Extortion 17: A Scandal Worse than Benghazi?

by LTC Allen West (US Army Ret.) / Family Security Matters

Parents, children, spouses, and relatives send their loved ones off into the US military service with a trust that their beloved will have leaders, both military and civilian, who will sacrifice all to protect those in their charge. Our warriors go into battle believing they must fight only the enemy to their front, not one to their rear.

And so it is as military strategist Carl von Clausewitz termed, the “paradoxical trinity” necessary for a nation to prosecute a war successfully. It involves the combined positive will of the government, the military, and the people. Clausewitz suggested this trifecta would ensure a nation would be focused and resolute in achieving the goal of victory.

For America, the last time we saw this paradoxical trinity come together was World War II. There is no debate that in each level — government, military, and the people — there was unity of effort.

Wars have three objectives: annihilation, assimilation, or attrition and victory. Combat strategy must be aligned with one of those three objectives. However, since World War II, politics have played a larger part in the prosecution of combat operations. The result is nebulous objectives, often limited in scope and design, and when in combat, objectives are unclear and limited, there are always residual effects.

What Clausewitz did not foresee was a new addition to his trinity, the fifth estate — the media. The media have become a key player in the prosecution of combat operations. They seemingly decide what they wish to advocate and what they wish to hide. They are determining the “news” that they believe the people should hear as it promotes their own ideological and political agenda.

And so it is on this the 21^st century battlefield where non-state, non-uniform belligerents dominate. The most chilling line from the movie “Lone Survivor” came when the US Navy SEAL Recon team was discussing its options after the Afghan goat herders had compromised the mission. One of the team members mentioned CNN. Imagine the media were part of the decision-making for a special operations team on deep reconnaissance regarding eliminating the threat to a compromised mission.

During the 2012 election cycle we continually heard rhetoric from President Obama saying, “Osama bin Laden is dead and al-Qaida is decimated and on the run.” At no point did anyone in the fawning mainstream media challenge that assertion.

Today, we have evidence — clear and irrefutable evidence — that al-Qaida is hardly decimated, and if they are on the run, it is through Ramadi and Fallujah.

Just this past week, the day after President Obama’s State of the Union Address, the Obama administration’s Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee that he can’t say the threat from the terror network “is any less” than it was a decade ago. 

Just as a tree falling in the woods makes no sound if no one’s there, the liberal progressive media did not want the truth to make a sound.

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