The Road to Damascus

I noted that Syria is between Iraq and a hard place.

Following the lopsided allied win at Tal Afar that obliterated the jihadi and Baathist defenders at little allied cost, the US and Iraq are pushing toward Syria quite literally.

And in rhetoric, we are putting the pressure on Damascus.

Syria has become a hub for terrorists, as young, would-be terrorists travel unmolested through the Damascus airport on one-way tickets, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad said. The United States also accuses Syria of turning a blind eye to terror training camps on its soil.

"Our patience is running out, the patience of Iraqis are running out.
The time for decision ... has arrived for Damascus," Khalilzad told reporters at the State Department.

The tough talk is part of a U.S. campaign to increase pressure on Syria in several foreign capitals and at the U.N. General Assembly this week in New York.

And not just our envoy:

The president also issued a warning to Syrian President Bashar Assad, whom he accused of failing to control the flow of fighters sneaking into Iraq. The United States also has suggested that Syria played a role in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafil Hariri last February in Beirut. The U.N. is investigating the assassination.

"The Syrian leader must understand we take his lack of action seriously," Bush said.

Since I think that the biggest threat to Iraq comes from Iran and not Syria (and as I noted in that post, Iran could invade Iraq--a worry that I repeated here), I find it hard to believe that we plan any major military operations to the west. If we beat Syria, Iran would not give up. But if Iran went down, Syria would have to fold, I believe.

But something is happening that we hope will quiet the Syrians down.

Crescent of Responsibility

Some supporters of the war are upset that the Flight 93 memorial is a "crescent of embrace" that represents a surrender to political correctness and a failure to remember the first counter-attack in the war on terror carried out by the passengers of that flight:

Funded with a mix of public money and private cash (including a $500,000 grant from Teresa Heinz's far-left Heinz Endowments), the winning design, titled the "Crescent of Embrace," features a grove of maple trees ringing the crash site in the shape of an unmistakable red crescent. The crescent, New York University Middle East Studies professor Bernard Haykel told the Johnstown, Pa., Tribune-Democrat, "is the symbol of ritual and religious life for Muslims."

Am I missing something? Am I the only war supporter who thinks that perhaps a reminder that Islam has more than a little responsibility for inspiring and promoting the hateful version of Islam that motivated those murdering SOBs is appropriate?

It has been darkly suggested that the crescent arc points directly at Mecca and somehow this is bad.

Heck, put in runway lights that point to Mecca. Put a big arrow on the ground and remind people of the philosophical origins of that hole in the ground.

Given that this war requires Moslems to repudiate the actions of a small minority of fanatical killers, what is wrong with a little lesson that it really does take an Ummah to raise a terrorist?

Hmmm

This is a quick attitude survey:

China will no longer consider death tolls and other relevant information about natural disasters to be state secrets, an official said Monday, saying the move was aimed at boosting government transparency.

When you read this do you think that this is really great and the Chinese are to be commended?

Or do you think that it is telling that the regime says that in this narrow field, starting now, the Chinese communist government will no longer lie to their own people or to the world?

Me? I don't think it is tremendous progress that the Chinese won't lie about flood tolls anymore. I wonder about the virtually infinite other areas where the communists have decided that lying should be continued as official state policy.

What a wonderful government, eh?

Excess Troops

In the spirit of my recent efforts to look for information that reinforces my belief that we will soon overthrow the Iranian nutball regime, I add this:

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said in an interview yesterday that the United States could withdraw as many as 50,000 troops by the end of the year, declaring there are enough Iraqi forces trained and ready to begin assuming control in cities throughout the country.

Let me just say that if 50,000 will be freed up by the end of the year, in a couple months we might have 30,000. Or some other lesser or greater number depending on the state of the Iraqi security forces. And while the assumption is that excess troops will come home, I don't know why that is necessarily true.

If we want to overthrow the mullahs, we will need troops to support the revolt. We need to get troops to the region to do this without their deployment being noticed. What better way than to use troops already in the region?

So if we do take down the mullahs this fall after the Iraqi and Afghan elections, US troops in OIF that have turned over security duties to Iraqi units will plunge into Iran to make sure the revolution holds.

I'm just speculating of course. But I have to believe that this administration is serious about ending Iran's threat to our safety.

And Their Point Is ...

New developments at Gitmo:

Nearly 40 more detainees have joined a hunger strike at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for terror suspects, bringing the total to 128, an official said Tuesday.

And I'm supposed to care for what reason?

Oh wait, I know! We are now saving 25% on our food budget. Hooah. I do care after all!

The Network's Platform

Once upon a time, America's carriers represented our sole long-range offensive punch. They were the ultimate platform in platform-centric naval warfare. Submarines, even nuclear-powered subs, still had a comparatively short attack range. Our surface vessels had guns with short ranges and at best primitive missiles. Their most important role was to protect the carriers.

