Famous war correspondent lays out Chaz strategy compared to Taliban in Iraq

Michael Yon

 

USA and Europe: New Taliban Continue to Attack History:

Meanwhile in Seattle, etc., how long before IEDs appear in the Kill Box?

The Seattle Taliban will soon learn a lesson with their Chaz: Never seize terrain when you are not ready to keep it. Al Qaeda used to do this in Iraq. Often, at first, locals welcomed them or at least had little means to resist.

After some time, AQ would transition from smiles to rape and beheadings and the people would be for US forces to come kill AQ. Locals got especially pissed when AQ would steal cigarettes or force people to stop smoking.

AQ also had the habit of recruiting teenaged boys and arming them -- this led to many atrocities, and in the process, or later, to many dead boys.

Anyway, we would oblige and attack AQ strong points and if they resisted we happily killed them. Often captured, or they ran away. In any case, the illusion that they had seized land met the truth of broadsword.

Such as Operation Arrowhead Ripper: https://www.michaelyon-online.com/Table/Dispatches-by-Series/Operation-Arrowhead-Ripper/

Another big problem with seizing territory is that the relative monkey-brain required to seize a patch of treetops is a totally different ballgame from keeping people safe and happy. Civil governance takes real work, real brains, and real organization.

Important: Seizing terrain away from the Seattle Taliban is child's play. They are nothing. But this is not a battle for six or seven blocks of Seattle.

The battle is for the SUPPORT base.

In an insurgency, there are three main groups -- and a few others.

1) GF is the GUERRILLA FORCE: this is the hardcore that will fly from across the USA to join battle. GF tend to be full time. Usually GF is a small percentage of the effort. Fewer than even just a few percent.

In likelihood, GF are the core monkeys who led the "seizure" of the six trees in Seattle and named it Chaz.

2) AUXILIARY: Auxiliary are local fighters. Auxiliary comes out when the fight comes to their neighborhood or within easy distance. Auxiliary does not drive from Virginia to Seattle to fight, but they will walk out their doors in Seattle, or maybe even drive across the State. Bottomline is that Auxiliary will fight, but they are not full-timers. When GF come to town, "Aux" will join. Often, Aux will fight even if there is no GF present.

In Afghanistan, we called GF Taliban "Big T." Full-timers. They normally had great shoes, attended training in places like Pakistan, and would fight in many areas. "Little T" was Aux. Little T normally were farmers.

Most of our fighting in Afghanistan was against LITTLE T. Not Big T. Most of our fighting was against local people not far from their home villages.

But when you saw the big suicide attacks, such as that which attacked the Harriers at Camp Bastion, that was BIG T. That was GF Taliban.

I described that attack here:

https://www.michaelyon-online.com/afghanistan-when-the-moon-sets-watch-out.htm

Big T were supported in that attack by AUX and by SUPPORT.

***FORMATION OF Widespread Auxiliary is a sign of growing insurgency

3) SUPPORT: Generally, Support do not fight unless you kick down their door. They provide funding, logistics, funding, information war including art, political cover, safe houses, intelligence, and basically the other 90% of that it takes to fight.

====

This whole battle for the Six Trees of Chaz is about Support. They need to build a Support base. When GF and Aux rape, commit arson, murder, steal, they lose support and Support.

This is the tricky part. If President Trump is seen as being weak in the face of challenge, many people will automatically side with whom they think will win. If President Trump is seen as overreacting or underrating, he loses support.

My guess it that most Americans rightly intuit that they do not want a country without police. When Iraqis and Afghans fell into lawlessness, it was hell. They wanted ANYONE who would make them safe. This is largely why Taliban and associates will inherit Afghanistan, and why I started publishing in 2006 that they were winning. Taliban brought law and order even when most people hated them. They wanted something else, but Taliban was what they had to chose from on the menu.

Likewise in Iraq: often people invited in groups like AQ because locals wanted law and order, and suddenly realized they welcomed crocodiles to swim with their children.

These battles are not for physical terrain. They are for human terrain.

Remember: 99% of policing rests on voluntary compliance. If most of the local population refuses to cooperate with police, or attacks police, police will lose. Quickly. Likewise with National Guard. If locals -- AUX -- across wide swaths REALLY fight back, National Guard will be stretched out and decimated.

Our enemies are communists. There is only one good communist.

Be professional at all times. This is a battle for support from the Support. He who wins the support of the Support will win the war.

