Moral dilemma, Lone Survivor, Torture Report

Comment about the possible declassification of a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report on the use of torture in the War on Terror:

It’s a moral dilemma to be sure.

Last week, I watched the movie, Lone Survivor. It’s based on the account by former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell whose team, along with a Chinook crew and whole squad of SF operators, were killed in action.

Nineteen of the US military’s best men died because PO Luttrell’s commanding officer, LT Michael Murphy, decided to release 3 prisoners – 1 old man and 2 boys – rather than kill them outright or bind them, which the SEALs believed would likely result in their deaths (animal predators, weather).

LT Murphy made his decision in accordance with his morality, the rules of engagement, and laws of war. He also made this decision expecting that his erstwhile prisoners would inform the nearby Taliban forces of his SEAL team. These particular Taliban were known to be responsible for, and thus capable of, killing US Marines, which is a hard thing to do.

Nineteen of America’s best men, many of whom were husbands and fathers of young children, were killed because LT Murphy made an all-American moral decision, the kind we teach our soldiers to make with their dedicated ethical training from the earliest stage of their military indoctrination.

His only reprieve is that he didn’t survive long enough to see his close comrades in the rescue squad, whom he had called to save his team with his last act in life, also die as a result of his moral decision to spare the lives of the old man and 2 boys who would kill him and his men.

LT Murphy honored the highest traditions and values of the US military and was awarded the Medal of Honor, posthumously.

The moral dilemma of “enhanced interrogation” does not rise to killing old men and young boys who accidently stumble on a secret op. It’s usually not even torture by the standard of our enemy in the War on Terror.

But the other side of the moral dilemma of “enhanced interrogation” is even heavier than the life-or-death choice that faced LT Murphy and killed him.

Rather than LT Murphy’s own life, the lives of the three men in his command, and even the doomed rescue team he didn’t live to see, our interrogators are tasked with preventing the killing of 10s, 100s, 1000s, maybe even 10000s or more – depending on the kind of weapon the terrorists can obtain from terrorist supporters like Saddam – civilians, not just soldiers. Interrogators are charged with protecting the homeland itself.

When the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, I was disgusted, as was every other Army veteran I knew. But my reaction was tempered by the appreciation that the terrorists were assassinating and mass-murdering 10s and 100s of Iraqis at a time, almost every day, along with humanitarian aid workers and the coalition soldiers defending Iraq. Our interrogators at Abu Ghraib were wrong … but they were wrong while trying desperately to save American, coalition, aid workers, and most of all, Iraqi lives by stopping an enemy who was – and is – zealously committed to achieving social dominance through unrestrained terror-style murder and real torture.

Our morality – Michael Murphy’s morality – demands our judgement that certain acts are wrong and intolerable. Had I been in command, I’m certain I would have made the suicidal [and fratricidal] decision that LT Murphy made. I also would have penalized the interrogators and MPs at Abu Ghraib.

But know that that our morality, while we are competing with this enemy, comes with a very, very high price. At least consider the price when you judge.

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Related: My first impression of the Abu Ghraib scandal and CIA Saved Lives.

The Fall of Mosul and legal authority for anti-ISIS strikes

The Wall Street Journal reports The Fall of Mosul.

I am angry, but there isn't more I can add to what I said to express my anger in January when Fallujah fell to the terrorists invading Iraq from the Syrian civil war:

The feared consequence of the Obama administration's contravening the Strategic Framework Agreement (2008) by disengaging from US-Iraqi affairs at a critical stage of Iraq's post-Surge development, abandonment of President Bush's Freedom Agenda, weakness in the Arab Spring, appeasement of Iran, and bungling of the SOFA negotiation causing our irresponsible exit from Iraq is becoming real. ...

[Read the rest of Infuriating.]

Columbia University subject matter experts from the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies explain ISIS. ISIS did not form as a direct consequence of Operation Iraqi Freedom. ISIS formed in the Syrian civil war which is part of the disintegration of the Arab Spring that started after President Bush left office. For the ISIS crisis, the decision for OIF is less relevant than President Obama's feckless approach to the Syrian civil war, the Arab Spring, and Iraq.

