Tag: War On Terror

“Unlawful Combatant”?

That sorta sounds like an oxymoron…..

Just yesterday Donny made his policy unknown on these attacks on boats and such…..

President Trump has declared drug cartels to be unlawful combatants and says the United States is now in a “non-international armed conflict” after recent US strikes on boats in the Caribbean, according to a Trump administration memo obtained by outlets including the AP and the New York Times.

  • A source tells the AP that Congress was notified about the designation by Pentagon officials on Wednesday. Pentagon officials could not provide a list of the designated terrorist organizations at the center of the conflict, a matter that was a major source of frustration for some of the lawmakers who were briefed, the source says.
  • The move comes after the US military last month carried out three deadly strikes against alleged drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean. At least two of those operations were carried out on vessels that originated from Venezuela. Democrats have been pressing Trump to go to Congress and seek war powers authority for such operations.
  • The notice to lawmakers said Trump has determined that drug cartels are “nonstate armed groups” and that their actions “constitute an armed attack against the United States,” the Times reports. “Based upon the cumulative effects of these hostile acts against the citizens and interests of the United States and friendly foreign nations, the president determined that the United States is in a non-international armed conflict with these designated terrorist organizations.” The Times notes that in international law, “non-international armed conflict” normally refers to civil wars.
  • Several senators, Democrats and some Republicans, as well as human rights groups, questioned the legality of Trump’s action. They called it potential overreach of executive authority in part because the military was used for law enforcement purposes, the AP reports. By claiming his campaign against drug cartels is an active armed conflict, Trump appears to be claiming extraordinary wartime powers to justify his action.
  • In a statement to CNN, Democratic Sen. Jack Reed said the administration “has offered no credible legal justification, evidence, or intelligence for these strikes.” Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, added: “Drug cartels are despicable and must be dealt with by law enforcement. But now, by the President’s own words, the US military is engaged in armed conflict with undefined enemies he has unilaterally labeled ‘unlawful combatants,’ and he has deployed thousands of troops, ships, and aircraft against them. Yet he has refused to inform Congress or the public. Every American should be alarmed that their President has decided he can wage secret wars against anyone he calls an enemy.”

Where the Hell did this sort of doublespeak originate?

In 2001, President George W. Bush declared certain fighters for Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan to be “unlawful enemy combatants.” This designation, made by a presidential order, was intended by the Bush administration to effectively remove prisoners so designated from protection under the Geneva Conventions. The designation led to prisoners being held without access to lawyers or judicial reviews to determine whether they should have been kept prisoner. It also led to a string of Supreme Court decisions and efforts by Congress to overcome those decisions. The concept of unlawful enemy combatants is not new, dating back at least to the nineteenth century.

…

The designation “unlawful enemy combatant” impacted two legal areas: the rights of foreign citizens captured outside the United States and the rights of individuals (including American citizens) captured inside the United States. Unlike traditional “prisoners of war,” the treatment of whom is covered by the Geneva Conventions and whose release depends on the cessation of hostilities between states, “unlawful enemy combatants” do not belong to a recognized government entity engaged in a formal state of war with the United States.

Civil libertarians challenged this policy as a violation of the Constitution. In the case of prisoners held abroad, the Supreme Court eventually ruled that such prisoners must be brought before military tribunals conducted according to ordinary standards of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. In June 2008, the Supreme Court expanded on this opinion, ruling in the case of Boumediene v. Bush that the military tribunals did not provide an adequate substitute for a hearing in a federal court. The Boumediene decision effectively gave designated unlawful enemy combatants the same status as any civilian arrested and held in the United States. Leading up to the Boumediene decision, details of military tribunals hearing the cases of unlawful enemy combatants had been the source of a prolonged tug-of-war involving the administration, Congress, and the Supreme Court.

https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/law/unlawful-enemy-combatants

I understand the concept but without more details it is just chest thumping to get on camera.

Another slippery slope waiting to happen.

Any thoughts?

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“lego ergo scribo”

Is The War On Terror Over?

This meme has been lacking in the news reports for a couple of years now…..after 9/11 GW vowed to make terrorists pay with his War on Terror and from that day on the US went around the globe to take on every piss ant group that he deemed “terrorists’.

The question remains….is the War on Terror over?

First my thought….one cannot go to war on an idea for terror is just that not some entity…..but I guess it made the whole adventure more palatable to the weak minded…..

