So What is the Ground Truth in Iraq?
By Larry Johnson on September 6, 2008 at 2:35 PM in Current Affairs
There is a fascinating debate underway about the effectiveness and relevance of “Special Operations” forces. An article in the Washington Post today pulls back the curtain a slight bit on the behind the scenes hunt for Al Qaeda in Iraq.
By the time he was captured last month, the man known among Iraqi insurgents as “the Tiger” had lost much of his bite. Abu Uthman, whose fierce attacks against U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians in Fallujah had earned him a top spot on Iraq’s most-wanted list, had been reduced to shuttling between hideouts in a Baghdad slum, hiding by day for fear neighbors might recognize him.
In the end, a former associate-turned-informant showed local authorities the house where Uthman was sleeping. On Aug. 11, U.S. troops kicked in the door and handcuffed him. They quietly ended the career of a man Pentagon officials describe as the kidnapper of American journalist Jill Carroll and also as one of a dwindling number of veteran commanders of the Sunni insurgent group known as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).
Uthman, whose given name is Salim Abdallah Ashur al-Shujayri, was one of the bigger fish to be landed recently in a novel anti-insurgent operation that plays out nightly in Baghdad and throughout much of Iraq. U.S. intelligence and defense officials credit the operation and its unusual tactics — involving small, hybrid teams of special forces and intelligence officers — with the capture of hundreds of suspected terrorists and their supporters in recent months. . . .
The “fusion cells” are being described as a major factor behind the declining violence in Iraq in recent months. Defense officials say they have been particularly effective against AQI, which has lost 10 senior commanders since June in Baghdad alone, including Uthman. . . .
The rapid strikes are coordinated by the Joint Task Force, a military-led team that includes intelligence and forensic professionals, political analysts, mapping experts, computer specialists piloting unmanned aircraft, and Special Operations troops. After decades of agency rivalries that have undermined coordination on counterterrorism, the task force is enjoying new success in Iraq with its blending of diverse military and intelligence assets to speed up counterterrorism missions.
For starters this piece is likely to launch an investigation of a security breach. The article discloses some highly classified information. I will not tell you what, but whoever talked to the authors of this piece are likely to be in some hot water.
There is a major, but little understood difference, between Special Operations forces and Special Forces aka “Green Beret.” The average layperson, and even many military folks, assume that Special Operations forces and Green Beret forces are one and the same. You can see an example of this with Pat Lang, who has a piece up today riffing off of the article above. Pat writes:
There are now effectively five US military services; Army, Marine Corps; Navy, Air Force and Special Operations Forces (SOF).
The SOF “service” is still somewhat dependent on the older services for personnel and other residual support, but increasingly the money is contained in their own appropriations, their equipment is procured in their own channels and the people think of themselves as SOF “operators,” rather than soldiers, a breed apart from the common herd. The marines have finally been pressured into creating a marine component of the SOF, but are trying hard to keep their men from being absorbed into this new thing. I wish them luck. The process of the SOF service absorption of those parts and people that are wanted from US Army Special Forces (Green Berets) has been underway for some time. There is little doubt as to what the outcome will be in that process.
The SOF “service” had its origins in the creation of anti-terrorist commando forces in the ’70s. At about the same time, Congress created “Special Operations Command,” a headquarters built to advocate the cause of those same anti-terrorist commandos. That heaquarters has now become a center of operational control. This “pairing” remained a small and little employed creation until 9/11. That event caused the sunlight to shine on these “plants,” and they have grown enormously ever since.
The SOF forces operate on a largely stove-piped (vertically integrated) basis around the world with a single minded mandate to hunt down and kill terrorists and terrorist leaders and that is very largely all they do. They have no other function. War is more than that, but they seem blind to that fact. “Special Operations” used to encompass a whole panoply of sophisticated approaches to conflict. There seems to be little left of that other than lip service. Think about that before you “sound off.”
Pat makes some valid points but is wrong in claiming the SOF forces “have no other function” than to “hunt down and kill terrorists.” In fact, SOF has and does perform other missions outside of hunting and killing terrorists but they are classified. Pat is right in raising a question about whether SOF ops in Iraq have turned the tide and made the difference. As detailed in the Washington Post article there appears to be no argument that SOF has killed and captured key Al Qaeda personnel. But has this been the key to reducing most of the violence in Iraq?
