Baby Nourah was born blind. Her condition is reversible with surgery, but being born in a small village outside Baghdad, her parents had neither the income nor the opportunity to do anything about it. In addition, the city’s hospitals lack the facilities and physicians to perform the procedure. What they needed was a miracle.
Their miracle would come in the form of Army 1st Lt. Jason Hickman, a platoon leader with the North Carolina National Guard.
Divine Intervention
It happened on a dark road about five months ago when a convoy made a wrong turn and ended up in Zwaynat, a small village southwest of Baghdad. The girl happened to be there visiting her uncle, and he met the convoy commander and informed him of the baby’s plight.
“So there we were at a place we hadn’t intended on being,” said Hickman. “Wrong turn, perhaps, but that’s not how I see it. My interest and contacts with the Order of Saint John, the wrong turn, her being there with her uncle instead of with her parents in Baghdad — no, not a coincidence.”
The Order of St. John, accredited by the United Nations, provides first aid, health care and support services in more than 40 countries.
“I do believe that God puts people in certain places at certain times,” Hickman said. “Things don’t happen solely by coincidence. All you have to do is look for the road signs. The signs were clear, so I sent some e-mails, and that’s how we arrived here.”
Once Nourah was diagnosed, Hickman e-mailed St. John’s Jerusalem Eye Hospital, the main provider of eye care in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, and a cause he has contributed to in the past.
but the operation would be costly. So Hickman and his fellow soldiers passed the hat – and with the help of their hometowns in North Carolina and West Virginia, raised over $5,000.00 and paid for the operation.
Today Nourah has to wear glasses until her eyes are fully healed, but she can see. All because some Christian soldiers knew the real meaning of Christmas.
“The Lord may not push you around the board like a pawn, but every now and again he puts you where he wants you,” Hickman said. “We were supposed to end up in Zwaynat that night. It was just up to us what we were going to do when we got there.”
William McKinley once wrote, “Our flag has never waved over any country but in blessing.”
Twenty years ago on in the early morning of December 20, 1989, I was one of 2500 Rangers that parachuted into the country of Panama to take down a corrupt Dictator, Manuel Noriega. It was my first taste of actual combat. Compared to the fighting most of today’s warriors experience, Operation Just Cause was extremely short and had a nice, tidy ending with the surrender of Manuel Noriega three weeks after we dropped in. Today, nobody disputes that we did the right thing in removing him, though some Panamanians believe we could have been, say, gentler about it. Thinking back on the chaos of that night in 1989, and looking at the strong, stable democracy that Panama has become, I can confidently say I’m glad to have played some very small part in that history.
Perhaps one day the veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan will return to those places and feel similar emotions. Hopefully, this story will encourage today’s men and women who serve overseas. Sometimes in the middle of the deployment, away from family and friends, it’s hard to see how much your efforts are making the world a better place.
This Christmas, more than 200,000 of our military will be spending the holiday away from those they love. Remember them as you curl up safe and warm with your children – and give thanks.
Chuck Holton, age 20, 2nd from Right
In 2003 I published a book about my experiences in the Rangers and the invasion of Panama. Here is an excerpt from this day, twenty years ago.
“Get ready!”
The jumpmaster shouts over the roar of aircraft engines, stirring me from deep thoughts. It’s almost 1 a.m. on December 20, 1989. I’m one of nearly one hundred Airborne Rangers who, four hours ago at Fort Benning, Georgia, packed into this C-130 transport plane—built to carry no more than sixty-four jumpers.
After serving in the Army for about two and a half years, I carry the rank of Specialist. Tonight I can barely feel my legs. I am buried under an eighty-pound rucksack attached to my parachute harness at the waist, and overlapped by those of the Rangers packed tightly around me.
“Outboard personnel, stand UP!”
I look across at my friend Philip Lear, and he gives me a wry smile that says, Here goes nothing! I reach over and clasp his wrist, helping him struggle to his feet in the cramped confines of the aircraft—a near impossible task. Earlier this year, Lear and I were assigned as buddies in Ranger school, a two-month leadership course where we spent the majority of our time running patrols through every type of terrain imaginable.
It was wintertime, and many nights we had to huddle together for warmth. We’ve been through a lot together. Lear is like a brother to me. I wonder if it was God’s intention that we ended up side by side on this airplane. He is with the 2nd Ranger Battalion, stationed at Ft. Lewis, Washington; I am with the 3rd Battalion at Fort Benning, Georgia. This is the first we’ve seen of each other since the day we graduated from RangerSchool ten months ago. I regret that we haven’t been able to do much catching up on the ride down. The inside of a C-130 is definitely not conducive to conversation. Lear did tell me that he is engaged to be married. I hope to be able to talk to him sometime later and find out more. But once we hit the ground we must go our separate ways, following separate platoons, accomplishing different missions.
