Middle East

This exchange from a Senate hearing yesterday about how and why the Army dropped the ball on the Fort Hood shooter is worth reading:

Sen. Lieberman: . . . . General Keane, do you -- and obviously this is speculation but the military is most sensitive of any organization I know to any taint or allegation or impression of being discriminatory which is appropriate. Do you think that political correctness may have played some role in the fact that these dots were not connected?

Gen. Keane: Yes, absolutely and also I think a factor here is Hasan's position as an officer and also his position as a psychiatrist contributed to that because of the special category I think someone who's operating as a clinician every day treating patients is in in the military. It's an individual activity versus a group activity which provides considerably more supervision in squads, platoons, companies and the like inside our units.

So there's no doubt in my mind that that was operating here. But in fairness to many of the people who are associating with him, based on what preliminary research I have done and I think what the committee is doing, I think we're going to find very clearly that we do not have specific guidelines on dealing with Jihadist extremism in terms of the obligations of the members of the military to identify a reported and what actions to take and what constitutes Jihadist extremists itself.

So that you take some of this burden away from people by having those guidelines and when you have those guidelines in place you are clearly saying to the institution that this is important to us, we are not going to tolerate this kind of behavior and we want to identify with immediately to try to curb the behavior through counseling and rehabilitation and if necessary separate that individual from the service if it cannot be curbed.

Sen. McCain: I have talked to military officers who have stated that they at least up until now have had a significant reluctance to pursue what may be these indications because of this political correctness environment. Have you heard the same?

Gen. Keane: Well I know it exists, no doubt about it, and what I'm trying to say is is that the way to deal with that -- it shouldn't have to be an act of moral courage on behalf of a soldier to have to report behavior that we should not be tolerating inside our military organizations. It should be an obligation. The way to make that an obligation is provide very specific guidelines through the chain of command as to what their duties are in regards to this issue. That takes this issue -- begins to take this issue off the table because the institution is speaking clearly in terms of what its expectations are and what it will tolerate and what it will not tolerate.

Sen. McCain: And perhaps err on the side of caution instead of erring on the side of correctness.

I think General Keane is pointing to a good way to help soldiers, and help the Army, akin to what Stu Herrington was talking about the other day in this blog.   

RoE warning: Look, I know the three people quoted above are not Democratic Party favorites. Even so, I don't want to see a bunch of ad hominem attacks on Keane, McCain and Lieberman. If you want to do that, take it outside to another blog. This is a sensitive, difficult subject. It is easy to rant about this. But that is not what we need. I don't want name calling, I want to think about solutions here, as Keane does. ‘Nuff said?

Will Palmer/Flickr

Iraq's vice president, a Sunni Arab, says the recent killing of 13 people associated with a local political leader in eastern Anbar province was carried out by Iraqi army troops commanded by Colonel Raheem Kareem Resan. This somewhat undercuts the "those crazy Anbaris and their wacky tribal disputes" line previously issued by the Baghdad government.

Also someone is bombing the houses of policemen in Fallujah.

It looks to me like relations between Iraqi security forces and the people of al Anbar are deteriorating. If this is the wave of the future, fasten your seatbelts for 2010.

AZHAR SHALLAL/AFP/Getty Images

Someone killed 13 people in al Anbar province, many of them relatives of a leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party. Is this more pre-election jockeying, or what? The Baghdad government is calling it a tribal dispute. That may be true -- but it certainly is what I would say if I wanted to just chalk it up to those rowdy Anbaris.

Anybody got a clue as to what is happening in Anbar?

KHALIL AL-MURSHIDI/AFP/Getty Images

Steve Coll 'splains it.

Here are his four scary headings:

• The Nineties Afghan Civil War on Steroids
• Momentum for a Taliban Revolution in Pakistan
• Increased Islamist Violence Against India, Increasing the Likelihood of
  Indo-Pakistani War
• Increased al Qaeda Ambitions Against Britain and the United States

Several frequent posters need to read his whole article. You know who you are.

Photo: SHAH MARAI/AFP/Getty Images

The note below is from a friend, retired Army Col. Stuart Herrington, a veteran intelligence officer who wrote one of the best memoirs of the Vietnam War, Silence was a Weapon -- and who also blew a much-needed whistle in Iraq in 2004 about the abuse of prisoners.

My favorite anecdote in his Vietnam memoir is about the restaurateurs of Saigon who specialized in Hanoi cuisine and who complained about all the Viet Cong commanders he was driving into the city for lunch. Herrington's feeling was that they were hungry and homesick, and that a little bit of pho would go a long way. He was right, despite the discomfort of the restaurant owners.

Anyway, here is his take on what the Army needs to do after the Fort Hood incident. I think he offers a lot of common sense, as well as dollop of respect for Muslim soldiers in a difficult situation. I think the top brass needs to think about this was a way to protect American soldiers from violent extremists in their ranks:

I remember when we invaded Panama, and I led a team to investigate (via captured archival review and interrogations of detainees) if some of our soldiers stationed in Panama had been "co-opted" (i.e. recruited) by Noriega's intelligence service to give secret information about the US contingent stationed there. We found 35 cases from our investigation, of whom all but one were Hispanic GIs, or GIs with Panamanian wives who were working as civilians for US forces.

