By Jerry Seper–The Washington Times

The Justice Department filed a lawsuit Thursday against “America’s toughest sheriff,” Joe Arpaio in Phoenix, accusing him, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and the county of refusing to fully cooperate in a federal investigation into allegations that he and his deputies are guilty of racial discrimination.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Phoenix, is the latest chapter in a bitter feud between Justice and Sheriff Arpaio, who is accused of failing to turn over documents sought since March 2009 that federal prosecutors say comply with its probe of alleged discrimination, unconstitutional searches and seizures, and English-only policies in his jails that discriminate against those with limited English skills.

Sheriff Arpaio, during a press conference in Phoenix, described the lawsuit as “harassment,” saying thousands of pages of documents have already been turned over by his office to federal prosecutors.

“These actions make it abundantly clear that Arizona, including this sheriff, is Washington’s new whipping boy. Now it’s time to take the gloves off,” he said.

“As for today’s lawsuit against my office: These people in Washington met with my attorneys only a few days ago. And in that meeting, Washington got our cooperation; they admitted they already have thousands of pages of the requested documents; and they were given access to interview my staff and get into my jails. They smiled in our faces and then stabbed us in the back with this lawsuit.”

Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez, who heads the Civil Rights Division for the Obama administration, said the sheriff’s office declined repeated requests to turn over documents or meet with investigators.

“The actions of the sheriff’s office are unprecedented,” Mr. Perez said. “It is unfortunate that the department was forced to resort to litigation to gain access to public documents and facilities.”

But Sheriff Arpaio’s attorneys, Robert Driscoll and Asheesh Agarwal, both former deputy attorneys general in the Civil Rights Division at Justice during the Bush administration, said federal investigators were politically motivated, citing a news conference in March at which Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. was quoted as saying he expected the Justice inquiry to “produce results.”

“While we have no quarrel with the assistant U.S. attorneys handling the investigation, the attorney general’s comments appear to violate federal regulations, departmental policy and state ethical rules designed to ensure the fairness of criminal investigations,” Mr. Agarwal said.

Mr. Driscoll said the DOJ suit speaks loudly by what it does not say.

“It does not allege that Sheriff Arpaio or the MCSO have discriminated against anyone because the DOJ, after 18 months of soliciting allegations against Sheriff Arpaio, has come up empty,” he said.

The lawsuit is the newest twist in a continuing battle involving Arizona officials and the federal government. The Justice Department already has filed a suit challenging a law passed in Arizona giving state and local police the right to arrest anyone reasonably suspected of being an illegal immigrant, claiming the legislation is pre-empted by federal law.

The Justice Department, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, has maintained that immigration laws are a federal responsibility.

In a statement, the Justice Department said Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination in programs that receive federal funds and also requires grant recipients to cooperate with investigations of discrimination by providing access to documents, facilities and staff.

The department said the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office signed contractual assurance agreements as a condition of receiving federal funds and promised it would cooperate with investigations of alleged discrimination. It said the lawsuit was filed after the department exhausted all cooperative measures to gain access to the documents and facilities, as part of its investigation.

“Since March 2009, the department has attempted to secure voluntary compliance with the department’s investigation,” it said. “MCSO’s refusal to cooperate with the investigation makes it an extreme outlier, and the department is unaware of any other police department or sheriff’s office that has refused to cooperate in the last 30 years.”

The sheriff, first elected in 1992 and re-elected four times since, said the Obama administration “intended to sue us all along, no matter what we did to try to avert it,” adding that “it’s time Americans everywhere wake up and see this administration for what it really is: calculating, underhanded at times and certainly not looking out for the best interests of the legal citizens residing in this country.”

State Sen. Russell Pearce, the Republican lawmaker who authored the immigration bill, called the Justice Department’s actions a “witch hunt.”

“This is the game that’s played,” he said. “They couldn’t find any violations … that’s why it’s broad, that’s why they’re very vague about what they want. It doesn’t take a very high IQ to figure out what’s going on with these folks.”

The Justice Department investigation has focused on allegations that Sheriff Arpaio and his deputies engaged in “discriminatory police practices and unconstitutional searches and seizures,” along with allegations that his jail discriminated against Hispanic inmates. The inquiry also has targeted allegations that bilingual jail guards were required to speak to inmates only in English.

