Brotherhood Has Limits

I've worried that the Iraqi Kurds might foolishly decide to fight the Iraqi government and abandon their prosperous path within Iraq.

I've worried that sympathy for Turkish Kurds, or even Iranian Kurds if they bizarrely decide to fight us, could spark the Iraqi Kurds to become the next main armed threat to success in Iraq.

The Iraqi Kurds seem to have their heads screwed on correctly:

The Iraqi government declared that it did not support PKK violence against Turkey. In fact, the statement specified that the Kurdish regional government does not support PKK violence against Turkey – an even more explicit political message. The statement said that the Iraqi Kurdish government had no influence over the PKK but that solving the problem presented by the PKK required a political solution. All in all, this statement is another in a long string of statements where Iraq's central government and the Kurdish regional government distance themselves from the PKK.

Good. We have long been friends with Iraq's Kurds, and I think we can both benefit from that friendship. But it would be foolish for the Kurds of Iraq to think they can prosper as an isolated independent state with hostile neighbors all around them.

With the Iraqis chasing the al Qaeda types around Mosul and the Sadrists and Iranian puppet masters taking a beating in Baghdad and the south, the armed threats to the success of the Iraqi government appear to be dwindling.

The game is hardly over, mind you, but the trajectory to victory is getting clearer.

So Logically ...

The Taiwanese understand their problem:

China is building up its military defenses to deter U.S. intervention in case of war with Taiwan, the island's defense ministry said Monday.

Beijing is focusing on developing long-range missiles "to strike at American bases and battle carrier groups stationed in the Asia-Pacific...so as to block the United States from coming to the rescue of Taiwan should war break out in the Taiwan Strait," the ministry said in a report released Monday.

"Although the Chinese communists have claimed they would like to solve the Taiwan issues in a peaceful manner, they have asked their forces to step up preparation for military struggles against Taiwan," the report said.

That's right. It isn't that China is becoming stronger than America.

The problem, as I've tediously repeated for many years, is that China is becoming strong enough to deter American military power long enough for China to maintain a military advantage over Taiwan sufficient to conquer Taiwan.

We continue to work the problem of being able to rush forces to defend Taiwan. But we need to have something left on Taiwan to defend by the time we get there.

The Taiwanese, therefore, need to bolster their defenses long enough to hold off the Chinese for as long as we need to reach Taiwan in sufficient strength to resist the Chinese.

If the Taiwanese understanding of the problem is translated into actual military capabilities and psychological readiness to endure a Chinese assault and resist effectively, Taiwan will remain a free and prosperous democracy.

Heck, it might even prevent a war in the first place.

UPDATE: Mad Minerva sends me this article. I may have been hasty in judging that the Taiwanese understand their problem:

The report added that China's military strategy toward Taiwan was to use force to deter Taiwanese independence.

This would be done by launching blockades of Taiwan's outlying islands and sea lanes or launching a full-scale missile attack against Taiwan.

Good grief. The Taiwanese actually think that the Chinese would either isolate the offshore islands which don't affect Taiwan's security; would blockade Taiwan--which would result in a naval and air war off of Taiwan's east coast where Taiwan would have the greatest chance of victory given Taiwan's naval strength and the problem China would have projecting air and naval power to the far side of Taiwan; or would execute a drive-by shooting with a missile barrage that would do nothing but anger the Taiwanese. Even 1,500 missile warheads would be nothing on their own.

This delusional thinking does make it easier for Taiwan to believe they can hold off China until we can arrive--since the Taiwanese don't assume that the Chinese will actually try to win a war with Taiwan by invading.

So logically, the Taiwanese military is still clueless about the threat that looms over them. They have chosen to believe the Chinese will fight ineffectively should it come to war.

Good Lord ...

On top of Burma, which is reluctant to allow foreigners to save Burmese victims of the cyclone that ravaged that country (what is it about thug regimes that care less for their people than Westerners do?), now we have the Chinese dealing with a terrible earthquake that has killed nearly 9,000 people in Sichuan province.

It is early yet, however. Remember the initial reports out of Burma reported hundreds dead. Now it appears that tens of thousands died.

And unfortunately for the Burmese, the Chinese may now have their hands too full dealing with their own problem to help Burma much.

This is just horrible.

Getting Out of the Way

The "cease-fire" between the Sadrists and the Iraqi government just lasts four days. But it looks more like the Sadrists have just agreed to get out of the way while the mission of the government and US forces continues to grip Sadr City:

We have signed the agreement today," said Khalid al-Attiyah, the deputy parliamentary speaker from the main Shiite political bloc, United Iraqi Alliance.

Al-Attiyah said the cease-fire went into effect on Sunday and Iraqi forces will be allowed to enter the area as early as Wednesday and "take over the security there."

The statement said "the government will decide on the number of Iraqi forces to be deployed in Sadr City to achieve security, in order to refrain from asking help from foreign forces," a reference to the U.S. military.

"Any attack against residential areas, government offices and the Green Zone are prohibited from Sadr City or from another area," the agreement said.

The cease-fire stipulates that Iraqi forces have the right to "impose the law and to pursue illegal situations."

"No one and no side has the right to interfere in the work of these forces," it said, adding that the government retained the right to pursue "those who carried out armed attacks against the government."

Yet don't confuse getting out of the way with surrendering. The Sadrists are still there:

Sheik Salah al-Obeidi, an aide to al-Sadr, stressed that the Sadrists rejected conditions set by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to disband the Mahdi Army and hand over their weapons.

"We have agreed on cease-fire and to end displaying arms in public," al-Obeidi said. "But we did not agree on disbanding the Mahdi Army to hand over its weapons.

Short-term ceasefires that get the Sadrists out of the way while we continue the mission are no problem as long as we don't forget that in the end the Sadrists must be broken up.

Or do we want this in Iraq?

Heavy fighting broke out Monday between government supporters and opponents in Lebanon's second-largest city, where the two sides battled with rocket-propelled grenades, heavy machine guns and mortars, security officials and residents said.

Hizbollah, backed by Iran and Syria, is threatening the Lebanese state. It wasn't supposed to be this way, of course:

After the civil war ended in 1990, all of Lebanon's various militias surrendered their weapons and transformed into political parties, keeping only small arms. Only Hezbollah was allowed to keep its arms because it was considered a resistance movement battling Israel.

Yes, indeed. Who could disagree with "resisting" the Jews back then? And now Hizbollah seems to be more eager to fight Lebanese than Jews.

Do not let Sadr keep his militia. He may want to "resist" the Americans but in the end, backed by Iran, he will fight Iraqis.

Keep the mission in mind--defeat the pro-Iranian militias inside Iraq.

He is Admired

Our Left loves Hugo Chavez. No, don't bother to object. The record is clear. Our Left treats Hugo like a new Fidel.

And now we know for sure that Hugo is just another maniacal thug who plots to kill innocents and hates democracy:

Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez has been accused of many things: squandering his country's petroleum income, suppressing opposition media, using his army to intimidate the citizenry, compromising the populace's access to food and even exporting his brand of authoritarian socialism to neighbouring countries by means of publicity and under-the-table cash. Now documents recovered by Colombian soldiers from computers belonging to FARC, Columbia's drug-funded Leninist insurgency, suggest that Chávez may be actively undermining the sovereign government of his western neighbour. If that is the case, the Western Hemisphere may be about to gain its first internationally designated state sponsor of terrorism.

I used to mock Hugo as a member of the Axis of El Vil who sometimes seems to be bucking for a promotion to the full Axis of Evil. I used to think he was an annoyance who has to be ignored since we have real threats with jihadis.

With his sponsorship of terror and his ties to Ahmadinejad, we really need to think about how to kill Hugo before he actually does some damage to us. Let the sulfur he professes to smell be the JDAM bomb that kills him.

Hugo Chavez may be a buffoon but he is a very dangerous buffoon. Seriously, people. We need to treat him as a serious threat.

And we need to rub the noses of our Left in the crap this thug has dropped around the world so our Leftists will be careful who they honor and admire.

Ah, who am I kidding? Our Left will love Hugo even more when his crimes are fully publicized.

UPDATE: Counting the ways Hugo is loved:

The authenticity of the documents is challenged by Venezuela and FARC (but you could have guessed that without reading the article). Interpol will soon render its opinion on whether they are legitimate, but one government has already conducted a raid on a FARC facility identified in the documents--further bolstering their veracity (more on that at the Wall Street Journal). If the U.S. concludes they're legitimate, there will be serious pressure to name Venezuela a state sponsor of terror and cut off all trade with one of this nation's largest oil suppliers.

