Petraeus: "Pleasant Surprise" in Sadr City: Says 700 Mahdi Army Fighters in Custody

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1799819/posts

It's not even an election year, "YET" nobody in politics will admit the obvious,,
IRAN is backing the killing of AMERICAN SOLDIERS!

I hate to say it, but, Even BUSH won't admit it to the nation!

F-Politics!

You must have missed his speech when he stated that Iran was supplying weapons that were killing our troops. On the other hand, the democrats are trying to keep GWB from doing anything against Iran by trying to pass a binding resolution that would require GWB to get permission before he does anything. Blame the MSM for not getting the word out.

Sadly, you are 100% correct. It looks like Dubya's playing the string out.

I guess the "if you're not with us, you're against us" no longer applies.

The 'cut-and run' group is deeply saddened by this development in the 'quagmire' of Iraq.

Please see post #4.

700?

Holy smokes.

Where do they keep numbers like these?

Blame the MSM for not getting the word out.

Bush has the "Bully Pulpit" not the MSM.

The time is now to step up..

If we want to win, we need to line them up against a wall and shoot them. Catch and release doesn't work with terrorism.

Excellent news.

In fact yesterday the traitors and defeatists surrendered and withdrew their demand that President Bush should go to Congress before any action he orders against the terrorist regime in Iran. Fortunately the traitors and defeatists are much less powerful than they, their lunatic base, their media, and some knee jerk conservatives think they are.

I remember the Reagan speech telling Gorby to tear down the wall.

Bush needs to say "On national TV" Iran, stay out or else!
And be very decisive and clear in his statement.

This BS must stop, and only our President can say it, and mean it..

Bush doesn't have a bully pulpit, the cut and run crowd do. Bush could probably list the names of the fallen soldiers that were directly killed by Iranian interference and the public will tune him out like they always do. The MSM is the enemy within my friend. They will only promote what they want and screw the rest of US.

Bush does have the Pulpit regardless what anybody thinks or says.
POTUS has privileges beyond the media.

The MSM is the 5th column.

Catch and release doesn't work with terrorism

Unconquerable Nation: Chapter 4 A Sharper Sword
Rand Corp. ^ | Brian Michael Jenkins
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1760041/posts
(snip)

Encourage Defections, Facilitate Exits

Luring those in the terrorist fold back to society is another strategic approach. Terrorists say they are all determined to fight to the death, an assertion they underline by pointing to suicide attacks. But the ranks of even the most fervent fanatics include less-committed individuals, even latent defectors who might quit if offered a safe way out. They may come to fear the mad leaders who would happily have them die, yet they also fear what might happen to them in American hands. Dropping out and defection may be more frequent occurrences than we suspect. The images of Abu Ghraib should not be seen as the only alternative to martyrdom.

The Chieu Hoi (Open Arms) program during the Vietnam War persuaded more than 100,000 enemy soldiers to defect to the South Vietnamese side by offering them amnesty, cash, job training assistance, and homes.76 Some of the “ralliers,” as they were called, eventually drifted back to the communist side, but overall the program was an economical and certainly less-dangerous way of removing a sizable number of enemy combatants.

When I was a member of the U.S. Army Special Forces in Vietnam, we created yet another program, called the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG), in the remote areas of Vietnam where ethnic minorities often predominated. We devised the CIDG initially to enhance local self-defense capabilities but also to compete with Viet Cong recruiting. The CIDG grew to a force of over 50,000 fighters, more than a few of whom had once been in the Viet Cong.

These were individuals who did not want to leave their tribal areas and who, as ethnic tribesmen, would not have been treated well in the camps for the ralliers—even less well in the prisoner-of-war camps. But hungry, tired, the tribesmen showed up to join the CIDG, never admitting their prior Viet Cong service but having obvious military skills that marked them as ex-guerrillas. Rather than turning these “irregulars” over to South Vietnamese authorities, the Special Forces camps often took the risk of enlisting them directly into the CIDG and, when possible, bringing their families into the camps as well, hostages to their good behavior. It did not always work, and there were some deliberate infiltrations with terrible results, but many of the enlistees proved to be effective fighters on our behalf.

