There Is Hope

Our war with the jihadis will be won when we either annihilate Islam or the moderates in Islam reclaim their religion from the fascist Wahabbis. The alternative is that one day the jihadis will detonate a nuclear weapon in a major Western city, killing hundreds of thousands if not millions.

I retain hope that Islam can turn away (via Instapundit) from the death wish that the Wahabbis have charted for Moslems. One Moslem woman has bravely challenged the death cultists:

"I believe our people are hostages to our own beliefs and teachings," she said in an interview this week in her home in a Los Angeles suburb.

Dr. Sultan, who is 47, wears a prim sweater and skirt, with fleece-lined slippers and heavy stockings. Her eyes and hair are jet black and her modest manner belies her intense words: "Knowledge has released me from this backward thinking. Somebody has to help free the Muslim people from these wrong beliefs."

Perhaps her most provocative words on Al Jazeera were those comparing how the Jews and Muslims have reacted to adversity. Speaking of the Holocaust, she said, "The Jews have come from the tragedy and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror; with their work, not with their crying and yelling."

She went on, "We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people."

She concluded, "Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them."

Hacking our people apart, lopping hostages' heads off, and crashing planes into our buildings have strangely not inspired our respect for Islam even though the terrorists loudly demand we do so. Instead, we kill jiahdis where we find them and wait in vain for the wider Islamic world to deal with their own. Then Islam would earn our respect.

And we've used only a fraction of our power in this war. I don't want to fight without restraint. But if our enemies keep killing us, we will in time tire of fighting this way. In time, we will settle for destroying our enemies. And that is much simpler than the current path of trying to help the moderates of Islam defeat the jihadis.

As I've said, they have to earn our respect.

And while we're at it, convince a chunk of Westerners that our society deserves to be defended against jihadi whackjobs. I have slightly less hope of that happening.

The Army They Wish For?

Critics of the American effort to train an Iraqi army to fight the insurgency like to focus on how many Iraqi battalions are capable of fully independent operations. This is a foolish focus, as I've written before. Why would we try to build a replica of the US Army when there is an ongoing counter-insurgency and terrorist campaign to fight?

Right now, this is what the Iraqi army looks like:

The Iraqi army now consists of about 140,000 troops. They are organized into 113 combat battalions (91 infantry battalions, 5 mechanized infantry battalions, 4 armored battalions, 1 special-duty security battalion and twelve special intervention force battalions.) The infantry and armor battalions are organized into nine divisions. There are also four special intervention force brigades (each with three battalions.)

Consider that our divisions--prior to reorganization--had ten combat battalions each. Add a few separate brigades with three each and you have 109 combat battalions in a US Army of about 480,000 troops. I focus on pre-reorganization because of the controversy over counting line units in our new UAs that I don't wish to go into here. The point is that the Iraqis have more line units than we have even though our strength is more than three times greater.

Are the critics who focus on independent operations really saying they'd rather have perhaps 40 Iraqi battalions fully capable and reliant on their own support units rather than 113 Iraqi battalions reliant for now on US units for non-combat support? If there were only 40 Iraqi combat battalions as part of an Iraqi army capable of providing that support, wouldn't we need to replace our support units with combat units to put boots in the field? Isn't it better to have Iraqis fighting and dying for their country with Americans in safer missions providing the means for Iraqis to fight for themselves?

Honestly, the critics of our war effort would really have something to complain about if we trained and organized the Iraqi army to address their complaints about "independent units." Hell, I'd complain pretty loudly about it.

Is Anybody Really Surprised At This Ending?

An American "peace activist" who believed America was wrong to liberate Iraq and that the jihadis are right to resist was tortured and murdered in Iraq:

An American aid worker taken hostage with three other peace activists was apparently tortured before he was shot in the head and chest and his body dumped near a railroad line in Baghdad, Iraqi police said Saturday.

I've said this again and again, but it apparently bears repeating: our enemies hate us--all of us. You can tie dye your shirts. You can live in a blue state. You can live on granola and trail mix. You can have your own personal copy of Michael Moore's "Fahreneit 911." You can profess the goodness of our jihadi enemies and denounce America.

And yet still the jihadis will torture you until they get bored, shoot your sorry infidel ass, and dump your body for the flies to feast on.

I'm sorry Tom Fox was murdered. I'm even more sorry that he was stupid enough to think that our enemies actually have rational, negotiable demands that can fall short of our death or subjugation.

Learn from this. Or it will happen again. On a scale as large as the jihadis can manage.

Will Tehran Be This Stupid?

As Iran's nuclear ambitions are getting attention from the UN, the Iranians threaten to cut off their oil exports and to stop the region's oil exports in retalitation:

Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi raised the possibility of using Iran's oil and natural gas supplies as a weapon in the international standoff and also noted Iran's strategic location at a chokepoint for a vital Persian Gulf oil route.

"If (they) politicize our nuclear case, we will use any means. We are rich in energy resources. We have control over the biggest and the most sensitive energy route of the world," Pourmohammadi was quoted as saying by the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

Will the Iranians really be this stupid?

Iran must import refined petroleum products. If Iran cuts off oil exports it gives us the excuse to blockade their imports.

And Iran does not actually control the Strait of Hormuz. CENTCOM does that. We proved we could hold the strait open in 1987-1988 during the Tanker War in the First Gulf War (Iran-Iraq War) and we can do it again.

Honestly, I hope the Iranians have failed to learn from Saddam. Iran would be smart to quietly endure the West's sanctions, count on smuggling to increasingly evade them, and exploit the media to blame even existing suffering and shortages on the sanctions. Iran has money and if it can continue to import strategic necessities, they can ride this storm out. The mullahs need only buy enough time to get their nuclear weapons, after all.

If Iran does these things without threatening the economies of others by denying even their own oil exports, they could ride out the feeble sanctions that might be placed on them.

But if Iran escalates, they inflict pain on others who will look to America to relieve and will give us the excuse we need to inflict real pain--economic or direct military action--to undermine the mullah regime before they get the protection of nuclear weapons.

At Least He Doesn't Have Oil

President Robert Mugabe has destroyed Zimbabwe--a country that once had promise to be a region of stability and prosperity that might pull along an entire region.

Inflation is about 800% per year, food is running out, unemployment is rampant, and the political opposition is incapable of resisting Mugabe's thugs. The basic situation?

The U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe said in November that gross government mismanagement and corruption have reversed a half-century of progress in six years.

The country could just collapse. I'm thankful they don't have oil. And I wonder if South Africa, the regional power, is up to intervening to save this crumbling country.

Mugabe has made friends with Peking. I wonder what China will do, too.

Justice Denied

The vaunted international community values process over substance.

The lengthy trial of Slobodan Milosevic was a ridiculous exercise that simply gave a little tinpot dictator years to strut on the world stage and defy the international body that pretended it was making him pay for justice.

Well, Milosevic died in prison before the international community could pronounce him guilty for his crimes against humanity committed in the 1990s:

A leader of beguiling charm and cunning ruthlessness, the man reviled by the United States as "the butcher of the Balkans" was a hero to many Serbs despite losing four wars and impoverishing his people in the 1990s while trying to create a "Greater Serbia" linking Serbia with Serb-dominated areas of Croatia and Bosnia.

Milosevic apparently died of natural causes, according to the U.N. tribunal that was trying him on 66 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. His chronic heart ailments and high blood pressure had caused numerous long recesses.

What's the saying of the Left? Justice delayed is justice denied. Bingo.

But at least the international community didn't endanger us with this sham. After all, at the end of this long stall, Milosevic did not get nukes as the fruit of his delaying action.

I sure hope the Iraqis shoot Saddam long before he dies peacefully in a bed.

UPDATE: Mad Minerva hopes that Milosevic won't avoid the verdict of history despite dying unconvicted. But I cannot hang my hat on the author of the piece she cites since he very clearly values the process focus I condemn. Look at what Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch's international justice program, writes:

Milosevic's death may have pre-empted a verdict, but he did not escape the process of justice. While the victims of the Balkan wars will not get the satisfaction of hearing a verdict in this case, the man who flaunted his power as Serbia's strongman died under indictment, in custody and with a long and official enumeration of his alleged crimes on record for posterity.