With Harpoon we gained a missile that could be--and was--put on all our surface ships and submarines. We reduced the critical importance of our best platform--the carrier--and distributed our offensive power throughout the fleet (and in the air with air-launched missiles). Our enemies could no longer hope to cripple our offensive power with a dozen large missiles striking our carriers. The Soviets trailed our carriers during the Cold War so they could try to decapitate us. But this is no longer possible since our carriers aren't the sole source of offensive power.

As the Navy works on network-centric warfare, the ability to mass effect both offensively and defensively from widely scattered platforms, the importance of individual platforms is decreased even more. This reduces our vulnerability to the loss of individual platforms. Other assets can fill in the hole seamlessly and our Navy's targets will never know that a missile from a different platform destroyed it. It will be an irrelevant detail.

Now the Navy is making the distributed platforms even more flexible with the new DD (X). The weapon of choice will be the gun, for now the poor cousin of the Navy:

At the dawn of the 21st century, the Navy's primary antisurface gun battery consists of one 5-inch gun with a range of 13 nautical miles. But if the Navy sticks to its schedule, by 2012 two DD(X) ships will be operational, each armed with a battery of two 155mm (6.1-inch) Advanced Gun Systems with a range of no less than 68 miles.

Stealthy and well protected with long-range eyes, the gun will give the ship the ability to attack land and sea targets:

DESPITE ALL THIS, the most intriguing element of DD(X) is its guns. Each 155mm gun will fire a Long Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP). The LRLAP has already been successfully tested to 83 nautical miles. Though it only carries 24 lbs of high explosives, the Advanced Gun System (AGS) is fully automated and holds a magazine of 300 rounds. With a rate of fire of 10 rounds a minute, the AGS should be able to provide the volume fire capability the Navy so desperately needs, and with GPS-guidance the LRLAP will be extremely accurate.

Still, you may say, the carrier provides the range that even the new 155mm gun wih long-range projectiles cannot match. True, but this gun is not the last word:

All of the technologies discussed so far have already been successfully tested, but the DD(X) is also designed to allow for the rapid deployment of technologies still in the pipeline. The Navy hopes to fit these ships with an electromagnetic rail gun by 2020. The rail gun would be capable of firing a guided projectile up to 267 nautical miles, which would put all of North Korea into range from either coast of that peninsula (or, to take another theoretical example, allow the Navy to bombard Paris from the English Channel).

This is a significant event for our Navy:

The modern era of the carrier battle group has not yet drawn to a close but DD(X) may offer a glimpse at the future of Naval combat. The focus on stealth and firepower may augur a new way of fighting at sea--one that doesn't leave large numbers of American sailors and marines vulnerable to sea-skimming missiles and air attack.

When guns have range that rivals effective aircraft range, the carrier risks being supplanted by guns in a revenge of the lanyards that reverses the demotion gun-armed ships experienced when carriers took the place of honor in World War II.

In 1999, the United States Naval Institute purchased an article I submitted that addresses the pending demotion of our large carriers. Sadly, it has never been published. I made several points in the article that the DD (X) article addresses.

I wrote that network-centric warfare signals the beginning of the end for the United States Navy's large aircraft carriers, which will lose their value as an instrument of forward presence. Carriers will become valuable targets that, if struck, will encourage an enemy at the outset of war by apparently demonstrating that American technological prowess can be nullified and beaten. Indeed, our new surge strategy for our carriers addresses this vulnerability of essentially having a solitary carrier out as bait where an enemy can plan a first strike to get a very big CNN moment.

In the long run, given networked and very long range cannons, large aircraft carriers will add little to most offensive missions and will absorb scarce resources and assets simply evading attack rather than striking the enemy and contributing to victory. The concentrated power of the carrier platform's air wing will simply be one element of the massed effect of dispersed attack platforms such as DD (X) achievable in network-centric warfare. An enemy will face massed firepower from all directions launched by U.S. forces wielding a plethora of weapons deployed on surface ships, submarines, and aircraft. This attack capability will be potent whether carriers are part of the network or not.

Today, even though more and more of our surface combatants possess potent offensive weapons and are capable of more independent operations, they are still tied to the carrier battlegroups. In this role, their primary mission is to protect the carrier. Expeditionary Strike Groups are a new exception to this since I submitted the article. ESGs wed Marines on amphibious ships to surface warships capable of supporting a littoral operation.

To exploit the network, the capable surface ships we will build must be cut loose and dispersed in accordance with the logic of network-centric warfare. Aircraft carriers will not add a bang commensurate with the billions of bucks they cost. Writing just after the Kosovo War, I asked did the Theodore Roosevelt really help in Kosovo? In my opinion, no. A couple score of shooters was irrelevant in NATO's thousand-plane force.

The worst part of carriers, even if we accept that carrier-launched planes are not the most efficient or effective manner of attack in the future, is that they will grow increasingly vulnerable. Eventually, an enemy will develop a network even if it only covers their immediate area or is limited in scope. The problem of defending in a networked environment will be brutally apparent to the Navy if it fights an enemy possessing a similar attack network which will seek the high value target of an aircraft carrier. If the Navy's carriers enter an enemy grid to come within striking range, they will no longer have the safety of getting lost in the vastness of the oceans. Nor can large carriers be made stealthy enough to remain obscured within an enemy grid. They will need to dash to striking range, strike, and get out before being struck themselves.