That is the point Pat makes implicitly that should be emphasized. While SOF has done some terrific work it is not the reason we are seeing a major decline in attacks. Most of the violence over the last three years was carried out by Sunni insurgent groups operating independently of the Al Qaeda folks and Shia groups retaliating against those Sunni groups. The reduction in violence that we are witnessing in Iraq is more a consequence of a Special Forces (aka Green Beret) strategy rather than a SOF strategy. Both are necessary and both have achieved success.
What is a Green Beret approach? It involves integrating with local communities, living with those communities, training personnel from those communities, and enabling those forces to conduct the operations required to protect and defend their home territory. And that is what has happened. It was not the “Surge” per say that saved the day. In fact, Pat Laing deserves a lot of credit for producing a study of Iraq tribes three years ago that became a foundation for refocusing the U.S. military mission in Iraq to a Green Beret counter insurgency operation.
But all of the military activity does not fix the political problems of who holds power in Iraq. Our military activities have created an opening. While we can rightly celebrate a decline in violence we should not kid ourselves that the Government of Prime Minister Maliki represents a point of view that is sympathetic to U.S. strategic goals in the Middle East. In fact, Maliki’s Iraq is closely aligned with Iran and will continue to be so for the forseeable future.
The questions both McCain and Obama need to answer is where do we go next in Iraq to achieve strategic objectives such as preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, containing radical Islamists, and ensuring a free, unfettered flow of oil from the region. Those are the issues that will be on our plate as a country over the next four years.
(Release: November 13)
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As the parent of a SOF, I would also like to say that he will be the first to tell you that the surge did and is working because what they fail to mention in this article is that the locals were afraid. Afraid to stand up for theirselves because they didn’t know who they could trust. With more of our boots on the ground it gave them more courage, more security. IT ALL WORKED IN TANDEM. Now, rightfully it started out with one small sunni group and we helped to carry it to lots of groups. But it did work because we did help to give them the safety and the strength in numbers to achieve what they were looking for. I get tired of hearing Obama say it didn’t work. That it didn’t achieve what it was suppose to. He would have rather us do nothing, but listen to him bloviate. I sit here at home and hear that and I get pissed. I know what I know because I am a proud parent of one who was there.
Here is a video of Obama on the campaign trail referring to himself as President.
I thought this was illegal. Do you think it was subliminal moment?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgr2jyYrvLk
Did you notice that all of the post below this video were negative, maybe people are waking up.
I thought exactly what you have stated. In any state, it would be impossible to implement even a semblance of a civil society without a sense of security within the populace. The surge accomplished that, and from a sense of safety and security, the different groups began to act.
Ohio, thank you for your son. I think if I were an average Iraqi I too would have been afraid to know who to trust and the added troops helped them make that decision. But this administration has distorted, lied, and bungled so often that when something works the public is reluctant to believe it.
The next step is to get the Iraqi Government to get with it. I want the Iraqis taking care of their own with little assistance from our men and women. We need them elsewhere.
Wow – a completely policy-heavy, thoughtful, engaging article, with good recommendations and implicitly pointing out flaws in BOTH McCain and Obama’s Iraq policies. I guess there’s only one comment because this doesn’t mention sexism, Jeremiah Wright, or use the name “Barry Soetoro” or something else similarly clever.
For anyone else interested in the way things COULD have gone in Iraq – including, I think, some good examples of how the “Green Beret” approach was repeatedly nixed by Don Rumsfeld and his cadre – I really recommend George Packer’s The Assassin’s Gate and the amazing documentary No End In Sight.
Each work documents that no matter what you think of the DECISION to go into war, there was always a possibility that we could have exited Iraq responsibly long ago, if the policymakers had half a clue what was happening.
Here is a real headliner: “Why is Obama allowing so many young die from inter-city wars in Chicago ?”
There were nearly twice as many gun shot deaths in Chicago , IL this summer of 2008 than in Iraq during the same time frame. see link for details
http://cbs2chicago.com/local/chicago.summer.shootings.2.810166.html
Guess how many total gun shot deaths in Chicago in the last 5 years. What kind of war is Obama not winning in Chicago ?
Here is the second part of the story:
Chicagoan’s for Palin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1w9dSpgFbU
Each work documents that no matter what you think of the DECISION to go into war, there was always a possibility that we could have exited Iraq responsibly long ago, if the policymakers had half a clue what was happening.
Thank you.
I have been slammed by my own leftist friends for years now for making the statement that whether we should have gone in or not, to simply pack up and go home with no PLAN as to the effects of that was JUST as irresponsible as rushing in was. It is no wiser, and no more moral.
