Conservative and Michael Jackson was a cute little black boy.

Nam Vet

Are you kidding? Electing a marxist who favors the killing of the unborn, especially with tax-payers money, is a beautiful and moving thing to see, according to Peggy. Peggy, the worthless elitist, doesn't even understand the purpose of the pro-life movement. Speaking of Peggy Noonan : Peggy Noonan on youtube.

every -> everything

>> That means a lot to me come election day.

I agree. It’s an incredibly easy decision to make when you strip away every but the issue of aborting an innocent, helpless child.

Peggy, like Chris Matthews, is so into the "mythology" and charisma of elected officials, and frankly, that's the part of politics that makes me wanna puke.

I don't want leaders who pretend they know me, who pretend they feel my pain. They don't know me. All a politician can do is share my political ideology, and act accordingly. I don't need a politician to pretend he or she is my friend, or would sit down and share a beer with me. Just have a brain and a soul that guides you to the right choices, that's all. All of this poetry crap that Peggy and Chrissy get wet over is for the Harlequin crowd. Do your (limited) job and that's all I require, not the song and dance that so mesmerizes Peggy.

Writes post-menopausal Obama groupie Noonan...

I have always described Peggy's writing style as prepubescent but I think I like your formulation better. How is it that someone can gain the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal and retain that turf even while relentlessly obsessing on form?

After the speech, I wrote this vanity which I presume to reproduced here because I think it deals with substance:

Trying to Thread the Needle, Obama Falls between Two Stools.

After dithering for her nearly 100 days, longer than was required for the initial successful invasion of Afghanistan, Obama typically exploited a photo opportunity at West Point to stage-manage the disclosure of his decision to support his hand-picked general's request for troops, but only to the extent of 75%. In doing so, Obama has antagonized the base of his party who are already upset that he is not fulfilled his pledges to openly integrate the Army with homosexuals, close Gitmo, and pull the troops out of Iraq. Rather than ending the war in Afghanistan, he has now in their view doubled down on the number of troops and extended the war for at least 18 more months.

While dismaying the base of his own party, Obama has given the right, who will not vote for him under any circumstances anyway, half a loaf and has done so grudgingly. He has disappointed the right in three very significant particulars: he has failed to provide all the troops needed; he has imposed an arbitrary time limit; he has failed intelligibly to articulate a definition of victory or a strategy to gain it.

He Has Failed to Provide All the Troops Needed.

A cursory view of the map shows that huge swathes of Afghanistan are currently under the control of the Taliban or are substantially dominated by the Taliban. Even more of Afghanistan is owned by the Taliban at night. From the Northeast to the South of the country, that is along its vast and rugged Himalayan mountain border with Pakistan, the Taliban dominates by virtue of one tribal manifestation or another . All of these territories provide sanctuary to Al Qaeda. The Pashtuns around Kandahar in the south of the country are militantly opposed to the Karzai regime in Kabul.

In examining these geographical and political realities, it is worth noting in passing that the post-speech coverage and analysis on CNN far exceeded in quality the coverage on Fox. Michael Weir in particular provided a sobering analysis of the daunting odds imposed upon us by this geography. He is convinced that many times the number of soldiers being committed by Obama will be required to prevail. Not the least of the problems in Afghanistan are the sanctuaries in Pakistan and the not so clandestine support of many strata of Pakistan Society for the insurgency. The mountain fastness which makes up the Pakistan border provides innumerable avenues for Taliban and Al Qaeda to infiltrate and exfiltrate into and out of Afghanistan. The geography presents an ideal arena to mount a guerrilla.

In fairness to Obama, it should be duly noted that Obama's general, Gen. McChrystal, has said that these 30,000 will be a sufficient troop force. But in fairness to history, it is also important to note that Gen. McChrystal originally wanted many more troops. I just simply find this limited surge not to be formidable enough in view of the geography, the tribalism, the corruption, the antipathy to America and all foreigners, the history of eight years of failure, and the success of Pakistan-based guerrillas exploiting the border.

I fear that it is the enemy who can control troop levels by raising or lowering the pace of its incursions across the border from Pakistan. That gives the enemy the option of flooding the zone. While it is certainly possible for Obama to increase his troop commitment, logistic, economic and especially political, considerations constrain that option considerably. In this respect, one is compelled to make an analogy to Vietnam where the North Vietnamese were ultimately able to manage the flow down the Ho Chi Minh Trail at a sufficient rate to demoralize the American home front.

He Has Imposed An Arbitrary Time Limit.