Beyond that, Democrats will have to answer for coddling this dictator. Joe Kennedy runs around extolling Chavez's virtues, Jimmy Carter disregards evidence that Chavez stole his 2004 victory, liberal actors kowtow to him for money, and Speaker Pelosi delivers on his top priority: defeat of the Colombia Free Trade Agreement. And all this occurs while FARC--with Chavez's help--is expanding its terrorist operations into Switzerland, Germany, and 15 other nations.

As long as Hugo keeps hating America, the global Left will never reject him. They're loyal like that.

The Suspense is Killing Me

Sadr doesn't seem so eager to continue the valiant "uprising" in Sadr City after watching (from afar) his militia being killed in large numbers every day. A cease-fire is going in effect, apparently:

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh expressed support Saturday for efforts aimed at "achieving order and security in Sadr City."

"The agreement represents the government's vision to end armed displays and purge al-Sadr City from roadside bombs and mines and impose the law in the city," al-Dabbagh said in a statement.

"Iraqi security forces are the only force to achieve this and the government has the right to raid and search any place suspected of possessing heavy or medium weapons," al-Dabbagh said. "The government is also committed to chase all wanted people under the supervision of the prime minister."

There was no immediate comment from the U.S. military on the reported deal.

The newly announced cease-fire comes after government-backed Shiite envoys set strict demands for Shiite militias to end their battles against Iraqi and U.S. forces in a meeting with al-Sadr's supporters on Thursday.

"A 10-point agreement has been reached between members from the United Iraqi Alliance and Sadrist movement in Baghdad and we are informed that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is committed to it," al-Obeidi said in the southern city of Najaf.

He added that "the agreement stipulates that the Mahdi Army will stop fighting in Sadr City and will stop displaying arms in public. In return, the government will stop random raids against al-Sadr followers and open all closed roads that lead to Sadr City."

The article mentions the militia as 60,000 strong. Given the press has said Sadr has 60,000 about 10,000 casualties or so ago (ok, I'm just grabbign a number out of the air, but you get my point) this seems unlikely. Like I've said before, this number is just one of those urban myths that gets passed along, gaining credibility every time it is printed.

So the Mahdi Army pulls off the streets and the government still will pursue the Shia thugs it wants to get--only so-called "random" raids will stop.

The war against the Iranian-backes Shia special groups will go on and the average Mahdi Army guys get to go home rather than get gunned down in battles against the Iraqi army and US Army backed by all our precise firepower that finds the SOBs whether they hide or set up next to hospitals.

I'm giddy with anticipation to see how the press will spin this as a Sadr victory on the Sunday news!

Spare a Little Nuance for Iran

Is it better to let Iran go nuclear and contain them, hoping somebody inside Iran will overthrow the mullahs?

Strategypage writes that the alternative of striking Iran won't work:

Stories about U.S. plans to bomb Iran are all smoke and no fire. For the clerical dictatorship in Iran, the best thing that could happen to them would be U.S. bombers attacking Iran. This would make the unpopular government popular, at least for a while, as most Iranians rallied to defend the motherland. But it's too good a headline to pass up, and the media keeps flogging it.

I suspect Strategypage is right on the assessment that we won't attack. I've spent to much time over the previous three years ending last spring writing about signs that seemed to indicate we were about to strike Iran. I gave up looking for "signs." Maybe this just means we successfully lulled the Iranians. More likely is that the dots I (and many others, both for and against the idea) being connected were actually completely unrelated.

But I disagree that attacking Iran would play into the mullahs' hands. Please note that Strategypage's assessment has evolved from saying an attack would bolster the mullahs to saying that strikes would bolster the mullahs "at least for a while." That's fair enough. Even some parts of our Left rallied around the flag after 9/11. That wore off in time, now didn't it?

Really, only ineffective military action helps an enemy. Bin Laden thought it would be swell for the cause if 9/11 prompted us to attack him in his remote Afghan hideout. But instead of ineffective cruise missiles, we liberated the whole country and sent him fleeing. Saddam, too, thought he could ride out an American attack in 2003 that would recoil from sending ground troops into Baghdad. Saddam hung from a noose until dead for that miscalculation.

An American attack on Iran should not focus narrowly on the nuclear programs. The attack should strike the foundations of the Iranian mullahs and be followed up with efforts to bolster opponents of the regime in Tehran with the aim of regime change. We can only buy time with an aerial campaign--we can't stop Iran from going nuclear if the mullah regime remains after the dust settles. But I'd rather have the time that an aerial campaign buys than not have it.

And so what if we even permanently anger Iranian public opinion as the price of stalling an Iranian nuclear program for even just several years? As long as these generally pro-American Iranian masses don't run Iran, if we don't strike Iran's nuclear programs and Iran uses the weapons produced, will you really draw any comfort at all that the Iranian people might be really, really sad that their mullahs nuked Charleston?

Yet the alternative to a very messy and risky aerial campaign against Tehran continues to be broached, the idea that we can contain Iran and deter them:

As an alternative to a military strike, commentators headed by syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer and Sen. Clinton advocate that the U.S. should counter Iran's nuclear threat with Cold War-style deterrence.

Clinton said last month that the United States could "totally obliterate" Iran if it attacked Israel with nuclear weapons. She also proposed extending America's nuclear "umbrella" to Arab states in the region to keep them from "going nuclear."

Deterrence in theory is fine. Heck, I think the correct response to North Korea's nuclear programs is containment, deterrence, and the gradual squeezing of that thug-regime until it collapses. I would not advocate a preemptive strike on North Korea's nuclear programs.

But North Korea is not as prone to crazy religious fervor as Iran is. Their elite is all about survival and prospering with Western luxuries no matter how much North Koreans suffer.

But how do you deter "Iran" when Iran is governed by a jostling array of factions ranging from conservative to moderate to Islamist nutballs, all lording it over a population that mostly doesn't like any of the rulers? Even our Left agrees with this description of Iran's governing elites since they insist that we should not hold Iran's government responsible for the Revolutionary Guards' support for Shia terrorism inside Iraq:

Recently, the Iraqi government sent a group of Shia politicians to Iran, to try and get this terrorism support stopped. The Iraqis brought with them evidence (documents, names, photos). The Iranians denied everything and sent the Iraqi politicians packing. Meanwhile, some members of the ruling elite in Iran are speaking openly about what a bad thing such interference is, but will not come right out and name names, much less insist that the Quds Force be reined in. The Iranian government did say that shutting down the Shia militias in Iraq was a good things. The Iraqi government took the hint (that the Quds Force activities was an internal matter for Iran), and stopped complaining openly. At least for now.

What does it even mean to deter an "Iran" that looks like this?

What it means is that deterring "Iran" from using nuclear weapons either directly or indirectly means we have to deter not the most reasonable elements of the ruling elites, but the most insane members. We must assume this because we have no idea whether the distasteful but still rational moderates or even conservatives control all the atomic weapons or whether the nutballs have even one atomic weapon.

Consider the Tanker War during the First Gulf War (as I call the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988). For many years the Iranian government acted rationally and avoided lashing out at neutral tankers too much despite the provocation of Iraq striking Iranian oil tanker traffic at will. Even when the US and Western Europe sent ships in 1987 to protect "neutral" shipping that in reality actually supported Iraq while Iraq continued to attack Iranian tankers, Iran wisely held back.

But at some point, the Iranians snapped and lashed out at the US Navy despite the clear foolishness of challenging our Navy, which simply gave us the excuse to chew them up:

On October 3, 1987, Iran crossed the line into irrationality. Unable to defeat her one enemy Iraq, Iran massed between 30 and 50 speedboats for an attack on Saudi Arabia's off-shore oil terminal at Khafji--the one used by the Kuwaitis and Saudis to sell oil in Iraq's name. Saudi Arabia responded by deploying warships and fighter aircraft. Iran pulled back but five days later in another confrontation the Saudis sank three speedboats.

Iran, apparently not satisfied with defeat at the hands of Iraq and then Saudi Arabia, even struck an American flagged tanker, Sea Isle City, with a Silkworm missile while it lay in Kuwaiti waters. The United States retaliated with Operation Nimble Archer on October 19, 1987, during which three Iranian oil platform bases were attacked. Many Iranians knew that a course of confrontation with America was foolish but the short term satisfaction of striking out at those who helped Iraq--even the United States--was beginning to win out over reason.

Can we really assume that rational Iranians--as we define rational--will be the ones to control Iranian nuclear weapons?

And even if Iran under the mullahs never uses nuclear weapons, are we really ready to accept the enhanced power of such an odious regime?

Have a lovely freaking day.