He may have escaped actual justice, but he did not escape "the process of justice." Well that's just swell. And how will history judge Milosevic when even the author writes of "his alleged crimes?" His supporters will see the lack of conviction as evidence of innocence. The long fruitless trial proof that the entire world could not prove their Slobo guilty of anything. As General "Gentleman Johnny" Burgoyne said to an officer who wondered what history would say about his lifestyle, Burgoyne replied, "History, sir, will lie." And so Serbian nationalist history will lie. And other dictators know that they, too, can die in bed as long as they can fall under the jurisdiction of the vaunted international community. And Dicker writes:

On top of the sheer scale of atrocity crimes, there is the difficulty of proving the guilt of a former senior official who was nowhere near the multiple crime scenes.

Under the best of circumstances, these trials will be lengthy. In this context, international prosecutors should consider focusing their indictments on the most representative crimes for which there is the strongest evidence.

What rot. The fact of interventions to save Serb victims in Bosnia and Kosovo should have served to prove the guilt of Milosevic. This was not a criminal investigation but war to stop his genocidal crimes. His guilt was pre-established and trying to clearly pin a parking violation on him is an absurd elevation of process over justice.

Further:

As a human rights lawyer concerned with fair trial rights, I was dismayed to see Milosevic allowed to ask the same question of a witness over and over again, badger and bully witnesses, particularly those of lower social standing, and make interminable political speeches that had no relevance to the matter of his guilt or innocence on the charges.

Ah, but when you value process over justice, you have to let Milosevic defend himself the way he wants, don't you? Isn't anything else pre-judging him? We may have gone to war to stop him but let's not be hasty and assume him guilty of the crimes over which we went to war!

And:

There is one message that the aborted trial of Slobodan Milosevic, with its admitted shortcomings, cannot obscure: Absolute impunity for crimes that shock the conscience of humankind, regardless of the rank of the accused, is a thing of the past.

No, the lesson is that the world tolerates quite a lot. The world did nothing. Refusing to authorize intervention at either the UN or EU level. America did the deed. American power stopped Milosevic and allowed the international community their chance to convict the man.

And the lesson dictators have learned as that the country that captures a dictator will face more condemnation from the international community than the genocidal dictator himself faces. I mean, as long as the country is America. But that is what happens when process is elevated over justice.

The focus of this reperesentative of the international human rights community on process is just amazing. I hope Minerva is right to hope for the best. I don't share her hope.

Personally, I hope we never turn another dictator over to the Hague again. If they want to try one, let them go and get him. I'm sure the Belgian military will get right on it.

Blowback

The Dubai port deal seems to have awaken a mood in America that says we can't trust Arabs and Moslems. Tony Blankley writes:

The public has the right and vital need to have the events of our time fully and fairly described and reported. But a witch's brew of psychological denial and political correctness is suppressing the institutional voices of government, police, schools, universities and the media when it comes to radical Islam.

As the danger grows but is not publicly described, the public will first be ignorant and fail to demand sufficient remedial action.

But as incidents and rumors are encountered over time, the public mind will inevitably suspect the worst and demand the strongest action. Demagogues will emerge to gratify that vox populi. (The Dubai port deal is a small example of such a process -- although in that incident the threat is real and there are many sincere and rational voices amidst the many demagogues.)

Institutional voices are not being responsible by suppressing honest description of radical Islamic events. Denying the existence of evil (or refusing to be judgmental about it) has never proved a reliable method for defeating it. Hell is presumably filled with souls who didn't understand that point.

Exactly. Refusal by the sensitive elite to admit that our enemies are Moslem for fear that ordinary Americans will assume the worst--that all Moslems are our enemy--is backfiring. The cadre of Sensitive Americans who won't let polite company mention that fanatics are twisting Islam into a hafeful creed of murder to justify killing us is just making sure that the Moslems they pretend to care about will get blamed for the killing and mayhem they clearly see being carried out by self-proclaimed Moslems.

I've written about this fear before (here and here for example). As I noted:

Failure to call our enemies who are killing us our "enemies" for fear of tainting all Arabs or Moslems is stupid and counter-productive. Doesn't this tacitly say that our enemies and the loyal Arab- and Moslem-American here are one and the same? Why should all Arabs or Moslems be tied to the murderous behavior of a few? I am not personally offended by describing IRA members as terrorists even though I am half Irish. And I'd be offended if somebody thought that calling them terrorists would offend me because I am Irish! Personally, I think that our Arab-American and Moslem-American citizens are loyal Americans. We can call our enemies what they are and still include all our citizens in the war.

And this:

Remember, people can see that people who are Moslem are killing us in the most horrible fashion they can think of and dream of doing it on a mass scale.

If ordinary people are told again and again that we have no enemy drawn from Islam, then the fact that Islamic enemies keep killing us will lead ordinary people to logically conclude that all Islam is guilty. If we can't accurately define the subgroup we fight because it will offend all Moslems, isn't the logical conclusion that all Moslems support the terrorists?

Naming our enemy localizes anger to focus on the actual enemy. Denying we have enemies who are Islamic paints the entire religion as guilty.

So who is the sensitive side, really?

I hope the port issue is a passing concern for our people. But I fear it reflects a rising sentiment that holds all Moslems guilty for the hate of a small percentage of Moslems. If this becomes a war of civilization because our people haven't been taught that there is a difference between our terrorist enemies and all Moslems, the guilty parties for this view will include those whose false compassion leads them to refuse to name our enemies rather than the so-called warmongers who advocate killing our actual enemies.

Or are we to just pretend that our enemies are just happy Islamist friends?

Looking Out for the Shias

Leveraging the support of an oppressed minority to help you out against their oppressor is a long-standing tradition.

I've mentioned that if we play our cards right, we might have a Shia realignment in our favor.

So our State Department has released a report on the treatment of Shias that shows our interest in stopping oppression and discrimination against Shias by Sunnis. One tidbit:

Saudi Arabia: The government continues to discriminate and commit abuses against members of the Shiite minority, about 10-15 percent of the country's 19.7 million citizens. Government security forces, mostly religious police, reportedly arrested Shiites based on scant suspicion, held them in custody for lengthy periods and then released them without explanation. Shiites are subjected to officially sanctioned discrimination of various forms.

Remember that Saudi Arabia's Shia minority is concentrated in the oil-rich eastern coastal region. Shia Arabia has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

Let the Wahhabis keep the sand and holy places and call that Saudi Arabia. Poor fanatics don't worry me.

Grow Up

Victor Hanson slams the decision by some lukewarm war supporters to turn their backs on the war on laughable claims that some standard of the post-conventional war phase has not been met to their satisfaction.

These people are different from the hard Left and Right who have been against the war from the beginning :

From the very outset, rightist critics such as those in The American Conservative have told us that it was a hopeless waste of America resources to offer pre-modern people of the Middle East democratic government. Those of The Nation assured us that Iraq was yet another amoral attempt at postmodern imperialism. Fine, you get what you hear and read with both sides — and both, through good and bad news, have remained consistent and principled in their vehement opposition to all that we have done.

I disagree with them in thinking the war wrong, but at least they remain fairly consistent. Some even say that though they opposed the war and still think it wrong, once in we must stay to avoid throwing Iraqis to the wolves and making the Middle East worse. That at least is a practical concern.

But what about the war supporters who have faded away in what they see as our winter of war?

But the latest criticism is more troubling, since it often comes from the “my perfect war, your lousy peace” school that, for some reason, never critiques the three-week removal of Saddam Hussein. Instead, it defends its evolving opposition to the war by advancing particular pet theories of reconstruction that were never followed. Rarely do we hear that most postbellum efforts are long, messy, and necessary, much less that the essence of war is lapse and tragedy, with victory going only to those who in the end err the least and endure. Anyone back in the United States can post facto write up a list of what ought to have been done in Iraq amid the heat and fire; but they at least need to factor in the conditions at the time that led the supposedly less bright on the ground not to anticipate their own inspired wisdom from afar.

I have little respect for these people. Wars don't usually go according to plan and to pretend that the problems we have today were avoidable (or that avoiding some would not have led to other possibly worse problems) or somehow evidence of criminal incompetence is to ignore history. Supporting the beginning of a war should include supporting fighting until we win. Criticize and offer suggestions--but do so in the spirit of trying to correct mistakes and drive on to victory--not to explain away your past support and justify turning tail and running.

But aside from that, these people who turn on the war so their dinner party conversations can be a little more pleasant when faced with war opponents are betraying our troops who are winning even as support for their sacrifice dwindles. Our troops aren't allowed to change their minds in the middle of war over the oath they took to protect us:

Our leaders have been keen on getting the support of the American people for war. The military especially has been gun shy after Vietnam unless the American people clearly support the decision to wage war. The resulting Abrams Doctrine of relying on our reserves to ensure public debate prior to going to war surely worked for the Iraq War. There was mobilization, debate, and a Congressional authorization for war that reflected public polling in support of war. Pretty much the Gold standard, wouldn't you say?