Although it may be difficult to convert committed jihadists, it is not impossible. Khaled al-Berry did it on his own, as discussed in Chapter Three.77 Faced with a direct terrorist challenge from al Qaeda, the government of Saudi Arabia has cracked down hard, but it also has offered the terrorists amnesty and financial assistance for their families. Only a few have openly accepted, but the program has established that there is another road, and it has given greater legiti- A Sharper Sword: Strategic Principles for Defeating Today’s Enemy 129 macy to the government’s continuing campaign against those who have rejected the offer.

In 2004, Iraq’s interim president first floated the idea of a broad amnesty for the insurgents in that country. The objective, he said, was to split the insurgency between nationalists fighting to evict foreign troops and foreign fighters engaged in jihad. Iraq’s new president revived the idea in 2005, restricting the offer to Iraqi insurgents who turned away from the resistance.

American officials reacted negatively. “We don’t think it’s appropriate to give amnesty to people who have killed American or Coalition forces,” observed a State Department spokesman. It is an understandable sentiment, but one that narrows exit scenarios. Can the fighting end only when the last American soldier in Iraq kills the last Iraqi insurgent?

Get Detainees to Renounce Terrorism

Political warfare does not end with terrorist captivity. Lacking a strategy, we have competing views of what should be done with suspected terrorist detainees: interrogate them for operational intelligence, detain them for the duration of the war, bring them to trial before military tribunals or civilian courts, hand them over for imprisonment in their countries of origin. But turning detainees against violence should be considered as important as interrogation. Rehabilitation is more important than prosecution, especially if it can be used to discourage jihadist recruiting. Those in custody should be offered the opportunity to quit the jihad, to repent, to publicly recant. We should not let our own desires for revenge or our determination to see justice done get in the way. We must be pragmatic. We are not settling blood debts, we are waging a political war.

The objective cannot be to accumulate ever-growing numbers of detainees, nor should it be merely to reduce the number held. The United States has requested that some countries take back their own nationals among the detainees, but the recipient country must sign an agreement that it will not abuse the prisoners in its custody and that it will permit inspections by a third party. This concern for the detainees’ welfare is legitimate; however, given the U.S. record, it is viewed in other nations as extraordinary hypocrisy. Not surprisingly, thus far there are few takers.

One of our top objectives should be to identify those who never were enemy combatants but were picked up in error and held for long periods. The authorities should avoid any temptation to cover initial errors by obtaining false confessions as a condition for prompt release. We have no right to hold these people, but we should also facilitate their reentry into society, assist them if we can, enlist their assistance if they are willing, and ensure as much as possible that their understandable anger does not lead them directly into the jihadist camp.

Those who truly are jihadists will, of course, require a different approach. The experience of other countries offers a number of examples. Determined to reduce the number of IRA detainees, British authorities compiled evidence to justify the release of those individuals whose family or community backgrounds suggested that they could be moved away from violence. This reduced both the population of detainees and the alienation in the communities from which they came. The British also encouraged (and covertly assisted) paramilitary leaders in exploring their political options.

Italy, a Catholic country, used an appropriate religious term to encourage Red Brigades prisoners to renounce terrorism and cooperate with authorities. Those who did so were called “repentants,” and their sentences were reduced accordingly. The mere fact that some repented dismayed those still at large, and the information the repentants provided was crucial in cracking the terrorists’ campaign.

Other innovative approaches are being pursued today by other countries. In Yemen, Islamic scholars challenged a group of defiant al Qaeda prisoners to a theological debate. “If you convince us that your ideas are justified by the Quran, then we will join you in the struggle,” the scholars told the terrorists. “But if we succeed in convincing you of our ideas, then you must agree to renounce violence.” The scholars won the debate, and a number of the prisoners renounced violence, were released, and were given help in finding jobs. Some have since offered advice to Yemeni security services—indeed, a tip from one led to the death of al Qaeda’s top leader in the country.

Turning terrorists around is not easy, and it doesn’t always work. Reportedly, some of those released in Yemen have slipped back into jihadist circles, but we should not expect, nor do we need, 100 percent success.

Saudi Arabia has launched its own campaign by mobilizing some of its most militant clerics, including one whom Osama bin Laden tried to recruit as a spiritual guide of the jihad, to discourage recruitment and reeducate imprisoned jihadists. The program involves teams of clerics and psychiatrists who daily engage individual prisoners in intense religious discussions that can go on for hours at a time. It is almost a mirror of the intense indoctrination that jihadist recruits receive on their way in. If the conversion is considered successful, the individual is released and helped to find a job, or even a wife, but is also kept under close surveillance. At the same time, counselors employed by the government infiltrate jihadist web sites and chat rooms to argue with al Qaeda sympathizers.