I was, of course, called a dirty bloodthirsty warmonger with a yen for unachievable victory. I am no warmonger, I’m a staunch Liberal, but I am not stupid. I was talking about not going off half-cocked, whether going in or getting out.
The response was fingers in ears – “Lalalalalalala! No war!”
You are the wisest one of your friends. After the US executed this “preemptive” strike, which I was totally against, we had no choice but to try to finish what was started, and in an honorable way. Remember that Colin Powell warned that “you break it, you buy it” or something to that effect. We had a moral duty to try to leave the country with their own government in place.
And we must remember, it wasn’t only the Republicans that voted for the resolution to give Bush the permission to go in if all else failed. Now, Mr. Obama can claim all he wants that he was against it. Well so was I. But he wasn’t in the Senate and didn’t place a vote against it. He also said he was against FISA, but when it came down to an opportunity to take the stand he was campaigning on, he voted IN FAVOR OF FISA. So, we’ll never know how he would have voted, do we? If we go according to his record, we can believe that he would have voted “Yea” with the majority of his fellow Congressmen.
Sometime I would like to know the definition of a staunch liberal.
Maybe we can have that conversation sometime. An old-time FDR Democrat and proud of it, like me, is not the same thing as these juvenile fauxgressives wanting to play king-of-the-hill with my party, these whining children of the corn with their toy Youth Revolution trying to stage a coup.
I tried very hard to point out the sheer arrogance of the “pull out NOW” agenda. They bitched and moaned that it was arrogant of Bush to ignore the “more inspections” part of the resolution, and go charging into another country. And it was.
But how is it not JUST as selfishly US-centric and arrogant to then say to those people whose country you have just destroyed: “Oops. We never should have done this. Our bad. We’re going home now so no more of us die, because we really really hate bloodshed. Have fun killing each other in the shambles of your society. Bye now!”
My GOD, that is as arrogant and selfish as it comes!
you break it, you
buyown it”Bull in a China Shop. In Powelss case it was the Pottery Barn. They were not thrilled by the reference.
ANd look who they get as their VP?
A man who voted for the Iraq Resolution, just as Hillary had and she had been beaten up and smashed to bits with it.
McCain has a son in the military. Obama does not. I believe and always have believed that McCain will run the military as if HE were still in. McCain knows how ugly war can be. LEt’s not forget how McCain criticized Bush on torture of prisoners and as a veteran of Gulf War I, I respected Maverick McCain’s decision on this war issue, afterall, McCain was a POW, too.
Obama doesn’t know his head from his ass. He is a junior senator who wants the most powerful position in the world. The fact that Obama lives only a few blocks from Bill Ayers (the unrepentant terrorist) is unnerving to me. The fact that Obama and Bill Ayers are friends is also unnerving.
I don’t believe Obama will America’s best interest. I believe Obama wants to promote himself because of his ego. If Obama had no “ego”, he would have promoted Hillary Clinton to the #2 position as VEEP. Fact is, Hillary wasn’t on Obama’s VEEP short list, and he is going to pay dearly for that mistake.
Fact is, Obama is full of horseshit. The grasshopper needs to finish school and finish his term as junior senator, because the #1 position in our land is not a position in which the unqualified person should receive on the job training.
P.S. Oprah turned out to be quite the hypocrite for women issues, didn’t she? Apparently she doesn’t want to interview the first Republican VEEP nominee. This is history! We have our very first women VEEP nominee! Do you guys realize how excited we are about that!?
The core group of obama supporters seem to have gone insane. I’m a pretty good judge of character, and even though i don’t “know” oprah I never ever felt that she had the propensity to act like that. And quite frankly I am a pessimist, so flaws of character is what i look for first. the first time I KNEW Wasn’t going to vote for obama was during a debate, when he said ” when I am president” during a debate during the early primaries. And when he said I’m not running for vice president. Like that was a bad thing. Arrogance is a danger character flaw, it’s what caused 9/11 and it’s what caused the war in iraq. so after bush and the gang i was not about to elect someone who lacked the ability to realize they don’t have all the answers. And everything else was built on that foundation of my aversion to arrogance. but oprah had a certain graciousness to her that made her seem not that bad. I’m serious she’s and alot of people have changed. it’s like you are looking at toatally different people and even somewhat frightening. oprah audience are white middle class females, and yet she seems to do everything to tick them off. when obama said he didn’t believe jesus was the only way to god, she then chimed in as well parroting him. And while i may not boycott their show, when John Lenin said that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus, people had a fit. so why would she bring it up on her show. During a rally when women came and asked her why she didnt vote for hillary, her reply was that she’s a free black woman. I mean really! I”m a free black woman too. But if I had a television show that was highly popular among women who loved Hillary I think I would have been able to come up with something a litte less militant. the only thing I can thin of to explain this is that obama is a charismatic leader, and do to the fact that we know live in such a shallow society even people like oprah are looking for their next emotional fix. and because obama gives them that they flock to him in droves. to insult obama is to insult them. It’s odd and somewhat frightening, because you never know what his followers will do.