“Inboard personnel, stand UP!”
It’s my turn to struggle to my feet. I can’t believe it’s gone this far. This mission may actually go down. We’ve been called up for real-life missions before, but they’ve always been canceled at the last minute.
This time our destination is Panama.
The overall plan is to arrest their corrupt dictator, Manuel Noriega, and help establish a democratic government. Of course, 3rd Battalion’s specific mission is much more limited in scope—we’re simply the kickoff team. There are units at every U.S. base in Panama waiting for H-hour to come. Our coordinated attack should be swift and violent.
There’s much we don’t know about the political or strategic reasons for the mission, but it’s gratifying to think that the Army might finally use us. We’ve been training for this operation for months. If I have to serve my entire enlistment training for combat without actually experiencing it, I will always wonder how I would have performed in battle. It would be like training for the Super Bowl and then never getting to play.
When I was a kid, I did yard work for an older gentleman who was a deacon in our church. He had been in the Airborne in World War II. His stories about parachuting into combat fascinated me, and I used to dream about what it would be like to do the same.
Tonight I might finally get to find out.
“Hook up!”
We all struggle to attach our static lines to the overhead cable that will pull our chutes open once we exit the aircraft. The task is made difficult by the fact that it’s so crowded—we can hardly move. I wonder if our leaders planned it this way so that we will be anxious to jump. If they did, it’s working. I am careful to check that my static line is securely fastened to the cable, though my faith in getting to the ground safely does not lie in the cable above me or the parachute on my back. If it did, I don’t know that I would have ever made it through jump school to begin with.
“Check equipment!”
Time to focus. We’re all deadly serious now. Girls, bills, and all the other problems that seem so important in my day-to-day life are nowhere in my consciousness at this moment. There isn’t room in my head for them. One hundred percent of my faculties are intent on the job that we have to do here in Central America. We do our best to check each other’s equipment in the dim light of the aircraft interior. I try to ensure that there’s nothing under my feet that I might trip over when heading for the door. I can’t even see my feet. A vice begins to tighten in my gut as my pulse quickens.
“Sound off for equipment check!”
Someone slaps me on the shoulder. I tap the guy in front of me and shout “OK!” He taps the guy in front of him, and so on, toward the jumpmaster at the rear of the aircraft. Once the jumpmaster gets the “All OK” signal, he will open the aircraft door and begin spotting for the drop zone.
Behind me is Mike Bohannon, a brand new private. He’s only been up in an aircraft on nine occasions, and he’s jumped every time. He doesn’t know what it’s like to land in an airplane. This will be his third jump with our unit; the other two he performed in training for this occasion. I’m worried about him, because he’s so new and because he’s my responsibility. I lean back and yell in his ear, “When we hit the ground, stay put, and I’ll come find you. Stick with me and you’ll be OK!”
He nods, wide-eyed.
The white lights go out. They’re about to open the door. To say that it’s uncomfortable standing with an eighty-pound rucksack full of ammunition hanging between your legs is like saying Siberia is “brisk” in winter. My M-203 grenade launcher is in its case, strapped securely to my left side.
I review the mission in my head. We’re jumping onto an airfield at a place called Rio Hato, about forty miles south of Panama City. Some of the most ruthless of the Panamanian Defense Forces (PDF) are housed there. We are to take the airfield and ensure that none of the PDF special forces, the Macho de Monte, have a chance to reinforce enemy positions in Panama City, where more Rangers are preparing to attack. My platoon’s part in the mission is to take out a couple of anti-aircraft guns that border the runway. We are then to clear and occupy the buildings of a military school located on one side of the airfield. Intel says that the barracks are empty, their soldiers home for Christmas, so clearing the buildings shouldn’t take long.
Murphy’s law, however, has a tendency to take over in these situations, so we are prepared for anything.
At least…I hope we are.
Suddenly, the roar of the night intensifies as the doors open. Hot, humid air floods in, reminding us that we aren’t in Georgia anymore, where it had been sleeting when we took off. I can just see the red light next to the door that will soon turn green, telling us to jump. The jumpmaster takes hold of the doorframe and leans far out into the night, looking for the airfield. All he sees is water. We are coming in over the Atlantic Ocean at five hundred feet. When we jump there won’t even be time to pull my reserve chute if the main one doesn’t open. I’m not sure why I even wore one, except that it is simply part of the pre-jump checklist.
