I had saved post archives in my email before the old Yahoo!Geocities died. But years ago they seemed to be gibberish. A number were not available on the Internet Archives and I thought they were lost.
I recently checked my email archive of pre-Blogger posts and they were all legible. So I am restoring the gaps in my archives. Obviously all of the post permalinks are dead and artifacts of my ersatz-blog format back then. These were what I had formerly categorized as "national security affairs."
Its Starting (Posted August 30, 2004)
I worried what Hugo Chavez would do after he managed to hang onto power by hook or crook.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that as part of his deepening "revolution," he will enforce an agriculture law that allows the government to tax and expropriate idle lots. "We are going after idle land and are going to put it to work," said Chavez during his weekly television and radio show.
Chavez is an annoyance now. One day he will be an official foreign policy problem.
But what can we do now? If Latin America was a sea of despots, Id have no qualms about a pro-US coup. But when Latin America is democratic, we cant undermine the region by giving the opposition in the region the idea that coups are a legitimate means of gaining power. Even if it means a thug like Chavez remains in power.
When we have plenty of other military tasks, we cant waste our assets on Venezuela ; and to be fair, it would be tough to justify a military strike given the current situation. Perhaps one day, if Chavez continues his path to Castroism, the threat will justify military action and the global situation will allow us to do so. But in the near term I see no magic bullet to ease our concerns.
We can support the opposition publicly and support democratic institutions in Venezuela directly and through international and regional organizations. And keep the Carter Center away from Venezuela . Its done enough.
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Even the French Cant Be French Enough (Posted August 30, 2004)
You can support Saddam.
You can supply nuclear technology.
You can oppose a war against Saddam in the UN.
You can interfere with plans to wage the Iraq War.
You can refuse to participate in the Iraq War.
You can refuse to participate in the post-war security mission.
And still, the Islamists who say that all the above are necessary to avoid their wrath can find something over which to attack you over:
France vowed Monday to press ahead with a controversial law banning Islamic head scarves in schools, despite demands by militants holding two French journalists hostage in Iraq that Paris revoke the legislation.
France is part of the West and should realize it. Perhaps this incident will be the start of a reality dose for the French:
The abduction shook the notion that France's opposition to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq gave some safety to French citizens amid the rash of kidnappings in Iraq. Some Iraqi militants have previously spared French passport holders even freeing one man in April after he was able to prove his citizenship by showing his knowledge of French geography.
And to paint a picture of the bleeding obvious for those perhaps too French to understand the nuance, Prime Minister Allawi explained:
"France will not be spared no more than Italy, Spain, or Egypt," Allawi said in an interview published Monday in Le Monde newspaper. "Governments that decide to remain on the defensive will be the next targets of terrorist ... Avoiding confrontation is not a response."
I sincerely want France to take their place in the ranks of the West as we battle Islamist fanatics who would kill all of us if they could. And Id like this realization to take place before France takes a bigger hit than this kidnapping, as we did three years ago.
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The Post-War Plan (Posted August 30, 2004)
There is still a lot of silly posturing over the inadequacies of our post-war plan for Iraq . I am firmly convinced that all that talk of having a multi-volume post-war plan with appropriate appendices was never more than an excuse to never take action at all. The post-war hasnt gone as well as Id have hoped, and even the President has conceded this. But that is the way the world works. No plan would have survived contact with reality and I still havent seen any model post-war plan for any war that we have waged. Despite this, we are winning the post-war and the prospects for ultimate victory are very good if we dont lose our national nerve.
But we did have a planor at least expectation for the post-war. Im going by memory here, but it seemed like we had clear expectations for the war.
- We assumed that much of the Iraqi regular army would either stay in their barracks or defect. We had contacts with high ranking officers and thought this would pay off once it became clear we were going after Saddam for good. The early war air strike on a suspected Saddam meeting would have bolstered this view.
- We assumed the police would stay at their posts. Our failure to train exiled Iraqis to staff an embryonic Iraqi security force after the invasion seems to validate this assumption. If we did not assume this, wouldnt we have been more serious about training exiled Iraqis to serve in Iraq ?
- We assumed the Shias would be able to actively help us quickly.
- We assumed the Kurds were with us.
- We assumed we could conquer Iraq without destroying Iraq s civilian infrastructure. This would help ease refugee flows.
- We assumed wed need to capture the oil fields of Iraq intact to help pay for reconstruction.
- We assumed our allies would help us in the post-war occupation duty, as General Tommy Franks has said.
- We assumed the Baathists would make a last stand in the cities of the Sunni Triangleespecially Baghdad and Tikritand we would have to take time to reduce those last bastions of resistance and in the process, destroy the Baath.
- We assumed wed findand more likely facechemical weapons inside Iraq and clear indications of biological and nuclear programs.
- We assumed Syria and Iran would stay out of Iraq out of fear of our possible actions.
- We assumed we could spend two years occupying Iraq , writing a permanent constitution, and then hold elections for a representative Iraqi government.
- We assumed that the debate over whether to invade Iraq would end once we invaded Iraq .
So how did we do?
- The Iraqi army just dissolved and only a small fraction fought us. If we hoped to screen out undesirables and use the army in the post-war, this hope was frustrated. I still think using the army even after vetting would have been too risky in all but the most calm post-war situation. So this assumption was wrong and under the circumstances I think it is good we could not carry this aspect out.
- The police took off instead of staying at their posts. Since we have recruited them back and have had to train them up to actual police standards, this is perhaps moot. Iraqi police under Saddam were more like security guards and traffic cops, so the police who returned to join new police organizations had to be trained to be effective and we are still training them. This assumption was wrong and it may have been irrelevant.
- The Shias were glad to have us overthrow Saddam and pave the way for their dominance in a democratic Iraq . The Shias are still happy about that. But we underestimated how badly the Shias were beaten down under Saddam and we underestimated the impact of our 1991 betrayal when the Shias rose up at our prodding and were brutally suppressed by Saddam as we stood by and watched. The Shias were not willing or able to step up quickly to support us. Perhaps the time it took to capture Saddam frustrated this hope as Shias waited to see if Saddam was really defeated and the four centuries of Sunni rule was actually over. Count this as a failure although it is far from being Shia hostility toward America .
- The Kurds were and are with us. With our light forces in the north, we crumbled the Iraqi military in the north with the help of the Kurds. Count this assumption correct.
- We did conquer Iraq without destroying the Iraqi infrastructure. This assumption was correct. However, we did not know how badly the infrastructure had deteriorated under Saddams rule. In practice, being right was irrelevant to the task at hand. Still, a focused campaign meant that Iraqis did not flee when the US Marines and Army advanced into Iraq . This aspect succeeded.
- We preempted the destruction of Iraq s oil wells. This worked. But the needs were so much greater that we had to spend our own money in addition to the confiscated Baathist stashes we gained access to.
- In the end, some of our allies who said theyd come in after the war lied to us. This assumption failed.
- The Baathist crumbled at the first blow and ran for the hills. While this was good as far as winning the conventional war was concerned, when combined with the arms and money available to them after Baghdad fell, this caused us problems. This was a failure that might not have mattered if the survivors had been weaponless and penniless.
- We did not face chemical weapons nor did we find them. The other WMD programs were not obvious. While I think the Iraqis would have had WMD in rapid order once the international community was kicked out, the dual-use programs were smart enough (and the destruction efforts by the Baathists as the war went on and ended were effective enough) to allow opponents of the war to pretend they were innocent. Hanging our hat on this legalistic justification for war was an error. We had many reasons and downgraded them in favor of what we all assumed was a slam dunk WMD issue.
- Syria and Iran were not deterred from interfering. We failed to remember that our enemies will fight back even when we think we are unstoppable.
- We could not stick with our political plans. This was a failure but we have adequately adapted to the reality of the post-war.
- We see that the opponents of the war continue to debate this question when we should be talking about winning the peace. I don't think this debate is being carried out with a good faith objective of winning. It is sheer partisan hackery. I definitely failed to see this one coming. Foolish me.
All in all, our assumptions were not outrageous. Some were right. Some were right but were irrelevant. Some were wrong. Some were wrong and didnt matter.
In the end, errors are inevitable and as long as we adapt and drive on, it is silly to fixate on them. I believe we have adapted to the reality on the ground.
Once we win in Iraq , errors will be forgiven and will be put in perspective. We may debate the errors of Vietnam still, but do we debate the errors of World War II?
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No Shia Revolt (Posted August 29, 2004)
The Shias are not revolting against the US presence in Iraq . No matter how much American opponents of the war want to insist on this, it is not true:
August 29, 2004: The four senior Shia clerics in Iraq met, and announced that armed resistance is not a suitable way to protest against the presence of foreign troops. At least not yet, saying that some unspecified time in the future, the use of violence might be justified. Until now, the Shia clergy had been vague about whether fighting the coalition troops was justified. But after months of the Sadr militia fighting American troops (and losing big time), and the Sadr militia terrorizing, and sometime killing, Shia civilians, the attitudes have changed. Al Sadr is also suspected of being responsible for the murder of several Shia clerics (who resisted Sadr's gunmen.
In Shia neighborhoods of Baghdad, some Sadr gunmen, or at least armed men who say they support Sadr, continue to fight police and American troops. But most U.S. troops are turning their attention to strongholds of Sunni Arab resistance, like Falluja.
Sadr and his followers (the survivors, anyway) do not represent the Shia population of Iraq . And if Iran was not mucking around in southern Iraq stirring up trouble, even Sadr might just be a low-level malcontent ignored by the majority.
The statement by these senior clerics should tell people over here about whether the Iraqi Shias really think we are an occupying power. Apparently, the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse (not torture) scandal hasnt alienated Iraqis any more than fighting the Saddam leftovers, foreign jihadis, and Iranian pawns has alienated the Shias. They want us to go when we can, but right now they know they need us to keep the Sunnis from returning to power and to keep fanatical tools of the Iranians from seizing control.
This basic support of the Shias is why we will win this insurgency. We are not facing a revolt by a sizable portion of Iraq . A good chunk of the Sunnis and a small fraction of the Shias are willing to fight the US and our allies. The only reason the insurgents are as effective as they are despite the lack of numbers is that they have access to weapons and money squirreled away from the Saddam era or are getting money and arms from Iran . Plus, jihadists are coming into Iraq in small numbers and using bombs against civilian targets to kill large numbers of Iraqis in spectacular terror attacks. Syria is also backing the insurgents to some degree but Im not clear where they rank.
As we get more and more Iraqis into the fight, we will be able to pull back and let the Iraqis shoulder more of the burden. This has taken longer than I thought it would. Just as an aside, Im happy that we did not have the former Iraqi army under arms during the period starting in March when the first Sadr uprising and the Fallujah revolt took place. People still like to say we made a mistake disbanding the Iraqi army, but that is rot. Even if we could have recalled the army after it self-disbanded in the war in 2003, it would be ill-trained and tainted by Saddam ties. We couldnt have trusted the officers and without good leadership, as we discovered in March, such units would be useless. And quite possibly they would have turned against us and made a bad situation worse. Training new units with new leaders is better even though it takes longer to get units in the field. In addition, such units should be less likely to interfere in Iraqi politics when we leave as the army has in the past.
Letting places like Fallujah and thugs like Sadr escape consequences is a mistake and I am eager for our forces and the Iraqis to end these threats. Ive heard that Fallujah is turning against the jihadists and Baathists holed up there. Thats wonderful. But only if we exploit that fact to finally remove this sanctuary for the enemy. Occasional air strikes are not enough. And I heard that we used the time during the Najaf crisis to clean up Sadrs people in Sadr City , but well see. There is still fighting there.
Yet we are winning despite inevitable errors. I just dont have a good guess on the timeline for victory.
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So Why Do They Hate Us? (Posted August 28, 2004)
The Greeks dont like us much. Powell cancelled his planned visit there after protests erupted. Im sure that this hatred is caused by cowboy Bushs unilateral war against Moslems and his disdain for small countries. Oh, but wait:
Greeks harbor anti-American feelings primarily over U.S. support of the 1967-74 military junta, which persecuted its leftist opponents. Many Greeks also believe Washington ignores the concerns of smaller and weaker countries.
In 1999, during a visit by then-President Clinton, battles between protesters and police turned downtown Athens into a riot zone.
The Greeks hate the Moslem Turks so sympathy for the plight of Moslems seems unlikely as a cause for Greek anti-Americanism.
The anger over their own dictatorship that ended thirty years ago is strange. First of all, thats a long grudge and might they not blame Greek generals instead? And even if they blame us for their dictators, didnt decades of pre-Cowboy diplomacy have any effect at all? The purported concern for small countries seems particularly odd in this light since as a small country they presumably are happy we didnt institute regime change in Greece from 1967 to 1974 and instead waited for a Greek solution to the Greek problem. And if our lack of concern for small countries is a new Bush-induced factor as we allegedly work for a new American empire, how could the Greeks be so angry at the multilateral, sensitive, apologizing, Kyoto-loving Clinton administration they rioted over in 1999?