About $113 million the Maricopa County government received from the federal government last year accounted for about 5 percent of the county’s $2 billion budget. The lawsuit listed $16.5 million of funding provided the sheriff’s office through several programs.

Last year, the federal government stripped Sheriff Arpaio of his special power to enforce federal immigration law, although he continued to conduct law enforcement sweeps through the enforcement of state immigration laws.

The sheriff’s office has said half of the 1,032 people arrested in the sweeps have been illegal immigrants.

Valley Central

Federal officials confirmed two Mexican military helicopter incursions took place in skies over Starr and Hidalgo County today but are asking the public not to be alarmed.

Local law enforcement officials were put on alert after a Mexican military helicopter was spotted in Alto Bonito and headed east into Hidalgo County.

Sources told Action 4 News tha tthe helicopter flew from Alto Bonito and then over Sullivan City and La Joya around 1 p.m. Thursday.

Officials with U.S. Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations confirmed that there were two helicopter incursions — one between 9 and 10 am. and then another at 1 p.m. Thursday.

Air and Marine Operations spokesman Juan Muñoz-Torres told Action 4 News that the agency was informed about the incursions by the Mexican government.

Muñoz-Torres said the public should not be alarmed by the incursions.

The Air and Marine Operations spokesman said that a long-standing agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada allows for temporary incursions for medical or law enforcement purposes.

Rio Grande Valley residents have reported at least four Mexican helicopter incursions since March in communities along the border from Brownsville to Zapata.

Alto Bonito is located off U.S. Expressway 83 east of Rio Grande City and about two to three miles north of the Rio Grande river.

Muñoz-Torres said Mexican military helicopter have increased due to the ongoing drug war south of the border.

The Air and Marine Operations spokesman said Mexican military helicopters cross the border for intelligence purposes allowing officials to get another view or perspective of their target area.

“They are not performing operations in the United States,” Muñoz-Torres said.

Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez told Action 4 News that he doesn’t buy it.

Gonzalez said federal law enforcement officials did not inform local law enforcement officials about the incursions in today’s incident and past incidents.

“They need to provide information to local law enforcement,” Gonzalez said. “When people call us, we can tell them not to be alarmed.”

Sheriff Gonzalez said Zapata residents witnessed a Mexican helicopter fly across Falcon Lake and hovering above a home.

Gonzalez said federal officials never provided an explanation for that incident or others.

Sheriff Gonzalez said he doesn’t believe the Mexican helicopters are crossing to get a different angle or view of the Mexican said.

He said the helicopters in the Zapata incident and others are flying below the radar.

“If that’s the case, they need to flya a little bit higher,” Gonzalez said.

Muñoz-Torres said the agency is looking to improve communications about the incursions through interagency task forces.

He said the Mexican military has a liaison at an Air and Marine Operations facility in California.

“More education is needed,” Muñoz-Torres said.

By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER 

Many have charged that President Obama’s decision to begin withdrawing from Afghanistan 10 months from now is hampering our war effort.

But now it’s official. In a stunning statement last week, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway admitted that the July 2011 date is “probably giving our enemy sustenance.”

A remarkably bold charge for an active military officer. It stops just short of suggesting aiding and abetting the enemy.

Yet the observation is obvious: It is surely harder to prevail in a war that hinges on the allegiance of the locals when they hear the U.S. president talk of beginning a withdrawal that will ultimately leave them to the mercies of the Taliban.

How did Obama come to this decision?

“Our Afghan policy was focused as much as anything on domestic politics,” an Obama adviser at the time told the New York Times’ Peter Baker. “He would not risk losing the moderate to centrist Democrats in the middle of health insurance reform and he viewed that legislation as the make-or-break legislation for his administration.”

If this is true, then Obama’s military leadership can only be called scandalous. During the past week, 22 Americans were killed over a four-day period in Afghanistan.

War ‘Distraction’

This is not a place about which decisions should be made in order to placate congressmen, pass health care and thereby maintain a president’s political standing.

This is a place about which a president should make decisions to best succeed in the military mission he himself has set out.

But Obama sees his wartime duties as a threat to his domestic agenda. These wars are a distraction, unwanted interference with his true vocation — transforming America.

Such an impression could only have been reinforced when, given the opportunity in his Oval Office address this week to dispel the widespread perception in Afghanistan that America is leaving, Obama doubled down on his ambivalence.

