Saturday, December 8, 2018

ANOTHER SCANDAL AT CBS

                             ANOTHER SCANDAL AT CBS                              

My name is Steve Patten.   I am a journalist, editor of Lee & Grant International (www.leeandgrantinternational.com) reporting on the War on Terror and other national security issues.  I have a concern as a CBS shareholder, which I have been since the 1980s.    CBS has another scandal on its hands.

I was a correspondent for CBS News reporting on television and radio from wars in the Far East, Middle East, and Central America in the 1970s and 1980s.  As I was about to take up a new assignment from CBS News as correspondent in the Beirut, Lebanon bureau the CBS News foreign editor called to tell me, “The word on the streets of Beirut is you’re dirty.”  He explained CBS News had been told I was actually a CIA agent using journalism as a cover.   I told him that was ridiculous and demanded to know where they got this. 

CBS would never reveal its secret sources and when I continued to demand it reveal those sources CBS News fired me, giving me a one-day notice of termination from my post as correspondent for CBS News in Seoul, South Korea.  In another obvious sign that CBS News believed this CIA allegation about me, CBS News refused to honor my final expense reports for $14,000. in expenses I properly and legitimately incurred working as a correspondent for CBS News in South Korea, in accordance with my contract with CBS.

That was 1985 and CBS News has never reimbursed me for those expenses, in spite of my many requests to do so.  I offered in a January 2016 letter to CBS News president David Rhodes to accept the $14,000. figure if paid within 30 days.  I warned him if not paid I would add late fees and interest to run from the 1980s that would substantially increase CBS indebtedness to me.

His response?  Mr. Rhodes had a staff member e-mail me to say I was submitting these expenses 30 years too late and so CBS would not pay.  Balderdash.  Hogwash.  CBS News got these expense reports three decades ago and, as I wrote to Mr. Rhodes in response, I can easily document that.  My billing to CBS now includes late fees and interest, which have increased this $14,000. to currently over $26 million. 

I mailed acting CBS CEO Joseph Ianniello letters September and November 2018 with copies of the letters to CBS board members and then faxed the letters last week asking   Mr. Ianniello to direct Mr. Rhodes to pay the monies CBS News owes me.  No reply yet.


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For more information on Steve Patten vs. CBS, please refer to the book, "Foreign Correspondent," by Patricia L. Mosure and Stephen G. Patten, available at Amazon.com (ISBN: 978-0-9968185-0-6) or contact Steve's office at ppmntpatti@aol.com or 1-800-533-4726.  You can also go to www.facebook.com/thebookforeigncorrespondent for more information.