Stay within the law. Be polite. Be professional. Target only GF unless AUX joins. Any targeting of Support must be thought through such as top donors. Not the little old lady who leaves donuts for GF. Leave her alone.

BE PROFESSIONAL TO PRESS. Press will kick your ass.

Win.

#investinresilience

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/absurd-and-shameful-winston-churchill-statue-sealed-in-steel-ahead-of-protests-20200613-p55282.html

Five Top ISIS Officials Captured in U.S.-Iraqi Sting

NEW YORK TIMES:

Image

Iraqi state television broadcast images of four of the men arrested in the operation.

By Margaret Coker
May 9, 2018

BAGHDAD — Five senior Islamic State officials have been captured, including a top aide to the group’s leader, in a complex cross-border sting carried out by Iraqi and American intelligence, two Iraqi officials said Wednesday.

The three-month operation, which tracked a group of senior Islamic State leaders who had been hiding in Syria and Turkey, represents a significant intelligence victory for the American-led coalition fighting the extremist group and underscores the strengthening relationship between Washington and Baghdad.

READ MORE

ISIS in Iraq is defeated

In an address yesterday, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi formally announced that the more than three-year fight against the barbaric terror group is over after the country’s security forces drove the extremists from all of the territory they once held.

ISIS in Iraq is defeated.

Say what you will about this president, but his leadership on the ISIS front has been magnificent. The world’s most dastardly terrorist group has been largely destroyed under Trump’s leadership — and that’s no small feat.

The president let our military members — the best in the world — do what they do best. That is to destroy the enemy. And they did just that.

Trump empowered the generals on the front line to do what had to be done.

And they did.

READ MORE

1998 VIDEO: Bill Clinton recommends invading Iraq because of WMD

Post by Senior Airman Brian Kolfage.

Where did all the yellowcake go?

The answer will really scare you.

Revisionist History Prevails on Iraq Invasion

Do we remember that Bill Clinton signed into law the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 that supported regime change in Iraq? He gave an eloquent speech on the dangers of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

In 2002, both houses of Congress voted overwhelmingly to pass a resolution authorizing the removal of Saddam Hussein by force. Senators such as Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Harry Reid offered moving arguments on the Senate floor why we should depose Saddam in a post-9/11 climate.

Democratic stalwarts such as Sen. Jay Rockefeller and Rep. Nancy Pelosi lectured us about the dangers of Saddam's stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. They drew on the same classified domestic and foreign intelligence reports that had led Bush to call for Saddam's forcible removal.

READ MORE

Mystery solved

Saddam Hussein had WMD after all!

The American Humane Association’s 2012 Hero Dog of the Year, Gabe, has lost his battle with cancer and passed away on Wednesday.

VIDEO:
HEAVEN WAS NEEDING A HERO

"Dedicated to the life and love of God's sweet creation, Gabe. I wouldn't wish to shed an ounce of the pain your loss has left, if it meant never having the privilege of knowing you, as I did."

Gabe was rescued as a puppy from a Houston shelter just one day before he was going to be euthanized. He deployed to Iraq in 2006 with Sgt. 1st Class Charles “Chuck” Shuck. The two survived 210 combat missions. Last year Gabe retired and started campaigning for the Hero Dog of the Year. The award won thousands of dollars for the nonprofit United States War Dog Association, sending care packages to military dogs and their handlers fighting in Afghanistan. Gabe was 10-years-old when he passed away.

On Tuesday, Gabe stopped eating and Sgt. Shuck knew things weren’t right. He started to have difficulty breathing and was taken to the animal emergency hospital. Gabe had been suffering from hemangiosarcoma, cancer in his liver and spleen. The cancer had spread too far, and on Wednesday Gabe was put to rest after he was surrounded by his favorite toys, snacks and his medals. . .

Gabe’s final days accrued thousands in medical bills. Anyone wishing to donate to help with the costs can send money to Chuck and Gabe’s address at:

9574 Windsor Lake Boulevard

Columbia, SC 29223

All additional funds raised will go to other animals in need.

READ MORE

The Crazy Texan vs. The Smart Kenyan

Obama had gained attention as a critic of the Iraq War, squawking about necessary wars to small crowds of wealthy elderly Marxists from Chicago's upper crust champions of the red working class, but no sooner had he gotten out of Iraq than he was jumping up and down on the diving board and splashing down into Libya to show how much smarter and better he was at fighting unnecessary wars than that ignorant Texan who shot first and nuanced later.

