An online journal of commentary, analysis, and dignified rants on national security issues. Other posts on home life, annoying things, and a vast 'other' are clearly marked.
In the first hours of every New Year, the nation's seafaring officers take up an endearing naval tradition: writing wordplay, doggerel and poetry in their log entries.
The terrorists will have a new opponent early next year. On December 15th, Iraqis will elect a parliament. The 275 members of this “National Assembly” will promptly align themselves into factions, and each faction will have demands. Those demands with the most votes behind them, will have the power of law. It’s possible that the legislators will order American forces out of the country. The U.S. would have to comply. It’s more likely that harsh legislation against anti-government (largely Sunni Arab) forces will be passed. This will simply recognize the fact that there has been a civil war going on since early 2003. The majority of Iraqis are tired of all the violence. They want law and order, and the economic revival that brings. Even most Sunni Arabs want this, but they will have to contribute votes, bullets and blood to make it happen. And the final act might be a far bloodier battle than anything that's been seen so far in Iraq. All in the name of law and order.
In the current plan, all eight Army National Guard divisional headquarters will convert to the new modular division design; all Army National Guard separate and divisional brigades will convert to 23 Infantry BCTs, 10 Heavy BCTs and one Stryker BCT (34 total); and a number of other formations will convert to various modular supporting units: six fires brigades, 10 combat support brigades (maneuver enhancement), 11 sustainment brigades, eight combat aviation brigades (from the former divisional aviation brigades), four aviation brigades, one aviation command and one aviation group.
In addition to the BCTs, the Guard will reorganize its eight existing division headquarters into modular command and control elements that will retain their current designations, patches and unit histories. In wartime, these modular division headquarters will be capable of exercising command and control of a variable number of BCTs, support brigades and other support units, determined according to the mission, and will be capable of functioning as JFLCC or JTF headquarters. Significantly, the subordinate elements commanded by these Guard divisions upon deployment are as likely to be active and U.S. Army Reserve units as Army National Guard units. In peacetime, each division headquarters will have training and readiness oversight responsibilities for four or five Guard BCTs.
Given these statements of the obvious, the president ought to open his State of the Union Address by asking Congress to give him official authority to approve warrantless searches of known and identified terrorists, or of people in regular contact with those terrorists whom authorities reasonably suspect of plotting to commit acts of murder, terror or sabotage. These activities ought to be subject to monthly review by the attorney general. The administration also ought to be required each month to brief the top four congressional leaders, both intelligence committees and the head of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
The proposal would codify the status quo -- but shorten the reporting periods to 30 days from 45 -- and place the impeachment crowd in a sticky situation. The public would support both proposals overwhelmingly, leaving the president's most hysterical critics isolated utterly.
Canadian military strategists developed a plan to invade the United States in 1921 -- nine years before their American counterparts created War Plan Red.
The Canadian plan was developed by the country's director of military operations and intelligence, a World War I hero named James Sutherland "Buster" Brown. Apparently Buster believed that the best defense was a good offense: His "Defence Scheme No. 1" called for Canadian soldiers to invade the United States, charging toward Albany, Minneapolis, Seattle and Great Falls, Mont., at the first signs of a possible U.S. invasion.
"His plan was to start sending people south quickly because surprise would be more important than preparation," said Floyd Rudmin, a Canadian psychology professor and author of "Bordering on Aggression: Evidence of U.S. Military Preparations Against Canada," a 1993 book about both nations' war plans. "At a certain point, he figured they'd be stopped and then retreat, blowing up bridges and tearing up railroad tracks to slow the Americans down."
Brown's idea was to buy time for the British to come to Canada's rescue.
Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said that the constitution is "a sign of civilization. ... This constitution has come after heavy sacrifices. It is a new birth."
Jaafari echoed a sentiment I heard last year while serving on active duty in Iraq. Several Iraqis told me they knew democracy was "our big chance." One man said it was Iraq's chance to "escape bad history." To paraphrase a couple of other Iraqis, toppling Saddam and building a more open society was a chance "to enter the modern world."
The great democratic revolts are profoundly promising history. They are the big story of 2005 -- and, for that matter, the next three or four decades.
I certainly support this chance to introduce real (if different from ours) democracy (fully aware that some who deny Iraq can be democratic don't think America is either ...) to the Middle East's Moslem states, starting with Iraq. But does this apply to all Iraqis?