Thursday, September 6, 2018

PAYING MY RESPECTS TO JOHN McCAIN


PAYING MY RESPECTS TO JOHN McCAIN
By
Stephen G. Patten
In my favorite photo of John McCain he is dressed in his navy white uniform, standing on two crutches, and leaning forward purposely to make sure the person to whom he is speaking gets his point loud and clear.  That person is President Richard Nixon who appears half amused by what this energetic and forceful young officer is saying to him but unsure enough to be cautiously leaning back from the verbal barrage coming his way courtesy of the U.S. Navy.
Perhaps Lieutenant Commander McCain is just thanking President Nixon, for the photo is from 1973 shortly after the Nixon Administration negotiated the Paris Peace Accords on the Vietnam War that led to the release of 591 Americans in Operation Homecoming who had been held prisoner by the Vietnamese communists.  For John McCain that meant an end to 5 ½ years of torture and abuse in the infamous prison the Americans incarcerated there dubbed the “Hanoi Hilton” and a return home to America. 
Whatever McCain was saying to the president, it obviously was heartfelt and something this former prisoner-of-war wanted the man responsible for his liberation to understand.
A Military Hero in the Political Arena
The forward leaning, self-assured posture of John McCain in that photo foretold an extraordinary career that had already established him as a war hero and would take him, later a retired navy captain, to pinnacles of power as a two-term congressman, six-term senator, and presidential nominee for the Republican Party in 2008.  That he did not achieve the highest office in the land he lost to Barack Obama did not diminish his status.  Revered for his physical courage in war and respected for his diligence and expertise in the halls of Congress, especially regarding national security issues, John McCain was a towering figure of authority and strength to millions of Americans.
No more so than to us Vietnam War Veterans.  He stood tall in the face of adversity that is war, as all of us in the military hoped we could as well.  He bitterly attacked the weakness of American political policies during the Vietnam War that led to the abandonment of our allies in Indochina – South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos - allowing the communists to prevail in all three countries.  That abandonment was - and still is - a stain on the honor of America, a shame of betrayal of our friends in time of war he and so many others of us painfully felt. 
From this came his commitment in his political life to a strong defense for America, an unwavering support for the U.S. military and its men and women, and faithfulness to our allies in the worldwide struggle against oppression and terrorism, particularly in his role as Chairman of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, a job he relished.  He carried this message for years on his indefatigable travels around the globe, from lonely military outposts on the front lines to the palaces and parliaments of world leaders in their capitals.
Honoring the Man  
John McCain’s life of service weighed heavily on my mind as I flew from my home in Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. to pay tribute to the man I and so many others admired. During the flight I walked up and down the aisles, as is my custom on airplane trips, and spotted a lady wearing a cap that read Sgt. Marine Badass.  This 87-year-old named Lorry had served in the Marine Corps during the Korean War and was on her way to a convention in Washington of women who had served in the military.  We exchanged salutes and our Marine Corps motto, Semper Fi.  John McCain would have loved her.
In Washington I waited in line with many other well-wishers at the Capitol to pay my respects to the Senator lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda.  During the few hours before we were allowed in I chatted with those around me.  Among them were a career Coast Guard officer and his wife.  And there was a tall, retired navy officer who she said had served for 21 years before retiring, a Hispanic lady from Orlando, and another lady with multiple bracelets on her wrists from upstate New York.  All very nice people who just wanted like me to pay their respects to a patriot.
Before getting in line I had walked over across the street to the Russell Senate Office Building.  I stopped by the office of John McCain’s fellow senator and close friend, Lindsey Graham from South Carolina.  I left my card with the receptionist and asked her to thank the senator for his service, as a way of showing my appreciation for the steadfast and loving support he always lent to his now fallen comrade.
And then to John McCain’s office overlooking the Capitol grounds where I expressed my concern for his staff members there and signed the visitors’ book.   The polite young men behind the desks in his office seemed grateful that I stopped by.
Lying in State
As we filed down into the Capitol grounds when they started to let us in I met seven gentlemen originally from Korea, all dressed in suits and American flag ties who had fought in Vietnam in South Korean units sent to Vietnam to support the American war effort there.  I told them my battalion in Vietnam was stationed right next to a South Korean battalion.  We all had our picture taken together and I exchanged business cards with one of them, who told me he was a tae kwon do martial arts master now living in New Jersey.
Nearing the Rotunda as our line moved forward, I talked with two recent graduates of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis in uniform.  Both ladies told me they were now in medical school and I thought about the great navy doctors who looked after us Marines when I served in the U.S. and overseas.
Shortly thereafter I followed our procession into the Rotunda and the flag-draped coffin of the man we wished to honor.  I said a prayer, saluted John McCain, and walked out the other side from where we had come in and onto a line to sign the condolence books set up to write a message to this family.  There I reminisced with an army veteran, a retired lawyer from Indianapolis who had also served in Vietnam.
Outside the Capitol a Russian journalist interviewed me, asking why I was there. To honor the man, I responded.  In professional courtesy to me as a fellow journalist, this gentleman, Dmitry, later sent me a copy of the article for his news agency, Sputnik, which he had written.  It was very well done. 
I spent the evening at the home of my dear friends, Dave Hatcher, and his lovely wife, Khun Vasana, along with their wonderful children, their son, Donnie, and their daughter, Vanessa, and her husband, Scott.  Dave, a West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran, and I had been CBS News reporters in Bangkok following the Vietnam War.  My wife, Pattie, and I have been blessed with the friendship and love of the Hatcher family ever since.
Going Home
The next day I went to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and watched as Mrs. McCain laid a wreath.  We all applauded as she slowly left the Memorial on her way with the hearse carrying her husband’s body to the Washington National Cathedral for the formal funeral ceremonies.  I then paid tribute to the three comrades in arms of Pattie and me whose names are emblazoned on the Memorial Wall.  A very courteous and solicitous volunteer, Steve, etched the three names on paper pressed against the Wall and gave them to me.
I had a flight back to Los Angeles that evening, so I returned to my hotel, checked out, and prepared to head for the Metro subway to take me to Dulles Airport.  About ready to walk out of the hotel, I saw a stunning blonde lady who stopped me in my tracks.  I finally realized it was Mrs. Mitt Romney and then saw her husband standing with her in a group of five or six people.  I approached them, gently touched the governor’s arm and thanked him for his service and saluted him.  He was very gracious, thanked me, and, as I was leaving, several in his group, seeing the Marine Corps cover (hat) I was wearing, thanked me for my service.
That was very kind, but I reflected later that while many of us have served, few of us can match the 60-year career of devotion to duty and country that John McCain, the man I and so many others came to honor, gave to America.
Thank you, John McCain.  Godspeed.  Go Navy!!!!
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Steve is editor of Lee & Grant International that reports on national security issues and the War on Terror.  He was a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Vietnam War.  You can contact Steve at:  ppmntpatti@aol.com

Monday, April 30, 2018

A DISHONORALE ANNIVERSARY

On 30 April 1975, Saigon, the capital of our ally, South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam), fell to the invading North Vietnamese army. It is 43 years ago today, but it remains a terrible and enduring stain on the honor of America for having abandoned an ally we had pledged to protect and defend. Also, as pointed out by Derek Williams, it came 13 days after Phnom Penh fell to the murderous Khmer Rouge when we abandoned our ally in Cambodia.

Monday, February 5, 2018


HOW TO START WINNING THE WAR ON TERROR 
AND
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP

By

Patricia L. Mosure and Stephen G. Patten


We would like to make a point at the outset of this article:

We do not have a lot of time until the terrorists get their hands on some very nasty weapons and the ability to use them that are going to change this world in a way we are not going to like.  What we will talk about in this article is not theory.  It is now.

Foreign Correspondent

When the United States sends its young men and women overseas to war, those Americans must know that if they are captured , if they falter, if they fall behind, America will come back to get them and bring them home.  The United States of America does not leave its troops behind.  That is a sacred pledge.

