Posted on 03/31/2006 3:36:46 PM PST by SandRat
WASHINGTON, March 30, 2006 – The nature of the United States' enemies has changed, and Americans must maintain patience and will as the country fights the Long War against extremists, a top DoD policy official said here today. Unlike past wars, the enemy today is not a nation state challenging America with military force, but rather a dispersed global network of extremist groups who use terror, propaganda and indiscriminate violence as they seek to advance their political gains, Eric S. Edelman, undersecretary of defense for policy, said at a presentation entitled "Threats, Resources and the Long War," sponsored by "Congressional Quarterly" and Dittus Communications.
"The enemy seeks the expulsion of foreign nations from Muslim lands and to establish the Caliphate that promotes violence and oppression," he said. The Caliphate was the era of Islam's ascendancy from the death of Muhammad to the 13th century. Terrorists have said they want to create a vast region led by one supreme Muslim ruler.
"The enemy believes they can erode the patience and political will of the United States and its allies," Edelman said.
Al Qaeda is the most dangerous manifestation of the enemy, but there are many other groups as well. These groups include narcoterrorists in Latin America and Afghanistan and Maoist groups in Nepal.
The Long War will be a test of wills, Edelman said. The enemy cannot hope to beat U.S. forces on the battlefield, but terrorists will try to sap U.S. will as they entice people to support them actively and passively, he said.
"(Al Qaeda) is an agile and adaptive network that presents us another challenge because it is decentralized, it is franchised, and it's unconstrained by rules that we apply to ourselves," he said. "I don't think that's a fact that should intimidate us. I don't think we should settle for anything less than a world where the kind of violent extremism represented by al Qaeda is treated (in the same way as) genocide, piracy and slavery are treated."
The ultimate U.S. goal is to prevent violent extremism from posing a threat to free and open societies, and to create a global environment inhospitable to violent extremism. The Defense Department's priority is to protect and defend the homeland.
To do this, the military will pursue an active and layered defense. The American military will attack terrorists and their ability to operate effectively. "This will be a long-term project," Edelman said.
At the heart of the strategy are efforts to support moderate Muslims in rejecting violent extremism. The United States will expand foreign partnerships, prevent terrorists from getting weapons of mass destruction, and realign domestic and international institutions to defeat violent extremism, Edelman said.
Building partnership capacity is an enormous part of the mission. America has many friends willing to help address this "generational challenge," he said.
"In many cases coalition partners will be better able to deal with terrorism "because they know the culture, the geography and the language in which they're operating," Edelman said. "What they sometimes lack is the right training, equipment or institutional structures to be effective. Building these capacities is one key element in our strategy for the Long War."
Helping build allies up prevents crises from becoming conflicts and comes at a fraction of the cost in human lives of deploying American soldiers. Edelman said the cost of training and equipping an Afghan soldier is roughly $11,000. For an Iraqi soldier or policeman the cost is $40,000. It's "well over $100,000" to deploy an American soldier, he said.
Other countries need more money, and DoD needs more authority from Congress to assist partner nations, Edelman said.
The wide variety of ways that the U.S. military supports the war on terrorism highlights the differences between this war and those the United States has fought in the past, he said. Earthquake aid in Pakistan is one example. Following the October quake that killed 75,000, American servicemembers brought their equipment to the stricken area and rescued hundreds, fed thousands, and sheltered millions.
"This also helped contribute to an environment where moderate Muslims could speak out against some of the extremists who were seeking to take advantage of the earthquake and relief effort," Edelman said. "The roles that we play may not be the ones you would think we would be playing. There was a similar experience in tsunami relief" after the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004.
The nature of planning must also change. There is not a military solution to the problem of terrorism, Edelman said. The Quadrennial Defense Review, issued in February, maps the steps to take to develop the new mix of capabilities needed to fight the war.
"We are prepared to help other states address gaps in their governance and an opportunity to create more effective democracies and to inoculate their societies against terrorism and insurgency," Edelman said. "Democracies that respect basic human rights and are responsive to their citizens, maintain justice and the rule of law within their borders, and create and maintain the institutions of a civil society are our best hope in this fight."
