American Heroes

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KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Springtime. Back home, Congress is in recess, the kids are out of school and the redbuds, dogwoods and cherry trees are about to bloom. Here, south of the Hindu Kush, opium poppies are in full blossom, the harvest is about to come in and it’s the start of what the locals call “fighting season.” Though people in both countries have come to accept those conditions as “patterns of life,” some here intend to change the archetype for the people of Afghanistan. If their plan succeeds, it could prove to be the undoing of the Taliban — and mark the beginning of the end of this long war. And most of the so-called mainstream media will have missed the moment.

Last week, three high-profile visitors came to Afghanistan, and all talked about the future of the fight. Our commander in chief came for six hours of meetings at Bagram Airbase and in Kabul. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was here for two days of briefings and meetings with U.S., coalition and Afghan commanders and troops. In both cases, major media reports focused on U.S. and civilian casualties, the upcoming “final offensive” here in Kandahar and the alleged corruption of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s brother Ahmed, the head of Kandahar’s provincial council. But the visitor who may have made the most important contribution to bringing an end to the Taliban was the acting administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Michele Leonhart.

Leonhart, it should be noted, is a DEA special agent and the first administrator of the agency to make an official visit to an active war zone. More than 90 of her special agents and support personnel are deployed here, and in the past six months, three of them have been killed in action, and another was wounded. During her three-day inspection tour of Afghanistan, she conferred with U.S., coalition and Afghan officials to review and approve next steps in taking down what she calls the “Taliban narco-insurgency.”

In Afghanistan, farmers, insurgents and corrupt officials all rely on income derived from the spring poppy harvest. The goal of the plan — developed by Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson’s Marine expeditionary brigade based at Camp Leatherneck, DEA specialists on the ground and “in-country” U.S. agricultural and development experts — is to undermine the networks that finance the Taliban and abet the corruption of Afghan government officials, without disrupting the livelihood of poor farmers who may have been coerced into growing opium by insurgent networks.

Breaking these connections without alienating the civilian population in what has been a Taliban stronghold is no small task. More than seven U.S. Marine and Afghan national security force battalions have been committed to the mission. So have significant resources of the DEA and the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, which will provide micro-grants to farmers who do not harvest the poppies they planted last fall. Cash will be given to stimulate small businesses and encourage repairs to economic infrastructure damage incurred during combat operations.

Our Fox News team accompanied Leonhart; Ambassador Anthony Wayne, coordinator of U.S. development and economic assistance in Afghanistan; and Thomas Harrigan, DEA’s chief of operations, to Marjah. There they met with those who will be the final arbiters of whether the plan succeeds — local officials and civilians.

“We all have a lot to do in this effort, but I’m optimistic. These are very entrepreneurial, hardworking people,” Wayne told me as we walked down a street where gunfights raged just a few weeks ago. The provincial governor, Gulab Mangal, widely regarded as one of the most competent in Afghanistan, has signed on, said one of the Marine officers involved in developing the plan. “That’s what we need,” the officer added.

There is more that is needed, as well, e.g., a hospital or at least a clinic, schools, roads, bridges, electricity, improved irrigation — the basic services government is supposed to provide or assure. And there is another element that is crucial for success — showing the people that their government is serious about cleaning up corruption. That’s a key part of what the DEA brings to the fight.

“The most effective judicial system in Afghanistan is the special narcotics court,” a Marine officer noted. “Marines prosecute enemy targets with bombs and bullets. The DEA, Afghan National Interdiction Unit and special investigative units collect evidence to prosecute targets differently but just as effectively.”

Leonhart agrees. Standing beside me on the dusty streets of Marjah, she said, “The DEA is completely committed to winning this battle. Our blood has been spilled here. Locking up corrupt officials involved with narcotics is not only good for the people of Afghanistan; it’s good for these Marines and the American people, too.” She’s right.

(En route to) KABUL — Other than spending lots of time covering soldiers, sailors, airmen, guardsmen, Marines and special operators who routinely get shot at, I’m not a gambling man. Those I know who frequent the casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City all claim they go to these places to “win” and are willing to settle for a break-even “draw.” None of them professes to be satisfied with a loss. Unfortunately, when it comes to gambling in the life-or-death contest against radical Islamists, all three outcomes appear to be equally acceptable to the Obama administration. For the O-Team, just playing “the game” seems to be enough.