Certainly, the Shias of Iraq may see it this way. They experienced the death, poverty, terror, and despair of life under Saddam. The new democracy imposed by American-led arms and defended with our blood and treasure has clearly given them a chance to escape their horrible history. That they fight at our side is a sign of their commitment. The fact that they represent 60% of the population and so will naturally benefit from real democracy is another factor bolstering the chance that democracy can succeed in Iraq.
Even the Sunnis who benefitted from Baathist rule can learn to embrace democracy as a shield against being treated as losers in the Middle East are usually treated by the victors--harshly and with no recourse but to fight or flee. As they realize they can not bomb their way back to power and that they really are a minority within Iraq, rule of law becomes their best defense against traditional methods of dealing with the losers.
So two of the big factions representing close to 80% of the population have good reason to embrace democracy. But what about the Kurds?
The Kurdish north is jointly run by two factions that are not exactly democratic in outlook:
Kurds in Iraq are divided between the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) factions in northern Iraq. These entities are political-military-tribal organizations. The KDP and PUK are currently cooperating with each other, although they fought a civil war in 1996. ...
Tribal ties are a source of support in times of hardship and can still be use to mobilize communities against outside interference.
The two parties run Kurdistan under a nominal Iraqi flag under Chicago rules. Democracy did not save Kurds from Saddam's terrible rule. The autocratic parties did so with American support. So the Kurds have no particular reason to see democracy as their salvation. What is keeping the Kurds within Iraq is probably fear of what the Turks, Arabs, and Persians would do to them and fear that America--which wants a unified Iraq--would withdraw support for the Kurds if the Kurds deny us our goal of a unified Iraq.
Democracy isn't just about elections, it is really about rule of law and the ability to accept defeat and prepare to fight again within the system and at the ballot box the next round. The Kurds haven't yet had to face up to what they would do if they lose within a democracy. Will the Kurds accept that they will lose a lot since they have but 20% of the population? Or will the Kurds revert to relying on the tribally based autocracy that preserved them from Saddam's clutches when democracy fails to deliver narrow objectives for them or is perceived as "interfering" in their affairs?
Surely, we shall pressure the Kurds and try to bribe them into staying in a unified Iraq playing by the rules. Hopefully, if the contradictions aren't too bad, the Kurds will learn to love democracy as a minority in a federal entity with substantial autonomy.
But what will we do if the Kurds won't play by democracy's rules? What if the Kurds protect their ethnic interests by ignoring the will of the majority and therefore making democracy a mockery and encouraging others to undermine rule of law to defend their narrow sectarian interests?
Will we value the pursuit of a democratic Iraq and pay the price of Kurdish withdrawal into an autocratic independent entity to make sure the rest of Iraq is democratic?
Or will we value a single Iraq as is, but with democracy compromised to force the Kurds to remain in Iraq? Indeed, could we even force the Kurds to stay in without an ugly war by Iraq's central government that we'd need to support if Baghdad is to control all of Iraq?
As with everything, Iraq is a balancing act among competing interests and forces that sometimes go in the same direction that we want. Getting a unified (though federal) and democratic Iraq will still take a lot of work and a lot of patience as we try to hold the center and allow all Iraqis to escape their separate histories with the same method of democracy and rule of law.
China, which is becoming more energy dependent by hour is also looking to obtain oil supplies from Central Asia, but wants to keep its lifeline out of the clutches of the Russian Bear. Stratfor says " All told, the Chinese plan aims to connect half a dozen pieces of independent infrastructure -- some Soviet-built, some Chinese-built, others built by yet other entities -- then reverse the flow of some of them and cobble together a new export corridor stretching from Kazakhstan's oil-rich Caspian basin through a series of western- and central-Kazakh oil zones, and ultimately into China proper. For the first time, China will have a source of imported energy not vulnerable to such pesky things as U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups."
But what if we could get China to look north for oil supplies? Not to Russia mind you. I'd rather have Russian oil go to Japan as it looks like it will rather than south to China. If China gets dependent on Russian oil, China will get nervous that Russia controls this vital resource and will think of securing the supply. They will be able to conquer the Far East of Russia. With a Russian-Japanese oil link, Japan will have an interest in defending Russia and Russia will have an interest in keeping their customer more secure. Perhaps this will help get Russia to slow their arms sales to China that feed Peking's southern strategy.
But to get China looking north to Asia for oil supplies, perhaps we should try to encourage oil pipelines throughPakistan to Iran and through Central Asia to the Caspian Sea region. If China gets oil through this route, paying for a navy with no task other than taking Taiwan may not make as much sense as it did when the navy was needed for oil supply security too. This could suck China into Asia and perhaps make the Europeans nervous enough about the Chinese coming up a new silk road that Europe will feel they need America again as an ally.