This is a blunder which is obvious even to an armchair strategist like me. It demoralizes our troops, it encourages our enemies, it discloses our intentions to the enemy, it empowers him, it gives the enemy the option of waiting us out. It demoralizes the Karzai regime and it discourages potential allies among the tribes from attaching themselves to a force which they know will not be there in 18 months and, upon departure, will abandon them utterly to the brutal retaliations of the Taliban. Does anyone really doubt that every apparatchik, police chief and Army colonel in the Karzai government is now actively negotiating to cut any deal he can to survive in post-America Afghanistan?

The buildup will not even commence until many of the 18 months have run. The image is almost comic were it not so dangerous; we can easily foresee American troops entering Afghanistan to serve their tour bumping into troops leaving because the force is being withdrawn. We will have a surge but in which direction? It smacks of opera bouffe.

The time limit has been justified by Obama supporters as a wake-up call to Karzai to clean the corruption out of his regime. That rationalization is not persuasive. To announce a time limit is such an obvious blunder that one can only conclude that Obama made this statement to appease the base of the Democratic Party and as it is shameful political act for the commander-in-chief to expose his troops to added risk to protect his personal popularity. In this Dick Cheney is indisputably correct.

He Has Failed To Articulate an Intelligible Definition of Victory or a Strategy to Gain It.

Obama has articulated a definition of victory but it is not intelligible. No one hearing his words can be sure that we are not in fact embarking on nation building. If we are, it is clear that he is not providing the assets necessary to attain that war aim. He has certainly not allocated sufficient time to attain it. One minute he sounds as though he wants to nation build and the next he emphatically denies it. The problem is conceptual, he has failed to call for victory. This administration persists in the delusion that it can change reality by changing the language. So it enjoins the use of the word "terrorism" and resorts to Orwellian euphemisms, "adverse human events." Now in Afghanistan the administration will not call for "victory" but it wants to get the "job done." Obama's leftism is showing. He is the commander-in-chief whose job it is to order men and women into harm's way where they will be maimed and killed. As he himself rather blithely acknowledges, elementary morality demands that the commander-in-chief articulate a compelling need for that order. He has not.

Most importantly, Obama has failed to articulate a strategy for victory. What do we do about the incursions from Pakistan? There is no articulated solution. So long as we are waging war on the wrong side of an open border, we cannot as a democracy sustain the casualties necessary to staunch the flow by fighting battles of attrition. As noted above, the enemy can and will flood the zone and the enemy will cheerfully trade casualties with us even at a disadvantageous kill ratio. It worked in Vietnam where we killed the Vietcong at a rate of 10 to 1, and it very nearly succeeded in Iraq. Obama has put our forces in place where they are vulnerable to virtually unlimited cross-border incursions but they are saddled with absurd and potentially lethal rules of engagement. Obama has put our troops in harm's way and then rendered them naked in the presence of their enemies.

If the strategy is to build up Afghan military and police forces to provide that nation its own protection, is it realistic to believe that we will accomplish in 18 months what we failed to accomplish in eight years?

Narcissism on Parade

When the speech is stripped away of its filigrees it is essentially more of the same, altered only by a surge which is not a surge because it is limited in time. The essential problems of infiltration and Afghanistan are indeed addressed in stentorian tones hot off the Teleprompter but they are not solved. The president made several assertions which he did not prove and are very likely not true. He asserted essentially that it is necessary to fight a ground war in Afghanistan to prevent Al Qaeda from planning and preparing for another strike on the home because that is where the strike on 9/11 was planned and prepared. This is a dubious proposition. It is inconceivable that Al Qaeda cannot scrape up the godforsaken corners of the Muslim world a few more fanatics to strike our homeland as they did on 9/11. Al Qaeda can do that just as well from Egypt or Sudan, Pakistan or even Iraq as they could from Afganistan. American boots ground serving as an Army of occupation simply does not ensure that Al Qaeda cannot mount terrorist attacks.

The expressed war aim - to prevent Al Qaeda from mounting more attacks on our homeland - does not really enhance our national security if Al Qaeda can just as easily plan and launch such attacks from other venues. Thus the entire justification for the surge and for the whole war is rendered feckless.

One cannot leave the speech without noting a particular irony. Obama was at pains to claim credit for himself for changing the perception in the Muslim world of America by virtue of his incessant apologies and mia culpas for America's alleged misdeeds. The accelerating number of casualties in Afghanistan belie that claim. Does Obama believe we would be sustaining fewer casualties if he had actually closed Guantánamo Bay? To believe that one must have an utterly naïve understanding of the tribal mentality which has motivated the likes of the Taliban since Alexander The Great and the fanaticism which has motivated aggressive Islam since Mohammed went to the mountain. The irony is that the need for the surge is evidence of the utter failure of Obama's groveling diplomatic overtures.