The terrorists did not start the Syrian civil war. The Syrian civil war started with the Assad regime's violent reprisals against the peaceful protests by moderate reformers in 2011. In fact, the Assad regime, with the backing of Russia and Iran, is responsible for much vaster harm than ISIS. The Assad regime and its allies appear to be using ISIS as leverage to neutralize the moderate opposition to the Assad regime.

The terrorists, which included the defeated remnants of Al Qaeda in Iraq that reconstituted with ISIS, are opportunistic predators who have exploited the conflict. Terrorists routinely exploit conflicts and in the fecund conditions provided by the Syrian civil war, it's probable that absent AQI, other al Qaeda-related factions jockeying for dominance in the fecund conditions of the Syrian civil war — including AQI's pre-OIF elements under different banner in different configuration — would have developed like ISIS. In fact, AQI was not "created" by OIF. AQI came from pre-OIF al Qaeda elements and their pre-OIF allies from Saddam's regime who were supported by the Assad regime against OIF. Saddam's regime was not a secular bulwark, as it is often erroneously represented by OIF opponents. Saddam's terrorism included jihadists, including affiliates of al Qaeda, and he had undertaken the sectarian radicalization of Iraqi society since the Iran-Iraq War. The Saddam regime's terroristic rule in violation of UNSCR 688 was why the de-Ba'athication was considered necessary, per UNSCR 1483 and Public Law 105-338, by the Coalition Provisional Authority. (CPA senior advisers provide clarification on the de-Ba'athification here. Learn more about the CPA perspective here.)

Blaming OIF for current events in the Middle East relies on the fallacy of attenuated causation. When President Bush left office, the Arab Spring hadn't happened yet, while Iraq was stabilized, compliant, and progressing following the counterinsurgency "Surge" and Anbar Awakening. Operation Iraqi Freedom was not the disease. Until President Obama disengaged the peace operations, Operation Iraqi Freedom was working as the cure.

To wit, in May 2011 at the dawn of the Arab Spring, President Obama marked the historic opportunity for peace in the Middle East where Iraq's "promise of a multiethnic, multisectarian democracy ... is poised to play a key role in the region if it continues its peaceful progress":

Indeed, one of the broader lessons to be drawn from this period is that sectarian divides need not lead to conflict. In Iraq, we see the promise of a multiethnic, multisectarian democracy. The Iraqi people have rejected the perils of political violence in favor of a democratic process, even as they’ve taken full responsibility for their own security. Of course, like all new democracies, they will face setbacks. But Iraq is poised to play a key role in the region if it continues its peaceful progress. And as they do, we will be proud to stand with them as a steadfast partner.

President Obama inherited Iraq from President Bush as a firming strategic victory and keystone strategic partner growing at peace. To wit, statement on the US Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq website:

The Strategic Framework Agreement for a Relationship of Friendship and Cooperation between the United States and the Republic of Iraq (PDF version full text - 647 KB) guides our overall political, economic, cultural, and security ties with Iraq. This agreement is designed to help the Iraqi people stand on their own and reinforce Iraqi sovereignty, while protecting U.S. interests in the Middle East. The SFA normalizes the U.S.-Iraqi relationship with strong economic, diplomatic, cultural, and security cooperation and serves as the foundation for a long-term bilateral relationship based on mutual goals.
...
After a long and difficult conflict, we now have the opportunity to see Iraq emerge as a strategic partner in a tumultuous region. A sovereign, stable, and self-reliant Iraq that can act as a force for moderation is profoundly in the national security interests of the United States and will ensure that Iraq can realize its full potential as a democratic society. Our civilian-led presence is helping us strengthen the strong strategic partnership that has developed up to this point.

The Iraq praised by President Obama and the US Embassy in Baghdad as an emerging "strategic partner" was the post-Saddam Iraq that had been developing with US intervention. But it required staying the course with Iraq and the Bush Freedom Agenda. In his benchmark May 2011 address, President Obama pledged US support for the Arab Spring. Middle East activists took the US president's pledge to heart to risk their lives, but Obama subsequently proudly reneged.