But what about the question?

n Sept. 16, 2001, five days after the attacks on New York and Washington, DC, President George W. Bush declared, “This crusade – this war on terrorism – is going to take a while. And the American people must be patient. I’m going to be patient. But I can assure the American people I am determined.”

Four days after that, President Bush declared the “war on terror” to be primarily against al-Qaeda. “Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda,” he said in an address to Congress and the nation, “but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”

He described the enemy thus:

This group and its leader — a person named Osama bin Laden — are linked to many other organizations in different countries, including the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.  There are thousands of these terrorists in more than 60 countries.

Bush was correct in his assessment of the group.

One of those countries into which al-Qaeda jihadists implanted themselves was Syria, where from 2011 – with the support of the Obama Administration – they attempted to overthrow the secular leader, Bashar al-Assad, using terrorist tactics they had been well-trained in.

They soon changed their name – but not their stripes – and became the Al-Nusra Front, headed up by an experienced jihadist who fought against US troops in Iraq by the name of Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. His group was known for chopping off heads. Perhaps even American heads.

Last December Jolani’s jihadists – with support from the US, Turkey, and Israel – finally brought down the Assad government and quicker than you can say “Washington PR makeover” he clipped his beard, switched out his tactical military watch for a $90,000 Patek Philippe World Time Chronograph, and declared himself president.

The “civilized world” cheered the re-emergence of democracy in Syria!

At their first meeting earlier this year in Saudi Arabia, President Trump praised jihadist Jolani as “a young, attractive fellow” and “a tough guy, a fighter, with a very strong background. He has a lot of potential, he’s a real leader.”

https://original.antiwar.com/daniel-mcadams/2025/07/13/the-global-war-on-terror-is-over-terror-won/

So the US has supported some of the same people that supported the attacks on 9/11….where is the logic?

Outta sight outta mind I guess…..

The idea remains so one cannot infer that the “war” has been won.

How long before it strikes again?

I know there were some strong opinions after 9/11 but are those same opinions still valid?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Are We Still In Somalia?

I got to thinking after I read a news story about the latest attack by the US in Somalia….and it made me ask the question in the title.

US Africa Command announced that it launched an airstrike in Somalia on March 10 in support of the Mogadishu-based government, marking the second time the US bombed the country this month.

AFRICOM said the strike hit a target in the vicinity of Ugunji, a village about 44 miles southwest of Mogadishu.

The command claimed its “initial assessment” found three al-Shabaab fighters were killed and no civilians were harmed, but AFRICOM is notorious for undercounting civilian casualties, and US military operations in Somalia are shrouded in secrecy.

The last strike AFRICOM reported in Somalia took place on March 2, and the command claimed it killed two al-Shabaab members. It’s unclear if AFRICOM reports all US airstrikes in Somalia, as the CIA could also be carrying out covert drone strikes.

(antiwar.com)

After reading the news I thought back to something I read a couple of days ago about our fixation on Somalia….

The Pentagon has known of fundamental flaws with U.S. military operations in the Horn of Africa for nearly 20 years but has nonetheless forged ahead, failing to address glaring problems, according to a 2007 study obtained exclusively by The Intercept.

“There is no useful, shared conception of the conflict,” says the Pentagon study, which was obtained via the Freedom of Information Act and has not previously been made public. “The instruments of national power are not balanced, which results in excessive reliance on the military instrument. There is imbalance within the military instrument as well.”

The 50-page analysis, conducted by the Institute for Defense Analyses, a private think tank that works solely for the U.S. government, is based on anonymized interviews with key U.S. government officials from across various departments and agencies. It found America’s nascent war in the Horn of Africa was plagued by a failure to define the parameters of the conflict or its aims; an overemphasis on military measures without a clear definition of the optimal military strategy; and barriers to coordination between the military and other government agencies like the State Department and local allies like the Somali government.

Who Could Have Predicted the U.S. War in Somalia Would Fail? The Pentagon.

The US military hypes the threat of al-Shabaab due to its size and al-Qaeda affiliation, but it’s widely believed the group does not have ambitions outside of Somalia.

If so then why waste the ordinance?

Speaking of AFRICOM….their record is not something to be proud of in any way.

Africa–“We Are Here To Help”

Please stop wasting money and time on things that are not that important.

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“lego ergo scribo”

Africa–“We Are Here To Help”

The Great War on Terror!

The ‘Dark Continent’…..after 9/11 the US started go around the world make others line up for a great War on Terrorism…..another of those waste of money like that multi-generational waste known as the War on Drugs.