We have co-authored a book, “Foreign Correspondent,” about a CBS News journalist, Steve, striving to maintain that pledge.  It runs over 40 years from before Steve was a journalist and served with the United States Marine Corps in South Vietnam to his years reporting for CBS News in wars around the world, in the Far East, the Middle East, and Central America.  It also includes our reporting for our company, Lee & Grant International, on the War on Terror.

This book is intended to inform our readers, our viewers, our listeners, of efforts to bring lost Americans home and the role of a journalist involved in those efforts who became a target himself when CBS News accused Steve of being a CIA agent using journalism as a cover.  Most of all, this book is intended to keep faith with our heroes and our heroines.

Four Missions

One of the major topics we address in “Foreign Correspondent” is the War on Terror.   It is actually the concluding chapter of the book. 

If we are going to start winning this war – and we are not now -  there are four missions we must accomplish.  First, solve the North Korea problem.  Second, confront and defeat ISIS.  Third, stabilize Afghanistan.   Fourth, refocus on Iraq.

First Mission:  Solve the North Korea Problem

Successive U.S. administrations have made clear America will not tolerate a nuclear armed North Korea.  The result?  The terrorist state of North Korea is now armed with nuclear weapons.  The failure of U.S. policy to prevent the communist government in Pyongyang led by Kim Jong-un from developing these weapons obviously means we must rethink U.S. policy that has not worked out so well.

The communist North maintains it is only defending itself from an aggressive America that seeks to dominate and control the Korean peninsula.  It cites the presence of the some 30,000 U.S. troops in the South and what it calls the provocative joint military exercises the U.S. and South Korea periodically conduct.  It says the two Koreas could reunite peacefully if only the U.S. would get out of the way and abandon its occupation of the South.

Okay.  Let’s get out of the way.  Withdraw our troops, conditioned upon a binding and verifiable agreement that North Korea will dismantle its nuclear arsenal as the U.S. is pulling out its troops.  Once North Korea has destroyed the last of its nukes, the U.S. will withdraw the last of our troops, except for a security force manning the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating North from South Korea.  If the North is serious about a peaceful reunification with the South and the two countries do reunite, we will withdraw our security force from a DMZ that will no longer exist in a reunified Korea.

Fine.  What does this accomplish?  It removes the excuse the North uses for building its nuclear arsenal.  Even more importantly it sends a clear signal to China, North Korea’s principal benefactor, it has no reason any further to prop up the North Korean regime.  A neutralized and neutral Korean peninsula would pose no threat to China which shares a 850 mile land border with North Korea and would gain international acclaim for the Chinese for no longer supporting up the brutal North Korean dictatorship that is the world’s pariah.

But, one would ask, doesn’t withdrawal of U.S. troops invite an invasion of South Korea by the North?  Not really.  The American forces we have in South Korea are there not to stop a North Korean invasion by the number of troops we have in the South.  They would be quickly overrun by the massive North Korean army should it decide to invade.

The Americans are in the South as a deterrent because any attack on U.S. troops would bring an overwhelming response from the United States.  That same purpose would be achieved by keeping the U.S. security force on the DMZ.  We would still be justified in going back into South Korea if our troops in the DMZ were threatened.

The South Korean military – known as ROK troops, for Republic of Korea – would stand and fight if the North invaded.  ROK forces are highly trained, very capable, and organized to repel a violation of their territory.  And they are tough.

When Steve served in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War the headquarters for his Marine Corps battalion – 1st battalion, 1st Marines – was stationed in the South Vietnamese city of Hoi An, about half way between Da Nang and Chu Lai in the northern region of South Vietnam.


A South Korean battalion was headquartered right next to Steve’s battalion headquarters.  These South Korean troops, after a hard day’s work of finding and killing the enemy, would come back to their battalion headquarters and, to kick back and relax in the evening, would beat each other up using their Tae Kwan Do martial arts.


On patrol one evening Steve and about 10 or 11 other Marines walked into a South Vietnamese village.  It was the middle of the night and the village was deserted.  Steve walked into one of the huts and an old woman was squatting on the dirt floor of the hut holding a baby and shaking in fright.  Steve tried to calm her fears and motioned it was all right, the Marines were not going to harm her or her village.  Steve asked her, “VC a dao, VC a dao.”  “Where are the VC?  Where are the VC?,” the Viet Cong communist guerrillas.  She continued to shiver and wouldn’t answer him.


Steve walked out of the hut and he and the other Marines left.  A minute or two out of the village they started taking small arms fire from this village.  The VC had crawled out of their holes in the ground or wherever else they were hiding, and were firing at them.  The Marines returned fire and continued on their way.  There was no point in going back into the village, for the men would just disappear again.

If that had been a South Korean unit, fired upon after leaving the village, it would have gone back in the village, killed any men they could find, killed all the women, the children, dogs, chickens, anything living, burned the village and destroyed all their crops.  Then,
the Koreans would leave, in their wake a village that no longer existed. Interestingly,

South Korea’s TAOR - tactical area of responsibility - was more peaceful the Marines’ TAOR.
The South Korean military is not to be trifled with.  North Korea knows that and would be unlikely to test the South backed up as it will be by American military might.

Once peaceful reunification between North and South is a reality and we remove the troops from the DMZ, we follow that up with a clear commitment to Korea’s reunification that, if violated, would prompt U.S. forces to go back in in force.