Win: Last week’s national parliamentary election in Iraq — with turnout more than 60 percent — was a clear-cut success. Even Newsweek put on its cover “Victory at Last: The Emergence of a Democratic Iraq.” This is the same magazine that published a fictional account in 2005 of a Quran’s being flushed down a toilet in Guantanamo — a story that led to riots throughout the Muslim world and the deaths of hundreds. Though the writers cast the election as “America’s dark victory,” they could not deny what it means for the Land Between the Rivers and the entirety of the Middle East.

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On Sunday, in his remarks on the election, the president appropriately recognized “the growing capability and professionalism of Iraqi security forces, which took the lead in providing protection at the polls.” To his credit, Mr. Obama proffered his “admiration for the thousands of Americans on the ground in Iraq — for our civilians and our men and women in uniform who continue to support our Iraqi partners. This election is also a tribute to all who have served and sacrificed in Iraq over the last seven years, including many who have given their lives.”

Regrettably, he just couldn’t bring himself to credit his predecessor’s political courage for proceeding with the “surge” advocated by Gen. David Petraeus back in 2006. Had George W. Bush failed to do so, it is very unlikely last Sunday’s elections would have taken place at all, much less succeeded.

Lose: This week’s “news” about the continuing debate in Washington over closing the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo and what to do about those who are held there is a losing issue all around. Still smarting over the Christmas Day “underpants bomber” fiasco and new revelations about the indictment of a 46-year-old American-born blond volunteer murder-suicide recruiter who bills herself as “Jihad Jane,” the O-Team now wants to cut a deal with Congress. This is a loser for everyone, especially the American people.

According to Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the Obama administration has offered to try detainees as enemy combatants before military tribunals instead of civilian courts if Congress will fund the closing of Gitmo and the moving of the detainees to prisons here in the U.S. The Department of Justice already has located one such facility — the Thomson Correctional Center — in the president’s home state of Illinois.

This loopy proposal is even less popular with the American people than Mr. Obama’s plan for government-run health care. Unfortunately, some people in Congress — such as Sens. Richard “Dick” Durbin, D-Ill., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. — think this is an admirable proposition and are doing what they can to advance the scheme. Sen. Graham has to be glad he won’t face the voters again until 2014. Perhaps they will have forgotten this losing idea by then.

Draw: Afghanistan. This week, while Vice President Joe Biden was wandering through the Holy Land doing his best to alienate our only real democratic ally in the region, Defense Secretary Bob Gates was in Afghanistan. After shoring up the Obama administration’s nearly ruptured relationship with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Gates went to see the troops and get what he called “ground truth” from those fighting the war.

In Kandahar, Gates presented Silver Star medals for heroism to U.S. Army aviators Lt. Col. John Morgan and Chief Warrant Officer 3 James Woolley. As evidence of how things have begun to turn around since the “Afghanistan surge” began in December, he was able to walk without a flak jacket or helmet through the streets of Now Zad, in Helmand province. A little more than a year ago, our Fox News team was embedded there with 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines — and they took fire every day.

Curiously, Gates said he feels “reinforced that the path we’re on is the right path, but it will take a long time.” How the secretary of defense squares “a long time” with Mr. Obama’s pledge to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan in 16 months was not addressed. Given the blood and treasure being poured into this fight — and the clear successes now being achieved on the battlefield — we can only hope that the president isn’t going to settle for a “tie” in the shadows of the Hindu Kush just to adhere to another arbitrary deadline.

CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan — This forward operating base, “20 miles from nowhere,” may be the fastest-growing military installation in the world. In the six months since our Fox News team was previously here, the base and its “population” have almost doubled in size. As one of our hosts put it shortly after we arrived, “it’s growing faster than opium poppies.” But then again, opium is one of the reasons this place is expanding so rapidly.

If the long war here in the shadows of the Hindu Kush is going to be won, it will have to be won here in southern Afghanistan first. This forbidding terrain along the Helmand River basin is both the “spiritual heartland” of the Taliban movement and the primary source of opium, which fuels their insurgency.

Southern Afghanistan is where the Taliban movement began — and nearly ended. Spawned with the help of Pakistan’s government in the 1980s to help defeat the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the faction initially was financed by oil-rich Islamists in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf. By 1996, the Taliban, victors in a bloody half-decade-long civil war, had established a brutal, repressive theocracy in Kabul. Taliban leader Mullah Omar became a patron and protector of Osama bin Laden. Al-Qaida was granted near autonomy to establish bases for indoctrinating and training “holy warriors.”

