THE DIGNIFIED RANT
NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS JUNE 2004 ARCHIVES
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“If We Had the Balls…” (Posted
Saddam is now under the jurisdiction of the Iraqis and will appear in court to have formal charges presented. We are still responsible for his physical security.
I was worried that Saddam’s buddies might try to spring him and thought that we should make sure that should a jail break be attempted that Saddam definitely dies trying to escape.
But then I thought, if we had the balls—I mean seriously hefty cojones—we’d have implanted a homing device inside Saddam and let him get sprung. Then we’d see where he fled and our special operations boys would swoop in and nail whoever had the organization to rescue Saddam.
That would sure be a risky move politically for the President. But if it worked, it would be quite demoralizing to the remaining Baathists. I don’t expect this Hollywood-type plan, but I think the President would risk a move like this even though every political aide would argue against it.
Honestly, I don’t think I’d have the guts to try something like this.
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"We Did Not Conquer
As the discussion turns to
what to do about
Not that I think we could
invade, conquer, and pacify
And if we’re talking about
intervening in a revolt by the Iranian military and people, that’s another
question altogether.
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"We Are Going In" (Posted
All the signs are pointing to
a Western intervention in
The administration is in
favor of stopping the genocide:
The
Kofi Annan wants
the West to intervene. And of course, genocide automatically makes this a UN
issue. Secretary Powell is threatening
Sudan with a UN resolution if the government does not stop the atrocities,
which could
lead to intervention.
There is interest
in the Senate to intervene and guilt that we “let”
And Human Rights Watch won't be
sniping about a military intervention, either (via Instapundit).
So what could we do? Assuming
Libyan support and cooperation from
The NATO Response Force could
be available for a
A cutting-edge multinational force with warships, fighter
planes and eventually over 20,000 troops, it will be lethal, agile and ready to
be deployed to hotspots within five days.
As was noted in a NATO summit
background briefing:
But we believe,
one of the positions we’re starting to think about is where we can actually use
the NRF. That's important. It has to be a force that's used if it's going to be
a force that's transformational. Countries won't want to dedicate forces to a
force that basically avoids missions. If it's actually used we'll shake it out,
we'll learn from it, we can actually undertake something that's useful and
helpful to our security interests, and we can also make it a force that through
its experience really starts to reverberate in transformational messages,
lessons, lessons learned throughout all the allied force structures.
So there is some pressure to
actually use this unit in a real world mission.
Could we be re-establishing
diplomatic relations with
[State Department employee] Burns said the
U.S. delegation expressed appreciation for Libya's humanitarian assistance to
civil war victims in Darfur,
Really, a supply
route through Libya set up for supplies for humanitarian purposes could
also be used to supply an intervention force:
"We're working with others, with the Libyans, to try
to get a third route for supplies to get in to
A no-fly zone over
An actual mission that isn’t
a tough one like Iraq or Afghanistan, is relatively close by, is blessed by the
UN, and has “feel good humanitarian mission” written all over it.
And maybe this will aid us in
the war on terror directly.
I always thought we intervened
in
I know I’m connecting a lot
of dots here, but the players are aligning should
I think we are going in. With the Europeans.
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"Siberian Oil" (Posted
This article is most
interesting and the results will affect us for decades to come. The broader
issue is the struggle for oil resources. The particular one I saw is the
Chinese-Japanese duel over
For months
So will
No,
For the Chinese, the
advantage of having a more secure land supply route from an inferior
Conversely, we and the
Japanese would clearly like
I know what
UPDATE: A short article that
highlights the Japanese
military (I mean, Self Defense Forces. No military here, no sirree).
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“Mistakes” (Posted
Reverend Sensing comments
on my post “Center of Gravity” and addresses the larger question of how wars
are won. As he notes, “In wartime, not screwing up is
often just as important as doing things right.”
The ability of so many here to
oppose the war or to abandon support for the war because errors have been made
is ridiculous. Yes, in war those errors lead to deaths but once you embark on
war you have to be able to accept that the goals are worth even mistakes that
kill innocents. If you can’t do that, don’t fight. Don’t pretend that we can
send V Corps out with plastic handcuffs and bring in the perps
with no loss of life. Lord knows how many innocents died from errors in World
War II or the Civil War. Yet those wars were worth winning. Would anyone say
that we should have left the enemy alone out of fear of any innocents dying?
One comparison I like to make (and
I’ve had this in my mind for so long that I can honestly no longer remember how
much is original) is the difficulty of setting up a family reunion in another
city. You have to arrange flights and figure out highway routes or train
stations. You need to have hotels close together with enough rooms. You need a
banquet facility and catering. Perhaps you get entertainment. All that and maybe you’ve never even been to that city before.
You have to trust people you’ve never met to get all this together at your
direction and then trust all your family members to execute this plan and make
it to the reunion at the same time.
Then consider what you’d do if
there were no scheduled airlines and you had to charter planes. And the trains
don’t work. So you charter a bus or two from various parts of the country. Oh,
and there are no hotels. Hire somebody to set up tents in a large field and
don’t forget latrines and a caterer who can come way out there.
Oh, and one last thing. The family
across the street hates you and will be shooting at you and your family members
at every step on the way.
How easy is this to do? Without any errors? Without any
casualties? Are you having fun yet?
Sensing also notes a factor that
encourages the uniformed military to be generally averse to fighting a war:
I concluded that the reason NATO and the
Soviets each took no action to start war was that the generals on both sides
were fearful that the other side could not possibly be as screwed up as their
own side.
Both sides will make mistakes in war. One way to make sure your mistakes are not exploited by the enemy while their mistakes lead to our victories is to maintain the initiative. Stay on the offensive in this war. Keep our enemies looking over their shoulders for US troops and GPS-guided bombs.
Just win.
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“Danger Zone” (Posted
As we continue to hand off security duties to Iraqis, we are preparing for the day when we will pull our forces into the background so that they will only be a reserve force for Iraqi security forces if they get into something they can’t handle. One general noted that he wanted American forces to maintain an offensive mindset even as they pull back.
This is key.
It will be tempting to pull into fortified compounds and think we will reduce our casualties this way. While we want to pull back we can’t let a vacuum develop that will be filled by the enemy. For while casualties will indeed drop for a while, in time the bases will be targets. This story highlights the dilemma as it discusses how to avoid roadside bombs:
U.S. forces find and safely detonate most of the bombs, but
several still hit their targets each day. The
The insurgents, though, then take advantage of the absence
to fire mortars at
"Three cars came into the market, masked gunmen
cleared out the area and then the mortarmen got out
and fired four rounds." he said. "They got back into their cars and
drove away. It's over in a few minutes."
Such attacks occur several times a week, usually with 60 mm
or 82 mm mortars, but rarely hit anything significant. Several soldiers have
been wounded in the last few months, but none was killed, soldiers said.
What I fear is that we’ll pull back prematurely in an effort to reduce American casualties. One Fallujah is bad enough without allowing more to become breeding grounds for attackers. Once casualty avoidance becomes paramount rather than victory, we are doomed. And our soldiers and Marines will feel the effects. Not just in the casualties that will come from ceding the land to the enemy but in morale. When victory isn’t pursued, nobody wants to be the last casualty in an Army going home regardless of the end state.
"We can pull back," [LTC Tim] Ryan said. "But then they come with the
mortars. It's usually one or the other."
In the long run, casualties will be lower if we keep the enemy on the defensive and avoid the false security of hunkering down in bases. In the long run, casualties will be lower if we win.
This applies at the strategic level, too. We can pull back
to
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"Strike Fallujah"
(Posted
We're on our third
air strike against Islamist imported thugs in Fallujah
in the last week. Fallujah has turned into a
localized example of what
Fallujah is a threat. Bomb makers use it as a haven and
now on the eve of the formal handover of sovereignty, we set up roadblocks to
keep terrorists from interfering with the handover.
This is not enough. This is
too defensive oriented. But with everyone thinking we are bracing for their offensive, I think we need to
seize the initiative and the element of surprise by going on the offensive
against Fallujah. Right now.
Or tomorrow. If we've gotten some of
the leaders in the last three strikes, so much the better. But even if
we haven't, we should attack them ruthlessly where they concentrate so they
will worry more about what we are doing to them than about what they can do to
us. And more importantly, so we can kill them.
We should have destroyed the
resistance back in April. Finish the job. Once more into the breach, dear
Marines.
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“Let the Panic Begin!” (Posted
The North Koreans want to go back to
step 2 in the gravy
train process. They want massive aid in exchange for a freeze in their
nuclear progress. And they threaten to test a nuclear weapon if we don’t go
along.
Let’s just set aside the
whole 1994 freeze concept that they apparently didn’t quite get.