Its clearly an irrational hatred for us no matter what we do. People in foreign countries worry (and a good chunk at home, sadly) about what we do because we are so large and we will have an impact even if we arent trying to affect others. It doesnt matter what we do or dont do, some group of peopleor the same group ignoring all consistencywill think an act or inaction is evidence of our machinations. We should do what we need to do and ignore trying to figure out what the world street thinks of our policies. Talk softly, of course, and send out the smiling diplomats, but do what we must. Somebody will be suspicious no matter what.
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Victory (Posted August 28, 2004)
Sadr is still alive and walking free. We may have killed lots of his men but that is not relevant right now when we have stopped short of destroying Sadr. His thug army is not disarmed. Sadrs spokesman declared:
"The Americans thought that they could exterminate the Mehdi Army, but our fighters are still here. They will be able to go back to their work whilst remaining an army."
As we should know by now, simply surviving a battle with us gives little thugs prestige. How many confrontations has Sadr lived through now? How many more times will we have to fight him and lose soldiers and Marines? Because the so-called peace deal is nothing of the sort:
U.S. soldiers in Humvees drove through the troubled Sadr City slum with loudspeakers, demanding people stay home because coalition forces were "cleaning the area of armed men," according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene. Sporadic gunfire could be heard.
The fighting came a day after al-Sadr loyalists vacated the revered Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf and turned over the keys to Iraq's top Shiite cleric, symbolizing their acceptance of a peace deal to end three weeks of devastating fighting in the holy city.
Militants in Baghdad fired assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades at American troops patrolling the area, said U.S. Capt. Brian O'Malley of the 1st Brigade Combat Team.
O'Malley said U.S. forces suffered no casualties. It was not known whether any insurgents were killed or wounded.
Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman said Iraqi National Guard troops were fighting alongside U.S. soldiers in the skirmishes in the east Baghdad slum, an al-Sadr stronghold named for the cleric's late father.
All we did is let Sadrs cornered survivors escape to fight another day in another place should Sadr raise the banner of revolt yet again. How long will it be before Sadr succeeds and gets lucky or smart? He may be an idiot, but people who are not idiots may be pulling his strings.
Why are we unwilling to defeat our enemies? For Gods sake, it is perfectly appropriate to kill our enemies and achieve victory!! Sadr is our enemy! Do the math.
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Iranian Interest in Iraq (Posted August 28, 2004)
Iran has perhaps tipped its hand about what it might or might not be interested in doing inside Iraq :
Washington has hit a dead-end over Iran's nuclear dossier, lacking enough proof to demand U.N. sanctions and too bogged down in Iraq for a military strike, President Mohammad Khatami said Saturday.
"The Americans have to deal first with their problems in Iraq before taking military action against Iran," the reformist president said.
Ill ignore the ridiculous characterization of Khatami as a reformist. This isnt a post about media bias or laziness.
If the Iranians think that having Americans tied down fighting in Iraq will prevent us from acting against Iran in the next critical year or so while they deploy nukes, do you think the Iranian mullahs are leaving it in Allahs hands or might they be involved in helping people opposed to us inside Iraq? So what is Sadr up to these days? And where is his address book?
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Israeli Interest in Iran (Posted August 28, 2004)
Israel s interest in what we might or might not do about Iran on the verge of deploying nuclear weapons is clear from this spying incident. If true, Israel is risking a lot by spying on us. If true, the spy should be put away for a long time and I dont care if Israel is an ally. Lord knows where the information will go once it leaves the US . Yet what it says about what will happen in regard to Iran is more important:
In Israel, the chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee said Saturday that Israel worries about Iran's nuclear policies but he is confident the government has not abandoned a 20-year-old decision not to spy on the United States.
"Israel is very concerned ... that the ayatollahs will acquire nuclear weapons because this is an unpredictable regime with close network to terror organizations around the world," Yuval Steinitz said.
"But if you think this might change our previous decision to spy on the U.S., the answer is no."
President Bush has identified Iran as part of an "axis of evil," along with North Korea and the Iraqi government deposed by the U.S.-led invasion last year.
Yet his administration has battled internally over how hard a line to take toward Iran. The State Department generally has advocated more moderate positions, while more conservative officials in the Defense Department and some at the White House's National Security Council have advocated tougher policies.
Israel, one of the United States' strongest allies, has worked behind its conservative prime minister, Ariel Sharon, to push the Bush administration toward more toughness against Iran. The Israeli tactics have raised questions whether inside information may have been used to try to influence U.S. policy
Israel is not as capable of dealing with Iran as we arewhether we are discussing an attack militarily or support for an overthrow of the mullahsbut Israel arguably has far more vital reasons to make sure Iran does not get nukes since Iran is close to Israel and not America, and America is far larger than Israel. Even a small number of nukes could destroy Israel and no long-range missiles are needed. Much murder could be achieved against Israel with a merchant ship detonating in an Israeli port or two. And the Iranians havent been shy about how exchanging nukes with Israel would be worth it. So the Israelis are taking risks in damaging our relationship to find out what we will or will not do about Iran .
I think this reinforces my point that Israel s decisions on what to do about Iran are a major factor in our decision. If Israel is about to actless effectively than we canthen we need to act first. And Israel is clearly trying to get a handle on what our conflicted internal debates over Iran policy will lead toor whether we might stick our head in the sand.
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Death From the Shadows (Posted August 28, 2004)
The question of how to defeat al Qaeda to prevent another attack and the related one of whether the invasion of Iraq distracted us from this mission was raised in my mind from a recent article on just how many al Qaeda terrorists are out there:
Sleeper cells are a never-ending threat that never seems to materialize the way one would expect. If Osama really had 50 or a 100 terror cells spread throughout the West you'd think by now he would have activated them even just a few of them. For almost three years Osama has been on the run. Many of al Qaeda's top leaders are dead or captured and they have lost their safe bases in Afghanistan. If I were a terrorist mastermind with a huge organization of fanatics at my disposal, I would try to relieve some of the pressure by lashing out at my tormenters. Instead, Osama is reduced to periodic fits of wailing as he promises to engulf the West in a sea of fire. If Osama really has a large terrorist organization at his disposal, he is demonstrating godlike forbearance. But can that same level of patience be attributed to these ghost cells spread across the globe? To date, not one of them has self-activated, a remarkable event considering all of Osama's post-9/11 injunctions for Muslims to rise up and kill Americans wherever they find us.
As Ive mentioned before, I never bought the figure of how many trained terrorists were out there after cycling though al Qaeda training camps. Are there 100,000? I dont think so. Just like we do not have a huge number of astronauts just because every year thousands of American kids go through Space Camp, al Qaeda does not have a vast pool of committed killers just waiting for the signal to strike. Some of the people who went through those terrorist training camps undoubtedly are killers. Lots have been killed in Afghanistan already. More have been arrested. Those who went back home after attending the camps were more like Fantasy Football Camp participants, and the graduates went home to boast to their friends that they are trained killers just waiting for Osamas signal, God willing. Theyre Barney Fifes with long beards. It impresses friends. Maybe it even works on the babes who think they are with dangerous bad boys. But they sure as heck arent participating in a wave of attacks on America .
Opponents of the Patriot Act might be able to use this theory that few terrorists are out there to argue weve cracked down too hard at home (though the crack down is all in their heads, really) except that they are also heavily invested in the false idea that Iraq has distracted us from the real fight against al Qaeda! Hard to be distracted from an overblown threat, eh?
For me, this does not provide a contradiction since I dont think the Patriot Act is anywhere near as bad as hysterical critics charge. Much of the outrages they say the act does have nothing to do with the act and even some parts of the act are not anywhere near as ominous as the critics claim. In addition, I dont think that Iraq is a distraction from the war on terror. Ive noted that Im not altogether comfortable with putting Iraq in the framework of the war on terror because I believe it would be in our interests to deal with nuclear rogue regimes and wannabes even if al Qaeda did not exist. I concede that Islamofascism makes it more imperative to end these regimes so they do not provide fanatical terrorists with nuclear weapons out of religious solidarity or desire for badly needed cash. Still, defeating states with the resources to harm us directly or indirectly is more important in my mind than focusing like a laser beam on terrorists to the exclusion of all other threats.
On the other hand, we must hunt down the terrorists. When looking at terrorism in isolation, I think the threat from even a relatively small al Qaeda is substantial. Their hate is a force multiplier. Those that are out there managed to kill 3,000 of us three years ago and if circumstances had bee a little different it might have been 50- or 100,000. As this article notes about some information gleaned from a captured al Qaeda computer guy recently:
The computer had been used by bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders, and contains an unfinished justification of the 9/11 attacks on America. This essay, "The Truth about the New Crusade: A Ruling on the Killing of Women and Children of the Non-Believers," is written by Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who worked with Khalid Sheikh Muhammad in organizing those attacks. It argues that "the sanctity of women, children, and the elderly is not absolute" and concludes that "in killing Americans who are ordinarily off limits, Muslims should not exceed four million non-combatants, or render more than ten million of them homeless."
This is not the only time that al Qaeda has announced a target of four million. In June 2002, its spokesman, Suleiman Abu Gheith, published an article on the alneda website that claimed: "We have the right to kill four million Americans 2 million of them children and to exile twice as many and wound and cripple hundreds of thousands."
Their determination to kill millions of us is quite clearand quite insane. Nowhere in this terrorist goal of killing 4 million of us any hint that they think killing that many of us will achieve any goal. Will 4-million cause us to pull out of the Moslem world? Stop supporting Israel ? End our Hollywood exports? Dress our women in burquas? Stone our gay citizens to death? Shoot Michael Moore? They dont seem to ask. Or care. The point is just to kill that many of us under a bizarre cover of religious sanction. And if they kill 4 million of us and the world is still no better from their point of view will they stop at 4 million? I really doubt it. Theyll keep killing us if we let them.
Ive never believed we were a helpless giant in the face of this amorphous asymmetric threat:
More importantly, we must exploit the fact that these attacks take time to organize. Intelligence must track the enemy terror cells in order to strike the enemy and disrupt them by keeping them on the move and by killing or arresting their operatives. We must sow confusion and paranoia in their ranks to slow them down and get them to fight each other. Our ability to use so many weapons is one advantage of being a powerful state. We may be a large target but we are not a helpless giant. America can direct precise or massive force quickly and globally as needed. Keeping the initiative is crucial. This will compel our enemies to start their preparation from scratch again and again. Giving the enemy time to prepare only guarantees that eventually they will be ready and will strike.
I believed and still do think that we are able to wield tremendous military, financial, diplomatic, and economic power around the globe, fast or slow, massively or focused. We are damned capable when we realize we are at war as weve shown over the past three years.
Kill the terrorists and make sure there are no regimes that give them support.
Oh, and thank you to the domestic losers, anarchists, socialists, and communists who will descend on New York to distract our police and security resources. Because, you know, nobody has yet to raise any opposition to the administration on any of its policies, right? I wont blame them if terrorists strike, because the terrorists are the ones at fault, but many of the protesters will probably be pretty happy if our enemies do strike, I dare say.
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Axis of El Vil (Posted August 27, 2004)
Apparently, the fraud by Chavez in Venezuela was massive according to reputable exit polling (via Powerline):
How could the exit polls be nearly 40 points off? The short answer is, they werent. Chavez, whose anti-democratic, pro-Castro sympathies are openly proclaimed (he tried to block the constitutionally-mandated referendum for months), stole the election. I think it was massive fraud, Doug Schoen told Michael Barone at U.S. News and World Report. Our internal sourcing tells us that there was fraud in the [Venezuelan] central commission. There are widespread reports of irregularities and evidence of fraud, many of them ably recorded by Mary Anastasia OGrady in the Wall Street Journal last week. Carter is untroubled by any of this, and declares that Chavez won fair and square.
And Jimmy Carter blesses the whole damn fraud.
Gosh, hes such a model ex-president.
Oh, and technically speaking, the title refers to Chavez and not Carter. Just want to be clear on that point.
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New 527? (Posted August 27, 2004)
Well this is clearly over the line:
North Korea this week called President Bush a "political imbecile" after he referred to the North's leader Kim Jong Il as a "tyrant." It also compared the American leader to Adolf Hitler for launching wars in Iraq and elsewhere.
The sad thing is, for the rantings of a psycho regime, they are strangely mild compared to the recent fashion of 527-driven political discourse. Pretty sad when Kim Jong Il is a piker compared to Michael Moore. No wonder the presidents spokesman dismissed it as just more bluster.
More to the point, it is amazing that Pyongyang thinks this will help them given what they want:
North Korea is seeking energy aid, lifting of economic sanctions and removal from Washington's list of state sponsors of terrorism.
Is that all? The sad thing is, it used to work. New game, Pillsbury Nuke Boy. New game.
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"A Question of Timing" (Posted August 26, 2004)
Hoagland says this about our loss in the Vietnam War:
Southeast Asia was not a turning point in the Cold War. America's defeat was -- in military, strategic and economic terms -- absorbed and reversed less than a decade after the fall of Saigon. The capitalist dominoes of Thailand and the Philippines have had more influence on the communists of Hanoi than vice versa.
Certainly, it is difficult to refute that statement since we did recover from the Vietnam loss and we did go on to dominate the world militarily, economically, and culturally. And the Hanoi victors are hardly eating peeled grapes as the fruit of their victory over us and conquest of South Vietnam.