But now elements of our population and political parties are abandoning their earlier pledge of support while the war is not yet won. We are winning but the war is not yet won.

So the question is, when giving consent to wage war, don't those who give that consent have an obligation to maintain that consent until victory? Was there a clause in the Congressional declaration that said it sunsets in 2006 or is there a subsection that allows for a reversal at the 2,000th casualty? And the American people whose support for winning is dropping, the same criticism holds. If our enemies ever believe our people have a particular threshold where we retreat, we guarantee resistance to reach that threshold.

We who supported the invasion have an obligation to act like grown ups and support the fight until we have victory. Our troops are winning this war. Let them win. Support them in their sacrifice. And in the end we can all celebrate their skill, bravery, and sacrifice in making us safer, and helping people on the other side of the globe have a better life.

Yep. Pretty Much the Same

NPR reported on Friday morning that we would close Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Abu Ghraib, the NPR reporter helpfully reminded listeners, is the place where prisoners were abused under Saddam and the United States.

Yep, panties on heads is pretty much the same as being fed feet-first into a plastic shredder or any of the other lovely methods of death and torture meted out under Saddam. All part of the continuum of "abuse" so no need to differentiate.

And no need to mention that abuse under Saddam orders of magnitude greater than ours was rewarded by Saddam because those were of course Saddam's orders; while our fraternity hazing crimes were investigated and the culprits punished because they were contrary to orders and military discipline.

But NPR doesn't see those differences. Nope, all the same the way they look at the world. So naturally the guilt is the same. Sometimes it is disturbing to get a glimpse into the thinking that so easily equates President Bush with Hitler and America with Nazi Germany.

And I ask again, how can we be the only country in the world where the state-funded media is not slavishly pro-administration?

Again Ghana

I noted an unusual search hit on my site a month ago that seemed to indicate someone in Ghana is looking for weapons from North Korea. That seemed ominous.

Well, apparently the North Korean angle didn't pan out. The Ghana searcher is back. The searcher just looked for "2005/2006 1 email contact addresses of lethal weapons dealers".

Fascinating. And he hit my last post on this.

Ghana is hosting the 2008 African Nations Cup in soccer, so I suppose security is nothing to sneeze at. Terrorists or drunken soccer fans both probably require lethal weapons.

And who knew Pyongyang has seller standards? Though it might be in the "payment up-front first" variety.

But still, I'm glad that the North Korean method of suppressing disorder is apparently being abandoned. May I suggest a Canadian company?

When Will Europe Stand Up?

This piece (via Real Clear Politics) asks whether Europeans will decide anything they have now is worth defending:

The EU does not know why it should ever sacrifice its sons in military conflict. What sacred values are worth defending at such a high cost? The EU isn't prepared to enter a conflict with Iran, with all its potentially devastating human casualties and economic hardships.

There is a reason for this, of course:

After the horrors of World War II, Western Europe turned to new ideals of radical pacifism and post-nationalism. The Continent had been devastated by war twice in three decades. In the 1950s, the desire to avoid more war led it to a new ideology, permeating society and politics, that viewed national interests and cultural traditions as relative. As a result, people started to believe that peaceful coexistence with communist Eastern Europe was better than emphasizing the differences between East and West.

And remember, in the run up to World War II, before one of the hot wars and the long terrifying Cold War, Western Europeans were slow to rise to their own defense despite what in retrospect was a clear threat:

In March 1936 the West did nothing over the German occupation of the Rhineland.

In March 1938 the West did nothing about the seizure of Austria figuring they were Germans and happy to joing Germany anyway.

In September 1938, the Munich Agreement Was boasted as successfully appeasing the Germans.

In October 1938, the West watched as the Germans occupied Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland, fearful but frozen by the fear that they did not have enough power to stop Hitler.

In August 1939, the West watched as the Nazi-Soviet pact was signed, seeing their lone enemy gain a major ally.

In September 1939, the West finally acted when the Germans invaded Poland by declaring war on Germany; but did nothing and even looked at how to intervene on Finland's side as the Soviets invaded Finland in the winter of 1939-1940.

And really, the West did nothing throughout the Sitzkrieg of the winter of 1939-1940, finally only fighting when the Germans moved west against Norway and Denmark in April 1940 and against France and the Low Countries in May 1940.

Churchill did not rise to power until May 1940, finally showing that Britain would fight and not cut a deal with the Nazis.

So getting a spine took much time and took place only among the lonely survivors of the enemy's first strikes.

So where is Europe today in the process of standing up to Iran's threat?

Will they yet try to sacrifice Iraq or Israel in hopes that Iran will want no more?

Will they first sign a surrender and proudly call it victory before concluding they must resist?

Will Europe turn on the wrong enemy with their first burst of spine?

And which European states will be knocked out of the West before the rest fight with the full conviction that they must win or fall, too?

And how hard and long will the fight be before we win?

A lovely decade we have here, eh?

So How Do We Take Out Iran's Nukes?

It just feels as if a confrontation with Iran is looming even if we are uncertain as to when Iran gets a nuclear threat.

And I'm still unsure of how we go after Iran. Will it be regime change, blockade, siege (blockade with limited ground objectives), special forces, or air campaign (which I think would have to last weeks)? A lot depends on how good our intelligence is about where Iran's many facilties are, our confidence that we haven't missed much, how well the Iranians have built their underground facilities (remember the mythical Osama James Bond facilities he built in Afghanistan?), and how good our weapons are.

So a reader, Terrey C., asks what can our military do? Good question. I was actually contemplating that for a few days. Here are just some speculative answers:

--We can bomb, of course. Precision weapons mean anything above ground that we know about is toast. Our surface ships and subs have lots of cruise missiles and our bombers carry lots of bombs. Even targets in cities can be hit with small precision weapons that will limit civilian deaths.

--We can bomb some underground bunkers with penetrating precision weapons.

--For those targets too deep to reach with bombs, a combination of surface and penetrating explosions may shake and seal underground facilities.

--Special forces supported by AC-130 gunships and precision bombs may be able to go into hit some facilities by penetrating their security and knocking out the facilities from within. Thermobaric bombs for the deep facilities, perhaps?

--Ranger battalions could raid better defended sites to overcome resistance and let special operators in to do their work. Air power in support would be necessary before they are extracted following the mission.

--Electromagnetic pulse weapons may also serve to fry deep targets or targets in civilian areas to avoid killing civilians or even to nail a target when we aren't sure where in a large area the target is.

--A Marine brigade might seize Iran's nuclear reactor at Bushehr on the Gulf to allow experts to shut it down safely and then remove the fuel. How long would this take? Don't know.

--Army brigades might storm into site close to Iraq's or Afghanistan's border to allow Army special troops to haul out material or equipment of use in building nuclear bombs.

--And we could leave behind sensors and agents to allow follow-up strikes against facilities undetected or being repaired/unearthed.

--Cyber-war may knock out computer files needed to complete a nuclear weapon.

--Key scientists could be targetted with snipers or precision weapons.

I have to add that I don't think we could just hit the nuclear facilities in isolation. It would have to be a comprehensive air campaign against nuke facilities, leadership, regime assets, military assets, and command and control assets. It would look an awful lot like a war.

And of course, once we go this far, a regime change is the only sure way to make sure that Iran's nuclear programs really are just for energy purposes.

I think we have learned our lesson from the long-telegraphed so-called "rush to war" in Iraq. I think we are being quiet not because we plan nothing but because we don't want to warn the Iranians about what we will do and give them time to prepare.

Nuclear Progress

Some say Iran is on the verge of having nuclear weapons. Others say they may already have one purchased to fill the gap until they can build their own.

Strategypage says Iran is years away. The mullahs want to test to protect themselves from external and internal threats:

But such a test may be years away, because of the apparently slow progress in developing some key technologies needed for the weapons.

The post also says that the Sunni Arabs are worried about Iran getting nukes.

This leads to my next point: I've noted before that I don't know why we assume that Iranians will rally to the regime they hate if we strike the nuke facilities that the mullahs have (This article is interesting in this light). But on top of that, why do we assume that the Moslem world will object if we strike Iran?

Just because Shia and Persian Iran is hit, will Moslems in Indonesia care let alone Sunni Arab Moslems who fear Shia Persians? Will Pakistanis or Indian Moslems be upset?

Really, the Moslem world did not rage against the 1998 strikes against a Sunni-run Arab Iraq's WMD facilities, so why would the world's Moslems get upset on Iran's behalf?