After we made our offer, they
bluster and threaten and demand more.
My only question is how
quickly some over here will panic and argue we must immediately increase our
offer of aid and decrease our demands in response.
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"Center of Gravity" (Posted
The attacks on Iraqi Shias have been a major error on the part of our enemies in
I think the main reason for
our success is that the Islamists with their foreign jihadis
have screwed things up for the Baathists. That is, if
the insurgents (or regime remnants or whatever you want to call them) had been
able to target Americans and our allies without other complications, the vast
majority of Iraqis might have decided to sit out the war as neutrals and just
watch passively to see who will win. Absent a really ruthless American campaign,
we would never win if we fought enemies in a sea of apathy that slowly turned
against us as the violence continued.
The Islamists screwed up this
possible path to Baathist victory. The Zarqawi memo highlighted the idea that the Islamists
wanted to target the Shias in order to force the
Sunnis to rise up out of fear. Then there would be a nice civil war and the
Islamists would have their happy hunting ground of chaos in which to kill
Americans. With high enough casualties and really bad press coverage, we might
then have pulled out in defeat. Defeating us somewhere—anywhere—is the Islamist
goal—not Islamizing Iraq in particular. Remember the reports that al Qaeda was turning their focus on
So by targeting the Shias
with increasingly gruesome
bombings (and a lot of Sunnis in the latest series of attacks), the
Islamists have made the Shias realize they have to
fight the insurgents to protect themselves. As the interim Iraqi prime minister
stated:
"We are going to defeat them. We are going to crush
them," he said at a ceremony marking the transfer of the final 11
government ministries to Iraqi control. "We expect more escalation in the
days ahead."
With the Iraqis determined to
fight the terrorists, we have but to provide the means and back them up with
our troops in a reserve capacity. The will to fight is the most important
element and the Zarqawi strategy has given us Iraqi
allies with that determination.
This civil war strategy of
the Islamists was always going to be a loser for the Baathists.
A Sunni-Shia war might have been fine when the Sunnis
controlled all the instruments of state power, but in a fight in which the Shias have the numbers and the state, this cannot work. At
best, this path could inflame the oil-free Sunni heartland in revolt but this
would not gain the entire country back for the Baathists.
The Baathists could only win it all back if the Shias joined them against America as a common enemy, as
some thought was happening in April at the start of the twin Fallujah and Sadr revolts.
For all the mistakes we have
made, our enemy may have made the most critical of them all.
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"Use Our Troops—Don't Count
Them" (Posted
V. D. Hanson goes over the
points I've made in past posts about our troop
strength in
The key is not adding ever
more troops that sit around as targets but to use what we've got aggressively
and effectively:
Our problem, in short, is not that
Donald Rumsfeld is fighting wars with too few troops
and then being too stingy in allotting occupation forces. Rather, our concern
with restraining the use of the vast power of those already in the field has
put us at risk of creating self-fulfilling prophecies. We have seen a Gulf War
I and now a Gulf War II. Gulf War III is surely on the horizon if, failing to
learn the lessons of the last two victories, we once more remove the stakes
from the hearts of seemingly defeated and moribund killers.
Our goal in
This is not a parlor calculation.
The fate of hundreds of American soldiers in the next few months hinges not on
how many we send, but on how they are used. There is a logic
with clear historical precedents to whichever alternative we choose, and the
choice is ours alone to make.
Hearts and minds are fine for
our friends and for neutrals. But for enemies, they must fear us. This doesn't
mean we level the country. Where violence is low, keep a low profile and
attempt to police the situation. But when the enemy rears its head, kill them.
And quietly go after the thugs to kill them when they are hiding and preparing.
We crushed the Mahdi Army but let Sadr walk. We
had the Fallujah insurgents by the throat and let
them go. With sovereignty near, I don't know what the rules of the game will be
after June 30. I hope we did not let the last opportunity to throttle the
insurgents and terrorists pass.
And by all means, get the
Iraqis on the front to shoulder the burden as soon as we can. It is their fight
and trying to do it for them is a recipe for disaster—and unnecessary American
casualties. Even failing to be ruthless enough (in a focused manner, not blind
smashing about) this past year will not deprive us of victory if we can stand
up a decent Iraqi security force backed by US forces in a reserve capacity.
Stop debating whether 20,000
or 50,000, or 200,000 more troops are necessary. If we don't use what we have
there correctly, we will always be debating how much more to send.
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“Standards of Proof” (Posted
One memo was deemed proof of complicity up to the top that we authorized torture while a data dump of hundreds is portrayed as a “selective” release that does not prove that we did not authorize torture.
Caerdroia had it right from day one, it seems.
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“Opening Move” (Posted
The
The North Koreans really want to maintain the negotiating sequence of:
The endless loop worked pretty well for the North Koreans.
Now we insist on rapid de-nuclearization instead of a freeze that never lasts for long. We insist on proof of abandoning nuclear programs and weapons. And we demand intrusive verification that it stays that way.
In return we would provide aid and promise not to attack
First of all, it will be interesting to see if the North
Koreans are truly waiting for November to give them a better negotiating
partner. Part of this answer depends on whether
Let me say right off that while I prefer a firm line with
I also don’t worry about offering guarantees to
We also must consider the morality of leaving such a beastly regime in power.
We have two objectives here: get
This opening move could work for both objectives. Of course, we’ll have to resist the efforts of those who see talking as the end rather than as a means to our objectives. Failure to make rapid progress will see the panicky types calling for a major retreat from our opening position in short order.
We’ll see.
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“He Was Doomed” (Posted
Kim Sun-il was beheaded.
There was no question that
Kim was doomed not because
the terrorists are brutal thugs.
He wasn’t doomed because
Kim was doomed because the
South Korean government had to consider how
Kim Sun-il
was doomed from the start.
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“Who They Hate” (Posted
I received my first hate mail
this weekend.
I think it was prompted by a link from Instapundit. "Kill the Dots" was the post. What
struck me is that the hate mail reflects comments by Lileks
that the loyal opposition would rather defeat Bush than be happy about
achieving something that would help win the war—since that would tend to help
Bush.
This is mind boggling. I
wanted
Those who think as you do are every bit
as dangerous to this country as the terrorists who occupy the
Wow.
Me: middle-aged dad who
served in the Guard for a term, writing a small-readership blog
(only occasionally spiked by links from the big boys) on the war that does not
use name-calling as a form of logic or question patriotism.
Them: People who already
killed over 3,000 of us over the last two decades and who would kill us in the
millions if they could, eager to multiply 9-11 a thousand-fold if they are
blessed by their vision of a god.
Yet I am more dangerous in
the writer's view.
That is one odd way of
looking at the world, to say the least. Far from being pacifists and idealists,
“anti-war” folks like the writer show they can hate with the best. Moral high
ground, indeed. A lot of days, I ask why they hate us, too. I just ask about a
different “they.”
I sometimes despair of debate
in this climate. I'll settle for winning the war against our enemies and only then
settling the debate over this war. In time, much like the Cold War is thought
of now (or the German occupation for our French friends is remembered), we'll all
have been for victory over today’s enemy.
UPDATE: Upon reflection, it is not accurate to say I am always perfectly polite. I do rant on occasion. Sometimes from outrage that subsides. Sometimes because they deserve it. And sometimes it is really out of bounds. But for the most part, I think I do try to stay in bounds. So, if you were thinking of emailing me to question that statement above, consider it already written and addressed. This was 'pre-emptive.'
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“Troop Strength: Part N” (Posted
I like to highlight arguments that we
do not have too few troops to win in
Many critics of the
We have enough troops to win. Sometimes I get lonely out here on this point.
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“The New
We have been reminded about the growing Chinese military
power with the latest installment of the DoD
annual report on Chinese military power (see earlier post). We still don’t know
whether
But as we consider the potential of a
China’s growing power leads some to worry that China will use that power to guarantee access to vital raw materials and oil coming from overseas. This is certainly likely.
But let’s not forget the vulnerabilities that
And with the one-child policy, how eager will Chinese parents be to send their only children to war?
Plus, the very progress that makes
I would not want to trade strategic positions with
And we haven’t even discussed whether the Chinese can hold the lid on a population that might want political freedoms along with its economic freedoms. Political freedom might be nice to protect their only children, too.
Or maybe
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“Why
The Iranians are mad that the IAEA slapped their wrist over their non-cooperation over verifying that they remain a non-nuclear state. Since the mullahs are trying to become a nuclear state there is a certain inconsistency with the rival goals.
