Friday, September 21, 2007

In this Issue:

BULLETIN:
Sgt. Eddie Jeffers, in his own words

COMMENTARY:
"Blaming the Victim" Observations from My Recent Trip to Israel
By: Ilana Freedman, Editor & CEO, Gerard Group International

GUEST COMMENTARY:
"Americans Must be the Eyes and Ears of Homeland Security"
By: Lawrence J. Haas, Visiting Senior Fellow at Georgetown University's Government Affairs Institute

BULLETIN:
Sgt. Eddie Jeffers KIA 09-19-07

SGT Eddie Jeffers, a US army infantryman and author of the article Hope Rides Alone, was killed September 19th in Ramadi, Iraq. The details of his death are still unclear. Our prayers go out to all who knew and loved him, and to the families of all the brave soldiers who have died fighting for America and the freedom that we cherish.

Following is his article, written seven months ago:

Hope Rides Alone

USA Sgt. Eddie Jeffers, USA (Iraq)

February 1, 2007

I stare out into the darkness from my post, and I watch the city burn to the ground. I smell the familiar smells, I walk through the familiar rubble, and I look at the frightened faces that watch me pass down the streets of their neighborhoods. My nerves hardly rest; my hands are steady on a device that has been given to me from my government for the purpose of taking the lives of others.

I sweat, and I am tired. My back aches from the loads I carry. Young American boys look to me to direct them in a manner that will someday allow them to see their families again...and yet, I too, am just a boy....my age not but a few years more than that of the ones I lead. I am stressed, I am scared, and I am paranoid...because death is everywhere. It waits for me, it calls to me from around street corners and windows, and it is always there.

There are the demons that follow me, and tempt me into thoughts and actions that are not my own...but that are necessary for survival. I've made compromises with my humanity. And I am not alone in this. Miles from me are my brethren in this world, who walk in the same streets...who feel the same things, whether they admit to it or not.

And to think, I volunteered for this...

And I am ignorant to the rest of the world...or so I thought.

But even thousands of miles away, in Ramadi, Iraq, the cries and screams and complaints of the ungrateful reach me. In a year, I will be thrust back into society from a life and mentality that doesn't fit your average man. And then, I will be alone. And then, I will walk down the streets of America, and see the yellow ribbon stickers on the cars of the same people who compare our President to Hitler.

I will watch the television and watch the Cindy Sheehans, and the Al Frankens, and the rest of the ignorant sheep of America spout off their mouths about a subject they know nothing about. It is their right, however, and it is a right that is defended by hundreds of thousands of boys and girls scattered across the world, far from home. I use the word boys and girls, because that's what they are. In the Army, the average age of the infantryman is nineteen years old. The average rank of soldiers killed in action is Private First Class.

People like Cindy Sheehan are ignorant. Not just to this war, but to the results of their idiotic ramblings, or at least I hope they are. They don't realize its effects on this war. In this war, there are no Geneva Conventions, no cease fires. Medics and Chaplains are not spared from the enemy's brutality because it's against the rules. I can only imagine the horrors a military Chaplain would experience at the hands of the enemy. The enemy slinks in the shadows and fights a coward's war against us. It is effective though, as many men and women have died since the start of this war. And the memory of their service to America is tainted by the inconsiderate remarks on our nation's news outlets. And every day, the enemy changes...only now, the enemy is becoming something new. The enemy is transitioning from the Muslim extremists to Americans. The enemy is becoming the very people whom we defend with our lives. And they do not realize it. But in denouncing our actions, denouncing our leaders, denouncing the war we live and fight, they are isolating the military from society...and they are becoming our enemy.

Democrats and peace activists like to toss the word "quagmire" around and compare this war to Vietnam. In a way they are right, this war is becoming like Vietnam. Not the actual war, but in the isolation of country and military. America is not a nation at war; they are a nation with its military at war. Like it or not, we are here, some of us for our second, or third times; some even for their fourth and so on. Americans are so concerned now with politics, that it is interfering with our war.

Terrorists cut the heads off of American citizens on the internet...and there is no outrage, but an American soldier kills an Iraqi in the midst of battle, and there are investigations, and sometimes soldiers are even jailed...for doing their job.

It is absolutely sickening to me to think our country has come to this. Why are we so obsessed with the bad news? Why will people stop at nothing to be against this war, no matter how much evidence of the good we've done is thrown in their face? When is the last time CNN or MSNBC or CBS reported the opening of schools and hospitals in Iraq? Or the leaders of terror cells being detained or killed? It's all happening, but people will not let up their hatred of President Bush. They will ignore the good news, because it just might show people that Bush was right.

America has lost its will to fight. It has lost its will to defend what is right and just in the world. The crazy thing of it all is that the American people have not even been asked to sacrifice a single thing. It's not like World War II, where people rationed food and turned in cars to be made into metal for tanks. The American people have not been asked to sacrifice anything. Unless you are in the military or the family member of a servicemember, its life as usual...the war doesn't affect you.