We stand for what seems like hours in the dim red light, sweating profusely and listening to the screaming engines. Not being able to talk leaves us alone with our thoughts.
Unaccountably, a quiet sense of peace settles over me.
I’ve been training for this moment since I first raised my hand at the swearing-in ceremony two and a half years earlier. Scared? Yes—but not so much about my safety. I’m more concerned about how I will perform once I hit the tarmac below. It’s a natural feeling, I suppose, when you’re about to parachute into a firefight in a foreign country from an aircraft traveling at one hundred and fifty knots.
Beyond all those conflicting emotions, however, I know this is where I’m supposed to be at this very moment. And I believe that if a person follows God’s purpose for his life, there’s no safer place to be.
I glance toward the window just in time to see two closely spaced flashes of light. There’s no turning back now. The mission calls for two F-117 stealth fighter aircraft to drop five-hundred-pound bombs on the leading edge of the airfield to kick off the invasion. It’s the first time these aircraft have ever been used in combat. The flashes confirm that the bombs have just detonated on the beach.
Game time.
A testosterone filled “HOOAH!” goes up from the Rangers in our aircraft. We are first in line, with twelve more C-130’s following, also packed with “death from above.”
The jumpmaster screams, “Drop zone coming up!” I can’t hear him, but I see his lips moving and know what he’s saying. Lear reaches over and slaps me on the helmet. We shake hands. He gives me a thumbs up that says, Let’s do this!
I yell in his ear, “Be safe!” He nods and grins confidently.
The light turns green. Rangers start shuffling out the door as quickly as their much-encumbered state allows. For a long moment, those of us back toward the front of the aircraft aren’t moving at all. Finally, enough guys have jumped to make room for us. Then we begin lumbering toward the open door, pulling our static lines along the overhead cable. Suddenly the C-130 starts banking sharply left, then right. The pilots are taking evasive action to avoid anti-aircraft fire. Now I really want out of this plane.
Everything around me moves in blurry slow motion, but my consciousness is razor sharp. At this second, my entire life is focused on this exact point in time. There is no past, no future, only present. The pre-game anxiety that I was feeling vanishes, leaving only white-hot, focused purpose. Ten feet from the door, the light turns red, signaling the end of the drop zone. The Air Force loadmaster steps up and tries to get us to stop jumping. Everyone ignores him. There’s no way we’re not jumping now. I run for the door and step into blackness…
President Obama’s address given before the assembled cadets at the United States Military Academy was undoubtedly intended for a much wider audience. In it, the president made certain to point out that the decision he delayed more than three months was one he “did not take lightly.”
He went on to assert, “I’m convinced that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” and claimed “unwavering resolve,” when it came to our safety. With that, the commander-in-chief (he made sure to remind us of that several times) announced that he was sending 30,000 more troops into the fray.
While this is fewer than Gen. McChrystal asked for, it is good news in the short term for the war effort. But the president followed his announcement with the proclamation that our military commitment in Afghanistan would end in 2011.
This is obviously an attempt by Mr. Obama to make sure the war is wrapped up with a tidy bow on top before the 2012 elections. But it is a large gamble, and one I will predict that he’ll lose. Here’s why.
What Obama said: We are sending 30,000 more troops, but they will begin to come home less than 18 months after they all arrive in country.
What the Taliban heard: We no longer need to defeat the Americans and drive them out of our country. We have only to survive for another 18 months and then we can declare victory when the infidels run for (political) safety.
What the Taliban will now tell the Afghans: Assisting the Americans is a fools errand, because they have now made it official – their support will evaporate in less than two years. But we will still be here, and will then be free to punish anyone who did not support our cause.
What the West Pointers heard: Most of you likely joined the military to make a difference and defend our country from those who would destroy us. Well, too bad. The war will be over before most of you graduate. Better luck next time.”
What Obama said: I do not make this decision lightly.
What America heard: Even though my top military advisors took months to carefully determine what was needed to win this war, the Obama administration either did not trust those experts until we had performed our own analysis, or it took us more than three months to decide what the most politically safe option would be.
When George W. Bush ordered the surge in Iraq, his comments stood in stark contrast to Mr. Obama’s on Tuesday night. He promised that America would see the fight through to the end, that we would be there for the Iraqi people no matter how long it took. Ironically, that kind of open-ended commitment likely gave the Iraqis the confidence they needed to rise up and take control of their country. I’m afraid we may see the opposite in Afghanistan.