In light of the high degree of faith that so many legal fetishists display, the Iranian response is enlightening (or should be):
Iran will resume some nuclear activities it
suspended under world pressure and is considering restarting the uranium
enrichment, its top nuclear official said Saturday, defying a resolution from
the U.N. nuclear watchdog that rebuked
In time, we will have to deal with them. Caerdroia explores some options. An invasion, straight up conquest, would clearly require a large-scale mobilization of the National Guard’s combat division and lengthy training time to get them up to active component levels. As is correctly noted, this would telegraph our intentions to a degree that would cripple our attack. Plus there’s the problem of getting another Congressional declaration of war and public support. So a straight up conquest is probably right out. Other options?
If invasion of
The Israelis, it is noted, would not have the ability to
launch a sustained campaign as we would. If
A Kosovo-style campaign doesn’t seem right either. As far as I’m concerned we were lucky as Hell that Milosevic blinked when he did. The mullahs are made of sterner (and nutballier) stuff. They’ll try to ride it out.
I’d hope bribery is out but Governor Richardson’s spouting off does not comfort me that we’ve actually learned this lesson—at least some of us anyway. Still, under the current administration, I trust this is ruled out.
We could bomb
But ruling out sparking a revolution seems too pessimistic
about its chances. I’m convinced that regime change is the only way to prevent
a regime determined to get nukes from getting nukes. We’ve seen from
Aiding our chances of success are
that
Caerdroia gives compelling reasons why an air campaign is preferred while the theoretical coup support is an ideal but flawed solution.
I think it is the reverse. I wish we could cleanly (for us)
use an air campaign. But I fear it would a failure. And since we won’t be on
the ground to verify the results of our strikes, we won’t even know if we got
all the Iranian facilities. We’d be on edge for a nuclear retaliation from that
day on as long as the hostile
For all its uncertainties, regime change is the only measure that promises to do more than delay our problem with the mullah nutballs.
Admittedly, I’m assuming we’ve been busy with the CIA
working the many people unhappy with the Iranian mullahs to get them in a
proper frame of mind to support our endeavors and to take back their country.
If not, air strikes really might be the only option we have that doesn’t
include letting
I did mention that this decade sucks, didn’t I?
The Iranians are clearly next up. I think there is only one real option: Regime change in 2005.
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“Axis of El Vil Packs the Courts” (Posted
The referendum on Chavez of Venezuela will take place days before the deadline that means the difference between fresh elections and Chavez pulling his VP’s strings for the rest of the presidential term. A little violence from pro-Chavez thugs could delay the count past that day and then what happens? Anti-Chavez people say the day of the vote matters—not the day of the announcement of the results. But what if Chavez gets a loyal court to say the day of announcement—regrettably delayed due to unforeseen violence—is key?
Human Rights Watch
urged
Unless the law is rescinded, the Organization of American
States should intervene to address the threat to the independence of
Critics fear pro-Chavez deputies who dominate Congress will
use the law to seize control of the tribunal, which would decide any dispute
arising from a presidential recall vote Aug. 15.
Call me a pessimist, but I don’t think we will be lucky enough to get a happy regime changing ending to this crisis.
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“What To Do?” (Posted
About
Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has had
frequent communications with the North Koreans and warned that without a change
in the status quo,
Ah yes, we had an agreement with them to provide aid in
exchange for remaining non-nuclear and today we face the possibility that North
Korea could emerge as an outlaw
state. I guess I’ve been confused about what they are right now. And the North
Koreans have magically come to be in the position to have ten nukes. Wow, that
past agreement sure was good. Truly, the hot
Richardson called for a compromise, outlining a plan similar to one
being floated by South Korea, for a verifiable suspension of
Ever hopeful, maybe this will finally be the agreement that
The northern part of the
I know, I know, that whole Axis of Evil thing offends your
sense of nuance. Yet there it is. Evil. And we’re
supposed to understand it and get along with it. That offends my sense of
decency. And it offends my memory of past efforts to bribe the Pillsbury Nuke
Boy to act nice.
Now is the time for the democratic countries of the world -- the
European Union, the
Make a stand. Contain them and don’t give them more than
token help to string them along. Stand ready at the DMZ. Build our missile
defenses in
And then squeeze that psycho regime. Make sure they know that lashing out to kill means the end of their regime at the hands of our military power because once the military option is chosen, we and our allies will see it through to their end.
When nutball regimes play with nukes, we can’t afford to play risky schemes that rely on the good will of nutballs to protect our cities. Regime change is the only answer in our brave new world.
This decade sucks. But if we don’t try to pretend that we can wish our way to security, maybe the next one will be OK.
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“Kill the Dots” (Posted
I am torn between being disgusted by the 9-11 panel’s report on the al Qaeda-Saddam connection and outraged by the mainstream press’s reporting of it.
The panel’s attention to this was wholly inadequate and dismissive. It drew conclusions where evidence was inconclusive. While they may have lawyered up the language to technically cover their butts, they made it easy to mischaracterize. Truly, for a group so eager to connect dots, they have taken an eraser to a whole lot of dots there to be connected.
Which of course leads us to our press. Their collective ability to portray this report as providing no evidence of a connection and then to parade this as a contradiction of what the administration has said is outrageous. It was of course left to Fox News and the blogs to point out the obvious. Saddam had links to terrorism generally and al Qaeda in particular long before 9-11. That said, nobody in the administration ever argued that Saddam had a hand in the actual 9-11 attacks, notwithstanding Saddam being the only actor other than the Palestinians who cheered the attacks. The press and their anti-war compatriots have gotten into another plastic turkey argument with itself, proudly taking apart an argument that the pro-Iraq War side never made. I sometimes despair that the opposing sides can even agree on the basic question over which we can argue.
Let me repeat, Saddam had longstanding ties to terrorists
including al Qaeda, sponsored terrorism, carried out
terrorism, and cheered on terrorism. The press likes to pretend that this is a
new argument invented by the Bush administration to trump up reasons for war,
forgetting their own reports in the 90s about such connections and the
After 9-11, when terrorists were
dramatically shown to be able and willing to kill us in the thousands, it
became imperative to destroy any regimes that show hostility toward us and
which might harbor terrorists or provide these terrorists with weapons of mass
destruction to kill even more. Evidence of links made the possibility of such a
WMD transfer too frightening to ignore. That Saddam was willing to attack us
should not be in question. The plot to kill Bush 41, the
constant attacks on no-fly zone patrols, and now the report
that Putin warned us that Saddam was planning
attacks on us after 9-11. (As an aside, this amused me: “Putin said opponents who criticize Bush on
Preventing these rogue states, including
But back to the connection. The mainstream press and those opposed to the war seem to be demanding a signed alliance document embossed with Saddam’s personal seal and containing actual DNA evidence that bin Laden licked his personal stamp before placing it on the paper. We would have been fools to insist on some nebulous command and control connection where terrorists salute and carry out the bidding of Baathist overlords like some Bond plot to justify taking action. Given the bias of the press, their insistence on “significant” links is a standard that they will always move forward to conform to their bias that any level of linkage was insufficient to act. Let’s review the connections. I won’t try to summarize them.
And there is more to learn about the dots and connections here. As the article notes:
Yet nearly all of the media coverage has
focused on what the 9/11 panel claims it didn't find--namely, smoking-gun
proof that al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein were working
together. The country has traveled a long way psychologically from the trauma
of September 11 if we are now focusing on the threats that allegedly don't
exist instead of those that certainly do.
And I would be remiss not to note the 1998 indictment by the
According
to the indictment, bin Laden and al Qaeda forged
alliances with the National Islamic Front in Sudan and with representatives of
the Government of Iran and its associated terrorist group Hezballah
with the goal of working together against their common enemies in the West,
particularly the United States.
"In
addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the
Government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work
against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including
weapons development, al Qaeda would work
cooperatively with the Government of Iraq," the indictment said.
This isn’t enough cooperation? My God, I’d be ecstatic if
our so-called formal allies such as
And please note the
And one last bit of information for those who insist on blaming the Bush administration for not connecting dots before 9-11; and for those who like to pretend that the unilateral Bush administration caused the 9-11 attack: the planning may have begun in mid-1996. (The panel report discusses this, too.) I’d love to hear administration critics discuss the state of the dots in the last half of the 1990s.
We indeed have traveled a long way since 9-11. Too many
people are back to 9-10. They hate us, people. All of us.
Not just the current administration. Not just the
Stop debating to the point of paralysis over what dots should have been connected and what dots existed. The dots keep killing us in the most gruesome manner they can come up with. Just kill the freaking dots! We are at war and we must win.