George W. had told the American people that there was a vital American interest in stopping Saddam, from getting his hands on WMDs. Barack H. told the American people that "it was not in our national interest" to let Gaddafi capture Benghazi. What national interest was at stake in keeping Benghazi run by homicidal Islamist militias tied to Al Qaeda will be a lot harder to find than Iraqi WMDs.

Bush had told the United Nations that he wanted regime change in Iraq. Obama lied to the UN and told them that he was only looking for a No-Fly-Zone and then used that zone as an excuse to keep bombing Libya long after its air force had run out crop dusters and bottle rockets, until a drone pinned down Gaddafi's convoy long enough for a mob to gather around and sodomize him to death.

The crazy Texan had built a fortified Green Zone for the American diplomatic presence. The smart Kenyan stuck them in an exposed mansion patrolled by terrorist militias and waited longer to rescue them than he did to send out another email offering a chance to win a free dinner with him, proving that there really is such a thing as a free lunch.

READ MORE

Don't people remember "Loose lips sink ships?"

Michael Yon - Enemy using social media and cellphone geotagging to identify the precise location of troops on a battlefield

DefenseTech at Military.com - Insurgents Used Cell Phone Geotags to Destroy AH-64s in Iraq

HAT TIP: - InstaPundit

Guess who's coming to dinner...at the White House?

Well, I don't know if they actually had dinner or not, I was just indulging in a twist on the 1967 movie of the same name (that nobody probably remembers anymore).

But he did probably have some kind of nourishment at the "event" since it was, after all, an Iranian with terrorist connections as opposed to our ally Benjamin Netanyahu who was left to stew in a White House meeting room for over an hour after President Barack Obama abruptly walked out of tense talks to have supper with his family...

All U.S. combat troops are scheduled to leave Iraq by the end of this month.

Mr. Freeh warned of an imminent “genocide” at Camp Ashraf.

MEK leader Maryam Rajavi addressed the rally via teleconference from France. She said the al-Maliki government had turned Iraq into the “backyard of the Iranian regime” and accused the Obama administration of obstructing a European Parliament plan to relocate the camp’s residents.

“The people of Iran and the United States will judge you on the basis of what you did when you could stop a great carnage,” she said.

“One day, you will severely criticize yourselves for the events unfolding these days and for wasting time,” she added.

Ex-Iran Guard commander visits White House with Iraq leader

A Sign - Not Photoshopped: Beam of Light Shines on Fallen Soldier’s Miracle Dog

Reported by ABC News’ Kimberly Launier:

It was an overcast day in Newport, N.H., when a simple “20/20″ shoot turned into something that made me wonder about life after death.

Further weakening of the image of American power is a process with dangerous and perhaps irreversible consequences

The Day after the US Withdrawal from Iraq

Obama administration puts U.S. troops in danger

...sources confirm that the administration has pushed the Pentagon to cut the number even lower, and commanders are concerned for the safety of the U.S. troops who would remain there.

Obama administration to drop troop levels in Iraq to 3,000

U.S. Postal Service website uses sharia guidelines to list what is forbidden in packages sent from America to U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan

Hold Those Christmas Cards to Our Troops!

Professor Matt

Matt Drudge of The Drudge Report is teaching a little lesson here on the top left column:

MARCH 19, 2011
OBAMA: 'Today we are part of a broad coalition. We are answering the calls of a threatened people. And we are acting in the interests of the United States and the world'...

MARCH 19, 2003
BUSH: 'American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger...

MILITARY PROSECUTORS WITHHOLD EVIDENCE; ARMY RANGER GOES TO PRISON FOR 25 YEARS FOR SHOOTING AL QAEDA OPERATIVE

On March 20th, 2009, Army Ranger 1st Lieutenant Michael Behenna was sentenced to 25 years in prison for killing Ali Mansur, a known Al Qaeda operative while serving in Iraq. Mansur was known to be a member of an Al Qaeda cell operating in the lieutenant’s area of operation and Army intelligence believed he organized an attack on Lt. Behenna’s platoon in April 2008 which killed two U.S. soldiers and injured two more. Army intelligence ordered the release of Mansur and Lt. Behenna was ordered to return the terrorist to his home.