I will never forget McCain’s stand on torture, I have a real letter from the Senator, when I voiced my concern over the very issue, during the first two year’s of the war, my son’s first tour. The horror of the contractors that were murdered. I was insane with a mother’s fear. Senator McCain wrote a decent, heart felt letter to me which is the same words he uses today. He cared, he was able to relay that feeling of compassion and care with a logic and determination. He showed me respect, and understanding.
What I am trying to say is I ranted and raved in a letter to Senator McCain, and he in turn treated me with kindness, compassion and understanding. Sometimes parents(mother in this case) of soldiers are not reasonable, I was just operating on fear. He could have ignored me, he didn’t; I think having been a soldier, he had that understand of what a family goes through, perhaps his own mother as well. It makes a difference in perception, how that individual is valued, as one human being to another, nothing less.
Larry,
Thank you for this post. I also appreciate ohio’s observations.
Yours,
SM
Larry, I remember reading Churchill’s letter about Iraq years ago…and when we invaded I knew we were in for a long drawn out mess. Whenever I hear people talk about “VICTORY” in such black and white terms, I wonder what the hell people are smoking. This is the Middle East for Christ sake.
Oprah can do what she wants with her show. Who cares? She has proven herself to be less than valid in any discussion on national events. She lives in Chicago and knows well what Rezko did and that Rezko is linked to Obama; she knows well what Rev. Wright is about (she attended his church in the past) and she knows what a community organizer is all about –(nothing much.)And NOW, all of America knows what Oprah’s about. She’s rendered her voice meaningless by supporting a novice like Obama for the highest office in the land.
I wonder if she ever drives through the South Side to see how successful Obama’s hope and change mantra worked for the residents there.
NOW THAT IS AN AD I WANT TO SEE!!!
COME ON REPUBS—–
DO AN AD SHOWING THE SOUTH SIDE OF CHICAGO
AND DUB OVER OBAMA’S HOPE AND CHANGE SHTICK!!!
Good point!
here is more information on the dem liar, anti american who is running for change, yeah change to communism, radical islam..
he has been set up by many for years to do this, and many pretenders are helping him
Obama Had Close Ties to Top Saudi Adviser at Early Age
By Online Thursday, September 4, 2008
New evidence has emerged that Democratic presidential candidateBarack Obama was closely associated as early as age 25 to a key adviser to a Saudi billionaire who had mentored the founding members of the Black Panthers.
By: Kenneth R. Timmerman WorthyNews.com 9-3-8
In a videotaped interview this year on New York’s all news cable channel NY1, a prominent African-American businessman and political figure made the curious disclosures about Obama. (See Video Clip Below)
Percy Sutton, the former borough president of Manhattan, off-handedly revealed the unusual circumstances about his first encounter with the young Obama.
“I was introduced to (Obama) by a friend who was raising money for him,” Sutton told NY1 city hall reporter Dominic Carter.
“The friend’s name is Dr. Khalid al-Mansour, from Texas,” Sutton said. “He is the principal adviser to one of the world’s richest men. He told me about Obama.”
Sutton, the founder of Inner City Broadcasting, said al-Mansour contacted him to ask a favor: Would Sutton write a letter in support of Obama’s application to Harvard Law School?
“He wrote to me about him,” Sutton recalled. “And his introduction was there is a young man that has applied to Harvard. I know that you have a few friends up there because you used to go up there to speak. Would you please write a letter in support of him?”
Sutton said he acted on his friend al-Mansour’s advice.
“I wrote a letter of support of him to my friends at Harvard, saying to them I thought there was a genius that was going to be available and I certainly hoped they would treat him kindly,” Sutton told NY1.
Sutton did not say why al-Mansour was helping Obama, how he discovered him, or from whom he was raising money on Obama’s behalf.
A Sutton aide told Newsmax that Sutton, 88, is ailing and is unlikely to do additional TV interviews in the near future. The aide could not provide additional comment for this story.