The proximate causes of the subsequent crisis in Iraq are, one, the construction of ISIS in Syria in the degeneration of the Arab Spring that combined with, two, the Iran encroachment upon the US-abandoned vulnerability of Iraq. Both conditions arose from post-Bush events that are related to fundamental errors made by President Obama, such as the 'lead from behind' approach to the Arab Spring, appeasement of Iran, and contravening the Strategic Framework Agreement with premature disengagement from Iraq, that sharply deviated from President Bush's course.

Iraq should have continued to progress with the careful aid of American leadership as a "strategic partner in a tumultuous region ... that can act as a force for moderation ... profoundly in the national security interests of the United States". Instead, what is happening to Iraq now is because Obama made the historic error of disengaging prematurely and leaving Iraq unprotected surrounded by danger instead of staying the course like President Eisenhower stayed the course with Korea. The necessary condition for securing and building the peace is security. Obama took away Iraq's security. Obama's foreign policy has created insecurity.

Related: Thoughts on the Syria dilemma.

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The issue of the President's legal authority to deploy the military to Iraq under current circumstances, absent a new statutory authority, presents interesting legal questions.

President Clinton deployed the military to Iraq throughout his presidency with the statutory authority of P.L. 102-1 (1991). President Bush deployed the military to Iraq with the redundant statutory authority of P.L. 102-1 and P.L. 107-243 (2002). Because a "specific statutory authorization" is equivalent to a declaration of war under the War Powers Act, within the constitutional scope, there is no domestic legal controversy over the US military mission with Iraq from 1991 to 2011.

The failure to negotiate a new Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq that was effective past 2011 was cited as the main reason for the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq. [Update: It's reported the US and Iraq agreed to a SOFA by executive agreement in June 2014, but I can't find an official announcement and text for it on-line. It seems to be a simple diplomatic assurance housed in the standing legal base of the Strategic Framework Agreement that was signed concurrently with the 2008-2011 SOFA.] However, did the departure of US forces from Iraq in 2011 coincide with an actual severing of all the relevant, or at least plausible, statutory authorities for deploying the military to Iraq? Or was some legal authority retained, perhaps applicable in the event of an emergency such as the current crisis, despite the physical removal of US forces from Iraq in 2011? I don't know; I hadn't thought about the post-OIF legality of deploying the military to Iraq without a new statutory authorization.

Note that the United States has a Strategic Framework Agreement with Iraq, which provides the overarching long-term conditions-based guidelines for the US-Iraq relationship. See the State Department press release, US Iraqi embassy statement, and a PDF of the agreement. Also see this CRS legal summary and CFR legal summary.

Add: September 2014 CRS review of the legal grounds for current military action against ISIS.

* The first question is whether Iraq-specific P.L. 102-1 and/or P.L. 107-243 are still live. Since they authorized the President to enforce the UNSC resolutions relevant to Iraq, a related question is whether the UNSC resolutions related to the security of Iraq are still live. For example, UNSC Res 1511 (2003) "authorizes a multinational force under unified command to take all necessary measures to contribute to the maintenance of security and stability in Iraq". Update: The answer is that the 17NOV08 Status of Forces agreement between the US and Iraq terminatedsuperseded the authority of the older UNSC resolutions. [Update: On 2nd look, it doesn't appear that UNSCR 678 (1990) was terminated.] That means P.L. 102-1 is deadonly demoted law, since its authorization specified enforcement of UNSCR 678. However, I haven't come across that P.L. 102-1 and P.L. 107-243 have been repealed, so if the UNSC passes a new resolution for Iraq, the President should be authorized to enforce it under P.L. 107-243. Update2: UNSCR 2170 (15AUG14) appears to re-activate the P.L. 107-243 authorization to "enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq [and] ... acting pursuant to this joint resolution is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorist and terrorist organizations". Also note the standing counter-terrorism international mandate in UNSCR 1373 (28SEP01). At the same time, as corrected above, it appears P.L. 102-1 and UNSCR 678 remain active authority "to use all necessary means to uphold and implement resolution 660 (1990) and all subsequent relevant resolutions and to restore international peace and security in the area" (UNSCR 678). In addition, the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (P.L. 105-338), which mandated the post-war peace operations, sections 1095 and 1096 of P.L. 102-190 (1991) that augmented P.L. 102-1, and P.L. 105-235 (1998) remain active Iraq-specific law.