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The 9/11 attacks changed everything for the Taliban. In less than three months, a hastily assembled U.S.-supported coalition dubbed the “Northern Alliance” forced the Taliban out of Kabul, and remnants of the regime fled south and east toward mountain redoubts and refuges in Pakistan. Kandahar, the last city in Afghanistan held by the Taliban, fell to coalition troops on the 60th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Driven underground, Taliban leaders found it increasingly difficult to finance their cause. As international pressure and aggressive monetary tracking dried up much of their foreign support, insurgent leaders turned to revenues from opium to sustain their movement.

Shutting down Taliban-controlled opium poppy cultivation, processing laboratories, caches, “delivery services” and money laundering operations has become a crucial mission for the U.S.-led coalition. According to the United Nations, more than 90 percent of the world’s illicit opium, heroin and morphine base originates here in southern Afghanistan — primarily in Helmand and Kandahar provinces. Refined “product,” estimated to be worth more than $3 billion, is then moved via “ratlines” through neighboring countries to consumers in Europe, Russia, Iran and the United States.

According to intelligence officers here, the Taliban have become a “narco-insurgency” that nets hundreds of millions of dollars from the global opium trade. Taliban networks use the money to finance the purchase of weapons and munitions and to buy protection from corrupt officials here in Afghanistan and in neighboring Pakistan.

Officers in the Marine expeditionary brigade headquartered here at Camp Leatherneck describe the dual tasks of conducting counterinsurgency operations to protect the civilian population and interrupting this financial flow to the Taliban as “formidable” yet “essential” to victory. To that end, these Marines and units of the newly reorganized Combined Forces Special Operations Component Command-Afghanistan are working closely with special agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration to target drug labs, “storage depots” and key individuals involved in the opium trade.

Last month, one of the prime objectives of Operation Moshtarak in the opium-rich Marjah district of Helmand province was taking down local narco-networks. Though Taliban fighters pledged to repel the “foreign invaders,” they proved unable to prevent NATO and Afghan government troops from reasserting control over the region.

Now Taliban leaders are promising to prevent coalition forces from wresting control over the city of Kandahar. Over the course of the four days we have been “in country” this time, coordinated attacks by suicide bombers have increased dramatically, causing more than 50 civilian dead and wounded. Taliban propaganda organs blame “the American and European trespassers” for the casualties. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has responded by promising to dispatch more than 1,000 additional Afghan police to the region.

Keeping this commitment is a major challenge. DEA, military and contract civilian trainers and mentors acknowledge that fielding a “qualified and capable Afghan security force” is essential to winning the fight here in “opium central.” But privately, they wonder whether they can train and equip adequate numbers by next summer, when the Obama administration has promised to start withdrawing American troops.

CAMP DELARAM II, Afghanistan — When our Fox News team was here more than a year ago, this was a platoon patrol base. Then this area was a Taliban free-fire zone, and rarely did Marines venture “outside the wire” without some kind of engagement with the enemy — usually an improvised explosive device planted in the moon dust that passes for dirt here in this arid desert.

When we returned to Afghanistan last autumn, this dusty crossroads town had grown to become the headquarters for a battalion. Today Delaram is “home” to Regimental Combat Team 2 — and thousands more Marines are on the way. The “Afghanistan surge” — 30,000 additional U.S. troops ordered here last December by the president — is well under way, and it’s dramatically changing this region, once known as “the heartland of the Taliban.” By mid-to-late summer, there will be 80,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan — 30,000 more “boots on the ground” in the shadows of the Hindu Kush than there are in Iraq.

At Camp Leatherneck — two hours by paved road east of here — the Marine expeditionary brigade that arrived a year ago is being replaced by a Marine expeditionary force, more than tripling the number of U.S. and coalition troops in this “battle space.” The new units even include a battalion of troops from Georgia (the country, not the state). Best of all, says Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, the outgoing commander, “Afghanistan National Army units are stepping up to the task of defending their own country.” He is starting a boot camp for new recruits.

