THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR

I get letters & I answer every one of them. Check this out:


Sean:
Need your feedback. I am thinking about writing a commentary on the current states (sic) of US forces, particularly the troops on the ground doing the fighting, in terms of the long period we've been in Iraq and Afghanistan. I cannot help thinking that we have asked too much of these and the National Guard troops we've sent to combat. They are, I believe, about one percent of the US population being asked to fight for all the rest of us. I come from a different era of the universal draft in the 1960s when it was understood to be one's patriotic duty to serve and that every able-bodied young man was expected to.

On the record or off, I would appreciate your thoughts if you care to share them.

Regards,
A.



This is what I came back with:


I'm on the road right now, cannot write at length. I don't know where you're going with this, here's my take on it:





I enlisted Infantry 11C mortar maggot, Airborne my whole career, first time re-up came around I went "down the street" to Special Forces and never looked back.





When I first came into the all-volunteer Army our drill sergeants and platoon sergeants were all 'Nam vets, they all served in the draft Army and they all told us the same thing: that we wouldn't want to be in combat with a bunch of draftees who did not want to be there. They told us about disciplinary problems in the draftee military you would not believe.




Don't get me wrong - I am quite sure that most of the Vietnam generation served honorably - I am just going by what I heard from multiple sources amongst the professionals who stayed in afterward and made the Army a career.


The war we are currently engaged in is The One Hundred Years War and the sooner the American People get used to the idea the better. I do not differentiate between the "Iraq War" and the "Afghanistan War" - they are simply different theaters of the same war. It makes no difference to the G.I. who is KIA'd whether its Iraq or Afghanistan or the Philippines or the Horn of Africa or Yemen or Saudi Arabia or Kuwait or the Pentagon on September 11th 2001; they were all killed by the same people - al Qaeda - and we must never forget that their objective is TO KILL EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US.







We can win this war; there is a way to win it. Any war is winnable just as every war can be lost and when both sides are convinced they’re about to lose, they’re both right (#41, Murphys Law of Combat). The way to win this war is NOT via "taking counsel of our fears" in other words succumbing to desperate loser philosophies out there. "When you find yourself in a war, the stupidest thing to do is anything BUT whatever it takes to win it. In fact it is criminal not to seek victory, because defeat means death & destruction to you & yours." - this is the Philosophy of STORMBRINGER.

So now we have a warrior class - so what? We always did in this country, now its a little more visible and guess what? At least twenty three of our kind are running for Congress in November.






I had the honor & privilege to serve 25 years in the greatest army that ever marched across a battlefield. I am not a hero but I served in the company of heroes. If I had to do it all over again I would not change a thing.

STORMBRINGER SENDS


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THE THIRTY YEAR WAR

Secret embedded message to loyal STORMBRINGER readers: due to operational constraints I could not make it to a computer; this post is 24 hours overdue - S.L.



This day in History - November 4, 1979 - Iranian Revolutionary Guards storm the U.S. embassy compound in Tehran.



File photo: One of the American hostages is surrounded by some of his captors at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979. Former captives have identified the second man from the right as Iran’s future President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.



This was the opening shot of the current war of Islamic Fundamentalists on America; thirty years ago today.



Student followers of the Ayatollah Khomeini send shock waves across America when they storm the U.S. embassy in Tehran. The radical Islamic fundamentalists took 90 hostages. Days later, Iran's provincial leader resigned, and the Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran's fundamentalist revolutionaries, took full control of the country--and the fate of the hostages.




Here's how it worked: a bunch of enraged university students stormed the US Embassy, took the place down. Ayatollah looks over there and says, "YOU DID W-H-A-A-A-A-T? HOLY SHIT! ARE YOU FRIKKIN' CRAZY ? ? ? NOW THE U.S. IS GOING TO GO HOG-WILD ON US ! ! !"


Two days later, NOTHING HAPPENS . . .











This man balked . . .












Two weeks after the storming of the embassy, the Ayatollah began to release all non-U.S. captives, and all female and minority Americans, citing these groups as among the people oppressed by the United States government. The remaining 52 captives were left at the mercy of the Ayatollah for the next 14 months.



President Jimmy Carter was unable to diplomatically resolve the crisis, and on April 24, 1980, he ordered a disastrous rescue mission in which eight U.S. military personnel were killed and no hostages rescued.




It was the absolute low point of American prestige and honor around the world in the post-Vietnam era. I still remember feelings of confusion, how I hung my head in shame.




Three months later, the former shah died of cancer in Egypt, but the crisis continued. In November 1980, Carter lost the presidential election to Republican Ronald Reagan. Soon after, with the assistance of Algerian intermediaries, successful negotiations finally began between the United States and Iran.










You can say whatever you want about the man - Ronald Reagan got a LOT of respect from the Bad Guys.











On January 20, 1981--the day of Reagan's inauguration--the United States freed almost $3 billion in frozen Iranian assets and promised $5 billion more in financial aid. Minutes after Reagan was sworn in, the hostages flew out of Iran on an Algerian airliner, ending their 444-day ordeal. The next day, Jimmy Carter flew to West Germany to greet them on their way home.




The wall of the former US Embassy in Tehran, now referred to as the "US Den of Espionage."





I guarantee that if - three days after our Embassy had been taken down - Jimmy Carter had flown the 82D over there and dropped them onto DZ Tehran, we wouldn't be putting up with ten percent of the bullshit we're having to deal with right now in the Sand Pile.

18 Americans Kidnapped, 1982 - 1991 Lebanon,
CIA Bureau Chief William Francis Buckley and Marine Colonel William Higgins were both kidnapped and murdered - a group called the Organization of the Oppressed on Earth claimed responsibility, but the real suspects are the Hezbollah guerillas.

