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...Al-Muhallab said, “You must use deception in war, for it is more effective than reinforcements.” Some methods of deception include: a. Planting spies. b. Reconnaissance. c. Feigning an intent to attack an area other than the actual target, for when the Prophet (sallallāhu ‘alayhi wa sallam) wanted to attack one area, he would give his army the impression they were going to attack another. “If a man’s chest is too narrow to hold his own secret, then the chest of the one with whom he stores the secret is even narrower” [Poetry]. And be on guard against your enemy at...

Obama’s Amazing AchievementsHis military intervention prompted some stunning reversals. By bombing Libya, President Obama has accomplished some things once thought absolutely impossible in America:(a) War-mongering liberals: Liberals are now chest-thumping about military “progress” in Libya. Even liberal television and radio commentators cite ingenious reasons why an optional, preemptive American intervention in an oil-producing Arab country, without prior congressional approval or majority public support — and at a time of soaring deficits — is well worth supporting, in a sort of “my president, right or wrong,” fashion. Apparently, liberal foreign policy is returning to the pre-Vietnam days of the hawkish “best...

In this week's New York Times Book Review, a historian reviewing a major new work of 20th-century history, Oxford and Harvard Professor Niall Ferguson's "The War of the World," notes that "Ferguson argues that the Western powers should have gone to war in 1938, which would most likely have avoided much of the horror of World War II . . . . " Imagine that. The New York Times publishes a favorable book review of a book arguing that a pre-emptive war in 1938 would have saved tens of millions of lives aside from preventing the Holocaust, "without parallel ....

Want to know where the Democratic Party stands and where America would be under their leadership? Just ask Jimmy Carter. Carter is certainly not bashful about bashing the United States, even on foreign soil or to the foreign press. He sat for an interview with Der Spiegel recently and fired with both barrels at President Bush, "fundamentalist" Christians and Israel. But do Carter's views represent those of the Democratic Party? Well, he sure seems to think so. He told Der Spiegel, "I think I represent the vast majority of Democrats in this country." If so, that's scary. Expanding on the...

NEW YORK The recent publication of the second Bush administration statement on national strategy passed without the controversy that marked its predecessor in 2002 even though the new statement reiterates the commitment to a strategy of pre-emption in exactly the same words as the last.  When the doctrine of pre-emption was first put forward, it was attacked as being contrary to generally accepted principles of the international system, which had evolved over three centuries and were enshrined in the United Nations Charter in 1945. The 2006 report was received with less hostility because other countries have had more experience now...

Did United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan hightail it to Moscow to check in with his handpicked UN reform man Yevgeny Primakov within weeks of William Safire’s New York Times expose on alleged scandal in the Oil-For-Food Program? The first of Safire’s groundbreaking Oil-For-Food investigative stories ran in mid-March, 2004. Here’s Annan’s Moscow itinerary as documented by The Russian Federation: "Annan arrived in Moscow on Sunday, April 4, 2004 where he had an early working dinner with Evgeni (sic) Primakov, former Prime Minister of the Russian Federation." On the following day, Annan visited the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, where...

Did United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan hightail it to Moscow to check in with his handpicked UN reform man Yevgeny Primakov within weeks of William Safire’s New York Times expose on alleged scandal in the Oil-For-Food Program? The first of Safire’s groundbreaking Oil-For-Food investigative stories ran in mid-March, 2004. Here’s Annan’s Moscow itinerary as documented by The Russian Federation: "Annan arrived in Moscow on Sunday, April 4, 2004 where he had an early working dinner with Evgeni (sic) Primakov, former Prime Minister of the Russian Federation." On the following day, Annan visited the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, where...

Not since Richard Nixon’s conduct of the war in Vietnam has a U.S. president’s foreign policy so polarized the country—and the world. Yet as controversial as George W. Bush’s policies have been, they are not as radical a departure from his predecessors as both critics and supporters proclaim. Instead, the real weaknesses of the president’s foreign policy lie in its contradictions: Blinded by moral clarity and hamstrung by its enormous military strength, the United States needs to rebalance means with ends if it wants to forge a truly effective grand strategy. “George W. Bush’s Foreign Policy Is Revolutionary” No. Bush’s...

semantic games: PREEMPTIVE v. PREVENTIVE WAR       avid E. Sanger of The New York Times, and Joseph Nye of Harvard University and the clinton administration, are playing semantic games here. Surely they know that, strictly speaking, the Bush Doctrine was never about preemptive war, which requires imminent threat. The Bush Doctrine has always been about gathering threat and preventive war. October 11, 2004 NEWS ANALYSIS: FOREIGN POLICY A Doctrine Under Pressure: Pre-emption Is Redefined By DAVID E. SANGER RAWFORD, Tex., Oct. 10 - Under pressure to explain anew his decision to invade Iraq in light of a damaging...