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"Kiss Off
V. D. Hanson is pretty
pessimistic about Europe. He thinks we must walk away from a continent that
no longer wishes to fight at our side. Hanson rightly notes that while
Yet he fears the worst:
I
fear that we should expect over the next 50 years some pretty scary things
coming out of Europe as its impossible postmodern utopian dreams turn
undemocratic and then ugly — once its statism and
entitlement economy falter; Jews leave as Arabs stream in; its shaky German-French
axis unravels; its next vision of an EU mare
nostrum encompassing North Africa and Turkey begins to terrify Old
Europe; and its pacifism brings it real humiliation from the likes of an Iran
or China. Indeed, despite
I've written the same things
myself in more pessimistic moments in the last two years. I fear that the EU
could evolve into a bureaucratic dictatorship hostile to
And before we write off the
ability of the Euros to fight, recall that they too are the custodians of the
Western way of war. Should they be roused, they are capable of terrible and
effective violence. Despite the annoyance, we must remain engaged in
A
A robust USAREUR prevents a security vacuum. The
European Union could modify or alter trans-Atlantic relations in ways that are
not clear today. If the Army withdraws the corps, the Army is unlikely to send
the corps back, and even if a clear threat arises, many in
Newer NATO states might be eager to host the XVIII
Airborne Corps. Given growing German restlessness, moving the bulk of
A corps in
So while I share Hanson's
fear for the worst, I want to remain engaged in
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"Numbers Game" (Posted
We keep being told by the
anti-war side (and some supporters, too) that we have too few troops in
I think that's bunk. At first
I went by the old 10:1 rule and based on estimates of insurgents of all
varieties, we had enough. Further reading led me to believe this is an obsolete
measurement and that troops and security personnel as a percentage of the
population is the key measure. Here, we'd need a minimum of 2% and possibly up
to twice that level to win depending on the opposition. We'd be talking 500,000
to a million troops in
Assuming 0.5% for the Kurdish
areas we need 50,000 security personnel; for the Shias,
at 1% we need 150,000; and for the Sunni areas we need at least 2% so that
requires at least 100,000. With 135,000 US troops in Iraq (and another 40,000
in Kuwait that add to our strength effectively by providing support while not
needing the same protection as in-theater troops), 20,000 private security,
22,000 allies, and 208,000 Iraqis, we have 385,000 troops not even attempting
to figure out how our Kuwait-based troops should count. And this doesn't count
the private Iraqi militias. Assuming the Kurds field 70,000 and effectively
police their own, we could apply all 385,000 plus 15,000 Shia
militia (not counting Sadr's idiots), we have 400,000 to police 20 million Iraqis. This even gives
us the 2% figure for the entire non-Kurdish population. Focusing most on the
Sunni areas gives us even higher ratios in the critical areas. So whatever
measure we use, we have enough troops. I think we probably panicked a little by
extending 20,000 troops in
And when you look at Afghanistan,
where the government is extending control and the Taliban and their al Qaeda allies are off balance and kept at bay, we don't have
anywhere near the percentages one would expect are required to control 25
million people. We have 20,000 Americans, 7,000 NATO troops, and 10,000 Afghan
Army. If we assume a 0.2% police ratio, we can add 50,000 police. That's 87,000
troops when the rule says 500,000 are necessary. I guess the Taliban haven't
read the rules. More is at work than either formula. Or maybe the 10:1 rule
isn't as obsolete as it is argued.
So we have the troop strength
to win as long as we use it wisely.
Of course, the question of
the overall size of the Army is another question altogether. I'd want to add
40,000 more troops in the new brigades or separate battalions.
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“Mistakes” (Posted
We made mistakes in the Iraq War. News Flash: this happens in every war. But whatever mistakes we made we still won decisively. Get over it. Reviewing mistakes is for the purpose of learning for the next time not for convicting people and sending them to jail.
One mistake that is clear is that we failed
to secure the massive arms depots and caches throughout
…
Iraqis have so many weapons that they are suspected of exporting them over the
Syrian border. And for this bounty, they can thank the Pentagon. Of all the
blunders American military leaders have made in
By
the time of the coalition invasion,
So how did this problem come about according to the author? Well:
But
under orders to reach
I see. So it was a mistake to leave the arms depots and the
mistake that led to this mistake was the decision to advance as rapidly as
possible to reach
Sadly in war, trying to correct one mistake could very well lead to another, greater, mistake. This is one of those solutions.
Is the author seriously arguing that a slow pace of advance, stopping to secure and destroy all arms captured or overrun before pushing further north would have been a better course of action? Would slowing down ourselves when our enemy could not slow us down have made the war less costly or more costly?
Speed saved lives and ended the war in three weeks. We dislocated the enemy and threw them off balance so badly that they never recovered. The slow advance would have left our enemies ready to fight with morale more intact. Who knows, Saddam’s plan to have his Russian and French lawyers get them off had the war dragged on might have worked.
Was letting the arms slosh around
Could we have done much about it during the major combat phase of the war? Not a chance.
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“Reasons for Sunnis to Worry” (Posted
I thought more Sunnis would have concluded by now that it
would be wise to get on board with a new
The Sunnis have not turned on their Baathist co-religionists and their fanatical Wahhabi buddies.
Instead of building up confidence in the majority population that the Sunnis want to get beyond Saddam, the Sunnis have aided attacks on the majority. The Shias and Kurds have lots of reasons to want revenge.
And turnover to sovereignty is less than two weeks away.
I think Fallujans are going to be in a world of hurt before too long.
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“An Issue of Sovereignty” (Posted
One of the hammers that the opponents of the Iraq War like
to use is that
I have a better question for these people to answer.
What if the Iraqis want to level Fallujah to end this affront to common sense and human decency? Our Marines are saying this Fallujah Brigade ploy has not worked after all (I was deeply doubtful it would):
Fallujah is seen as the center of power for those who want to bring back a
Sunni Arab dictatorship and Shia are now demanding
that this center of terror be destroyed.
I mean, the Shias and Kurds don’t exactly have a warm spot in their hearts for their Sunni brothers blowing up Shias and Kurds and all they are trying to build.
So the question remains, what if the new sovereign Iraqi government wants to deal harshly with Fallujah? Will the high-minded advocates of “full” Iraqi sovereignty back this option if the Iraqis themselves press for it?
I bet not.
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“As Long As I’m Feeding My Paranoia” (Posted
Let’s see. I worry that the North Koreans might think it is to strike us after fifty years of preparing.
So how much of a stretch would it be for Iran to convince North Korea to invade South Korea to keep us busy for just a little bit longer so Iran can get its nukes before we topple their regime?
And of course, the Iranians promise to keep us busy in
Like I said, I hate to sound paranoid, but there is no rule that says our enemies must patiently wait their turn to be destroyed. They just might try to upset our plans—or what they think are our plans. They just might try to win.
Like I said, I’m probably just being paranoid. Right?
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"Attack Preparations?" (Posted
An
agreement to halt blaring propaganda at the Korean DMZ was hailed as a
victory for cooperation:
[North and
"Tension has
been greatly eased between the two Koreas," Kim Dae-jung, whose single,
five-year term ended early last year, said at a meeting of the World Economic
Forum in Seoul on Monday.
But is it?
Why stop the propaganda? Is
it because the Pillsbury Nuke Boy is suddenly reasonable? Or, does
Then today I read this bit
about the last
blast from the North Koreans:
"We, from one blood and using one language, can no
longer live separated and we must put the earliest possible end to the tragedy
of national division," the broadcast said. It was reported by
"The imperialist
The broadcast ended with an emotional appeal: "Let's
embrace each other, laughing and crying out of joy and emotion, on the day of
national unification."
So the reason clearly isn't
that the North has become suddenly reasonable. No, the
I don't want to sound
paranoid, but have the North Koreans just decided to attack south in the near
term? Do the North Koreans see our plan to draw
down 12,000 troops from
We'd better be prepared to
mobilize 4 of our National Guard divisions in fairly short order.
And that carrier
surge idea better be working.
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“We are Worthy of Victory” (Posted
Victor Davis Hanson has words about our war:
Nearly three years after 9/11 we are in the strangest of all paradoxes:
a war against fascists that we can easily win but are clearly not ready to
fully wage. We have the best 500,000 soldiers in the history of civilization, a
resolute president, and an informed citizenry that has already received a
terrible preemptive blow that killed thousands.
Yet so many here and in
Is bin Laden and his ilk nuts to think they can win against all our power? I wish Hanson was more comforting:
No,
bin Laden is quite sane — but lately I have grown more worried that we are not.
I guess I’m too unsophisticated to believe that
We must have the confidence that we are worthy of defending. All else will follow.
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“The Sovereignty Issue” (Posted
Just a question here, really. The
issue is how sovereign will
I’m willing to guess that there would be an awful lot of overlap.
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“Converging Opinions?” (Posted
The
The Iranians insist we accept that they are a nuclear power.