Will it work?  Maybe.  We can’t say for sure.  But it is worth the effort, for it is a far better scenario than a nuclear armed North Korea bearing down on the South and threatening the United States and the rest of the world.  Which is what we have now.

Second Mission:  Destroy ISIS

Now to the Middle East and ISIS, also called ISIL or the Islamic State, or Daesh, an acronym for its name in Arabic.  We have had success against ISIS, knocking it out of
northern Iraq and northern Syria.  But we have yet to deliver the knockout blow.  We must put a standing army in the field supported by air power, find ISIS’ army, and destroy it.  And we must kill and/or incarcerate all of its combatants.  The wanton cruelty these people have amply demonstrated shows they are far beyond redemption.

And let this be a warning to young people who have a somehow skewed romantic notion of adventure – and their parents – that if we catch them with ISIS we will kill them too.

This army we put in the field can be American, Middle Eastern, Arab, South Asian, European with our NATO allies.  It could be Chinese, Japanese, or come from Venus or Mars.  We don’t care.  Or, as journalist Bill O’Reilly, formerly of Fox News, suggests, it could be a mercenary army.  There are plenty of mercenaries in this world – Steve has run across a few of them in his day – who would be more than willing to fight anytime, anywhere, for any side, as long as the money is right.

But, in addition to defeating ISIS militarily, we must knock it out politically.  That means separating from it the Sunni support it now enjoys.  Sunni, the major sect of Islam, accounts for 80% or so of the billion and a half Muslims around the world.  So, while we are wiping out ISIS combatants we must send a day contingent down to Damascus, the capital of Syria, and escort that murderous despot, Bashar al-Assad, and all of his family out of town.  You can’t leave any family there for they will engender loyalty.

Or, if you prefer, exile his family somewhere in the world and take Bashar al-Assad himself and hang him from the nearest lamppost.  But get rid of him!!  Only the most obtuse who follow the Middle East can fail to see this man should have been gone a long time ago. 

The Assads are Alawites, an offshoot of the Shia, the principal minority sect of Islam and the sworn enemies of the Sunnis.  Prior to the massive emigration from Syria during its civil war the Alawites likely accounted for no more than 15% of Syria’s population that was 23-24 million, while Sunnis were probably 75%.  We put a Sunni leader or group of Sunni leaders in al-Assad’s place.

We do the same thing in Iraq, except here the situation is reversed, for Iraq is a majority Shia country, about two thirds Shia and a third Sunni in a population similar to Syria.  We go to Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, and ask our ally, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, a Shia, to bring more Sunnis into government.  He is doing this somewhat, but he has to do it a lot more.

The idea of all of this is that if the Sunnis can see they are fairly represented in the halls of power in Damascus and Baghdad and they feel protected, they will no longer feel the need
to support ISIS.  We destroy ISIS militarily, we knock it out politically, we defeat ISIS.  Now, it will have to be monitored for years to come, but it will no longer pose the dire threat to America and the world that it does today.

Third Mission:  Stabilize Afghanistan

We must maintain a residual military force in Afghanistan, whatever our generals and admirals feel we need.  The U.S. has had some 8,000-9,000 troops there and we applaud our Government for doing so.  After President Trump took office he authorized Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis to send in more troops and today we have around 15,000.

The purpose of these troops is threefold.  First, they are there to shore up the Afghan military so that it doesn’t collapse in the face of enemy pressure as the Iraqi military did after we stupidly – stupidly - pulled all our troops out of Iraq at the end of 2011.

Second, our troops are training the Afghan military as best as they can.   And, third, importantly, our forces are in Afghanistan to ensure the supplies we ship into Afghanistan get where they are intended to go, for graft and corruption, of course, in Afghanistan are rampant.

We should encourage other countries such as our NATO allies who have been helping in Afghanistan to continue their support.  And we should encourage more countries who have not been in Afghanistan to come and help out as well.

All this is in the hope that one day Afghanistan can become, in the words of prominent American-Afghan author Tamim Ansary, the Switzerland of Asia.

But we should warn the current and any future Afghan government that we reserve the right to come back temporarily into Afghanistan in military force and wipe out any nest of terrorists plotting to kill Americans and seeking safe haven in Afghanistan, as the Taliban afforded Osama bin Laden in the 1990s and early 2000s.

As Dr. Michael Scheuer, the former head of the Osama bin Laden unit of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1996 to 1999 said in his book, “Marching Toward Hell,” the terrorists can say and think what they want about America.  But they must realize the cost to them of actually killing Americans will be horrendous.

Fourth Mission:  Refocus on Iraq

A renewed concentration on Iraq serves two purposes, both linked to the crucial geographic location of the country:

1.  It puts Iran, bordering Iraq to the east, on notice that America is not going to allow Iran to dominate Iraq nor to continue its spreading of terrorism throughout the region.  We can’t change the theocratic regime currently ruling in Iran.  That will have to come from the inside, from Iranians themselves.  But we can serve as a check on Iranian sponsorship of terror by a strong diplomatic, economic, and military presence in its western neighbor, Iraq.

2.  It addresses the threat of fanaticism emanating from Iraq’s immediate southern and western neighbor, Saudi Arabia.

The U. S. invasion of Iraq in March, 2003 ordered by former President George W. Bush was a response to 9/11.  The message was we were not going to sit back and wait to be attacked again.  If we see danger lurking on the horizon, we will act first to knock it out before it has a chance to hit us.  That, in essence, became known as the Bush Doctrine.