Back to the timing issue, the timing issue of when Iran goes nuclear is perhaps unknowable. It may also depend on whether you are talking about the time to blow one and the time to weaponize one. Iran can surely blow a nuke built in place long before it can build one that fits in a bomb or missile warhead.

But we've missed so many nuclear events since we went nuclear that I have little confidence we can time action very precisely.

Action seems like it is coming as we declare we will not let Iran go nuclear and the Iranians tell everyone to just bugger off and mind our own business.

Don't Go There

I may disagree with Derbyshire on assessing the Iraq War but I agree with his article saying the argument that you can't judge Iraq without being there is just silly.

This is way too close to the ridiculous "chicken-hawk" charge the Left tossed about. And it stinks of the ethnic studies arguments that you can't study women, or any racial or ethnic minority without being a member of that group (and one in good standing with the ideological minders for that group).

After all, if troops have the best view since they are there, don't reporters who seem to screw up so much have a similar authority?

On-the-scene views are important, but they do not give those people in uniform (or anybody else who goes there) a monopoly on ground truth. Just because the troops are more supportive of the war than most people, reporters, or college professors is no reason to grasp a thoroughly horrible view about who has the right to judge. Don't go there, people. Don't go there.

Interesting

An Army casualty report issued recently indicated the soldier was from the Army's 22nd Chemical Battalion (Technical Escort), Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.

I know we train plenty of units such as armor, field artillery, and air defense in a secondary infantry role for deployment, but would we really send a chemical unit to Iraq to serve as infantry?

What does this unit do? According to this paper:

On 16 October 2004, United States Army Forces Command activated the 20th Support Comand (SUPCOM) (CBRNE), realigning the 22nd Chemical Battalion (Technical Escort) and the 52nd Ordnance Group (Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD)) as subordinate organizations to the command. The 20th SUPCOM (CBRNE) is envisioned to provide global, full-spectrum CBRNE technical response forces and capabilities to Joint and Army Force Commanders. The Department of the Army approved mission statement for the 20th SUPCOM (CBRNE) is:

The CBRNE Command integrates, coordinates, deploys and provides trained and ready forces, and is prepared to exercise command and control of full spectrum CBRNE operations to Joint and Army Force Commanders. Maintains technical links with appropriate Joint, Federal, and State CBRNE assets, as well as research, development and technical communities to assure Army CBRNE response readiness. Provides or assists in the training and readiness oversight of CBRNE assets (Active, Guard and Reserve).

The command was conceived and established in the post 11 September 2001 environment to consolidate, to the extent feasible, Army CBRNE technical operations response capabilities in a single operational command.

CBRNE means "Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and High Yield Explosives," by the way. So we're not talking "just" chemical defense, apparently.

It is rather interesting that such a unit is in Iraq. It can identify and safely move weapons of mass destruction. So is it in Iraq for the Iraq campaign or for a pending Iran campaign?

And if for Iran, is it to defend against Iranian WMD strikes or to grab and move Iranians WMDs that we secure on the ground?

Heck, as long as I'm speculating, the incident in question took place at Rawah, on the Euphrates River about 50 miles from the Syrian border. There has been a lot of talk lately of where Iraqi WMD could have gone.

Like I said. Interesting. This unit is not pulling guard duty. I know I'm looking for clues that support my preconceived view that we will deal with Iran to prevent them from going nuclear and that military measures of some sort--whether strikes or revolution--are the only realistic option left to us. So I could be connecting dots that have no relation at all. Maybe we've always had units like this roaming around Iraq so it is nothing new. Heck, maybe few of the unit's soldiers are actually in Iraq.

But still ... it seems quite interesting.

UPDATE: It seems I'm connecting dots that don't exist. The unit--while surely capable of carrying out its primary role--is actually functioning as infantry. And chemical units have functioned this way all along. This according to a reader who has done some interviews of the soldiers in the units.

Another lesson in the problem of discovering something new to me and wondering whether it is just new to me or something new.

Good Enough for Anti-Government Work

The US military judges (via NRO) that the Iraqi security forces are coming along:

On the security side, there has been marked progress. The Iraqi security forces protected the population as it voted during the three elections of 2005. Ninety-eight Iraqi army and special police battalions are now conducting operations in the country. There are 232,000 members of the security forces "trained and equipped." There has been a 47 percent increase in the number of Iraqi battalions "in the lead" against terrorists - from 47 in October 2005 to 53 today, Renuart said. In addition, Iraqi units have now assumed the battlespace in large swathes of the country.

"In Baghdad, nearly 70 percent of the city is under control of Iraqi forces," Renuart said. Eight Iraqi divisions have stood up and assumed control of their forces, he said.

But the big indicator is how Iraqi forces are doing in battle. "We have no indications anywhere where an Iraqi unit has either surrendered -- even down to platoon level -- or where they have run," Renuart said. He said the Iraqi army has a coherent capability to take control of situations and interface with police forces.

We do not need replicas of American forces and the desire of some critics to judge Iraqis insufficent to win by comparing them to American forces is ridiculous. When mature, the Iraqi military will be better than Saddam's army even at its peak.

And the success of the Iraqis in fighting the enemy comes not just from our efforts to train and equip Iraqi forces, but our success in smashing up the enemy. As I've noted before, atomizing the enemy so that the Iraqi forces face smaller groups of insurgents means that there is less chance of an Iraqi unit being overrun and destroyed.

This is one reason I dismissed the whole oil-spot notion as it was often portrayed. Advocates of this approach took the very sensible idea that we have to protect the people to keep the enemy from intimidating the population and expanded the idea to deny the importance of breaking up the enemy. Just sitting passively in enclaves without disrupting the enemy means those oil spots would shrink rather than grow because the enemy could mass forces and train and equip securely in their own oil spots.

So even as we worked to hold the populated areas of central Iraq, we hit the enemy in al Anbar with air power when we had insufficient forces to raid with ground forces; raided with our ground forces when we had insufficient Iraqis to hold territory; and finally moved in to stay when we had sufficient Iraqis to garrison the regions' major towns and cities.

We've made good progress. Try not to panic so much that it becomes embarassing.

Our Friends, the Saudis

The Danish Cartoon Imbroglio continues with nutballs outraged that Moslems are portrayed as threatening killers going out killing and threatening.

But why, you may ask, did this stir so little murderous outrage at the purported mischaracterization of jihadi nutballery back in the fall of 2005 but seems so very important to the assorted nuballs now?

Well, you'd have to remember that the civil war of Islam is taking place within Saudi Arabia. The Saudis fight the jihadis on the one hand but others love them to pieces:

The issue of the cartoons provided the Saudi royal family with an unprecedented opportunity to reinforce their Muslim leadership role and warn the West of Saudi willingness and ability to mobilize Muslims – violently if necessary - against the "enemies of Islam." Knowing that Muslims will rise against anyone who defames their Prophet or religion, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia called an urgent summit meeting of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) in Mecca on December 7, 2005, ostensibly to discuss religious extremism and the image of Islam, with the leaders of the world's 57 Muslim nations.

Playing its hand cleverly and stealthily, the Saudis used the Mecca conference to spark violent reactions to the four-month-old cartoons and eclipse other significant events the Saudis wanted to cover up (see Hassan M. Fattah's report in the New York Times, "At Mecca Meeting, Cartoon Outrage Crystallized," February 9, 2006). "It was no big deal [the cartoons] until the Islamic Conference, when the OIC took a stance against it," said Muhammad el-Sayed Said, deputy director of the Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo.

And the Saudis know we will not stand for this longer than we need to. They are sucking up to the Chinese to get a fallback protector. As the Saudis did 20-30 years ago when it looked like we might not be up to standing up to the Soviets, if I recall (the Saudis bought 18 or so Chinese intermediate range ballistic missiles back then).

I still say that if we play our cards right in Iraq and Iran, one day Shia Arabia may solve this dilemma for us.

APpalling

The Associated Press FOIA request has dumped the names of those we hold in Guanatanamo into the public domain. The article links to the information, too.

I am appalled at this release of information.

Score one for the enemy:

In essence, the Department of Defense 's efforts to protect the families of detainees, who cooperate, from retaliation, has been set back. In addition to that, as the names get named, it will become much easier for al Qaeda to figure out what the United States probably knows, giving the terrorist organization a huge counter-intelligence coup.