We might even be able to work out something with the EU which desperately wants to sell arms to China. What if we can figure out a list of arms that will encourage the Chinese to look to Asia's interior while still banning EU sales of arms that propel the Chinese south to the sea? Europe won't look ahead 50 years to worry about the Chinese in Central Asia and the Caspian Sea. Europe will be happy to sell arms with our blessings.
And for that matter, who believes that the complex system of our atmosphere behaves in such a simple and predictable way that if we reduce one component, carbon dioxide, we will therefore reliably reduce temperature? CO2 is not like an accelerator on a car. It’s not linear (and by the way, neither is a car accelerator.) And furthermore, who believes that the climate can be stabilized when it has never been stable throughout the earth’s history? We can only entertain such an idea if we don’t really understand what a complex system is. We’re like the blonde who returned the scarf because it was too tight. We don’t get it.
[The New York Times] smeared female interrogators at Guantanamo Bay as "sex workers," sympathetically portrayed military deserters as "un-volunteers," apologized for terror suspects and illegal aliens at every turn, enabled the Bush Derangement Syndrome-driven crusade of the lying Joe Wilson, and recklessly endangered national security by publishing illegally obtained information about classified counterterrorism programs.
If China has to battle Taiwan's submarines for control of the subsurface, it won't dispatch its entire submarine force to do so. China would, at most, send two of its attack subs in search of every Taiwanese sub. Were Taiwan to acquire the eight new submarines, that would distract, at most 16 PLAN submarines in a Taiwan Strait conflict. That would leave China 39 attack submarines to sink the ROCN surface fleet or Taiwan's merchant marines, or protect its own invasion force. Additionally, any ROC submarine that successfully carries out an attack on PLAN forces would be immediately sunk by PLAN submarines, destroyers, or sub-hunting aircraft.
Soon Sinclair would learn something that filled him with doubt. During his research for "Boston," Sinclair met with Fred Moore, the men's attorney, in a Denver motel room. Moore "sent me into a panic," Sinclair wrote in the typed letter that Hegness found at the auction a decade ago."
Alone in a hotel room with Fred, I begged him to tell me the full truth," Sinclair wrote. " … He then told me that the men were guilty, and he told me in every detail how he had framed a set of alibis for them."
Other letters tucked away in the Indiana archive illuminate why one of America's most strident truth tellers kept his reservations to himself."
My wife is absolutely certain that if I tell what I believe, I will be called a traitor to the movement and may not live to finish the book," Sinclair wrote Robert Minor, a confidant at the Socialist Daily Worker in New York, in 1927.
"Of course," he added, "the next big case may be a frame-up, and my telling the truth about the Sacco-Vanzetti case will make things harder for the victims.
"He also worried that revealing what he had been told would cost him readers. "It is much better copy as a naïve defense of Sacco and Vanzetti because this is what all my foreign readers expect, and they are 90% of my public," he wrote to Minor.
In other words, many Democrats, their media allies, and others in the permanent Washington establishment are defeatist. A defeatist is not just someone who thinks his side will lose. Sometimes a prediction of defeat is realistic. A defeatist is someone who, at some level, expects to lose, even wants to lose, seeing a quagmire in every oasis. His dissent is therefore tainted.
We are not supposed, of course, to criticize such dissent. No, we have to call it patriotism.
Suppose we had a group of 1,000 people we were interested in monitoring and 900 of them are terrorists. The program will correctly itentify 810 terrorists as terrorists. 10 terrorists will evade its clutches. Out of the 100 non-terrorists, 90 will be correctly identified as innocent, and 10 will be wrongly labeled as terrorists. That seems pretty useful.
But say we have a group of 1,000 suspects and only 100 of them are terrorists. A ten percent shot that a given person is a terrorists doesn't reach the "probable cause" standard, but seeing as how thousands of lives could easily be on the line, maybe we want to relax the burden of proof and run the 1,000 through the program. Well, we'll catch 90 terrorists out of the 100, which is good. But out of the 900 non-terrorists, 90 innocent people are going to get labeled terrorists. In other words, out of the 180 people the program will say are terrorists, we can expect half to actually be innocent. Thus, even though the algorithm only has a very small 10 percent error rate, the overall surveillance program makes a lot of mistakes.