This flatten-Sadaam-Hussein attention-getter was aimed generally at the Middle East and in particular at Iraq’s aforementioned  immediate southern and western neighbor, Saudi Arabia.   Why Saudi Arabia?  One word:  Wahhabism.

Wahhabism is the brutal brand of so-called (we will explain in a bit the use of the term, “so-called”) Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia.

Mohammed ibn abd al-Wahhab was a fanatical 18th century religious zealot on the Arabian Peninsula who believed in the severest form of society:  cutting off the hands of thieves, subjugation of women, and the like.  He would be long forgotten in this world – which he richly deserved  - had he not allied with a family fighting for control of the Arabian Peninsula, the as-Sauds.  Al-Wahhab was the spiritual head of this alliance, the as-Sauds were the muscle.

Some 140 years after al-Wahhab’s death – that is, early 20th century – the descendants of the as-Saud family who allied with al-Wahhab emerged victorious for control of the Arabian Peninsula.

Do you recall the late 1960s movie, “Lawrence of Arabia,” starring and introducing in the title role a young British actor named Peter O’Toole?  There was another character in that movie, Prince Feisal, portrayed by the great British actor, Sir Alec Guinness.

Feisal was a real life character.  At the time of what became known as World War I with the British and the French and later the Americans fighting the Germans and their allies of the Central Powers on the European mainland Feisal was fighting to unite Arabs under his leadership on the Arabian Peninsula, acting for his father, Sheriff Hussein, the ruler of Mecca.

The British and the French saw an opportunity in Hussein and Feisal and approached them with a proposition.  Help us, they told them, fight the Germans and specifically their Turkish allies of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East and we will in turn at the victorious conclusion of the war support your efforts to unite Arabs under your flag on the Arabian Peninsula.  That’s a deal, said Hussein enthusiastically.

This is how a young British military officer named T.E. Lawrence got to the Middle East. The British sent him as a military adviser to Hussein, although he worked principally with Feisal.

But the British and the French, even before the end of the war, betrayed Hussein and Feisal.  In a secret accord named for a diplomat from each of their countries, the Sykes-Picot Agreement, they agreed to divide up the Middle East, the remnants of the Ottoman Empire, into what they called their “Mandates,” which in reality were just colonies.

And indeed that is what they did when the war ended.  Hussein, seeing that he had been betrayed, went out to fight on his own after the war for control of the Arabian Peninsula and got whupped by the Saudis.

So, in 1932 the Saudis declared their kingdom of Saudi Arabia, attaching their family name to that of the Peninsula.  And they made clear their brand of what they considered to be Islam was Wahhabism.

Not content to foster it only with their own borders, since 1932 to this very day the Saudis have spread, proselytized, promoted, promulgated Wahhabism around the world.  You may have only slightly heard of Wahhabism before reading this or maybe you never had heard of Wahhabism.  But let us give you three achievements of Wahhabism and we bet you are intimately familiar with all three.

First, the world’s most infamous, notorious, nefarious terrorist of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, Osama bin Laden.  How did this nutcase ever happen? 

Listen to Professor Walid Phares in his book, “Future Jihad.”  Writes Dr. Phares:  “Osama bin Laden did not create al Qaeda.  It created him.”  He is referring to the Wahhabist culture in which little Osama bin Laden grew up in Wahhabist Saudi Arabia.

Second achievement of the Wahhabists, the Taliban, those folks we have been fighting in Afghanistan since the U.S. invaded the country in October 2001.  The word, “Taliban,” comes from an Arabic word, “talib,” which means “student.”  Taliban is simply the plural.  They call themselves the “Students.”  Isn’t that quaint? 

Why?  It goes back to the Afghan civil wars of the 1990s.  Brutal.  Afghan warlords showing how tough they were would surround population centers and bomb them to smithereens,
killing thousands of men, women, and children.  The Afghan populace fled en masse, many going to their western border with Iran.  But Iran is Shia and most Afghans are Sunni.  The Shia, Islam’s principal minority sect, and the Sunnis, Islam’s majority sect, have been bitter enemies for centuries.

So, many more Afghans fled to the eastern border with Sunni Pakistan.  Along the latter border, the eastern Afghan border with Pakistan, there were at any one time millions of Afghans sitting in squalid, fetid refugee camps.  Into these camps came the Wahhabists from Saudi Arabia and their surrogates. 

They set up “madrasas,” which are schools, and invited young Afghan males only, of course, to come to school.  Well, here is a young Afghan man, 18 or 19 years old, sitting in rags, little to eat, and, worst of all, cooped up, bored to tears, with nothing to do.  You picture an 18 or 19-year-old you know cooped up with nothing to do and you know that spells trouble.

Hearing the siren call of going to school, these young Afghan men shrugged and said, Heck, why not?  So, by the tens and then the hundreds and then the thousands they went to these Wahhabist madrasas, where they got a clean set of clothing, three square meals a day, and where they got inculcated, they got indoctrinated with the hatred and the violence of Wahhabism.

Out from these madrasas marched the students.  Out from these camps marched the Taliban.