Edelman said he agrees with President Bush, who said "the only force that can break the reign of hatred and resentment is the force of human freedom."
Key capabilities that DoD must bulk up as it fights the Long War include improved human intelligence to discern the intentions of the enemy, persistent surveillance to find and target enemy capabilities, development of language and cultural awareness, and "capabilities to locate, tag and track terrorists in all domains -- including cyberspace," Edelman said.
Specifically, the department will expand special operations forces by a third, expand psychological operations and civil affairs units by a third, and increase numbers of unmanned aerial vehicles, he said.
PING
Here is Edelman's bio from a commie site. You know if the sort of people that write these things hate you youare on the right side:
Eric S. Edelman
U.S. Defense Department: Nominee for Deputy Secretary of Defense (2005)
U.S. State Department: Ambassador to the Republic of Turkey (2003-2005)
Right Web
News
last updated: June 7, 2005
Government Service
U.S. Defense Department: Nominee for Deputy Secretary of Defense (2005); Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Soviet and East European Affairs (1990-1993) (1)
U.S. State Department: Ambassador to the Republic of Turkey (2003-2005); Ambassador to the Republic of Finland (1998-2001); Executive Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of State (1996-1998); Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy, Prague, Czech Republic (1994-1996); Ambassador-at-Large and Special Adviser to the Secretary of State on the Newly Independent States (1993); Special Assistant (European Affairs) to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (1989-1990); Head of External Political Section at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow (1987-1989); Head of Soviet policies in third world at the Office of Soviet Affairs (1984-1986); Special Assistant to Secretary of State George P. Shultz (1982-84); Staff Officer on the Secretariat Staff (1982); Watch Officer in the State Department Operations Center (1981-1982); Member of the U.S. Middle East Delegation to the West Bank/Gaza Autonomy Talks Delegations (1980-1981) (1)
Office of the Vice President: Principal Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs (2001-2003) (1)
Education
Cornell University: B.A. in history and government (1972) (1)
Yale University: Ph.D. in U.S. diplomatic history (1981) (1)
Highlights & Quotes
A career diplomat and foreign policy operative, Eric S. Edelman is slated to replace the controversial Douglas Feith at the Pentagon as the new undersecretary of defense for policy. Many observers had wrongly assumed that Edelman would become Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's top deputy. Instead Rice named former U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick as Deputy Secretary of State. (4) (5)
As a career Foreign Service officer, Edelman has been less outspoken than his predecessor and, unlike Feith, not directly connected with many of the neoconservative organizations, such as the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs and Center for Security Policy, with which Feith was associated. However, Edelman will bring with him to the DOD post his own political baggage and radical ideological views.
During his government career, Edelman has shuttled back and forth between the State Department and DOD. His latest assignment was as ambassador to Turkey, where he gained a reputation as a meddlesome critic of the Turkish government at a time when anti-Americanism began flaring up throughout the country.
President Bush named Edelman ambassador to Turkey a few months after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The Pentagon had been counting on Turkey to provide a backdoor into Iraq for its invasion force, but despite repeated entreaties by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Ankara declined to provide the access into northern Iraq that the Pentagon coveted. After the Turkish parliament rejected the Pentagon's request on March 1, 2003, Wolfowitz met with the country's military leaders in an attempt to reverse the decision.
Serving at the time as Vice President Cheney's national security adviser, Edelman assumed the ambassadorship in Ankara in July 2003. It was widely speculated that Edelman was named to this key post not only because of his close ties to Washington's war party but also due to his family connections to Turkey. Edelman's grandmother fled Russia in the early 1920s, and his mother was born in Turkey. His great uncle taught at Ankara University. (1) (2) (3)
Rather than improving U.S.-Turkish relations, Edelman's two-year stay in Ankara was a lightning rod for deepening anti-U.S. sentiment in Turkey. Typical of the anti-U.S. and anti-Edelman sentiment in the media was an assessment by columnist Ibrahim Karagul that "Edelman is probably the least-liked and trusted American ambassador in Turkish history."