Bewitching

I guess my description of Code Pink members as those Code Pink hags isn't so far off:

The women's anti-war group has told ralliers to come equipped with spells and pointy hats Friday for "witches, crones and sirens" day, the last of the group's weeklong homage to Mother's Day.

"Women are coming to cast spells and do rituals and to impart wisdom to figure out how we're going to end war," Zanne Sam Joi of Bay Area Code Pink told FOXNews.com.

Good grief. Words escape me. But perhaps that's because I've been hexed.

There is a FOX 24/7 camera on the Berkeley Marine recruiting station in case you want to see if witchery is successful.

"Resistant" is Relative

The MRAPs we are sending to Iraq are better protected than the Humvees that we use for moving troops.

But the MRAP is not as well protected as our Abrams tanks or Bradley Fighting Vehicles. And even these massive vehicles can be destroyed.

So while the anti-war side spouts nonsense about the inadequacies of our military in preparing armored vehicles for Iraq which led us to rush these expensive MRAPs to Iraq, consider this:

The U.S. military is reinforcing the sides of its topline mine-resistant vehicles to shore up what could be weak points as troops see a spike in armor-piercing roadside bombings across Iraq, The Associated Press has learned.

Of course we should protect our troops while they wage the war. But the issue isn't about providing absolute protection for troops and then looking for someone to blame when the enemy manages to pierce a vehicle and inflict casualties. The enemy reacts. We react. Heck, even adding armor has consequences.

The history of armor in Iraq gets a new chapter with the demonstrated vulnerability of MRAPs.

The best protection against enemies is well trained troops killing them and winning the war.

To Fight, Win, and Survive

Stop-loss is about fielding effective units. Effective units are better at winning and effective units suffer fewer casualties. Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen couldn't be much clearer than this:

SEC. GATES: ... It is an issue. It troubles me. And I think it is a strain. But the principle reason for it is to maintain unit cohesion. One of the things that I learned for the first time this morning is that half of those -- about half of those who are stop-lossed are sergeants. And so if you pull them -- if they left a unit it would leave a pretty gaping hole, you know, while still deployed and so on.

And so I think they have good reasons. They don't like it any better than I do. But it has proven necessary in order to maintain the force, and they are hoping that with the -- as I say, with the drawdown of the five brigade combat teams from Iraq, that we'll begin to see those numbers gradually decline.

Do you want to add anything, Admiral?

ADM. MULLEN: The only thing I'd add, Jim, is that as the Army has grown, it actually is a smaller percentage than it was a year ago even though it is a larger number. And that I'm -- the point the secretary mentions about the unit integrity issue is a very powerful point in many ways in terms of being able to operate and execute like we are, and much different from what we did in Vietnam.

And General Casey describes this as creating -- a significant contributor creating the resiliency that's clearly in the units.

But he doesn't like it, and none of us like it. And we need to move away from it as rapidly as we can.

SEC. GATES: One other fact about this, that I was told this morning, is that if you're looking strictly at the active Army, the percentage of people on stop-loss was about between 10 and 11 percent in 2005. And it's about 6 percent now.

Yes, absolute numbers are up, but as a percentage it is down and should decline further.

But since this is a policy all about winning and protecting the lives of our troops, you can see why the Left hates it so much.

Chasing Them Down

The Iraqis claim to have captured the top al Qaeda in Iraq commander:

Iraqi Defense Ministry Spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said the arrest of Abu Ayyub al-Masri — also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir — was reported by the Iraqi commander in Mosul, where insurgents have sought to establish a foothold after being widely uprooted from Baghdad and surrounding areas last year.

I was just wondering why I hadn't heard too much about Mosul lately. I guess we've been quietly hammering al Qaeda. For al-Masri to have been captured is a big deal if true. He would likely have lots of information on the organization with him that can be exploited.

Had we captured him, I'd guess the press release would have been issued in June or so.

This will certainly disrupt the enemy as they assume they are compromised by al-Masri's capture and relocate to avoid being targeted.

Back around the new year, I read that we expected to defeat al Qaeda in the Mosul region by June. Is this capture a sign that we've shattered the jihadis in Mosul so badly that they couldn't evade Iraqi troops to live to fight another day?

With al Qaeda in Iraq getting hammered, I have to wonder if there are any replacements willing or capable of stepping up into the top slot.

UPDATE: We deny that al-Masri is captured:

"Neither coalition forces nor Iraqi security forces detained or killed Abu Ayyub al-Masri. This guy had a similar name," said Maj. Peggy Kageleiry, a U.S. military spokeswoman in northern Iraq. She said no additional details were being immediately provided.

But then we would, wouldn't we?

Even if we haven't captured him, denying we captured him might even lead some al Qaeda to react based on the assumption that we do have him. Or maybe we gain information from a surge in communications by al-Masri telling subordinates he is alive and well, or subordinates frantically contacting al-Masri to find out if he is still ticking.

Here We Go Again

Hizbollah is acting up in Lebanon and appears to be itching for a fight with the Lebanese government.

And given the Iranian and Syrian support for Hizbollah and the Iranian support for Hamas in Gaza, will any new conflict stay restricted within Lebanon?

We need to bolster the Lebanese army. They did well against the Syrian-backed terrorists near Tripoli last year, with our backing.

Can the army take on the far more formidable Hizbollah?

UPDATE: We openly charged the Iranians and Syrians with supporting Hizbollah:

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe blamed Hezbollah and its backers for the violence. "The Hezbollah terrorist organization, aided by its Iranian and Syrian sponsors, continues to undermine Lebanon's sovereignty and democratic institutions," he said.

Johndroe said the U.S. was consulting with other governments in the region and with the U.N. Security Council about measures to hold those responsible for the fighting accountable.

I would imagine that we have enough shared interests with France to work on something to support the Lebanese government.

Capabilities and Intent

It is often easier to judge capabilities than to judge intent. During the Cold War, we focused our arms control mechanism on countable missiles and tanks. We did not base our defenses on analysis of whether the Kremlin was determined to conquer NATO and defeat the West. We based our defenses on their perceived ability to conquer NATO and defeat the West.

So India's latest missile test of a longer-ranged Agni III will present China with an Indian nuclear capability that must be countered regardless of whether or not the Chinese rulers believe India is preparing the ability to wipe out China:

India's current arsenal of missiles is largely intended for confronting archrival Pakistan. The Agni III, in contrast, is India's longest-range missile, designed to reach 1,900 miles — putting China's major cities well into range, as well as targets deep in the Middle East.

We were nervous with Soviet weapons that had to cross the North Pole to hit us. We had a whole 20 minutes to ponder our response if we detected launches.

Not that I blame India for wanting a nuclear deterrent against China, but given the short ranges involved that will shorten reaction time, I hope that India and China choose minimum deterrents that lower the pressure to launch on warning if they each even think the other is launching a nuclear strike.

Much like having too many capable armies jammed into too small an area in 1914 that led to the reality that "mobilization means war" lest an adversary gain an edge, will a future nuclear-armed Asia lead to the reality that preparations to launch missiles means war?

Nobody want nuclear war. But nobody wants to be disarmed and destroyed by a nuclear first strike, either.

UPDATE: The Chinese are indeed worried about the survibability of their nuclear arsenal:

Its arsenal, estimated at between 100 and 200 warheads, is the smallest of the big powers – the United States, Russia, Britain and France. The US is currently updating its missiles and warheads.

China now has a stated policy of never using nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear country and never as a "first strike". But Dr Gill said its static nuclear delivery system had left it vulnerable to a first strike.

The small size of the arsenal makes survivability critical. And China faces not only the possibility that stealthy American conventional weapons could take out many warheads but that Indian shorter-ranged nuclear missiles could do the same.

The big question for me is whether China starts cranking out warheads to make sure some would survive to retaliate. And if China does that, Russia has to worry. And Japan. And South Korea And Taiwan. All would have to worry about China deciding that a large arsenal means some can be pointed at them.

And Pakistan would react to India's ramping up.

Too many nuclear weapons crammed into too small an area should be cause for concern.

A Brand New Plastic Turkey!

From the beginning of the war, war opponents have tried to gain traction by seizing on some point to argue that it means we must retreat from Iraq. Whether it was the original Thanksgiving "plastic turkey" accusation against President Bush, or other subsequent virtual turkey issues such as lack of armor, or captain flight, recruiting shortfalls, or the "backdoor draft" of stop-loss, these issues have been far less significant than the first screams of outrage made them out to be.

So here we see the new plastic turkey brought out:

More than 43,000 U.S. troops listed as medically unfit for combat in the weeks before their scheduled deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan since 2003 were sent anyway, Pentagon records show.

This reliance on troops found medically "non-deployable" is another sign of stress placed on a military that has sent 1.6 million servicemembers to the war zones, soldier advocacy groups say.