When the Navy faces such an enemy, the carriers will be a tremendously important "something" to America, and the loss of even one will shock the American public and might well stop the war if fighting for anything short of a vital American interest. Setting a carrier afire will make excellent CNN footage.

A network does not need a high value asset. Certainly, it is true that network-centric warfare defenses can bring dispersed air defenses together to defend the carrier (if they have sufficiently long range) but why expend that effort? In a developed networked force, the aircraft carrier adds little that numerous smaller platforms cannot provide and only represents a potential loss of great propaganda value.

The emergence of network-centric warfare does not mean the near-term obsolescence of large aircraft carriers. They represent large investments and there is no need to simply retire them any time soon. The useful roles for these aircraft carriers will diminish in time, however, beginning with the forward presence role. As I noted, we've already altered our naval presence from rotating a couple carriers to forward location in favor of being able to surge a large number in a crisis. In a peacetime operating routine, aircraft carriers that sail in another nation's surveillance and strike network will be vulnerable to a bolt from the blue and may actually invite war rather than deter it. Only against enemies incapable of striking them--as was the case in both Afghanistan and Iraq--will carriers retain their power to inflict punishing destruction.

Our carriers may become the aging gunslingers relying on their reputation from the glory days. As strike platforms in the Navy's network, aircraft carriers will retain a role far decades to come, but even in this role they will face limits. The Navy will need to keep them far from the enemy, closing the range only to strike.

Carriers are the ultimate in platform-centric warfare--even with unmanned aerial combat vehicles. But network-centric warfare is our Navy's future. The gun-armed surface warship, dispersed physically but networked to mass effect at sea or against targets on land, will keep our Navy dominant as it has been for more than sixty years. I love our carriers and their historic exploits are thrilling. But we cannot hang on to them forever when new platforms for a new network are built.

I almost feel sorry for our potential enemies who try to match our carriers (at great expense) just as we supplant them.

Coalition of the Bribed

As free Iraqi troops backed by Americans sweep through Tal Afar, the jihadi enemies of democracy send out the call to fight back:

The statement offered $100,000 for killing Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari; $50,000 for Interior Minister Bayan Jabr; and $30,000 for Defense Minister Sadoun al-Dulaimi.

Ah, so that's what legitimate, indigenous resistance to imperialism looks like. I seem to recall my grade school history teachers noting how the Minutemen of 1775 picked up their gold bars before standing at Lexington and Concord. But I guess America was only worth fighting for before we declared our independence.

Interesting that the glorious "resistance" must be paid hefty bonuses to fight. And just a minor question: So how much do those Iraqi soldiers rooting the jihadis out of Tal Afar get paid? Must be a lot to be "Iraq's traitors, the tails of the infidels."

Explaining How it Works

Strategypage explains one aspect of how the press works:

What is happening in Iraq is a failure by the media to give the American people relevant information. This has probably colored public opinion on the liberation of Iraq. The media’s failure has come in two areas. First, it has failed to provide the news in context, often focusing on negatives. Second, it has not brought evidence to the American people that would place the initial decision to go in into context. Both of these failures have occurred often enough that one cannot be blamed for wondering if a pattern of deception, by omission, is not occurring.

Funny how that works.

In a related article, Robert Kagan notes how the "lie" theme that Strategypage also touches on when it discusses the initial decision to invade Iraq has been fanned by the media even though that charge is indeed a lie--as those who level the charge should know, since they once held those charges to be true:

I recall support for removing Saddam Hussein by force being pretty widespread from the late 1990s through the spring of 2003, among Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, as well as neoconservatives. We all had the same information, and we got it from the same sources. I certainly had never based my judgment on American intelligence, faulty or otherwise, much less on the intelligence produced by the Bush administration before the war. I don't think anyone else did either. I had formed my impressions during the 1990s entirely on the basis of what I regarded as two fairly reliable sources: the U.N. weapons inspectors, led first by Rolf Ekeus and then by Richard Butler; and senior Clinton administration officials, especially President Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, William Cohen and Al Gore.

No need for the media to point out all this to the public. Funny how this journalism thing works. The press would have no need to manufacture any documents to have good stories about what Democrats and the UN said about Saddam back when Saddam was bad.

Good thing they have schools to teach them how to do this journalism thing. God knows what they'd pump out if they weren't properly vetted and trained.

Coalition of the Re-Elected

Prime Minister Koizumi has won his election. Japan thus adds to the roster of American allies whose leaders have been re-elected:

Koizumi, a staunch ally of President Bush, is expected to stand by Tokyo's dispatch in support of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq and is also a strong supporter of the continued presence of 50,000 U.S. military personnel in Japan. The opposition Democrats had pledged to withdraw troops from Iraq.

