Years ago in college, probably about twenty, a friend was running a World War II campaign game that was essentially a platform to generate air combat scenarios using a commercially available wargame (Air Force/Dauntless, I believe). Naval battles used miniatures. Submarine duels used a commercial game. And land battles used a simple and rapid grid combat system that I helped my friend develop for the many land battles that would develop.
I was the British. It was 1939 and my forces were thinly spread across the globe. The Germans seemed very strong and were hammering at France. They took and inflicted heavy casualties. The Italians jumped in early, too.
I fought the Italians at sea with the French and invaded Libya. My RAF fought over France. In order to bluff the Germans into backing off, I made a detailed map of my dispositions that included inflated strength beyond their view and plans that included things I knew the Germans and Italians could see. This was to bolster my deception about things beyond their view. I even ran a suicide scout mission over the main German naval base which my map showed was to pave the way for a combined air strike on his fleet and an amphibious landing into the flank of his army hammering the French.
After a night of gaming, outside the host's home (the Germans), I dropped my entire game material package, scattering the contents. Prior to entering the home, I'd placed the fake map under the friend's car in the driveway. I picked up all my stuff, leaving the fake map there to be found. I later heard that the Germans and Italians had a meeting the next day or so. So I think my deception was bought. The game broke up soon after, but I've never related this in the remote chance we'd pick it up again.
My point to this story that got longer than I intended is that deception is necessary in warfare, and not everything you see is real. Sometimes you are meant to see things. Which makes me look for dots, of course, to connect. Most of the time those dots don't really have any connections to each other. But you never know.
So when I read this, my mind immediately wondered what we were being shown:
An upset stomach forced President Bush to skip some meetings at an international summit on Friday, but he rejoined the gathering after several hours of bed rest.
Given that I think I see dots that indicate a pending overthrow of the Iranian government, was the president hiding meetings with our military or Europeans to prepare the way for the strike?
And there is this story to stoke my dot-connecting instincts:
Even as Iran and the U.S. face off bitterly, Navy commanders in the Persian Gulf are working quietly to keep communications open with Iran's military, hoping the contact will avert an accidental stumble into armed confrontation.
Most of the talk takes place over the crackle of radios, using the standard international bridge-to-bridge communications network, Rear Adm. Terry Blake, commander of the strike group led by the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, said aboard ship this week.
Other contacts are between Iranian pilots and air communications networks.
Remember, the mullahs have their religiously loyal military, the Pasdaran and related Basij, to counter the traditional military forces. Have we cultivated enough ties to turn the Iranian military in order to overthrow the mullahs?
And remember that we continue to attack the Iranian network inside Iraq, a move that would blunt Iranian efforts to launch attacks on us in response to our efforts:
Since the end of April, Multinational Forces Iraq has released a multitude of press releases noting the capture or killing of members described as belonging to "a secret cell terrorist network known for its use of explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, as well as facilitating the transport of weapons and EFPs from Iran to Iraq, and bringing militants from Iraq to Iran for terrorist training." Coalition and Iraqi forces killed 25 members of this network and captured 68 since April 27, 2007. These are Shia terrorists which are trained, armed, funded and directed by Iran's Qods Force, and have connections to Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army.
Are the dots I think I'm seeing connected? Dunno. I don't have the resources to follow up and see deeper than the press reports. We'll know pretty soon, if my most recent round of dot-collecting and connecting means anything at all. I won't be shocked if they mean nothing.
