Not three days ago I linked and discussed a SWAT raid on the wrong home in Delaware.  In yet another installment in the war on common sense, it has happened again in Salt Lake City.

Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank has issued an apology after narcotics detectives raided the wrong home and pointed a gun at its 76-year-old female resident.

Burbank said the woman was not injured when the search warrant was executed late Wednesday night, but one officer was placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an internal investigation.

“She’s certainly had the event of a lifetime, and one that I am very sorry that she had to experience at all,” Burbank said.

“This was a mistake. It should not have happened,” he added.

A police task force used a battering ram to knock down the door and execute a “no-knock” search warrant.

Burbank said his department has protocols in place to prevent such mistakes, but officers did not follow them. He declined to elaborate.

The chief said he met with family members, apologized and assured them the department would repair all damage to the home.

The woman’s adult son, Raymond Zaelit, told The Salt Lake Tribune that a police officer pointed a gun at her, then asked if she had a gun or drugs. His mother, who was home alone, answered no to both.

“She was petrified. She didn’t know what to think,” Zaelit said. “This was traumatizing for her.”

Stephen Cook, an attorney representing the woman and her family, told the Deseret News that they remain focused “on helping her deal with the consequences of the traumatic incident.”

The family is reviewing the official account of the events provided Friday by police and will make a statement when appropriate, Cook added.

Paul Fracasso, a next-door neighbor of the woman, watched as police raided the wrong home.

“I saw them going through the door, crashing through the door,” he recalled. “There were guns and flashlights going everywhere, (and police) telling them: ‘Get down. Get down. Get down.'”

Fracasso said he knew immediately that police had made a mistake.

“I knew they were there for no reason,” he said. “She’s a sweet old lady, just like my grandma. I think they should have done their homework. I can’t believe it actually happened.”

Burbank declined to comment on the actual target of the warrant other than to say it was “very close” to the woman’s home. Detectives did not go there after the erroneous search, feeling they had lost the element of surprise, the chief said.

As I’ve remarked many times, these tactics are voluntary.  They don’t have to utilize them, and they do so because they choose to, not because it makes it safer for the law enforcement officers.

This raid is “yet another example of poor muzzle discipline, and the incident may have included poor trigger discipline.  When anyone who doesn’t happen to be a law enforcement officer does something like this, it’s called trespassing, brandishing a firearm, and assault with a deadly weapon (a felony offense that generally includes ”the intentional creation of a reasonable apprehension of imminent bodily harm”).  And bodily harm often does result, as with the case of Mr. Eurie Stamps, prone on the floor after his home had been mistakenly invaded, and who was shot dead by an officer who had his finger on the trigger of his weapon and stumbled, firing as a sympathetic muscle reflex.

I’ve also remarked that based on my own friends who are law enforcement officers, one who is a Captain and who has effected hundreds of felony arrests, it just isn’t that difficult to ensure safety.  A little OC spray makes the worst offenders very compliant while officers maintain stand-off distance.  Furthermore, a little investigative work goes a long way.  Stake out a home, effect the arrests in driveways, ensure that it’s the correct address, and so on.

It’s not only the reasonable and sensible thing to do, it’s the moral approach.  Invading homes (when as far as the homeowner knows, the invader is posing as a LEO and intends his family harm) is the immoral approach, and pointing weapons at women and children is the behavior of cowards.”

It will continue as long as the courts defend these tactics, or as long as we tolerate judges exonerating such behavior, and as long as we hire LEOs who want to do this, and as long as we elect city councils and county commissioners who back this kind of behavior with policy statements and money.

A report from Delaware:

MIDDLETOWN, Del. — Steve Tuppeny was in the garage having a smoke at 6:15 a.m., Thursday his wife and daughter asleep inside, when the Wilmington SWAT officers made their move.

Dressed in black, several officers rushed Tuppeny, ordered him to lie face down on the ground and handcuffed him. Other SWAT officers smashed the storm door in the front of the Tuppenys’ two-story colonial-style home, then used a battering ram to break through the red front door.
Jennifer Tuppeny, an elementary school teacher, said she was asleep upstairs when officers threw open the door to her darkened bedroom and ordered her at gunpoint to get up.