It was a landslide, the article notes.

But don't expect any major stories about this--that is only justified when the pro-Bush dog catcher of lower East Whocaresistan loses.

Funny how that works.

Cutting Off the Oil

Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has issued a threat if their refusal to cooperate in assuring the world they are not pursuing nuclear weapons:

"If a political decision is made to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council, it will be entering a lose-lose game. It will have its own certain consequences and will affect Iran's decisions. We prefer that such a game is not played."

He did not specify what those consequences would be, but Iran is a major oil exporter.

The Iranians could just give us a reason to strike and Iran's threat is empty:

Iran's economy relies heavily on oil export revenues - around 80-90 percent of total export earnings and 40-50 percent of the government budget.

So Iran, with a population seething in anger at the ruling mullahs, needs oil exports in a major way. How much of a budget shock could the mullahs endure without selling oil?

And it gets more interesting for an oil exporter:

Iran has imported refined products since 1982, and these imports have been increasing rapidly. In 2004 alone, Iran imported an estimated 160,000 bbl/d of gasoline at an estimated annual cost of around $2-$3 billion.

That's right. Iran imports gasoline. The oil weapon is not the wonderfully precise weapon the mullahs try to pretend it is. Cut off the oil trade and Iran's economy goes in the tank and Iran's consumers don't even have the ability to drive for long.

Take Iran down. We can't let them get nukes. We must not.

When Fear Isn't Enough

We need more nuclear options in order to deter a nuclear attack on us by non-state actors or states that go completely off the edge. We are working on a plan to use nuclear weapons:

It says "deterrence of potential adversary WMD use requires the potential adversary leadership to believe the United States has both the ability and will to pre-empt or retaliate promptly with responses that are credible and effective."

It says "this will be particularly difficult with nonstate (non-government) actors who employ or attempt to gain use of WMD. Here, deterrence may be directed at states that support their efforts as well as the terrorist organization itself.

"However, the continuing proliferation of WMD along with the means to deliver them increases the probability that someday a state/nonstate actor nation/terrorist may, through miscaluation or by deliberate choice, use those weapons. In such cases, deterrence, even based on the threat of massive destruction, may fail and the United States must be prepared to use nuclear weapons if necessary."

Our enemies must fear what we will do. Nations must worry that if they so much as provided an aspirin and a bandage to a terrorist who detonates a nuclear weapon that we will hit them with a nuclear strike.

If we are to avoid getting struck we must inspire fear abroad among those rational enough to know fear. And we must be prepared to use nuclear weapons first when we think we are under threat of a biological or nuclear attack.

But if fear isn't enough and if we can't strike first, we must also be prepared to respond to a nuclear strike or even an attempt--there is no such thing as no harm, no foul when it comes to nukes--with a nuclear response.

So we need a variety of nuclear weapons in order to retain credibility by having realistic nuclear counter-strike options. For if we ever take a nuclear hit and fail to respond with a nuclear weapon--even a devastating conventional retaliation will not cut it--we will have declared open season on the American people. Deterrence will have died for good.

It is a sobering thought but one we must face squarely.

Four Years On

On this fourth anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, I am still angry. I am still determined to wage war until we kill the bastards who murdered nearly 3,000 of us and destroyed the World Trade Center.

I won't just get over it. Not while a jihadi mindset exists that can claim Hurricane Katrina was divine retribution for our so-called sins. Not while our enemies still plot to kill us. Not while murdering children is viewed as God approved because the kids are just Christians, or merely Shia.

I can't believe that some question whether we are even at war. I can't believe that some would want to end our offensive to kill the enemy overseas and simply hunker down in our airports and shopping malls, scanning the crowds to prevent the enemy from reaching us here at home.

One day the Moslem world will view these murdering thugs with such total disgust that no Moslem will tolerate their presence. We are making progress, but that time is not yet here.

So for now we have little choice but to go after our terrorist enemies. Hunt them down. Capture and question them. And above all, kill them wherever we find them.

And we have no choice but to destroy the regimes that support our terrorist enemies.

And we'd be fools to allow regimes to exist that would build and proliferate nuclear weapons that our terrorist enemies view as a Hammer from Allah to kill us in the millions.

We have a lot more to do before we can rest.

UPDATE: Mark Steyn (via Real Clear Politics) addresses the war we are in quite well and concludes:

So four years on we're winning in the Middle East and Central Asia, floundering in Europe and North America. War is hell, but a war that half the country refuses to recognize as such staggers on as a very contemporary kind of purgatory.

It is indeed odd. We win overseas where we battle the enemy in Moslem lands--whether militarily or with diplomacy; yet large segments of Europe and North America don't think we are at war and in fact do their best to give in to our enemy's demands all in the name of "understanding" the jihadis.