After giving a nod to the pace of troop reductions being conditions-based, he declared with his characteristic “but make no mistake” that “this transition will begin — because open-ended war serves neither our interests nor the Afghan people’s.”

These are the words of a man who wants out. Most emphatically on Iraq, where from the beginning Obama has made clear that his objective is simply ending combat operations by an arbitrary deadline — despite the fact that a new government has not been formed and all our hard-won success hangs in the balance — in order to address the more paramount concern: keeping a campaign promise.

Time to “turn the page” and turn America elsewhere.

At first you’d think that turning is to Afghanistan. But Obama added nothing to his previously stated Afghan policy while emphatically reiterating July 2011 as the beginning of the end, or more diplomatically, of the “transition.”

Well then, at least you’d then expect some vision of his larger foreign policy. After all, this was his first Oval Office address on the subject.

What is the meaning, if any, of the Iraq and Afghan wars?

And what of the clouds that are forming beyond those theaters: the drone-war escalation in Pakistan, the rise of al-Qaida in Yemen, the danger of Somalia falling to al-Shabab, and the threat of renewed civil war in Islamist Sudan as a referendum on independence for southern Christians and animists approaches?

Domestic Priorities

This was the stage for Obama to explain what follows the now-abolished Global War on Terror. Where does America stand on the spreading threats to stability, decency and U.S. interests from the Horn of Africa to the Hindu Kush?

On this, not a word. Instead, Obama made a strange and clumsy segue into a pep talk on the economy. Rebuilding it, he declared, “must be our central mission as a people, and my central responsibility as president.”

This in a speech ostensibly about the two wars he is directing. He could not have made more clear where his priorities lie, and how much he sees foreign policy — war policy — as subordinate to his domestic ambitions.

Unfortunately, what for Obama is a distraction is life or death for U.S. troops now on patrol in Kandahar province.

Some presidents may not like being wartime leaders. But they don’t get to decide. History does.

Obama needs to accept the role. It’s not just the U.S. military, as Baker reports, that is “worried he is not fully invested in the cause.”

Our allies, too, are experiencing doubt. And our enemies are drawing sustenance.

By Thomas Joscelyn

When Ghaleb Nassar al Bihani traveled to Afghanistan to fight alongside al Qaeda and the Taliban, he probably never imagined that he would be captured and his detention would be turned into a legal fight over what role, if any, international law plays in restricting the president of the United States’s wartime powers.

Amazingly, that is precisely what happened.

A federal appeals court in Washington yesterday denied a request from al Bihani’s attorneys to rehear the Gitmo detainee’s case. In January 2009, a D.C. district judge denied al Bihani’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Al Bihani’s attorneys appealed, but a D.C. Circuit Court panel of three judges upheld the district judge’s ruling.

Al Bihani’s attorneys appealed again, requesting that the full court hear the case. But in Tuesday’s ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit declined “to en banc this case to determine the role of international law-of-war principles in interpreting the AUMF [the 2001 Authorization for use of Military Force] because, as the various opinions issued in the case indicate, the panel’s discussion of that question is not necessary to the disposition of the merits.”

That is, the judges believe it has nothing to do with whether or not Ghaleb Nassar al Bihani is properly detained at Gitmo.

What really happened here is that al Bihani’s lawyers tried to use his detention as a means to litigate their pet legal theories. This has nothing to do with determining whether detainees are properly held, let alone fighting al Qaeda or winning a war. Instead, it was part of a push to obtain more power for the courts to interfere in the other branches of government’s conduct of the war.

The transnational legal community wants the courts to have the power to reject acts of Congress and military decisions made by the executive branch based on international law, which may or may not have anything to do with the will of the American people as expressed at the ballot box.

As Judge Janice Rogers Brown wrote on Tuesday, this isn’t a good idea. Under the U.S. Constitution, the president “retains the leeway to implement his authority as broadly or narrowly as he believes appropriate—consistent with international law or not—and the legislature, in turn, may add whatever limits or constraints it deems wise as the war progresses,” Judge Brown wrote. “This ensures that wartime decisions will be informed by the expertise of the political branches, stated in a clear fashion, and that the decision makers will be accountable to the electorate.”

