A Quote by Martha McSally
In 2001, I was an Air Force lieutenant colonel and A-10 fighter pilot stationed in Saudi Arabia, in charge of rescue operations for no-fly enforcement in Iraq and then in Afghanistan.
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We have accomplished our mission of stopping Iraq's drive to take over Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Middle East. We should begin to reduce our forces in Saudi Arabia, ever so slowly, and look to a more multinational force to keep the peace.
I was in Saudi Arabia on 9/11 and was part of the initial leadership team to execute the initial combat operations in Afghanistan.
Like Afghanistan before it, Iraq is only one theater in a regional war. We were attacked by a network of terrorist organizations supported by several countries, of whom the most important were Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.
The Syrian border town of Qa'im was the main gateway Islamic radicals used to go to Iraq. Syria became the passageway for extremists from Egypt, Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim nations to fight a jihad against American forces in Iraq.
I grew up and I kind of took the road of becoming a pilot, which was another dream I had of flying, and once I did attend the air force academy, that dream of flying became more like a project, and I wanted to be a fighter pilot, which I did. I became a fighter pilot.
When the United States first went into Afghanistan in 2001, it devastated the Taliban and Al Qaeda in a matter of weeks using only a few hundred C.I.A. and Special Operations personnel, backed by American air power. Later, when the United States transitioned to conventional Pentagon stability operations, this success was reversed.
Afghanistan would have been difficult enough without Iraq. Iraq made it impossible. The argument that had we just focused on Afghanistan we'd now be okay is persuasive, but it omits the fact that we weren't supposed to get involved in nation-building in Afghanistan.In my new book, I open with a quote from Donald Rumsfeld. In October 2001, he said of Afghanistan: "It's not a quagmire." Ten years later there are 150,000 Western troops there.
Saudi Arabia is, of course, the keystone of OPEC. Saudi Arabia has had the distinction of remaining stable through all the escalating tumult of recent decades, reliably pumping out its roughly 10 million barrels a day like Bossy the cow in America's oil import barn.
Americans want to democratise us. OK, but why not go and democratise Saudi Arabia. Are we anything like Saudi Arabia? No, we are far from that. So why aren't they democratising Saudi Arabia? Because they are bastards, but they are their bastards.
As far as Iraq, the important thing is that the Taliban is gone in Afghanistan, three-quarters of the al-Qaida leadership is either dead or in jail, and we now have Saudi Arabia working with us, Pakistan working with us.
When you have a script where we say we are just going to do air operations alone within the territory of Iraq, what happens is the forces then that we want to target will move their forces, colocate with hospitals, schools, embed themselves to be very, very difficult to conduct air operations against.
Traditionally, all the kings of Saudi Arabia have been sons of the founder of Saudi Arabia, and they've gone from one son to the next.
Afghanistan remains an opportunity to deal al Qaeda a vital strategic blow, especially since we have abandoned all operations - including counterterrorism operations - in Iraq.
I move countries every three or four years. I was born in London, and we lived in Canada. Then we lived in Saudi Arabia until the Gulf War broke out, when we were forced to leave. Then we hop-scotched for a while from Holland back to Canada back to Saudi Arabia. Then there was D-day, so we had to get out again.
Japan, Germany, South Korea, these are very rich, powerful countries. Saudi Arabia, nothing but money. We Americans protect Saudi Arabia. Why aren't they paying?
When I started at the Air Force Academy, I found out that I couldn't be a fighter pilot simply because I had ovaries. That was enough to make me go for it.
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