As it turned out, Obama did attend Harvard Law School after graduating from Columbia University inNew York and doing a stint as a community organizer in Chicago.
The New York Times described how transformative his Harvard experience became for the youngObama: “He arrived there as an unknown, Afro-wearing community organizer who had spent years searching for his identity; by the time he left, he had his first national news media exposure, a book contract and a shot of confidence from running the most powerful legal journal in the country.”
The details of Obama’s academic performance are well known: At Harvard, Obama rose to academic distinction becoming the editor of the Harvard Law Review and graduating magna cum laude.
Less known are the reasons al-Mansour, an activist African-American Muslim, would be a key backer for a young man from Hawaii seeking to attend the most Ivy of the Ivy League law schools.
Khalid al-Mansour a.k.a. Don Warden
In an exclusive interview with Newsmax from his home in San Antonio, Texas, al-Mansour said he would not comment specifically on the statement by Percy Sutton because he was afraid anything he said would get “distorted.”
“I was determined I was never going to be in that situation,” he said. “Bloggers are saying this is the new Rev. Wright — in drag! — and he is a nationalist, racist, and worse than Rev. Wright. So any statement that I made would only further this activity which is not in the interest of Barack.”
But in the lengthy interview, al-Mansour confirmed that he frequently spoke on university campuses, including Columbia, where Percy Sutton suggested he met Obama in the late 1980s, and confirmed his close relationship with Prince Alwaleed.
“I am not surprised to learn about this,” said Niger Innis, spokesman of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). “It is clear that Barack Obama’s ties to the left are familial, generational, and have lasted for several years.”
Although many Americans have never heard of Khalid Abdullah Tariq al-Mansour (his full name), he is well known within the black community as a lawyer, an orthodox Muslim, a black nationalist, an author, an international deal-maker, an educator, and an outspoken enemy of Israel.
A graduate of Howard University with a law degree from the University of California, al-Mansour sits on numerous corporate boards, including the Saudi African Bank and Chicago-based LaGray Chemical Co. LaGray, which was formed to do business in Africa, counts former Nigerian President GeneralAbdusalam Abubakar on its advisory board.
He also sits on the board of the non-profit African Leadership Academy, along with top McCain for President adviser Carly Fiorina, and organized a tribute to the President of Ghana at the Clinton White House in 1995, along with pop star Michael Jackson.
But his writings and books are packed with anti-American rhetoric reminiscent of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s disgraced former pastor.
In a 1995 book, “The Lost Books of Africa Rediscovered,” he alleged that the United States was plotting genocide against black Americans.
The first “genocide against the black man began 300 years ago,” he told an audience in Harlem at a book-signing, while a second “genocide” was on the way “to remove 15 million Black people, considered disposable, of no relevance, value or benefit to the American society.”
In the 1960s, when he founded the African American Association in the San Francisco Bay area, he was known as Donald Warden.
According to the Social Activism Project at the University of California at Berkley, Warden, a.k.a.Khalid al-Mansour, was the mentor of Black Panther Party founder Huey Newton and his cohort, Bobby Seale.
Newton later had a falling out with Warden, who was described in a 1994 book as “the most articulate spokesperson for black nationalism” at the time.
The falling out wasn’t purely political, according to author Hugh Pearson.
“Sometimes Newton and the other members of (Warden’s) security detail got into fights with young whites who didn’t like what Warden had to say about whites. Rather than ‘throw down’ along with the security detail, Warden refused to fight,” Pearson wrote in “Shadow of the Panther: Huey Newton and the Price of Black Power in America.”
U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee of California entered an official statement of appreciation of Warden and his Black Panther colleagues in the African-American Association in the Congressional Record on April 23, 2007.
“Among the founding members (of the Association) were community leaders such as Khalid Al-Mansour(known then as Don Warden); future Judges Henry Ramsey and Thelton Henderson; future Congressman and Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, and future Black Panthers Huey Newton and Bobby Seale,” the Democratic representative’s statement said.
Al-Mansour’s more recent videotaped speeches focus on Muslim themes, and abound with anti-Semitic theories and anti-Israel vitriol.
“Today, the Palestinians are being brutalized like savages,” he told an audience in South Africa. “If you protest you will go to jail, and you may be killed. And they say they are the only democratic country in the Middle East. … They are lying on God.”
He accused the Jews of “stealing the land the same way the Christians stole the land from the Indians in America.”
The Saudi Connection
But al-Mansour’s sponsorship of Obama as a prospective Harvard law student is important for another reason beyond his Islamic and anti-American rhetoric and early Black Panther ties.