But it affects us. And when it is over and the troops come home and they try to piece together what's left of them after their service...where will the detractors be then? Where will the Cindy Sheehans be to comfort and talk to soldiers and help them sort out the last couple years of their lives, most of which have been spent dodging death and wading through the deaths of their friends? They will be where they always are, somewhere far away, where the horrors of the world can't touch them. Somewhere where they can complain about things they will never experience in their lifetime; things that the young men and women of America have willingly taken upon their shoulders.

We are the hope of the Iraqi people. They want what everyone else wants in life: safety, security, somewhere to call home. They want a country that is safe to raise their children in. Not a place where their children will be abducted, raped and murdered if they do not comply with the terrorists demands. They want to live on, rebuild and prosper. And America has given them the opportunity, but only if we stay true to the cause and see it to its end. But the country must unite in this endeavor...we cannot place the burden on our military alone. We must all stand up and fight, whether in uniform or not. And supporting us is more than sticking yellow ribbon stickers on your cars. It's supporting our President, our troops and our cause.

Right now, the burden is all on the American soldiers. Right now, hope rides alone. But it can change, it must change. Because there is only failure and darkness ahead for us as a country, as a people, if it doesn't.

Let's stop all the political nonsense, let's stop all the bickering, let's stop all the bad news and let's stand and fight!

Isn't that what America is about anyway?

Sergeant Eddie Jeffers was a US Army Infantryman serving in Ramadi, Iraq at the time he wrote this piece.

Blaming the Victim

Observations from My Recent Trip to Israel

Ilana Freedman, Editor

I just spent a week in Israel, attending a professional conference. The business part of the trip was only three days long, leaving me time to see a bit of this tiny country, to interview and observe a cross section of Israelis, and to be present during a series of small crises which might, at any moment, lead to a larger war.

Throughout the week, one thing became very clear: Contrary to what the PR arms of Hamas and Hezbollah want us to believe, Israelis are deeply tired of war. The intensity with which they pursue the normalcy that characterizes a country at peace is striking. Cafes and beaches are crowded with Israelis chatting and surfing. Local television not only carries the news, but sitcoms and shopping channels, not unlike our own television fare. The nightclubs and malls are full.

And, Israelis work as hard as they play. The technological innovations that come from the Israeli high tech sector is astounding. From the instant messaging on our cell phones and the microprocessors in our computers to pharmaceuticals and defense systems - Israeli technology has changed the way we do everything, in every part of the world. And despite the existential threat that hangs over Israel from neighboring Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza, as well as from Iran, the Israeli economy continues to flourish. The growth of GDP per capita is over 4%, among the highest in the world.

Yet Israel has been a nation embattled and harassed by her neighbors for the fifty-nine years of her existence. She has been threatened with extinction by a sea of Muslim States that extends far beyond her immediate neighbors, from North Africa to the Pacific Rim, home to approximately one billion Muslims. This tiny pocket handkerchief of a country, one of the hundred smallest in the world, with a population of barely six and a half million people and a territory approximately the size of Massachusetts, can hardly be found on the map below.

Yet somehow, this tiny nation remains in the epicenter of one of the world's stickiest political conflicts and remains center stage, not as victim, but as aggressor. The constant stream of Islamic propaganda that feeds the anti-Israel frenzy throughout the world is well thought out and strategically delivered through a spectrum of sophisticated messages - through the media, in books, over the Internet, in both Muslim and diversity-driven secular schools, and through such legitimate forums as conferences, special events, and well publicized speeches. Their message is clear and insistent - the Muslims are the victims at the hands of the Jews, and Israel is the heart of the problem.

What I saw in Israel was a people, who want nothing more than to be left alone to live their lives, sit in the cafes and drink their coffee, raise their children, build their country, and dream their dreams, at peace with the world around them.

But this tiny country is portrayed with almost universal acceptance as the vicious Goliath, terrorizing her neighbors, the Palestinians, who live within her borders, and conspiring against the vast Muslim population beyond. If popular music can be viewed as one of the indicators of the state of a society, the contrast between Israeli music and that of her neighbors is striking. In Israel, the most popular songs are filled with lyrics about work, love, the heartbreak of war, and the longing for peace, while the songs that fill the airwaves in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, and Lebanon, are filled with the glory of war, the hatred of Jews, the violent destruction of Israel, and the joy of martyrdom.

The issue of cause and effect does not play a role in the Muslim portrayal of this conflict. That Israel was the first to be subjected to countless violent and deadly attacks against her civilian population is forgotten in the streaming rhetoric of hatred leveled against her. That she has responded with force in order to stem the flood of terrorist attacks against her civilian population is never mentioned.

Today, for example, Israel faces an accelerating barrage of Qassam rockets from Hamas-controlled Gaza in the south, and a nuclear threat from the north. Israeli civilians live under the continual shadow of the death raining down on them. Yet their response is measured and calculated to cause as little 'collateral damage' as possible.

Last week's attack by Israeli planes and ground forces against Syria's nuclear materials, acquired through Iran from North Korea, was a clear example of Israel's determination to avoid the trauma of future war through precise targeting of the instruments of war aimed against them. The strikes were carried out in order to eliminate a nuclear threat that was developing against Israel's citizens from Syria, but with minimal damage to infrastructure or loss of life.