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As base perimeters are pushed out to make room for arriving units, Navy Seabee construction crews and contractors are working around the clock to build runways, landing zones, fuel farms, billets, mess halls and command centers. As I write this at 1:30 a.m., I can hear bulldozers, cranes and heavy trucks loading and unloading. A concrete batch plant, operated by an Afghan company that wasn’t here a week ago, is running around the clock.

The new construction and arriving troops are auspiciously timed. Helmand province, where I am, and neighboring Kandahar province produce most of the world’s illicit opium — a major source of funding for the Taliban. And this year’s harvest is about to come in.

That normally would be bad news, but this year it may not be. If the Marines and special agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration we’re with have their way, the net revenue to the Taliban from this year’s harvest will drop dramatically. They have launched a concerted campaign, as one senior officer put it, to “turn off the opium spigot without turning the people against us.”

Notably, the senior Marine commanders here also fought in Iraq’s Anbar province and were engaged in creating what came to be called the “Awakening.” There, prominent Sunni tribal leaders ultimately were persuaded to stop supporting Baathist and al-Qaida terrorists. Here, they hope to do the same thing with “part-time Taliban” and those who have been supporting the movement.

Col. Randy Newman and Col. Paul Kennedy commanded Marine infantry battalions in Ramadi, Iraq, at the height of the Sunni insurgency. Our Fox News team was embedded with both units during the time when Anbar province was the bloodiest place on the planet. Now these men command regimental combat teams here in Helmand province.

“It’s not the same fight, but there are many common factors in every insurgency,” Col. Newman told me this week. “We won over the Sunni tribes in Iraq with persistence, patience and persuasion. We have some different challenges here, but we also have some great new tools and many of the same great Marines.”

Among the new challenges is opium, which funds much of what the Taliban can do. Among the new tools is the Drug Enforcement Administration, which has the ability to collect very specific, timely intelligence on illicit drugs and the capacity to exploit that information. The upcoming poppy harvest will put all that capability to the test.

Over the course of the next few weeks, while our Fox News team is on the ground, U.S. and coalition forces are going to make the first concerted effort to interdict the harvesting and processing of opium in one of the most dangerous and unforgiving places on earth. If it succeeds, it could well mean the eventual end of the Taliban insurgency — and even Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida.

WASHINGTON — Regardless of station in life, faith or philosophy, unfulfilled expectations are the greatest cause of anger, frustration and discontent on the planet. That’s true whether those expectations arise in the interaction of husbands and wives, parents and children, teachers and students, employers and employees, businesses and customers, leaders and the led or politicians and their constituents. President Barack Obama apparently doesn’t grasp this fundamental truth of human nature.

Resolving the “friction” of unfulfilled expectations requires a straightforward recognition of personal responsibility for commitments — perceived or real — that have not been satisfied and a determination by the parties involved to do better in the future. My experience with this process with my wife, children and colleagues usually begins with an acknowledgment of mistakes or errors I have made and includes the words “I’m sorry” or a similar phrase.

When Mr. Obama was campaigning for president, he promised “hope” and “change.” The majority of the American electorate believed these nebulous ideas would make life better for us and our children. We now know better.

Current poll numbers — the lowest for any president at this point in office — reflect the unfulfilled expectations of millions who voted for him. Yet the president’s first State of the Union address indicates he still doesn’t get it.

Absent from Mr. Obama’s lengthy lecture to the assembled masses last Wednesday night was any recognition of personal failure or error or even the hint of an apology. Instead, he ascribes blame to his predecessors, his political opponents and even the Supreme Court for all our problems. Apparently, apologies still are reserved for our nation generally — and are delivered in front of “blame America first” audiences overseas.

Worse, the president’s efforts to deflect responsibility for his party’s political reversals, our current economic travail, national security threats and foreign policy setbacks lead him to be disingenuous at best and downright deceptive at worst. Thankfully, not everyone gathered in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday night was willing to timidly “go along to get along.”

When Mr. Obama accused the Supreme Court of reversing “a century of law … (to) open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections,” Justice Samuel Alito could be seen mouthing the words “that’s not true.” The justice is right, for the court has done nothing to remove long-standing prohibitions on foreign entities — be they individuals or corporations — against their contributing to our election campaigns.

Some argue our tolerance for dissembling on domestic political matters — limiting campaign contributions, legislation to create jobs, raising taxes, increasing government spending and debt, imposing government-run health care or increasing regulatory controls on free enterprise — is a long-standing tradition. Unfortunately, Mr. Obama carries the practice into issues of national security.