Africa was no different the US started throwing money and manpower at the countries in Africa….

Throwing money?

Yes to the tune of a trillion dollars…..The State Department provides nearly $280 million of funding for Africa counterterrorism efforts each year. Additionally, the Department of Defense spends at least $500 million a year for counterterrorism efforts in the area.

What was the result of our money spent on this War on Terror?

I wrote about the situation in Africa a couple of months ago….

Is Africa A Failure?

But if you are too busy or lazy to check it out I will go on….

Deaths from terrorism in Africa have skyrocketed more than 100,000 percent during the U.S. war on terror according to a new study by Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a Pentagon research institution. These findings contradict claims by U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) that it is thwarting terrorist threats on the continent and promoting security and stability.

Throughout all of Africa, the State Department counted a total of just nine terrorist attacks in 2002 and 2003, resulting in a combined 23 casualties. At that time, the U.S. was just beginning a decades-long effort to provide billions of dollars in security assistance, train many thousands of African military personnel, set up dozens of outposts, dispatch its own commandos on a wide range of missions, create proxy forces, launch drone strikes, and even engage in ground combat with militants in Africa.

Most Americans, including members of Congress, are unaware of the extent of these operations — or how little they have done to protect African lives.

Last year, fatalities from militant Islamist violence in Africa rose by 20 percent — from 19,412 in 2022 to 23,322 — reaching “a record level of lethal violence,” according to the Africa Center. This represents almost a doubling in deaths since 2021 and a 101,300 percent jump since 2002-2003.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/africa-terrorism/

Someone tell me if that is money well spent?

Once again the US has made things worse trying to extend our hegemony over Africa….this is a reoccurring nightmare for most of the 3rd world…..’we are here to help’ seldom does anything near help.

Profits are killing Africans.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Is ISIS A Threat?

Think back about 5 years ago when the news and the blogosphere was awash in the dire predictions of ISIS…..from hidden among immigrants on the border to a conspiracy to eliminate everyone that is different…..these predictions were everywhere.

But that was years ago and the country has moved on to other ‘impending doom’ to try and capitalize on moving forward.

Things like nukes in space or HAMAS hidden among immigrants on the border (that one seems to persist no matter the problem) to the upcoming doom of 2024 elections to what Taylor Swift was wearing at the Grammys…..like I said real important stuff.

A new report seems to tell the tale of a dying ‘movement’……

ISIS attacks in Iraq and Syria remain at all-time lows despite fears that Middle East tensions related to the war in Gaza could lead to a resurgence of the group, according to a new report by independent U.S. government watchdogs.

In 2020, ISIS carried out as many as 200 attacks each month in Iraq and Syria. It now claims fewer than 40 monthly strikes. Despite calls by ISIS leaders to target Israeli and Western interests, the watchdogs report that the group now likely lacks the “intent and capability to direct attacks against the U.S. homeland.”

The report paints a dismal picture of the once-powerful militant group’s operations in Iraq and Syria, where it controlled huge swathes of territory in the mid-2010s. “ISIS’s capacity to conduct insurgent activities remained severely degraded in Iraq and Syria,” the watchdogs note, adding that the group now carries out fewer attacks near cities.

The group’s operations now appear more akin to a failing crime syndicate than a powerful terror group. Crackdowns on ISIS finances have left the organization unable to consistently pay its fighters, according to the report. Even ISIS leaders are paid only “sporadically” with funds drawn from buried caches of money hidden in locations across Iraq and Syria.

The inspectors general of the State Department, Defense Department, and USAID authored the report, which is part of a congressionally mandated series of updates on Operation Inherent Resolve, America’s campaign to defeat ISIS.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/isis-syria/

Is that one less thing to worry about?

You decide.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–09Sep21

We all know about this War on Terror…..but do you know what it has cost in funds and lives?

The US-led “war on terror” has killed nearly one million people globally and cost more than $8 trillion since it began nearly two decades ago, according to a report from Brown University’s Costs of War Project.

The landmark report, which was published on Wednesday, examines the tolls of wars waged by the US in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and other regions where the US military is engaged in conflicts referred to as “forever wars”.

“It’s critical we properly account for the vast and varied consequences of the many US wars and counter-terror operations since 9/11, as we pause and reflect on all of the lives lost,” said the project’s co-director, Neta Crawford, in a statement accompanying the report. 