In the first debate between Presdident Bush and Senator Kerry, Kerry said he would not give up the right of a president to launch pre-emptive war and qualified that by talking about a "global test." But apparently he has been telling some people a different story if the endorsement anouncement of Kerry from the Muslim-American Political Action Committee can be believed. Here is the quote and the link. "As for Senator Kerry, while he has voted for the USA PATRIOT Act and to give the President the power to attack Iraq, he has clearly stated his views about revising the...

...Mr. Kerry's Web site calls him "a man of conviction" who makes "bold decisions." His party convention sketched a picture of strong, principled leadership. But Mr. Kerry's record as senator and candidate suggests something less flattering: a mainstream Democratic liberal who, knowing most Americans aren't liberal, takes great care to heed prevailing political winds. ...He voted to give Mr. Bush authority for war when that appeared to be the safest move, and voted against funding the war.... [H]e would have taken the cautious route of trying to contain Saddam Hussein rather than removing him. Mr. Kerry has taken a similar...

Kerry is UNFIT #20: THUMBSUCKER SERIES-PREEMPTION-(the whole ball of wax) (viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE) thanx to YaYa123 for pointing out Kerry's pointless pointer (a JFK wannabe artifact, no doubt) + his other studied, "wild, out of sync hand and arm gestures" NEW! compleatjohnkerry.blogspot.com NEW! unfitforcommand.blogspot.comjohnkerryisdangerousforamerica.blogspot.com "The Bush administration is so enthralled by the idea of preemption and American military might….This is the consequence of a policy that regards legitimacy as largely a product of force and victory as primarily a triumph of arms." John Kerry COUNCIL FOR FOREIGN RELATIONS3 December 2003 "I listened to what...

The United Nations is facing some of its most intense scrutiny over the administration of Kosovo. Serbs and ethnic Albanian leaders -- barely in dialogue with each other -- see the UN as unfit to run the province. UN Security Council members are pressing for policy changes to maintain their goal of a multiethnic entity. A number of outside experts, meanwhile, regard the council's mandate for Kosovo as an inherent contradiction that must be revised soon. United Nations, 13 August 2004 (RFE/RL) -- When Soren Jessen-Petersen takes over on 16 August as the UN's sixth administrator of Kosovo, he will...

Clearer Than the Truth Duplicity in foreign affairs has sometimes served the national interest. But the case of Iraq is different   by Benjamin Schwarz   .....   The Bush Administration "systematically misrepresented the threat from Iraq's nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs and ballistic missile programs," concluded a January report issued by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a nonpartisan research institution, albeit one far more closely aligned with the Democratic Party than with the Republican. Not all fair-minded observers would go quite that far. But in the most generous interpretation possible, it is clear that the President and...

Gerry Warren is a Colonel, United States Army, Oregon Army National Guard Editor's Note: This article was adapted from a research paper prepared at the United States War College. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of position of the U.S. Government, the Department of Defense, or any of its agencies. Times have changed. The events of September 11, 2001 were a mere appetizer for the potential buffet of almost unimaginable violence that could befall the United States from enemies not bound by conventional restraints. A new enemy prompts a...

Susan Page in an article for USA TODAY writes "It would be the first preventive war in U.S. history, the first time the nation has attacked without being struck first. An aide says Bush sees himself as redefining the U.S. role at a moment the ''tectonic plates'' of the world order are shifting -- as they did in 1776 and 1914 and at other big moments in history." I wish to strongly object to the ridiculous assertion that this is the first “pre-emptive" action taken by the Unitede States. Putting aside the argument that this war is to be fought...

<p>Our position is: Americans owe Tony Blair a debt of gratitude for his articulate defense of pre-emptive action in Iraq.</p> <p>Unpopularity, British Prime Minister Tony Blair says, is the cost of conviction.</p> <p>Blair should know. His support of a military attack on Iraq has cost him plenty in recent weeks.</p>