UPDATE: Tears of sorrow and rage still come as easily as they did four years ago when those scum took Americans prisoner for a death ride into our buildings. Watching the towers come down again rekindles my anger at our enemy. Seeing people who chose to jump from the towers rather than burn makes me furious that some Americans can fail to see we are at war. Watching the movie about our first counter-attack on United Flight 93 inspires nothing but contempt for those of us who believe we should just get over this. For those who believe we should understand why they hate us. For those who rejoice in the so-called Minutemen who would kill us even tonight if they had the chance-if we give them the chance.

Explain to me again why I should give a fuck about whether jihadi prisoners in Gitmo are on a hunger strike. Let them die.

And kill as many jihadis as we can. The only good jihadi is a dead jihadi. And a jihadi left alive this year is just one more we have to kill next year.

This is war. They decided to wage it against us. We need to finish it with victory.

I don't feel guilty for feeling this anger. Not one Goddamn bit.

So Who Strikes First?

A few months ago I wrote that I worried that Iran would launch an offensive of some type to reverse our path to victory. Syria's western front was being beaten and unless the Syrian-Iranian alliance was ready to throw in the towel, I expected the Iranians to sponsor a Shia-based revolt in the east while we beat the Sunni jihadis and Baahists in the west.

Amir Taheri has an article (via Powerline) that suggests Iran is getting ready for their Battle of the Bulge offensive in Iraq:

In the past few weeks, the Iranian border police, part of the regular army, have been put under command of the IRGC, which now controls all points of entry into Iraq. At the same time, the IRGC has moved vast quantities of heavy weaponry to "sensitive points" (including the Zaynalkush salient, the Hamroun mountain range and the Dasht-e-Mishan plain) along the 900-mile-long border. Official Iranian reports indicate that the IRCG now has more than 250,000 men at or close to the Iraqi border, the highest concentration of troops there since the Iraq-Iraq war ended in 1988.

All this activity is accompanied by the beginnings of what looks like a massive program of building roads, airstrips and storage facilities close to the border. The IRCG has also set up a number of listening posts along the border, plus a major "electronic surveillance center" on Mainau Island in the middle of the Shatt all-Arab border estuary.

Plus infiltrations of Iranians into Iraq are taking place, Taheri says.

Given that I think we are getting ready to support a revolt inside Iran, with the Iranians seemingly ready to strike Iraq to overthrow the new Iraqi government who will win this race to strike first?

Or are we counting on Iran to strike first to have an excuse to destroy their regime before it gets nukes?

Heck, would the Iranians actually invade with a conventional cross-border strike that their preparations seem to indicate? That's pretty high stakes. And that would have the effect of saving the Syrian-supported forces as US units abandoned counter-insurgency to repel the conventional invasion from the east. Airpower alone couldn't cope so we'd need every unit we have in Iraq.

That would also be typical of a dictatorial regime like Iran's--on the verge of having a nuclear deterrent they might get too eager and strike before they have the deterrent. Of course, I assume that the Iranians won't win this gamble.

I'm going to be quite nervous this fall.

Walking

American and Coalition efforts to train a new Iraqi military must lead the Iraqis through the crawl, walk, run sequence. American forces have been needed to do the "running"--fighting the insurgents, while the Iraqis trained and gained experience. In time, the Iraqis will do the bulk of the effective fighting. Already, the Iraqis are suffering most of the casualties.

The ongoing operation against the insurgent and terrorist stronghold of Tal Afar shows the Iraqis walking:

More than 5,000 Iraqi army and paramilitary troops backed by U.S. soldiers swept into this insurgent stronghold near the Syrian border Saturday, conducting house-to-house searches and battering down stone walls in the narrow, winding streets of the old city.

The US soldiers are 3,500 troops of 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment:

U.S. forces stood back during the new sweep through Tal Far, allowing Iraqi forces to break down doors in the search for insurgents. The Americans followed behind, securing positions while the Iraqis advanced.

This is a far cry from Fallujah where US forces dominated and Iraqi forces were supporting in far smaller numbers. Of course, the resistance in Tal Afar is much less as well. But it is significant that Iraqis are in the lead.

The Iraqis promise more is to come:

With the Tal Afar offensive under way, the Iraqi defense minister signaled his U.S.-trained forces would not stop after this operation and vowed to move against insurgent bastions throughout the country.

"We say to our people ... we are coming," said Defense Minister Sadoun al-Dulaimi.

The Iraqis are coming. Right now, they are walking. Given some time, they will run at the enemy and knock them back across the border.

By then, the Iraqis may want to give chase into Syria where the enemy draws support:

"I regret to say that instead of sending medicines to us, our Arab brothers are sending terrorists," al-Dulaimi said.

Behind the newly expanded and capable Iraqi military--which is on the way to becoming the most effective Arab army--will be the support of American intelligence, communications, artillery, logistics, and air power. Damascus will find they have angered the wrong people.

Getting His News from the MSM

Normally when mistakes are this concentrated you need to mix it with 3 cans of water to make it palatable. Helprin starts out reasonably enough, stating that for the twenty years prior to 9-11 we failed to respond adequately to Islamic terror.