* The second question is whether P.L. 107-40 (2001) or other counter-terror law cover the situation in Iraq "in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism" (P.L. 107-40), especially if a plausible 'organizational' link can be drawn between ISIS and al Qaeda. Furthermore, the standing policy since the Clinton administration has been "the President has authority under the Constitution [Article II] to take action to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States" (P.L. 107-40). Congress has affirmed that the President's counter-terrorism authority derives directly from Article II of the Constitution rather than Congressional statutory authorization. The unsettled question, which was debated for OIF, has been the specific character of a threat that opens such authority. If President Obama can make the case that ISIS "threaten[s] the security of U.S. nationals or the national security (national defense, foreign relations, or the economic interests) of the United States," this seems the most likely route for Obama to take military action without seeking additional authority from Congress. Update: The President's counter-terror authority is the strongest legal basis for countering ISIS as long as the counter-terrorism neither targets nor is opposed by the sovereign nations, Syria and Iraq. The State Department has designated ISIS as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) and Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT). UNSCR 2170 states, "ISIL is a splinter group of Al-Qaida", which activates the specific statutory authorization of P.L. 107-40 (2001) on top of the stated premise of P.L. 107-40 that the President holds inherent counter-terror authority under Article II of the Constitution. UNSCR 2170 also appears to re-activate the specific statutory authorization of P.L. 107-243. In addition to P.L. 107-40 and P.L. 107-243, see section 324 of P.L. 104-132 (1996), which states, "the President should use all necessary means, including covert action and military force, to disrupt, dismantle, and destroy international infrastructure used by international terrorists, including overseas terrorist training facilities and safe havens", Presidential Decision Directive/NSC-39 (1995), and Clinton's practical precedent for overseas military counter-terror action. War directed against a sovereign nation-state actor, such as the Taliban or Saddam, is a different issue than counter-terrorism directed against a non-state actor such as al Qaeda or ISIS in a foreign territory.

The third question is whether the US has an operative Congressionally approved multi- or bilateral security agreement (treaty) that covers Iraq. For example, President Clinton cited to the NATO treaty when he skipped Congress for the Balkans intervention. As far as I know, we only have the Strategic Framework Agreement with Iraq, which only states a commitment to "close cooperation" on defense and security issues. That does not by itself rise to a treaty. [Update: On 2nd thought, perhaps "close cooperation" is a term of art that does rise to a treaty.]

The fourth question is whether there is a statutory authority linked with a security agreement under international law. For example, President Obama claimed the 'Responsibility to Protect' justification was authorized by the general US agreement with the United Nations covenant when he skipped Congress for the Libya intervention. I thought R2P was a weak stand-alone legal basis in domestic and international law to deploy the military even before Obama severely stretched an already controversial novel application of R2P in the Libyan regime change. Nonetheless, it is a precedent.

The question of statutory authorization may be rendered moot if a US entity is attacked in Iraq. According to 50 USC 1541 (1973) of the War Powers Act, other than by Congressional declaration of war or specific statutory authorization, the military can also be deployed by the President "pursuant to ... a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces." For example, a legal basis for OIF was Iraq firing on the American aircraft enforcing the no-fly zone pursuant to UNSCR 688. When I served with 2ID in Korea, we sometimes would joke that our function was less to stop (really, delay) a north Korean attack than to serve as a tripwire for the insertion of US-led UN forces.

Regarding pundits and David Brooks's "Saving the System"

In his April 28, 2014 article, Saving the System, New York Times columnist David Brooks laments the retreat of the aspirational, American-led pluralistic liberal world order. Brooks sees the current geopolitical situation much as I do: opportunistic power grabs across the board by rogue actors in competitive reaction to credibility squandered by the feckless leadership of the shrinking American hegemon. (Brooks doesn't assign blame, but I will: President Obama.)