Third crowning achievement of the Wahhabists, those charming gentlemen who stole four planes and killed 3,000 people on 9/11.  Of the 19 hijackers, two came from United Arab Emirates, one was from Egypt, and another from Lebanon.  Do you want to take a wild guess where the other 15 came from?  Of course, they were Saudis, having grown up in the same hate-filled Wahhabist culture as little Osama bin Laden in Wahhabist Saudi Arabia.

And how does ISIS characterize itself?  Naturally, it calls itself Wahhabist.

Still not convinced of the evil of Wahhabism?  Then come with us to Mecca, the religious capital of the Islamic world located within Saudi Arabia.  There in Mecca stands the Grand Mosque, the largest mosque in the world, that encloses the Kaaba, Islam’s most sacred shrine that Muslims believe Ibrahim, whom they call Abraham, built centuries ago.

In the city of Mecca little girls – 13, 14, 15 years old - are going to school.   They are dressed in their hijabs, their head coverings, and their abayas or burkhas, their body coverings.  Once they get into the school building they take off their hijabs, they take off their abayas or their burkhas, which is tradition, as they are wearing their school uniforms underneath.  And they go to class.

The date is March 11th, 2002.  A fire breaks out in the school building.  Just like most people would do if they were trapped in a burning building, they panic and run for the exits.  There is a stampede.  Kids are being trampled.  Some of the girls make it through the exit doors and out into the safety of the open air.

At that very moment the Wahhabist religious police arrive.  Yes, there is such a thing as the Wahhabist religious police.

They grab the young girls who have escaped to the outside and throw them back into the burning building!!!  Other young girls are still inside the building but have made it to the
exit doors and are scratching to get out.  The Wahhabist police block the exits so that these girls cannot escape the death that is enveloping them.

Why?  Why would these so-called police do this?  Because in their panic the girls forgot to put back on their hijabs, their head coverings.  They forgot to put back on their abayas or burkhas, their body coverings.  In the eyes of the Wahhabist religious police these girls would have gone out into the world naked, a mortal sin.

Fifteen of these beautiful little children with their wondrous lives all ahead of them die.  Over 50 are injured. 

We would suggest to you this is not Islam.  This is madness, pure, unadulterated madness.

Solving Saudi Arabia

We were both born in America.  We are both Christians.  Neither one of us has a drop of Arab blood in us.  Every night after Steve reads the Bible he reads the Quran, the holy book of Islam.  He reads it in English and in Arabic. 

And there is nothing he has ever read in the Quran, in either language, nor seen in the Sunna, a collective term for the ways, traditions, customs of the Prophet Mohammed, Peace and Blessings Be Upon Him, that justifies the barbarity and the savagery of Osama bin Laden, of the Taliban, of the 9/11 hijackers, nor of those two losers as their uncle called them on television who perpetrated the Boston Marathon bombings, nor of those murderous freaks who massacred people in Paris, France, Brussels, Belgium, San Bernardino, California, Orlando, Florida, Chattanooga, Tennessee, Nice, France, Manchester, England, and in many other places around the world.

What is Islam, for example, that we would suggest to you is the Suratul Fatihah.  That is the first surah, meaning chapter, of the Quran, and a Muslim prayer similar to the Christians’ Lord’s Prayer in that every Muslim knows it and can recite it.

Let us share just part of it, about the first half, with you:

Bismillahi arhammani arrahiim,
Almamdu lilah rabbi alamiin,
Arhammani arrahiim,
Maliki yowma diin.

In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful,
Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds,
The Compassionate, the Merciful,
Master of Judgment Day.

Compassion.  Mercy.  Judgment Day.  These are Judeo-Christian concepts as well, are they not?

The message to Saudi Arabia is:  Stop spreading your vicious, violent, virulent, vulgar version of Islam around the world!  Stop in your role, along with Iran, as the prime sponsor, facilitator, and financier of terrorism on this planet!

To Win the War on Terror

There is a saying regarding the battlefields in which America has found itself for most of the 21st century that has been quoted many times before but bears repeating:

Change Afghanistan and you change Afghanistan.  Change Iraq and you change the Middle East.

Changing the Middle East was one of the prime rationales for the much maligned U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 ordered by former President George W. Bush.

We would suggest to you that we must change the Middle East if we are to win this War on Terror.

What You Can Do to Help in This Fight

Talk with your families, friends, colleagues, associates, co-workers, employers, employees, acquaintances, anyone you think needs to know about what is facing our country.  These are vital issues of national concern that affect us all.  Spread the word.  Reproduce this article for hard copy recipients and send a link to this article to your electronic favorites and ask them to send it on to their favorites.

Contact your two U.S. senators and your congressperson in their Washington, D.C. offices.  Ask to speak with the AA, the administrative aide, or the LA, the legislative aide.  If either is unavailable, ask to speak with the communications director.  If also unavailable, ask to speak with the press secretary, the media contact, for you have a message from two journalists, the authors of this article.

Contact the State Department in Washington, D.C. and the Defense Department in Arlington, Virginia.  Ask to speak with the Assistant Secretary of Middle East Affairs and the Assistant Secretary of South Asian Affairs (Afghanistan is considered South Asian) in each department.  Also ask to speak with the Deputy Assistant Secretary for each of the above.

Contact corporations doing business in the Middle East and South Asia.  Ask to speak with their public affairs department.  Contact the media, broadcast companies – television and radio - newspapers, and weekly news magazines.  Ask to speak with their foreign desks that cover stories overseas.