But Hoagland is dead wrong on dismissing the effects of our fighting in Vietnam. I believe that there would have been a tremendous difference between our losing in 1975 (when Saigon fell) and losing in 1965 (when we sent in our first combat troops). Let me quote John Keegan on the Vietnam War:
I don't think it's a war like fighting Hitler, but I think it was a correct war, a right war, and it had indirect effects of the greatest importance as well. I think it demonstrated to the Russians of the Russian leadership of the last years of communism that the Americans were serious when they said that they opposed communism. And I think it, therefore, contributed to -- eventually, to the end of the Cold War and the fall of Communist regimes all over central and eastern Europe.
And the timing of our defeat affected not just the Soviets. Would Thailand and the Philippines have survived a communist victory in 1965? Or was the subsequent decade important in shoring them up so that when the fall of Saigon came in 1975, they could withstand the defeat?
Our troops served our country well even in this "lost" war. Our veterans who fought there should be proud of what they did for us in the larger Cold War and for their effort to keep South Vietnamese free. Yes, free. Life under a victorious Saigon government would today be as different from life under today's Hanoi government as Seoul is better than Pyongyang and as Taipei is better than Peking.
So while our loss in Vietnam is today tragic for the South Vietnamese who suffer under Hanoi's rule, the West has emerged triumphant from the Cold War in good measure because of the sacrifice of Americans and our allies in the jungles and rivers of South Vietnam. When we lost that struggle is more important than the fact that we lost it.
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"Target: Iran" (Posted August 24, 2004)
I've written that I think we couldn't be sure of eliminating Iran's nuclear infrastructure in a bombing campaign and so regime change is the only way to keep a hostile Iran from getting and using nukes. Even a successful aerial campaign against Iran's nuclear facilities would just kick the problem down the road and perhaps insure that the mullahs build and use their first nuke at the first chance they get so we won't knock them down again.
While Israel's attack on the Osiraq reactor in 1981 is cited as a template, that was a single facility and in the end, it required near regime change in 1991 to halt Iraq's close call on getting nukes; and it took regime change in 2003 to end all doubt that Saddam might get nukes. An Osiraq-style operation without 1991 and 2003 would just kick the problem to the future.
If that is all we can do, then we should strike until we figure out something better. There are no perfect solutions, after all. But I didn't think we could even kick the problem down the road with any assurance that we gave it a good kick. I don't think we have any reason to be sure that we know where everything is.
I figured the Israelis had an even smaller chance of success than we would given their inferior resources and geography.
But now I wonder about at least one of my assumptions.
The Iranians appear to fear an Israeli strike to disarm them:
Insisting that Tehran's nuclear program is peaceful, Iran's foreign minister reiterated Tuesday that Iran would retaliate to any Israeli strike against its nuclear facilities.
Why would they fear this if they have safely buried their nuclear facilities? Or do they fear an attack? Is this a statement of confidence that they can ride out a strike or a worry that Israel needs to be scared away from doing what they can successfully accomplish?
So in this light, this assessment by Globalsecurity.org about Iran's nuclear facilities is interesting:
The preponderance of evidence and reasoning leads to the assumption that there is no underground nuclear infrastructure, and that the above ground infrastructure constitutes Iran's nuclear weapons program.
If what we see is what they have, the possibility that an aerial attack could succeed in the operational sense of having smoldering holes in Iran when the planes return to base is much higher than I had thought.
And my Jane's email news has an August 18 snippet:
Tensions are running high IRAN project to develop an atomic bomb is no longer secret. The Israelis were so worried that the boss of the secret intelligence service (the Mossad), Shabtai Shavit, met with agents from the Central Intelligence Agency as long ago as the late 1980s. He urged them to do their utmost to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions becoming a reality. Ten years later and nothing had happened. ...
So the Israelis have been looking at this problem for a long time. And Israel did have contacts with the Shah's Iran. Could the Israelis be confident about their intelligence on Iran's key nuclear facilities?
If the Israelis believe they can destroy Iran's nuclear program, we have a more practical deadline for regime change in Tehran. After all, if the only trigger for action by the US is when Iran goes past the point of no return, we could bury our heads in the sand and do nothing and hope for the best. It would be the wrong choice, but that would be an option. If Israel thinks she could cripple the Iranians in a repeat of 1981, ignoring the necessity of 1991 and 2003 in ending the Iraqi nuclear threat, they will try and it doesn't matter what reality is.
We will have to deal with possible failure since the Iranians will assume we were behind the attack. And how will the Iranians hate the Israelis more? If the Israelis succeed in taking out the facilities, pro-American sentiment might disappear in Iran for a generation, ending the chance we have for regime change to a friendly and reasonable government. Who would work with us under these circumstances and risk being portrayed as tools of the Israelis? And when the Iranians set to work on nukes again, they will bury this time. If the Israelis fail either because they lack the horses to strike the entire infrastructure or because Iran does have hidden underground facilities, then we are in a world of hurt right away. If we are to get positive regime change in Iran, we have to put our plan into action before the Israelis feel they must strike militarily.
So we will try regime change in early 2005. Or, as I've noted, in December 2004 if we have a change in administration here this November.
You know I think this decade sucks, right?
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"Fight for Europe's Soul" (Posted August 24, 2004)
This is the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Paris. This isn't an opportunity for me to bash France. Lord knows, I think it is necessary. France hasn't been much of an ally for a long time. And I wish it wasn't so. I don't want to despise the French. And despite my slams, I don't actually despise the French. It is shorthand for my disgust with the Paris government. The French are part of the civilized West and I want them to act like it. And defend it.
So on this anniversary of the liberation of Paris by troops of 4th ID (the same division that could not invade Iraq through Turkey because of French machinations), I say I am glad we liberated France. The French were under the heels of a despot and deserved freedom. The French like to say we liberated France only as a byproduct of our desire to defeat Germany, but it doesn't erase the fact that it was right to free them from the Nazi/Vichy yoke.
But they are right that we had a strategic goal of defeating Germany and preventing the Nazis from controlling the continent and harnessing Europe's resources to fight us.
We resisted Soviet communism for the same reason. We could not afford to have Europe fall into hostile hands.
Now we are frustrated that Europe is not more cooperative in the war on terror or in fighting the Axis of Evil and their ilk. Some would walk away from Europe and let them suffer while we work unilaterally to fight for our security and interests. But Europe is not a monolithic bloc hostile to the US. We have friends there too and if we walk away, we abandon them and lose Europe as an ally. After a century of resisting Kaisers, fascists, and commissars, why would we let bureaucrats expel us from Europe and organize Europe in manners hostile to our interests? :
What this means is that the U.S. must now engage in tough-minded alliance management politics designed to tip the European balance firmly and permanently towards the pro-American Anglo-Italian-Polish bloc and to revive Atlanticism in European politics
As frustrating as it may seem, we must support our friends and not get tired of working to shape European politics to our advantage. If we could liberate ungrateful French because it was the right thing to do and because it was in our interests, we can fight for the soul of Europe today. It is right and it is in our interest.
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"Intelligence Reorganization" (Posted August 24, 2004)
These authors aren't too impressed with the 9-11 Commission's report or its specific recommendations on intelligence organization:
To summarize, despite the commission's self-proclaimed belief that it has come up with a set of bold and creative reforms, in reality, on most of the key legal and policy issues, the report implicitly or explicitly advocates the continuation of business as usual. It fails to advocate, or even to consider seriously, such key matters as the merits of strategic preemption when dealing with ambiguous, but lethal threats, the need to change fundamentally the nature of the legal regime governing all aspects of covert operations and military actions, as well as the legal rules governing collection of intelligence. In the end of the day, regrettably, the commission, perhaps because of its quest for bipartisanship and unanimity, has failed to make a meaningful contribution to the ongoing national debate on how to avert future September 11-style attacks.
I'm glad that others aren't very impressed with the commission. Although universally praised, it seems, I didn't see that it reported anything terribly insightful. The best I could say about it is that it didn't do harm as it seemed it might from the self-serving public hearings it held.
As to the recommendations on intelligence, I don't feel terribly competent to comment on the subject. I don't know how the boxes should be arranged.
But then, I don't know if it matters. I don't think reorganizing the CIA prior to 9-11 would have led us to detecting and stopping the attacks. It simply wasn't in our frame of mind and no intelligence analyst could have persuaded our leaders to take drastic action prior to the attack. In my opinion, the only thing that made us better prepared to stop future attacks is that we endured a horrific attack on 9-11. We knew it could happen after that, and that appreciation is the major factor that allows us to fight the terrorists and their backers. We've had great success against the terrorists without a reorganization of intelligence services, haven't we? I'd be pretty mad if we were waiting for a commission report to have an effective CIA nearly three years after 9-11.
I'll read about plans to reorganize the CIA with interest. I just don't know enough to say whether the proposals will do any goodor any harm.
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So does Sadr have time on his side or do we?
This article says that time is on Sadrs side:
Iraq's pro-American interim government knows a U.S. raid on the shrine could be disastrous, inciting millions of Shi'ites in Iraq and abroad and playing into the hands of Sadr.
So time is on Sadr's side despite the U.S. air strikes at night which light up the area near the mosque and rattle Najaf.
This article says time is not on Sadrs side:
Still, months of battling U.S. Army and Marine forces have taken its toll on the Mahdi army. Most of al Sadr's front-line combatants are now dead. His current crop of fighters are mostly disenfranchised, newly recruited youths who are certainly capable of firing off a few rounds or launching a rocket-propelled grenade, but they often break and run when U.S. Marines and Army cavalry troopers move against them.
The past 24 hours have seen U.S. warplanes and helicopter gunships pounding Mahdi positions. Fighting continues on the ground in various sectors of the city, and the consensus among U.S. military personnel is that the insurgency is weakening. The latter is due in large measure to an increase in solid intelligence, a more formidable Iraqi national military force, and positive developing relationships between U.S. forces and Iraqi civilians. Not good for al Sadr.
The author says clearly:
Though some would argue otherwise, time and the fact that positive news stories will eventually see ink is in many ways on the side of the Americans in Iraq and the new Iraqi interim government. Not so for al Sadr.
This Marine officer flying an attack helicopter over Najaf notes that the Shias are on our side and that we are taking care to avoid wanton destruction or killing innocents:
I think the majority are on our side. I've learned that this enemy is not just a mass of angry Iraqis who want us to leave their country, as some would have you believe. The forces we're fighting around Iraq are a conglomeration of renegade Shiites, former Baathists, Iranians, Syrians, terrorists with ties to Ansar al-Islam and Al Qaeda, petty criminals, destitute citizens looking for excitement or money, and yes, even a few frustrated Iraqis who worry about Wal-Mart culture infringing on their neighborhood.
His story seems to say that time is on our side to wipe out Sadrs forces. If most Shias backed Sadr, wed be in a precarious situation. But Sadr is backed by the usual suspects and some desperately poor people, so we can afford to kill the Mahdi army carefully over time.
So what is it?
Im generally of the bandaid-off-fast school of thought. If you give your enemy time, he might very well find a way to use it. Or sheer dumb luck could work against you. When outgunned, thats why you play for timeyou never know what might happen to change the odds. So when you are stronger, end the fight quickly. With Sadr in the holy city of Najaf , Id like Sadr killed or imprisoned before he can cause problems for us.
I admit that back in April when the first Sadr uprising was taking place, I discounted the Sadr threat and favored going after Fallujah fast. My reasoning then was that the Baathists and their Islamist Sunni allies were the biggest threat to building a new Iraq . With the Shias on our side, I figured we could afford to slowly squeeze Sadrs forces until we beat them. We held off in Fallujah and then after successfully and slowly squeezing Sadrs forces, we let him go. Now he is causing us problems again.
So why do I think we need to move fast now when I was urging calmly responding to Sadr in the spring? Am I panicking? Do I think the Shias are moving against us?
No to both questions. I still think the Shias are against Sadr and support at least nominally our removal of Sadr from Najaf. What I worry about is that Sadr will escape to fight yet again after we failed in May to finish him off and after we failed just after the invasion to put this guy away when he was weak. Eventually, even the idiot Sadr may figure out how to cause real trouble for us. Or just get lucky. Or, Sadr might lose control of his so-called army to Iranian intelligence backers who will engineer the destruction of the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf and successfully blame the US . I have no idea if the Shias would actually blame us in this case, but it is a risk. That is the biggest factor that argues to me to end this fast. If we could guarantee the safety of the shrine, Id say a slow squeeze would work well again. But I dont know how long we can control the scope of the fighting.
To be fair, we may be unable to come to grips with Sadr himself and end the Mahdi occupation of the shrine without destroying or damaging it. We cant level the town to kill that thug. Id just really be happy if a sniper could spot Sadr and put him down. If we cant go fast, we have no choice but to continue squeezing and killing the Mahdi army thugs until they break or are dead. Once we can finally send Iraqi security forces into the shrine to secure it, we need to make sure Sadr cannot ever fight again.
Sadr will clearly keep coming back at us if we keep letting him go. Time is not automatically on our side or Sadrs side. But I worry that time is more valuable to Sadr while fighting continues. He is losing every day slowly but events could arise to reverse his misfortune. Once we end this fighting, on the other hand, and accelerate reconstruction in Iraq , time is on our side. When conditions inside Iraq improve economically and politically, Sadrs appeal will decline tremendously.