If al Bihani’s lawyers’ vision is enacted, however, a Pandora’s box of problems would be opened. Judge Brown writes:

Such an approach would place ultimate control of the war in the one branch insulated from both the battlefield and the ballot box. That would add further illegitimacy to the unpredictable and ad hoc rules judges would draw from the primordial stew of treaties, state practice, tribunal decisions, scholarly opinion, and foreign law that swirls beyond our borders.

Other judges denied al Bihani’s request because it had nothing to do with the merits of the case, but they seemed to leave the door open for the possibility that international law will one day trump America’s national security agenda as set forth by the president and Congress. Thus, Judge Brown contributed a scathing critique of her fellow judges’ opinions, using words such as “grotesque” to describe their opinions. And one judge, Judge Brown writes, “contributes a separate opinion that conceives of a brave new role for judges in wartime: that of supervisors of the battlefield.”

The Obama administration did not fight the transnational argument. Instead, the administration embraced it, arguing only that it was owed “substantial deference” in this instance.

“The government responds ambivalently, adopting the questionable strategy of conceding Al-Bihani’s point, but nonetheless urging denial of rehearing,” Judge Brown writes. Elsewhere, Brown says the Obama administration’s lawyers made an “eager concession that international law does in fact limit the AUMF.”

This demonstrates the degree to which the Obama administration is committed to some very radical notions of the law. The AUMF was Congress’s response to the most devastating terrorist attack in history, and rightly gave the presidency substantial power to hunt down the al Qaeda terror network. But the administration believes that even the AUMF is subject to an amorphous body of international law and standards and should be interpreted through that transnational prism.

All of this goes to a more central point. Legal gamesmanship long ago trumped national security concerns when it comes to litigating the cases of Guantanamo detainees. This entire argument is taking place in the context of the U.S. government’s proper detention of a known al Qaeda operative.

Some press accounts have called Ghaleb Nassar al Bihani a mere cook for al Qaeda. That is his lawyers’ spin. Al Bihani was much more than that. He comes from a family of al Qaeda terrorists. Several of his brothers served Osama bin Laden in various capacities. Al Bihani received extensive terrorist training in Afghanistan, and became a member of al Qaeda’s elite Arab 055 brigade, which fought alongside the Taliban. He served al Qaeda right up until the time of his capture.

Despite this and more, al Bihani’s lawyers thought that international law should free al Bihani from Gitmo. Their arguments are a good illustration of why the transnational legal framework is fraught with danger.

The Osborns long ago accepted the risks faced by their son, an Army specialist. But what they can’t accept now are the military rules of engagement, which they contend made it possible for the Taliban to kill him.

“We let the enemy fire first, and they took my son from us,” Beverly Osborn said of the rules, which in most instances require U.S. forces to identify an enemy threat before firing, and to withhold fire if civilians are close by. The rules also place restrictions on close air support and artillery, prompting complaints from some service members that their lives are put at risk against an enemy that fights by no rules at all.

As American combat deaths have reached record levels this summer, public support is eroding for the 9-year-old conflict. Several recent opinion polls found that more than half of those surveyed oppose the war, with the high casualty rate among concerns most often cited. American combat deaths reached 60 in June, 65 in July, and 55 in August, according to icasualties.org. That is by far the highest three-month total of the war.

Criticism is mounting among military families too. An antiwar group of families of service members in Afghanistan and Iraq has called for an end to the Afghanistan war. At the same time, families like the Osborns, who describe themselves as conservative, are questioning the way the war is being waged.

After Bill Osborn publicly criticized the rules of engagement just before his son’s wake, he said, other families of service members killed or serving in Afghanistan contacted him to express similar concerns. They don’t want to end the war, Osborn said, but to change the way it’s being fought.

“Our soldiers are forced to fight with one hand tied behind their backs. They’re not allowed to take care of business — and they know it,” Bill Osborn said in his living room, where his son’s Bronze Star, Purple Heart and campaign ribbons are on display.

Debbie Morris of Arnold, Calif., who lost her son in Afghanistan on June 10, said the rules of engagement protect Afghan civilians at the expense of American troops. She blames the rules, in part, for the death of her son, Marine Lance Cpl. Gavin Brummund, 22, from a roadside bomb.

If the rules prevent troops from aggressively pursuing Afghan militants who plot attacks against them while posing as civilians, “then the rules aren’t working, and why are we even there?” Morris said.