Fax or scan and e-mail this article to the offices of all these officials.  And ask for a reply to your fax and/or your messages you leave on the telephone.  Advise them you are concerned about the issues raised in this article and you wish to learn their comments on these issues.

Join our organization, America’s Corps of Advisors (ACA), that calls, e-mails, lobbies,
writes articles, gives speeches, conducts interviews, and maintains respectful but persistent contact with U.S. Government officials to provide advice on matters of national security.  As an ACA member, you can e-mail us at advisesolutions@aol.com with your concerns and we will pass on those concerns to the appropriate government offices and officials.  E-mail us anytime you want your voice heard. 

To join ACA, go to www.americascorpsofadvisors.com and click on “Membership-Become An Advisor” on the main navigation bar, fill out the application, and send it into us with your annual membership fee of $45.  Your voice will be heard.

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Patricia L. Mosure is the president of Lee & Grant International and Stephen G. Patten is its editor.  Lee & Grant reports on national security and the War on Terror.  This article may be reproduced with proper attribution.  For questions or comments, please e-mail ppmntpatti@aol.com or call 1-800-533-4726.





































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Thursday, January 18, 2018


SOLVING THE NORTH KOREA PROBLEM
By
Stephen G. Patten

For years the U.S. Government has said America will not tolerate a nuclear armed North Korea.  Today the terrorist state of North Korea led by Kim Jong-un is armed with nuclear weapons.  The failure of U.S. policy to prevent the communist government in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, from developing these weapons means we must rethink U.S. policy that obviously has not worked out so well.

North Korea maintains it is only defending itself from an aggressive America that seeks to dominate and control the Korean peninsula.  It cites the presence of 30,000 U.S. troops in the South and what it calls the provocative joint military exercises the U.S. and South Korea periodically conduct.  It says the two Koreas could reunite peacefully if only the U.S. would get out of the South.

Okay.  Let’s get out.  Withdraw our troops, conditioned upon a verifiable agreement that North Korea would dismantle its nuclear arsenal as we withdraw.  We would leave only a security force manning the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating North from South Korea, from which we would also withdraw once the two Koreas peacefully reunite. 

This removes the excuse for the North building its nuclear arsenal.  Even more importantly, it sends a clear signal to China, North Korea’s principal benefactor, it has no reason any further to prop up the North Korean regime.  A neutralized and neutral Korean peninsula would pose no threat to China which shares a 850 mile border with North Korea and would gain international acclaim for the Chinese for no longer supporting a brutal North Korean regime that is the world’s pariah.

But, doesn’t withdrawal of U.S. troops invite an invasion of South Korea by the North?  Not really.  The American forces we have in South Korea are there not to stop a North Korean invasion with the number of troops we have in the South.  They would be quickly overrun by the massive North Korean army should it decide to invade.

The Americans are in the South as a deterrent because any attack on U.S. troops would bring an overwhelming response from the United States.  American naval and air power could destroy North Korea in a matter of days and the North Koreans know it.  That same purpose would be achieved by keeping the U.S. security force on the DMZ.

The South Korean military – known as ROK troops, for Republic of Korea – would stand and fight if the North invaded.  ROK forces are highly trained, very capable, and organized to repel a violation of their territory.  And they are tough.

When I served in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War the headquarters for our Marine Corps battalion – 1st battalion, 1st Marines – was stationed in the South Vietnamese city of Hoi An, about half way between Da Nang and Chu Lai in the northern region of South Vietnam.

A South Korean battalion was headquartered right next to our battalion headquarters.  These South Korean troops, after a hard day’s work of finding and killing the enemy, would come back to their battalion headquarters and, to kick back and relax in the evening, would beat each other up using their Tae Kwan Do martial arts.

On patrol one evening I and about 10 or 11 other Marines walked into a South Vietnamese village.  It was the middle of the night and the village was deserted.  I walked into one of the huts and an old woman was squatting on the dirt floor of the hut holding a baby and shaking in fright.  I tried to calm her fears and motioned it was all right, we were not going to harm her or her village.  I asked her, “VC a dao, VC a dao.”  “Where are the VC?  Where are the VC?,” the Viet Cong communist guerrillas.  She continued to shiver and wouldn’t answer me.

I walked out of the hut and we left.  A minute or two out of the village we started taking small arms fire from this village.  The VC had crawled out of their holes in the ground or wherever else they were hiding, and were firing at us.  Our troops returned fire and we continued on our way.  There was no point in going back into the village, for the men would just disappear again.

If that had been a South Korean unit, fired upon after leaving the village, it would have gone back in the village, killed any men they could find, killed all the women, the children, dogs, chickens, anything living, burned the village and destroyed all their crops.  Then,
the Koreans would leave, in their wake a village that no longer existed. Interestingly,
South Korea’s TAOR - tactical area of responsibility - was more peaceful than ours.

The South Korean military is not to be trifled with.  North Korea knows that and would be unlikely to test the South backed up as it will be by American military might.

Once peaceful reunification between North and South is a reality, we remove our troops
from the DMZ, which would disappear.  Follow that up with a clear commitment to Korea’s reunification that, if violated, would prompt U.S. forces to go back in in force.

Will this plan work?  Maybe.  We cannot say for sure.  But it is worth the effort, for it is a far better scenario than a nuclear armed North Korea bearing down on the South and threatening the United States and the rest of the world.  Which is what we have now.