Hutchison's conclusion:

The magnitude of this counter-intelligence coup is staggering considering some of the high-level al Qaeda personnel the United States is known to have in custody. The revelations forced by the Associated Press's FOIA request could be compared with the Japanese knowing about American code breaking efforts in 1942, or if Germany knew of the similar code-breaking efforts during the Battle of the Atlantic, which lasted from 1939 to 1945. This is knowledge that is crucial to the war on terrorism, and now al Qaeda knows the United States has that information. This will lead to counter-measures on the part of the terrorist group – and the United States will face increased vulnerability to attacks as a result.

NPR reporters who could not imagine any legitimate reason to keep the information secret may feel safer now. I sure don't.

The Time We Have and Not the Time We Wish

Christopher Hitchens (via Real Clear Politics) thinks that the only way out of the Iran nuclear problem is to engage the Iranians and prepare for the day when reasonable people take over from the nutballs:

The aging mullahs might claim this as a capitulation, which would be hard to bear. But how right would they be? The pressure for a new constitution and genuine elections is already building. Within less than a decade, we might be negotiating with a whole new generation of Iranians. Iran would have less incentive to disrupt progress in Iraq (and we should not forget that it has been generally not unhelpful in Afghanistan). Eventually, Iran might have a domestic nuclear program (to which it is fully entitled and which would decrease its oil-dependency) and be ready to sign a nonproliferation agreement with enforceable and verifiable provisions. American technical help would be available for this, since it was we who (in a wonderful moment of Kissingerian "realism") helped them build the Bushehr reactor in the first place.

Just a thought.

Can't say I think much of the thought, though in theory it might be possible. Even if Hitchens isn't mirror imaging the mullahs and making their motives seem more rational as we understand rational than they actually are, we simply don't have the time to conduct this strategy.

Nor do I think the assumption that Iran's pro-American people will automatically rally to the mullahs if we strike is necessarily accurate.

Come on people, Iran is a threat enough with cash and conventional weapons at their disposal. How much more evil will they be with nukes? I do not find it acceptable to let Iran have nukes for a decade on the assumption that the nutballs won't use them for evil purposes prior to retiring and turning their weapons over to the League of Iranian Women Voters or something.

And we need to solve this problem in the time we have--not the time we wish we had.

Martyr Bait

Via Winds of Change, we are sending Special Ops AC-130 gunships to Iraq:

The U.S. Air Force has begun moving heavily armed AC-130 airplanes the lethal "flying gunships" of the Vietnam War to a base in Iraq as commanders search for new tools to counter the Iraqi resistance, The Associated Press has learned.

I'm sure our military is pushing the Vietnam comparison to ensure reporters will back the idea that the planes are designed to fight in Iraq. But more recently, these gunships were useful in El Salvador to decimate communist rebels as they attacked what they believed to be vulnerable Salvadoran army units tromping through the bush. American advisors with the government units who carried radios called in the gunships and tore apart the enemy as they massed and tried to hit isolated Salvadoran units. And they did this even as our press went into full victory dance mode every time they caught an advisor carrying an M-16! Their radios were the real weapon yet our press had no clue.

So, since these planes were based elsewhere when used in Iraq, why are they going to Iraq now?

Are they really to support Iraqi security forces fighting jihadis and Sunnis when they rarely seem to operate in units larger than squad size? What are they going to do, fire up located IEDs? And if for Iraq, why not base them outside Iraq as before? As for their recon ability? Please. Send these rare planes when we have drones to do that job?

I don't know, but I think CENTCOM has different plans for these planes. Perhaps for deep inside Iran, where we are making it clear that we will not accept pretend European victories that cloak our surrender over the nuclear issue in nice words and detailed wax stamps affixed liberally to hide how complete the surrender is.

If we have special forces crawling around inside Iran when the bombs start falling and/or the revolution begins, our snake eaters will appreciate the firepower these planes provide for killing large numbers of enemies.

And I refuse to believe our president sought reelection to preside over the completion of Iran's threat to our future. We will act. And these gunships will play a role.

And it could be soon. The next couple weeks should be tense.

UPDATE: I suppose we might be looking real tactical and just want a system inside Iraq that can loiter, spot the shipments of shaped-charge IEDs that Iran is sending into Iraq, and then light them up with precise gunfire.

Unreal

George Will is ready to call it quits in Iraq. He is shocked apparently that the enemy fights back. He is unimpressed with the fact that Iraqis did not descend into civil war after the Samarra shrine bombing, and in need of victories so obvious that even he will see them. Will is correct that wars are not won by avoiding disasters as we did regarding the Samarra attack--though that is certainly necessary. But can he not see the progress we make in Iraq? Is he truly unaware of how far we've come?

And more importantly, can Will truly see the overall war as not progressing favorably? I only really want to address Will's conclusion on this aspect:

Today, with all three components of the "axis of evil" -- Iraq, Iran and North Korea -- more dangerous than they were when that phrase was coined in 2002, the country would welcome, and Iraq's political class needs to hear, as a glimpse into the abyss, presidential words as realistic as those Britain heard on June 4, 1940.

This is unreal. We're into Cindy Sheehanland, here.

We've pulled Iraq out of the enemy column and though we must fight now to keep it friendly, the progress we make every day means that in a relatively short time we will be able to first pull back our troops and then even draw down our troops, and have an ally fighting our common enemies with us. Iraq will be an asset in the hands of allies rather than an enemy that threatens to break out and become a major threat to us, our allies, and the Middle East as would have been under Saddam.

If we pull out now, Iraq's government could probably win through a bloodbath as long as we can keep foreign powers from intervening on their favorite side's behalf. We might not like the process but Iraq would still be out of the enemy column and would fight our enemies out of sheer survival instincts. We'd lack an example of democracy for broader soft power purposes, but we'd have a narrow win still.

North Korea is no more a nuclear threat now than in 2002. And it is in fact weaker today. At least we have mobilized allies to confront North Korea. We have navies around the world looking for their shipments of nukes. We have pulled our troops off of the DMZ to end their hostage role, and we've solidified our alliance with Japan and boosted missile defense at sea to guard against the North Koreans. And every year the North Korean military gets weaker relative to us and the regime support internally erodes. So we have not reversed the gains Pyongyang made in the 1990s? Just how high a price is Will prepared to pay? North Korea is a containable threat, I've long believed, as long as we squeeze them. They will collapse in time if we can isolate them. the Soviet Union of 1970 was stronger than the USSR of 1950 or 1960, but by 1990, the Soviet Union had lost its Eastern European empire and was on the verge of disappearing.

As for Iran, though they get closer to nukes they do not appear to be there yet. And the Euros had their chance to apply soft power to solve the issue. In the meantime, we've rebuilt our stocks of precision weapons and have had years to cultivate contacts inside Iran (please tell me our CIA isn't so inept that it can't do this). Is Iran worse now than in 2002? Strictly speaking, yes. But the failure has been in the soft power path. And this failure is not beyond retrieving with sterner measures. Remember, we are trying to stop Iran from going nuclear--it does not matter if we stop them five days before they go nuclear or five years. Iran does not get points for getting close. So hold off on the final judgment here.

Retreat too often in the face of committed and ruthless enemies as we did in the 1990s, and you will hear echoes of a different Churchillian speech where we will vow to fight our enemies on our beaches, in our hills, in our airports, and in our malls.

Dude, loosen the bow tie. It's clearly a little tight.

UPDATE: Ok, that last line was out of bounds. I actually respect Will although I've never been a particular fan. I only correct typos or grammar if I reread something and find it is too unclear (like the pronouns don't clearly indicate what they are referring to). By keeping even dumb or wrong things in place, I hope I encourage self-moderation--except when something really needs a good rant, of course.

You Want to Run That By Me Again?

So, we worry that Iran is pursuing nuclear programs for the purpose of building nuclear weapons.

Iran insists they just want nuclear energy.

And when we threaten Iran with unspecified consequences for continuing their nuclear programs outside of IAEA parameters, the Iranians respond:

"If Iran's nuclear dossier is referred to the U.N. Security Council, (large-scale) uranium enrichment will be resumed," Iran's top negotiator, Ali Larijani, told reporters in Tehran. "If they want to use force, we will pursue our own path."

He said Iran had exhausted "all peaceful ways" and that if demands were made contrary to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the nation "will resist."

Larijani said Iran will not abandon nuclear research, or back down from pursuing an atomic program that Tehran insists has the sole purpose of generating electricity with nuclear reactors.

So let me get this straight, in response to our warnings, the Iranians are threatening to go all out to produce nuclear-generated electricity?

Either the Iranians have a lot to learn about how to issue threats or we have a lot to learn about just what exactly the Iranians are up to.

So really, does anybody actually think Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons? Don't be shy, speak up.

A Journalist Once, And Young ...