Brummund’s widow, Michaela, said Marines in her husband’s unit told her they were frustrated by the rules. Protecting civilians, many of whom are hostile to U.S. forces, “isn’t worth our guys’ lives,” she said.

On June 27, the Osborns wrote an impassioned e-mail to Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan. They described how Ben, 27, volunteered to man the machine gun on an armored vehicle headed out on a patrol in Kunar province on June 15.

Their son’s unit of 20 men was ambushed by a Taliban force of 70 to 100 fighters, the e-mail said. According to the Osborns, who said they talked with members of their son’s unit, Ben had to wait to return fire until ordered to do so. He got off 10 rounds before he was shot and killed, they said.

The rules of engagement “led to the demise of our son … and other warriors like him,” the e-mail said. The Osborns asked Petraeus to revise the rules and lift restrictions.

“Winning the hearts and minds of the Afghans is not what’s best for America,” they wrote. “We are at war. The rules of engagement must be to empower our soldiers, not to give aid and comfort to the enemy.”

Petraeus responded within minutes, the Osborns said. His e-mail offered condolences, and noted that “commanders have a moral imperative to ensure that we provide every possible element of support to our troopers when they get into a tight spot.”

The general added: “And I will ensure that we meet that imperative.”

Petraeus, who wrote the military’s counter-insurgency doctrine with a focus on minimizing civilian casualties, has said he is reviewing the rules of engagement. Petraeus assumed command July 4 after the ouster of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who had tightened the rules when he took command in June 2009.

Military Families Speak Out, the antiwar group, has long demanded an end to the war in Iraq but for years refrained from demanding an end to the Afghanistan conflict — which many members considered “the good war.” After U.S. combat deaths in Afghanistan rose early last year, the group formally called for ending that war and bringing troops home.

More families have joined the group since casualties jumped this summer, said Nancy Lessin, the organization’s co-founder. Military Families Speak Out, founded in 2002, represents 4,000 military families, with 25 to 30 chapters nationwide, Lessin said.

The group has no formal position on the rules of engagement, said Paula Rogovin, whose son is a Marine captain who served in Iraq. But bringing the troops home would eliminate any dangers they face as a result of the restrictions, she said.

By contrast, the Osborns say they believe the war in Afghanistan must be fought — and won. But they want it waged more aggressively.

Soon after Ben deployed in April, he began telling his parents that the rules of engagement were too restrictive and were putting him and his fellow soldiers at risk.

“He said he felt more like a Peace Corps worker than a warrior,” his father said. After Ben’s death, his comrades told his father they had the same concerns.

“I don’t know that if Ben had been able to fire spontaneously, he’d be alive today,” Bill Osborn added. “But I do know that he would have had a much better chance of surviving by being able to defend himself quickly.”

“It almost appears that our civilian leaders and military command think more of the natives than our own troops,” he said. “That’s a disturbing thought, and I don’t want to believe it.”

Ben left behind three brothers, a sister and a widow, Nicole, whom he had married in February.

“It’s too late for us and for Ben,” Bill Osborn said, sitting next to photos of his son in uniform. “But there are other families out there, and if we can help save just one soldier, it’ll be worth it.”

—————————————————

This is exactly the outcome Obama was banking on: if enough of our Soldiers perish, their families will speak out to end the war. Never mind that Obama’s new ROE is killing our Soldiers, he will be heralded for ending the war and bringing what’s left of our troops home.

Enlarge

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — American-born Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh and another Muslim inmate have asked a judge to order a federal prison to allow them and other Muslims in their highly restricted cell block to pray as a group, in accordance with their beliefs.

The American Civil Liberties Union last Thursday filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis for summary judgment on behalf of Lindh, 29, and Enaam Arnaout, 47, who claim that the prison’s policy restricting group prayer in the Communications Management Unit violates their religious rights. The ACLU contends there are no disputes over the facts of the case and that the law is on the inmates’ side, and asks the judge to rule in their favor.

Lindh, who is serving a 20-year sentence at the Terre Haute prison for aiding Afghanistan’s now-defunct Taliban government, wrote in a legal declaration that his religion requires him to pray five times a day, preferably in a group. “This is one of the primary obligations of Islam,” he wrote.

Praying in his cell is not appropriate, he said, because the Quran requires a ritually clean place for prayer and he is forced to kneel “in close proximity to my toilet.”

