A leader for challenging times

Georgy Gounev| When I heard the name of Lieutenant Colonel Allen West (West) I never imagined that one day I would know the man well enough in order to write about him. Several years ago there was a TV report about a military officer whose extremely promising military career that lasted for 22 years and had led him through the battlefields of the First Gulf War and Iraq had been interrupted by a rather dramatic incident.

It was on August 8, 2003 when West, an Artillery Battalion Commander in the Fourth Infantry Division, was conducting an important post-combat operations assignment to conduct civil-military operations north of Baghdad along Hwy 1 that led to Tikrit, the birth place of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and a hub of terrorist activity. His task was to establish a contact with the local tribal leaders, and to help train and develop the Iraqi Police to suppress the terrorism in order to create the necessary conditions to conduct local elections.

The mission turned out to be extremely dangerous and some of the local people informed West about the existence of plots to conduct ambushes aimed to kill American servicemen. An informant believed part of a terrorist network was identified and arrested. Upon his arrest he declined at point blank to provide any information about the planned attacks.

It was at this very moment that West entered the room where the interrogation was taking place. He was facing a heavy dilemma stemming from his responsibility for the safety of 650 men under his command. A month earlier West had been involved in an early morning drive by ambush which resulted in his driver being severely wounded. Consequently, it was now critically important to make the detained informant talk.

West pulled out his gun and warned the detainee that he will shoot him on the spot if he didn’t deliver the needed information. There was no answer and West subsequently had the individual taken outside. There West shot his 9mm pistol twice; first time in the air, the second time into the clearing barrel, (a box filled with sand) close to the detainee’s head.

Following the second shot the prisoner started talking. He provided the interrogators with the names of the terrorists and the way they were about to perform their murderous attack. West immediately informed his superiors not only about the details of the plot, but also how he obtained the prisoner’s confessions. The planned ambush never materialized but the man who prevented the bloody assault was relieved of his combat command, charged and threatened with courts-martial, fined $5,000, and upon redeployment from Iraq retired and received an Honorable Discharge from the US Army.
During his Article 32 hearing, West told the presiding officer: “I sacrificed my career for my soldiers and that’s the bottom line.” One of his soldiers, by the name of Michael Montas, made the following statement: I served under you in Iraq at the Al- Taji airbase… You made a statement during your trial when asked if you would do it again: “If it’s about the lives of my men and their safety, I would go through hell with a gasoline can.” “Well, Sir, if you would have to go through hell with a gas can I would drive for you,” Montas responded.

Born and raised in Atlanta, West received his Bachelors from the University of Tennessee and Masters degree from Kansas State University, both in political science. He also holds a Master of Military Arts and Sciences from the US Army Command and General Staff Officer College in political theory and military history and operations. He devoted 22 years of his life to an outstanding military service that rewarded him with a Bronze Star, three Meritorious Service Medals, and three Army Commendation medals (one with Valor as a captain in desert Shield/Storm – a Valorous Unit Award).
Upon his retirement, West taught high school in Florida – an activity he interrupted in order to spend two and a half years in Afghanistan as an advisor to the Afghan Army. Now, Lt. Col. West is running for the 22nd Congressional District in Florida.

West was kind enough to share his ideas and concepts about the war against the Islamo-Totalitarianism for the needs of the book I am working on devoted to the Islamization of Europe and its impact on the American-Russian relations. What will follow is, a short interview, West gave me especially for Serbianna.

Q. Lt Col West, allow me to express my gratitude for your time. My first question is how do you feel about the current stage of the conflict between the United States and the Islamo-Totalitarian assault on the world?
A. This is a very painful and somewhat confusing question, because the current administration creates the impression that there is no such conflict whatsoever. In his speech in Cairo, for instance, President Obama didn’t mention such terms as “war” or “terror.”

Q. The fact that those terms are ignored does not mean that they don’t exist, correct?
A. They not only “exist” but their deliberate neglect aggravates the situation because the demobilization of the public opinion will facilitate the actions of the enemy.