“Our accounting goes beyond the Pentagon’s numbers because the costs of the reaction to 9/11 have rippled through the entire budget.”

The report estimates that the war on terror, which will mark its 20th anniversary on 11 September, had directly killed 897,000 to 929,000 people – including at least 387,072 civilians.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-led-global-war-terror-has-killed-nearly-one-million-people

A staggering cost of lives and funds…..

Somewhere I hope that sanity will finally set in and a new direction for our foreign policy other than shoot first a hope it turns out well….and it seldom does.

(You guessed it…..there will be a post coming about the changes that are desperately needed in our foreign policy)

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Is It Money Well Spent?

Let’s just step back and take a look at just what the War on Terror has cost this country.

The War on Terror has been a money pit since 9/11.

So just how much money has been spent in the years after 9/11 attacks?

A damn good question, right?

Well hang on to your jock strap……

In the 20 years since the September 11 attacks, the United States government has spent more than $21 trillion at home and overseas on militaristic policies that led to the creation of a vast surveillance apparatus, worsened mass incarceration, intensified the war on immigrant communities, and caused incalculable human suffering in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, and elsewhere.

According to State of Insecurity: The Cost of Militarization Since 9/11 (pdf), a report released Wednesday by the National Priorities Project, the U.S. government’s so-called “War on Terror” has “remade the U.S. into a more militarized actor both around the world and at home” by pouring vast resources into the Pentagon, federal law enforcement, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), an agency established in response to the September 11 attacks.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/09/01/911-us-has-spent-21-trillion-militarism-home-and-abroad

Can you imagine what $21 trillion could have done to help the people of this country?

Beyond that let’s look at the war in Afghanistan since 9/11……

the Cost of War Project at Brown University estimates that the war in Afghanistan cost U.S. taxpayers $2.3 trillion to date and resulted in the deaths of 2,324 U.S. military personnel, 4,007 U.S. contractors and 46,319 Afghan civilians — but those costs weren’t shared by everyone.

While the American people financed the war with their tax dollars, and in some cases their lives, the top five Pentagon contractors enjoyed a boom in growth in federal contracts over the course of the war in Afghanistan. Stephen Semler, co-founder of the Security Policy Reform Institute, found that Congress gave $2.02 trillion to the top five weapons companies — Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Boeing and Northrop Grumman — between 2001 and 2021.

And between 2002 and 2020, federal funding for those five weapons companies grew by 188 percent. 

Top defense firms spend $1B on lobbying during Afghan war, see $2T return

Not a bad return on investment, huh?

The federal deficit runs about $3.3 trillion…..and fiscal conservatives (the hypocritical wing of our government) scream about the deficit and yet continue to fund a failed war on terror.

Just like the War on Drugs the War on Terror is a money pit and corporations profit from the misery the loss of funds for programs that aid the people of this country.

I realize that no one cares about this….it is far more important to focus on wedge issues instead on the pissing away of taxpayer funds.

When will we ever learn?

Turn The Page!

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ISIS-K?

I see the Pentagon has given the media who in turn have given the American people a new term…a new enemy…..ISIS-K.

Has anyone explained this situation adequately?

So far all I have seen and heard is the use of the acronym….

I shall attempt to help my reader understand……

The ghastly bombings at Kabul airport Thursday resulting in the deaths of 12 U.S. Marines and as of this writing, 60 civilians, are the latest in a series of especially savage terrorist attacks reportedly by the Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISKP), the local affiliate of the Islamic State of the Middle East. The growth of ISKP faces the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan with both a threat and an opportunity.

The threat is that ISKP will attract enough Taliban defectors and foreign fighters to cause serious instability and ruin the hopes of pragmatic Taliban leaders for economic development. The opportunity lies in the fact that ISKP are feared by every government in Afghanistan’s region, as well as the United States and Europe. This gives the Afghan Taliban the chance to attract support from all of these states in their fight against ISKP.

ISKP appeared in Afghanistan and the border areas of Pakistan in 2014-15. It was founded not by Arabs sent from the Middle East (though some moved to Afghanistan later after the defeat of IS in Iraq and Syria) but by local figures and groups who adopted the name of the Islamic State to garner some of its prestige and to reflect their own international jihadi allegiance (just as previously, local groups in north Africa and elsewhere took the name of al- Qaida).