The couple’s 8-year-old daughter was awakened out of a “dead sleep” by “men dressed in black with guns shining flashlights in her face,” Jennifer Tuppeny said.

Police carried out the early morning raid in search of a man whom they called a “person of interest” in a homicide. The man, in a Sept. 19 court appearance, had said he lived at the Tuppenys’ address. Police had a search warrant authorizing them to obtain a DNA sample.

The man was located later Thursday in Smyrna, given a DNA swab and released, said Wilmington police spokesman Officer Mark Ivey. Police did not release his name, and Ivey said late Thursday afternoon that the man is neither a defendant nor a suspect.

“The person of interest had resided at the residence and provided court officials with this address within the last month indicating he currently lived there,” Ivey said in a statement released Thursday afternoon. “In compliance with standard operating procedure, officers verified that the person of interest was no longer residing at the home and did not search the residence any further.”

By that time, Steve Tuppeny said, his family had been terrorized.

“I’m lying on the garage floor at gunpoint and they are invading my home terrorizing my family,” said Tuppeny, a line chef and general contractor. “This is America. We’re innocent people here.”

Jennifer Tuppeny said her family has lived in the home for four years. They purchased it from the father of the man who was the target of Thursday morning’s raid.

Analysis & Commentary

Make no mistake about it.  Ms. Tuppeny said that she was at “gunpoint” by the officers, and the child had lights pointed at her.  These lights weren’t cheap hand carry lights, they were tactical lights, just like I have, and they were attached to picatinny rails on weapons, just like mine are.  In other words, they were pointing their weapons at an eight year old child in bed.

As I’ve observed before, “this is yet another example of poor muzzle discipline, and the incident may have included poor trigger discipline.  When anyone who doesn’t happen to be a law enforcement officer does something like this, it’s called trespassing, brandishing a firearm, and assault with a deadly weapon (a felony offense that generally includes ”the intentional creation of a reasonable apprehension of imminent bodily harm”).  And bodily harm often does result, as with the case of Mr. Eurie Stamps, prone on the floor after his home had been mistakenly invaded, and who was shot dead by an officer who had his finger on the trigger of his weapon and stumbled, firing as a sympathetic muscle reflex.

I’ve also remarked that based on my own friends who are law enforcement officers, one who is a Captain and who has effected hundreds of felony arrests, it just isn’t that difficult to ensure safety.  A little OC spray makes the worst offenders very compliant while officers maintain stand-off distance.  Furthermore, a little investigative work goes a long way.  Stake out a home, effect the arrests in driveways, ensure that it’s the correct address, and so on.

It’s not only the reasonable and sensible thing to do, it’s the moral approach.  Invading homes (when as far as the homeowner knows, the invader is posing as a LEO and intends his family harm) is the immoral approach, and pointing weapons at women and children is the behavior of cowards.

Prior:

What Does A SWAT Team And Eight Children Have In Common?

SWAT Raids A Snake Shooting

SWAT-Capades

Continuing SWAR Raid Errors And Pranks

DEA SWAT Raid And Ninth Circuit Ruling

ATF SWAT Failure

D.C. Police Bullies

One Police Officer Dead And One Wounded From No-Knock Raid

Judges Siding With SWAT Tactics

The Moral Case Against SWAT Raids

Department Of Education SWAT Raid On Kenneth Wright

The Jose Guerea Raid: A Demonstration Of Tactical Incompetence

From Emily Miller:

After getting a message from someone who threatened to kill me, I was scared. I found myself in the ten-day waiting period before I could get my first gun for self-defense in my home. When the waiting was finally over, I felt a little safer.

Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Detective Kim, who had taken my case, called once a week to check on me. One week I told her that Verizon refused to give out the blocked phone number. She called Verizon’s law enforcement line to get the number, but the phone company refused without a subpoena.