No one, not even the president, can predict when a war will be won. That must be determined by the conditions on the ground. To declare that we will leave no matter what in such a relatively short period of time undermines our efforts in the war zone, and puts our troops at much greater risk. It is disingenuous, self-serving, and just plain poor leadership.
Gen. McChrystal and our brave fighting forces will make do with whatever they are given, and because of their tenacity, toughness and creative tactics, they may still pull off a win despite being given less than they truly need. But half-measures and qualified commitments from our president bode very poorly for the war, for the lives of our men and women in uniform, and ultimately for the reelection campaign of Barack Hussein Obama.
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.
Sean Hannity FREE
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.
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.”
Sean Hannity FREE
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.
(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.
Sean Hannity FREE
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.
WASHINGTON — He had to give them something. During his first year in office, Barack Obama made the rounds of his constituents and tried to appease them all. For the pacifists, there were promises to get out of Iraq. Self-loathing Americans were given a global kowtowing presidential apology tour. The Marxist-librarian constituency was assuaged when he accepted communist literature from Hugo Chavez. To satisfy Rodney King “can we all get along?” adherents, Mr. Obama promised to close the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Proponents of global environmental policy, universal health care, nationalized industry and massive government all got something.
But the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, which worked so hard to elect Mr. Obama, wasn’t feeling the love. The president wouldn’t let them out of the closet, they argued, and their patience was wearing thin. POTUS had to give them reason to stay in the fold.
The payoff came in his State of the Union address, when Mr. Obama went off on another frolic and diversion in declaring, “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.”
That set Washington’s Self-Esteem Caucus on full throttle. “Fairness” is liberalism’s golden calf and now a central organizing principle of Mr. Obama’s national security policy. The pundits, citing politicians and polls, declared that “society has moved on” and that the 1993 law barring active homosexuals from military service is “old and outdated.”
Sean Hannity FREE
When Secretary of Defense Robert Gates went so far as to suggest that he was prepared to ignore enforcement of the law, he wasn’t chastised; he was commended. Others who once stood up for our military and its families but who now voice support for opening the military to active homosexuals are — for the first time in their careers — cited by the media as “authoritative,” even “heroic.”
Such is the inane duplicity that passes for governance in our nation’s capital. Proponents of overturning the law cite the hurt feelings of homosexuals, their “integrity” and the ever-popular “aw, shucks, gee whiz, can’t we just let these nice folks serve the country they love?” argument. But few have actually addressed the national security implications of such a change. Now the Joint Chiefs of Staff have done just that.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey informed the Senate Armed Services Committee he has “serious concerns” about repealing the law in the midst of war. “We just don’t know the impacts on readiness and military effectiveness,” Casey testified.
A somewhat softer note was sounded by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, who said, “This is not the time to perturb the force that is, at the moment, stretched by demands in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere without careful deliberation.”
Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, testified that he endorsed a “study” of the issue because “only with that information can we discuss the force that we have, not someone else’s.” He also resisted a “freeze” on discharges for homosexual behavior, citing duty to “the families that support the force.”
The straightest shooting of all was done by Gen. James Conway, the commandant of the Marine Corps. In testimony to the House Armed Services Committee on Feb. 24, he said, “Unless we can strip away the emotion, the agendas and the politics and ask … ‘Do we somehow enhance the war-fighting capabilities of the United States Marine Corps by allowing homosexuals to openly serve?’ then we haven’t addressed it from the correct perspective.” Then he reloaded.
After observing that proponents of repeal have failed to produce any evidence that openly homosexual individuals’ serving in uniform will improve combat readiness, Conway unequivocally stated: “At this point … my best military advice to this committee, to the secretary and to the president would be to keep the law such as it is.”
Whether Mr. Obama and his allies in Congress will heed this wise advice from a war fighter remains to be seen. Buck McKeon, the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, has cautioned, “Before the president or special interests force a change in the policy or law, Congress deserves to see from the services concrete, in-depth evidence that readiness concerns require a change and that such a change would not degrade wartime military readiness.”
Rep. McKeon is right. Defense Secretary Gates, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin and Mr. Obama need to call a halt to their planned “moratorium” on discharges for those who engage in homosexual behavior. The 1993 law is clear that such conduct presents “an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.” Perhaps the commander in chief can explain how, in the midst of war, any of that has changed.
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.
Sean Hannity FREE
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.”
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 — 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.
Game Change FREE
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.