Nail the idiot Sadr.
Global Posture (Posted August 22, 2004)
The DOD went over the redeployment plan for the US militaryespecially the Army. There isnt much detail here.
Right now it looks like the removal of a brigade from Korea as already announced. The two heavy divisions in Germany will be brought home to the US . It was noted that moving heavy units from Europe to the Pacific would take longer than moving them to the Pacific from the continental US. No troops will be demobilized as was the case with Europe-based VII Corps after the Persian Gulf War.
A Stryker brigade will go to Germany . And a full parachute brigade will be based in Italy . Fifth Corps will remain in Europe but be restructured. Troops will not be based permanently in new NATO countries in the east, although training and periodic deployments for specific purposes will be carried out there.
Warm bases with equipment and support personnel will be used to receive and then launch Army units flown in from the US . No troops to Australia , although we and others will train there with the Australians. No troops are going to Africa for basing. Troops will be sent out to train there and elsewhere overseas.
The redeployment will take place over a decade.
I agree with the basic assumption that a heavy corps is ill-suited to the Europe mission. Fifth Corps with two heavy divisions (2 brigades each) was a truncated version of Seventh Army that was ready to slug it out with the Red Army heading west. I like having the heavy divisions back here where they can more easily swing between the Pacific and Europe and the Middle East . But I am in favor of maintaining a solid corps in Europe . Keeping the US in, the Russians out, and the Germans down was the unofficial mission of the US-dominated NATO. Russia is out and Id like to keep it that way; and Id like to keep German-dominated EU down. That requires keeping the US in.
But I am not clear what will be sent to Europe . Right now we have just under 5 full strength brigades allocated to Europe . Four heavy brigades in Germany and a 2-battalion parachute brigade in Italy . We will have a Stryker Brigade in Germany , which is goodwheeled vehicles will be able to deploy across Europe s good road network with ease. A full parachute brigade in Italy will also be an improvement. Keeping a corps headquarters configured for deployment out of Europe into the arc of crisis ranging from West Africa to Central Asia will be useful.
But what assets will replace the nearly five combat brigades we have now? Only two brigades are noted and that isnt even a full division let alone a corps. Even if we assume that a brigades worth of light infantry troops are pretty much constantly rotated into Europe for training in new NATO countries, thats only 3 brigades. Id like to see 101st AB Division deployed to Europe (2 brigades and the division base anyway, with 1 brigade left in Kentucky ). If we also have one or two new brigade combat team sets of heavy equipment left after redeploying the rest to other regions, wed have a well-rounded corps available in Europe . Then we are talking real capability that uses Europe as a staging area to project power to the arc of crisis. Wed have the initial entry portion for an intervention with the whole range of Army assetsair assault, parachute, light, heavy, and Stryker.
One can also say that with the problems with base closings in the US , closing overseas bases is certainly politically easier way to dump excess base capacity.
A lot still needs to be said about what will happen. I suspect lots of details arent worked out yet. Some good stuff but I have some worries; and I await details about how we are turning European bases into a power projection base.
Chavez Wins (Posted August 22, 2004)
There was never any doubt that Chavez would remain in power at the end of the referendum process. The only question was whether it would be through real popularity, old-fashioned fraud, or armed might. It looks like it will fall somewhere between bought popularity and fraud, even though observers declared the vote clean. For the observers, however, their own self interest would lead them to say the vote was fair. Now they can go home with a clear conscience that they did their duty. What if they had found fraud? They had no power to change the results and they would have gone home leaving a crisis behind them. For former president Carter, the opportunity to oversee another kick in the legs at Bush was probably pretty gratifying. It is possible the results were mostly clean and the observers are correct. Yet there is this disturbing report:
Opposition leaders claim touch-screen voting machines at hundreds of polling stations produced the exact same number of "yes" votes in favor of ousting Chavez, a result they say was statistically impossible. Chavez foes argue the supposed finding indicated the machines were rigged to impose a ceiling on "yes" votes.
This would be one novel way to guard against a repeat of the Nicaragua model where opponents of Ortega told pollsters they favored him and then upset the petty dictator on election day. If true, this is a damning fact.
So Chavez remains in power. This is distasteful to me and should be to any proponent of human rights and democracy. But he gets a pass for hating Bush. What can we do? Not much. Venezuela is an important oil exporter to us in a day when oil supplies are tight and we will likely (in my opinion) take out the mullahs in 2005. We cant afford to risk reducing oil supplies when so many exporters are vulnerable to disruption. Nor can we forget that the Axis of El Vil may be annoying but it is not the Axis of Evil. Petty tinpot dictators like Chavez are luxury targets when we face nuclear wannabees like Iran or actual nuke holders like North Korea . And the terrorists who might get their hands on them are still out there, too. Unless Chavez can be shown to be supporting Islamist terrorists, he is an annoying human rights violator and thug, but not a threat that justified committing US military power. What lesser efforts would suffice I do not know.
Im disappointed. I just dont know if we can afford to do anything about Chavez. The Venezuelans may just have to suffer under the thug leader that many foolishly support.
I'm back from beyond the event horizon. I know this is true since time stopped. How else to explain that the idiot Sadr is still alive? More later. Must find out how Chavez won his referendum.
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Look Around (Posted August 16, 2004)
Ill be out of the loop for a week. No internet. No TV. News itself will be scarce. I think I actually pass the event horizon at some point. God help me. So Ill post nothing new until the 22nd .
If youve just started reading The Dignified Rant in the last few months, feel free to pick a month from my archives of national security posts back to July 2002 and see how I did in the light of hindsight. Or check out my war essay written just after 9-11. Or see my List of Annoying Things or my occasional stabs at humor in Landfill. I also have essays about my home life in Home Front, although Im sure this has a more limited appeal since my readership here tends to be family and female friends since it is way off foreign policy topics. Heck, you can check out some of my published stuff, too, and see what editing can do for my writing!
Thanks for reading!
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What if We Stop Stealing the Moslem Worlds Oil? (Posted August 16, 2004)
It seems like many critics of the war argue that we could walk away from the Middle East and take the target off our backs if we didnt need to stay in the Middle East to secure our oil supplies. Since they believe its all about the oil, this is certainly a consistent view.
So what if we manage to create a hydrogen or fossil fuel-free economy in the next 20 or 30 years? What if solar power and wind power change from a Green wet dream to reality? Will the Islamist fanatics finally stop trying to kill us when we no longer steal their oil? Sudans recent playing of the oil card by claiming the Wests interest in stopping a Sudanese genocide in Darfur was really about oil and Gold prompted this thought, as well as a recent NPR report on alternative fuels. Or listen to Sadr or the other grievance masters talk about how we steal their oil. They seem genuinely angry, eh?
I think that however good it would be to make Middle Eastern oil irrelevant to our energy needs, becoming independent or even significantly less dependent would not end our reasons to stay involved in the region. It would probably increase our need to intervene, actually. If you think the Islamists want to kill us and the Moslems resent us now when we buy their oil, imagine what theyll think when we stop buying their oil. Imagine what theyll think when the money slows to a trickle and oil is just a pollutant that spoils their land. Imagine what the rulers will think when we dont care about their continued rule to keep stability? Imagine how theyll act when they cant buy the weapons and other things that make them states. Imagine how angry theyll get when they realize they blew the decades of opportunity they had from oil exports by failing to build up non-oil economic assets.
Theyll be pissed.
It will be a race to see if looming poverty leads the people of the region to make a reality check and use their education to rebuild their world or whether they grip their grievances even tighter and try to use their diminishing resources to strike us in revenge.
And we wont have to switch completely to get this result. Once non-oil energy sources reach some minimum level, the writing will be on the wall for oil as an energy source and all that oil in the ground will be sold at fire sale prices lest the owners be stuck with a pollutant rather than black Gold.
Not that this will happen any time soon so Im sure my prediction will go untested, but I bet the oil states will see conspiracies everywhere to keep them down.
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Looking Ahead to Future War (Posted August 16, 2004)
Strategypage has what appears to be a dry bomb damage assessment story (BDA) that hints to me of what the Air Force is looking ahead to fight:
August 14, 2004: The U.S. Air Force, long a leader in technological innovation, is reinventing the wheel. The air force has rediscovered target networks and is revising its combat planning process to better analyze the overall impact of bombing different types of targets. JEFX is an Air Force experiment that is trying new technologies to improve the ability to do the most damage to enemy military capability, in the shortest amount of time, and using the least number of bombs. As the air force puts it, JEFX, provides new capabilities and machine-to-machine information flow between intelligence preparation of the battlespace, targeting, information collection management and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance management tools. In plain English that means that more powerful computers, communications and software are going to be used to speed up the analysis of targets in terms how they fit into the overall enemy war effort, and what effect bombing any particular target will have on the overall enemy war capabilities
When you are talking about impacting the overall enemy war capabilities, you are talking about a long war. So when looking at this Air Force effort, we can rule out wars such as Panama 1989, the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and the 2003 Iraq War. These were all six weeks or less in duration and we were able to take down the enemy very quickly. Long wars can be insurgencies such as in Iraq but BDA is irrelevant since there is no enemy war-making infrastructure to destroy. Although the article notes the eleven-week Kosovo War as an example of how we failed to overcome enemy deception efforts and mistakenly believed we had destroyed hundreds of enemy armored vehicles (we got only a few dozen, and the picture of a knocked-out M-36 World War II era vehicle highlighted in Air Force Magazine after that war demonstrated to me the great effort expended for little physical effect. I continue to believe we were extremely lucky that our enemy broke under this assault), the article provides a clue about the intent when it notes that BDA was tried in World War II to try to determine how we were doing in the strategic bombing campaign against Germany; and that nukes made this limited skill atrophy in the Cold War when nukes made BDA a little irrelevant.
Given that short conventional wars dont really need this strategic-level focus on overall warfighting capabilities; and long counter-insurgencies are not appropriate for BDA, what kind of wars are we worried about having accurate BDA to quickly and effectively reduce enemy warfighting abilities? Are we really looking ahead to more Kosovo-type wars? Or Afghanistan campaigns? I dont think so.
I think we are looking at China. If we fight China, the ability to do the most damage to enemy military capability, in the shortest amount of time, and using the least number of bombs will be very important for a number of reasons.
On the first goal, doing the most damage to enemy military capabilities, this is obviously most important when fighting an enemy with a lot of military capabilities. When fighting a smaller power, other factors such as limiting friendly military casualties, maintaining public opinion, and avoiding civilian deaths are the real constraints on our ability to totally destroy the enemy from the air. Heck, in those wars, our ground superiority is so great that air power can be restrained by non-military factors without harming our war effort very much at all. When we dont have a huge margin of superiority to start, this ability to damage the enemy becomes highly important. China is the only potential enemy that fits this factor.
On the second, doing the damage in the shortest amount of time, we have to again rule out wars against small powers as the main motivation. Since speed in bombing risks civilian casualties in all but Persian Gulf War-style operations where we could leisurely blast Iraqi army units out in the desert away from civilian targets, why would we insist on this type of speed. In the Iraq War, we just focused on the Republican Guards for bombing and ignored the rabble army and the cities except for precise strikes. Given that China would attempt to hit allies and conquer them quickly, the ability to degrade Chinese military capabilities fast would clearly be necessary to allow us to mobilize and deploy assets across the Pacific to tip the balance in our favor. The longer a war goes on the better for us as far as putting usable military power into the fight is concerned. We are defending the status quo so reducing Chinese power below the ability to disrupt the status quo and capture something is important to do. Also, given that a war between China and the US would lead to lots of world pressure on both sides to end the war quickly since we are both nuclear powers, the ability to make China pay dearly for starting a war as quickly as possible is necessary.
The third factor, using the least number of bombs, does not make much sense when looking at minor wars. We had plenty of bombs to use over Panama, Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Iraq. And more importantly, enemy air defenses were ineffective or non-existent. We could bomb with impunity. And against any smaller enemy in the future, we will still be able to bomb with impunity. In a war with China, on the other hand, the goal of destroying a lot in a short time frame requires bombing efficiency. We will be shipping bombs and missiles across the Pacific into few air bases that may be distant from the theater. We may face submarines trying to interdict our supply lines. We will also be faced with thousands of enemy fighter aircraft and tens of thousands of air defense missiles and guns over the targets. Sure, the vast majority of the fighters will be obsolete but if we kill at a 100:1 ratio, we still lose some advanced aircraft while killing relics with missiles more expensive than the planes we down. And the large numbers of obsolete planes will tend to hide the smaller number of advanced planes the Chinese will deploy that will more effectively fight us. Nor do we know if China can disrupt our air power with cyber attacks. Flying into more energetic defenses, well want to minimize the number of sorties we need to destroy targets.
