Lights in the Darkness - TTG

Target the Terrorists, Worry About Assad Later

It’s disturbing that for some of my congressional colleagues and other government officials, even as ISIS makes known its imminent plan to attack the American homeland, we must relegate these terrorists to secondary status. First, they say, we must rid Syria of the odious dictator Assad. With that mass murderer out of the way, then we may turn to checking ISIS off the list. This fails to grasp the emergency at hand. It betrays a failure of strategic thinking.

No, I’m sorry, but our number one enemy is not Assad. It is ISIS – better known in the Middle East as Daesh – and we must immediately focus on these enemies of our civilization, partnering with whoever shares an interest in extinguishing these marauders. French President Francois Hollande understands the urgency if many of Washington’s talking heads do not.

Forget Assad for now. Target the terrorists who are training their killing machine on us.

Yes, that means not just forgetting Assad, but laying aside worries about Putin. Russia’s jets have been pounding ISIS strongholds for days. That’s a good thing. Why do American decision-makers nitpick the less-than-perfect Russians while Russians kill those who would kill us?  (Dana Rohrabacher)

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First Tulsi Gabbard and now Dana Rohrabacher. Perhaps everyone on Capital Hill should take up surfing. These two surfers are making more sense lately than anyone else inhabiting the D.C. swampland.

Dana is the only Congressman I’ve met since I was a kid. Even though I only talked with him a few times, I could see he is an honorable, stand up guy. Among the many momentos he has on display in his office, hang the surfboards used by Dana and his bride on their honeymoon. Yes, he has the soul of a surfer. Some describe him as bat shit crazy. So what. I’ve been accused of the same. I’m firmly convinced a little bat shit crazy is good for the soul. I don’t agree with all his stances, but again, so what. Those differences only make conversation while quaffing ales in a pub lively and stimulating. 

Dana demonstrated an active interest in Afghanistan since the late eighties. He made many trips over there meeting with the northern warlords like Massoud and Dostan. He championed the policy of supporting the mujahideen against the Soviets. After 9/11 he advised the White House to send a small group of men to work with the Northern Alliance warlords to overthrow the Taliban and take on Al Qaeda. Late he distributed Major Gant’s “One Tribe at a Time” and championed his approach rather than the Administration’s half assed surge.

Both Dana and Tulsi need to take on their largely clueless congressional colleagues  and slap some sense into them. We should help them any way we can. That would be knarly, dude.

TTG

Comments

[William R. Cumming]

SRATERGY [intentionally misspelled] of almost any kind but the historical resume and re-election absent in D.C.

Thanks for this post.

[alba etie]

TTG
As a tonic to the daily grind I watched Endless Summer again recently .

[Will]

After reading SST for awhile, I became convinced there was such a word as "stratergy." I began to question my education. I knew better though, it sounded like dubya mangling a word. The origin is from the Greek Strategos for General (commander).

"Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία stratēgia, "art of troop leader; office of general, command, generalship"[1]) is a high level plan to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty. In the sense of the "art of the general", which included several subsets of skills including "tactics", siegecraft, logistics etc., the term came into use in the 6th century C.E. in East Roman terminology, and was translated into Western vernacular languages only in the 18th century. " wiki

[turcopolier]

will

"Strategery," not "stratergy." pl

[Babak Makkinejad]

TTG:

Containment of Iran and her allies remains the strategic priority of the United States; that much is clear.

[The Twisted Genius]

Babak,

Yes, and it's all in service of our Likudnik masters and our still hurt pride over the embassy hostages.

[Valissa]

"Back in 2000, Saturday Night Live parodied then-candidate Bush’s love of unintentional neologisms by coining the term “Strategery”. It stuck. More than just a dig at Bushspeak, Strategery came to sybolize what many people felt was wrong with the President’s approach to problem solving. Strategery represented a flimsy veneer of forethought over a largely reactive and often ineffective game-plan." http://www.forbes.com/sites/dansimon/2012/09/11/5-differences-between-strategy-and-strategery/

Strategery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategery

[William Fitzgerald]

Does anyone know the origin of the "Assad must go" policy? For a time I thought it might have been a throwaway line from one of the President's speeches (similar to red line). I now doubt that and wonder whose fingerprints are on it.