I grant him that, though if you go back to 1981 you have to remember that we still had the Soviet Union to worry about and any other threat really was secondary to dealing with that nuclear-armed despotism that loomed over Europe. Then, coping with the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and then the Soviet Union itself to make sure the Soviet empire did not pull the temple down on all of us in its death throes was kind of important.

So really, I'd only give us real grief since the mid-1990s for not responding to the only major threat apparent. But still, whether the inattention was justified or not, it is hard to argue given 9-11 that we did fail to respond in a matter to defeat the enemy before we were hit hard.

But then Helprin just loses me completely, arguing a whole series of purported mistakes since 9-11 that he says are courting strategic error. When I read articles like this by learned authors, I wonder if I am totally closed minded. I look at what he writes and think how can he possibly interpret the information he has to come to these conclusions?

He says we've held back from our troops the armor, and basic equipment they need to win? Not enough armored vehicles, body armor, and other staples of battle, he says.

Our troops are the best equipped troops in the history of warfare. Period. Our tanks and infantry fighting vehicles are well armored and the troops operating them well trained. Our military has put personal body armor on troops that is a marvel and we've improved it during the war. Any shortages are from the upgrading of the armor. Sorry we can't snap our fingers and produce two million sets in a week. If the issue is armor for Humvees, the situation in Iraq is unique to war thus far. No other war has witnessed this use of IEDs. Remember that after Baghdad fell, critics of the military urged our troops out of our armor and into soft caps to police the Iraqis. Nobody anticipated the IEDs. The real story is our speed of armoring these vehicles and our trucks. This speed is part of the general military's rapid fielding of new equipment as troops discover equipment that works. Soldiers are buying equipment because they are educated, well paid, and have access to high quality civilian gear. The military is quickly adopting this material and modifying military gear based on soldier input.

And he belittles the speed of capturing Baghdad in three weeks.

Give me strength. After all the talk of quagmire when we paused to refuel and rearm during the major sandstorm after four days of rapid advance, and after all the talk of a Stalingrad on the Tigris that we'd face in Baghdad, we bounced the city and took it with few casualties and after only three weeks. This was no minor accomplishment and the amazing ability to diminish what we did simply because we did it without apparently breaking a sweat ignores the decades of training that led to the Army and Marine Corps at that point in time that smashed the enemy.

He says we were plodding and should have used speed to demoralize the Iraqi defenders. He claims this failure to shock and awe the enemy caused the insurgency to be born.

Again, the speed of advance was incredible. And the Iraqi army largely dissolved. The Republican Guards fought but were annihiliated on the outskirts of Baghdad and were so demoraloized that they did not fall back into the cities for a last stand. Neither did the Special Republican Guards who were supposed to die to the last man defending the city. How much of their residual morale does Helprin think was there to be destroyed? As for the insurgency, it was planned before the war apparently and fed by ample money and jihadis and ammunition already in the country in large numbers. Perhaps speeding up the long march to H-Hour would have aided this and I suspect it would have; but once the shooting started, arguing that had we appeared in Baghdad on day one would have short circuited the insurgency is madness.

He then says we failed to deploy a 10:1 ratio of troops to insurgents to suppress the insurgency.

First, I've read the ratio is an old method of measuring strength and not used anymore. Troop density per population is better. And as I've said countless times I think our troop density is sufficient to win. Funny enough, if you use the ratio we look even better. 190,000 Iraqis; 140,000 Americans; 20,000+ Coalition; 20,000 private security; plus Kurdish and Shia militias, and you have quite a force. I have never heard anybody claim that there are more than 25,000 insurgents and that is the extreme high end. Given the attacks per day, fewer than 10,000 seems far more likely.

He says we discarded too much military power at the end of the Cold War.

Perhaps. But our Navy and Air Force are unchallenged in their realms so we'd be bouncing the rubble. Should our Army have remained larger? Yeah, I agree. Ten divisions with 33 brigades was too small. And the force structure was 40,000 too low to man what we had. But now we are going up to 43 brigades and may go to 48. In the end, I guess it depends on who you see as our enemies. We've had sufficient force to destroy our enemies thus far.

He says we aren't embracing innovation.

Hogwash. Rapid Fielding Initiative. The Future Force and Future Combat Systems. UAVs. New long-range guns. All electric vehicles. New body armor. Blue Force Tracker. GPS. Troops on horseback. Real-time intelligence. IED detectors. Field armor. Balloons for surveillance. Sniper direction detectors. My God, is anything short of Star Trek phasers too plodding for this guy?

He says we are reshaping our military into a small-wars, peace-keeping and counter-insurgency force that could not defeat the Chinese. He says we are abandoning heavy forces and have cut the fleet to half the size from under President Reagan.