The next few weeks I was a bit more relaxed but kept a careful vigilance, avoiding being caught anywhere alone. I scanned my street every morning and night to see if anyone was hiding. I’m not the only one in Washington who wanted carry rights for self-defense outside the home.

A few weeks after the call, Mary Cheh, who represents Ward 3 in the city council, happened to hold a public safety hearing about the enormous spike in crime in her ward. At the meeting, a woman stood up and said that she had been targeted by a criminal on the street.

The D.C. resident said that she was walking home on Military Rd., N.W. when a man came up to her and tried to rob her. Thinking quickly,  she claimed to be armed. “Just because I said, ‘I have a gun and will shoot,’ he ran,” she reported at the community meeting.

If there were ever a perfect example of why having the right to concealed carry is a deterrent to crime, that was it.

“So I can’t have it on the street?” the resident asked, turning to her neighbors in the rows of chairs. Someone said, “No.” The woman turned back to Ms. Cheh. “You said, ‘You can go ahead and keep it at home,’ but [this resident] answered the questions directly — you cannot have it on the streets.”

She also added, “I understand the power behind a weapon, but by the same token I think law-abiding, tax-paying citizens, we need to have some other recourse.”

I would like to say that the ultimate solution to this outrage is simply to leave Washington, D.C., and head to a location that doesn’t adhere to communist doctrine.

But the problem runs deeper than that.  My solution is too easy, and people everywhere have a right and duty to self defense.  That’s the fundamental issue with Ms. Cheh’s counsel.  There is no other recourse, since the mission of the police is not to prevent crime, but to respond to it.

Ms. Cheh’s counsel involves, quite literally, forcing law-abiding citizens to disarm (a gun in the domicile is an expensive paperweight when the threat is on the street), while only the criminals – by definition – have the guns.

It isn’t simply silly, or confusing, or wrongheaded, and it isn’t merely a policy difference between otherwise well-intentioned people.  It’s immoral, because the D.C. legal framework is forcing people to abdicate their God-given responsibilities to prevent harm to themselves in favor of the social engineering visions of utopia so precious to people like Ms. Cheh.

If your state has a similar legal framework, your mission is to get it changed.

Prior:

Christians, The Second Amendment And The Duty Of Self Defense

The Rabbi Would Take My Guns Away

David Codrea notes that there is a way for Romney to score big in the first debate.

The Brady Campaign has asked Jim Lehrer, moderator of tonight’s debate between President Barack Obama and GOP challenger Mitt Romney, to deviate from the announced agenda and ask the candidates questions about “gun violence,” a press release issued yesterday by the group announced.

“Splendid idea,” Seattle Gun Rights Examiner Dave Workman agreed. “Romney’s first and best answer to such a question would be that within 24 hours after taking office, he would order his attorney general to enforce the contempt of Congress citation against Eric Holder. And, Romney could add, he would also order his attorney general to fire those responsible for Operation Fast and Furious, and if warranted, pursue criminal charges against them.”

That’s consistent with an open letter question asked a month ago in this column of Romney:

Will you pledge and commit, that if elected in November, you will rescind Obama’s executive privilege order and direct your Attorney General to fully cooperate with and assist the Committee in document production and whatever else it needs to finally determine and tell the American people the truth?

It’s also consistent with a question asked of some prominent Romney boosters in the gun rights community.

It seems especially appropriate now that Romney’s campaign is using Fast and Furious to raise funds (although The Washington Times should know better than to refer to the operation as “botched,” and the assertion that “Holder was not aware” is a gross misstatement of OIG report findings of “no evidence” in an investigation where key witnesses with administration and Justice ties refused to be interviewed, and the White House itself reminded the OIG of its restricted authority).

Yes to all of the above, but Fast and Furious isn’t the only issue, and the first debate isn’t the only time.  As I’ve noted before, Romney is better than Obama on gun rights, but the difference isn’t stark enough.  If there are questions on gun rights in the wake of recent events, Romney can go on the offensive rather than sit or stand blithely and rehearse talking points as if to apologize for our rights.  It’s what I would do.

Romney needs us, but does he understand how much?