In addition, we have to remember that we will be engaging in an asymmetric fight here in terms of pain. The Chinese will be hitting our bases on foreign soil with Guam probably the only US territory at risk. We will feel little pain overall, although our allies and Americans on Guam will. We, on the other hand, will be hitting China itself. Thus, their threshold of pain to prompt going nuclear or just expanding the scope of the war is bound to be reached much sooner. An efficient destruction of Chinese assets in China proper will make the attacks seem less painful visibly even as they have an effect on Chinese power. Ten thousand dumb bombs might be as effective as 200 smart bombs, but the public pain level will be much higher from the former. We dont want that. We want to limit the fighting to conventional means in a limited theater where our strong suit lies, yet still effectively hurt the enemy. Even a Chinese decision for only a wider war in which China tries to inflict equal pain on us increases the risk of nuclear war a little later down the line. It is fashionable to say that everyone loses if a war goes nuclear, but the important thing from my point of view is that we lose.
It is clear in my mind that China is the envisioned enemy for this type of BDA and system analysis effort. Not that this BDA capability wont be useful in lesser wars, but against China the ability to judge how we are affecting their warfighting ability would be absolutely necessary.
So I hope the Air Force gets good at bomb damage assessment and analyzing how best to break down an enemys warfighting capability, and shares it with the Navy. While I focused on Air Force assets, any war with China would be a major Navy effort too, using lots of carrier battle groups and missile-armed ships and submarines.
The War on Terror and efforts to eliminate nuclear-armed rogue states are rough enough. It is painful to realize that old fashioned peer enemies can develop, too.
"Present at the Creation" (Posted August 15, 2004)
DOD had an outstanding briefing on Army transformation last month.
We have 1.2 million soldiers in the Army available from the active component (about half a million), and the National Guard and Army Reserve (350,000 each. With over 123,000 combined mobilized). More than a quarter million are overseas now in 120 countries.
The Army is fighting two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq plus activities in support of the war on terror around the globe. In addition, the Army is redesigning the divisions and brigades; adjusting the force mix including the active-reserve mix; and increasing unit cohesiveness by reducing personnel churning in a unit. The Army will also add 10,000 troops to the active force for each of the next three years.
The briefing brings up an issue of manpower that is not often addressed, the concept of the factors that make our troop strength less than what it appears for putting boots on the ground. We have an institutional army that is composed of recruiters, trainers, base operations, doctrine drafters, maintenance, administration, construction, and the like. Without these people we dont have trained troops, doctrine, and the right equipment and we dont have the ability to project them around the globe. The briefing doesnt give numbers but I think were talking a hundred thousand plus here as a ball park figure. If some of these jobs are transferred to civilians, more troops will become available for the deploying Army.
There is also a category of troops who are in school, sick or injured, transferring units, or in the brig, that numbers 63,000. Stabilizing units so that people go to school at the same time and not when they are on call will cut down on the impact of this category. The Army is looking at a three-year rotation for active units and the reserves could be on a five- or six-year rotation, so you know when you are likely to be deployed and when you will be down for retraining, school, or whatever. Stabilizing the units so troops train together for years will also improve the effectiveness of the units in a way that is not apparent except in battle. Unit cohesiveness will be enhanced, too. And satisfaction in staying in one location longer will help families put down roots and reduce the stress on military families. That helps troop morale, too.
The Army is also retraining units from those oriented to holding Europe in the face of a Soviet invasion in a big war where everyone is mobilized to support the active Army to those more appropriate for smaller but more frequent wars that may need to be at least started without relying on the reserves.
With the National Guard, part of the problem is that it has too many units for the 350,000 soldiers it has. So do you fill it up or look at units not needed and get rid of them so the remaining units are overstrength? If you do the latter, people can go to school without harming a given units ability to mobilize deploy without raiding other units for personnel and thus impacting non-deploying units. Apparently, 100,000 slots are being restructured (deleted or moved to the active component). In addition, the Army is looking at reorganization so that no states are hit too hard at any one time to spread the pain of mobilization out among the states and to ensure that states have troops on call for state emergencies. Some might come from adjoining states to help cover contingencies.
With our combat units, we are adding 10 brigades by the end of 2006 (3 in 04, 3 in 05, and 4 in 06) and may add five more. And all brigades (but the Strykers apparently) will be reorganized with 2 line battalions of 4 companies each and a recon battalion plus support units so they can operate pretty independently. To me, it looks like these BCTs will operate like little corps with the recon battalion scouting like the old armored cavalry regiment and the two battalions operating like the divisions behind the regiment. The recon units would direct incredible firepower from assets from all the services. They are supposed to be more modular than the current brigades but that is not apparent to me. Still, they do provide more maneuver units for better force rotation. I like this. I thought wed be better off with more but smaller divisions but this will work (as published is here though editing garbled it a bit). Maybe better or worse but it is better than the current organization.
In addition, the Army is looking to build Future Combat Systems to equip the Future Force as it is called in order to build a networked force lighter and more lethal than the current heavy forces. I am skeptical about this, Ill admit.
All this change in the structure of the Army is to be accompanied by a major change in global deployment patterns. On Monday, the President is supposed to speak on a major redeployment of our military forces around the world. 70- to 100,000 troops will be moved from Germany, South Korea, and Japan:
Two-thirds of the reduction will come from Europe, most of them Army soldiers in Germany, and most of the troops will be reassigned to bases in the United States, the aide said. Officials said exact details of the moves have not been finalized, but some of the troops from Germany and South Korea will be moved to expansion countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Eastern Europe
I dont think that having Army units in Europe is an obsolete concept. But the Army in Europe does need to be different than todays Army in order to be deployable from Europe to places they are needed. And an Army presence in Europe serves other purposes, too. Will NATO headquarters move to Poland? Is Ukraine involved? Will we replace heavy forces with lighter forces such as Stryker brigades and air assault or light infantry? How much will come home? How much will move east? Will we beef up air and naval forces in the Pacific? Will Australia or Singapore host new or expanded US facilities? Will any Army combat troops be left in Germany or will we just have equipment stored near the air bases or ports to marry up with troops airlifted from the US?
The post-Cold War era ended September 11, 2001. We are creating the new era even as we speak.
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Permanent Seat? (Posted August 14, 2004)
This article is interesting. Japan would like a permanent UN Security Council seat. The US, Britain, and Russia have permanent seats since we were victors of World War II. China got one for being on the winning side, having lots of people, and for having fought the Japanese for so long. France got a seat just to shut them up, Im sure. When economically inferior states have permanent seats based on the situation in 1945, it is not unreasonable for Japan to get a seat.
We would like Japan to be more helpful using its substantial military strength with us to resolve world problems. Sure, Russia and China arent very helpful and France is often uncooperative at best, but who said life or the UN are fair? As Secretary Powell noted regarding Japans ability to use force for good:
Article Nine of Japan's postwar, U.S.-drafted constitution, renounces the right to go to war and forbids a military, although it is interpreted as permitting forces for self-defense.
"If Japan is going to play a full role on the world stage and become a full active participating member of the Security Council, and have the kind of obligations that it would pick up as a member of the Security Council, Article Nine would have to be examined in that light," Kyodo quoted Powell as saying.
"But whether or not Article Nine should be modified or changed is absolutely and entirely up to the Japanese people to decide because the United States would not presume an opinion," he added in an interview with Japanese media in Washington on Thursday.
I wonder what is going on. It seems that we are definitely expecting Japan to do more militarily in exchange for our support on the issue of a permanent seat.
In a perfect world, Japan would simply replace France on the permanent five. Even if Japan did nothing more active, how would that be worse than France? At least economic strength would be recognized. And it would be a good precedent to set that you do not need to be a nuclear power to get and keep a permanent Security Council seat. But it isnt a perfect world, so once you have a permanent seat you are not going to lose it, is my guess.
I say give the European Union a seat. Give India a seat. And give Japan a seat. Any current holder of a seat that falls under a larger entity with a seat would have to give up their national seat. Actually, Im not so sure about the EU seat. It would be humorous to watch France squirm and helpful to keep Russia and Britain out of the EU perhaps, but I really dont want the EU to evolve into a unified state.
I guess I dont know what the big picture should look like even though the UN Security Council clearly must change from the world of 1945. We cant hold the UN in stasis forever. But Japan deserves a seatif it steps up to the plate to promote security with its ample power. I guess we can start with that step.
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Strykers Survive (Posted August 14, 2004)
I am on record as supporting Strykers as a gap bridger between light infantry and heavy armor. Yet I have been highly skeptical that they would be survivable against enemy fire in combat and have been highly skeptical that there are many cases where we cant afford to rely on airlifted light infantry or nearby Marines afloat because of the lethality of the enemy; or cant afford to wait for shipped in heavy forces because of the time factor. The Strykers were supposed to be able to drive off the C-130s with guns blazing if necessary. Strategypage highlights the success of the Stryker in real combat in Iraq:
August 14, 2004: A U.S. Army Stryker brigade stationed in the north of Iraq, around Mosul, for eight months now, has proved itself quite capable. The Stryker armored vehicles are controversial, as they are light armored vehicles that move via wheels, rather than tracks. The Stryker brigade equipment exchanged a lot of armor protection and heavy weapons for more electronics and communications equipment. The brigade has an initial version of the battlefield Internet that the army is slowly putting together. The action in and around Mosul is not as heavy as it is down around Baghdad. But there are heavily armed Baath party diehards and al Qaeda terrorists up in Mosul. The Stryker brigade has seen a lot of action, some of it quite heavy. It was thought that the Strykers would be very vulnerable to RPGs, but only two vehicles have been lost that way so far. In some actions, platoons (four vehicles) of Strykers had dozens of RPGs fired at them with no serious damage. The protection on the Strykers has been up to the job, but the troops, and hostile Iraqis, have also noted that the Strykers are faster, and quieter, than armored vehicles. This turns out to be a battlefield advantage, something American troops had forgotten about. The last large scale use of wheeled armored vehicles by American troops was in World War II. Some of the details of how those vehicles could be used had apparently been forgotten. A wheeled armored vehicle can more quickly move out of an ambush, or any other kind of trouble. Wheeled armored vehicles also make a lot less noise. The track laying system is inherently noisy, wheels are not. Strykers can sneak up on the bad guys, an M-2 Bradley or M-1 tank cannot.
The troops in the Stryker Brigade are trained to same high standards of all American infantry, which means soldiers capable of operating at high speed. The Stryker brigade has a new communications system that allows for speedier operations. Whether its getting out of an ambush, or getting into position for a raid or attack, the extra speed leaves the enemy at a disadvantage.
I still think the idea that we will rush these forces in by air to fight a bolt-from-the-blue invasion of an ally is unlikely. But I have to admit I was wrong on vehicle survivability. I will draw a small amount of analytical comfort by noting that the Strykers in Iraq have been up-armored after arrival by attaching anti-RPG grids that could not be done if speed was truly the issue. And I draw a lot of comfort that being wrong means our Stryker troops are surviving and carrying out their mission successfully.
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Are the Shias on the Verge of Revolting? (Posted August 13, 2004)
With US Marines and the Army spearheading the effort, a joint US-Iraqi force has driven the Sadr Mahdi army into a corner in Najaf. Unfortunately the corner is a revered shrine in Najaf where the defeated remnants have taken refuge. Instead of sending Iraqis in to finish off Sadr, the Iraqi government is negotiating with the Sadr thugs:
U.S. forces suspended a major offensive against militants in Najaf on Friday as Iraqi officials and aides to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr met to try to negotiate a truce to end nine days of fighting in the holy city.
Hoagland says our attacks on Najaf while we leave Fallujah and other centers of Sunni resistance alone risk telling the Shias that we are more interested in suppressing Shias to promote stability than in finally defeating the Baathist Sunnis:
Baathist killers and Wahhabi terrorists go unarrested, unprosecuted and unchallenged in the streets of Fallujah, Ramadi and Sunni sections of Baghdad. At the same time the ragtag Shiite militia of Moqtada Sadr triggers an all-out U.S. assault in Najaf that risks damaging some of the holiest shrines of the Shiite branch of Islam, for small strategic gain.
Sadr deserves no sympathy. U.S. miscalculation is almost entirely responsible for turning this insignificant demagogue into a rebel with a following. Shiites, who are still bitter and distrustful of the United States for its failure to support their uprising against Saddam Hussein in 1991, are likely to note the disparity of treatment of the Sunni and Shiite insurgencies, and to conclude that Shiite political will is the true target of the Najaf operation.
Are we blowing it? Are the Shias forgetting that we did in fact overthrow Saddam and set in motion a process under which they will dominate Iraq after four centuries of minority rule by the Sunnis? Are they letting 1991 outweigh 2003? Do they really see a disparity of treatment when we continue to fight Baathist Sunnis on a daily basis while we only fight the Shias when Sadrs Iranian-supported thugs pop up?
There is certainly no shortage of articles saying the same thing. This article says the Shias are mad about the Najaf fighting:
Iraqi Shiites expressed anger Thursday at a major U.S.-led assault on a rebel militia in the holy city of Najaf, warning the violence could spread to other parts of the country and damage the political process.
This AP analysis expands on this theme:
Najaf is no Fallujah. It is a city sacred to Shiite Muslims, who make up 60 percent of the country's 25 million people. And it is home to the Imam Ali shrine, which holds the remains of Ali, the most exalted Shia saint.
With militants loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr hiding out in the shrine, fighting will almost certainly reach there a battle sure to infuriate Shiites throughout the country.