In a recent interview, Presidential candidate Fred Thompson raised an interesting question with regard to this:

"What do you think America would do if Canadian soldiers were firing dozens of missiles every day into Buffalo, NY? What do you think our response would be if Mexican troops for two years had launched daily rocket attacks on San Diego - and bragged about it? I can tell you, our response would look nothing like Israel's restrained and pinpoint reactions to daily missile attacks from Gaza. We would use whatever means necessary to win the war. There would likely be numerous casualties on our enemy's side, but we would rightfully hold those who attacked us responsible."

Thompson is right on the mark. We apply grossly different standards to Israel than we would apply to ourselves were we in a similar situation. We fail to recognize that the battles that Israel fights every day are in defense of her national security. The cause of Israel's so-called "aggressive" and "brutal" activities in the Palestinian territories is in direct response to the onslaught of terrorist attacks - kidnappings, bombings, shootings, stabbings, and axe murders - of her civilian populations - against school buses and public transportation, synagogues, supermarkets, and shopping malls. No place is too sacred, no person too frail to escape these attacks, and schools and synagogues, women, little children, and the elderly, have all been targets. Israel's response is almost always reasoned and restrained, given the brutality and un-relentlessness of the attacks against them.

We in America would do no less in their situation, and we are hypocritical, at best, if we condemn Israel for defending her sovereignty. Hypocrisy does not become us, and portrays us as an unreliable ally, diminishing us as a leader in the free world.

Our country was founded on the principles that life and liberty were the God-given rights of the people. We have a deep obligation to support those who share our beliefs and fight those who would destroy them.

Ilana Freedman, CEO and Editor of Gerard Group recently attended the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism hosted by the Indisciplinary Center in Herzliyah, Israel which ended last week.

GUEST COMMENTARY:

Americans Must be the Eyes and Ears of Homeland Security

By: Lawrence J. Haas

WASHINGTON - "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance," Thomas Jefferson once said.

The New York Police Department has now shown us that, to protect ourselves against the rising threat of homegrown terrorism, Americans must exert a far more robust brand of vigilance than we have to date.

The task is more complicated than sending more troops to faraway lands, building fences along our borders, installing cement blocks around our national landmarks, and spending more money. The enemies at home will be harder to identify, their behavior more difficult to predict.

The would-be homegrown terrorists "are not on the law enforcement radar," the NYPD wrote in its survey of recent terrorist attacks and plots foiled in Europe, Canada, Australia, and the United States. "Most have never been arrested or involved in any kind of legal trouble."

Consequently, law enforcement officials cannot compile a portrait of a likely terrorist. As New York's Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly wrote in the Preface of this study, most of the individuals studied were unremarkable people with unremarkable lives.

Nevertheless, the NYPD report can be empowering, if we're smart enough to empower ourselves. The authors explain how someone changes from an "unremarkable" person to a terrorist. We also learn the nature of terrorist planning and activity in Western societies.

That knowledge gives us a roadmap of steps that we should, and should not, take to reduce the threat before us. We learn that while al Qaeda provides the inspiration for Western radicalization and terrorism, it rarely directs the activity itself.

That means we should bolster our efforts to find the terrorist plots that are simmering in homegrown cells, rather than assuming we can remain safe merely by killing terrorist leaders thousands of miles away. While we should always be sensitive about civil liberties, we need more and better intelligence not just in Iraq and Afghanistan but also here at home.

We learn that "the transformation of a Western-based individual to a terrorist is not triggered by oppression, suffering, revenge, or desperation." That means we should focus less of our attention on trying to alleviate the alleged grievances of those who would do us harm, whether that involves promoting a change in the direction of U.S. foreign policy or more spending on social programs for certain populations.

We learn that Western-based terrorists almost invariably move through a four-step process of radicalization - from identifying with and adopting jihadist ideology to designating themselves as holy warriors who will undertake terrorist activity to support the jihadist cause.

That means we should attack the communications infrastructure that supports this process. We should pressure Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to shut down the terrorism-promoting Web sites that they host, and we should pressure Saudi Arabia and other nations to stop funding radical madrassas with radical messages in the United States and elsewhere.

We learn that U.S. Muslims are "more resistant" to radical ideology than Europe's Muslims "but not immune," as U.S. economic opportunities compete with one's religious roots and identity.

That means that, as Americans, we should eschew the reflexive criticism to which we often subject our society and understand that, in the battle for hearts and minds, we can be our nation's best ambassadors.

Most of all, what we learn is that, as Americans, we all have a role to play in protecting ourselves from homegrown terrorism. We cannot subcontract the task to law enforcement.

We must open our eyes and ears a bit wider, and we must become a bit more willing to pass along what we see and hear. The NYPD has outlined for us the four-step process of radicalization. It's our job to speak up when we see any evidence of the process taking place.

Lawrence J. Haas, a former White House communications strategist and award-winning journalist, is Visiting Senior Fellow at Georgetown University's Government Affairs Institute. He writes widely about foreign and domestic affairs, is quoted often in newspapers and magazines, and appears frequently on TV and radio. He also works as a public affairs consultant.

Lawrence J. Haas has a website where you can read more of his works by clicking on his name.

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