He boldly claimed he has provided “leadership” and “engagement that advances the common security and prosperity of all people.” He also said, “Since the day I took office, we have renewed our focus on the terrorists who threaten our nation.” Yet the administration’s belated support for pro-democracy movements in Honduras and Iran, abandoning of a U.S. missile defense shield in Europe, insistence on shipping terrorists from Guantanamo Bay to the U.S. while returning others to the battlefield, and treating terrorists — such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the chief 9/11 plotter; accused Fort Hood killer Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan; and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Day “underpants bomber” — as common criminals all make his assertions ring hollow.

The same applies to Mr. Obama’s call for Congress to “repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are.” The commander in chief apparently wants us to ignore that it’s not love of country that’s the problem. Simply put, a warrior’s ethos is incompatible with illicit, same-sex eros in the ranks. It’s not “who they are”; it’s what they do.

This cynical effort at resurrecting a campaign promise to use our military for radical social engineering raises expectations in the Democratic “base” that their leader can somehow prevail in implementing their agenda. Yet like so many of Mr. Obama’s pledges, it is unlikely to happen absent a sea change in the American body politic.

The 1993 law — Section 654 of Title 10, U.S. Code — was mislabeled “don’t ask, don’t tell” by the media and the Clinton administration. In fact, a veto-proof majority in both houses of Congress found “no constitutional right to serve in the armed forces” and codified that “homosexuality is incompatible with military service,” holding that active gays in the ranks would pose “an unacceptable risk to the armed forces’ high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.”

Unless the O-Team can show irrefutable evidence that changing the law would somehow improve “military capability” in the midst of war, even this Pelosi-Reid Congress will have to reject such blatant pandering to the far-left fringe. That undoubtedly will anger some who have not yet learned how to avoid disappointment with Mr. Obama: Keep expectations low. He is sure to live down to them.

WASHINGTON — No nation ever has had a better military than today’s all-volunteer U.S. armed forces. Though I wouldn’t trade anything for the young Americans I served with in Vietnam — or afterward — those presently wearing America’s uniforms are the brightest, best-educated, best-trained and most combat-experienced military the world ever has seen. Now, in the midst of an unprecedented ninth year of war and nonstop high-stress deployments, their commander in chief intends to put the capabilities of this extraordinary force and our nation’s security at risk to carry out a radical social experiment.

During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama frequently promised he would reverse the U.S. military’s long-standing policy prohibiting homosexuals from serving in our military. Last October, at a Human Rights Campaign dinner, he said: “I’m working with the Pentagon, its leadership and the members of the House and Senate on ending this policy. … I will end ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ That’s my commitment to you.”

Last week, tucked into the closing paragraphs of his State of the Union address, the president said, “This year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are.” Set aside the disingenuous rhetoric. (It’s not about “who they are”; it’s really about “what they do.”) We now know the “repeal” process is already well under way.

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This week, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and an advocate of ending what he calls “this discriminatory policy,” convened a remarkable hearing to determine the “next steps” in “meeting the president’s commitment.”

Testimony by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, revealed the Department of Defense isn’t going to evaluate whether repealing Section 654 of Title 10 of the U.S. Code — the 1993 statute that bars active homosexuals from the military — is a good idea. Instead, the Pentagon already is working to undermine the law and allow practicing homosexuals to enter and remain in our military.

According to Gates, “The question before us is not whether the military prepares to make this change, but how we best prepare for it.” He announced a yearlong study on how to implement a repeal of the law and baldly asserted that “we have a degree of latitude within the existing law to change our internal procedures in a manner that is more appropriate and fair to our men and women in uniform.” In other words, in the Obama administration, enforcing the current law, which overwhelmingly was enacted 17 years ago, no longer matters.

Gates now acknowledges in the midst of war that he is implementing a policy of “selective enforcement” to disregard a law that clearly states that “the presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.” So much for our national security.

Though Mullen expressed his “personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do,” he conceded he does not “know for a fact how we would best make such a major policy change in a time of two wars.” The Joint Chiefs chairman also made this curious observation: “We have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.” How that can be the case in a “don’t ask, don’t tell” era seems to have eluded the good senators.