Terry Madden weighs in on the issue of shooters in crowded places.

This past summer seems to have been a pretty violent three months. Between the Sikh temple shooting, the Colorado movie theater gunfire, the Empire State Building incident and others, guns have been in the forefront of the national discussion.

Firearms are a deeply ingrained part of the American fabric. We view firearms as a God-given right and some of the strongest lobbying comes from gun groups on both sides of the issue. I personally have no problem with the owning and use of pistols, rifles, shotguns or other similar firearms. I do have opinions on fully automatic weapons, but ultimately that isn’t the point of this article.

I have to admit it pains me to hear of a massacre like the one in Colorado happening, and the first thing many like to argue is that people in the theater would have been safer if there were more liberal laws allowing licensed owners to carry their guns. In other words, if someone else in that theater had a gun many people may not have died. We will never know for sure, but statistics tell us that, other people shooting as well is probably a recipe for disaster.

I don’t know why guys in particular buy a gun and automatically think they are marksmen. Any time these topics come up, many guys start preening about what they would have done if they had been in that theater. In Ramboesque bluster they claim they could pull their gun and put the shooter down. Isn’t that the main argument you get from those in favor of “open carry” and “concelaed carry” laws? The argument is we are all safer if others have guns. Let’s explore this.

The Virginia Coalition of Police and Deputy Sheriffs put out some interesting statistics regarding handgun accuracy when an officer discharges his or her weapon. Keep in mind these are people who are trained to shoot under pressure situations, not the average citizen.

According to the coalition, “in 1992 the overall police hit potential was 17%. Where distances could be determined, the hit percentages at distances under 15 yards were:

Less than 3 Yards — 28%

3 Yards to 7 Yards — 11%

7 Yards to 15 Yard – 4.2%”

This seems to indicate that the hit rate for highly trained officers is 15-25 percent. That ratio has been pretty consistent for the last 30 years according to multiple studies. That means they have a 75 percent chance or better of missing. This is not an indictment of the police as they do amazing work, but rather the inherent unreliability of a shooter in a pressure situation.

Using the movie theater as an example, not only was there imminent danger, there were people running in all directions as well as smoke and darkness. To believe an average person with a pistol would have stopped this massacre is Hollywood fantasy. Could they have? Potentially, but it seems as if the probability is pretty unlikely.

I believe people have the right to guns and if you want to own them, have at it. Please, however, don’t tell me I am safer because you have a gun on your hip. Statistics say you are as likely to shoot me as the bad guy. If I am in distress, please save your bullets.

When someone has to remark that he believes in the second amendment and the right to own guns, he usually doesn’t.  It’s usually just a ruse.

But take careful note of the silliness of Terry’s argument.  First of all, most of the gun owners I know make it to the range every week or two just like me, and practice their drills such as close quarters shooting, failure to stop, rapid target and sight picture acquisition, etc.  Also, many law enforcement officers I know make it to the range once per year to qualify with their issued weapon.  Terry is merely assuming the worst in trying to make his point stick.

I am not willing to concede at all that a concealed carrier would be so ineffective against someone trying to take his life.  But for the sake of argument, let’s stipulate his case, or worse.  Let’s assume that a law enforcement officer would be 30% effective against a shooter, that a shooter in a crowded place would be no more than 25% effective with his shot placement, and worst of all, that a concealed carrier would be no more than 20% effective.

Terry’s argument is this: I am willing to subject my family to a shooter at 25% effectiveness for the duration of time it takes a LEO (at 30% effectiveness) to arrive on the scene, usually 10 – 15 minutes, rather than have a concealed carrier attempt to deal with the shooter at 20% effectiveness, because of the fact that a concealed carrier might also harm me or my family just like the police might harm me or my family.

It’s worse than nonsense.  It’s irresponsible nonsense.  But hey, whoever said that I am not easy to get along with.  If I’m ever in this situation with Terry’s family and I have gotten my own out of harm’s way, I will oblige Terry’s edict.  I’ll leave the shooter alone for Terry to deal with unarmed.  As they say … as you wish.