Lindh wrote that Muslims in the unit are currently being allowed to pray together once a day during Ramadan. At other times, the group prayers had been limited to once a week, court documents said.

The suit seeks class action status. Terre Haute associate warden Harvey Church testified in a deposition given in January that 24 of the 41 CMU inmates were Muslim.

The government says in court documents that there is no evidence that Muslims were confined to the CMU because of their religion and that most Muslims don’t adhere to the requirement of five daily prayers.

“Plaintiffs have shown … only six other Muslim inmates in the CMU who identify themselves as sharing the same views on daily congregate prayer as Plaintiffs,” government attorneys wrote.

Meanwhile, the government asked a federal judge in Washington, D.C., to dismiss a similar lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights that alleges conditions at the CMU at Terre Haute and another one in Marion, Ill., violate inmates’ religious and civil rights.

In that lawsuit, five CMU prisoners and two of their wives complain that the units place draconian restrictions on inmates’ contact with the outside world and even their own families without offering any reason. They also say inmates can be placed in the CMU without being told why, and have no way to earn their way out.

The government contends that conditions at the CMU- where inmates are free to leave their cells to watch television or play basketball, but not to hug their loved ones when they come to visit – don’t violate prisoners’ civil rights.

It argues in court documents filed last month that inmates don’t have a constitutional right to contact visits or a certain number of phone calls.

In April, another Terre Haute inmate, Sabri Benkhala, dropped his lawsuit claiming that the Bureau of Prisons had created the CMU in secrecy without following federal rule-making procedures. The bureau published rules governing the unit earlier this year, but they have not yet been finalized, said agency spokesman Edmond Ross.

U.S. Attorney Tim Morrison said Benkahla dropped his suit after he was moved out of the CMU.

Benkahla, 34, of Virginia is serving a 10-year sentence for his 2007 convictions for obstruction of justice and lying about training with militants in Pakistan. He is expected to be released in May 2016.

Arnaout, 47, is serving a 10-year sentence for racketeering after admitting in 2003 that he defrauded donors to his Benevolence International Foundation by diverting some of the money to Islamic military groups in Bosnia and Chechnya. The Syrian-born U.S. citizen is scheduled to be released in 2011.

Batshit James J. Lee shot dead by SWAT

SILVER SPRING, Md. — Police shot and killed a gunman who held three hostages for several hours Wednesday at the Discovery Communications building in Silver Spring, Md., authorities said. They said the hostages were safe.

At least one explosive device on his body went off when he was shot, and other explosive devices could still be in the building in Montgomery County in suburban Washington, D.C., Montgomery County police Chief Thomas Manger said. It was not clear whether there was any damage. Continue Reading

Listen as POS pandering Betty Bode of Beaverton’s city council attempts to explain to Lars Larson. 

Her bullshit explanation doesn’t fly with Larson and he subsequently cuts her a new asshole and rightly so.

Bob Uda, Ph.D. (ABD)

• The pretense that this [Afghanistan] war must continue under the current strategy and that we are achieving results…the facts appear each day to refute that.
• A self-destructive and self-defeating strategy of “counter-insurgency” (COIN) doctrine and nation building.
• The COIN principle is not based on winning; it is based on political whims and is not a true tenet of warfare.
• Warfare is, and always should be, about WINNING or do not go to War.
• There is no reason to order massive armies that require large and extensive bases and massive logistical support to fight them on their home turf.
• Protect and secure our American troops before we continue sparing the lives of the Taliban and civilians with bizarre, restrictive rules of engagement (ROE).
• Where are the common sense and rational senior General and Admiral Strategists that we have trained and schooled to be innovative, aggressive and win our nation’s wars quickly and decisively?
• “Victory” in war appears lost in the world of political correctness and appeasement.
• The vast majority of goals can be accomplished through quick, decisive joint strike military operations from selected “Lily Pad” friendly bases.
• This is the driving point: why are we so worried about what others think?
• The U.S. must adopt a national military strategy that heavily leverages the core capability to break enemy states, target and destroy the enemy’s capability to bring harm to America.
• Achieve the success that is necessary; wiping out and neutralizing radical Islamism and nation states that support it.
• The American experience in Iraq and Afghanistan…calls into question the ability of occupying forces to root out terror networks without hitting the sources and sanctuaries that supply them like Iran.
• The only way to stop that threat is to give them what they respect; pure force of arms and will.
• We must stop thinking like westerners and understand the way our enemy thinks.