And now the UN
is coming to see that
Mohamed ElBaradei said
"It is essential for the integrity and credibility of
the inspection process that we are able to bring these issues to a close within
the next few months, and provide the international community with the
assurances it urgently seeks regarding Iran's nuclear activities," he told
the IAEA's board of governors.
This may not sound like much but as an observer noted:
A diplomat from one of the 35 nations on the IAEA Board of
Governors said he was surprised by the force of the IAEA chief's words:
"The speech by (ElBaradei) was severe. It was
serious."
When the UN is serious and the
I think we are on track to nailing the next Axis of Evil threat to our safety and security.
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“Fighting Insurgents” (Posted
The Strategic Studies Institute has a good short piece on fighting insurgents.
In large part, it addresses the idea of torture to win insurgencies quickly and argues that such tactics will not work. I agree totally. The article also puts this debate into terms that are useful to remember—insurgencies are not subject to rapid, decisive victory as we expect our military to provide in major combat operations. It is not a surprise that a military able to take down the Baathist regime in three weeks at unbelievably low casualties is still fighting insurgents.
Although the failure of the Baathists to mount any type of last stand lulled me into thinking we could wrap up the post-conflict stability mission in months, the fact that the insurgents have been able to sustain a low level insurgency for this long has not discouraged me as it has so many pro-war people. And it isn’t because I’m ignoring what is going on or just looking for happy news or otherwise just being stubborn. My steadfastness is based in large measure by my acceptance that once we are in an insurgency we must be patient. Hence my urging of patience. Hence my refusal to panic and call for more US troops when we must take the time to get Iraqis into the fight in large numbers. This view was so basic that I barely noticed it in my comments over the last year. This article reminded me of that truth and that there is no shortcut to victory. The heart of the article in regard to this point:
A contrasting approach to counterinsurgency is offered by Frank Kitson, a British officer who served in World War II, and
had experience in conducting counterinsurgency
operations in
As with Trinquier, Kitson
believed that good intelligence was the key to winning the battle. Unlike Trinquier, Kitson did not advocate torturing or abusing
prisoners. Indeed, Kitson
argued strongly that counterinsurgency operations had to be conducted within
the rule of law. This, of course, did
not mean that strong coercive methods could not be applied in an area of high
terrorist activity. Kitson
thought it appropriate to detain and interrogate suspected terrorist supporters
regularly, partly to send a message that the government forces were keeping a
close eye. The information objective of detaining and interrogating was also to
build up a district intelligence profile of relationships and
rivalries—information that the district intelligence officer could exploit.
International law and the traditional rules of war allow for some very
firm tactics employed to coerce and control populations. For example, to cut off support for rebels in
pro-insurgent districts, Kitson advocated that
government forces commandeer and carefully control all food stocks. Food was rationed by the police and army only
to registered village residents and whole villages would be cordoned off to
prevent extra food from being brought in.
If the villagers wanted to give food to the rebels, they could do so
only if they starved themselves. The
British also figured that if the insurgents came in the night and took the
peoples’ carefully rationed food, people would eventually inform on the
insurgents rather than face hunger. Such
tactics were not only effective, but also legal.
The good thing about Kitson’s approach to
waging a counterinsurgency campaign strictly within the rule of law is that it
generally works. The downside is that
such an approach to counterinsurgency and intelligence takes a long time and
success is measured not in any dramatic terms but in small, local and
incremental victories. It should be no
surprise that some of our intelligence personnel and leaders might
instinctively opt for the Trinquier approach with its
promise of quick and decisive results, when our military doctrine is filled
with adjectives such as “rapid” and “decisive” to describe the American mode of
warfare. Yet the traditionally
successful counterinsurgency doctrines are peppered with adjectives such as
“methodical,” “systematic,” and “long-term.”
It seems to me that we are basically fighting a patient strategy in line with this approach. Do we make mistakes? Yes. But we are not blasting the countryside and we are not Americanizing this fight. We are building up friendly Iraqi military, security, and governmental entities. We are trying to isolate Iraqi insurgents from outside support. We are trying to strip away support for the Baathists from the Sunnis and for Sadr from the poor Shias. I remain uncomfortable with the Fallujah solution but our military seems happy with it. We are building the physical infrastructure.
And we are winning. That is so clear to me that I am shocked
at the view that
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“The Army-Nation Bond” (Posted
The thrust of this article is just wrong:
"It was more or less a weekend job, once a
month," said Daniel Carvill. "Then he ended
up in
In the first week of June, nine of the 13 announced
Shaken by his brother's death, Daniel Carvill
wondered aloud at the policy of putting National Guard units into combat.
"You have part-timers up against people who've been
exposed to a lot of wars," Carvill said.
"These are the people you're up against, but you realize this is the
chance you take. God help them."
The toll among National Guard and Reserve soldiers has been
climbing in recent months, and the pace of casualties so far this month has
been the highest of the war. May had the largest number of Guard and Reserve
deaths in
I think some people don’t understand the concept of “reservist.” Yes, reservists train one weekend per month and two weeks per summer. But that is not the extent of their service. This limited training is to prepare them in case they are needed full time as soldiers. I mean, what purpose is there for training soldiers part time if they can never be employed for longer than one weekend per month and two weeks in the summer? Think, people! Use your brains. The idea that it is somehow unfair to expect reservists to be called up is—and I can’t put this more delicately—stupid.
Our reservists who are called up perform a task far greater
than the military jobs they do. It isn’t enough to say that our military can’t
even fight a major war without calling up the reserves. Our reservists provide
a bridge between our active military and our nation. Would we be better off
sending our military off to fight like we sent off the military in
The idea that our reservists are hopelessly outclassed by our enemies is silly and not based on real knowledge. Our reserves are damned good. I’d put one of our National Guard divisions up against an active duty division of any one of our enemies and expect it to win in a straight up head-to-head shoot out. It might suffer heavy casualties depending on who it is we fight, but it would win. Our reserves are really that good. Our reserves only suffer by being compared to the active US Army.
One woman who lost her husband, said through her grief:
"It's not for us to question what the commander in
chief does, especially if we chose to join," said Timoteo,
a military sergeant like her husband. "We fully support our country and
our commander in chief. Unfortunately, sometimes bad things happen to good
people."
I was once a reservist. I came close to going to the first round against Saddam. I wasn’t happy about the idea but I accepted that I would go. I expected to go. And I didn’t seek refuge in any ridiculous ideas that I was just a part-time soldier who shouldn’t be expected to be sent to war. Even as a married, employed, part-time signalman, I knew I had signed on the dotted line and taken the king’s coin so that I would be available to go to war. That is what my job required me to do. So too are our reservists today responding according to their duty. That they must do this should not hide the fact that in many cases it is a far harder duty to fulfill as a reservist than as an active soldier who is every day reminded that they are a soldier who can be sent off at any time.
Timoteo has my respect and gratitude. She suffered far more than I ever have and she did not forget her duty and engage in the luxury of wallowing in her pain publicly, lashing out at the wrong people for her husband’s death. We can never forget the sacrifice of our soldiers—active and reserve—and we must not make their sacrifice be in vain by refusing to stick this out to win.
As an aside, this article repeats what is by now a common dig at the President:
In all, 827 American troops have died in
Once again, I must note that the President announced the end of major combat operations. I think I proclaimed this in mid-April. All this means is that the phase of the war given to large organized units fighting enemy large organized units was over. No more large unit symbols on the maps with arrows showing lines of advance and organized defenses. No more showing land gained as a measure of success. It means we won and the enemy army was defeated. It doesn’t mean that all fighting is over. Unfortunately, fighting has gone on. But the press has had more than a year to understand this simple concept and they still hammer away with no excuse for their partisan use of that statement of fact. When we are winning by any rational measure, this is especially galling.
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“Now We’re Singing From the Same Page” (Posted
In the maneuvering over
"Iran has a high technical capability
and has to be recognized by the international community as a member of the
nuclear club," [Foreign Minister Kamal] Kharrazi said.
"This is an irreversible path.
Yes. An irreversible path.
Once again, remember that these guys are on the Axis of Evil
for a reason. We must not let them go nuclear. And some who opposed the Iraq
War said
Early 2005. If we aren’t laying the groundwork for a military revolt and uprising against the mullahs and their imported Islamist bully boys then, I’ll be shocked. And disappointed. Any president can do nothing about grave and gathering threats to our security.
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“Running Out the Clock” (Posted
A week ago, Venezuelans
unhappy to live under the rule of Axis of El Vil thug
Chavez celebrated a
ruling that their petitions demanding a recall will be sufficient:
Waving
flags and chanting "Referendum Now!" demonstrators danced to
anti-Chavez jingles booming from loudspeakers mounted on trucks. Others blew
whistles and set off powerful fireworks. One man carried a banner reading
"Chavez, Your Time Is Nearly Up!"