At the time Percy Sutton, a former lawyer for Malcolm X and a former business partner of al-Mansour, says he was raising money for Obama’s graduate school education, al-Mansour was representing top members of the Saudi Royal family seeking to do business and exert influence in the United States.
In 1989, for example — just one year after Obama entered Harvard Law School — The Los Angeles Times revealed that al-Mansour had been advising Saudi billionaires Abdul Aziz and Khalid al-Ibrahimin their secret effort to acquire a major stake in prime oceanfront property in Marina del Rey, Calif., through “an elaborate network of corporate shells in California, the Caribbean and Europe.”
At the same time, he was also advising Prince Alwaleed bin Talal in his U.S. investments, and sits on the board of his premier investment vehicle, Kingdom Holdings.
Prince Alwaleed, 53, is the nephew if King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia. Forbes magazine ranked him this year as the 19th richest person on the planet, with a fortune in excess of $23 billion. He owns large chunks of Citigroup and News Corp., the holding company that controls Fox News.
He is best known in the United States for his offer to donate $10 million to help rebuild downtownManhattan after the 9/11 attacks. But after the prince made a public comment suggesting that U.S.policies had contributed to causing the attacks, Mayor Rudy Giuliani handed back his check.
“I entirely reject that statement,” Giuliani said. “There is no moral equivalent for this (terrorist) act. There is no justification for it. The people who did it lost any right to ask for justification for it when they slaughtered 4,000 or 5,000 innocent people.”
Since then, Prince Alwaleed’s Kingdom Foundation has given millions of dollars to Muslim charities in the United States, including several whose leaders have been indicted on terrorism-related charges in federal courts.
He also has given tens of millions of dollars to Harvard and other major U.S. universities, to establish programs in Islamic studies.
The casual statement by Percy Sutton to NY1 is the first time anyone has hinted at a relationship between Obama and the Saudi royal family.
Although al-Mansour glosses over his ties to the Saudi mega-billionaire in some of his public talks, he has represented the Saudi’s interests in the United States, in Britain, and in Africa for more than a quarter century, according to public records.
He told Newsmax that he has personally introduced Prince Alwaleed to “51 of the 53 leaders of Africa,” traveling from country to country on the Saudi prince’s private jet.
He knows virtually every black leader in America, from the business community, to community activists, to the worlds of politics and entertainment.
When Michael Jackson was on the ropes in the mid-1990s following a series of lawsuits by the parents of children accusing him of sexual abuse, al-Mansour introduced him to Prince Alwaleed, whose Kingdom Entertainment signed a joint venture with Jackson in 1996.
“Jackson and Alwaleed became pals in 1994, when a mutual friend from Alwaleed’s college days inCalifornia arranged a lunch meeting aboard the prince’s yacht in Cannes,” Time magazine reported about the new partnership in 1997.
The mutual friend was al-Mansour.
“As a black American, I am exceedingly proud at the American people’s response to Barack Obama’scandidacy,” said CORE’s Niger Innis. “But to deny that he has long-standing ties to left-wing elements in our polity is to deny reality. If you want to be president of the United States, it is not racism if you ask these kind of questions, and he has to come up with an answer, hopefully the truth.”
Sutton gives no clues as to why al-Mansour would be raising money to help Obama go to law school.Obama has said during his campaign that he paid his way through Harvard with student loans.
For Jesse Lee Peterson, founder of the Los Angeles-based Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND), these latest revelations about Obama’s ties to Saudi financiers were an important wake-up call.
“To me, this opened up more questions about Barack Obama and his relationship to the Muslim world,” Peterson told Newsmax.
“A lot of people are caught up with the emotional aspect of Barack Obama, the movie star aspect, the false promises that he’s going to take care of everyone and their Mama.”
But when the full story of Obama’s ties to radical preachers such as Wright and to black Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan comes out, Peterson believes that Obama’s star power will fade.
“I think there’s more to this story and to Barack Obama than we realize,” Peterson said. “As all the truth comes out before the election, I don’t think he has a chance. I can’t see American’s taking that kind of risk.”
The Obama campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
Dude, not everything is about hating Obama. This article that you’re spamming, for instance.
I don’t think any of hate Obama, none of us has ever met him. Most of us just don’t want Obama in the DECIDER job. You ever hear the phrase “Birds of a Feather Flock Together”?? Well it’s true, drug users hang with other drug users, gays and Bi’s hang with other gays or Bi’s and America haters find other America haters to hang with and share ideas, like Obama and Bill Ayers. Obama has never done anything is his life, but he did write 2 books about it, I feel sorry for you.