The fighting, if it ends with the arrest or killing of al-Sadr, also risks turning the young anti-American firebrand into a martyr.
The writer notes the risks of striking decisively or keeping the fighting as low key as possible:
If they can rapidly put down the uprising and the Marines have said they plan to rout the militants with massive force it might spark intense, but short-lived, anti-government protests.
If they chose to continue low-level daily confrontations with the militants, it would chip away at the government's legitimacy, erode its already shaky efforts to stabilize the country and sabotage moves to push Iraq toward democracy, including a key national conference beginning Sunday.
He describes my band aid off fast approach to irritants like Sadr. Better to nail him as rapidly as possible and risk some anger than keep a potential source of rebellion around while he looks for a chance to do real harm to us and gains sympathy from the Shias. The writers analysis argues that both sides are looking for total victory, quoting one of Sadrs people:
"Occupation forces have come to realize that there will be no stability in Iraq unless Muqtada al-Sadr is gone. Similarly, Muqtada al-Sadr realizes that there will be no stability unless the occupying forces are gone," al-Sadr aide Ahmed al-Shaibany said. "These two currents cannot exist at the same time."
How this squares with the negotiations that began instead of the assault I do not know. And there are bigger stakes involved than putting down that idiot Sadr who leads young Iraqi men and boys (and whatever Iranians are with him too) to their deaths while he escapes again and again:
The Shia majority of Iraq, long oppressed under Saddam, was ripe for insurgency or even revolution long before Saddam fell. Iran's radical Shia kakistocracy has been funding, supplying and in Sadr's case operating the insurgency in Shia Iraq ever since Coalition forces began massing to attack Iraq in 2002. According to one estimate, there are at least 30,000 Iranian-funded insurgents in Iraq.
We risk the destruction of or damage to the Najaf Imam Ali shrine if our Iraqi allies rush the mosque to capture or kill Sadr and secure the shrine once and for all. Indeed, the Iranians might have rigged the shrine to blow even without Sadrs knowledge. Should that happen, the Iranians will try to exploit the incident to divide Iraq s Shias from the government and turn them against us as well. [So, yes, I am glad that al Jazeera is temporarily expelled from Iraq .] Iran has called for an end to the US attacks on Sadr as a threat to the lives of innocent Shias (calling our attack on Sadrs militia inhuman) as has the Arab League and other shining lights of human rights as Hamas and Hezbullah! Thats rich! Iranians slaughtered Iraqi Shia soldiers in the Iran-Iraq War for 8 years while the Sunni world raised not a bit of concern. And the Sunni Arab world insisted that Saddam remain in power in 1991, saying nothing while Shias were slaughtered! Do we even need to examine the credentials of the cited terrorist organizations? There have even been some pro-Sadr demonstrations in Fallujah and other Baathist areas, I read (but lost the article). Thats good, too, considering the slaughter and torture the Baathists are guilty of committing against the Shias under Saddams long reign of terror!
I think the West continues to see the Shias through the distorting lens of America held hostage circa 1980 and especially the Sunni hatred for Shia Islam. The Shias of Iraq calmly died during eight years of war with Iran for Saddams regime despite worries that the Shias would prefer their Iranian Shia brethren. I think the Shias are more with us than the panicky reports indicate. How hardis it to scare up some pro-Sadr protesters when the US will let them protest without unleashing the tanks in a newly free Iraq ? And when Iranian agents are flooding southern Iraq ? Dont misread Iraqi protests as reflective of the Shias as a whole any more than we should have misread the ANSWER-led peace protests here before the Iraq War as representing the views of Americans. Read this Iraqi blogger for a little bit of local flavor about the views of Iraqis toward Sadr and his Iranian backers.
I think the Shias are still shell-shocked from the Saddam era but in our corner. Other than Sadr, Ive seen no indications of Shia resistance to us. And Sadr apparently requires significant Iranian aid to be a pain.
End that pudgy thug Sadrs budding career now. Ill risk him becoming a martyr. Most dead rebels just become footnotes. If not, thered be a heck of a lot more martyrs in this world. The Shias will stick with us as long as we kill our enemies and move forward on democracy. Just do it fast but please be careful with the shrine. There are risks regardless of what we do and I still believe in pulling the band aid off fast. And then turn our attention once and for all to Fallujah and the Sunni Baathist resisters. Their continued resistance may not mean we are plotting against the Shias, but this resistance is an indication that we made a mistake holding back when we had them by the throat in April.
And deal with Tehran soon. The mullahs are the Shias I worry about:
Iran has issued an extraordinary list of demands to Britain and other European countries, telling them to provide advanced nuclear technology, conventional weapons and a security guarantee against nuclear attack by Israel.
The mullahs also lie that they just want nuclear energy for peaceful economic reasons (and will endure whatever economic sanctions the West imposes in order to enjoy these economic benefits!). And by the way, they tested a missile, too.
Dont let the mullahs keep us from ending their nuclear ambitions by tying us down in Iraq .
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Legion of Idiots (Posted August 12, 2004)
We are engaged in a two-front war in Sadr City and Najaf? Thats what this article headline says:
U.S. Troops Fight Iraq Militiamen on Two Fronts
When the concept of fighting two major nations along two separate fronts hundreds of miles long each (and which is commonly used to describe biting off more than you can chew as in the Germans in two world wars) is transferred to describe two battles against a Legion of Idiots, the press is descending into girlie man status or idiocy. Having panicked over the first Sadr uprising, the press is trying to portray this one as the real thing, too. To be fair, the actual article which is reported in part by John Burns, is far more straightforward. Still, the headline reflects the general tenor of a press corps that thinks a couple mortar shells landing is a major attack. In their minds this seems to be a new Battle of the Bulge or something.
We are simply fighting battles against one poorly led militia in two locations and that is the extent of the drama. The press cant even point to initial militia success or any collapses by Iraqi police or National Guard forces as proof of drama. The Iraqi security forces have held against the intial Sadr attacks:
In a repeat of what happened in April and May, the gunmen of Muqtada al Sadr are being killed or dispersed. The big difference now is that the Iraqis are doing more of the fighting, and Sadr's followers are having a harder time trying to take over neighborhoods in large cities like Baghdad and Basra. Now the police are often able to fight off the attacks by the Sadr gangs, and the reinforcements that show up to help the cops are often Iraqi troops. Sadr now says he will fight to the death, and American and Iraqi troops appear ready to accommodate him.
Sadr's rebellion is only occupying a portion of coalition troops. For the last two weeks, there have been major efforts along the Syrian and Iranian border to keep out foreign fighters and military assistance. Documents and material captured from Sadr fighters indicate lots of assistance coming from Iran.
Having absorbed the first enemy blow, our combined forces (via Instapundit and then American Thinker) are now attacking and smashing the Sadr fools:
Early this morning, at the request of the governor of An Najaf province, MEU and Iraq National Guard forces kicked off several joint raids on suspected AIF positions. While enemy were not found at these sites, Marine and ING troops successfully fought off an attempted enemy ambush as they retrograded through the city after their mission. No Marines or ING forces were killed.
In a move to operate efficiently, members of Najaf's ING and portions of neighboring ING units were put under operational control of the 11th MEU yesterday. This action will allow for a more effective integration with ING forces, as both units fight side-by-side against enemy forces that threaten the peace and stability of Najaf. In addition, ING soldiers received a shipment of hundreds of AK-47 machine guns and crates of ammunition.
A Marine battalion and two Army ground battalions plus Iraqi ground forces are participating in the Najaf operation.
This is not a two-front war. This is not an uprising. This is a demented pawn of Iran leading lots of fools to their deaths against our killing machine that wont be turned off this time by misguided ideas that our enemies will be reasonable. But it is no shock that a press corps that does not recognize success when we are winning the war cannot see that this event is no crisis.
Yet there is danger and this farce of resistance could be leveraged into a problem by a bigger enemy:
But military planners were also vexed by intelligence reports that the militiamen, who have fought U.S. and Iraqi security forces here for a week, had rigged explosives in the shrine of Imam Ali, the most sacred site in the Shiite branch of Islam. The reports indicated that the insurgents, who have been using the shrine as a refuge and staging area, would wait until advancing U.S. forces drew near, then detonate the charges and blame the resulting destruction on the Americans.
Military officials said the reports had not been confirmed. "The fear is that the intelligence might not be right in fact, but in effect -- that he has something catastrophic planned for the mosque that he will blame on the U.S.," one commander said, referring to Moqtada Sadr, the radical cleric who leads the loosely formed Mahdi Army militia.
The sensitivity of any U.S. military action here was underscored by a warning from the supreme leader of neighboring Iran, who called American operations in Najaf "one of the darkest crimes of humanity."
"The United States is slaughtering the people of one of the holiest Islamic cities, and the Muslim world and the Iraqi nation will not stand by," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in an address broadcast on Iranian state television, according to the official government news agency. With its overwhelmingly Shiite population and theocratic government, Iran regards itself as the leader of the Shiite world.
"These crimes are a dark blemish which will never be wiped from the face of America. They commit these crimes and shamelessly talk of democracy," Khamenei said. "Shame has no place in their vocabulary."
Unless the Iranians can engineer the destruction of a sacred site and portray this as an American atrocity, this will simply be a decisive American and Iraqi victory over a minor enemy, Sadr, and a setback for Sadrs Iranian backers.
I think this is it for Sadr:
American forces have been close to capturing or killing Mr. Sadr before, but have repeatedly backed off. This time American commanders had vowed to crush his guerrillas, known as the Mahdi Army.
It would be shameful to let Sadr walk away yet again. We should not have stopped short of his death or arrest in May, giving him a chance to fight us again now and risk damage to a Shia holy site. Hell be enjoying his 72 raisins any day now. I suggest he eat them slowly. Theyll need to last an eternity.
And Iran itself will be next.
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An Excuse for Doing Nothing (Posted August 10, 2004)
Via Instapundit, a Vodkapundit essay on the folly of believing we can have a plan for the peace that actually will work when the reality of peace arrives:
That's what gets me about all the complaints that President Bush "didn't have a plan" to "win the peace" in Iraq. Oh, blow me. Nobody ever has a plan for the peace. Or if they do, it will prove useless. "No peace plan survives the last battle" is the VodkaPundit corollary to Clausewitz's dictum that no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.
The dictum was von Moltke's but no matter, the idea still right. As with virtually any objection the anti-war side made and continues to make, this objection was not made with the objective of making the war or the peace after the battlefield victory more successful. No, this objection was made to kill the whole war with studies and plans. Study it. Study it more. Update the study with more information. And then study it yet again. Then make different assumptions and then study it again from a new perspective. Cant have groupthink, right? Oh, and the data needs updating. Revise the study. Then draw up the plan. Then, and only then, can we debate going to war.
Before you know it, however, Uday and his equally psycho brother are announcing that American ships must leave the Gulf since the Iraqis have nuclear missiles and are crazy enough to use them if we dont leave.
Better yet from the anti-war planning bloc perspective, back to revise the plan! Iraqi nukes would be new data we must incorporate! Ah, nuance.
Green also notes what really annoys me when some say we should not fight backthat well only create more terrorists! They kill us when we dont fight but if we fight, look out! Then theyll really get mad! Better to let them kill us in bearable numbers is the reasoning, since we cant beat them. Heck we not only cant beat them, we dont deserve to beat them. Maybe if we get hit enough, well get humble and our enemies will decide we are worthy of living. That is their logic and it sickens me. As Green says:
First off, let's brush aside the Loser Notion that if we kill terrorists, we'll only breed more terrorists. So what? Every dead terrorist is, well, dead. And we can always build more bombs and make more bullets. For 30 years now, the US Army has trained to fight in a "target-rich environment." Bring'em on.
I dont like it that we are at war and I want to win this war. I want peace. It would be nice to win in my lifetime. It would be nice if my son could grow up in a world not at war and without a government that has clamped down so hard for security that he does not know what it is like to live free from surveillance and tracking and the threat of explosions and gas attacks and genetically engineered plagues. To win we must kill our enemies. There is nothing bloodthirsty about advocating killing those who try to kill us. So I say kill them. Kill them in large numbers and kill them as soon as we can. Anything less gives our enemies the chance to kill us. And postpones the day of peace.
Which brings me to the last point of Greens. That we have to go on the offensive or we will evolve into a security state that fuels our own homegrown terrorists. This is what puzzles me about the civil libertarians. How can they oppose going on the offensive and fighting our enemies overseas? How can they base their opposition to the war on the idea that it makes us less free? How can they fail to see that we have enemies out to kill us? If we stand on our shores and passively defend, no amount of security measures and no level of martial law will protect us. And after every attack, we will clamp down harder at home. In time, the enemy will figure a way around our new security measures and in time, civil libertarians will dream of the happy days when the government only had the theoretical right to see their library records. This type of struggle might never end. And worse, it might not matter if we won. If we become a dictatorship will we be worth fighting for? At some level, sure, in the sense that it is better to at least be alive. But we will have lost the edge freedom gives us in war. And we will have lost our freedom.