But is his time really nearly
up?
As this article notes, the referendum date is key.
If Chavez loses a recall before Aug. 19 — the completion of
the fourth year of his six-year term — presidential elections would be held
within a month, according to the constitution.
But after Aug. 19, Chavez's vice president, Jose Vicente
Rangel, would serve out the president's term, which runs to 2007. Opponents
fear Chavez would simply rule behind the scenes.
And one
way to delay the count a week or so?
President Hugo Chavez announced his government would
establish "people's militias" to counter what he called foreign
interference after an alleged coup plot by Colombian paramilitaries
Armed Chavez supporters can
then raise a stink either just before the election so Chavez will need to delay
the vote for “safety” reasons or perhaps delay the count by disrupting the
polling stations on or just after the day of the election.
The date of the count is
irrelevant in theory (from the referendum date story):
Ezequiel Zamora, the
elections council vice president, said the results, whenever they are released,
would be considered as taking effect before Aug. 19.
Still, what if Chavez and his
armed goons say that the day of release of the results is the key date? And
there are other
possibilities:
Opposition
leaders claim Chavez, a deft former army colonel, will
try to hang on to power even if he is recalled.
They
argue that Chavez would be banned from running in a snap election after a
recall. But
Some
analysts said that if Chavez loses the recall, his government could seek a
transitional administration instead of calling fresh elections, especially if
recall results come after Aug. 19.
"It
seems very likely that the government could challenge the decision in
constitutional court, and win," wrote Jose Cerritelli,
an analyst at Bear Stearns, in a Wednesday report.
"The
scenario where Chavez loses the August 15 recall referendum, and negotiates a
partial exit forming a transitional government that is acceptable to the
opposition, is increasingly likely," added Cerritelli.
But we shouldn’t worry too
much. Former President Jimmy Carter assures
us:
Chavez "is completely willing,
eager to go to the referendum," Carter said after Sunday's meeting at the Miraflores Presidential Palace
Luckily for Venezuelans, an
omen from God may be the only thing that can save them from the assurances
of one of our best and brightest.
Will he be ousted? I’m
betting that we won’t get any easy win with this crisis. I’m betting Chavez
hangs on to power. I bet he’ll be a member of the Axis of El Vil for quite some time now.
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"ELF Qaeda"
(Posted
The Earth Liberation Front is
one of the most dangerous domestic terrorist movements in
"Supporters of
anarchist and convicted arsonist Jeff Luers have designated
These people are not to be
dismissed as pro-fuzzy animal harmless eccentrics. They fundamentally disagree
with our society and are willing to attack it violently because they truly
believe the fate of the Earth is at stake and mere people are not to stand in
their way. At their most extreme, they think mankind is a plague upon their
animal
If they have not yet, they
are fully capable of linking up with Islamic radicals who would be more than
happy to plant bombs for or feed ELF types with bombs in order to attack
American society. This would not be the first alliance of convenience that al Qaeda has accepted with those who on the surface are their
enemies.
Catch them before they try to
join the major leagues. They will kill mere humans in large numbers to save
their idyllic Earth fantasy.
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“Reagan’s Military” (Posted
The ceremony of bringing President Reagan’s body to the
The plane flying straight up was touching.
It is little wonder that the military looks up to President Reagan still and that the full honors of a state funeral are so suited to this man:
I know, the military build-up began in the Carter years; but the respect accorded our warriors was restored in the Reagan years.
This military built up from the wreckage of the 1970s has
ripped out the hearts of our enemies and brought us victory, after the dark
years of Vietnam withdrawal and a military distrusted and unsure of itself. Starting in
Not just the victor of the Cold War, President Reagan left us with a superb military instrument whose personnel are confident and proud of their service in defense of a nation once again grateful for their service and sacrifice.
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“No. No. No. No!” (Posted
We don’t torture. I don’t care about the theoretical “if the terrorist planted a nuke and it will go off in an hour” scenario.
We are never going to be in that situation. This memo is just stupid.
In the situation we find ourselves now, torture is absolutely wrong. And just as bad, it isn’t even effective.
Why would anybody advocate a policy that taints us and leads to more dead Americans?
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“Sheer Rock Pounding Stupidity” (Posted
Communism is on the ash heap of history.
But academia strives mightily to breathe life into this hideous ideology by ignoring the crimes of communism and the activities of communists and their fellow travelers. Via Caerdroia, this piece is a gem.
I highlight this lengthy portion as particularly fun to
recall as so many claim that we were all against the
Sometimes
the refusal to confront errors is simple hubris. But often it masks a queasy
reluctance to start down a path of self-examination, for fear of where it will
lead. During the final days of the 1990 election in
What
went unreported was a research project conducted during the election by the
University of Michigan, which by deploying various groups of student pollsters
discovered that Nicaraguans mistrusted foreigners, presumed
them active allies of the Sandinistas, and persistently lied to them. That fact
had calamitous implications not only for what reporters had been writing about
The
end of the Cold War has produced many such numbing silences. The speed with
which the Soviet empire imploded and the economic ruin and popular revulsion
that were revealed have made it clear that baby boomer intellectuals and
journalists, viewing the world through the distorted lens of Vietnam,
overwhelmingly got it wrong. Peasants ate less and were slaughtered more on the
other side of the Iron Curtain; the jails were fuller; the KGB’s list was a lot
longer and a lot deadlier than Joe McCarthy’s. A team of French historians
calculated the worldwide death toll of communism during the 20th century at
more than 93 million. When
The
Conquest anecdote comes from In
Denial: Historians, Communism and Espionage, an improbably riveting
dispatch from the battlefields of historiography by scholars John Earl Haynes
and Harvey Klehr.
Chilling
and often perversely funny, it details the intellectual sleight of hand to
which many American historians of communism and the Soviet Union have resorted
as newly revealed archives in Moscow and Washington suggest they were, well,
fucking fools.
Their
efforts haven’t been very successful. As Haynes and Klehr
note, the world’s final redoubt of communism is not Havana or Pyongyang but
American college campuses: "The nostalgic afterlife of communism in the
United States has outlived most of the real Communist regimes around the
world....A sizable cadre of American intellectuals now openly applaud and
apologize for one of the bloodiest ideologies of human history, and instead of
being treated as pariahs, they hold distinguished positions in American higher
education and cultural life."
Bold
words, especially in academia, where suggesting somebody has communist
sympathies -- even if he’s carrying a bloody hammer and sickle in one hand and
Trotsky’s severed head in the other -- instantly draws gleeful cries of
"McCarthyism!" I say, if this be blacklisting, make the most of it:
I was alive back then, dudes. I remember the shameful
sucking up by the sophisticates to the murdering bastards in
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“Ah, The Value of Old Allies” (Posted
We got our UN Security Council resolution endorsing our continued presence in Iraq. It doesn’t seem like we gave up anything important.
Most important, for the proponents of nuanced, big-brained multilateralism we also find:
But his administration lowered expectations
of gaining other countries' military support — one of the original hopes behind
the resolution. Four members of the Group of Eight summit — France, Germany,
Russia and Canada — have said they won't send troops to take the burden off the
138,000 American soldiers and the 24,000 troops from coalition partners.
I’m not real clear on what tangible benefit this gets us
since the Iraqis don’t respect the UN which aided Saddam and the UN won’t send
any troops to
Still, all those nuanced guys and gals basically opposed to the war will be popping the corks tonight. They have another resolution!! And it was a unanimous resolution! Whoopie!!!
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“Sign of Intelligence” (Posted
Good news for the captives:
U.S. special forces freed four hostages in a
raid Tuesday after staking out their captors' hideout for a day — the first
military rescue of foreigners caught up in Iraq (news
- web
sites)'s wave of kidnappings.
And good news for the war effort. Something like this requires good intelligence. People are talking to us and they knew what they were talking about.
And we captured some of the captors.
We will need this intelligence because more are held captive including an American soldier.
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“The Power of Words” (Posted
We should not be afraid to believe in ourselves. To believe in our government of laws and our freedom. We should believe in our liberties enough to proudly offer our friendship and support to those who struggle for liberty.
Yet some in our country believe that our words of hope to those who dream of freedom while they live in tyranny will only strengthen the hand of tyranny. Don’t “contaminate” foreign democrats with association with us! Say kind words to the tyrants and they will see reason and commit political suicide and resign, leading peacefully to democracy. The President’s democracy initiative for the Moslem world is counter-productive, they say. It will “taint” those who want democracy. The rulers themselves, of course, don’t care for the initiative. But the rulers aren’t who we need to give hope to. The rulers are the ones we need to frighten.
Those who love freedom need to know they are not alone. To bravely defy the threats of job loss, prison, torture, and even death, they must believe that forces stronger than their tormenters exist and want them to win.