Well, "soldier advocacy" groups say so, so it must be real.

But having read so many plastic turkey non-issues, I looked for the flaws that undermine the leading tone. The best plastic turkey stories contain the very evidence to undermine them and this is no exception.

First, medically non-deployable is a broad category:

A Pentagon staffer examined 10,000 individual health records last year to determine causes for the non-deployable ratings, Kilpatrick said. Some reasons included a need for eyeglasses, dental work or allergy medicine and a small number of mental health cases, he said.

Hmm. So three-limbed, one-eyed, catatonic soldiers aren't actually being sent to war.

And we don't even know if this is a unique problem in this war:

This is the first war in which this health screening process has been used, the Pentagon said.

If I had to guess, I'd guess that the military personnel we send to Iraq and Afghanistan are in far better shape than the troops of any other war we've fought.

And remember that unit commanders have the final say with these screenings as one tool:

"The commander consults with health care professionals to determine whether the treatment a soldier needs is available in theater," said Army Col. Steven Braverman of the Army Medical Command.

A commander doesn't want a soldier unable to perform, remember.

The details of those deemed "unfit" is important. Somebody unfit because they need glasses is easily remedied. Dental work, too, is hardly a crippling disability. So what is the scope of the problem? Here's a hint:

At Fort Carson, Colo., Maj. Gen. Mark Graham ordered an investigation into deployment procedures for a brigade deployed to Iraq late last year. At least 36 soldiers were found medically unfit but were still deployed, Graham told USA TODAY.

For at least seven soldiers, treatment in the war zone was inadequate and the soldiers were sent home, he said, and at least two of them should never have been deployed.

So 36 out of this 3,500-strong brigade were judged medically unfit but sent anyway. Like I noted, this is a broad judgment that can include fairly trivial causes. Seven of the 36 sent were treated in the war zone and the oversight was enough to return them stateside. So the Army was monitoring this. And two of the soldiers were judged as really unfit for deployment in the first place, the whole point of the complaint.

Two. Out of 3,500.

This is an issue to address, and not a crisis that justifies headlong retreat out of Iraq. Multiple tours for soldiers simply isn't the massive crisis that our press has led you to believe it is. And this will turn out to be pretty much a non-issue, as well.

Next plastic turkey, please.

UPDATE: Strategypage, with good timing, discusses the issue. The bottom line?

The mass media made a big deal out of some of these troops having psychological problems, and Congress is looking for some media love by holding hearings. The reality of all this is less exciting. It usually is.

I don't know why they are called "hearings" when nobody actually listens to what is said. Those holding the hearings already have their "solution" ready.

Big Lots

I wrote earlier that we might use weapon-systems-in-a-box to mount on civilian ships in order to provide the numbers that our Navy needs to deploy globally in peace and war:

Once, civilian ships could be drafted with guns bolted to the decks and Navy crews put on board. They were useful for scouting or patrol work. They provided numbers that the active Navy could not provide. They couldn't fight first class enemies, but they provided needed services.

To create auxiliary cruisers, we could build and stockpile modules in shipping containers that include missiles (SAMs and SSMs) and fire control as well as modules with gun turrets for smaller weapons, 57mm or smaller. Other modules could support helicopters or UAVs. Other modules would contain the command and communications gear to plug the ship into the Navy network. Naval reservists could be assigned to these modules and could train with them during peacetime.

In war, the modules could be attached to the decks of conscripted civilian ships and create instant warships. If plugged into the Navy's network, they'd contribute tremendous offensive power at low cost. In this case, they'd be a tremendous asset compared to the traditional auxiliary cruisers. And with our current fleet of few but high quality ships, the lack of numbers means we simply can't go everywhere we need to or must use a ship with more capability than needed because nothing else is available. Auxiliary cruisers would provide the numbers we need in war.

The hope that the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) would prove to be a capable but cheap ship that can provide numbers is fading:

The LCS features a number of major innovations. For one thing, it is highly automated, and has a crew of less than fifty. The LCS has a large cargo hold that can be quickly fitted with gear to turn it into a mine clearing ship, a surface warfare support ship, a submarine hunter, or just about anything (anti-aircraft, commando support, or even command and control.) The development of the LCS has been screwed up, with resulting delays and cost overruns. The same grief is expected in the development of the specialized modules.

Those modules are pretty amazing, but this part is what I want to highlight:

Most of the firepower, however, comes in four metal canisters filled with a new U.S. Army missile system called NetFires (or NLOS-LS). This is still in development. This weapon is actually two different missiles, identical in weight and size, but different in how they operate. The LCS is using PAM (Precision Attack Missile). This is a 178mm diameter missile that weighs 120 pounds, and has a range of 40 kilometers. PAM attacks from above, with a 28 pound warhead. This enables it to destroy boats, and damage larger ships. PAMs are vertically-launched from what looks like a 4x6x4 foot (wide x deep x high) cargo container. Actually, it IS a cargo container. The missiles are shipped from the factory in this sealed container. Each one ton container holds 15 missiles and can be carried on the back of a truck, or a ship. Once you plug a PAM container into the wireless battlefield Internet, the missiles are ready to fire.

This fits right in with what I wrote about. The modules that can be built for the LCS could be used for modularized auxiliary cruisers, and by increasing the module buys, perhaps we can get the costs of the critical modules down so that we can afford more LCS than seems apparent now.

When the Media Agrees Something is True ...

While there are specific issues to work through in Afghanistan to fight more effectively--such as addressing the split between the United States- and NATO-led forces--I have been happy with our efforts there despite the cries of doom by the anti-Iraq War side.

This article notes this problem yet also states:

In some ways those views contradict the received wisdom on Afghanistan, described by military experts in the United States as a "forgotten war" and one America and its NATO allies will lose if they do not boost numbers and change tactics rapidly.

Yet on the ground in Afghanistan the conflict quickly shows itself to be far more nuanced, with large swathes of the country relatively stable and making slow if very cumbersome progress, while other areas -- particularly the far south -- are mired in a conflict that frequently eclipses Iraq for intensity.

I'm not sure what the author means by "received" wisdom. This is the conventional wisdom that the mooing cows of the media herd chew on and plop on their viewers and readers. Accepting the consensus view about the war of a group of people with less experience with the military than your average Cub Scout troop should be an obvious mistake. This author is at least honest enough to write about the disconnect between what he saw and what he apparently expected. May he have more moments of clarity in the cloud of his profession.

The reports coming out of Afghanistan don't support the conclusion our press has collectively drawn that we are in imminent danger of losing and only a rapid transfer of forces from Iraq can salvage the situation.

Call me cynical, but this seems like only a transparent effort to lose in Iraq rather than any commitment to winning in Afghanistan--or even accurately analyzing Afghanistan.

Tis But a Flesh Wound?

The Nuanced Americans who want to retreat from Iraq deny that "defeat" would be bad. They can't see how we can win in Iraq anyway so how could "victory" be worse than "defeat"?

The hyper-sophisticates of the American foreign-policy and intellectual establishment direct their invective at the whole notion of winning or losing. What’s the definition of winning? If we choose to withdraw from an ill-conceived and badly executed war, that’s not really losing, is it? We can and should find ways to use diplomacy rather than military power to handle the consequences of any so-called defeat.

Amazing. The Left's hatred for actually winning a legally declared war in Iraq is matched only by their touching confidence in the good will of our enemies. Our Left may claim that losing Iraq doesn't matter at all, and that it would not actually be fatal; but there really is a difference between victory and defeat. Losing does have horrible consequences--for us and certainly for the Iraqis--but for others who would resist the call of jihad if they believe we will be in this Long War for the duration until victory.

Frederick Kagan spends the energy to address the utter nonsense the anti-war side peddles and it is well worth your effort to read the whole thing. I'm late in highlighting this article, but it has not gone stale.

Dying for Mookie

Strategypage outlines the transformation of the Shia militias from de facto government allies against Sunni Arab insurgents and terrorists to enemies of the Iraqi government that are being beaten:

Over the last five years, the Shia militias, especially the Mahdi Army, have gone from a neighborhood protection (from Sunni Arab terrorists) force, to a bunch of gangsters. The Mahdi men always demanded support from the people they protected. At first it was just some food and a place to sleep. But as prosperity returned to the area, the demands increased. That prosperity also brought with it a desire for expensive vices, like drugs and prostitution. This split the Shia militias, because some were insisting that everyone lead a life of strict Islamic simplicity. Other Mahdi men would look the other way while you partied, for a price. In the last year, as the Sunni Arab terrorism campaign collapsed, the Mahdi Army lost its last bit of legitimacy. They were now starkly revealed as just another bunch of gangsters.