In his column in Yeni Safak, Karagul wrote: "Considering the range of his activities, his statements which violate the decorum of democracy, and his interest in Turkey's internal affairs, Eric Edelman acts more like a colonial governor than an ambassador. Edelman's actions have exceeded his diplomatic mission. His 'interest' in nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the Turkish media, and ethnic minorities make him go beyond his role as an ambassador. His presence here has never contributed to Turkish-American relations, and it never will. If we want to address the reasons for anti-Americanism, Edelman must be issue one. As long as Edelman stays in Turkey, the chill wind disturbing bilateral relations will last."
Another prominent columnist, Can Dsündar, wrote an article in Milliyet entitled, "Persona Non Grata," in which he observed: "If Turkey today is the leader in the race of 'America-hating countries,' Edelman is a major part of it." (12)
As the war and occupation in Iraq went badly for the United States, the U.S. government blamed Turkey for failing to join the "coalition of the willing." DOD chief Donald Rumsfeld told Fox News on March 20, 2005 that "the insurgency today would be less" if Turkey had cooperated with U.S. invasion plans. "Given the level of the insurgency today, two years later, clearly, if we had been able to get the Fourth Infantry Division in from the north through Turkey, more of the Iraqi Saddam Hussein Ba'athist regime would have been captured or killed," said Rumsfeld.
Washington also charged that Turkey viewed "liberated" Iraq with increasing hostility. As tensions with Syria increased, rather than siding with the United States, Turkey increased its contacts with the besieged regime of President Bashar Assad. A turning point in Syrian-Turkey relations was Assad's visit to Ankara in 2004. (7) (8)
Turkey refused to support the U.S. government's and France's demand that Syria remove all its troops from Lebanon. Many in Turkey believe that Washington has attempted to "franchise" what is increasingly called the "Cedar revolution" in Lebanon. Stepping into the fray, Edelman said, "What can be said on Syria is that the international community is completely unanimous on UN Security Council Resolution 1559," which calls on Syria immediately to withdraw its troops from Lebanon. "We hope Turkey will join the international community," said Edelman.
Like many other top officials of the Bush administration's foreign policy team, Edelman began his government career in the Reagan administration. While completing his doctorate in history at Yale University, Edelman joined the U.S. Middle East Delegation to the West Bank/Gaza Autonomy Talks. He then became a special assistant to Secretary of State George Shultz. In 1990 Edelman moved from the State Department to the Pentagon, where he officially served as assistant deputy undersecretary of defense for Soviet and East European affairs.
Edelman served under Cheney during the administration of Bush pere. At that time he worked as part of a team headed by Paul Wolfowitz that was charged with formulating a Defense Policy Guidance that would serve as the post-Cold War framework for U.S. military strategy. Others working on the draft grand strategy were Zalmay Khalilzad and I. Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff. According to Nicholas Lehman, writing in the New Yorker, this team picked by Cheney was "generally speaking, a cohesive group of conservatives who regard themselves as bigger-thinking, tougher-minded, and intellectually bolder than most other people in Washington." (9) In the draft Defense Policy Guidance, Wolfowitz and team laid out a policy agenda for U.S. military power that stipulated that the U.S. should wage preventive war to maintain unchallenged U.S. military supremacy.
During the Clinton administration, Edelman moved back to the State Department. As ambassador-at-large and special adviser to the secretary of state on the Newly Independent States, Edelman oversaw defense, security, and space issues.
Vice President Cheney brought Edelman back under his wing as principal deputy assistant for national security affairs. As an assistant to Cheney, he was part of the foreign policy network that hurriedly established the "intelligence" rationales for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Edelman, who is close to such leading neocons as Michael Ledeen and Richard Perle, worked closely in the vice president's office with Scooter Libby in establishing a policy network of hawks and neocons that was based at the Pentagon and Cheney's office but extended through key figures into State, the various intelligence agencies, and the National Security Council. (6)
Replacing Douglas Feith with Edelman allows the radicals running U.S. foreign policy to leave behind the controversies building around Feith and get a relatively clean start with a new undersecretary of defense for planning.
Fits in right in with the crowd identified in the book "TREASON"
News to me.
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