Let's put the issue very simply. The president has the power as commander in chief under the Constitution to intercept and monitor the communications of America's enemies. Indeed, it would be a very weird interpretation of the Constitution to say that the commander in chief could order U.S. forces to kill America's enemies but not to wiretap -- or, more likely these days, electronically intercept -- their communications. Presidents have asserted and exercised this power repeatedly and consistently over the last quarter-century.What I don't understand is how the Left can decry methods that are much more benign than the methods of their much-loved European models:
Spying on e-mail and cell phone traffic without a warrant. Searching offices and residences without a court order. Locking citizens away for weeks or months without filing charges.But of course, if you want to connect the dots to prevent a terrorist attack, you have to know what the dots are (via Real Clear Politics):
Sound like your worst nightmare about the supposedly lawless Bush administration? Perhaps. But I refer to restrictions on civil liberties that are taking place not in the United States but, in the order in which I cited them, Canada, France and Great Britain.
The New York Times concedes the story starts with the CIA capture of top al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan in March 2002. With Zubaydah's capture came a treasure trove of eavesdropping intelligence sources -- e-mail addresses, cell phone numbers, and personal phone directories. These are prime intelligence sources that may lead to the infamous "dots" often used in the phrase "Why didn't our intelligence agencies 'connect the dots?' "
"During the holiday season and throughout the year, we think with pride of the men and women of our armed forces, who are keeping our nation safe and defending freedom around the world," he said. "In Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, they are protecting our liberty by spreading liberty to others, and all Americans are grateful to our troops for their courage and commitment."
Despite howls in some circles (right up to the four star level), the “threat” from China’s 60 or so submarines seems very limited. Rarely are there more than 4-6 boats at sea at any time, often there are none at all, and a number of units (the Han nuke boats, for example), seem never to go to sea at all.
"The Army decided to put an emphasis on quality, with the best equipment we can provide for," which, the official said, would result in a reduced risk to the individual soldier.
At the same time, the Army has embarked on a plan to increase the combat power of both the active-duty Army and the Army National Guard by creating "modular" brigades that include more modern equipment.
The Army had hoped to create 43 to 48 of these brigades, an increase over the current 33 brigades. But with the planned budget cuts the Army will settle on 42 brigades, the official said. Thirty-four of the "modular" brigades were planned for the Guard, up from the current 15 Brigade Combat Teams or "enhanced" brigades. Now, under the cost-saving plan, the Guard would be held to 28 modular brigades.
During his recent visit to Ankara, CIA Director Porter Goss reportedly brought three dossiers on Iran to Ankara. Goss is said to have asked for Turkey’s support for Washington’s policy against Iran’s nuclear activities, charging that Tehran had supported terrorism and taken part in activities against Turkey. Goss also asked Ankara to be ready for a possible US air operation against Iran and Syria.
As the Turks soak in the fact that a lot of neighbors don't really like them, I think the fact that we remain a friend will count for a lot again. The European Union doesn't seem to want to let Turkey in despite the long negotiations that have pretended to bring that day closer. Iran is no friend. Armenia? Get real. The Arab states don't like them. The Kurds? Less than happy. Greece? See Armenia. Even the Bulgarians aren't exactly friendly.
And of course, there is Russia. I've lost track of the number of wars that Russia has fought with Turkey over the years.
Maj. Gen. "Fighting Joe" Wheeler led a division of V Corps. During the Civil War he commanded the cavalry of the Confederate Army of Tennessee. During the charge up San Juan Hill, Wheeler forgot where he was and, as the Spanish ran from their positions, he yelled, "Come on! We've got the damn Yankees on the run!"
We must never forget age-old considerations such as pride, honor and status. Washington is a Darwinian place where the ambitious arrive, leaving friends, family and birthplace behind to calibrate their new self-worth by the degree to which they are considered important — and needed.
So, next time, it might be wiser to give a holler to those like a brooding John Murtha, Richard Clarke or Wesley Clarke — even if their advice would probably be unsound. No Cabinet job necessary — just an invite to come down to schmooze at the White House rather than having them scream at it from the outside.
Better to have them inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in--even though they couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel.
Two weeks after a protest that culminated in gunfire and bloodshed, the rebellious farmers and fishermen of Dongzhou have been reduced to submission. Authorities have sealed off the seaside village and flooded its streets and lanes with police patrols, residents said, and an unknown number of men have been summoned by a knock on the door and hauled away for interrogation.
The Public Security Ministry has acknowledged that the number of riots has risen sharply in China, reaching more than 70,000 in 2004 and developing into a major concern for the government. But the violence in Dongzhou stood out because police used their guns. Most of the recent uprisings have been suppressed by riot police armed with tear gas and truncheons. Members of the People's Armed Police, who carry automatic weapons, rarely have been deployed.