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Steve Patten (ppmntpatti@aol.com) is editor of Lee & Grant International based in 
Los Angeles (www.leeandgrantinternational.com) that reports on national security and 
the War on Terror.  He was a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Vietnam War 
and after his military service was stationed as a CBS News reporter in Seoul.

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

A MOTIVE FOR THE LAS VEGAS SHOOTER

A MOTIVE FOR THE LAS VEGAS SHOOTER

By Stephen G. Patten

What motivates a killer to kill?  In the case of Stephen C. Paddock, the man identified as murdering 58 people and injuring over 500 more attending an outdoor country music concert in Las Vegas, what motivated him from his perch in that luxury hotel casino, Mandalay Bay, overlooking the concert to rain death and destruction on his victims by repeatedly firing his arsenal of weapons through his hotel window as he mowed down those below?  

Make it 59 dead if you count Mr. Paddock, 64 years old, who apparently took his own life after his murderous rampage Sunday, October 1st.

This was a militarily precise operation by a man who had never served in the military but who successfully smuggled in over 20 firearms into his hotel room and then fired them competently enough to take the lives he did and injure so many others.  And he methodically set up an early warning system of cameras that would alert him to anyone attempting to enter his hotel room to disrupt the execution of his battle plan.

This is what makes the claim of the Islamic terrorist organization, ISIS, that this was one of its operations gain some credibility when its boast seemed at first outlandish and self-serving.

Consider that Mr. Paddock was seemingly well off financially, lived comfortably in retirement in Mesquite, Nevada, about an hour outside of Las Vegas, and a dedicated gambler who, it was reported, sometimes won big at the video poker slot machines he played.  This is not the picture of a desperate man looking to end his own life and take as many others as he could with him.

In a television interview October 8th on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, Steve Wynn, one of the best known figures in Las Vegas, Chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts, said Mr. Paddock and his girlfriend, Marilou Danley, were frequent guests at the casinos Mr. Wynn owns and operates.  Describing the couple as well known by his staff, Mr. Wynn said not once was either Mr. Paddock or his girlfriend observed imbibing any liquor in an environment where the drinks are free and flow easily for big gamblers like Mr. Paddock. 

Mr. Wynn added, “Their behavior was conservative, private, understated in every way.”

Presumably, his keen-eyed staff would have noted errant behavior associated with drug use if   Mr. Paddock and Ms. Danley were so inclined.  Mr. Wynn did not mention seeing such behavior in his interview with Chris Wallace.

What does that leave us with as a motive if we have a retired teetotaler with money in his pocket, a steady girl, a gambling avocation that apparently he really enjoyed, especially the jackpots he is said to have occasionally won, and an otherwise routine and unremarkable lifestyle?

Bring back in ISIS bragging this was its show.  Also think about Mr. Paddock’s girlfriend,         Ms. Danley, who is from the Philippines, a country in Southeast Asia that has had its own Islamic insurgency in its southern region, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), since the 1960s.

In a New York Times interview published October 5th Stephen Paddock’s brother, Eric, talked about his brother’s relationship with Ms. Danley:  “Steve expected people to wait on him for the most part.  But he waited on her sometimes.  He would do what she wanted to do.  He would defer to her in the way that he wouldn’t do to the rest of humanity.  Even me.”  

Now, engage in some conjecture.  Could Marilou Danley be a MNLF sympathizer who influenced her boyfriend, Stephen Paddock, to similar views on Islam?  Did these sympathies lead to contact with ISIS, who then recruited Mr. Paddock and packed him off for his deadly mission in             Las Vegas?

Again, this is conjecture.  Perhaps farfetched.  But so is the scenario that actually played out:  a gambler with a comfortable life that many would envy and eagerly emulate ends it all for himself and so many other Americans who just wanted to have fun at a music concert in what is often called “Sin City,” Las Vegas, Nevada.

In his interview of Steve Wynn on Fox News Sunday Chris Wallace asked Mr. Wynn if he had any theory on what motivated Stephen Paddock.  Mr. Wynn replied: 

“No.  No.  But I have this feeling, Chris.  This is a man who behaved rationally, privately, a little introverted, liked to play video poker.  But he was a rational man.  And every, every historical review of his behavior indicates that he was a rational man.  So was his girlfriend.  And yet he prepared over an extended period of time a totally irrational act.  Now this sounds like someone either totally demented, a behavior which he never evidenced, or someone who is sending a message.  This is a plan.  We don’t know what that message is or, or if there is one.  But this behavior according to my employees is as stunning, as unexpected, as anybody, any of them have ever met.”
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Stephen Patten (ppmntpatti@aol.com) is a former reporter for CBS News and served with           the U.S. Marine Corps in South Vietnam.  He speaks Iraqi Arabic and currently is editor of           Lee & Grant International that reports on the Middle East and the War on Terror.   

Monday, May 1, 2017

A DISHONORABLE ANNIVERSARY

On 30 April 1975, Saigon, the capital of our ally, South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam), fell to the invading North Vietnamese army. It is 42 years ago today, but it remains a terrible and enduring stain on the honor of America for having abandoned an ally we had pledged to protect and defend. Also, as pointed out last year by Derek Williams, it came 13 days after Phnom Penh fell to the murderous Khmer Rouge when we abandoned our ally in Cambodia.