During the return of Mansur, Lt. Behenna again questioned the Al Qaeda member for information about other members of the terrorist cell, and financial supporters. During this interrogation, Mansur attacked Lt. Behenna, who killed the terrorist in self-defense. The government subsequently prosecuted Lt. Behenna for premeditated murder.

Not only is this a miscarriage of justice on the behalf of Lt. Behenna, who was acting to prevent further loss of life in his platoon, it is demoralizing to the U.S. troops who continue to fight on behalf of the freedom and security of our nation.

Please: send him a letter, sign the petition, and donate -- Defend Michael because he defended us!

4 month old baby beheaded in front of her parents...

...and then they threw the baby's head at the baby's mother.

Take a look at what the Muslims are doing to Christians in Iraq everyday: over 80 people were beheaded in a single day during a Sunday mass.

Another baby in the church:

...and they cried out Allahu Akbar 'Allah is greater' each time they shot Christians.

WAKE UP WHOOPI AND JOY!!!

WARNING TO AMERICANS: The Rise of Radical Islam in Mexico. The role of Islam in Europe and the role of Mexican Immigration in the US....UPDATE: LIST OF MEXICAN SALAFI ISLAM CONTACTS IN THE UNITED STATES

THE LAST SIX SECONDS

On Nov 13, 2010 Lt General John Kelly, USMC gave a speech to the Semper Fi Society of St. Louis, MO. This was 4 days after his son, Lt Robert Kelly, USMC was killed by an IED while on his 3rd Combat tour. During his speech, General Kelly spoke about the dedication and valor of the young men and women who step forward each and every day to protect us. During the speech, he never mentioned the loss of his own son. He closed the speech with the moving account of the last 6 seconds in the lives of 2 young Marines who died with rifles blazing to protect their brother Marines.

"I will leave you with a story about the kind of people they are...about the quality of the steel in their backs...about the kind of dedication they bring to our country while they serve in uniform and forever after as veterans. Two years ago when I was the Commander of all U.S. and Iraqi forces, in fact, the 22nd of April 2008, two Marine infantry battalions, 1/9 "The Walking Dead," and 2/8 were switching out in Ramadi. One battalion in the closing days of their deployment going home very soon, the other just starting its seven-month combat tour.

Two Marines, Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter, 22 and 20 years old respectively, one from each battalion, were assuming the watch together at the entrance gate of an outpost that contained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines. The same broken down ramshackle building was also home to 100 Iraqi police, also my men and our allies in the fight against the terrorists in Ramadi, a city until recently the most dangerous city on earth and owned by Al Qaeda.

Yale was a dirt poor mixed-race kid from Virginia with a wife and daughter, and a mother and sister who lived with him and he supported as well. He did this on a yearly salary of less than $23,000. Haerter, on the other hand, was a middle class white kid from Long Island. They were from two completely different worlds. Had they not joined the Marines they would never have met each other, or understood that multiple America's exist simultaneously depending on one's race, education level, economic status, and where you might have been born. But they were Marines, combat Marines, forged in the same crucible of Marine training, and, because of this bond, they were brothers as close, or closer, than if they were born of the same woman.

The mission orders they received from the sergeant squad leader I am sure went something like: "Okay you two clowns, stand this post and let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass." "You clear?" I am also sure Yale and Haerter then rolled their eyes and said in unison something like: "Yes Sergeant," with just enough attitude that made the point without saying the words, "No kidding sweetheart, we know what we're doing." They then relieved two other Marines on watch and took up their post at the entry control point of Joint Security Station Nasser, in the Sophia section of Ramadi, Al Anbar, Iraq.

A few minutes later a large blue truck turned down the alley way--perhaps 60-70 yards in length--and sped its way through the serpentine of concrete jersey walls. The truck stopped just short of where the two were posted and detonated, killing them both catastrophically.

Twenty-four brick masonry houses were damaged or destroyed. A mosque 100 yards away collapsed. The truck's engine came to rest two hundred yards away knocking most of a house down before it stopped. Our explosive experts reckoned the blast was made of 2,000 pounds of explosives. Two died, and because these two young infantrymen didn't have it in their DNA to run from danger, they saved 150 of their Iraqi and American brothers-in-arms.

When I read the situation report about the incident a few hours after it happened I called the regimental commander for details as something about this struck me as different. Marines dying or being seriously wounded is commonplace in combat. We expect Marines regardless of rank or MOS to stand their ground and do their duty, and even die in the process, if that is what the mission takes. But this just seemed different.