Unasked and unanswered are these “where do we go from here?” questions the senators should have posed: If Congress changes the law and allows overtly practicing homosexuals in the ranks, should NAMBLA members be allowed to serve? Will those who advocate abolishing “age of consent” laws be allowed to don uniforms? Will the military have to acknowledge same-sex marriages? If so, will military chaplains be required to perform such rituals? Will same-sex couples be entitled to military housing? Will these couples be allowed to serve in the same unit or aboard the same ship?

Supposedly, those issues and many more will be resolved over the next 10 months in a “working group” headed by Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson and Gen. Carter Ham, commander of U.S. Army forces in Europe. Allegedly, they will consider ways to ameliorate the effects of this inane decision on readiness, recruitment and retention in the world’s finest military. Then, in 2011, Congress will vote on whether to repeal a law the O-Team is willfully ignoring anyway.

Congress should not wait to decide this issue and become party to potentially irreparable damage to our military. Congress controls the purse strings of the Pentagon. Both houses should go on record now so “We the People” know who favors treating America’s soldiers, sailors, airmen, guardsmen and Marines like lab rats in Mr. Obama’s radical social experiment.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has a nearly flawless record on the economy. When President Barack Obama or one of his senior minions, such as Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, launches a rhetorical offensive on protecting us from the perils of capitalism, we have learned to expect an instant stock market nose dive followed by higher unemployment rates and talk of greater government spending and debt and higher taxes. That’s bad enough, but now the O-Team is talking about protecting us from terrorism.

Last Sunday, in a surreal “warm-up” for the Super Bowl, Mr. Obama told CBS News’ Katie Couric that putting 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on trial in New York City is a good idea. With a completely straight face, he claimed, “We’re not handling any of these cases any different than the Bush administration handled them all through 9/11.” It isn’t entirely clear what “all through 9/11″ means, perhaps because this stunningly disingenuous comment was delivered without the aid of a teleprompter. This is, after all, the man who made “closing Gitmo” his first official act as president. Evidently, the Obama spin cycle has no limits — and there is no setting for “truth.”

Set aside trying to imagine President George W. Bush putting KSM on trial in the Big Apple, just blocks from where 3,000 perished in the Twin Towers. And don’t even think about how Mr. Obama could apologize to people in dozens more countries for America in general and his predecessor in particular — only to now embrace “Bush-era practices.” It is alarming how facile it has become for Mr. Obama and the rest of the O-Team to dissemble about the real risks confronting us — and what we need to do to protect ourselves.

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Last week, with the federal government shut down by a snowstorm, “nonessential personnel” were told to stay home. One of the apparently “essential personnel” was John O. Brennan, Mr. Obama’s “terrorism czar,” whose official designation (“Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism”) is worthy of a Soviet Politburo title. On Tuesday, Brennan took to the op-ed page of USA Today to spin the O-Team’s decision to treat Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Day underpants bomber, as a common criminal instead of as an enemy combatant.

In his column, Brennan baldly claims: “Immediately after the failed Christmas Day attack, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was thoroughly interrogated and provided important information. Senior counterterrorism officials from the White House, the intelligence community and the military were all actively discussing this case before he was Mirandized and supported the decision to charge him in criminal court.” He then declares, “The most important breakthrough occurred after Abdulmutallab was read his rights,” as if all this occurred within hours of the arrest.

Unfortunately, these assertions are flatly refuted by the sworn testimony of the CIA director, the director of national intelligence, the secretary of homeland security, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center and the director of the FBI. We now know that the initial questioning lasted less than an hour before Abdulmutallab was wheeled into surgery. We also know the “important breakthrough” that Brennan gushes about occurred six weeks after the failed attack — and only after the terrorist’s family urged him to cooperate with U.S. authorities. In short, somebody isn’t telling the truth.

Worse still, Brennan’s solution for handling the problem of radical Islamic terrorists dying to kill as many of us as possible is to tell us all to sit down and shut up. “We need no lectures about the fact that this nation is at war,” Brennan expounds. Then, in case his point was somehow missed, he adds, “Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda.” In other words, if we have a major terror attack in the next three to six months — as CIA Director Leon Panetta says is likely — it’s our fault for not just going along with the O-Team’s agenda.

