Name:   MAJ USA RET - Subject:   A Soviet Lesson from 1986 Date:   9/8/2014 8:42:58 AM (updated 9/8/2014 8:45:12 AM)

By exposing your strategy to the enemy… before you attack… you increase the number of casualties in the attack. Even if it is successful. The hidden cost of political (media) grandstanding on military and intelligence issues… is blood. My hypothesis is that our current administration is unique among governments in that it pays for political gain with the blood, lives, and family fortunes of our heroes.

I recall the words of the unfairly berated President George Bush after 9/11, “…and some actions, you will never know about.” Now THERE was a man who knew the dread of terrorists.

In 1986, Hezbollah kidnapped 4 Russian attaches in Lebanon... and beheaded one. They demanded Russian ransom and concessions. The Russians then kidnapped a relative of the Hezbollah leader and sent the leader his genitals. Immediately thereafter, the remaining 3 Russians were released…150 yards from the Russian embassy… and Islamic terror organizations have decided Russian hostages are not profitable.

The Islamists laugh at our abhorrence of violence and penchant for extensive negotiation to the final point of insignificant compromise. We are (in the present age) determined to be weak. The Islamists do not laugh at Russians or Israelis… and probably not the French.