OBAMA SCARE!!!
“We’re not going to be bullied, we’re not going to be smeared, we’re not going to be lied about,” Obama said. “I don’t believe in coming in second.”
http://wcbstv.com/campaign08/bon.jovi.obama.2.811125.html
Bullied? Once again, Obama plays the Victim Card!
And last night —
Bon Jovi and his wife, Dorothea, hosted more than 100 people for dinner on their mansion lawn by the Navesink River in Middletown, N.J. The price was $30,800 a person, to be divided between the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
snip
Earlier in the evening, Obama attended a $2,300-per-person reception at the nearby home of veteran party fundraiser Phil Murphy. About 200 people, including the Bon Jovis and New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, attended.
The truth on the ground in Iraq, I fear, is that the whole place will descend into chaos as soon as their free $10 billion-a-month police force up and leaves. This is because none of the violently opposing factions have gone away. They’ve just been separated into their respective corners. The question on our end seems to be how long we’re willing to pay $10 billion-a-month to keep that from happening. And how long we can afford to.
number one, i don’t trust anyone who won’t give a name. If you make an accusation you should have the balls to back it up and face the person you are accusing. Number for some reason that hardly sounds even remotely like someone who has a child that has down syndrome would say. Because Downs children have distinct features that makes them look different, so why would she make a racial motivated remark. I’m not saying that people with special needs children aren’t bigots but i would think they would be little more sensitive to feelings of others. Also Lincoln wanted blacks to go back to africa. how many people in here don’t like Lincoln, and LBJ is rumoured to have said before signing the Civil Rights act “if we sign it the N*ggers will vote for us loyalty for twenty years. so yeah i still like palin. maybe if some reporters hadn’t lied so much they would have clout with me.
McCain/Palin is like Bush/Cheney, but even worse.
I’m not voting for theocracy.
And Obama is Carter lite. I lived through that and I don’t want a repeat.
Then you must be a big fan of both Obama and Bush’s faith-based initiatives.
I have never heard McCain talk about god. However this brings to man something Benjamin Franklin said. He who will give up his freedom for safety deserves neither.
>>>I’m not voting for theocracy.
Yeah it’s worse! You’re voting for Black Liberation Theology.
Obama/Wright08
Heh. “Theocracy” must be today’s talking point. I guess it’s because McCain whipped ass at that evangelical megachurch.
Interesting that a “individual” would talk about some of the “items” in this report.
Question; does the reporter writing this Article bear any legal jeopardy or consequences? There is a limit to the shield law and it ends when reporting “stuff” can get people killed. I believe the information can be imparted in such a way as to inform the reader but leave certain details out.
The other item that was not mentioned is that while the Anbar Provence has changed, it required paying people. This model is similar to what Hamas does in So Lebanon. When we leave so will the money. Who’s cow will be the subject of violence then?
Question; what would BO supporters think if they knew this was happening domestically and for all BO’s words he still votes for it?
Thanks for the bringing it up Mr. Johnson.
For all those who serve in these capacities, stay frosty; you have my deepest regard.
IT is a valid question and one I believe, needs an answer; not some general feel good bs lines, how about some reality; there are a lot of us who have family there, and a lot who have lost a great deal in this war too. Our country as a whole has lost face, and to walk away is to pretend something isn’t there with magical thinking, much like when a three year old closes their eyes, when they are afraid, and thinks the monster is gone. There isn’t only one monster, some think Iran is a new monster, some think we are the monster, and some think the separate sects are the monsters; there are plenty versions to go around.
I honestly don’t know Obama’s policy regarding this. I have heard McCain talk about political reconciliation as a means to help the Iraq’s become independent in governing and protecting their own country. There is also great financial turmoil as we all know the ones with the big bucks have more pull; I think it would be a good idea to have someone who may actually be able to hear the U.S. again when asking for help in Iraq, we have alienated a lot governments, into not wanting to help with where Iraq is now. We stepped in it, and honestly do own it. Perhaps the next president needs to be just a bit more responsible when voicing the need for support in getting Iraq on it’s feet, as well as keeping the terrorists at bay from outside/yet close-by areas, so as not to have the ability to re-create the initial problem, yet again.
This is where we are, no matter how we got here, there is an active loss of violence, but this could be temporary, the military commanders know it. It is only as strong as the desire of the Iraq’s to want their country back in their hands. It may have to keep being done one portion at a time, to see how it holds and if it holds. It will only hold if it has support, and protection.