When I revealed these somewhat damning results to the J-2 and recommended that ethnic Hispanics, heavily targeted as they were, should receive a special security briefing when they signed in for duty, apprising them that they were particularly vulnerable and targeted when stationed there, the idea did not go over well with Southcom staffers and commanders, and that's putting it mildly. "We cannot insult our fine Hispanic-American soldiers," was the outcry. Sounds like a similar situation now exists with Muslim soldiers. 

Fear of "insulting" them causes the Army to circle the wagons, in spite of the obvious appeals being made now by al Qaeda-associated Imam that no soldier in the U.S. Army who is Muslim can faithfully be a Muslim while serving in a force that kills fellow Muslims. This is a serious situation, and someone needs to wake up. There are ways to handle these things that are not necessarily insulting and degrading to Muslim soldiers. In fact, what is insulting and degrading to them is the notion that they are not sufficiently professional to understand their vulnerability and accept common-sense measures to heighten vigilance and weed out problem soldiers -- like Maj. Nidal."

I think there is a great deal of common sense in Stu's note. I think his last three sentences need to be put in front of the Army chief of staff, the secretary of the Army, and the secretary of Defense. 

Will Palmer/Flickr

I didn't see this in my regular newspapers. It happened up in Baqubah. Police took two wounded, army apparently none. I don't know what it means. Maybe just a personal dispute, maybe more than that.

Photo:  ALI YUSSEF/AFP/Getty Images

I'm having a rough week with the Air Force, which is one of our military services.

Here is a note from Air Force Maj. Gen. Charles Dunlap. As he says, he is a longtime friend -- I've known him since he was a pup. But, expressing his personal views, he strongly disagrees with my comment yesterday about a smackdown between a PoW and a JAG:

You know I am a huge fan of yours, but I must say I'm saddened by your blog "Before you shoot your mouth off." Allow me to share some personal views.

I am not defending the former Army JAG (Mr. Kenniff), but it is a mistake to paint all JAGs as "REMFs."  The reason isn't hard to discern: re-establishing the rule of law has taken center stage as a key element of our counterinsurgency strategy, and that mission causes JAGs and paralegals to frequently find themselves in extremely dangerous places.  

Regardless, I don't think anyone serving in harms' way in Iraq (or Afghanistan) should be mocked based upon mistaken assumptions about their career field or the duties they perform. 

I have enormous respect for Shoshana Johnson for her service, and especially for the courage she showed as a POW.  And I don't think her career field should matter. She was a food service specialist with a vehicle maintenance company. By the definition your blog seems to use, does that make her a REMF? 

Actually, I don't believe that in today's wars there really are rear areas or, for that matter, REMFs as that term was originally conceived. 

I don't know Kenniff but I do respect that he spent a year in Iraq (as I also respect the month or so that Johnson spent there).  I don't know anything about Kenniff's service, but can you imagine anyone who spent a year in Iraq who did not come under at least indirect fire on more than one occasion? I can't. 

More to the point: I recently had the honor of awarding the Purple Heart to one of our young JAG officers who had her knee blown apart by an IED in Iraq (another JAG was also injured in the same attack, albeit less seriously). She also suffered a number of other lacerations, including a serious cut on her face. (As an aside, her mother told me she gave up pursuing a modeling career in New York to become lawyer). 

She showed enormous courage both at the time of the attack and subsequently. I was in the AOR that day, and spoke to her shortly after she arrived at the evac hospital at Balad. Despite her injuries, all she wanted to do is give me a MISREP (mission report), and tell me about the courage of others.

Her Veterans Day message (published in an internal JAG Corps online service) is attached. An earlier news report is found here.

People may think she is a REMF, but her particular duties required her to go outside the wire frequently. (Moreover, as I say, she is not the only JAG or paralegal wearing a Purple Heart.)

She has spent months in rehabilitation, and has many more to go.  Surgeons saved her leg, and she is very determined to walk again.  We are all praying for her. 

Tom, she was doing what her country asked her to do, and as a result she spent her 27th birthday in a hospital bed at Brooks Army Medical Center. (Cruelly, while in surgery there for her wounds, her money and her bank card were stolen from her hospital room.) And, unlike Shoshana Johnson, she doesn't have a book deal or Larry King appearances lined up. 

She does, however, have a wheelchair. She may be a "REMF" to your readers, but she is a hero to me.

Your friend and fan,

Charlie Dunlap

 Steve Thurow/ U.S. Air Force

So U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan (nee General) Eikenberry doesn't want to give Afghan President Karzai a blank check? No one does. But anyone paying attention knows that Eikenberry and Karzai have been like oil and water since Eikenberry was the top American general in Afghanistan. I think it was a bad move to put him in there as our top diplomat. In addition, because Eikenberry was sent to Kabul, that meant Chris Hill, who had been slated for that post, needed to be sent elsewhere, so he was given Baghdad -- which meant shoving aside Anthony Zinni, who already had been asked to go to Iraq, and instead sending Hill, who doesn't know squat about Iraq.

SHAH MARAI/AFP/Getty Images