Prior: Christians, The Second Amendment And The Duty Of Self Defense

Almost 2.5 years ago when the 26th MEU was in the Persian Gulf (or Gulf of Aden), I noted that:

During the 2008 deployment of the 26th MEU, an Iranian helicopter all but landed on the deck of the USS Iwo Jima.  The Marines could almost touch it from a standing position on the deck, but no actions were taken.  The Navy refused to allow the Marines to fire on the aircraft.

So much for the doctrine of force protection.  But that isn’t all for the 26th MEU.  I was talking to my son today about scooting through the Suez canal, and when the USS Iwo Jima was near Egypt, he told me that RPGs started pinging against the side of the ship, and Scout Snipers were stationed in the highest point of the ship because of the high risk to the ship and its souls.

If you think about it, all of the hand wringing that the “experts” did over Egypt and its well trained military forces – who were supposed to be so loyal to the U.S. – was just so much silliness.

For a country who incubated the likes of Sayyid Qutb and Ayman al-Zawahiri, and who today (and even in 2008) would incubate elements that send RPGs in our direction, for the U.S. to have ever wondered what would come of this wonderful “Arab spring,” which held out so much promise for the ignorant do-gooders and well-wishers, was wasted energy and even worse.  Our coupling with Egypt will show itself to be one of the worst foreign policy catastrophies in modern history.

Egypt isn’t so hard to understand.  Whoever thought it was?  Oh, and perhaps we will continue our aid to Egypt considering how vulnerable they are.  Such is the intransigence of ignorant people.

Here we go again.

Max Boot over at Commentary tells us that we need to support Obama’s plan to send an immediate aid package of $450 million to Morsi in Egypt in order to keep Egypt from slipping into economic collapse which will naturally result in all sorts of terrible, awfable things like more terrorists.  Or something.

I can see why some influential Republicans on Capitol Hill would be reluctant to support the administration’s request to provide $450 million in emergency aid to Egypt. The recent mob attack on our embassy in Cairo, and President Mohammad Morsi’s slowness in condemning the attack, are hardly an advertisement for the new regime. But ask yourself this: Is Egypt likely to produce more or fewer terrorists if its economy collapses?

The question answers itself, and to the extent that an emergency infusion of cash from the U.S. and IMF can tide over the Egyptian economy for a while, it is likely to promote stability and deter the potential radicalization of Egyptian youth. It may even buy time for the new Muslim Brotherhood government to implement some of the free-market reforms it promised during the campaign, if it is so inclined and if it can overcome intense internal resistance from many sectors including the army. Conversely if the Egyptian debt crisis blows up, a la Greece or Iceland, the results are likely to be much more serious than in those countries, given the number of Salafist radicals already present in Egypt and given Egypt’s important strategic position as the largest Arab state.

This is exactly wrong and upside down.  The fact that such an influential commentator like Boot is peddling such nonsense is deeply disturbing.

First, America finally and firmly needs to get off this Train of Fear that our refusal to provide truckloads of cash to failing Middle East states that hate us will result in a new wave of terrorists.   It is simply not true.  The waves of Islamist terrorists are being born and bred literally all the time with the sole aim of attacking the West and its allies.   It has nothing to do with whether the economy is good or bad.  Saudi Arabia has produced, for example, more Islamist thugs per capita than anyone and they are the definition of a social welfare state.   Even if a bad economy in Egypt might result in more Islamists, what is the upshot?  The U.S. winds up spending that money on U.S. military instead and we are better prepared to take them out.

Second, who says we want to “tide over” the Egyptian economy?  Why do we want to help President Morsi out?   He is no friend of the U.S. and is arguably a declared enemy with his rants about revising our Bill of Rights and hints about amending the peace treaty with Israel.  His unconvincing performance with regard to the attack on our embassy in Cairo is further incentive to let him sweat this one out on his own.   Morsi is an Islamist and is bent on radicalizing Egyptian youth regardless of whether we give him money or not.   The U.S. needs to stop this insane co-dependency where we pay money to those who hate and attack us.