Unless Helprin thinks we need 90 divisions to invade and conquer China (and where is he going to get the 10:1 ratio for that counter-insurgency!) his comments can't apply to the Army which wouldn't be large enough to fight China on the continent if it was tripled in size. Our heavy forces are still the best in the world and even if we abandon them we will have Abrams for three more decades. I think the Iraq War counter-insurgency has retaught the Pentagon the value of armor. I think we will retain our protection superiority one way or the other. I see no evidence that we are abandoning mobile warfare for light infantry for small wars. As to the fleet being half the siz of the late 1980s fleet. Well yes. But our "destroyers" are nearly as large as World War II heavy cruisers. These are capital ships and our fleet is far more capable than it was fifteen years ago. And what navy can oppose us now? Why break the bank building a fleet to bounce the rubble? Talk about our opponents now and in the future--not our past enemies. How relevant is it that we once sized our fleet for the Soviet fleet?

He says that by moving from Europe and the Western Pacific to Africa, Central Asia, and the Middle East, we are creating "a long and open alley through which China will run." This will tie us down, he says. We haven't done anything to counter China's rising power, he asserts.

I'd like to keep more ground power in Europe as a launching pad to the arc of crisis from North Africa to Central Asia, but the fact is that this move and the wihdrawal of a brigade from South Korea concentrates our power in CONUS and does not disperse it. The small forces we are spreading around the world are not tied down so much as they are preparing the way to receive our forces based in CONUS. I have no idea what the Heck Helprin is talking about when he says there is a long alley the Chinese will run down. Truly baffling. Indeed, the Chinese seem to think we have them surrounded by our presnece in Central Asia. The Chinese seem to want to enter Africa and the Middle East. Failing to compete with China in these areas would seem to risk letting China run freely. And as we build up in Central Asia, bolster military ties with India, open relations with Vietnam, sell arms to Taiwan, strengthen our military alliance with Japan, keep troops in South Korea, pressure Europe and Israel to limit arms sales to Peking, just how are we failing to counter China's rising power? Is Heprin totally divorced from reality?

And the war in Iraq was poorly planned and executed from the beginning, he says.

We won the major combat operations in three weeks and in the 2+ years we've fought the insurgents we've provided a shield behind which the new Iraq is being built: parliament, constitution, government, security forces. The insurgents are clearly losing and in a relatively short time the Iraqis will be able to stand on their own. Asumptions failed as they do in all wars and we made mistakes as in all wars, but we've reacted well and the bottom line is we are winning. This is getting to be a tiresome whining piece.

Helprin finishes up by noting inadequacies in homeland defense and disease preparedness for a potential pandemic. I guess I won't hammer him too much on these for I lack the perspective to judge. Sure, we can do more. And should. But I doubt there is a lot that a free society can do to keep out terrorists. In the end we need to go out and kill them and suppress the urge to become a terrorsit, and capability of supporting those terrorists. And bugs, too, can't be screened out with better metal detectors. If China doesn't provide information about viruses mutating there in a timely fashion, our ability to stop a pandemic is quite limited. But again, I can't argue that we could and should do more.

But the rest of his piece on strategic error is just plain wrong. So wrong that I find it hard to believe he could conclude these things when my judgment is so different. But if he draws his conclusions by reading the MSM, who can fault him too much?

US Bases in Iraq

In time, American forces will be able to pull back into a supporting role while Iraq's forces carry on the fight. But we will be needed to secure Iraq from foreign invasion for some time. Iraq's President Talabani confirmed what seemed obvious to me:

Yes, I say is no need for huge number of American forces. But I say we need some, there will be a need for two or three small bases for frightening others -- not to interfere in our internal affairs. Not to fight.

As Iraqis focus on building security forces to defeat the Baathists and jihadis, units more suited to defending against a conventional invasion--especially from Iran--will not exist in the numbers needed to win.

Thus, American forces to deter (President Talabani says to "frighten" but that is mere word choice) conventional invasion will need to remain in Iraq for some time.

Eventually, Iraqi army mechanized units will be built in sufficient numbers, and then logistics and maintenance support to sustain the Iraqi army will grow. Then the Iraqis will only need our air power. After that, Iraqi air power will grow and in time Iraq will have the full spectrum of military power to defend its territory.

And as I also said, this is not just a one-way street where we save Iraq. Our transformation of Iraq has created an ally that will soon be an asset to help us and not a consumer of American security. President Talabani also stated:

Terrorism is not only the enemy of Iraqi people. It is becoming to an international enemy for all human being in the world. And all Arab countries started to suffer like us from the terrorist activities.

These terrorist activities are a danger for peace, stability, and they want to bring back the worst kind of reactionary regimes to the Middle East. Of course we are determined to remain your partners in fighting against tyranny, terrorism and for democracy in the Middle East.

We are supporting your new policy in Middle East. We are proud to be your friends. We are proud to be your partners in fighting against terrorism. And we are grateful to you.

The idea that the Iraq War is a distraction in the war on terror is so ridiculous that sometimes I have trouble with believing that people actually argue this. The idea that we are unilateral cowboys is also so wrong that it is astounding that anybody with a cerebral cortex asserts this as fact.