The speech is incoherent because the policy is a craven attempt to appease two mutually exclusive constituencies. He tried to appease his left wing base while trying to avoid appearing before the world as the author of failure in Afghanistan. He failed to thread that needle. Alas, Obama will not pay the price alone. The wages of narcissism in a Commander in Chief are too often casualties on the field.

Great post. Amid all the McCain bashing around here, I was wondering why it would be a good thing for Obama to win. Some folks told me we needed that to "shock" people back to the right.

What foolishness. McCain was far from perfect, and certainly not my ideal candidate. But he's been pretty strongly prolife. That means a lot to me come election day.

It is stupid. Another thing that is stupid is endorsing Obama for POTUS. You think we forgot, Peggy?

Oh yeah. Treason sure lingers on a reputation, doesn't it?

>> ... is pro-life and would never endorse a supporter of baby killing ...


Many self-described 'Pro-Lifers' voted for, and support Obama.

If I'm not mistaken, most every Democrat voted for Obama instead of the war hero John McCain and his running mate, the second female VP candidate, Sarah Palin.

McCain/Palin had a clear Pro-Life message - yet, most every Democrat voted for Obama who is obviously not Pro-Life.

If 95% of conservative Democrats are willing to abandon the little ones for political expediency, why is it impossible for swoonin' Noonan to do the same?

After a search, it seems no one posted this.....

For good reason, Peggy is still mesmerized by Ogabe's FM DJ faggoty voice. An Obama voting and swooning SKANK.

Yep .. a most amazing hero.

Picture of the two SEALS squatting? Thats Marcus on the right.

About two-thirds of the way through, the speech degenerated into the faux eloquence that makes people listening across our nation want to gouge out their eyes and run screaming from the room.

A feeling shared by all FRiends from the very first day you heard the cretin-in-chief speak.

Peggy Noonan is fast becoming a poster child for the Alzheimer's crowd. She is losing it big time lately...

The cadet was reading it before. I wish conservatives wouldn’t look to the cadets for a rally point against Obama (both on this site and the conservative media in general). West Point is very image oriented (you don’t think cadets drill in parades so much or follow strick uniform standards because they enjoy doing so) so those cadets that “dared” to do anything that could be taken as “damaging” to the academy’s image could find themselves in hot water. I don’t know whether the cadets were so quiet because they didn’t agree with the POTUS, didn’t like hearing that they would not partake in a conflict they had signed up to fight, were tired from waking up early and spending the afternoon waiting for this speech knowing full well a full load of homework awaited them back in their rooms, or if they were just trying to display the quiet professionalism officers are taught to practice. I knew both conservative and liberal cadets so I think it is dangerous to try and interpret the cadets’ response.

Writes post-menopausal Obama groupie Noonan...A deep and perhaps the deepest benefit of the speech was that a Democratic president asserted compellingly, and with a high degree of certitude and conviction, that the United States is and has been immersed in a long struggle with intractable enemies.

My eyes lift from the page, wide with incredulity.

I re-read the phrase... a Democratic president asserted compellingly, and with a high degree of certitude and conviction, that the United States is and has been immersed in a long struggle with intractable enemies.

I can read no farther.

It was no use. Ms. Noonan's first fictional salvo in order to support her own dilusion of her lordship's grandeur was just to much.

Note to Ms. Noonan.

Peggy, dear. Try to ease into the whack-job idolatry rather than smiting us with it in the first paragraph. The op-ed page always has some truly great writing, and you force us to skip to it compellingly, and with a high degree of certitude and conviction.

.

Baloney.

She didn’t endorse Obama. She only said nice things about him before the campaign. She is pro-life and would never endorse a supporter of baby killing like O.

http://obamaendorsements.blogspot.com/2008/11/peggy-noonan-wall-street-journal.html

obama probably dont think afghan is his war until today

This is a stereotype, and a stupid one.

It is stupid. Another thing that is stupid is endorsing Obama for POTUS. You think we forgot, Peggy?

After a search, it seems no one posted this analysis of O's West Point speech. It is worth reading, especially the second half. She asked: what if you were a cadet and the Commander in Chief fails to direct comments to you, fails to use the word victory and immediately after saying the war is necessary says that we will be pulling out. Would you be inspired to fight and die for that?

I'm curious, was that cadet reading the book during the speech or prior to Obama’s arrival? I had seen the same photo of the cadet reading twice, once with the caption he was reading awaiting the DIC*, the other while the DIC was speaking.

* Dingbat In Charge