Third, it could very well be in U.S. interests to let the Egyptian economy fail.  The clear pattern in authoritarian societies which undergo crises like this is to revert to outright military rule.  Compared to Morsi, the Egyptian military is a better friend to the U.S. and far more likely to serve our interests.   Economic collapse and unrest will convince the majority of Egyptians that Morsi is incompetent and unable to get the international aid to keep society afloat.   In desperate times, people turn to the military as the last resort.    The U.S. should make it quietly known to the Egyptian military that we would be supportive (or at least not condemn) a military coup that restores stability and pro-U.S. government to Egypt.   The only choice in Egypt is the lesser of evils:  the Muslim Brotherhood and the Military autocracy.   Clearly the military favors the U.S.

Bottom line: the U.S. is badly in need of a foreign policy that has real spine.  A dash of Machiavelli and perhaps Sun Tzu.  If that means allowing Egypt’s economy to hit the crapper, so be it.   If it means providing weapons and training to Kurdish rebels in Syria in order to buy influence on the outcome of that civil war, so be it.   If it means, in Afghanistan, isolating Karzai and cutting off aid while cutting deals with regional tribes and warlords in exchange for putting Taliban heads on pikes, so be it.   If it means turning up the unconventional pressure on Iran by sabotaging oil refineries and wells and providing covert aid to insurgents in Iran, so be it.

Michael Yon recently penned a piece entitled Stuck In the Mud, written in the same spirit as my own Doing The Same Things For Too Long In Afghanistan.  Michael details better than I did the deleterious and debilitating effects that technology has had on our war efforts.  Visit my own article, and then visit Michael’s article.  Michael adds flesh to the skeleton of my own views.  My friend John Bernard continues Michael’s thoughts by observing:

This is another important piece chronicling the perverse nature of an ill-advised battle strategy chosen by a mindless body politic and their morally defunct General Grade surrogates.

If the strategy (COIN) was such a magnificent contrivance, there would be no discussion about progress; it would in fact be self-evident. Instead we have journalists like Michael Yon, who is not of the exact same camp as I am. He and I have talked and he has held out hope for a properly run COIN operation even in the midst of the demonically possessed while I believe every iteration is doomed to failure.

This, his latest piece, provides even more insight into this nightmare called COIN, conceived in the hearts of spiritually soiled men and in meetings governed by a coward’s concern for global perceptions! This travesty of strategy, as a principle of theater-wide application ought to be outlawed by this Nation!

Readers know my own views.  I disagree with population-centric COIN as a strategy.  It is a tactic, and at that, a poor one.  But I must caveat what John says.  While I agree with John that COIN practiced the way we have in Afghanistan is doomed to failure, if it is practiced in a different way it can succeed in certain parts of the world.

To be more precise, In Fallujah in 2007, al Qaeda fighters had been driven from Ramadi, and had such control over the city that the inhabitants were persuaded to send their own children out to encircle the Marines when they patrolled, raising black balloons in order to show the insurgents where the Marines were for the purposes of mortar targeting.  FOB Reaper was built while my son and others passed sand bags over their heads, being shot at by snipers for much of the time.  Fallujah was utterly controlled by al Qaeda fighters.

Enter the 2/6 Marines for a 7 month deployment.  They went in hard, patrolling heavily, laying down massive fire at times, engaged in forced (and at times violent) searches of homes, performed census operations, locked the city down from vehicular traffic with only two checkpoints into and out of the city, shot insurgents as they attempted to boat over the Euphrates river into Fallujah (my son engaged in those operations), and other things that I simply cannot discuss.

As part of this operation, they had the assistance of the IPs who did everything they could to earn the trust of the Marines, looked up to them, and admired them and their work.  This leads me to my next point.  My son observed that the people of Fallujah were Islamic in name only.  They weren’t committed, and according to my son, were virtually as Westernized as Americans.