Fighting the war doesnt make us less free, but fighting the war on the defensive will make us less free in time. For the sake of our liberties, we must reach out around the globe and crush our enemies. With haste. Some of them seek nuclear weapons and they will use them if they can get them. When states that support terror and pursue nukes to kill us are themselves destroyed and when radical Islamism is dead or sitting in poverty in the middle of a rump, oil-less Saudi Arabia, we can rest easy that our freedoms will endure.
And yes, Im thinking mostly about Iran right now. The pressure on Iran seems to be building. As Strategypage writes:
August 10, 2004: The U.S. has warned Iran to cease trying to build nuclear weapons or else. Exactly what "or else" means was not specified. Iran responded by demanding that European nations back off on supporting the United States in criticizing Iran's nuclear program, and freely sell nuclear technology and conventional weapons to Iran. Unfortunately for Iran, the U.S. and Europe are in agreement about the need to stop Iran's attempts to build nuclear weapons. There is also the realization that Israel is ready and willing to launch an air strike on Iran's nuclear facilities if Iran gets too close to building nuclear weapons. Israel, and the rest of the world, fears that the Islamic conservatives that control the Iranian government would use nuclear weapons to either threaten neighboring nations, or to supply Islamic terrorists with a nuclear weapon. Iran's Islamic conservative have long supported and supplied the anti-Israel Hizbollah terrorists in Lebanon. Iran publicly demands that Israel be destroyed.
Europe threatens an embargo if Iran doesn't stop its nuclear weapons program. The Untied States makes an implicit threat that covert action (supporting, with money and weapons, Iranian opposition groups) will be used to overthrow the Islamic conservative stranglehold on the government.
There are two on the Axis of Evil left to deal with. Iran is next. Stopping the nutjobs that wants their first nuke trumps stopping the nutjob from getting his second nuke.
Spring 2005 please. Or December, if the loyal opposition gets their regime change at home this November. There is no excuse for doing nothing. We have a lot to do.
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"Honor Sadr!" (Posted August 9, 2004)
That dimwitted despot-in-waiting Sadr has urged his followers to keep fighting. Never mind that his cannon fodder are being mowed down in a form of a live-fire training exercise for our troops. But Sadr is at least working with us now. We're singing from the same Hymnal, so to speak:
"I wish I will be bombed by a U.S. atomic bomb, but not killed by an Iraqi bullet," he said. "It is an honor to me to fight the Americans."
We're making real progress in attitude adjustment when Sadr is reduced to opining on his preferred method of dispatch.
Honor him. Our snipers have bullets.
The nuke is overkill, although I appreciate the newly cooperative attitude.
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"Oh Good Grief" (Posted August 9, 2004)
Do we not have enough problems without this blast from the past nipping at our ankles? Check this out.
The Russians are upset that we will upgrade a radar site for anti-missile defense in Greenland:
"The United States has more than once assured us that the future missile defense system will not be targeted against Russia," the Russian Foreign ministry said in a statement.
"However, the very geography of the radar in Greenland gives us reasons to think that even at this stage the U.S. missile defense could potentially threaten Russia's national security."
I think we need to call in the Russian ambassador and have him explain why Moscow wants the continued ability to destroy our cities or whether they seriously believe we have an interest in destroying Russia behind a shield. Aren't the Russians our friends now? What's up with this? I mean, when Moscow is still launching these kinds of complaints thirteen years after communism collapsed in Moscow, perhaps that inordinate fear of communism we supposedly labored under was justified.
Or perhaps we could just explain to them that according to domestic opponents of missile defense, it won't work anyway. I'm sure the Russians will be relieved to hear that.
Or hey, the Russians could listen to their own military. They may not think the system won't work at all but they have a bright side:
The Russian military meanwhile, has said it does not believe the U.S. missile shield will be effective and said it will not be a major security problem for Moscow in the next 25-30 years.
At worst, the Russians have a few decades before it is a problem for Russia to destroy our cities. That at least should turn that Moscow frown upside down.
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Bad News for Sadr (Posted August 8, 2004)
Sadr is alive but his new army went down faster than his old one. Sadr wants a ceasefire now and Im sure hed like to gear up for a round 3 if he cant get his way through bullying. Or maybe the Iranians are pulling his armys strings totally now and it has spun out of his control.
But potential recruits would like to give the new Iraqi government a chance to make things work. In Sadr City itself, hope for the new government and perhaps a reality check as young men counted the ones who came back from the April and August clashes (and didnt need to take off their shoes to keep counting), have led to a new outlook for now at least:
Those moderate young men with hopes of an improved economy provide Allawi with a chance to rally support among Iraqis still patient after decades of oppression under Saddam, American occupation and continuing uncertainty.
For his part, Allawi has taken a cautious approach to Sadr, saying he was still welcome to take part in the political process and blaming much of the current fighting on common criminals.
Even some Iraqis who say they would go to war for Sadr seem less radical than in April, when the fiery cleric led a Shi'ite uprising against U.S. forces in several cities.
Allawi does need to make some progress, with our substantial help of course, to improve the lives of the poor. Fear is the beginning of wisdom; but despair leads to suicidal behavior as much as anger can lead to acts of defiance.
Yet being cautious with Sadr is a mistake. If the government of Iraq wont punish people like Sadr who rise up in violence against the authorities, how will those in Sadr City who want to cooperate dominate the area? As the article noted:
Moderate young men say life won't change in Sadr City unless the interim government takes control.
Taking a stand against the militiamen could be risky for teenagers who want to see Allawi stamp his authority along its potholed streets and dirt lanes piled high with garbage.
"The youth are not joining the Mehdi Army these days. But if we confront any of them they threaten us," said carpenter Mohammed Saleh, 19.
Sadr and others causing problems more effectively for the government and us may face a humiliating and final end now:
Iraq's interim government reinstated the death penalty Sunday for a range of crimes including murder, kidnapping and drug offences, officials said.
The EU isnt happy. The Iraqis dont care. And why should they?
Allawis government appears to be looking to confront Sadr instead of coddle him.
Yet Sadrs surviving militia appear to be preparing for a fight:
"There is no negotiation with any militia that bears arms against Iraq and the Iraqi people," a heavily guarded Allawi told reporters in Najaf, 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad.
"I believe gunmen should leave the holy sites ... quickly, lay down their weapons and return to the rule of order and law." Allawi held talks with the governor of Najaf, the holiest Shi'ite city in Iraq. He was accompanied by his interior and defense ministers and other top officials.
Despite Allawi's order, fighters roamed the streets and laid mines around the crypts and mausoleums of Najaf's ancient cemetery, one of the oldest in the Middle East and scene of the worst fighting.
All in all, these seem like bad news for Sadr. Even worse, unlike the April uprising, Ive read no reports of shaky Iraqi security units. Is the end game finally arriving for his mini reign of terror? And if he is really backed or pushed by the Iranians, are we clearing the decks for action against Iran in the spring by knocking down an Iranian armed asset in Iraq ? I only ask because we are putting more oil into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. And the contract will be finished April 1, 2005 . Just in time for a spring offensive against Iran s mullahs.
As an aside, why do the presidents opponents claim that this small amount of oil off the market will harm us by keeping oil prices high while amounts that would be ten times or more greater per day from ANWR are believed insignificant? But I digress. But then again, I have no editors. Hahahahaha.
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Two Venezuelas (Posted August 7, 2004)
Chavez has the support of Venezuelas poor and could win the election even if he did not cheat:
By labeling his foes as "devils" backed by what he calls President Bush's "imperialist" administration, Chavez has presented the recall vote as a decisive battle between good and evil, poor and rich, patriots and traitors.
Wow. Has anyone seen Carville around lately? Nah
Yet Chavez wont take chances on that score. Recall the Sandinistas ahead in the polls who then lost the election. No, there will not be a fair election contest on August 15th.
The opposition has a hard path to travel to get rid of Chavez.
As noted above, Chavez could actually win the election straight out. He might be able to out-poll the opposition even without spending state money and using state assets to bribe the electorate and spread his propaganda. Winning this way is the best for him, of course.
If Chavez cant win the vote, he can depress the vote in opposition strongholds so that even if he loses the popular vote, the pro-recall total remains less than the 3.8 million votes Chavez got in his last election. In that case, the recall fails. This can be accomplished through the cumbersome voting procedure that people who work cannot afford to endure. The poor who back Chavez will have an advantage in long lines.
Chavez can also delay the vote or the actual count of the vote a week or so until the date by which the vote must be held to force a new presidential election for the remainder of the term has passed. Past that date and the vice president becomes president and no new election is held. Chavez runs the show behind the scenes and runs again in a year and a half.
If Chavez does not delay the vote or count, he could actually get his courts to say Chavez may run in the special election that will be held 30 days after a successful recall. With the opposition potentially fractured, Chavez could win this election even after losing the recall vote.
Chavez could claimwith a few bombs going off in pro-recall strongholds and maybe a token bomb that takes out some of the pro-Chavez peoplethat violence has invalidated the election. Chavez will declare martial law and round up the opposition leaders. Chavez has already claimed explosives and plotters have disappeared, so someone to blame is conveniently set up. If Chavez claims violence invalidates the vote and the military backs him, what can be done? Heck, if Chavez wins the vote even with a few bombs going off, he will portray himself as the brave defiant leader who withstood thuggery and superpower intrigue to win. Please keep in mind that nobody but Chavez has any interest in violence during the voting.
And I sincerely doubt Jimmy Carter will do anything but validate the election process that Chavez has stacked in his favor.
So the opposition has to overcome a number of obstacles to eject Chavez from power. Chavez can throw in a road block at any point and stay in control.
The Number Two man on the Axis of El Vil will remain in power at the end of this exercise. What will we do then?
What will he do? I have a bad feeling about that last question.
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Amnesty (Posted August 7, 2004)
Ah, the details of the Iraq amnesty look fine as I thought they would. When this idea first popped up, some commentators went ape. I did not understand why. The objective is to end the insurgency and we must strip the soft supporters from the fighters that rely on them. One factor I hoped would be in it is the demonstration that their defection is real. And the final factor to qualify for amnesty is:
Those who committed pardonable crimes must present themselves to authorities, provide intelligence on others who committed serious crimes and give a statement vowing not to commit such crimes again.
Good. Bind them to our side.
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No Help. Just Kill Sadr (Posted August 7, 2004)
Seriously. No need to arrest Sadr after his latest attacks. He wants to play GI Jihadi? Fine. Shoot him. He commands his Mahdi Army? Let him die leading it. His so-called army may be a joke but even when we kill 400 in three or four days, a few too many of our troops die too. Plus the civilians caught in the crossfire.
As for the UN offer to help, they can forget it. We dont need that kind of help.
Or does Sadr have more oil than I thought. Perhaps old habits are hard to break for the UN crooks.
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And at Sea (Posted August 7, 2004)
Our enemies plot to kill us. The US destroyer Cole. The French tanker Limburg. These were just warm ups:
What we've noticed is that al-Qaida and other organizations have an awareness about maritime trade," Adm. Alan West, the first sea lord, told Lloyd's List newspaper. "They've realized how important it is for world trade in general (and) they understand that significance."
Gibralter and Suez are mentioned. Indonesian waterways should also be added. Given that attacks on buildings and air hijackings may be old hat to the public and that the Islamists would like a new attack method for added shock value, this avenue of striking seems most likely. Dramatic and with an economic impact.
Or one of our carriers could be targeted. Highly symbolic of US military power.
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Never Mind (Posted August 7, 2004)
Sadr is apparently open to a ceasefire since his call to attack our forces and the Iraqi government. Well no doubt he is ready to stop fighting:
U.S. Marines said Friday they had killed 300 fighters loyal to a firebrand Iraqi Shi'ite cleric in fierce clashes that pose a stern test for an interim government struggling to stamp its authority over the country.
The Marines have been busy. When we pulled out 1st Armored Division (-) and elements of 2nd Cavalry Regiment (light) we replaced them with a brigade of Army troops (National Guard, I think?) and two Marine Expeditionary Units (like a reinforced battalion each). Najaf is apparently the responsibility of one of the MEUs.
No ceasefire. Bullet to forehead. I have no problem with an amnesty for the common low-level resisters as Baghdad is offering. The objective is to end the insurgency and not to keep killing the enemy at high kill ratios. But Sadr is guilty of many deaths beyond the first cleric he is accused of assassinating. He leads fools to attack us. We cannot forgive this man.
If we fail to kill our enemies, we get situations like Ramadi where Marines hold outposts trying to keep the enemy suppressed:
This is what the war has come down to in Iraq's Sunni Muslim heartland, where providing tenuous security harks back to America's 19th century Indian Wars a time when the cavalry set up outposts and forts in decidedly hostile territory. Ramadi is Indian Country "the wild, wild West," as the region is called
Half a dozen or so Marine observation posts dot Ramadi's main drag, linking heavily fortified bases and helping to keep the inhospitable city from turning into a Fallouja-like sanctuary for insurgents.
When the enemy lives, they get the opportunity every day to attack us. Even though we win fight after fight quietly, eventually the Baathists will overrun an outpost and kill a dozen Marines. This is why I wanted our armor to roll through the Ramadi Gap in the Iraq War.
