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2006-09-06 Home Front: WoT
Pentagon: Re-Cast WOT in Civil Law Enforcement Terms
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Posted by Snease Shaiting3550 2006-09-06 00:10|| || Front Page|| [5 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 Frankly, we should not be planning for long term war. War is always a hard sell in a democracy. Indecisive war is unsellable. Let me say it again: September could be one of America's greatest months ever, or worse.
Posted by Snease Shaiting3550 2006-09-06 02:16||   2006-09-06 02:16|| Front Page Top

#2 Cheek(y) has waayy too much time on his hands.
Posted by Captain America 2006-09-06 02:34||   2006-09-06 02:34|| Front Page Top

#3 This guy needs to be drummed out of the military. The law enforcement angle is stupid. How exactly do you justify cops putting a Hellfire missile into a terrorist hideout?
Posted by Zhang Fei 2006-09-06 02:46|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com]  2006-09-06 02:46|| Front Page Top

#4 Get with the program stooge. Islamofascists. War on Islam. Nuff said.
Posted by SOP35/Rat 2006-09-06 02:46||   2006-09-06 02:46|| Front Page Top

#5 I always wonder, when someone like this floats a turd or two, just who authorized him / her to speak on behalf of the CinC - or criticize national security policy might be more accurate. Funny, but I don't recall seeing his name on the ballot, nor do I recall him being introduced by his Boss, Rummy, or Rummy's Boss, the President, as the new NatSec policy spokesman.

The obvious stupidity of this is simply Clintoonian, IMHO.
Posted by flyover 2006-09-06 02:52||   2006-09-06 02:52|| Front Page Top

#6 BTW, excellent in-line commentary, Steve.
Posted by flyover 2006-09-06 03:09||   2006-09-06 03:09|| Front Page Top

#7 Imperialist Warmongering democratic-free America = Rebellious pseudo-Commie/pre-Commie Socialist, Treasonous Limited-Stalinist, anti-Soviet = Limited Sovietized Amerika??? Revolting against our perfect, future Commie Eurasian/Asian OWG Overlords , are we?
Posted by JosephMendiola 2006-09-06 03:31||   2006-09-06 03:31|| Front Page Top

#8 Isn't treating this whole thing (from the Embassy takeover in Tehran forward to 2001) as simply a law enforcement issue kind of what got us in this mess in the first place?
Posted by Swamp Blondie 2006-09-06 05:01|| http://azjetsetchick.blogspot.com ]">[http://azjetsetchick.blogspot.com ]  2006-09-06 05:01|| Front Page Top

#9 The Swamp Lady is correct. Couching the war strictly in terms of law enforcement has been a failure.

I have to laugh when I read that "we" (The West) are "creating" more terrorists when we go on the offensive. That's just so much BS. The terrorists already exist. When we go on the offensive the SOBs rear their heads and can then be identified. Once identified (and located) eliminate the garbage by any means necessary.

Posted by Mark Z 2006-09-06 07:19||   2006-09-06 07:19|| Front Page Top

#10 This guy's the "chief of strategic planning" on the Pentagon's Joint Staff? I find that hard to believe; but if he is, then God help us...

"I know our European allies are more comfortable articulating issues of terrorism as criminal threats, rather than war ... It ought to be our goal to partner better with the European allies so we can migrate this from a war to something other than a war."

Col. Cheek ought to take ten seconds and examine why the Euros are "more comfortable" seeing terrorism as a criminal threat: it's because their history has rendered them utterly neurotic about war-- they are pathologically pacifistic.

And so, I suspect, is Col. Cheek.

We are not going to end the problem of Islamic terrorism by treating terrorist acts as discrete crimes. We can only end it by going after the malignant ideology that propels those acts.

Islam is, and always has been, in a state of war with the non-Islamic world. And it will remain so until it is either persuaded that it must relent to avoid annihilation, or until it is annihilated.

More and more, I'm convinced that we need to expand this war-- not shrink it, as this guy would have us do-- if we're ever going to win it.

Faster, please...

Posted by Dave D.">Dave D.  2006-09-06 07:23||   2006-09-06 07:23|| Front Page Top

#11 Law Enforcement is suppose to be cold blooded. War is suppose to be hot blooded. That’s the big disconnect between the enemy and us. They practice primitive warfare, territorial behaviors of emotion and seething and rendering. We practice law and engineering. And therein lies the inability to communicate. If American streets were filled with the seething crowds instead of the fifth column, the enemy would understand and adjust their behavior. They would grasp power plus emotion means they’re dust without question. However, the nature of the American process is basically unknowable to them as would be quantum physics. A few many understand, but not the critical mass of decision makers. So each party makes missteps leading ever more to a point of no return.

So in the end you’re left with -

Ripley: I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Posted by Glomort Glons9693 2006-09-06 09:16||   2006-09-06 09:16|| Front Page Top

#12 Thge last thing we need is a law enforcement approach.