What frustrates me about prominent pundits like Brooks is they talk about America's faltering will to lead the free world as though the state of the national character is something separate from themselves when, in fact, pundits like Brooks are instrumental in the competitive social politics that shape the national character, no more pivotally than when the popular narrative of the American-led Iraq compliance enforcement and peace-building mission was in the balance.

In August 2004, liberal Bush critic Tom Junod recognized the essential principles at stake in the Iraq intervention and described the pivotal importance of the prevailing narrative in "The Case for George W. Bush, i.e., what if he's right?":

... war is undertaken at the risk of the national soul. The moral certainty that makes war possible is certain only to unleash moral havoc, and moral havoc becomes something the nation has to rise above. We can neither win a war nor save the national soul if all we seek is to remain unsullied—pristine. Anyway, we are well beyond that now. The question is not, and has never been, whether we can fight a war without perpetrating outrages of our own. The question is whether the rightness of the American cause is sufficient not only to justify war but to withstand war's inevitable outrages. The question is whether—if the cause is right—we are strong enough to make it remain right in the foggy moral battleground of war.

Stigmatizing right normalizes wrong in general. Stigmatizing an epochal paradigmatic right like the Iraq intervention fundamentally reshapes American culture, politics, policy, and leadership with metastatic premise. The prevailing of the revisionist anti-liberal narrative against the Iraq mission is patient zero for the deficient American leadership in competition that's troubling Brooks. When pundits conceded the false narrative stigmatizing OIF, the will of the American people to effectually enforce liberal world order as the leader of the free world followed suit and fell.

The necessary foundation-fixing step for "saving the system" is prominent pundits like David Brooks correcting the popular narrative of the Iraq mission.

To wit, the 1990-2011 UNSCR 660-series compliance enforcement and peace operations with Iraq were the defining American-led intervention of the post-Cold War and 9/11 era. President Bush's decision on the Saddam regime's harmfully belated "final opportunity to comply" (UNSCR 1441) was substantively correct on the facts, justified on policy, and procedurally correct on law and precedent. Under President Bush, the Iraq intervention was essentially right on principle, by upholding the model "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441), and in practice, by setting the competitive bar for real American leadership of the free world with ethical resolute adaptive leadership that stood fast versus the concerted political and practical attacks customized to the Vietnam War stigma.

But President Obama's subsequent radical deviation with Iraq was premised on the revisionist anti-OIF narrative.

In the broader politics, clarifying the Iraq issue with the upright corrective approach modeled at the OIF FAQ is necessary to assuredly promote humanitarian liberal policy, uphold the competitive proven-sufficient American leadership of the free world that manifested with Iraq, and hold to account the anti-liberal revisionists responsible for Obama's catastrophic course change. In contrast, the abased concessionary approach to the OIF stigma that's been adopted by acquiescent erstwhile (purported) OIF supporters has led — can only lead — to abject devaluation of humanitarian liberal policy, anti-competitive contraction and dilution of American leadership of the free world, and the concomitant encouragement and enabling of avid illiberal competitors.

The Iraq mission activated all the elements of American leadership essential for the pluralistic liberal world order to compete for dominance in the geopolitical arena. Therefore, the stigmatization of Operation Iraqi Freedom with false narrative has undermined the fundamental premises of the American-led pluralistic liberal world order. In its malignant cultural, political, policy effect, the path-shaping OIF stigma is the purposeful v2.0 strategic heir of the long debilitating Vietnam War stigma.

I started reading the comments to Brooks's column, but I had to stop after two because of course the NY Times' readers blame President Bush despite that Bush reacted to 9/11 and acted to resolve the Saddam problem properly, and moved to reinvigorate the Western coalition.

The blame for the weakened West is not with Bush. Rather, the blame properly lies with the betrayers who subverted American foreign affairs under Bush for partisan gain by adopting our competitors' propaganda with compounding harmful effects. Yet with their typical sociopathic gall, the betrayers responsible for sabotaging the national character instead blame the consequences of their malfeasance on President Bush, the same American leader who tried his best after 9/11 to rally the West for the contest. The Faustian reward for their treachery was winning political control of America. The damaging consequences, described by Brooks, of having the betrayers in charge of America have been predictable.