My take on the Sadrists is broadly the same:

It has been apparent to me for several years that Sadr and his Iranian friends would the last threat to put down. Early in the insurgency I considered these militias as part of government forces since they defended their neighborhoods against Baathists and jihadis. I didn't like it that they existed but they did serve a useful role.

By early 2005, after the Baathists and jihadis were knocked back after the spring 2004 joint uprisings through the Second Battle of Fallujah in November 2004, it looked like the Iraqis would deal with Sadr as a political problem. But the government failed and in February 2006 the Shia thugs started murdering Sunni Arabs at a higher rate after the bombing of the Samarra Golden Dome. By spring 2006, with the Baathists defeated, I began to worry about the Shia thugs supported by Iran much more as an active threat as well as the foreign jihadis.

The surge, of course, knocked down the jihadis and now the Sadrists remain to be defeated if they won't go away quietly.

We and the Iraqis are pounding away at the Sadrists in Sadr City. Strategypage writes that the Sadrists won't have an army at all in a couple weeks at this rate.

Then we will see if the Sadrists have support in Sadr City from fear or devotion. In the south, the Sadrists seem to have lost popular support easily once Iraqi security forces moved in to break the hold of the Sadrists. With Iran's hand revealed, will the residents of Sadr City turn on the Sadrists just as readily once they lose their fear of the beaten Sadrists?

In the On-Deck Circle?

I've mentioned that the Iranian-backed Sadrists are the last real armed threat we have to defeat in Iraq. Not that the other nationalist Sunni Arab, al Qaeda, and Baathist enemies aren't still there in rump form, but they are declining threats as long as we pursue them. And not that we don't face non-military threats to success. Corruption will be a major challenge.

I've even wondered if the next armed threat will arise in the Kurdish region of Iraq:

Barring massively escalated Iranian assistance to Sadr or other Shia death squads, up to actual Iranian forces, I've had trouble seeing where the next threat to our success in Iraq could arise. The Arab-Kurd divide is surely one area that could generate a crisis.

I hope the Kurds don't mistake their prosperity of late for a glimpse of their independent future. I hope that Turkish and Iranian attacks on Kurdish territory remind the Kurds of Iraq that making Iraq their enemy is foolish. Their safety lies in remaining a partner within Iraq.

What I didn't consider is that a Kurdish threat to the central government of Iraq might not be Iraqi Kurds.

This article indicates this might possibly be true, if the statement of the Iranian Kurd (PEJAK) is true:

"We have changed our stand toward the United States government and we are standing against them now," she said. "Maybe some day ... individual combatants might launch suicide attacks inside Iraq and Turkey, and even against American
interests."

Which is odd. Given our mutual hatred of the Tehran regime, you'd think they'd want our help rather than placing themselves between a rock and a hard place (so to speak).

And remember this threat isn't from the PKK, which operates out of Iraq to fight inside Turkey, and which we (rightly) consider a terrorist group. So the threat doesn't mean too much, really. Iranian Kurds could kill and extend the fighting in Iraq (to Iran's benefit) but they couldn't actually threaten Iraq unless such fighting splits the Iraqi Kurds from the national government. Much like having to fight Sadr carefully to avoid offending Iraqi Shias, we'd have to fight Iranian Kurds carefully to avoid threatening Iraqi Kurds.

I'm just saying I could be wrong about the Sadrists being the last military threat inside Iraq that we need to defeat.

Of course, this assumes that Iran and/or Syria don't invade Iraq with conventional forces in a desperate attempt to reverse their creeping defeat.

Collateral Damage

Anti-war protesters are frustrated at the public's "apathy" toward the anti-war side's message of retreat. Voters are more worried about their jobs:

After $500 billion in spending and 4,000 military deaths, this was supposed to be an election year dominated by the war. ...

But a worsening economy has easily overtaken Iraq as the top concern for voters, according to a New York Times/CBS poll released last week. Only 17 percent of respondents picked the war as the "one issue" they'd like to hear the candidates discuss more.

The funny thing is, the economy is in pretty good shape notwithstanding the slowdown of the last six months. Growth is low, to be sure, but we aren't in recession. So if voters are ignoring the war protesters in favor of worrying about the economy, this is a needless distraction.

The funny thing is, this would be a self-inflicted wound on the anti-war side. Our press despises the Bush presidency and has taken it out on him, either consciously or not, through stories that slant both the war and the economy in ways to make President Bush look bad.

One result may be that our press has spent so much time talking down a good economy that it has hurt their efforts to talk down the war we are winning. People worry about the fake threats to their jobs more than they worry about the fake threats to our victory in Iraq.

And the anti-war side is too giddy about defeat, in any case, for the tastes of most Americans. Americans may be worried about the cost of fighting in Iraq, but only a small minority want to withdraw now at the risk of defeat.

The anti-war side is finding that Americans care. We just don't care about you.

Soldiers, Units, and the Army

Our army is stressed but not broken by the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. If it emerges from the stress, it will be far better than the Army of 2001.

Soldiers on multiple tours risk PTSD, quite clearly. But critics of the war who say a particular division is going back for a third or fourth tour make the mistake of thinking this means the soldiers of those units are going back for a third or fourth tour. I pointed out this error in this post:

Most soldiers in each brigade, I imagine, being new Army privates, will be on their first tour. Many soldiers will be on a second tour. And some smaller amount will indeed be on a third or maybe even fourth tour in very rare cases (Marines can have more tours if not more months in Iraq since until the last year they had 7-month tours). Of those multiple-tour soldiers, many will have different jobs, so even multiple tours don't necessarily mean that an individual is on multiple combat MOS tours.

I worry about the strain on our Army. We need to address it. But when I read arguments like this that are distinct from the reality of the problem, I grow weary of even trying to debate the anti-war side about Iraq. The most vocal voices--certainly all of the far Left--are simply not interested in having an honest debate.

Michael O'Hanlon makes this sensible point, and provides numbers for my guesstimate:

As of early 2008, among the 513,000 active-duty soldiers who have served in Iraq, more than 197,000 had served more than once, and more than 53,000 had deployed three or more times.

So that means 62% served one tour, 28% served two tours, and 10% served three or more tours in Iraq. This is not the picture of the nearly crippled Army soldiers situation that critics of the war like to paint, now is it?

And as I noted, multiple tours won't always mean multiple tours in direct combat roles.

Worry about the Army. Watch the trends. And take care of the soldiers. But pretending that you want to lose the Iraq War to save the Army is such an obviously false claim that my internal organs are at risk.

Blind Hatred

Why I have contempt for the Euros-at-Heart here and in Europe:

I came away from the [Global Leadership Forum, in London] (portions of which I missed) with several broad impressions. One was that multilateralism has become virtually an end in itself. What matters to many Europeans and liberal-leaning Americans is the process rather than the results. What almost never gets discussed is what happens when one’s desire for multilateralism collides with achieving a worthy end (for example, trying to stop genocide in Darfur or prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb). The child-like faith in multilateralism as the solution to all that ails the world would be touchingly innocent if it weren’t so terribly dangerous.

It's almost as if "multilateralism" is only authentic if it involves endless conferences, no action on the topic of the conference, and a nice leather-bound final report in five official languages affixed with bright ribbons and official wax stamps that document the entire crisis from start to agonizing finish--prior to the West taking action, of course.

No number of nations acting in defense of the West counts as multilateral.

And there are the usual complaints about America that rest on nothing but Bush Derangement Syndrome. Read it all.

And then weep for the West. This was a "leadership" forum.

Vanguard of the Revolution

This summer's Olympic Games could be a debacle for China the way things are going:

Based on the protests in Western countries that have accompanied the Long Olympic Torch March, the Chinese are worried that foreign protesters with a laundry list of complaints about Chinese domestic and foreign actions will embarrass China right at home. More reasons to protest seem to pop up.

I think the source of embarrasment is more likely to come from Chinese citizens expressing anger at Westerners over the climbing list of of subjects that could be targets of protest.

And why are China's citizens more of a problem? I wrote here:

Resentment over the protests is already boiling over in China. It will get worse during the Olympics, and 18,000 journalists will be there reporting and another half million foreigners with digital cameras will be on hand, too. Even if the Chinese manage to stifle any new protests by Westerners inside China against any number of causes that are inspiring protests, there are bound to be many Chinese already hopped up on xenophobia and resentment to start a good mob to rampage against the foreign devils.

China may have the awful choice of seeing Westerners abused and beaten by outraged nationalistic Chinese and broadcast worldwide; or using Chinese security forces to suppress Chinese nationalists who are reacting to the very emotions that China has stoked to maintain control.