What is Galloway thinking when he says this about the Iraq War (via Real Clear Politics)?

I keep coming back to the failure to properly arm and protect our soldiers, and to send enough of them in the beginning to get the job done and keep the lid on a huge, fractious country with 25 million people with even more old hatreds. When a soldier in Kuwait challenged him on the issue of vehicle protection, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld replied: ''You have to go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want.''

At the time, Rumsfeld was sending American divisions to Iraq without their Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles, and sending their crews out to patrol the most dangerous roads in the world in light Humvees.


Some 60 percent of our casualties in Iraq have been from the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that any idiot can plant beside or beneath a highway or road or city street and then hit the call button on a cell phone when an American convoy drives into the kill zone.

Three years into the war, the Pentagon only now has named a retired four-star general to head a search for technical solutions to the enemy's prime weapon.

History is going to judge these men harshly for what they did, and also for what they did not do, when the lives of American soldiers and the future of Americans yet unborn were in their hands.

Is Galloway blind? What Army and what war is he seeing, because it sure isn't the US Army and it sure isn't the Iraq War.

Let's go over a couple things, shall we?

The idea that our troops went into Iraq poorly armed is sheer idiocy. The related notion that our troops were poorly protected is idiocy draped over idiocy. Our troops were (and are) the best equipped and best trained force on the planet. From our armored vehicles to our communications to our body armor to our logistics, we are unmatched. And our government has rushed improved equipment into the field at remarkable speeds to adapt to new conditions.

As for sending sufficient troops, we sent enough to dismantle the regular Iraqi military in record time with minimal casualties. As for the idea that we needed to have enough to keep the lid on a huge fractious country I can only say hogwash. We face Sunni enemies hiding among the 5 million Sunnis who did not easily accept losing control after centuries of neck-stomping privileges. Well-armed with lots of money, these enemy forces have had an impact all out of proportion to their numbers. And for an insufficient force, it has done just fine keeping the enemy atomized after three years with more Iraqi troops coming on line every month. Does Galloway even remember the Ia Drang Valley? That we fought an NVA division? And that facing enemy platoons in attack on our forces is virtually unheard of today?

And please remember that the soldier in question at the press conference was fed the question by a journalist and the accusation that the troops had to scrounge metal from junk yards was bull.

Moving on to the the issue of patrolling in Humvees instead of heavy armor, please recall that in the aftermath of the invasion, critics of the war effort were deriding the Army for all the heavy armor it had and were urging the troops to put on their soft caps and patrol in shirt sleeves. How quickly the critics switch their complaints and forget their opposite complaints.

As for the IEDs, yes they are a problem. In part because our troops were so well trained and equipped that the enemy learned it could not attack us with small arms and expect to live. Further, IEDs show in part how the armor hype was always stupidly short-sighted. Today the enemy uses shaped charges and larger bombs that overpower even armored Humvees. We do in fact detect and stop far more IEDs than we used to--so technology is advancing our way as is our experience in spotting the IEDs and making life difficult for those planting them. But with more IEDs planted as the enemy shied away from direct attacks and those used larger, the deaths remain constant. The key is training and going after the bomb makers and money guys who finance them. This we are doing, too, and it may not be as glamorous as some wonder device produced under the direction of a senior officer in charge, but it is what will work in the end.

He was a journalist once. I don't know what Galloway is now. If Galloway keeps coming back to his tired and wrong points to draw faulty conclusions, history will judge him pretty harshly--notwithstanding his bravery and eloquence in the Ia Drang Valley.

I'm pretty confident that history will judge our troops and leaders pretty damned well for the job they've done so far in Iraq and the victory they are bleeding to give us--if only we will shut the ef up long enough for them to do the job.

It May Not Matter

Is this a sign that we anticipate that non-insane Iranians will run Iran before the pipelines are built?

[President] Bush said Musharraf raised the need for Pakistan to secure a natural gas supply from the region to fuel its growing economy.

"He explained to me the natural gas situation here in this country. We understand the need to get natural gas in the region, that's fine," Bush said.

The United States had previously said it was "absolutely opposed" to the natural gas pipeline project linking Iran with Pakistan and India.

Pakistan and India are negotiating with Iran on the gas price and project structure. The three nations will meet this month for the first time to finalize strategy over the 2,600-kilometre (1,600-mile) pipeline costing more than seven billion dollars.

Otherwise it makes little sense to encourage a project that gives Iran income to withstand sanctions--as if China and Russia would allow them anyway. Which, as I mentioned, is probably good for us.

I have to wonder what else regarding Iran we discussed with India and Pakistan during the President's trip.

The Tyranny of Inflexibility

The Navy is supreme in the world's deep blue waters and resists efforts to move into the green coastal waters and brown inland rivers.

I've written that we need to push our Navy close to shore and that smaller surface vessels and diesel-electrics subs are useful for this role:

Our Navy is supreme in the blue waters. The brown waters could use a little attention, I think. I think these vessels could also be of use in the Taiwan Strait, for that matter, along with the new LCS and LSC classes. Based out of Guam or Okinawa, they could make the trip to the Taiwan Strait and bring American power directly into the contested body of water.

Modern diesel-electrics would be useful in this role, too.

Yet our Navy resists non-nuclear boats, even obstructing Taiwan's acquisition of submarines to avoid setting the stage for American non-nuclear boats replacing nuclear boats.

The most recent Naval Institute Proceedings has an article by Norman Polmar arguing for building American diesel-electrics both for special littoral work and for training our forces to fight increasingly capable non-nuclear boats out there.

Polmar argues that the traditional reason for opposing these non-nuclear boats and keeping nuclear boats is the transit issue (reflecting the "tyranny of distance": the nearly constant factor of fighting far from home that we must always overcome. An advantage in that we do not face major threats close by, to be sure, but a real limiting factor for projecting our power), which I've acknowledged. That is, patrol areas are so far from our ports that conventionally powered subs take too long to get to their patrol stations.

However, there is no reason these boats have to transit from the continental United States for each mission. Why not base them near their patrol areas and fly in the crews as we do for smaller patrol vessels that have similar transit issues?

Honestly, debate the value of the diesel-electrics and if they are worth acquiring, use a little innovation--that we are already doing for small surface combatants--to make them part of our arsenal.

Why I'd Never Trade Places with China

In addtion to the close American-Australian alliance and the growing American-Indian friendship, we can add a growing Indian-Australian relationship.

Australia's Prime Minister Howard is visiting India to sign agreements:

"India is an increasingly influential global and regional player whose interests converge with Australia's ... the discussions I will have while in India will add impetus to our growing strategic relationship," Howard said in a statement.

During Howard's visit, his second official trip to the country as prime minister, he will meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, various cabinet ministers and Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi.

"During my visit it is anticipated that a number of agreements will be signed in various fields including trade, defence, science and air services," he said.

Add to this the strengthening alliance between America and Japan and we have a very solid basis for keeping an eye on China. All of these nations have reason to be wary of China's rising (for now) power.

And with these powers cooperating, other nations can more safely gravitate toward friendship with us without worrying about being all on their own to face China.

Add in smaller powers like Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia (well not in population), Philippines, Taiwan, and South Korea, and the Chinese will need an awful lot of power to keep from being hemmed in if they prove hostile.

Democracy is a Process

In light of Argentinian aggressiveness toward the Falklands, I wondered what is going on in Latin America. But I concluded there is nothing in particular to worry about:

Chile's outgoing president says there is nothing to worry about with leftists leaders coming to power in the region. I agree that leftist governments are no reason to worry in isolation. Free elections are free elections. As long as those continue, the voters can change their minds. But whackjobs like Chavez in power, Aristide pining for his half of the island, and Argentina probing the Falklands don't exactly comfort me.

And just in time to reassure me comes my Strategic Studies Institute email update with an op-ed on this very subject:

The effects will differ from country to country. Milder forms of leftist rule, such as those of Lula in Brazil, will be moderately successful. More outrageous forms of populism, such as those of Chavez in Venezuela, eventually will fail, brought low by their own internal contradictions, notably corruption and inefficiency. Those leaders that succeed will be reelected. Those that fail will be voted out, if democracy continues to be their political system.

This is how a democratic system is supposed to work. The people elect representatives. These representatives are then rated by how well they have done. Their future depends on their success. If they fail, they are replaced by someone different who might be able to do the job.

Unfortunately, some populist leaders such as Chavez and others tolerate violence in the streets. This violence is at times orchestrated against their opponents and sometimes tolerated because these leaders are unwilling to defend the rule of law. This lack of respect for opponents and willingness to use violence continue to cause problems, delegitimizing democratic authority and governance.