In the narrative contest for the zeitgeist, the truth is just a narrative that must be competed for like any other in the political arena. As a layman, I can help model the substantive piece in the narrative contest but not compete the political piece; for example. Subject knowledge is not the same thing as public expert authority, and both attributes are needed to effectually clarify the Iraq issue for the public against the revisionists and acquiescers. Therefore, pundits are needed to set the record straight.

Correcting the popular narrative of the Iraq mission is necessary to reestablish the sure American leadership of the free world under President Bush. Whereas the revisionist anti-OIF narrative, if allowed to stand, lays the foundation and sets the frame for a paradigm shift antithetical to American leadership of the free world. For public expert authorities who know the truth, their choice in the arena to correct or concede the OIF stigma is an ethical test with long pervasive consequences.

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Related: Expanded list of responses to leaders, pundits, and other media.

Infuriating

Headline from the Sydney Morning Herald: Al-Qaeda claims key Iraqi city of Fallujah.

Excerpt:

ISIS fighters have steadily asserted their control over the province's desert regions for months, buoyed by their consolidation of control over territory just across the border in Syria. They are more disciplined and better armed than the tribal fighters drawn into the fray over the past week, and the Iraqi security forces lack the equipment and technology that enabled US troops to suppress the al-Qaeda challenge.

Al-Qaeda's ascendant influence in Syria has given the militants control over the desert territories spanning both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian border, enabling them to readily transfer weapons and fighters between the arenas.

The feared consequence of the Obama administration's contravening the Strategic Framework Agreement (2008) by disengaging from US-Iraqi affairs at a critical stage of Iraq's post-Surge development, abandonment of President Bush's Freedom Agenda, weakness in the Arab Spring, appeasement of Iran, and bungling of the SOFA negotiation causing our irresponsible exit from Iraq is becoming real.

The enemy defeated by the counterinsurgency "Surge" in Iraq and greatly reduced by the US-led post-9/11 counter-terrorism campaign has exploited the collapse of the Arab Spring, especially the Syrian civil war (apparently with the collusion of the Assad regime and its allies), in the gaps left by President Obama's diminishment of American leadership in the region.

Like our post-WW2 regional partners in Asia and Europe where US soldiers still serve, post-Surge+Awakening Iraq with American partnership should have been the keystone for regional reform.

To wit, in May 2011, at the dawn of the Arab Spring, President Obama marked the historic opportunity to lead the peace in the Middle East where "Iraq is poised to play a key role in the region if it continues its peaceful progress":

Indeed, one of the broader lessons to be drawn from this period is that sectarian divides need not lead to conflict. In Iraq, we see the promise of a multiethnic, multisectarian democracy. The Iraqi people have rejected the perils of political violence in favor of a democratic process, even as they’ve taken full responsibility for their own security. Of course, like all new democracies, they will face setbacks. But Iraq is poised to play a key role in the region if it continues its peaceful progress. And as they do, we will be proud to stand with them as a steadfast partner.

The Arab Spring should have been the decisive point where the resolute principled strong-horse American leadership that manifested with Iraq the model and the Freedom Agenda seized the historical moment.

In the benchmark May 2011 address, President Obama pledged US support which Arab Spring activists took to heart to risk their lives, but Obama subsequently proudly reneged.

President Obama should have stayed the course he inherited and built upon the hard-won foundational progress that was achieved under President Bush just as President Eisenhower stayed the course he inherited from Presidents Roosevelt and Truman to build US-led liberal international order.

Instead, the inhumane squandering of the hard-won, promisingly progressing, but still vulnerable gains that President Obama inherited from the Bush administration and the fecklessness of the Obama administration's foreign affairs at a critical turning point in world affairs have brought on a predictable, evitable disaster.

Moved by 9/11, President Bush wore the mantle of American leadership of the free world and set us on a paradigmatically humanitarian liberal course to compete for the shape of our children's world. America's self-labeled liberals should have stood strong with President Bush. Instead, the President was vilified and America's paradigmatic humanitarian liberal leadership with Iraq was stigmatized by then-Senator Obama and his cohort for acting to resolve the festering problem of Saddam's noncompliant, threatening, tyrannical, radicalized sectarian, rearming, terrorist regime.

