Just received this from SGT Garth P. Gehlen (USA). Smart PA guy, emailing bloggers. The Army better be careful, with brains like that, some contractor is going to snag him for their PR Department.

We just added this to the CENTCOM website. General John P. Abizaid, commander, United States Central Command, puts out an annual statement on the posture of the United States Central Command. This is the 2006 posture statement that discusses various topics on the Global War on Terrorism. Some of the topics include “Nature of the Enemy”, “Situation Overview in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa”, “Other Regional Partnerships” and “Iran and Syria.”
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Feel free to quote from and/or link to it. Thanks.

Read The General’s entire posture statment here.

I find this excerpt the one that must be repeated again, and again, and again. No matter which side of he political spectrum you shine on, you’ve got to get this through your head that this is who we’re fighting and who we must defeat.

A. THE NATURE OF THE ENEMY

Al Qaida and ideologically-linked groups such as Ansar al Islam, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, al Ittihad al Islami, Jemaah Islamiyah, and Ansar al Sunna represent the main enemy to long-term peace and stability in the CENTCOM AOR, promoting and thriving on instability and violence. They challenge our partners in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. They attack our friends in Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Morocco, Madrid, and London. Although we have not experienced another attack on our homeland, the enemy that brought us 9/11 continues to represent a clear and unambiguous threat to our country.

This enemy seeks to topple local governments, establish a repressive and intolerant regional theocracy, and then extend its violence to the rest of the world. To effect such change, this enemy believes it must evict the United States and our Coalition allies from the region. Masking their true intentions with propaganda, rhetoric, and a sophisticated use of the mass media and the internet, this enemy exploits regional tensions and popular grievances. Al Qaida and its associated movements exhibit strategic patience and are willing to wait decades to achieve their goals.

These extremists defame the religion of Islam by glorifying suicide bombing, by taking and beheading hostages, and by the wanton use of explosive devices that kill innocent people by the score. Their false jihad kills indiscriminately and runs contrary to any standard of moral conduct and behavior. The enemy’s vision of the future would create a region-wide zone that would look like Afghanistan under the Taliban. Music would be banned, women ostracized, basic liberties banished, and soccer stadiums used for public executions. The people of the region do not want the future these extremists desire. The more we talk about this enemy, the more its bankrupt ideology will become known. But more important, the more that regional leaders talk about and act against this enemy, the less attractive it will be. Osama bin Laden and Musab al Zarqawi cannot represent the future of Islam.

Al Qaida and their allies are ruthless, giving them power beyond their relatively small numbers. They are masters of intimidation. Their depraved attacks menace entire communities and can influence the policies of national governments. They embrace asymmetric warfare, focusing their means on the innocent and defenseless. In Jordan, they target wedding parties. In Iraq, they murder children playing in the streets, doctors working in hospitals, and UN employees supporting Iraqi efforts to build their country. They respect no neutral ground.

This enemy is linked by modern communications, expertly using the virtual world for recruiting, fundraising, planning, training, indoctrination, and proselytizing. The internet empowers these extremists in a way that would have been impossible a decade ago. It enables them to have global reach and to plan and coordinate terrorist operations throughout the world.

Finally, and most important, this enemy seeks to develop or acquire weapons of mass destruction. If they could develop or acquire a chemical, biological, or nuclear device, they would use it. This is not a guess. This is what they say. Their willingness to use suicide means to deliver such a weapon heightens this threat. There should be no mistake about the stakes in this broader war against al Qaida. The enemy must be deprived of time, safe haven and resources to prevent development and use of mass-casualty producing devices.

Today, we have a much fuller understanding of the al Qaida network than we did on September 11, 2001. It exists in the geographic realm, but also thrives in virtual space, constituting a global threat. Geographically, it seeks ungoverned spaces inside weak and failing states where it can establish safe havens and training sites. In these areas, military forces – ours or others – can have good effects. But this is a thinking enemy, adapting against our strengths. They have developed virtual safe havens. They have front companies. They employ facilitators and sympathetic charities that move their finances and enable their ideology to spread around the region. It is a secretive, complex network that often hides in plain sight.

Fortunately, the vast majority of the people in the region want nothing to do with the perverted vision of Islam preached by al Qaida. But the power and grip of the al Qaida movement and ideology should not be underestimated. Communism and fascism started with relatively few, but deeply committed adherents, and the hate preached by al Qaida resonates with young men and women of little hope. Its global reach is already disturbingly apparent. In 2005, they enlisted suicide bombers from all over the Middle East and deployed over 500 of them world-wide, killing thousands of innocent civilians, most of whom were Muslims.