As long as Latin America remains democratic and some leaders fail to address the underlying causes of underdevelopment, the right and the left will rotate while each country seeks a solution. We should be cautiously optimistic that the Latin Americans are seeking solutions through the ballot box and that the left has returned and is willing to compete responsibly through elections rather than violence.

Focus on keeping the process of elections and rule of law going. Don't worry about particular results as long as the democratic framework is intact. Remember, in the long run it is the fact of democracy and rule of law that benefits us, not the short-term effects of particular candidates or parties winning.

But by all means, keep an eye on Axis of El Vil member Hugo Chavez as he destroys a once viable nation and strives to become an actual threat to us and the region.

Pressed Up Beyond All Recognition

In the last several days I've noticed that the aftermath of the Samarra bombing seemed to look suspiciously like Moqtada al Sadr intrigue and the press reporting the usual violence of war as a brewing civil war.

General Casey noted these facts about the last week or so:

In general, Iraqi security force leaders took the initiative early on in moving to full alert and to securing key sites. In eight of the 18 provinces in Iraq, there was little to no reaction to the bombing, and this includes Anbar province, which as you know has been one of the most difficult challenges that we've wrestled with. In eight other provinces, there were demonstrations and there was militia activity, but it was quickly contained by Iraqi police and by the Iraqi army. And this demonstrates a maturing capability to cooperate and operate effectively in providing domestic order, and we saw this in several places around the country.


In Baghdad and Basra, where our security response was also strong, it did take the Iraqi security forces a few days to settle the situation, and this with the assistance of the coalition forces in a supporting role.


Now I think it's important to note here that in all cases, Iraqi security ministries and Iraqi security force leadership directed the operations, and the coalition responded in a supporting and assisting role.


Additionally, the Iraqi transitional government reacted to the situation by imposing curfews and driving vans, making public calls for calm, and these also assisted in bringing down the levels of violence.


The second point I'd like to make and to address is the levels of violence themselves.


Candidly, in the initial days following the bombing, these days were kind of a confusing jumble of exaggerated reporting that actually took us a few days to kind of sort through.


What did we find?


First of all, the overall levels of violence did not increase substantially as a result of the bombing. In fact, the levels of violence the week after the violence -- the week after the bombing were comparable to the two previous weeks.


Second, the nature of the violence did, in fact, change with attacks on mosques and civilian killings increasing initially and then gradually tapering off.


We can confirm about 30 attacks on mosques around the country, with less than 10 of those mosques moderately damaged and only two or three of those mosques severely damaged.

Violence contained by mostly Iraqi forces, violence not at unusual levels, mosque attacks hardly widespread and serious, and Sadr areas of Baghdad and Basra suspiciously conspicuous.

The press went in determined to report a civil war brewing and darned if they didn't report on just that. The press is basically worthless as a means of reporting on events. In their rush to analyze our reporters can't be bothered to notice the basic facts. A real PUBAR, if you ask me.

We should abolish every journalism school in America and replace them with 3-credit-hour typing classes.

UPDATE: Ralph Peters (via Instapundit) calls out the journalists as he travels around Baghdad vainly looking for the civil war the press insists is imminent (again that word) or ongoing:

So why were we told that Iraq was irreversibly in the throes of civil war when it wasn't remotely true? I think the answers are straightforward. First, of course, some parties in the West are anxious to believe the worst about Iraq. They've staked their reputations on Iraq's failure.

But there's no way we can let irresponsible journalists off the hook - or their parent organizations. Many journalists are, indeed, brave and conscientious; yet some in Baghdad - working for "prestigious" publications - aren't out on the city streets the way they pretend to be.

They're safe in their enclaves, protected by hired guns, complaining that it's too dangerous out on the streets. They're only in Baghdad for the byline, and they might as well let their Iraqi employees phone it in to the States. Whenever you see a column filed from Baghdad by a semi-celeb journalist with a "contribution" by a local Iraqi, it means this: The Iraqi went out and got the story, while the journalist stayed in his or her room.

And the Iraqi stringers have cracked the code: The Americans don't pay for good news. So they exaggerate the bad.

And some of them have agendas of their own.

To quote Frozone of The Incredibles, the press look like bad guys--incompetent bad guys.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit readers. Feel free to use the term "PUBAR" when describing the woefully inadequate skills of our media. I swear, if it's big and green, our reporters think it's a "tank," and if it is American they think it is losing ...

Living Through Interesting Times

China is not destined to be a world-class power (via NRO):

Party membership and business acumen do not often go together. Because of the party’s fixation with high growth, government officials are rewarded for delivering, or appearing to deliver, precisely that. This incentive structure fuels a massive misallocation of capital to “image projects” (such as new factories, luxury shopping malls, recreational facilities, and unnecessary infrastructure) that burnish local officials’ records and strengthen their chances of promotion. The results of these mistakes—gleaming office complexes, industrial parks, landscaped highways, and public squares—tend to impress Western visitors, who view them as further proof of China’s economic prowess.

The Chinese economy is not merely inefficient; it has also fallen victim to crony capitalism with Chinese characteristics—the marriage between unchecked power and illicit wealth. And corruption is worst where the hand of the state is strongest. The most corrupt sectors in China, such as power generation, tobacco, banking, financial services, and infrastructure, are all state-controlled monopolies. None of that is unprecedented, of course. Tycoons in Russia, after all, have looted the state’s natural resources. China, at least, boasts genuine private entrepreneurs who have built prosperous companies. But China’s politically connected tycoons have cashed in on China’s real estate boom; nearly half of Forbes’ list of the 100 richest individuals in China in 2004 were real estate developers.

I've noted that we should not panic over recent Chinese economic growth, including here. To repeat, putting the most efficient peasant into the most inefficient factory will increase productivity statistics and GDP considerably. When this cheap input to the economy runs out, as it did for the Soviets, productivity will stall. Do we really think the communists of China have figured out the key to capitalist success? With such corruption? And pollution? With an aging population? And growing unrest?

A China collapsing is almost as bad a prospect as a hostile and powerful China. The race between these two outcomes in the decades ahead will be interesting times, indeed.

Of course, as I've also noted, just because China probably won't become a peer competitor doesn't mean they can't also be a threat to us.

But let's not worry before we need to worry--and before we know what we need to worry about.

Spare Me Their "Analysis"

As the aftermath of the Samarra shrine bombing has been reported, the analysis seemed very off. I noted this a couple days ago:

These two articles quoted by Instapundit highlight another feeling I've had since the bombing of the shrine: that the press is simply reporting on violence that has been ongoing in Iraq but are now ascribing Samarra as the cause and concluding that the civil war is nigh. And of course they continue to ignore progress in the midst of war.

Really, I did not get a feeling from the facts reported that the Shias were about to go postal on the Sunnis. Anger, yes. Tension, yes. But also restraint. And possible opportunity to forge a real Sunni-Shia alliance against the foreign jihadis and perhaps Iranian influence.

Strategypage notes the lack of civil war and the opportunities:

While the American media was discussing the likelihood of a sectarian civil war in Iraq, and at least one major commentator declared that Iraq was a lost cause, the Iraqi people took a much different course and appear to be on the way to proving them wrong. In some areas, local Shiites guarded Sunni mosques from retaliatory attacks. A Sunni group teamed up with the national government to donate $2.8 million to restore the mosque. These events were not reported in the MSM, but did get coverage from Kuwaiti media, and were reported in the blogosphere.

Short version – what was supposed to cause a civil war has instead pretty much pushed the Iraqis together. In essence, the bombing of the mosque has turned into a major self-inflicted defeat for Zarqawi. As a result, Zarqawi's days are numbered, since he is now losing staff while in increasingly hostile territory.

And Mickey Kaus (via Instapundit) notes that the press seemed determined to report on the civil war they've been sure was imminent for three years now:

Excitable Times in Ruins! Did the New York Times really run a story last week headlined:

More Clashes Shake Iraq; Political Talks Are in Ruins

"Ruins"? Wow. That is embarrassing. ... The hed was repeated in the story's lede, which said that "political negotiations over a new government" were "in ruins." Funny thing, though--in today's NYT, negotiations seem to be going on again. Those Iraqi "ruins" get picked up pretty quickly. ... P.S.: I'm not saying Bill Keller's** headline and lede writers were amping up the Iraq hysteria in order to manufacture another Tet. Maybe they just have no judgment or perspective. It's bleeding obvious that when a Sunni delegation announces it is "suspending talks" in reaction to some awful sectarian attacks, that doesn't mean talks won't be un-suspended after a decent interval. ... In this case it took 48 hours. ... [Thanks to Mudville Gazette for pointing out the NYT howler.]