We can practice counterinsurgency (not population-centric per se, but a different brand of counterinsurgency like my son did in Fallujah) to an extent that is inversely proportional to strength of belief in Islam.  For example, we couldn’t conduct COIN operations in Egypt, home of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Operations in foreign countries have to be much more brief than we have done in Afghanistan, must find and kill the enemy more effectively, and must lead to the understanding that we may have to do it again within ten or twelve years, which is what the U.S. Marines are for.  The Army’s (and administration’s) notion that we can build a state that never … ever … considers itself an enemy of the U.S., and that is the only definition of success, has in part led to the debacle we have witnessed in Afghanistan.

Population-centric counterinsurgency is based largely on nineteenth and twentieth century Western psychology.  If I reject the pronouncements of those studies, and I do, then I must reject in large measure population-centric COIN and state building.

Finally, take note of Michael’s more recent piece entitled America’s Dumbest War.  Take careful note of the comments.  It’s as if a herd of PAOs dropped by to talk about how the guy who wrote the letter is an idiot and couldn’t possibly have known the full truth.

These commenters missed the point entirely.  First of all, I have reason to believe the Soldier’s comments, at least in part, based on communications with an officer currently in Afghanistan concerning travel, new directives, etc.  But second, what if only part of it is true?  A problem, yes?  Finally, what if none of it true?

Still a problem.  When we get to the point that the grunts feel this way, we have lost the campaign.  If the grunts feel this way, their parents and spouses do to.  When you’ve lost the fighters’ morale, you’ve lost everything.  Technology is useless at that point.  I have said before that one of the most debilitating effects of lousy rules of engagement is the effect they have on morale.  The same thing goes for our strategy.  If they see none (except for the exhausted talking points), they will lose hope.

No, not lose hope.  They have already lost hope.  Bring them home.  The campaign is over.

I keep telling myself to forswear any more posts about Afghanistan.  It is beyond merely beating a dead horse.  It is akin to saddling the horse up.

Still, this article in The Hill (hat tip to Instapundit), while dealing with the problem of enemy infiltration of the ANA, is really about the complete and utter cluelessness of the Department of Defense, its leadership and the lack of direction in U.S. policy in general.

Here is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff– the highest ranking member of the military, the one responsible for advising the President on military matters:

U.S. and coalition commanders are no closer to knowing how deep the Taliban has penetrated Afghanistan’s security forces despite increased efforts to flush out infiltrators who are carrying out attacks against Americans.

“As for what percentage of the insider threat is related to infiltration or radicalization, I mean, it’s really difficult to determine,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey said Thursday.

“I’m sure a certain percentage of it is. And we’re treating it … as a threat,” he told reporters during a briefing at the Pentagon.

Taliban double agents, posing as members of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), are responsible for executing some of the deadly “insider” attacks that have killed 51 coalition troops, mostly from the United States.

Really, General Dempsey?  It is “really difficult to determine” what percentage of the ANA is infiltrated by the Taliban?   But you are sure that “a certain percentage of it is.”   That’s just swell.  From purely a public relations perspective, you need to fire whomever is advising you, General.   There is absolutely no need to have the JCS Chairman get up in front of a bunch of reporters and say idiotic things like this.   Isn’t White House spokesman Jay Carney available for this kind of thing?  At least he gets lots of practice.

I am not interested here in examining the problems and solutions to infiltration of government forces by an insurgency.   There were certainly comparable problems with this in the Iraq Campaign.  But notice that in Iraq the approach of U.S. forces to the problem was commonsense:  don’t trust any of the Iraqis units being mentored.   There was not the same air of desperation in Iraq to train up security forces by a date certain as there clearly is in Afghanistan.   This is just one of the many evils unleashed by El Presidente’s foolish 2014 withdrawal date.   My interest here, however, is in the depths of inanity to which otherwise sane and presumably rational men will sink in obedience to the political dictates of the Child President.

Continuing on in this same article, lest anyone think that General Dempsey has a monopoly on foolishness, here is Leon Panetta, the Secretary of Defense, no less:

But as Washington continues to eye the finish line in Afghanistan, the spate of insider attacks — no matter who is carrying them out — will likely continue all the way through the final withdrawal in 2014.