Case in point: Under current law this American showcased by Al Qaeda could not face any criminal charges on American soil; he is unreachable legally. But a fire team could definately reach him and should. The man didn't do anything legally we are aware of, but he has declared himserlf an armed and hostile enemy of the US.

Tag him and bag him.
Posted by badanov 2006-09-06 09:18|| http://www.freefirezone.org]">[http://www.freefirezone.org]  2006-09-06 09:18|| Front Page Top

#13 Phuech the five-sided nut and all the feather merchants and carpetbaggers who worm within it. Follows is our only hope:

Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimum food or water, in austere conditions, day and night.

the only thing clean on him is his weapon. he doesn't worry about what workout to do-his rucksack weights what it weights, and he runs until the enemy stops chasing him.

The True Believer doesn't care "how hard it is"; he knows he either wins or he dies. He doesn't go home at 1700' he is home.

He knows on the Cause.

Now.... who wants to quit?
Posted by Besoeker 2006-09-06 09:25||   2006-09-06 09:25|| Front Page Top

#14 By letting a COL release a thought on changing our national policy one of three things is happening. One: he has stepped out of ranks with his own opinion to the press, certainly a career killer. Second: he was authorized to release it to get a feel for the reactions, sort of Pentagon testing the waters. Or third: He was speaking to a forum posing the idea as a "What if" situation to drive a discussion on alternant points of view, and nothing more. He is probably trying to drive this discussion with the group.
Posted by 49 Pan">49 Pan  2006-09-06 09:57||   2006-09-06 09:57|| Front Page Top

#15 I suspect that this is just Pentagon CYA.

Remember that they are totally reliant on political support, and if that political support is successfully undermined by democrats and weak republicans, it is the Pentagon and all of the people in the military that will be hung out to dry. As has happened before.

So what happens if that happens? Unless the Pentagon can turn it over to international law enforcement as "their game", our military will be left in place to continue fighting, but they will "take away our guns, and issue us butter knives with instructions 'not to hurt anybody'."

That is, imagine the WoT as run by John Kerry.

(puke break)

The Pentagon would rather half the world go up in flames rather than half the world go up in flames with the US military in the middle of it, and forbidden to do anything about it, except get killed while weaklings in Washington wring their hands and say:

"Oh dear. Oh dear. What shall be done? Can't we have a committee meeting or give the terrorists what they want so they will stop being so mean to us? If they keep slaughtering Americans, we might lose the next election, and that would be horrible!"
Posted by Anonymoose 2006-09-06 10:01||   2006-09-06 10:01|| Front Page Top

#16 Pathetic. This is what happens when the military is not allowed to do what it was designed for - not a long war, but a short one - unrestricted warfare using overwhelming firepower.
Posted by HV 2006-09-06 10:03||   2006-09-06 10:03|| Front Page Top

#17 Mars, the God of War, is a mighty God, and terrible to behold. He plays with human beings as if they were dust, and he bends them to his inexorable and merciless will. He alone chooses the time and the place when he will assume once more his ancient throne, and then all men must bow and tremble. The God of War is not human. His laws are not human laws. He does not play nice and he does not play by our rules or our laws. His laws are the laws of Hell, but they are no less ruthlessly logical for all that. He gives men a choice: either they fight by his laws, or they lose their civilization and the hope of peace, and become slaves. Men have tried to wrest his power away from him - they have tried to tie him down with cease fires, arms control treaties, international laws, international criminal courts, war crimes tribunals, and transnational organizations. They have tried to wage war by human rules: chivalric war, limited war, surgical war, precision war, sanitized war, robotic war, ethical war, or laughably, war by law enforcement. Most pitiable of all are those who try to pretend that he and his everlasting dominion don't exist. For the God of War is a jealous God. He does not take kindly to these pathetic maneuvers, and on these he returns his vengeful thunderbolts a thousandfold.
Posted by HV 2006-09-06 10:58||   2006-09-06 10:58|| Front Page Top

#18 Woohoo! Excellent, HV! Consider that baby stolen, LOL! *applause*
Posted by flyover 2006-09-06 11:04||   2006-09-06 11:04|| Front Page Top

#19 We have gone from shock-and-awe to plead-and-defer-judgment.
Posted by Snease Shaiting3550 2006-09-06 14:06||   2006-09-06 14:06|| Front Page Top

#20 Inspiring, HV, inspiring. Bravo.
Posted by wxjames 2006-09-06 16:49||   2006-09-06 16:49|| Front Page Top

#21 Badanov,

The man didn't do anything legally we are aware of, but he has declared himserlf an armed and hostile enemy of the US.

By his own declarations Gadan has broken US law via the Sedition Act as well as numerous other laws regarding sedition and declaring open (and armed) revolution against the legitimate government of the United States.

He is an American citizen advocating the destruction of the US government, country, its civilians, and its culture & way of life.

That is against the law.

Posted by FOTSGreg">FOTSGreg  2006-09-06 23:25|| www.fire-on-the-suns.com]">[www.fire-on-the-suns.com]  2006-09-06 23:25|| Front Page Top

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