End the Sadr threat for good. The main enemy of Baathists and their small number of Islamist shock troops are the bigger threat and I hate to have Sadr sparking anything in the Shia areas when we turn our attention to the Sunni triangle. Fallujah is target one. Ramadi is dangerous. And Samarra seems to be a potential problem. Use the amnesty to strip away the supporters and then nail the hardcore fighters.
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Darfur Momentum (Posted August 7, 2004)
There seems to be momentum building on Darfur . The African Union will increase its presence on the ground in Darfur itself:
"The AU plans to increase troop strength of its protection force for Darfur from 300 to 2,000, with Nigeria and Rwanda offering to send 1,000 troops each," AU spokesman Adam Thiam told Reuters.
Deployment could take place in a few days.
Sudan is pretending to act to stop the ethnic cleansing/genocide. An interesting picture (30 of 69) caption shows French troops at the airfield at Abeche, in Chad :
French soldiers of the 16th Hunter's Battalion secure the tarmac at Abeche airport in eastern Chad on August 4, 2004 as the French military airlifts humanitarian aid. French troops are patrolling the area between the Sudanese border and refugee camps in eastern Chad and assisting aid organizations in distributing relief to people fleeing Sudan's strife-torn Darfur region.
That was the southern of the two airfields I figured the west could use. I didnt know if either was still usable but this one is. Its on a main road so it probably had a higher chance of still being in usable condition. The northern one is at Fada. And might the Libyans let us use our old air base there as a staging point?
There is one indication from this article that a no-fly zone is firming up:
At the United Nations, U.S. Ambassador John Danforth said Khartoum had to make sure its military was not "unloading bombs from planes" or "using helicopters to destroy villages."
"If this situation continues, it's going to be very visible," Danforth said. "The government of Sudan will be an international pariah, and there will be consequences."
And the ground component of a no-drive zone is evolving:
The "Plan of Action for Darfur" would halt all military operations by government forces, militias, and rebel groups in these safe areas, which are likely to be set up in camps where thousands of Sudanese have taken refuge and around towns and villages which still have large populations.
Im skeptical of stretching military resources for purely humanitarian missions when they might be needed elsewhere. These are missions of choicealbeit with a high moral component to do something, I concede. I do worry about mission creep in these things where the threshold for intervention is low because stopping slaughter or starvation is good to do, but the increased mission that can develop as long as were there is usually something we would not have done had we debated the bigger mission before going in. But as Ive said, this isnt just a humanitarian mission. Sudan is guilty of helping Islamists, including bin Laden in the past, as well as the current atrocities.
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"Lessons Learned?" (Posted August 5, 2004)
Sadr lived to fight another day after his pasting by US troops this spring. We had him by the throat and we released our grip. Summer is upon us and Sadr is tanned, rested, and ready to fight:
The radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr called for a national uprising against American and coalition forces today as a two-month truce between Mr. Sadr and the United States military appeared to collapse.
In Baghdad and Basra, the largest city in southern Iraq, insurgents loyal to Mr. Sadr prepared for clashes with American and British troops.
But heavy fighting appeared confined to Najaf, a Shiite holy city 100 miles south of Baghdad that is a Sadr stronghold. An American marine helicopter was shot down in Najaf this morning, although the crew was reported rescued.
American and Iraqi casualty figures were unavailable as of late afternoon.
Each side blamed the other for the apparent breakdown of the truce, which comes less than two weeks before a national political conference that Mr. Sadr has refused to attend.
Is it too much to ask that we actually treat our enemies as enemies? Damn it all, that thug Sadr deserves the attention of a sniper. He deserved it a couple months ago. Or a year ago. But we are where we are and I'd settle for a jail cell as an improvement over the current coddling. In three months I wouldn't be too surprised to read that he received US money to set up a political party.
How clear can it get? Is this good enough?
"Fight the blasphemous, fight the Americans," Mr. Sadr said in a statement issued in Najaf, about 100 miles south of Baghdad.
He's declared war on usagain. Finish the Sadr Uprising once and for all.
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Why is This Man Still Alive? (Posted August 4, 2004)
We beat the crud out of Sadrs militia after his forces unwisely tried to spark an uprising against us. But at the end of the operations, Sadr walked free. I was very upset at the time despite my satisfaction that we fought a slow and careful campaign that decimated his forces while avoiding antagonizing the Shias as we fought near holy sites. I am firmly committed to the simple concept that we support our friends and punish our enemies. Where were the consequences for Sadrs revolt? What lesson did he learn? Did he learn that he had a close call and should be grateful for a second chance? Heck no. He learned what any nutball can reasonably be expected to learnwe just wont go for the kill. So what is Sadr doing now?
Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's militia has kidnapped 18 Iraqi police officers in hopes of using them as leverage to force authorities to free detained militants, police said Tuesday.
The Iraqis need to get him. Arrest him or shoot him if he doesnt respond to the order to surrender in about ten seconds.
Consequences. How will we earn friends if we wont destroy our enemies? Dont teach the Iraqis it is safer to be our enemy!
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If it SailsSink It! (Posted August 3, 2004)
Via National Review Online, this from Janes:
North Korea is deploying new land- and sea-based ballistic missiles that can carry nuclear warheads and may have sufficient range to hit the United States, according to the authoritative Jane's Defence Weekly.
In an article due to appear on Wednesday, Jane's said the two new systems appeared to be based on a decommissioned Soviet submarine-launched ballistic missile, the R-27.
It said communist North Korea had acquired the know-how during the 1990s from Russian missile specialists and by buying 12 former Soviet submarines which had been sold for scrap metal but retained key elements of their missile launch systems.
Jane's, which did not specify its sources, said the sea-based missile was potentially the more threatening of the two new weapons systems.
"It would fundamentally alter the missile threat posed by the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) and could finally provide its leadership with something that it has long sought to obtain -- the ability to directly threaten the continental U.S.," the weekly said.
Its missiles would have a range of at least 2,500 km. We cannot let that sub sail:
"If you can get a missile aboard a warship, in particular aboard a submarine...you can move your submarine to strike at targets such as Hawaii or the United States, just as examples. Whereas it would be much more difficult to actually develop a ground-launched missile to achieve that sort of a range," Kemp said.
We may not be able to do much about destroying every deeply dug in, hidden, and dispersed land-based missile North Korea may build, but if they try to put nuclear missiles at sea, we can do something.
Put a couple of our nuclear attack submarines (or let the Japanese use their diesels and give them the honor) outside the port where it is building and when it puts to sea, we should sink it. No envoys. No bribes. No deals. Just multiple wire-guided torpedoes to send the sub to the bottom. And then publicly deplore the terrible safety of their boats while denying any involvement at all. Or not. Perhaps we should just dare the world to complain about our taking action. If the French can blow up a Greenpeace ship without too much loss of international stature, surely we can take out a nuclear missile-armed submarine.
As the North Koreans have helpfully reminded us recently, we are technically at war.
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Damn Straight (Posted August 3, 2004)
The president defended the Iraq War. About time.
Bush acknowledged that no banned weapons had been found in Iraq, but he said they might still turn up. "We still would have gone to make our country more secure," he said, adding that Hussein "had the capability of making weapons."
"He had terrorist ties," Bush said. "The decision I made was the right decision."
The comments, which the president offered during a brief White House news conference, marked something of a political gamble. Polls suggest that up to half the American public now believes that the war was a mistake, given that no weapons of mass destruction have turned up in Iraq.
Skeptics think he made a mistake. They can, if youll pardon the expression, shove it.
We did the right thing. No doubt about it. And a good chunk of the people who think now the war was a mistake will swing back to support once the peace is won. Victory has a soothing effect.
But I have one quibble with the President. Its bad enough the press keeps saying we have not found any chemical weapons in Iraq . Why must the president say so, too? We may not have found many chemical warheads yet but it is not accurate to say we have not found any.
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"Who Do the Islamists Want to Win?" (Posted August 2, 2004)
I think it is pretty silly to argue over who the Islamists want to win this fallBush or Kerry (or Nader if you insist on being dense).
This letter to Andrew Sullivan puts one side of this debate well:
EMAIL OF THE DAY II: First of all, Islamic terrorists need Bush to win re-election so that they can continue the theme of their propaganda campaign: that America, led by an administration that thinks Muslims themselves are infidels, is in a war to the finish against all Muslims. A Kerry victory provides less fodder for this campaign because Kerry would be less hated in the Muslim world, even if his actions were as tough or tougher than Bush's. The Muslim world has many problems with America, but they hate George W. Bush. They don't hate Kerry. Thus Bush is the fuel for the Islamist fire.
I've been thinking about who the Islamists want to win. Does al Qaeda want to pull a Madrid and oust Bush or is Bush the Islamists' best recruiting tool? Did bin Laden target the "wrong" people as Michael Moore so grotesquely charged? I've concluded this debate is stupid.
Immensely stupid.
The Islamo-fascists think that anybody who fails to support their insane war and vision of Wahhabi Sunni Islam paradiseoh, say 98% of the Moslem worldis an infidel or worse and a legitimate target. Aren't we expecting just a little too much of these nutjobs to discern the fine difference between Red State infidels and Blue State infidels? When the Nader folks can't see the difference between the policies of the two candidates? Even the Madrid attack that is the basis for this question was planned starting long before Spain sent troops to Iraq, so even that example is false.
And really, for the pro-war side, isnt arguing over who the Islamists want to win just buying into the anti-war sides view that we have been attacked because of what we do? They say if we all acted like good Blue State internationalist UN-loving citizens, all would be well. I dont think so.
And even if the Islamists have a preference, who says they are right in their analysis? Did Osama really plan his 9-11 attack in order to have his butt whipped and chased across Afghanistan? He went to a lot of effort to establish a sanctuary just to get kicked out of said sanctuary. Is it really better for Osama to have his best terrorists dead and the rest of his people chased around the globe worried about Predators or being arrested? How is this better than churning out trained nutballs from Afghan camps safe from our attention? Hes either an idiot or playing a deeper game than Im capable of seeing. Given the turning of the Islamic world against the Islamist terrorists because of their willingness to kill that 98% of Moslems I noted above, I vote for the former explanation.
Lets just go to the simpler explanation. We are all the fuel for the Islamist fire. If the Islamists strike us before the elections, the only statement the Islamists want to make is that they want us all dead
We really need to stop arguing over which shade if infidelism pisses them off more.
It distracts us from the long-term job of killing them off wherever they plot against us.
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"Ah, Screw the Diplomatic Niceties" (Posted August 2, 2004)
Ok, the Chinese threaten Taiwan and then try to pretend they are committed to peacefully resolving the issue. So this further refinement of their nuanced position is welcome:
"If the 'Taiwan independence' separatist forces obstinately persist in their course, the Chinese People's Liberation Army has the determination and ability to resolutely smash any 'Taiwan independence' separatist plot," the People's Daily, mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party, quoted Cao as saying.
In a further threat aimed at us:
President and Communist Party chief Hu Jintao issued a blunt warning to Bush Friday not to press ahead with arms sales to the democratically ruled island that Beijing claims as a rebel province -- to be recovered by force if necessary.
And finally, lest anybody fail to understand why China is so harsh on this issue:
"We absolutely will not allow any person, using any means, to split Taiwan from the motherland," Cao said. "There is nothing more important than the territorial integrity of the motherland, and the will of 1.3 billion Chinese people cannot be spurned."
There is nothing more important to them. I bet they would even throw away the 2008 Olympics if they provide cover to invade with the element of surprise.
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"Dang, He's Good" (Posted August 2, 2004)
Hugo Chavez is clearly not leaving anything to chance:
Two weeks before a presidential recall referendum, a Venezuelan judge ordered the arrests of 59 former military officers on suspicion of plotting against President Hugo Chavez's government, the state-run press agency said Saturday.
The article says the officers went into hiding. No doubt.
Unwilling to risk a loss at the polls even if he thinks he's ahead in polling (like Daniel Ortega's mistake in 1990 election in Nicaragua. Speaking of which, are we about to see the Axis of El Vil get the number three slot filled? Crud), Chavez is readying the excuses to declare martial law. The suspense over the outcome of the election is really quite dead. Only the means to the continuation of the Chavez regime is in question. And how many of the opposition are killed or arrested, of course.
And will our protests have any weight after opportunists here outrageously complain that our 2000 elections were tainted by fraud? Not so harmless, is it?
"Tinpot dictator" really fails to convey the cunning these thugs wield to remain in power.
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"Writers Unclear on the Concept: Part Deux" (Posted August 2, 2004)
This is the first sentence of the article:
U.S. troops on Monday detained a prominent member of an influential Sunni Muslim group believed to have links to insurgents, officials of the group said.
Then the writer questions the whole arrest:
It was not clear why al-Dhari was detained and the U.S. military had no immediate comment.
Strangely unclear on the whys involved, the writer then notes in what should be a moment of clarity:
Ammar Abdul Kareem said U.S. troops forced them to get out of the car, searched them, then said they detected traces of explosive materials on the hands of al-Dhari and two other companions
Yet clarity eludes the author, who notes:
The association was founded last year to promote the interests of Iraq's Sunni minority.
Promoting the interests is so elastic. You know, organizing political parties, petitions, shooting at American troops, blowing up Iraqi civilians, kidnapping. Yep, it sure is unclear why al-Dhari was detained. No clue in this article at all. Nope.
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