Because of their critical betrayal of America the leader of the free world, we have moved a long, long way from President Kennedy's oath (1961), "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty," President Clinton's counsel (1998, about Iraq) that “In the century we're leaving, America has often made the difference between chaos and community; fear and hope. Now, in a new century, we'll have a remarkable opportunity to shape a future more peaceful than the past -- but only if we stand strong against the enemies of peace," and President Bush's pledge (2001), "As long as the United States of America is determined and strong, this will not be an age of terror; this will be an age of liberty, here and across the world."

In July 2003, former President Clinton urged:

I would say the most important thing is we should focus on what's the best way to build Iraq as a democracy? . . . We should be pulling for America on this. We should be pulling for the people of Iraq.

Instead, the Democrats chose to sacrifice America's liberal leadership heritage and life-or-death responsibility to the people of Iraq for partisan gain. From Robert Gates, former defense secretary, offers harsh critique of Obama’s leadership in ‘Duty’, by Bob Woodward, in the Washington Post:

Gates offers a catalogue of various meetings, based in part on notes that he and his aides made at the time, including an exchange between Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that he calls “remarkable.”

He writes: “Hillary told the president that her opposition to the [2007] surge in Iraq had been political because she was facing him in the Iowa primary. . . . The president conceded vaguely that opposition to the Iraq surge had been political. To hear the two of them making these admissions, and in front of me, was as surprising as it was dismaying.”

On these admissions alone of their rank self-interest and parochial partisanship trumping the grave stakes in Iraq, Secretary Clinton and President Obama should be pilloried and disqualified from Commander in Chief.

More from Secretary Gates's book vis-à-vis Ann Althouse:

The difficulty of extending the surge to September 2007 (when Petraeus would submit his report on progress), much less to the spring of 2008, was underscored by the rhetoric coming from both Republicans and Democrats in Congress. The frequently used line “We support the troops” coupled with “We totally disagree with their mission” cut no ice with people in uniform. Our kids on the front lines were savvy; they would ask me why the politicians didn’t understand that, in the eyes of the troops, support for them and support for their mission were tied together. But the comments that most angered me were those full of defeatism— sending the message to the troops that they couldn’t win and, by implication, were putting their lives on the line for nothing. The worst of these comments came in mid-April from the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, who said in a press conference, “This war is lost” and “The surge is not accomplishing anything.” I was furious and shared privately with some of my staff a quote from Abraham Lincoln I had written down long before: “Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged.” Needless to say, I never hinted at any such feelings publicly, but I had them nonetheless.

President Bush handed to President Obama a history-changing winning hand in Iraq — earned with dear cost by our soldiers and allies including Iraqis — and a progressing liberal strategy to win the War on Terror. President Obama threw them away. Bush honored the commitment of his predecessors to American leadership of the free world. Obama has dishonored it and them — and us — and opened the way for the illiberal enemy.

President Obama, Secretary Clinton, and their cohort's rank betrayal of America the leader of the free world and US-led liberal international order is enough to push this Generation-X JFK liberal to give up in disgust.

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Code of Conduct:

I am an American, fighting in the forces which guard my country and our way of life.

Soldier's Creed:

I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life.

Civilization oriented by a robust, sure American liberal exceptionalism, made real to me by my service in Korea, was for me synonymous with the "American way of life".

As I walked the city while the sun set on 9/11, I anticipated the anti-liberal flood in the coming contest and determined to fight it ... I'm the boy who stuck his finger into a trickling leak to try saving his hometown ... but I didn't make the larger social-political cultural difference that was most important for America's competitive will. The anti-liberal tsunami broke through and washed over and around the crumbling dike/levee I meant to guard, undeterred by the few sandbags I managed to pile. Worse, the anti-liberal flood burst from inside my hometown, from American leaders, as well as from outside, from America's competitors.

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Also see The Fall of Mosul and legal authority for anti-ISIS strikes, 10 year anniversary of the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom: thoughts, and Operation Iraqi Freedom FAQ.