It is difficult to assess results. Saudi authorities claim that they have succeeded in changing the thinking of 250 online sympathizers, but how do we know whether they truly think differently now? About 500 jihadists have completed the prison course and been released, but critics charge that 85 to 90 percent might be faking.

With only 36 detainees, Singapore has developed a comprehensive strategy that could provide a model for the United States. In 2003, it approached Islamic religious teachers, asking them to assist in counseling the detainees. The effort grew into the Religious Rehabilitation Group. Unpaid volunteer religious teachers studied the jihadists’ literature, identified specific areas where it contradicted or misinterpreted the Quran, prepared a training manual, and recruited other Islamic teachers to participate in the effort.

The group has provided hundreds of counseling sessions to reeducate and rehabilitate the detainees. The teachers admit it is slow work. Some of the detainees remain obstinate; only a few have been released, and they are required to continue attending classes at the mosque. The program has been expanded into lectures at mosques aimed at insulating the community against the jihadists’ extremist interpretations.

A separate community program in Singapore, set up with government encouragement in 2002, provides support to the detainees’ families. The program will facilitate the reintegration of those detainees who are released. Being aware that their families are being helped is a source of comfort to them, and it creates a better environment for the counseling.

Success in any of these programs may not be validly measured by the percentage of individuals who claim to have abandoned jihadism or the sincerity of that claim, which lies beyond our ability to assess. The same was true of Vietnam’s ralliers and Italy’s repentants. But public recantations, explanations of how people succumbed to jihadist recruiting, descriptions of recruiting techniques, invitations to come in with one’s honor intact—even a few of these can be used to undermine recruiting and create uncertainty in jihadist ranks.

Americans have not done well here. Despite holding hundreds of detainees, some for four years now—including many whose participation in jihad was minor—not one detainee has been publicly turned. One doubts that they are all so dedicated. Is it instead because the interaction is limited to confinement and interrogation, which produces only resistance and radicalization? Would it not be better to try to enlist at least some of them as spokesmen against al Qaeda’s brand of jihad, having them tell their stories to would-be jihadists—explaining their initial illusions, their decision to cooperate with those who see jihad exclusively as war, and their eventual disillusion?

Undoubtedly such personal accounts would be dismissed by many as propaganda, and their authors would be described as turncoats saving their own skins, especially if they were obliged to read prepared testimonials. But if they were allowed to express their own internal conflicts, their words could ring true to those on the same path. And the public debate would be shifted from terrorists versus government spokesmen to terrorists versus former terrorists. The United States could use foreign assistance in this endeavor. It might require setting up a venue other than Guantanamo and Kandahar, perhaps under multilateral supervision, dedicated to rehabilitation.

You must have missed the fact that there have been a few occassions where the President has wanted to speak to the public, and the major networks decided to NOT carry the speech.

So Pres. Bush can try to go public, and the networks can stiff him. Or - they carry portions of the speech, and carry the "Democrat Response" - and then they do so-called "news analysis" of the speech and the response, and they lampoon Pres. Bush's comments/proposals. And over the week, repeated "news reports" that attack the President's position can cause further erosion of public support.

The President can be crippled and ham-strung - even the Great Communicator, Ronald Reagan, had to tread carefully. He lost the ability to use the bully pulpit over the Iran-Contra scandal, and much of that controversy could have been defused if Reagan had the "unlimited" privileges you think the President has. (Imagine going before the public and being able to show how you were working to expand democracy in Central America ... etc.)

The media's power (which, thanks to the internet, has been reduced some) can be shown by reviewing the public reaction to the hearings to confirm Clarence Thomas as a Supreme Court Justice. After the allegations by Anita Hill and his response - the public, by over 60%, felt that Anita Hill was lying. 18 months later, after the steady drum beat by the media to elevate "Saint Anita" and trash Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, - the public felt, by over 60%, that Anita Hill had told the truth. What had changed? Only 18 months of biased "news coverage" that re-hashed the same facts - with nothing new, but the efforts were successful in changing public opinion!

Mike

Encourage Defections, Facilitate Exits

Before capture, yes. After capture? Better to make them an example to those still out there, than reinforce the idea that we aren't serious.

I get the gist of the article, but I don't think we should be moving toward midnight basketball for terrorists. Give them two ways out. Death or life. But the death option has got to be serious.