Truck Bombing of U.S. Embassy, Beirut Lebanon, April 18, 1983 - 63 killed; Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.

Marine Barracks bombing, Beirut Lebanon, October 1983 - 299 Americans killed. A French paratrooper base was blown up minutes later, 58 French soldiers killed. A terrorist group called the Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.

December 4, 1984, American diplomat Charles Hegna murdered during a 1984 terrorist hijacking of a Kuwaiti Airlines flight by Islamic terrorist group Hezbollah.

TWA Flight 847 hijacking June 14, 1985 - one American murdered - US Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem - by Lebanese Shia Islamists (Hezbollah).

Achille Lauro cruise ship hijacking, October 7, 1985 - wheelchair-bound American passenger Leon Klinghoffer murdered by Palestinian Liberation Organization terrorists who then threw his body overboard.

TWA Flight 840 Bombed, April 02, 1986, Athens, Greece - four people were killed, nine others were wounded. A terrorist group called Ezzedine Kassam Unit of the Arab Revolutionary Cells claimed responsibility

La Belle Disco bombing, West Berlin, April 5, 1986 - two US servicemen and one Turkish woman killed. The operation was determined to be conducted by Libyan intelligence officers.

Pan Am Flight 103 bombing, Lockerbie Scotland, December 21, 1988 - Libyan intelligence officers allegedly involved with the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine - 243 passengers and 16 crew members killed, 11 citizens of Lockerbie Scotland also killed. They were heading home for the holidays.

CIA Employees in Langley, VA are Shot, January 25, 1993
Langley, Virginia

A Pakistani man, Mir Aimal Kasi, who lived in Virginia drove up to the CIA building in Langley, Virginia and shot two CIA agents. He was angry because he believed that the United States were mistreating Muslims who lived in the Middle East.

World Trade Center in New York Bombed, February 26, 1993 New York - Six people were killed and more than 1,000 are injured in this terrorist attack. A group of Muslim terrorists are arrested after a rented van packed with explosives and driven into the World Trade Center's underground parking garage.

U.S. Military Complex bombed in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, November 13, 1995
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - Seven people killed; Three terrorist groups: Islamic Movement for Change, the Tigers of the Gulf, and the Combatant Partisans of God claim responsibility for the bombing of this military center.

US military quarters Khobar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia bombed - 19 American soldiers killed, 500 more people were wounded. The Movement for Islamic Change claimed responsibility for the bombing.

U.S. Embassies bombed August 07, 1998 simultaneously Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania - more than 5,000 people were injured and 224 were killed when the buildings that they were working in collapsed during the explosions.

USS Cole Bombed at dock in Aden Yemen October 12 2000 - 17 U.S. Navy seamen killed when the explosion blew a 20 by 40 foot hole in the side of the ship.

Then of course there's the big one . . . September 11, 2001 New York City, Washington, DC, Shanksville Pennsylvania - World Trade Center is Destroyed and the Pentagon is Attacked - in total 2,993 people, including the hijackers, died in the attacks.



We are under attack. Perhaps a better name for what we've got is 'The One Hundred Years War' . . .

. . . STORMBRINGER SENDS

MIND OF THE ENEMY

"If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles." - Sun Tzu




Perhaps it is a byproduct of the distance between America and the old world - not only across the oceans but a vast, yawning gulf between two very different cultures - that contributes to such a misunderstanding and ignorance of the people we are squaring off against in Afghanistan and the Middle East. To us this is a justifiable conflict, a righteous cause; it is a war of self-defense - they attacked us first. Indeed, it is their charismatic leader's stated goal that if they could have their way, they would kill each and every one of us.


The Islamist enemy is determined and committed to Jihad. He is willing to give his life for the cause of martyrdom. How do we fight such an enemy? Or rather, how do we prevail against an enemy that no matter how hard we clobber him, will pop up again and again and again like Whack-A-Mole?

Short of committing ourselves to a Hundred Years War, let us stand back and try to look at the world from the mind of an Afghani or Pathan.



Your average tribesman of the Kybher region probably has about one year of classroom schooling. He is practically illiterate; if he can read he has read only one book in his life, and he continues to read it everyday. He lives in a mud hut or a tent. If he's lucky he will see the age of 45. A skilled tradesman - a carpenter, or an arc welder, makes about $15 a month (OK maybe the war economy has taken off: $25 a month).

To him, we are Crusaders. He listens to what the mullah tells him, and has no reason to disbelieve what he hears: the Crusaders have invaded his homeland with the intent of corrupting the purity of his women. His village has a satellite TV where he watches American string bikini girls on Spring Break in Cancun throwing hotdogs at each other. To him this is like watching a pornographic movie.


Every villager in those parts has a father, or a brother, or a cousin (or a MOTHER) who was killed by the Crusaders' sinister Predator-launched Hellfire missiles. Many of extended families have lost their homes; such is the cowardly way the dastardly Crusaders wage war. When you think about it, is it any wonder they are inspired to go the jihad way?


But IS there another way? Can we turn this thing around? Or are we committed to a Hundred Years war in the Graveyard of Empires?

There is talk of negotiations with the Taliban . . . at the surface this seems madness; how can one negotiate with a committed fanatic whose goal is to martyr himself and gain the 72 virgins in Paradise?

Think about it; we don't talk to the leadership. They are isolated, and half of them are dead. We continue to hunt them ruthlessly. We talk to the the mid-level troops, the rank and file who are sick of the Predator coming and laying a FGM-172 SRAW (Short-Range Assault Weapon) egg on their families; the guys have gotten their jihad on and survived, and now just want to get on in life.


It's the ultimate carrot & stick. We buy them out, offer them a leadership slot in the new hierarchy. The system's as old as the Roman Empire, and it worked for them . . . they called it the Pax Romana, and it lasted five hundred years . . .