by Gary Krasner
Lt. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti held a press conference in Kabul Monday morning.
After using the term “the enemy” several times, one reporter asked him to clarify what he meant by it. You can read his answer here:
When you cannot designate who your enemy is in one sentence or less, then you are looking at a defeated force.
But Scaparrotti’s meandering answer is just the symptom. His boss, President Obama, won’t even call it a “war”. Rather, it’s an “overseas contingency operation”!
If he had been president instead of FDR, we may be referring to World War II today as “The Great Unpleasantness Abroad.”
The president also referred to the islamic jihadist attack by Major Hasan—-the self-proclaimed “soldier of Allah”—- as “workplace violence.”
And Pres. Bush wasn’t all that better. He referred to Islam as a “religion of peace.”
During WWII, does anyone recall Churchill or FDR calling Germans “peace-loving people”?
No. They called Germans “our enemies.” And no German-Americans in this country held rallies to protest that.
Nor did they fractionate “Germany” into sub-references: They didn’t say we were at war with the “Waffen SS” or the “Wehrmacht” or the “Luftwaffe.”
Furthermore, the majority of Germans supported the Hitler regime. At least until they started losing the war.
Similarly, most Muslims today in the middle east support islamofascism (also known as sharia law) and Islamic jihad (either the violent or the stealth variety).
Indeed, Sharia is the mainstream jurisprudence of Islam, and jihad is a central tenet in the koran.
Thus, we should identify our enemy as followers of islam. Our armed forces are fighting “Islamic militants”, and American citizens in the US must fight against the slow, peaceful “stealth jihadists”, or Islamists.
Language must mean something, or it means nothing.
Presenter: Lt. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, Commander, International Security Assistance Force Joint Command; Deputy Commander, U.S. Forces — Afghanistan
June 11, 2012
DOD News Briefing with Lt. Gen. Scaparrotti via Teleconference from Afghanistan
(Note: General Scaparrotti appears via satellite from Kabul, Afghanistan.)
EXERPT:
Q: General, this is Joe Tabet with Al Hurra. You have mentioned many times the word “enemy.” Is it possible to give us a clarification about — if you have any figures, any numbers about the size of that enemy, and does it include the Haqqani network? And my second question, do you still believe that elements inside the Pakistani government still supporting the Haqqani network?
GEN. SCAPARROTTI: OK. Well, first of all, in terms of the size of the enemy, you know, we use figures from, you know, 20(,000) to 25,000 overall, but it’s made up of — it’s a complex web of different insurgent networks. Now, you mentioned Haqqani. Haqqani is a small part of that, probably 10 percent or less. But it’s a very effective and lethal part of that network.
And of course the largest part of this insurgent network is Taliban. And I think it’s pretty true today that in most areas in Afghanistan, about 80 percent of the insurgents or our enemy are local, and only about 20 percent are foreign or come in from other areas or across from Pakistan.
What’s true about our enemy today that’s changed in the last year is that — is that we believe their numbers have come down and — in the studies that we’ve done here in the past year. We know for a fact that they’re having more trouble generating the offensive tempo that they had in the past. Since about last May their offensive tempo, or their ability to execute enemy-initiated attacks, has been on the downturn, and it continues to be — that continues to be the case. This year, year on year compared to last year, it’s down 6 percent right now. Sometimes during the winter it was as much as 20 (percent), 25 percent reduction in their ability to initiate attacks against coalition forces.
And we also know that the complex attacks, which is their ability to put together a more sophisticated attack, is running about 14 percent below the norm since last year. And the percentage of those attacks that are effective is only about 16 percent of all the attacks they conduct are effective, in other words, they reach an objective of destruction of property or injury of coalition troops.
So that would be the way I describe the insurgency broadly for you. In terms of Haqqani, again, I said it was — it’s probably one of the most lethal aspects of the different networks within the insurgency. And, you know, we have — we have indicators that there is some support for Haqqani. There is some coordination with the ISI and Haqqani. And certainly it’s been our desire and what we — I have talked to my Pakistan counterparts about is the need for them to take on the Haqqani network in that sanctuary, because it is a threat to us, it’s one of the most lethal threats, but it’s certainly a threat to them as well.
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Gary Krasner is the founder and director of Coalition For Informed Choice, a nonpartisan 5,000-member organization that seeks the right for parents to decide which vaccines, if any, are given to their own children. “Informed consent” must include the right to withhold consent, or it’s a meaningless term. Krasner’s background is in psychology.