There can be legitimate disagreement about whether America’s effort in Iraq will work, and whether it is worth our sacrifices. But that argument is one of efficacy, not morality. To those critics who babble endlessly about U.S. hegemony and imperialism, we should say simply: Shame! Shame on you for aiding those who blow up schools and murder women with purple fingers, in places that for the first time in modern memory do not have a tyrant’s portrait leering down from their walls.
"I want to say here, yes, we have been beaten by the Americans and we have been tortured," Saddam said, before gesturing to his seven co-defendants around him, "one by one."
Terrorists in Iraq appear to be running short of pilfered (from Saddam’s ammo dumps) artillery shells and explosives. Home made explosives are increasingly being used for roadside bombs. ...
The resort to improvised explosives for their bombs means the bombs have less power, and cause fewer injuries. The explosives shortage is largely a result of two years of American and Iraqi troops tracking down Saddam’s lost shells and explosives.
THE Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ordered the creation of Planet of the Apes-style warriors by crossing humans with apes, according to recently uncovered secret documents.
According to Moscow newspapers, Stalin told the scientist: "I want a new invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of food they eat."
"I have rights!" Ramzi Mohammed wailed from
inside.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust is a matter for academic discussion and the West should be more tolerant of his views, Iran's foreign ministry spokesman said on Sunday.
"If we go to war tomorrow, the Raptor will go with us," Gen. Ronald Keys, head of the Air Force's Air Combat command, said in a statement. He said an initial group of 12 was ready for combat worldwide or for homeland defense.
The squadron may swing through the Pacific next year, probably flying from Guam and elsewhere, though no decision has been made about where to best "showcase" it, Keys said in a later teleconference with reporters.
With the Soviet Union gone, defense analysts have cast the F-22 as the weapon of choice for any future U.S. conflict with China, for instance over Taiwan.
There is just an insane amount of handwringing today, all driven by the deluge of round-the-clock media coverage. News organizations can't get the cameras to the flames in Iraq fast enough and day after day the public reacts emotionally to the images put before them through the lens of a soda straw. How many times have we heard people come back from Iraq and talk about how different reality is from what they've seen on TV and read in the papers?
And how many times have we heard members of the press talk about their duty to inform and educate the citizenry about issues? In the matter of Iraq, that means news organizations have an obligation to their readers and viewers to put events in perspective and provide historical context. They have failed the public miserably in that obligation.
The public bears its share of the burden, too. As Thomas Sowell wrote earlier this week: "Utter ignorance of history enables any war with any casualties to be depicted in the media as an unmitigated disaster."
The biggest story of this election, apart from its obvious milestone character, is the staggeringly high Sunni turnout. In October we were being assured, by the usual experts, that the passage of the constitutional referendum was a disaster, another of many final nails in the coffin of Iraqi democracy: The Sunnis would now never participate in the electoral process. It turns out that they did participate, and they did so with eager anticipation that through the new democratic process their voices could be heard and their interests protected.
It also turns out that one of the major reasons Sunnis had not participated before was fear that they would be killed by terrorists and insurgents. This time, with 160,000 American troops and thousands of newly trained Iraqi soldiers and police, there was a sense of security. "Last time, if you voted, you died," Abdul Jabbar Mahdi, a Sunni, told the Times's Dexter Filkins. "God willing, this election will lead to peace." As Filkins notes, "Comments from Sunni voters, though anecdotal, suggested that a good number of them had stayed away from the polls in January not because they were disenchanted with the democratic process, but because they were afraid of being killed."
We've sent a message to the world that the United States is not like the terrorists," McCain said earlier as he sat next to Bush in the Oval Office. "We have no grief for them, but what we are is a nation that upholds values and standards of behavior and treatment of all people, no matter how evil or bad they are. And I think this will help us enormously in winning the war for the hearts and minds of people throughout the world in the war on terror."
"Hanoi Jane" Fonda is claiming that ever since Vietnam, U.S. troops have been trained to commit atrocities against innocent civilians as a matter of military policy.
"Starting with the Vietnam War we began training soldiers differently," the anti-American actress says in an email to the Washington Post.
Fonda claims she learned of the policy switch in "secret meetings" she had with military psychologists "who were really worried about what was happening to our combat personnel."
One doctor, she insists, told her U.S. troops had been deliberately trained to be "killing machines."