The Cold War provides a lesson of the power of our words. And of the ability of those who are not proud of our freedom to believe our words are the kiss of death. As Natan Sharansky wrote:
In 1983, I was confined to an eight-by-ten-foot prison cell
on the border of
Goddammit, provoke our enemies. Speak to their people of freedom, the truth of the tyranny they live under, and why they deserve democracy. And why we will help them!
We are better than our enemies! Is that so hard to accept? Our enemies are evil men. How can people fail to see that?
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“Nine Out of Ten is Good When No. Ten is Dead”
(Posted
The new Iraqi government has come to agreements with 9 militias to disband, join security forces, or retire. The tenth, Sadr’s remnants, are not included and are now outlaws. Good. Sadr will not be rewarded for taking up arms. This is a needed message.
Plus, I didn’t know that the militias were this large. I’d kind of assumed that the figure of 200,000 Iraqi security personnel included such militias. The fact that 75,000 of the 100,000 militia are Kurdish puts my counter-insurgency numbers a little better. (I’d figured 25,000 to secure the Kurdish areas; 150,000 to secure the Shia areas; and a minimum of 100,000 to secure the Sunni areas) The other 25,000 are presumably in the Shia areas so add a bit more there. The Kurds have been perfectly able to police their own area so 25,000 of assumed security personnel in Kurdish areas are really in the more needed areas south.
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“President Reagan’s Legacy” (Posted
The television is non-stop coverage of President Reagan’s
life and now death. I hope that the last goal he achieves is to rally
conservatives and moderates to toughing it out for winning in
When President Reagan was so steadfast with such a tougher opponent—the Soviet Union—I’d hope that his fans in this time of testing would remember what real adversity is and show resolve today that would be worthy of President Reagan.
Can’t we act like people worthy of freedom? Are we unable to defend it? Are we unable even to recognize victory when we are achieving it? As Hanson noted:
These
depressing times really are much like the late 1960s, when only a few dared to
plead that Hue and Tet were not abject defeats, but
rare examples of American courage and skill. But now as then, the louder voice
of defeatism smothers all reason, all perspective, all sense of balance — and
so the war is not assessed in terms of five years but rather by the last five
hours of ignorant punditry. Shame on us all.
Historic
forces of the ages are in play. If we can just keep our sanity a while longer,
accept our undeniable mistakes, learn from them, and press on, Iraq really will
emerge as the constitutional antithesis of Saddam Hussein, and that will be a
good and noble thing — impossible without America and its most amazing
military.
One more job, Mr. President, even after you’ve done so much. Please.
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“Iranian Showdown Coming” (Posted
The Europeans are preparing a resolution that could pave the
way for a confrontation with
France, Britain and Germany are drafting a
U.N. nuclear resolution on Iran that could set them on course for a
confrontation with Tehran at an International Atomic Energy Agency board
meeting next week, diplomats said.
The
The United States, which said the latest IAEA report
contained further evidence that Iran is trying to cover up a nuclear weapons
program, will push the Europeans to include sharp language that describes the
difficulties the agency had getting access to military sites in the Islamic republic.
Diplomats said Washington would likely delay until after
the November presidential election any attempt to push the IAEA to report Iran
to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions because of Tehran's
two-decade cover-up of a uranium enrichment program capable of making material
for weapons.
Since I figure we don’t want to confront
With any luck, we’re preparing
I hope so. Being on the Axis of Evil is not from some technical parole violation. These nutballs want nukes. Get them.
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“Contingency Plan: Shia
The Saudis are also the major source of oil in the world. In addition, part of the Saudi government is trying to fight the Islamists that other parts of the Saudi government have created. It is a low level civil war that could break out into the open and shut off the flow of oil.
Many are upset that a state (or elements in the state) that still supports Islamist ideology should have such control over our economy and policy by virtue of its oil production.
Some argue
that
I have argued that while many of these points are valid,
taking on
But we do need a contingency plan for securing the Saudi oil fields should a civil war break out or should a coup bring the pro-Islamist side to power. We may say we believe the Saudis can protect their oil fields but this is too critical to leave it up to a divided state to defend.
But simply taking over
But I think we can take advantage of what could be a Shia realignment to our side. See
this piece for US
Shias siding with America over
Source: arasale.com/country/saudi.htm
Summary of Eastern Province:
HASA (EASTERN
REGION): Fertile lowland coastal plains inhabited by the kingdom’s Shia minority, who have traditionally lived by fishing,
diving for pearls, raising date palms and trading abroad and with the interior.
All of
So taking
the Eastern Province (the huge region stretching from
The arguments for invading
Yet just because we can’t undo decades of Islamist promotion with one quick invasion is not a reason to do nothing. A civil war is being waged in Saudi Arabia right now and the problems with letting things limp along as they have for decades argue for pushing (and helping) the Saudis who are friendly toward us to fight harder against the Saudis who support Islamist terror. We need to take a risk that such pressure to make Saudi Arabia better could break Saudi Arabia as a state.
So in the meantime, build up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Stockpile the oil field parts that take a year or two to build just in case. And study what we would need to do to drop on the oil fields and seize them. Then we can give the Shias of Saudi Arabia their own state—with our protection.
This is all just a contingency mind you, to prevent a bad
development from being disastrous should Islamists take over
Shia
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“Last Salute” (Posted
Former President Ronald Reagan has passed away.
He buried the
His detractors say all this would have happened anyway.
His detractors are wrong. Indeed, he was right about the biggest question of the day—whether we would win or Soviet communism would win. He knew that we could win contrary to the many who felt that at best we could only avoid losing, and might very well converge toward their system or at least to socialism. I, too, failed to see a future where we would win.
Without Reagan’s determination to drive the
Nothing is inevitable. We are lucky to have had a president determined to win at such a crucial period.
I salute President Reagan one last time and pray he rests well. I shall always be proud that I enlisted in time to have President Reagan as my commander in chief for a year and a half of my short military stint.
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“
I keep looking for indications we will strike overtly in the
Horn of Africa region—from
It isn’t happening. Oh, I’ve seen pieces indicating continued activity and indications that we have quietly sent in special forces on some missions to take out terrorists, but I’d be lying if I tried to inflate this activity into a proof that I was right on the money in my prediction.
No, I expected a visible, if small scale, operation in the
area. A battalion of Rangers, a MEU with an expeditionary strike group, a
carrier, and the
No, I expected (and there is still a little time for this to become true) that we would launch a small-scale visible series of attacks in the Horn region for much the same reason we invaded North Africa in 1942—we need to remind the public we are at war and taking the fight to the enemy. Not ready to strike where we’d like, we struck where we could so that the public wouldn’t get restless and to maintain public support for the war with a success.
As important as
We’ll see. I suppose I could still be right. I’d think the hammering that public support for the war effort has been under lately would justify this approach.
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“Troop Strength” (Posted
On the surface, this looks ominous:
With nearly every other major combat unit either committed
to or just returned from Iraq or Afghanistan, the Army is planning to call on
two battalions and one engineer company — about 2,500 soldiers — from the 11th
Armored Cavalry Regiment, which serves as a professional enemy force at the
National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif. The regiment last saw combat in
the Vietnam War.
The Army boasts of the "tough and uncompromising
standards" of the 11th Armored Cavalry, which it says makes it the premier
maneuver unit in the Army and "the yardstick against which the rest of the
Army measures itself."
Similarly, the 1st Battalion of the 509th Infantry, which
acts as the Opfor, or opposition force, for light
infantry and special operations training at Fort Polk, La., is being called to
Iraq, according to two Army officials who discussed the matter on condition of
anonymity.
The 509th Infantry has not seen combat since World War II,
although five members of the unit served as "pathfinders," or advance
scouts, during the 1991 Gulf War; two were killed and one was taken prisoner.
Both the
When I first read it, I couldn’t believe it. The Army knows how important training is to our success. I’d rather have well trained troops with second tier weaponry than the latest weaponry in the hands of troops who do not train hard.
On Strategypage (sorry, forgot to retain the link), I read that these units are going to Iraq in order to get real life experience first hand in order to be able to better train the troops that go through our two training centers. One battalion from each regiment will still remain in place at each site. They will be bolstered by reservists.
Yet every other story tells us that we are stretched thin
and desperate for troops in
Hard to say. I think the Army does need more troops to provide a better rotation base. Given the need, I don’t blame the Army if they want this impression left with the public. I’d like to see 40,000 more troops added to the active component. Organized into the new brigade format, this could be 8-10 brigades (the “units of action”). Even this might not be enough but we can’t expand the Army very rapidly without destroying quality.