Q. You have a unique fighting experience that lasted almost four years on the territory of three Muslim countries. What is your impression of the attitude of the Muslim community toward the Coalition forces?
A. There is no simple answer to a complicated question. The people of Kuwait, for instance, were extremely happy when we liberated them from the short but bloody rule of Saddam Hussein. As far the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan are concerned, the things are more complicated but what I can tell you is that for me every Iraqi or Afghan soldier was a brother in arms. As far as the reactions of the civil population are concerned, in Iraq I witnessed many examples of positive gestures toward us, and several of them, saved the lives of our soldiers.

Q. What about Afghanistan?
A. In Afghanistan we see substantially less contact with the local population. Don’t forget the geographical factor: Afghanistan is a much larger country than Iraq – it has a very harsh mountainous terrain, with an extremely poor road system. Besides, the country is much more clannish, and much more divided by tribal differences than Iraq.

Q. Serbianna is a site devoted primarily, if not exclusively to the Balkan issues. Do you have any opinion on the problems plaguing the area?
A. The Balkans are not a focused point of expertise for me but, of course, I have some basic ideas about the most important developments in the area.

Q. Allow me, Sir, to be absolutely honest with you – the people in the Balkan area think that the American policymakers are ignorant about their region and don’t care at all about its problems. Given the fact that I am Bulgarian, and I am contributing to a site devoted primarily with Serbia related problems, it would be logical to ask you a simple question: do you have any idea about the history and the present problems of both countries? Let me be more specific: If you are in position of a Washington based decision maker, what kind of policy would you recommend with regard to Serbia?

A. The problem involving American – Serbian relations is not as complicated as some of our politicians think. It is true that we were involved in a conflict with Serbia because of the politics of Milosevic, who in my mind was a totalitarian dictator, who had committed a lot of crimes like, for instance, the forceful removal of the Albanian population of Kosovo. Later however, our politicians committed a mistake by not defending the Serbian residents of Kosovo who were forced to abandon their homes. I think that the best solution to the Kosovo problem would have been the granting of the largest possible autonomy to the province within the borders of Serbia under some kind of temporary international control, making sure that the rights of the Albanian and Serbian residents of the area were fully protected. Our Department of State however, demonstrated a lot of ignorance and lack of sensitivity with regard to the creation of an independent state on the territory of Kosovo.

Q. What do you mean?
A. Kosovo was the battle field where the Serbian Army fought to the last man in 1387, I think, against the Ottoman’s expansion into the Balkans. It is vital to study and understand how history affects international relations in this present time. We can ill afford the sanctioning of a new radical Islamic terrorism sanctuary in the Balkans, where they remember the Battle of Kosovo. Today, I believe Serbia also will resist the assault of Islamo-Totalitarianism on the European civilization and democracy, and with this fact in mind, if I am in the theoretical position of a decision maker mentioned by you, I wouldn’t have spared my efforts in order to improve the American-Serbian relations.

Sir, we are both teachers of history, allow me to make a slight correction-the battle at Kosovo Pole took place in 1389…On the other hand, however, with all due respect to the other candidates for the Congress of the United States, I don’t believe that anyone of them would have been able to match your amount of knowledge of the history and the problems of the Balkan area.
LT.COL. West

Give me, please the opportunity to make it up for my mistake… The first thing that comes to my mind with the mentioning of Bulgaria, is the fact that your people didn’t allow the transportation of the Bulgarian Jews to Hitler’s extermination camps. It was a unique fact in the war-time history of Europe for which the Bulgarian People deserve a lot of credit.

Georgy Gounev
Lieutenant Colonel West, I am becoming emotional at this point, but allow me as an old teacher of history to add for the sake of the historical truth that the Bulgarian authorities in the occupied territories did send about 11,000 Jews to their death.

On the other hand, however, given the fact that 48,000 Jewish residents of Bulgaria survived the war makes me really proud, and I am grateful to you for mentioning this fact. Please, accept as well my deep gratitude for your time. Let me finish with the statement that from the bottom of my heart, I wish you a victory during the elections for the US Congress, in 2010!

LT. COL West
You are welcome, Sir, and thank you for your support.

Tags: Georgy Gounev

This news story was posted on Sunday, June 28th, 2009 at 11:36 am and is filed under Islam. You can follow any responses to this news story through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.