“I expect that there will be more of these high-profile attacks,” Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told reporters Thursday. “The enemy will do whatever they can to try and break our will using this kind of tactic. That will not happen.”

Oh.  I see, Leon.  So you’re not scared of those big, bad Taliban.   Let them keep infiltrating the ANA in order to kill more U.S. service members.   No matter how high the toll, the United States is determined to stand by its commitment to the Afghan people and to fight the forces of evil to the bitter end.   All the way up to, er….2014.   That would be another 15 months or so.  The Taliban can be forgiven if they are not as intimidated as Leon would like.   The bad guys may not be taking window measurements at the presidential residence in Kabul just yet, but is there anyone who cannot see the utter chaos in the Pentagon that has left our most senior leaders grasping at rhetorical fig leaves like this?

Let there be no mistake about the source of this folly.  The Pentagon has been given a completely untenable mission in Afghanistan– beat down a home-grown insurgency using less than half the necessary forces with half their collective arms tied in R.O.E. red tape behind their backs; training an Afghan national army heavily infiltrated by the enemy and on a timeline for surrender known to everyone.   El Presidente Obama is squarely to blame for the bloody and expensive failure unfolding in Afghanistan.  (There’s that dead horse).

Nonetheless, in more heroic and patriotic times, I would hope that there would be military officers who would rather resign than play the Fool.

In response to Christians, The Second Amendment And The Duty Of Self Defense, Rabbi David JB Krishef and I had an e-mail exchange.  He wrote to me:

Mr. Smith – Thank you for reading the Ethics and Religion Talk column.  Please note that no one in the column took the position that one may not use a weapon to defend oneself and one’s family, or even other innocents.  Also note something which became clear to me only after the publication of the column, that assault weapons are currently not legal for ordinary citizens to own. Therefore, the position that we espoused in the column is in fact current law, as I understand it.

To which I responded:

You might want to see this.

So-called “assault weapons” are only prohibited insofar as they are foreign made, or have magazine capacities greater than ten.  This just prohibits manufacturing in Michigan, or in other words, prevents jobs from coming to Michigan.

Pre-1994 weapons are still allowed.  That just makes it more expensive, but not impossible or illegal.

And … I addressed the issue of assault weapons in my article.

Kind sir.  Please let me ask you two questions that would help me to understand your views.

(1) If modern sporting weapons (so-called assault weapons with high capacity magazines) had existed in the colonial days, and the colonists were sustaining home invasions that endangered their families, would you have allowed them to use those weapons to defend their families, or would you have restricted them to the available weapons of the time (i.e., black powder and muzzle loaders)?

(2) In the links I provided I documented two-, three-, four- and five-man home invasions all over America.  Would you restrict the magazine size in my own weapons, thus making my family more endangered in such a home invasion if there were misses, failures-to-stop, home invaders high on meth, and so on?

To which the Rabbi responded:

Mr. Smith —

1) As long as we are traveling through time, I would take a 22th century weapon that would immobilize the assailant without harming him!

2) It is not wise to make law or policy based on outlying cases. I freely admit not being an expert on law enforcement and weapons – therefore I consulted with colleagues who are. My understanding is that were assault weapons of any capacity fully legalized, there would be far more innocent lives killed than saved, because a weapon in the hands of a person untrained to use it properly is more likely to do harm than good.

Thus has the mission of much of American progressive clergy morphed from one of salvation into societal security.  Soteriology has become anthropology, and concern for individuals has been replaced by pining away for the perfect state.

As for the “outlier” example of multiple-man home invasions, my research was too easy to uncover in a brief period of searching for a single day of crime for me to believe that it is really an outlier example.  Besides, what if I want to be prepared for home invasions regardless of whether the Rabbi thinks I need this preparation?  How can my scenario be an outlier to itself?

As for so-called “assault weapons,” take note, Rabbi, that control over weapons that have collapsible or telescoping capabilities, easy take-down and modularity, lights, no so-called “sporting purpose,” and magazines more than a pre-determined amount has its roots in Nazi Germany.  I believe your people have a history with Nazi Germany, no?