This article seems to agree:

Beijing has long encouraged nationalism. Over the last decade, the government has introduced new school textbooks that focus on past victimization of China by outside powers. The state media, such as the People's Daily, which hosts one of the most strongly nationalist Web forums, also highlight China's perceived mistreatment at the hands of the United States and other powers. ...

Now, though, according to Chinese officials, it appears that the Chinese government actually wants to tamp down nationalism. Some officials privately worry that nationalist protests, even ones targeting other countries, ultimately will transform into unrest against Beijing, like previous outbursts of patriotism in China before communist rule in 1949, which eventually turned into nationwide convulsions.

China wants a coming out party. Lord knows what might come out. And if the Chinese government finds themselves riding the tiger of Chinese xenophobic nationalism, the aging communists in Peking might find a risky invasion of Taiwan the least risky thing they can do to remain in power in the face of that nationalism that seems to be getting beyond their power to control.

Do Numbers Matter?

The Navy says numbers matter and they need more ships. I agree in principle. But if we can't get the ships the Navy wants to build to reach those numbers, will the Navy accept the numbers they need without getting the exact ships they'd like to have?

The Navy plans to halt the shrinkage in our fleet's hulls. Of course, to do this the Navy had to assume they'd get far more money than Congress would ever appropriate and that ship costs will suddenly stop their historic pattern of skyrocketing:

After dwindling to its smallest size in about a century, the Navy's 279-ship fleet will grow to 313 ships over the next decade.

A new aircraft carrier will be purchased every four or five years, and submarine production will double.

But outside the Navy, who believes it?

Not budget experts, who warn that the billions of additional dollars needed in coming years are unlikely to materialize.

Not independent naval analysts, who say the Navy's 30-year shipbuilding plan is based on too many optimistic assumptions about cost growth.

And certainly not some pivotal members of Congress, who have blasted the plan as "pure fantasy."

But other than those two problems, the plan is dandy.

Since we can't seem to build a cheap warship that can handle moderate levels of threats as our old Perry class frigates did, the Navy may need to go to modularized auxiliary cruisers for the numbers the Navy rightly claims it needs to operate globally:

To create auxiliary cruisers, we could build and stockpile modules in shipping containers that include missiles (SAMs and SSMs) and fire control as well as modules with gun turrets for smaller weapons, 57mm or smaller. Other modules could support helicopters or UAVs. Other modules would contain the command and communications gear to plug the ship into the Navy network. Naval reservists could be assigned to these modules and could train with them during peacetime.

In war, the modules could be attached to the decks of conscripted civilian ships and create instant warships. If plugged into the Navy's network, they'd contribute tremendous offensive power at low cost. In this case, they'd be a tremendous asset compared to the traditional auxiliary cruisers. And with our current fleet of few but high quality ships, the lack of numbers means we simply can't go everywhere we need to or must use a ship with more capability than needed because nothing else is available. Auxiliary cruisers would provide the numbers we need in war.

I understand that the Navy worries that Congress will not view such modularized auxiliary cruisers as supplements to the fleet but as substitutes for warships. Heck, I'd rather have 50-60 $100 million light frigate-sized warships than auxiliary cruisers.

But if the Navy would rather have 280 warships than have 250 warships and the ability to put 50 modularized auxiliary cruisers to sea at short notice, you have wonder if numbers matter as much as the Navy claims.

Reconquistaski

Moscow doesn't like just being Russia, and pines for restoring the Soviet Union over their lost imperial lands.

It seems that Russia is wasting no time in taking advantage of NATO's recent refusal to consider Georgia for NATO membership by trying to leverage their presence in Georgia's Abhazia region. The Georgian foreign minister warned:

Asked how close to such a war the situation was, he replied: "Very close, because we know Russians very well."

"We know what the signals are when you see propaganda waged against Georgia. We see Russian troops entering our territories on the basis of false information," he said.

Georgia, a vital energy transit route in the Caucasus region, has angered Russia, its former Soviet master with which it shares a land border, by seeking NATO membership.

An April summit of the U.S.-led Western alliance stopped short of giving it a definite track towards membership but confirmed it would enter one day.

Russia has said its troop build-up is needed to counter what it says are Georgian plans to attack Abkhazia, a sliver of land by the Black Sea, and has accused Tbilisi of trying to suck the West into a war -- allegations Georgia rejects.

Russia may want to make sure that Georgia is reconquered before "one day" arrives.

Really, all NATO did by rejecting Georgia this year is to give Russia a deadline for invading the country.

Ukrainians should take note, as well.

Beating the Jihadis in Afghanistan

Strategypage notes the beating the jihadis are taking in Afghanistan:

The Taliban and al Qaeda are not winning on the battlefield, but are having some success in the infosphere. Manipulating the media is still possible, and terror attacks are selected for their impact on the international news organizations. Locally, the Taliban and al Qaeda are generally despised. Followers of these groups are a minority, and many who say they are believers, are only in it for the money.

And more Marines in Afghanistan now means we are taking the fight to the enemy even harder than we did the last two years.

To assert we are not losing in Afghanistan, I've relied on Strategypage reports to bolster the absence of actual signs of defeat in media stories despite repeated claims in the media that we are losing.

Still, this is not to say we have not problems to face. The regionalization of the Afghan Campaign into the Taliban Campaign that spans the Afghan-Pakistan border means winning in Afghanistan may no longer be enough. Indeed, when the enemy center of gravity moves to Pakistan's tribal regions, public support in Afghanistan to fight the war may erode if Afghans bear the brunt of the war.

We can't invade Pakistan to root out the jihadis. But just adding troops to Afghanistan--if all they do is fight Taliban and al Qaeda invaders from Pakistan inside Afghanistan--may undermine our ability to stay in Afghanistan. Indeed, if our anti-Iraq War gets their way, they will learn the lesson of being careful what you wish for.

The Last Thug Standing

War means killing our enemies and that is what we are doing to the Sadrists in Iraq and their Iranian backers. War opponents simplistically look at casualties and if they are up they say we are losing (although if we are down they also say it only means we are temporarily not losing).

Casualties are a measure of combat intensity. Our spike in casualties in Europe from June 1944 to May 1945 was not an indication that we were losing World War II in Europe. Likewise, in Iraq, we lose more troops as we go after Sadr:

April saw 49 U.S. casualties in Iraq, the highest total in seven months. Does this mean, as some insist, that the enormous progress we have made since the start of the military surge is being lost?

As one who has spent nearly two years with American soldiers and Marines and British Army troops in Iraq - having returned from my last trip a month ago - here's my short answer: no.

We are taking more casualties now, just as we did in the first part of 2007, because we have taken up the next crucial challenge of this war: confronting the Shia militias.

In early 2007, under the leadership of Gen. David Petraeus, we began to wage an effective counterinsurgency campaign against the reign of terror Al Qaeda in Iraq had established over much of the midsection of the country. That campaign, which moved many of our troops off of big centralized bases and out into small neighborhood outposts, carried real risks.

In every one of the first eight months of 2007, we lost more soldiers than we had the previous year. Only as the campaign bore fruit - in the form of Iraqi citizens working with American soldiers on a daily basis, helping uncover terrorist hideouts together - did the casualty numbers begin to improve.

Now we are helping the Iraqis deal with a much different problem: the Shia militias, the most well-known of which is "Jaysh al-Mahdi," known as JAM, largely controlled by Moqtada al-Sadr.

It has been apparent to me for several years that Sadr and his Iranian friends would the last threat to put down. Early in the insurgency I considered these militias as part of government forces since they defended their neighborhoods against Baathists and jihadis. I didn't like it that they existed but they did serve a useful role.

By early 2005, after the Baathists and jihadis were knocked back after the spring 2004 joint uprisings through the Second Battle of Fallujah in November 2004, it looked like the Iraqis would deal with Sadr as a political problem. But the government failed and in February 2006 the Shia thugs started murdering Sunni Arabs at a higher rate after the bombing of the Samarra Golden Dome. By spring 2006, with the Baathists defeated, I began to worry about the Shia thugs supported by Iran much more as an active threat as well as the foreign jihadis. Indeed, I assumed the surge would target the Shia militias to allow the Sunni Arabs to feel safe enough to switch sides.

As it turns out, Sadr stood down temporarily in spring 2007 and we went after al Qaeda in the surge to protect the Sunni Arabs who wanted to switch sides as well as protecting Shias who were the targets of the suicide bombings. Unfortunately, the Sadr stand down also allowed al Qaeda to kill more people until we could drive the jihadis away from Baghdad in the surge.

And now we must defeat Iran's proxy force that Sadr represents. We are working through the to-kill list, as I've mentioned.

