Interview Segment on FOX News Sunday, 25 July 2010 at 1345 (1:45 PM EST)

I have been invited for an interview on the segment; 'America's News HQ' with Shannon Bream. We will be discussing the Rules of Engagement as they exist, alternatives, the present cost of these ROE and their relationship to COIN.

I invite everyone to watch and to call in or leave an e-mail message with FOX. In addition; this is the opportunity many of you have asked for; the chance to help and to voice an opinion with your elected officials. Tagging them with a call/e-mail/letter on the 'slip-stream' of this infrequent opportunity is exactly the thing to do.

In the meantime; pray that the questions and my answers carry as much power as 4 minutes of national air time can muster.

CONTACT FOX at: fns@foxnews.com Or Telephone: 1-888-369-4762

Semper Fidelis;

John Bernard

R.O.E. Responsible for All U.S. Deaths in Afghanistan!

There are few things in life worth saying if they are not completely truthful. It came to me as a harsh reality when in the past few days I came to grips with this truth and that our combined efforts to force Congress to pay attention to the strategy/non-strategy in Afghanistan was off the mark. We have been fighting for a simple review of COIN and to question whether or not it is viable in this kind of environment and relaying specific evidence of the effect of it's ROE on our Warriors. The problem is that the ROE is affecting every Warrior on the plains of Afghanistan and is specifically responsible for EVERY U.S. AND NATO DEATH there.

Every Army assembled for combat must do several things if it is going to win:

1. Take the Commander's Intent statement and assemble a Strategy and Force component to complete a mission consistent with that Intent

2. Define the Battle Space

3. Control the Battle Space

4. Determine and Exploit the weaknesses of the enemy

5. Continue to pressure the enemy

6. Deftly employ every means and capability it possesses to Locate, Close with and Destroy the Enemy.

7. Be relentless and unforgiving in it's determination to force the enemy to do it's will

As of June of 2009, at the latest, CentCom and ISAF made a deliberate decision, under the leadership of this sitting President, to not win. It even went as far as to redefine the war effort and to expunge words like 'win', 'success', 'terrorism' and 'Islamic Extremists' from the lexicon. It further determined that the new 'goal' was to protect Afghan civilians at all cost. It included a vigorous plan to 're-build' Afghanistan as a nation from the very foundations of its government. It instituted a theater-wide, controversial doctrine known as Counter Insurgency which has a historical record of failure in all except one engagement and fielded an ROE (rules of engagement) that all but eliminate the use of Air Support and Field Artillery Support for US and NATO forces except in the 'safest' possible applications (no civilians around...problematic when you consider the Taliban are civilians).

It has been said there has been a 'resurgence' on the field of battle by the Taliban; that they essentially re-constituted/regrouped and have re-emerged refreshed and emboldened in the past year. That is a deception. This suggests that, all other things remaining constant, this group of murderous thugs conjured new found courage and purpose. This is patently untrue! The reality is that the Taliban are the same as they were. What changed was our desire to prosecute this war as though we intended to win. What changed was our focus. The original Commander's Intent was to go into Afghanistan and destroy/scatter/remove Al Qaida from Afghanistan and to hold those who aided them accountable for their actions, ie the Taliban. That mission took a dramatic turn in 2009 when we chose to seek the good graces of the Afghan people instead of seeking justice for the assault on our land by Islamic Hordes.

POINTS:

1. By refusing to doggedly follow the steps outlined above, we effectively turned over control of the battle space to the Taliban. Because of this they are free to set more IED's than they would have been and free to establish yet more ambush sites thus placing our Warriors in a far more dangerous environment (See Step 3).

2. Intentionally publishing the ROE and our intent to no longer kill but protect, we have allowed the Taliban to reassert themselves and given them the opportunity to exploit our well-published weaknesses (See Step 4).

3. By diverting attention from Pursuit of the Enemy to Security Patrols in hamlets, towns and villages, we have opened lanes of effort for the Taliban to pursue us and given them freedom to set even more IED's and to pressure the locals into participating (See Step 5).

4. By removing our most valuable supporting fires from the equation, in the most desperate of situations, we have allowed more Taliban to survive engagements (See Step 6).