• Rules of Engagement. In real asymmetrical warfare, there is no such thing as rules of engagement. Asymmetrical warfare is “free-for-all” warfare. Islamo-fascist terrorists are unhampered by morals, ethics, and legalities. Islamo-fascists are amoral. If we are to prevail against them, we must do likewise. We must be unshackled and unhampered by conventional warfare rules of engagement. To triumph over the Isfasts [short for Islamo-fascists], we must use every possible unconventional warfare strategy, tactic, means, technology, weaponry, tools, techniques, and methods.

• Political Correctness. The only language that Isfasts understand pertains to words such as force, power, kill, control, decapitate, humiliate, and pain. Hence, we should apply everything within our power and means to use these tools on them. When we inflict these tools on them, they understand when we have the upper hand. When we apply the “political correctness” tools on them, they see us as weak. Hence, they become emboldened to keep pursuing their main goal in life, which is to achieve world domination and their idea of utopia.

• Fight Fire with Fire. We should use the language they understand. The only language the Isfasts understand is what they do. We need to do the same things that they do. If they kill, we need to kill. If they bomb us, we need to bomb them. We must fight fire with fire. Let us not kid ourselves. They are out to eradicate democracy, freedom, liberty, and the free-enterprise system. It is them or us. It is better to be them.

• Never Negotiate with Terrorists. If they kill a hostage, we go after them with vengeance and wipe them off the map without delay. Teach them lessons they will never forget. That is the only language they understand. Send them to their twisted concept of heaven where they will live with 72 virgins. I am sorry, but that belief will never come to pass.

• Kill or Be Killed? It is either kill or be killed. If given that choice, I would rather kill first than be killed first. Wouldn’t you? General George S. Patton said, “May God have mercy upon my enemies because I won’t.” We must do as General Patton said, “We as attackers have the initiative; we must retain this tremendous advantage by always attacking rapidly, ruthlessly, viciously, and without rest.” If we want to survive, that is what we must do! We must listen to the good general’s words and put it into practice. I am sure that General Patton had read Sun Tzu. Sun Tzu said, “Therefore, the good fighter will be terrible in his onset, and prompt in his decision.”

• All Bets are Off! If the terrorists (i.e., al-Qaida, Hezbollah, Hamas, Taliban, and other Isfasts) will bomb and wantonly kill innocent civilian men, women, children, the aged, the infirm, reporters, UN personnel, and Red Cross personnel, then all of their similar people are fair game for us. “The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs” (Deut. 32:25). All bets are off! What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Thus, we will let the world know that we will not fight with one hand tied behind our backs any longer. We shall fight ruthlessness with ruthlessness. We shall fight fire with fire…only two orders of magnitude more.

• A Tit-for-Tat War. If the terrorists will not adhere to any rules of engagement, then we too will not adhere to any rules of engagement. If the terrorists do not recognize and adhere to the tenets of the Geneva Convention, then we are not bound by the tenets of the Geneva Convention. We will fight a tit-for-tat war. Whatever the terrorists dish out, we will dish back to them an order-of-magnitude greater (even two orders of magnitude greater) retaliatory force and firepower.

• No Such Thing as Collateral Damage. If the Isfasts poison our water supplies, we poison their water supplies. If the Isfasts use germ warfare (anthrax or whatever) on our people, we use germ warfare on their people. If the Isfasts use poison gas, we use poison gas. If the Isfasts blow up our power stations, we retaliate by blowing up their entire infrastructure of power stations, utilities, dams, bridges, highways, farms, airports, military bases, government buildings, and other infrastructure. Forget about collateral damage! There is no such thing as collateral damage when we are fighting for our survival.

• War is not a game. Hence, there is no such thing as “fair play” in war. There is no fairness. There is no “time out.” There are no referees or umpires. You never go into the penalty box. In war, you destroy. You kill. You injure. You maim. You disable. You crush. You annihilate. You wipe out. Those are the rules of the game (if you want to call it a game). Therefore, the Pendleton 8 did nothing wrong as we fight a war against Isfasts. Moreover, remember this: General George S. Patton said, “You’re never beaten until you admit it.” We will never lose because we will never admit it.