Not that this will be mission accomplished. We still have to fight corruption and build rule of law to cement a real democracy in Iraq. And who knows, maybe an armed threat will arise that isn't on my radar screens--or anybody else's for that matter. Which means we fight that one, too (hopefully in just a supporting role). I count myself lucky simply to have one main problem at a time.

Quantity Has a Quality All It's Own

When I mentioned that we might want a wikirecon capability to allow our citizens to help with analyzing video feeds from all those cameras we have on the battlefield, I mentioned all those Googl Earth users who are poring over images in their spare time and finding things the far less numerous professionals miss:

With our UAVs flying over battlefields relying on stateside pilots and analysts to scrutinize the video feeds, couldn't we harness the power of the Internet to allow civilians who already pore over Google Earth photos to spot interesting defense-related installations to contribute to the war?

Strategypage writes about the Google Earth angle:

[The] millions of Google Earth users that pore over the satellite images often discover things that intelligence agencies miss. The intel experts don't like to dwell on that, but the phenomenon is acknowledged. The "wisdom of crowds," so to speak.

Our professionals are surely far more talented on an individual basis, but quantity matters, too. As long as it remains the wisdom of the masses and not the conceit of an individual, of course.

UPDATE: I might be way off, here, in thinking that quantity must mean gray matter rather than silicon:

Since the most common video is digital, it's possible to translate the video into numbers, and then analyze those numbers. Government security organizations have been doing this for some time, but after the fact. It's one thing to have a bunch of computers analyze satellite photos for a week, to see if there was anything useful there. It's quite another matter to do it in real time. But computers have gotten faster, cheaper and smaller in the last few years, and programmers have kept coming up with more efficient routines for analyzing the digital images.

Of course, the programming solution may be best suited to the real-time problem of watching video feeds--which I didn't think was appropriate for a citizen-based program of poring over the pictures our drones and satellites provide in abundance.

Are We There Yet?

Our Left bizarrely insists we are "occupying" Iraq and that the various thugs and murderers who slaughter with poison chlorine gas, suicide bombs, or simple beheadings are the "resistance."

So it is refreshing to read this in the New York Times on one of their blogs by one of their employees. He fled the violence that exploded in 2006 and has returned, finding it surprisingly safe and hopeful:

Will it stay safe or not?

I guess that all depends on the American troops, since we will not have qualified Iraqi forces soon. Although most Iraqi forces are sincere you find some have been infiltrated by groups of gunmen and sectarian people who made the mess all around us.

So we still need the Americans because if they intend to leave, there will be something like a hurricane which will extract everything - people, buildings and even trees. Everything that has happened and all that safety will be past, just like a sweet dream.

As people say in my neighborhood: “The Americans are now Ansar al Sunna.” Protectors of the Sunni.

Before 2003 during the long containment of Saddam after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, we protected the Kurds from the Saddam-led Sunni Arabs.

In 2003, when we invaded Saddam's Iraq, we essentially protected the Shias from the Sunni Arabs led by Saddam. And now, we protect the Sunni Arabs, who have given up their dreams of ruling Iraq which was driven at least in part by their fear of retribution from their former victims.

Now, after the surge brought the Sunni Arabs in from the cold, they hope that joining the fight against jihadis and Iranians will help them rejoin Iraq. And the Sunni Arabs need us there until the day that their former victims no longer burn for revenge.

Now we are protecting all Iraqis. Will our Left finally stop insisting that we are "occupying" Iraq?

Will our Left at long last recoil from their urge to betray the growing number of Iraqis who look to us to help them preserve their safety and future?

We can be proud of what we are accomplishing in Iraq. Let's not abandon these people.

Why They Fight

Our forces have been involved in pretty much daily battles in Sadr City. Why? Because we are walling off southern Sadr City in order to keep Shia militias from using the area to lob rockets and mortar bombs at the Green Zone and the Shia thugs don't like it:

The daily battles in Sadr City are anything but random. Most take place on al-Quds Street, a broad thoroughfare of single- and double-story buildings where troops are building a 3-mile-long concrete barrier to keep militants from infiltrating the southern Tharwa and Jamilla neighborhoods.

The southern locations in Sadr City allow militants to fire 107 mm and 120 mm rockets into the Green Zone, the seat of the Iraqi government and the location of U.S. military and diplomatic headquarters.

"This is a mission that has to get done, to stop these thugs from firing their rockets and stuff," said 1st Sgt. Conrad Gonzales, of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 68th Armor Regiment.

Luckily for us and the mission, the Shia thugs are much less adept at fighting us than they are at lobbing explosives at civilians:

According to company statistics, 118 Shi'ite extremist gunmen have been confirmed as killed in battles between April 19 and Friday along the barrier route.

Two U.S. soldiers have been wounded: one shot in the side, another hit in the chest by a piece of shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade.

But none in this company killed. This shows the impressive kill ratio we have compiled in our fights with the militias going back to 2004 and restarted in earnest this year.

And in addition to the Sadrists and other assorted Shia thugs being upset with this mission, Iran too is uhappy:

Iran said Monday it would not hold a new round of talks with the U.S. on security in Iraq until American forces end their current assault against Shiite militias.

The increased casualties we've endured in April are not a sign that the surge against al Qaeda failed. It is a sign that we are going after the Sadrists and their Iranian backers who may represent the last main threat to victory.

Don't get your panties in a twist as we exploit success to go after other threats to our victory. That would be like prematurely declaring mission accomplished after defeating one foe. And nobody agrees with that, right?

Naval Gazing

I appreciate this author's desire for a strong Navy, but he is truly worrying about nothing:

CHECK this: After cutting the number of active air craft carriers from 12 to 11 last year, the Navy is now requesting Congress' permission to go down from 11 flattops to 10 for the years 2012 to 2015.

It gets worse.

Maintenance required on nuclear-powered carriers means one ship is always in overhaul in the yards - so we'd actually only have nine carriers available for those years. And some fear that the drop to a 10-carrier force would wind up being permanent.

Good grief. We had 12 carriers near the end of the Cold War when we faced the Soviet navy. Our margin of naval superiority is so great today that no nation can challenge us. No combination of nations can challenge us.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to draw down to bare superiority, but I'm far more worried about leadership in the Navy that allows modern surface warships to be judged not ready for combat. Strategypage provides some background that I didn't have at the time:

The U.S. Navy has suddenly discovered that its officers and NCOs have dropped the ball and allowed the readiness of warships to deteriorate to an alarming degree. Admirals and staff officers are scrambling to discover what went wrong. Asking the chiefs (Chief Petty Officers, the senior NCOs who supervise the sailors) might provide some illumination. Except that, over the last decade, officers have been less inclined to ask their chiefs much. The "zero tolerance" atmosphere that has permeated the navy since the end of the Cold War, has led officers to take direct control of supervisory duties the chiefs used to handle. The chiefs have lost a lot of their influence, responsibility and power.

The Navy really does need to cut officers some slack if the mistake made is due to aggressiveness in ship handling. That is a good quality to have in war. Instead, we have ships that rot under the command of captains who fail to use their crews. That is a defect we should have zero tolerance for.

But back to the carriers, there is no magic number for carrier hulls. We had 12 at the end of the Cold War. We were aiming for 15, true, but remember in those days a naval strike to really harm an enemy needed a full-blown "Alpha Strike" package of planes. Precision weapons today make each carrier far more potent than a task force of yesteryear.

Second, carriers are no longer our sole strike asset. Anti-surface missiles spread throughout the fleet long ago ended our near-sole reliance on carrier air wings to generate offensive power. In the years ahead, big-deck carriers may be too vulnerable to risk in combat.

Third, if your worry is about hulls, we are building a stealth carrier fleet of medium-sized carriers that match or exceed the tonnage of every other non-US carrier sailing right now except for the French fleet. These are called amphibious warfare ships but they will be able to carry F-35s and will be carriers in all but name.

Fourth, our new Fleet Response Plan is designed to keep most of our carriers ready to surge in case of a crisis instead of the old Cold War rotation that kept 3-4 at sea globally, but with little ability to put the remainder on station quickly.

I want a Navy second to none. I want a Navy second to no conceivable coalition of potential enemies. But let's worry about the right things and stop basing an assessment of our naval strength based on the single measure of the number of super carriers we have. Is our leadership up to the task? How is our anti-submarine warfare capability? What about defense against high-speed anti-ship missiles? What about anti-mine capabilities?

The number of hulls surely matters. Two excellent ships can't be in three places at the same time. And so the number of carrier hulls matters. But watch how you count those. And remember that times--and the Navy--change.

Getting What We Deserve?