This war has turned from just ass kicking to a hearts and minds war. This change in Iraq is fragile but, like the surge, can bring tremendous advantage for the Iraqi’s if they can keep the peace long enough to enjoy it. Once that happens, they’ll want to keep it for themselves. Its not easy and not fast, but it can happen. Northern Ireland is somewhat of an example.
I wish someone would delete all the spam posts on this thread, and we could then have a redo and a serious discussion of what Mr. Johnson has written.
I am getting really pissed at all the juvenile bullshit!
Misd, it’s a way to get us off topic, we ignore and continue the discussion, as best we can. I have noticed on various O sites that is the way of most conversations, very little actual thoughtful discourse beyond the need to raise money.
We haven’t had an honest debate about the war because the real reasons for the war were unspeakable. So Bush made up a lot of stupid reasons, and we poked holes in his stupid reasons. But the whole debate was bullshit on both sides. A bit back, Krugman said this: ‘Remember how the Iraq war was sold. The stuff about aluminum tubes and mushroom clouds was just window dressing. The main political argument was, “They attacked us, and we’re going to strike back” — and anyone who tried to point out that Saddam and Osama weren’t the same person was an effete snob who hated America.” I think Paul is filling in his memory here. That was not the main argument for the war, but it was the unspoken subtext. Not even Rush Limbaugh would just come out and say, ‘I know Saddam and Osama aren’t the same person. But they are the same religion, and we’re going to punish an Islamic country for the actions of an Islamic terror group. Al Queada has to get the message that if a non-state actor hits us with WMDs, we’ll hit a Muslim state with WMDs.” Killing millions for the actions of their government, as we promised in the Cold War, is horrible, but we were upfront about it. But killing millions because they share a religion with Bin Laden — Bush can’t say that is our policy, even though I think it is.
Letterman gets into it with O’Reilly. Letterman supported the war at first because ‘we had to do something.’ Do something? He means do something to somebody, he just can’t be honest that he wanted to punch a Muslim nation in the nose for 9/11. Now he’s pulling these Michael Moore arguments out of his ass. Michael Moore can make those arguments because he never supported the war. Letterman is full of sh*t. We’re not in Iraq because people like O’Reilly and Hannity supported the war. We’re in Iraq because people like Letterman supported the war.
Though I opposed the war from the start, I’m still a little ambivalent because we never openly debated a deterrent strategy for non-state actors. We need one. I don’t know if Iraq is it, but we do need one. We debated M.A.D. Out of that debate, we learned about nuclear winter and exposed the fallacy of ‘limited war.’ On Iraq, we make fun of the bullshit reasons, but we don’t debate the real reasons. Like Strangelove said, “the whole point of a Doomsday machine is lost if nobody knows about it. Why didn’t you tell the world?”
Al Queada has to get the message that if a non-state actor hits us with WMDs, we’ll hit a Muslim state with WMDs
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If that were the case then why Iraq? Saddam was into wine, women, and song not prayer five times a day. UBL though Saddam was a bad Muslim.
Its always been a question to me also and this is just a guess but, since there was technically still a war going on with Iraq and I think that smacking somebody was on about everyone’s lips. I think that it was Saddam’s bad luck to be a mass murderer, the father of mass murderers, and the leader of a military who raped its way across Kuwait at just the wrong time.
What I wanted to see was somebody assassinate Saddam, thus allowing us to meet the new boss and explain that he better not be like the old boss. However, Congress decided, in its infinite wisdom to deny our CIA and Military that capability.
That choice to deny our government the means to surgically remove leaders of nations who want to harm us, in effect commit acts of war on us, has cost us dearly.
In Desert Storm, a Special Forces recon team had Saddam in their sights and were ordered not to shoot. What if they’d popped him? His sons wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes and the remaining generals had already figured it out.
I don’t know the answer but do think that the law which handcuffs our operations in this scary world needs to be undone.
What our leaders aren’t telling us but they should, is that Iraq will never be “won” completely until the Islamic Republic of Iran is no longer controlled by insane shia clerics.
Good thread. Thanks to all.
A historical note– the Air Force, Army, and Marines were running operations jointly in 1968-1970 that were very similar to SOF. My son is also in a SOF and many, like him, are Air Force.
One of the more interesting lines in the Post article was this, “Sunni leaders also objected to AQI’s takeover of smuggling routes and black-market enterprises long controlled by local chiefs.”
Follow the money.
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