Last week Saturday, a young Marine SSgt from Temecula California lost his life due to an ISIS Katyusha rocket attack against their firebase, several other Marines were injured. That same firebase was attacked by ISIS again on Monday. Now, you may ask, what are US Marines doing in a firebase in northern Iraq, very near ISIS held territory? According to the US military spokesperson in Baghdad, Col. Steve Warren, they were there to provide force protection so that Iraqi forces could be trained.
In reading reports, it appears that the ISIS elements were able to close within small arms range of the firebase – meaning our Marines were not granted permission to engage. As we have stated before, an ROE that says you cannot fire until fired upon grants the initiative to the enemy. The results are not advantageous to our deployed troops, who are in combat, not some politically driven definition of the battlespace.
And so it goes for the Islamic jihadist attack in Brussels, where the sense of political correctness has afforded the enemy opportunity to create enclaves within the country. Knowing that the perpetrator of the Paris terrorist attack reentered Europe within the mass migration of individuals – namely single military aged Muslim males – is unconscionable. Our domestic rules of engagement are built around a self-imposed constraint based upon a reticence of being referred to as a racist, xenophobe, islamophobe, or being accused of profiling. Let us drop these monikers of defeatism and realize that we must institute measures of trend analysis that deny the enemy sanctuary within our borders. We can ill afford, unless we accept more jihadist assaults, the mentality of blaming ourselves for the savage barbarism that seems to occur every two to three months in western civilization. We need no more lectures about tolerance and false narratives about history. We need to accept history and how it relates to the present.
Just as it appears we have deployed Marines into a combat zone in a purely defensive posture, we cannot protect our liberties and freedoms in a purely defensive, reactionary, posture. Having served in the military for twenty-two years, and studied military history, I cannot recall any victory that was achieved on defense. Success comes in the counterattack, as the eventual sequel to a good defense, a mentality that seeks to stay on defense means it surrenders the initiative to the adversary. Such as it was at the Battle of Gettysburg, when General Meade decided to not pursue and defeat a retreating Army of Northern Virginia – the Civil War raged on for another two years.
We are in a struggle for civilization against Islamic jihadism. It is historic and can be traced back to 732 AD and the Battle of Tours (France), where the victor was Charles “The Hammer” Martel. This aged old confrontation has now returned, not just to Europe, but all across the globe. And success requires leaders, and the necessary national security vision and policies to secure our way of life, not just for western civilization, but for all.
We here at the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) are addressing this policy issue, but we need your help. Sign our petition and tell congress to “Provide for the Common Defense, Now!”