Dom M. emailed me to highlight this Mark Steyn piece, where Steyn wrote:

In the case of an enfeebled West at twilight, the fault is wholly in us. After Sept. 11, 2001, many agonized progressives looked at America and its allies' relations with the Muslim world and argued that we need to ask ourselves: why do they hate us? As Brian Dunn, a Michigan blogger, put it, a more relevant question is: why do we hate us? After all, if all our institutions, from grade school to public broadcasting to Hollywood movies to Canadian "human rights" commissars, operate from the basic assumption that Western civilization is the font of racism, imperialism, oppression, exploitation and all the other ills of the world, why be surprised that the rest of humanity takes us at our word?

Well I'll be ...

Steyn was referring to this piece, where I once again expressed my amazement at the ability of some Westerners to hate our culture. Really, I don't blame our enemies for hating us. They are slime. Why wouldn't they hate us? But honestly, can't we in the West appreciate what we have and have the backbone to defend it?

Honestly, if we were a unified society proud of our achievements and what we represent, I really wouldn't worry about a bunch of pathetic cave dwellers who fantasize about destroying the West. We'd butcher them before lunch and be on with our lives.

But the sad fact is, many in the West would kneel before their beheaders and feel privileged to be killed by the jihadis.

I think that we will prevail before our Guilty Americans and their fellow travelers in the Western world can surrender in our name. But that confidence is based in part on the knowledge that writers such as Steyn are out their pointing out our suicidal tendencies.

And on a more selfish note, when I go on my annual Toronto pub crawl, this reference will impress the Canadian babes, right?

NOTE: Steyn link fixed.

Neutral?

Yesterday, I was puzzled listening to an NPR (National Public Radio) report that quoted a person from some non-governmental organization (NGO) in Somalia who complained bitterly about the responsibility of the Ethiopians for the increased refugee population in Somalia.

How could this guy possibly be blaming the guys who came in and kicked out the al Qaeda guys from the Islamic Courts Movement (or Islamic Courts Union), I wondered? It was just bizarrre even by NPR standards of judging good and evil.

Strategypage explains all today:

The rains are late, and another crop failure is likely. Feeding the people left starving will be difficult because of the fighting between the clans. The majority of clans are just out for themselves, and loosely aligned with the Transitional National Government (TNG). A smaller, and more disciplined group of clans, supports the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). Many NGOs favor the ICU, which is more ruthless and disciplined, and more likely to maintain the peace with their Taliban-like tactics. As it is, the NGOs supplying food and medical aid are increasingly being robbed, raided and looted by everyone but the Ethiopian troops and African Union peacekeepers.

So the NGOs are saying that it doesn't matter how evil a group is. All that matters to the NGOs is that the evil side is ruthless enough to suppress disorder enough to allow NGO members to freely go about their business of delivering food. So the NGOs side with al Qaeda and against the people who won't threaten the lives of NGO workers.

I find that effing amazing.

Knights' Squeeze

We are on offense against the Sadrists and their Iranian puppetmasters. I didn't realize just how much on offense we are:

The US and Iraqi military have rapidly built up their forces in and around Sadr City over the past several weeks. Two Iraqi Army brigades and elements from an Iraqi armored brigade and an Iraqi National Police brigade, along with eight US Army battalions, have been reported in military press releases to be operating inside Sadr City over the past several weeks. In early April, only two US Army battalions, an Iraqi Army brigade, and elements from an Iraqi National Police brigade were known to be operating inside Sadr City.

A US Army brigade, three Iraqi National Police brigades, and an Iraqi Army brigade are also operating in the neighborhoods adjacent to Sadr City. This unprecedented buildup of forces indicates the Iraqi government and the US military are serious about advancing into Sadr City beyond the southern third of the district, which is being hemmed in by the security barriers under construction.

That is a chunk of change. I wonder if we are waiting to really use this force in a big and obvious thrust into Sadr City for the Iraqi delegation to Iran to come back with some news of a public ending of Iranian support of the Sadrists to further demoralize the Sadrists.

Or perhaps we are just going to continue to quietly grind away at the Sadrists until they break and dissolve.

The important thing is that we are taking down the Shia gangs and Iranian death squads.

You and What Army?

An Iraqi delegation will tell the Iranians to keep their paws off of Iraq:

Five Shiite politicians left Wednesday with "evidence, confessions and pictures" indicating that Iran is supplying weapons and training fighters who are locked in a violent standoff with U.S. and Iraqi troops, the government official said.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information, said the delegation would present the Iranian government with material that implicated Iran's elite Quds Force.

The delegation was expected to meet with Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to discuss the issue and stress that ongoing clashes between Shiite extremists and U.S.-Iraqi forces were threatening political gains by Shiites.

Behind the Iraqis will be US power and the promise of greater Iraqi power in the future. The Iraqis will no doubt make sure the Iranians know that Iraqis will neither forget nor forgive Iran once Iraq builds its military into a full-spectrum force, if the Iranians don't shut down the flow of arms, training, and money to thugs who are killing Iraqis and American soldiers.

The Global Fight

While Iraq is our main front against al Qaeda and Afghanistan is an important front, these are not the only places that we fight al Qaeda.

Somalia may not be the haven al Qaeda hoped it would become a year and a half ago before we supported an Ethiopian drive to unseat the Islamic Courts Movement, but al Qaeda still exists there. Now they're short one leader and a few others:

Islamist leader Aden Hashi Ayro, believed to be the head of al-Qaida in Somalia, was killed when the airstrike struck his house in the central Somali town of Dusamareeb, about 300 miles north of Mogadishu, said Sheik Muqtar Robow, a spokesman for the Islamic al-Shabab militia.

Another commander and seven others were also killed, Robow said. Six more people were wounded, two of whom later died, said resident Abdullahi Nor.

"Our brother martyr Aden Hashi, has received what he was looking for — death for the sake of Allah — at the hands of the United States," Robow told The Associated Press by phone.

Capt. Jamie Graybeal, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, confirmed there was a U.S. airstrike early Thursday in the vicinity of Dusamareeb. Another U.S. military spokesman, Bob Prucha, said the attack was against a "known al-Qaida target and militia leader in Somalia." Both declined to provide further details.

And in the Philippines, an al Qaeda leader was wounded:

A top al-Qaida-linked militant long hunted by U.S. and Filipino troops was wounded during a military attack on a rebel encampment in the southern Philippines, a military spokesman said Thursday.

Around the world, usually quietly, our forces help local security forces battle al Qaeda and jihadi groups. Ideally, we can atomize these groups enough so that local friendly forces can keep them on the run so that they never rise to the level of threat that requires the highly kinetic efforts that we see in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And if we can make sure the ideology of jihad is discredited in the Moslem world, these atomized and on-the-run bands will dwindle over time and disappear.

Five Ring Circus

China wants their Summer Olympics in Peking to be a pageant honoring China's rise to great power status.

Based on the protests in Western countries that have accompanied the Long Olympic Torch March, the Chinese are worried that foreign protesters with a laundry list of complaints about Chinese domestic and foreign actions will embarrass China right at home. More reasons to protest seem to pop up.

I think the source of embarrasment is more likely to come from Chinese citizens expressing anger at Westerners over the climbing list of of subjects that could be targets of protest.

The French company Carrefour is bearing the brunt of recent protests in China:

"We want to let all foreigners know that China is very angry today. We have to let Chinese people in China know that we are united," a protester said as he was led to a police van.

Protesters also carried banners and chanted slogans at Carrefour stores in Changsha in central China, Fuzhou in the southeast, Chongqing in the southwest and Shenyang in the northeast, the government's Xinhua News Agency reported. It said hundreds of people demonstrated in Changsha and 400 were on hand in Fuzhou, but it gave no other details.

The protests occurred despite Beijing's efforts to discourage them and to calm anti-French sentiment.

Calls for boycotts of foreign companies have been deleted from Web sites. A top figure in the ruling Communist Party, Jia Qinglin, called Wednesday for Chinese to channel their "patriotic passion" into holding a successful Beijing Olympics in August.

Chinese emotions have run high since deadly anti-Chinese protests in Tibet in March.

Nationalists complain that foreign news reports about Tibet are biased and accuse foreigners of wanting to see the Himalayan territory split from China.

The Tibet protests were a propaganda disaster for Beijing, which wants the Olympics to showcase China as a stable, prosperous society.

And if the Chinese security forces treat foreign protesters with kid gloves while treating Chinese protesters more harshly when these Chinese protesters will see themselve as defending China's honor, will this undermine the government which increasingly relies on xenphobic nationalism as a replacement for communist fervor?

There could be quite the hangover after this coming out party.