I am truly sick and tired of our journalists trying to analyze instead of report. They went to journalism school for pete's sake--they are not as a rule experts on the military, history, or anything else. They simply give their opinions and stroke their own egos by imagining they are explaining a complex situation to the rubes at home. Please. They barely are capable of telling us "who , what, when, and where" without bollixing the whole thing up with lame attempts at "why."

I've long said that using our media is only useful if you already know about the topic and region in order to sift out the crap from the actual information. How else could I listen to NPR all these years?

Oh Calcutta!

The long period when America and India were on opposite sides due to the distorting effects of the Cold War is at an end. Our ties have been warming and with Islamists and Chinese as common concerns, we are setting the stage for alliance.

President Bush is in India recognizing India's acceptance despite their nuclear capabilities demonstrated in 1998:

Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced the deal, which will open most Indian reactors to international inspections and provide the growing nation with U.S. nuclear technology, during a joint news conference after meeting privately to hammer out details.

"We made history," Singh said of the deal that will aid India's quest for more global influence.

Under the accord, the United States will share its nuclear know-how and fuel with India to help power its fast-growing economy. It represents a major shift in policy for the United States, which imposed temporary sanctions on India in 1998 after it conducted nuclear tests.

And in what is surely a most dense assessment, some worry about the impact on Iran and North Korea:

Critics said the deal undermines the Nuclear Nonproliferation Agreement, which India won't sign. And they say it sends the wrong signal to leaders of North Korea and Iran, who have snubbed their noses at international calls to halt their nuclear weapons programs.

Signal? Just what signal would stop two psychopathic regimes that hate us from going nuclear and then trying to use nukes against us or our allies?

Me? I like the signal very much. We aren't refelxively against non-Westerners getting nuclear technology or even weapons. We are against nutcases getting nukes. I like that signal very much.

And India is acting like an ally already, joining anti-piracy patrols in the Strait of Malacca:

Joining the patrol is seen as India's way of getting involved with the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI). India has originally declined to get involved with PSI, which is a multi-national naval effort that spots and stops aircraft and ships in international waters, and searches them for illegal weapons. Aircraft would be forced down at a participating country. India did not want to be one of those participating countries. But now that it's on the straights patrol, it is likely to participate in ship searches.

Funny how Chinese oil imports go this way. Probably a coincidence.

The two largest democracies had no business being on the opposite sides of a conflict. May our alliance deepen in the years ahead.

UPDATE: The Department of Defense has commented on the latest developments:

Defense trade and technology cooperation are vital components of our defense relationship. These will serve key objectives of our strategic partnership by helping to build ties among our defense establishments and industries and to develop interoperability among our armed forces. Defense technology cooperation will contribute to strengthened military capabilities and will also result in economic benefits through expanded trade.

It is our goal to help meet India’s needs in the defense realm, and to provide important capabilities and technologies that India seeks. We are on a path to accomplish this. Where only a few years ago, no one would have talked about the prospects for a major U.S.-India defense deal, today the prospects are promising, whether in the realm of combat aircraft, helicopters, maritime patrol aircraft, or naval vessels.

India lies astride China's sea lines of communication to the Gulf and Africa where China is investing in contacts with the region's rogues to supply them with oil and natural resources.

With new friends like India, explain to me again why we should care what Belgians think?

Misplaced Confidence

Strategypage writes that the Iranians are confident that Russia and China will keep the UN Security Council from taking "action:"

Production of nuclear material has started, the UN knows about it, and Iran doesn't care. Iran says it will promise not to develop nuclear weapons if the United States and the rest of the word got rid of theirs. Iran appears pretty confident that China and Russia will provide diplomatic support of the UN tries to stop Iranian nuclear weapons developments via sanctions.

Of course, somebody else had similar confidence in China, Russia, and France. It didn't work out so well for him.

Really, Iran should welcome and not block the UN route. Iran can survive the UN route. As Saddam did. What they can't withstand is an America that decides the UN is of no use in stopping the Iranian nuclear threat. Like we did with Saddam.

Truly Baffling

I mean, really, when an absolute despot can't just order the killing of anyone he wants by his minions, where's the justice?

A defiant Saddam Hussein admitted in court Wednesday that he ordered the trial of 148 Shiites eventually executed in the 1980s, but he insisted that doing so was legal because they were suspected in an assassination attempt against him.

"Where is the crime? Where is the crime?" Saddam asked, standing before the panel of five judges.

"If trying a suspect accused of shooting at a head of state — no matter what his name is — is considered a crime, then you have the head of state in your hands. Try him," Saddam said, arguing that his co-defendants should be released because he was in charge.

His dramatic courtroom speech came a day after prosecutors in his trial presented a presidential decree with a signature they said was Saddam's approving death sentences for the 148 Shiites, their most direct evidence against him so far in the four-month trial.

So when does Ramsey Clarke call Vice President Cheney as a witness?

Soup Nazis

Some French are making a small show of defiance against the "aliens" in their society--the Jews and Moslems (via Winds of Change):

More than 200 political demonstrators defied a police ban here on Thursday, scurrying across Boulevard St.-Germain and under the sycamore trees of Place Maubert to engage in their forbidden action: eating "pig soup" in public.

With steaming bowls of the fragrant broth soon passing through the crowd, Odile Bonnivard, a short-haired secretary turned far-right firebrand, climbed atop a dark sedan with a megaphone in hand and led the crowd in a raucous chant: "We are all pig eaters! We are all pig eaters!"

Identity soup, as the broth has come to be called, is one of the stranger manifestations of a growing grass-roots backlash against the multiculturalism that has spread through Europe over the past 20 years. People are increasingly challenging the care taken in Nazi-chastened Europe, and in France in particular, to avoid the sort of racial or religious insults that led to widespread protests in the Muslim world this month after wide publication of cartoons considered offensive to the Prophet Muhammad.

Really, this is just a small sign that the Europeans are capable of rousing themselves to stomp their enemies and accept the man (or committee) on horseback to save themselves.

It is starting with soup. It will end with mass expulsions and bloodshed. The radical jihadi Moslems in Europe think they are picking on wimps. If the Moslem community doesn't get these loudmouths under control, they will find out that Europe has not forgotten their Crusader past and their very real natural genius for war and brutality.

And hey, if I didn't use this title someone else would have.

Oh Great. Someone Feeds My Worries

It isn't just me who thinks the European Union is a proto-dictatorship whose final face will be brutality:

Vladimir Bukovksy, the 63-year old former Soviet dissident, fears that the European Union is on its way to becoming another Soviet Union. In a speech he delivered in Brussels last week Mr Bukovsky called the EU a “monster” that must be destroyed, the sooner the better, before it develops into a fullfledged totalitarian state.

Of course, as Bukovsky describes it, this is not a bug but a feature of the whole project--blessed by the old Soviet Union desperate to gain friends to keep their teetering empire afloat.

Of Mice and Imam

Transterrestrial Musings comments on this article noting that a cultural advisor to the Iranian education minister believes the cartoon Tom and Jerry is a Jewish plot.

Apparently, those who study the deep and varied details of Jew hatred know that showing cartoon mice in a good light is all about rehabilitating the image of Jews. I confess I did not suspect this angle.

If it was up to me, I wouldn't let these mullah nutballs have sharp objects let alone nukes.

Blue Balls

Our Navy is unmatched on the globe's blue water. Our problem is in getting close to shore to fight in the brown water. For this we need not carrier battlegroups but small ships and boats plus naval infantry to get into the reeds and swamps. Sadly, these assets don't provide quite the contract bang for the buck.

The advocates for building a Navy large enough to defeat every other naval power on the globe whether friendly or not while still having enough force to respond to every Katrina and Boxing Day tsunami are fighting hard:

Ten carriers would still be sufficient for a major contingency or two (like China and Iran). Unfortunately, the Navy's staunchest "friends" -- the veterans, the Navy League, the slovenly shipbuilders – all would like to keep building as if the Imperial Japanese Navy were still out there. This "carrier lobby" has been actively blocking navy attempts to restructure the fleet to better deal with new tasks. It's another case of the "Industrial-Congressional Complex" pushing its own agenda at the expense of the troops and the country.

We can smash anybody that dares fight us at sea. Period. Talk to the contrary is just ridiculous and flat out contradicted by the reality that we have more than half of the world's naval power. Really, the cries of doom by some Navy advocates are pretty ballsy if you ask me.