What we have done in the past year is to allow the enemy the opportunity to re-consider it's capability, given them maneuver space, garner support from foreign sources and increase their potential with more advanced weapons (see stories about Taliban sniper capability in British held areas of Khandahar). In addition; the number of aircraft now harassed by Taliban fire has increased making even medivacs difficult. Add to that, the Red Cross's insistence on aiding the enemy and NATO field medical facilities being forced to include Taliban in Triage decisions and even the staunchest supporter of anti-american sentiment in this country has to question the sanity of the plan.

Given all of the above, it is clear that all US and NATO deaths in Afghanistan are directly and indirectly due to the institution of the current ROE and our having intentionally given control of the battle space to the Taliban. And it is intentional because there is no way a clear thinking military mind could not fully understand the ramifications of not continuing to pressure the enemy, keeping him off balance, with every weapon in his arsenal.

The hard truth is that America's Sons and Daughters will continue to pay the ultimate price for high-minded thinkers, politicians and inept leadership until the true 'King' of the country, the Citizens decide they have had enough. And that is unlikely to happen until Islam is once again successful in attacking our homeland.

Far too many Americans have far too short a memory. God protect our Warriors.

Semper Fidelis;

John Bernard

The Cancer is Spreading; Anti-'Infidel' Hatred Manifested

In the past two weeks we have read more stories about ANA turning their weapons on their NATO and American 'counterparts'. These are not the first incidences in this 9 year conflict to be sure but it is the first time two incidences of this kind have occurred so closely together. They also happened on opposite sides of the country, one from the other.

I wrote about the first of these most recent incidences in Dealing with the Devil. In a follow-up story, the ANA soldier who has claimed responsibility said he had planned to do so before he decided to jump ship for the Taliban; an act of revenge for civilians he says were killed by British forces.

This is being and will continue to be portrayed as a singular act of violence rather than the manifestation of a universal hatred for American Forces, NATO and western culture. It is extremely important that the 'architects' of this current iteration of COIN continue to project absolute belief in this strategy if they have any hope of stemming the growing discontent with it's premise; that Islam is ultimately peaceful and that the average Afghan wants our 'help'.

The latest incident, reported today in Stratfor and other sources, , says an ANA soldier turned his weapon on two American Contractors hired to train ANA as well as others. In the end, 4 died which included the attacker.

The question everyone would be asking if anyone was in fact listening is whether or not this is an anomaly or an undercurrent of inbred, religiously fostered hatred toward US and NATO forces. No one is asking because the people whom we have entrusted with prosecuting this action in Afghanistan refuse to accept the possibility that their originating premise is wrong. The media refuses to ask the question for a variety of reasons not the least of which is ratings. Why waste time talking about a subject that isn't going to bring home the bacon. A ten minute segment on the self-destructive life style of yet another one of the Hollywood elite is far more engrossing - and it pays better.

While the undercurrent of anger of the largely disaffected red-blooded American boils, the dead in DC continue their campaign of disinterest for the plight of our Warriors and the greedy in the media continue to dig for far more lucrative stories. When did we get here?

The fact of the matter is; we have always been here. A good friend once told me something I never forgot; fewer than 3% of the population of the colonies supported talk of separation from England - let alone a war. The remaining 97% were split between direct loyalties to Britain and loyalties to their homeland. Some have said the Tories were the majority. Even then under an increasingly oppressive government and their ever increasing levy of burdensome taxes, people were not willing to stand up and declare right what they knew to be right and to stand against tyranny.

Today, the measure of the importance of support for something is proportional to the cost of that 'something' to our wallets, our time, our entertainment or our families. Far too many times I have spoken to people about this subject and observed the glazed look of the uninterested and uneducated staring back at me. On occasion, I have witnessed a transformation but only when one of their sons or daughters have declared their interest in joining the service. Maybe that's what it will take. Maybe it requires everyone being faced with the potential of forced service to make them realize that the wanton killing, at the hands of our politicians in DC, is really at their door.

As for the media; maybe we need to use TARP funds or create another bailout/incentive fund - taxpayer funded, available only to those news agencies ready to start paying attention to the ongoing debacle in Afghanistan... Maybe we need to take their pads and cameras away and replace them with rifles they can't shoot, in places they can't get fire support, led by men prepared to bury them for the sake of the enemy.

Semper Fidelis;

John Bernard