Fred Kagin, stop talking and listen to what Assad is saying

Frederick W. Kagin and two other 'experts' gave testimony December 2 before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa to assess the White House strategy in Afghanistan.  In his prepared statement, The Afghanistan Conundrum: How Should the US Approach the Rise of Insurgent Groups? Kagin said that the government must stop "logic-chopping" about which terrorist groups U.S. forces can and cannot attack. 

Right; that's what Russian and Syrian generals have been saying all along. But the central issue is the one Syria's president addressed when he was interviewed by Czech TV. Governments have to stop condoning governments that use terror groups as assets. That is where the United States has been doing the most logic-chopping, so as not to step on the toes of vaunted allies who've been supporting Muslim insurgencies the world over.  

Multiply the U.S. by European and other governments that do the same, then don't ask where the globalized insurgency is coming from.    

The White House must cut off cooperative relations with governments that are friends of enemies of the United States. The excuse, 'But everybody does it' doesn't hold water in this era, to the extent it ever did. As Kagin stressed in quoting from a recent Frontline report, the Muslim insurgent groups are no longer content to harry governments that bother them -- not since Islamic State announced it had established a caliphate:

But God says when there is a caliphate, you must join the caliphate. There is a caliphate now, so we’ve left the Taliban. We’re fighting holy war under caliph’s leadership.”

Despite reality slapping him up the side of his head, Kagin's advice for dealing with the ever-increasing threat to Afghanistan is try bailing the ocean with a sieve again; i.e., send back more American troops.

A deep irony, as Long War Journal's Bill Roggio pointed out on Monday to John Batchelor's audience (podcast, first segment), is that al Qaeda is actually more powerful than Islamic State; it's just that IS always toots its horn whereas AQ has been very quiet about the amount of territory it controls through proxy groups. However, the announcement that IS is a caliphate draws a steady stream of recruits from all over the world. Assad told Czech TV that there are fighters in Syria from 100 countries. 

I don't know what else to say because I can't say bomb London, Paris, Brussels, Washington, Riyadh, Ankara, Doha, Kiev, Sofia, Abu Dhabi, Islamabad, and on and on, if you want to stop the Islamist terrorist encroachment on what's left of the civilized world. 

Even Jerusalem jumped into the act. Malcolm Hoenlein told John Batchelor on Monday that the IDF -- that being the Israeli Defense Forces --  had gotten it into its head to support al Qaeda's war on Islamic State somewhere in the Middle East; maybe he said the Golan.  "Warped," he called the idea. 

Malcolm isn't the J Street crowd; he's the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and a big supporter of Israel. If I recall he said the IDF did realize at some point that their brainstorm wasn't such a good idea. Ya think? The idea would be funny if it wasn't so warped.      

Then we have our dear ally Ankara sending operatives to help Crimean Tartars blow up the electricity grid in Crimea to stick it to Moscow. I think Batchelor mentioned the Russian allegation about that caper last night, during his talk with Stephen Cohen. Steve is another one trying to bail the ocean with a sieve. He wants Washington and Moscow to kiss and make up so they can get on the same page and fight the real threat. 

Esteemed leaders of the free world, the real threat is you.  You've been encouraging really bad actors to act out. In many cases you've been outright supporting their use of terror groups. We are beyond asking why; there are a thousand reasons but together they spell civilizational suicide.

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