If we can't get our "allies" like France and Germany to help, it is good to know that we can get new friends willing to help. Friends like Iraq. Or India. Or Japan. Or Poland.

And of course, old friends like Britain, the Netherlands, and Australia fight alongside us. I know I leave out others and I am aware of their help, I'm just giving examples.

Between Iraq and a Hard Place

Insurgents and terrorists are holding Tal Afar near the Syrian border and we are about to take it down with some type of military assault.

The enemy is also in Qaim, near the Syrian border further south, where we have struck them.

It sure seems like we are pushing the insurgents west, in the sense that their places of relative safety where they can plan and rest are farther and farther from the central populated areas. It should also be noted that these sanctuaries are purely temporary and we gain the chance to kill a bunch of the enemy all at once.

Sure, terrorists still manage to reach the populated areas, but it is a longer and tougher trip and when they arrive the defenses are much better.

Before long, as we bring new Iraqi units in to garrison what we capture (and as Iraqi units gain the ability to do the capturing in the first place), we will deprive the enemy of the ability to establish even temporary havens within Iraq. The enemy will have to pull back inside Syria itself to retain such sanctuaries.

Won't that be an interesting debate in Damascus? And In Tehran, where they've counted on the Syrians to maintain the active front in their alliance to keep Iraq from becoming a functioning democracy.

And in Washington, too, I imagine, the debate will be intense once it becomes clear what boy Assad chooses (or is told to choose).

A Bunch of Tools

The UN permanent bureaucracy wants to reorganize itself. As we work to reform this body, these thoughts (via Real Clear Politics) should be kept in mind:

Since its inception, UN supporters have looked to the UN with unworkable idealism about what it represents and what it could achieve. Given that it is nothing more than a collection of despots, dictators and the odd democrat, it was never going to be more than its members allowed it to be. The oil-for-food program was corrupt because members allowed it to be.

This is not to say the UN is useless. It is a useful talking shop, and to jaw-jaw is, as Winston Churchill said, better than to war-war. Though, even here, don't expect stellar results. The UN hasn't yet agreed on a definition of terrorism, no doubt because some members dabble in terrorism. And therein lies the rub. While reform may at least reduce corruption in the administration of the UN, it can never make member countries less corrupt or more democratic. So, we should never take the UN too seriously. More to the point, we should never cede sovereignty to it. It is, inevitably, as deeply flawed as its members.

This sums up my thoughts pretty well. Don't put this collection of tools in charge of anything important without our oversight. But remember that the UN can be useful to us as long as we don't fool ourselves into believing the hype and idealized image some have about the vaunted "international community."

Never expect too much.

Never expect it to save us.

And never, ever cede American sovereignty to the UN.

I hope Bolton goes to work on this mess and inflicts a good old-fashioned decimation on the ranks of the UN. Were I a UN bureaucrat with an office on one of the top ten floors, I'd move.

Western Front

I earlier wrote that while al Anbar province worries me, I think the idea that al Anbar represents a Vietnam situation is ridiculous. But it is the major front inside Iraq right now.

Strategypage writes of what is going on in the west of Iraq:

There’s an elaborate chess game going on in central Iraq, and along the Syrian border. Actually, it’s more of a “chase game,” as the al Qaeda and Sunni Arab terrorist groups attempt to maintain control of the shrinking number of areas where they can establish their safe houses and bomb making workshops. This process began last Fall, with the battle for Fallujah. While this left several thousand terrorists killed or captured, at least two thousand, including most of the terrorist leaders, fled Fallujah before the city fell. Over the next few months, the terrorists tried to take over another town, or portion of a city, like Mosul. This didn’t work, although it generated some great headlines about a terrorist "comeback". If the terrorists tried to hold ground, American troops came in and killed or captured them. Increasingly, the Americans arrived with Iraqi police or soldiers along, who were able to quickly canvass the liberated area to find out who might be pro-government.

This certainly puts the operations in a better light. This also seems to show that Iraqis are a bigger part of the offensive than I thought. I agree we are making progress and can win enough in the area to call it a success. I may have been too pessimistic about what we and the new Iraqi government can achieve in the west.

House of Mirrors

The title and lead off paragraphs give the wrong impression of Iran's so-called offer to help Hurricane Katrina victims:

In a gesture that mirrors American aid offers after a devastating 2003 earthquake in Iran, Tehran's envoy to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said his government would ship up to 20 million barrels of oil, state radio reported late Tuesday.

We said no thank you. We look downright mean spirited for turning down this generous offer, right?

Read a little deeper and you see that Iran requires us to lift sanctions in order to get the help.

This really isn't a mirror of our shipment of aid in response to the 2003 Bam earthquake. We di not require Iran's mullahs to stop supporting terrorists who kill Americans or to stop driving toward a nuclear weapon capability.

Typically, the article tries to leave an impression that reduces our image, leaving the relevant facts that undermine the title and early paragraphs further down.

I should be grateful they mentioned the circumstances at all, I suppose.