WPFIII

[Rd.]

"to take on their largely clueless congressional colleagues and slap some sense into them."

Lavrov Jokes if West Isolates Russia It Will ‘Jam’ Itself With Iron Curtain

[Matthew]

TTG: I've always marveled at the phrase "state sponsor of terrorism." Iran apparently wins the prize because the Gulfies and the Saudis just subcontract the crimes to their private citizens?

If Iran had committed even a thousandth of the atrocities that have been funded by the regimes on the other side of the Persian Gulf, Iran would be a UN protectorate today.

[shepherd]

Will,

Ah, Wikipedia. Let me try to remember a little of the Eastern Roman (i.e. Byzantine Greek) I once knew. A strategos is a general. Strategia is the office of a general (generalship). A strategy for most of its long history in Western vernacular languages was the area commanded by a Roman strategus. I'm pretty sure the term in its modern sense would have been expanded in meaning in the late 18th, not translated.

The puzzling part is why anyone would think the term was coined in the 6th century C.E. It must be because of the Strategikon of Maurice, which is the military and strategic manual of the Byzantine Empire. The military history fans here might be interested in looking it up. I've not read it, but it's apparently a forgotten work of considerable merit.

[The Twisted Genius]

WPFIII,

Looks like it started in August 2011.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/assad-must-go-obama-says/2011/08/18/gIQAelheOJ_story.html

[William R. Cumming]

Thanks Will and of course used it to remind ALL of that genius at stratergy George H. Bush. I wonder if he read the book or saw the movie MONEYBALL?

Whatever BIG DATA is showing US no evidence of its use in FP circles.

[William R. Cumming]

Like many former alcoholics and unethical drug users George W. Bush's decision making long before his Presidency impaired. IMO of course.

[William R. Cumming]

And I stumbled on a sequel!

[William R. Cumming]

Thanks P.L. I stand corrected!

[Valissa]

The US, especially the CIA, has a long history messing with Syria...

'US planned to oust Assad long before 2011 uprising' http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/foreign/10-Sep-2015/us-planned-to-oust-assad-long-before-2011-uprising

A Short History Of The War On Syria - 2006-2014 http://www.moonofalabama.org/2013/09/a-short-history-of-the-war-on-syria-2006-2014.html

CIA Interventions in Syria: A Partial Timeline https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/cia-interventions-in-syria-a-partial-timeline/

1949-1958 Syria: Early Experiments in Covert Action http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/issue51/articles/51_12-13.pdf
The CIA secretly encouraged a right-wing military coup in 1949. Repeated CIA covert action during the following decade stimulated Arab antiAmericanism, drove the Syrian left closer to the Kremlin, and made overt military involvement more likely.

A Clean Break (1996) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clean_Break:_A_New_Strategy_for_Securing_the_Realm
Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions.

Famous quote from Gen Wesley Clark in 2001
I said, “Are we still going to invade Iraq?” “Yes, Sir,” he said, “but it’s worse than that.” I said, “How do you mean?” He held up this piece of paper. He said, “I just got this memo today or yesterday from the office of the Secretary of Defense upstairs. It’s a, it’s a five-year plan. We’re going to take down seven countries in five years. We’re going to start with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, then Libya, Somalia, Sudan, we’re going to come back and get Iran in five years. I said, “Is that classified, that paper?” He said, “Yes Sir.” I said, “Well, don’t show it to me, because I want to be able to talk about it.”
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[William R. Cumming]

How large is the Iranian diaspora in the USA from the Shah era Iran? Before coming to the Northern Neck of Virginia met many in the Washingto, D.C. metro area including my favorite Iranian-American rug dealer [former Iranian Air Force in the Shah era]!