Following this train of “thought,” it will be our fault when the theocrats ruling Iran build and use a nuclear weapon. It would not have happened had we just sat mute, like Mr. Obama, while anti-regime protesters were bullied and butchered — as happened again this week, on the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. His last-minute announcement of unilateral U.S. “sanctions” against a handful of regime kingpins this week is feckless. Sanctions only work when applied to all corporations and banks around the world that are doing business with despots — not just American corporations and banks. But that requires firm, consistent, honest leadership. That’s the terrible truth — and our enemies know it.

It’s a good thing for Mr. Obama that the weather kept the government closed this week. The “blizzard” let him ignore the hard questions. If you have been praying for snow, you can stop now.

ALAMOGORDO, N.M. — Here in America’s southwestern desert, young Americans are training to fly Reapers, Predators and other remotely piloted aircraft, or RPAs, capable of attacking our enemies half a world away….

WASHINGTON — It’s a war the so-called mainstream media apparently have decided to ignore. Though its death toll is higher than Iraq’s and Afghanistan’s combined, it evidently isn’t worth covering; and unless you’re reading this in the Southwest, you probably haven’t even heard about it.

The conflict, a full-blown narco-insurgency, has claimed the lives of more than 17,000 combatants and innocents, threatens to undo several democratically elected governments and poses a real and present danger to the United States. It’s not the one being fought in Afghanistan. It’s the war being waged from the Andean basin all the way north to the Rio Grande.

Last week, while our Fox News team was in Texas and New Mexico on a completely unrelated matter, “the war next door” was the principal topic of conversation among the locals we encountered. Just days before we arrived, 16 teenagers celebrating a birthday party were machine-gunned in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, less than a mile from the U.S. border. In the past 12 months, nearly 2,700 people have been murdered in this border city — about 1,000 more than the previous year — making it the deadliest place to live on the planet.

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The Mexican drug cartels perpetrating the violence next door are competing for “distribution rights” in the lucrative marijuana, hashish and cocaine markets on this side of the porous U.S.-Mexico border. According to current and former officials of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, or DEA, the Mexican cartels — most of them “family organizations” — have become the “delivery service” for cocaine that originates in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Venezuela. These “distributors” are now exporting their violence, as well. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, cartel “hit teams” have carried out murders and kidnappings in more than 230 American cities. Phoenix seems headed for becoming the kidnapping capital of the U.S.

Though overall violent crime has declined in Arizona generally and Phoenix in particular, kidnapping has spiked from fewer than 50 cases in 2005 to more than 350 last year. Local and state law enforcement authorities say nearly all of this increased crime is directly connected to the illicit drug trade coming across the state’s 375-mile border with Mexico.

When our Fox News team accompanied DEA and Customs and Border Protection agents on patrols along the border, they described “routine ambushes and shootouts” that occur when heavily armed cartel members are moving narcotics north. The most recent report by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement predicts increasing violence as the Mexican cartels engage in “ruthless targeting of rivals.” The Justice Department describes Mexican drug cartels as the “largest threat to both citizens and law enforcement agencies.”

The Obama administration seems to be of two minds about what needs to be done about the problem. To its credit, it has continued to fund and even expand the Bush administration’s Merida Initiative, aimed at improving Mexico’s internal police and security services with $1.6 billion in training and equipment. Unfortunately, Obama administration officials also speak routinely about “reforming U.S. drug laws,” suggesting that having “user amounts” of illicit narcotics would no longer be a criminal offense. How that would reduce the demand for drugs in America is hard to fathom.

There are other challenges the administration has failed to address, as well. Everyone involved — from the Andean basin to the streets of Chicago — knows that the flow of drugs north won’t stop until the flow of money south is interdicted. Arizona’s attorney general, Terry Goddard, recently won a major settlement with Western Union about illicit financial transactions. The departments of Justice and Treasury lauded the outcome of this contentious matter because Western Union has agreed to turn over money transfer data on suspicious transactions.

Arrests and prosecutions from this information are likely. Equally certain is that the cartels will look for new ways to move money. According to those engaged in this fight, cartel bosses always are looking for new ways to move drugs and money. Unfortunately, our ability to detect cash transfers through European banking institutions suffered a crippling setback last month, when the European Commission shut down U.S. law enforcement and intelligence access to data from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which was so important in the aftermath of 9/11.

If the Obama administration is serious about stopping the violence threatening Americans from our southern border, it needs to initiate some urgent diplomacy to reinstitute our access to SWIFT data — and stop talking about “legalization.”