But they aren’t being sent because the pantry is bare. We do have lots of reserve combat brigades in the National Guard. We could have called up two battalions no problem. No, the Strategypage explanation makes far more sense than the common view.
One thing this does highlight is that the combat in
So, bottom line. We need a bigger Army. We don’t need more
troops in
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"Policy of Dominance" (Posted
Former VP Gore spoke to the
repugnant hate group Moveon.org. I wish to address but one of the VP's points. Gore's complaint that we are seeking dominance over the world.
He said:
An American policy of dominance is as
repugnant to the rest of the world as the ugly dominance of the helpless, naked
Iraqi prisoners has been to the American people. Dominance is as dominance
does.
Dominance is not really a strategic
policy or political philosophy at all. It is a seductive illusion that tempts
the powerful to satiate their hunger for more power still by striking a
Faustian bargain. And as always happens -- sooner or later -- to those who
shake hands with the devil, they find out too late that what they have given up
in the bargain is their soul.
First of all, if we did
dominate the world as Gore and his listeners fear, the world could do a heck of
a lot worse. His shameful churning of the abuse of prisoners in
But we don't seek dominance
as Gore asserts. This is what The National Security Strategy of
the United States says about dominance:
We
know from history that deterrence can fail; and we know from experience that
some enemies cannot be deterred. The
Is this clear? We wish to
maintain military capability so far advanced that no nation will try to match
us and put us in the position we found ourselves in during the Cold War—blocked
around the globe and doomed to an expensive arms race with an enemy that could
destroy us and thus locked us into a nuclear-tinged stalemate for decades.
And the purpose of this goal
of dominance is not to control the world.
What is so God-awful wrong
with wanting
Why? Because the audience
that cheered Gore's screeching and fevered speech views
I vote for American military dominance.
Proudly. And I won't need to put my soul in a lock box
while I wish for our dominance.
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"Stopping Losses" (Posted
There have been a lot of
complaints about the unfairness of the Army's stop-loss
order that will keep soldiers in service past their enlistment if their
unit is scheduled to deploy overseas soon:
Thousands of soldiers who
had expected to retire or otherwise leave the military will be required to stay
if their units are ordered to
One formerly serving
officer wrote recently:
These soldiers are falling victim to the
military's "stop-loss" policy — and as a former officer who led some
of them in battle, I find their treatment shameful.
I'm sorry, but those are the
breaks with military service—even volunteer service. This isn't a job that you
can just quit. And while I do think the Army should be larger, this decision isn't
about an Army stretched, this is about combat
effectiveness and unit cohesion. If our Army was three times as large, I'd hope
the Army would have the wisdom to send units that have trained together
overseas. Recall the opening of the movie We
Were Soldiers Once, when Mel Gibson's (Colonel Moore) had a good chunk of
his newly trained battalion stripped out and replaced with newbies
on the eve of deploying to
This order is also, as Strategypage notes, about saving lives:
These more experienced soldiers are
disproportionately critical to the success of the unit in combat. Studies of
casualties during
I'm sorry that some soldiers
will have their plans disrupted. They will forever have my deepest respect and
thanks for what they have done and what they continue to do. But their job is
to protect
Honor our soldiers. But
remember that they are soldiers.
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"Reversal?" (Posted
I'm not sure what
Zakaria is talking about. He says we should consider the magnitude of recent
Bush administration policy reversals that give him hope that we will succeed in
First:
The administration had stubbornly insisted that no
more troops were needed in
No, there are not 20,000
additional American soldiers in
Second:
From the start it refused to give the
United Nations any political role in
I think the
Third:
Radical "de-Baathification,"
the pet project of the Pentagon and Ahmed Chalabi, has been overturned. The
army that was disbanded is being slowly recreated.
Since Zakaria mentions
de-Baathification in the context of the army issue and not as a separate issue,
I'll stick to the army side (but note that de-Baathification is as necessary as
de-Nazification was). First of all this is a silly claim for the reversal
angle. You can't reverse a decision to eliminate something by deciding to
rebuild it. Besides, when was it our
policy to have no Iraqi security forces in a new
Finally, Zakaria notes:
Heavy-handed military tactics have given
way to a more careful political-military strategy in Fallujah,
First, how is this complaint
of heavy-handed military tactics even consistent with his claim we had too few
troops? Second, heavy-handed military tactics result in a leveled
Not that we aren't changing
how we do things. But Zakaria's pounce on purported admissions of error is the
reason the administration doesn't like to admit error. Opposition will pounce
on error and elevate it to crime or incompetence when it is simply human nature
to make mistakes in endeavors small and large or simple and complex. We are
adapting against an enemy that also adapts.
I honestly don't know what
Zakaria is trying to do here. He lauds what he says is a sign that grownups are
now in charge. Yet these are hardly grownup criticisms that Zakaria makes. He
seems to simply join the parade of people panicking over the war. Keegan does not
panic in his good
piece today.
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"We Have the Wonder Tank
Already" (Posted
Strategypage notes:
The
I am pleased. In "Equipping
the Objective Force" in 2002, I noted that our plans for a Future
Combat System (FCS) were too ambitious and that the Abrams tank is too valuable
not to be replaced (or continued) based on what it can do and what we can
build. I concluded:
Building the FCS, however, is a
high-risk venture. The Army should not spend whatever it takes attempting to
meld multiple revolutionary technologies into one vehicle for all missions. The
FCS should be different from the Abrams and Bradley but must be designed with
near-term technology that incorporates modular improvements if the Army is to
turn "gee whiz" ideas into actual hardware. Separated missiles and a
sensor grid; active defenses; EGTs; and exotic engines, fuels, and weapons can
be retrofitted to defeat more capable enemies. Barring successfully fielding
exotic technologies to make the FCS work, the Army must consider how it will
defeat future heavy systems if fighting actual enemies and not merely
suppressing disorder becomes its mission once again. The tentative assumptions
of 2001 will change by 2025. When they do, the Army will rue its failure today
to accept that the wonder tank will not be built.
I think the military has come
to accept that the wonder tank will at least take a little while longer to
build.
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"Invasion of
If I recall, past US assessments
of the ability of
This Chinese military power
report doesn't claim it can't be done. While the report still says that it
could not succeed if there was "third-party intervention" (that's us,
by the way), it at least admits that the campaign could succeed if
The Chinese never tire of
telling us that nothing is as important to them as controlling
I really must get to my part
three of a Chinese invasion of
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"What Kind of Kumbaya
Rot Are We Basing Our Policies On?" (Posted
Ok, we may yet get good
results of our deal in Fallujah. And the Sadr deal may yet turn out fine despite the failures of his
people to honor the ceasefire. I'm suspicious that the Mahdi
goons will succeed in killing more of us and lose less of them by hitting us
during a "ceasefire" when we should be waxing them in offensive ops.
But our military seems happy
with the deals and I am far from all knowing and all wise. I'm skeptical, but
we'll see.
Yet my skepticism receives an
infusion of horror when I read stuff
like this:
For Americans, the tentative deal in Najaf — as it was in Fallouja —
is designed in part to reduce casualties, a senior Pentagon official said.
"The way you avoid casualties is by
not fighting," the official said. "And that's effectively what's
going on down there." That approach has American commanders negotiating
with unsavory, "Mafia-like" characters, the official said.
The way you avoid casualties is by not fighting?
Words worthy
of some "peace" protester in some ANSWER-sponsored rally. Or an earnest college student flush
with confidence and ignorance in equal measure. Or,
apparently, a Pentagon official.
Please remember, unless we
kick the snot out of our enemies and win decisively, we are not the only side
that gets to decide whether there is fighting or not. If we choose not to
fight, and our enemy chooses to fight, fighting will take place.
God help us if we are engaged
in casualty avoidance at the expense of the mission. As I noted in The First Gulf War and the Army's Future
(Land Warfare Paper No. 27, October 1997):
Undue concern [about friendly casualties], however, is false compassion and, as was the
case for Iraq in 1980, could result in even greater casualties in a prolonged
war should we refuse—because of the prospect of battle deaths—to seize an
opportunity for early victory.
Are we making deals that will
increase our casualties in the long run but stretch them out in more manageable
amounts on a daily basis? If so, this is truly terrible.
As I've noted before, it is
certainly no error to get enemies to defect to your side. We do not need to
kill every enemy in order to win. Just get rid of them. Indeed, in such a counter-insurgency, it truly is best not to use massive
firepower to swat flies. We need to make this a law enforcement problem. But
for this to work the guys we bring over have to actually come over to our side. I don't see what good this does if
the enemy simply gets a reprieve in a little sanctuary so they can prepare to
come at us again as a military force when they are ready. Police work cannot
take place if the enemy is still armed and organized like a military force.
I just don't know what we've
done yet.
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