[Valissa]

I forgot to add this:

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights run by immigrant from his UK home https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Kwd-8lJUhI
Many western media outlets have frequently been relying on one information source for facts about the death toll in Syria - The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It was founded in May 2006 and It's run by one man only - Rami Abdul Rahman, who's a Syrian immigrant to the UK and is based in his two bedroom home in Coventry. RT travelled to the midlands, to find the headquarters of the observatory, and investigate more.
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Notice the date of 2006. Given all the above links that I had collected in my archive, I use 2006 as the start date for the current round of efforts against Syria (seeding and cultivating dissent), with 2011 being the date Obama's gang escalated efforts and the goal of removing Assad became more public.

[Tyler]

More and more the thumping on GWB (out of power for seven years now) looks like an attempt by the Fellow Travelers on here to distract from the fact their boy, President Gay Urkel, didn't live up to their hopey-changey and dreams and in fact doubled down on many of GWBs policies.

We get it. GWB was a screw up. Deep political observation. Now let's talk about recent history vs. swimming back to the halcyon days of 2008. The Democrats (led by Cocoa Messiah) are doubling down on invade the world, invite the world as a national strategy because Lazarus' stupid poem on the Statue of Liberty trumps the preamble of the Constitution and the rest of the document because it was created by dead white slaveholders.

[The Beaver]

Valissa,

The fate of Assad was sealed when he refused some of the demands made to him after the invasion of Iraq. That's when he was added to the list of the "axis of evils" by John Bolton and the picked up by the other neocons.

After all, the path to peace in the ME runs through Baghdad( strike that one out) Damascus (in limbo since 2006) and finally Tehran ( according to Bibi and his Israel Firsters on the Hill)

[The Twisted Genius]

Tyler,

What in Sam Hill are you talking about? Is this about Valissa's history lesson? That was just a simple answer to a simple question. This is about the Administration's current idiotic Syria policy and Dana Rohrabacher's calling everyone out on it.

[Tyler]

TTG,

A general point of order but that is what set it off. Some people twist themselves into pretzels to avoid naming the person at the helm the last few years.

[bell]

ttg use ISIS do get what you want from makili and use ISIS to help overthrow assad.. that is usa's version strategic thinking.. refer to saudi arabia, qatar, uae, israel and turkey to a lesser extent as are your allies, while demonizing iran, syria and big bad russia of course... that is what fills in for strategic thinking coming out of brainwashington..

[Rd.]

" rid Syria of the odious dictator Assad. ..... we may turn to checking ISIS off the list. This fails to grasp the emergency at hand. It betrays a failure of strategic thinking."

With all due respect, You have got that all wrong. The above is, has been and continues to be the US policy. There is nothing to indicate the above stated policy has changed (removal of Assad).

If there are concerns about innocent people dying, I think it was best said by that once illustrious US def sec, they are just collateral damage. Perhaps he was not just referring to the people in ME.

Americans, both in polity and the general public have gotten quiet comfortable in their mentality of living between the two bodies of water. The general public is too busy with the day to day activity and entertainment. And entirely mis-informed about both foreign as well as domestic policy (thanks to corp media). And the polity is dis-connected from the reality. they behave as if they were playing on the monopoly board. Just throwing bombs, military and whatever to gain more domain, at whatever cost. When the cost to the polity becomes painful, then and only then you can anticipate some changes. We are no where near that.

What Russia, others (R5+1, whatever) are doing is the best they can to face the problem head on. If you want to fix the real problem, hit the source. Shut down the saud embassy in US and EU and bring diplomats from home from the desert till the saud stop breading their filthy off-spring of Wahhabi terrorism. The US can fix the problem in a heart bit by shutting down the saud. It is a choice. However, the polity will NOT do that, the American people on the hand, if informed, do have the means to make that happen.