Since then, ISKP have emerged as a distinctly more ferocious and radical force than the mainstream Taliban, carrying out savage attacks on targets that in recent years the Taliban leadership have made a deliberate political decision to spare: especially schools, clinics and markets serving the Shia minority. The Taliban leadership have strongly condemned these attacks, although some analysts accuse the Taliban of benefiting from plausible deniability. In alliance with Pakistani terrorist groups, they have also conducted several major terrorist attacks within Pakistan.

Who are the Islamic State in Afghanistan?

Familiarize yourself for you will be hearing lots about this group in the coming weeks and months.

We have a new foe in the War on Terror….that should keep the funds flowing for awhile….and that is the purpose of these reports.

Look for more civilian deaths and destruction…..

And the band played on……

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How Goes The War On Terror?

We are entering our 20th year of the War On Terror….after a trillion dollars I ask….how goes the War on Terror?

Let’s look at the costs…..

The War on Terror is a military campaign launched by President George W. Bush in response to the al-Qaida 9/11 terrorist attacks. It includes the Afghanistan War and the War in Iraq, and it added $2.4 trillion to the debt as of the FY 2020 budget.

the financial cost of the war on terror

Think about what that kind of cash could do for the people of this country.

But sadly the road of war has few exit ramps.

War on Terror has added nearly $2 trillion, or more than 35%, to the U.S. debt.  It also raises the U.S. budget deficit. Defense spending is such a big chunk of the budget that there is no realistic way to reduce either without cutting it.

Here is a look at the War On Terror…..https://original.antiwar.com/scott/2021/03/02/hows-the-war-on-terrorism-going/

Keep in mind that the War on Terror  is not limited to Afghanistan and Iraq and to a smaller extent Syria….it is being “fought” in some 80 countries.

Let’s not forget the over 800,000 people who have been victims of the War on Terror….

I think it is time to declare victory and pull our troops away from the insanity and to place the War On Terror in the dust bin of history.

And I am not alone…..the Austrian Economics Center agrees…..

It’s amazing how we can become numb to circumstances with the passing of time. The U.S.-led War on Terror is nearing its twentieth year with no clear end in sight. Indeed, to many average people in the West, the perpetual violence of the War on Terrorism has become normal, and we have become indifferent.

America bombing and invading the Middle East has become a dark cliché. Nobody bats an eye. There are so many facets, so many groups, and countries involved, and so many interconnected moving parts that it’s perfectly understandable to throw your hands up and accept this whole dizzying headache as just the way things are and always will be, forever.

Time to End the War on Terror

Let’s end this insanity!

What say you?

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War On Terror

I remember after the 9/11 attacks and the beginning of the War on Terror…..do you?

The question was posed….are we better off today than we were in 2001?

$6 trillion (that is trillion with a “T”) and the answer in most quarters is ….NO!

After all these years…the ordinances used and the people lost and we are not any better off?

But the M-IC is pushing hard to keep troops around the world as a deterrent to terrorism….is it really worth the cost….in lives and equipment?

The national security establishment is pushing against the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan by President Trump following almost two decades of combat. Even Republicans are warning Trump that he is repeating one of the foreign policy mistakes of Barack Obama.

One of the most astonishing recent arguments against a withdrawal from Afghanistan was made by former national security adviser H.R. McMaster, who said that terrorist groups that “pose a threat to us are stronger now” than they were before 9/11. He said the United States faces Al Qaeda and Islamic State alumni who are “orders of magnitude greater” than before and who “have access to much more destructive capabilities.”

How are we worse off than 2001? According to the Watson Institute, the war on terror has cost the United States over $6 trillion, 800,000 people have died as a direct result of the violence of these conflicts, and nearly 38 million people have been displaced or made refugees. According to the Washington Post, some 775,000 American forces have been sent to Afghanistan since 2001, and more than 2,000 of them died.

The United States poured billions of dollars into reconstruction projects in Iraq and Afghanistan under the notion that economic development would check the growth of terrorism. Yet after all this blood and treasure, one of the most senior American officials and a former combat general in the war on terror says Al Qaeda is stronger than it was before 9/11.

https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/518204-the-truth-about-the-war-on-terror

Let’s look at another one of those made up wars that has done little…..the War On Drugs.

By contrast that “war” has been raging for damn near 50 years and about $1 trillion wasted with no end in sight….we just keep wasting money chasing some imaginary victory.

In my opinion and others as well…the War on Terror has wasted lives and money and has not accomplished a victory after $6 trillion (that is trillion with a “T”)…..

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