The regimental commander had just returned from the site and he agreed, but reported that there were no American witnesses to the event--just Iraqi police. I figured if there was any chance of finding out what actually happened and then to decorate the two Marines to acknowledge their bravery, I'd have to do it as a combat award that requires two eye-witnesses and we figured the bureaucrats back in Washington would never buy Iraqi statements. If it had any chance at all, it had to come under the signature of a general officer.

I traveled to Ramadi the next day and spoke individually to a half-dozen Iraqi police all of whom told the same story. The blue truck turned down into the alley and immediately sped up as it made its way through the serpentine. They all said, "We knew immediately what was going on as soon as the two Marines began firing." The Iraqi police then related that some of them also fired, and then to a man, ran for safety just prior to the explosion. All survived. Many were injured...some seriously.

One of the Iraqis elaborated and with tears welling up said they'd run like any normal man would to save his life. What he didn't know until then, he said, and what he learned that very instant, was that Marines are not normal. Choking past the emotion he said, "Sir, in the name of God no sane man would have stood there and done what they did. No sane man. They saved us all."

What we didn't know at the time, and only learned a couple of days later after I wrote a summary and submitted both Yale and Haerter for posthumous Navy Crosses, was that one of our security cameras, damaged initially in the blast, recorded some of the suicide attack. It happened exactly as the Iraqis had described it. It took exactly six seconds from when the truck entered the alley until it detonated.

You can watch the last six seconds of their young lives. Putting myself in their heads I supposed it took about a second for the two Marines to separately come to the same conclusion about what was going on once the truck came into their view at the far end of the alley. Exactly no time to talk it over, or call the sergeant to ask what they should do. Only enough time to take half an instant and think about what the sergeant told them to do only a few minutes before: "...let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass." The two Marines had about five seconds left to live.

It took maybe another two seconds for them to present their weapons, take aim, and open up. By this time the truck was half-way through the barriers and gaining speed the whole time. Here, the recording shows a number of Iraqi police, some of whom had fired their AKs, now scattering like the normal and rational men they were--some running right past the Marines. They had three seconds left to live.

For about two seconds more, the recording shows the Marines' weapons firing non-stop...the truck's windshield exploding into shards of glass as their rounds take it apart and tore in to the body of the son-of-a-bitch who is trying to get past them to kill their brothers--American and Iraqi--bedded down in the barracks totally unaware of the fact that their lives at that moment depended entirely on two Marines standing their ground. If they had been aware, they would have known they were safe...because two Marines stood between them and a crazed suicide bomber.

The recording shows the truck careening to a stop immediately in front of the two Marines. In all of the instantaneous violence Yale and Haerter never hesitated. By all reports and by the recording, they never stepped back. They never even started to step aside. They never even shifted their weight. With their feet spread shoulder width apart, they leaned into the danger, firing as fast as they could work their weapons. They had only one second left to live.

The truck explodes. The camera goes blank. Two young men go to their God. Six seconds. Not enough time to think about their families, their country, their flag, or about their lives or their deaths, but more than enough time for two very brave young men to do their duty...into eternity. That is the kind of people who are on watch all over the world tonight--for you.

We Marines believe that God gave America the greatest gift he could bestow to man while he lived on this earth--freedom. We also believe he gave us another gift nearly as precious--our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Coast Guardsmen, and Marines--to safeguard that gift and guarantee no force on this earth can ever steal it away.

It has been my distinct honor to have been with you here today. Rest assured our America, this experiment in democracy started over two centuries ago, will forever remain the "land of the free and home of the brave" so long as we never run out of tough young Americans who are willing to look beyond their own self-interest and comfortable lives, and go into the darkest and most dangerous places on earth to hunt down, and kill, those who would do us harm.

God Bless America, and....SEMPER FIDELIS!"

Christian clergy and lay people have been kidnapped, murdered, and raped by Muslim terrorists and criminal gangs in Iraq, sparking the exodus of Christians from the country

...and Iraq's Jews, who had lived in the region since the time of Abraham and during their Babylonian Captivity, were expelled in the 1940s and 1950s following the infamous pogrom known as The Farhud.

So why do people keep falling for the fake empathy crap from the Left? They do nothing but blame all the people on the Right for what Islamic radicals really actually do every single day because they are married to a deformed and warped political ideology that is using them like the useful idiots they are.