Welcome This Challenge

This is not bad news, though for those who want a nice and quiet process that doesn't disturb our evening dinners (and withdrawal from Iraq), it may seem bad:

The next prime minister will lead a government that presumably will be in power when the U.S. completes its scheduled troop withdrawal from Iraq next year. There has been fear among some in the West that a U.S. withdrawal would effectively leave Iraq as an Iranian puppet.

Al-Maliki, the U.S. partner in Iraq for the past four years, announced in a nationally televised news conference that he would not accept the results, which gave his bloc 89 seats to Allawi's 91 in Iraq's 325-seat parliament.

Gesturing angrily, he said he would challenge the vote count through what he described as legal process. By law, he would have until Monday to register his complaints with the election commission.

After the complaints are addressed by the election commission, the results may be revised and then finally submitted to the country's Supreme Court, which must ratify them. The entire process could take weeks.

Al-Maliki and his supporters in his State of Law coalition had previously called for a re-count, saying there had been instances of vote rigging and fraud. But election officials had refused, and international observers have said the election was fair and credible.

The top U.N. official in Iraq, Ad Melkert, called on all sides to accept the results. That sentiment was echoed by U.S. Ambassador Christopher R. Hill and Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. military official in Iraq, who praised what they described as a "historic electoral process," and said they support the finding of election observers who found no evidence of widespread or serious fraud.

Ayad Allawi has the pole position to try and form a coalition. While Maliki has been fine--proving himself in his Charge of the Knights operation in Basra to rout the Sadrists--it is wrong to pin out hopes on one leader. Voting and rule of law are our objectives.

So, while Iraq has shown they can hold elections, they always needed to pass the big test of peacefully transferring power from a losing incumbent to a winning challenger. Better to have that test now while we have nearly 100,000 troops in the country to remind everyone to play nice.

Maliki has at least indicated that his "rejection" of the results will take place through legal challenges. That's fine. As long as that is all he contemplates.

And for those convinced that we delivered Iraq to the Iranians, will they finally settle down and stop that nonsense?

Remember the Maine?

When I read the first sparse story about a South Korean warship (1,500 tons and 104 crew) going down off the west coast of the Korean peninsula, my first thought was that the North Koreans hit the ship with a torpedo or perhaps a mine. After many surface clashes where the North Koreans came off decidedly second best, such a course made sense.

Well, the usual suspect certainly is in the minds of the South Koreans:

A South Korean naval ship was sinking on Friday after possibly being hit by a North Korean torpedo and several sailors were killed, South Korean media reported.

A South Korean warship later fired at an unidentified vessel toward the north, indicating a possible attack, and the South's presidential Blue House was holding an emergency security meeting, the Yonhap news agency said.

"The ship appears to have begun sinking after an explosion at the rear of the ship," Yonhap quoted the South Korean Navy saying in a statement. "We have been unable to find the exact cause of the incident as of this moment."

News since that story came out is that the ship sank. It is unclear how many sailors died. It could be an accident. Not everything bad that happens near North Korea is caused by North Korea. Ideally, the South Koreans can raise the ship and tow it to port to examine the impact.

If the North Koreans are responsible, it would be one heck of a provocation given that such an incident would not be an unexpected escalation but a deliberate ambush by the North Koreans.

I'll have to look at maps of the area. It may be that South Korea would want to retaliate--if North Korea is guilty of sinking the ship--by building up their military presence on the disputed islands out there that South Korea holds.

Or, South Korea should sink the next North Korean ship that puts to sea. Maybe, if North Korea denies responsibility, the South Koreans could quietly lay mines where North Korean ships like to play. And then insist that the mines must have been left over from a training exercise, or something.

Best to keep this an off-shore crisis where South Korea has a good advantage (nothwithstanding this sinking) than escalate on the DMZ where plenty of ROK civilians could die if the tit-for-tat goes too far.

Still, you have to wonder what else the North Koreans are willing to do if they are indeed guilty of this attack.

UPDATE: Stratfor emails:

A South Korean presidential spokesman said North Korea did not cause the sinking of the South Korean vessel Cho An.

As my title implied, I didn't want to jump to conclusions. although if North Korea does choose to challenge the South Koreans at sea, I'd expect a submarine ambush that achieves a result that looks just like this rather than a surface clash that the South Koreans are likely to win.

UPDATE: Forty-six sailors are missing. I don't hold out much hope for their souls at this point.

At a higher level, this apparent accident highlights the danger of North Korea's hostile rhetoric even when the Pillsbury Nuke Boy doesn't intend to attack South Korea:

Despite early fears of an attack, there was no immediate indication that North Korea — which lies within sight about 10 miles (17 kilometers) from Baengnyeong — was to blame, the Joint Chiefs said. Still, troops were maintaining "solid military readiness," Vice Defense Minister Jang Soo-man said.

Earlier, North Korea's military threatened "unpredictable strikes" against the U.S. and South Korea in anger over a report the two countries plan to prepare for possible instability in the totalitarian country.

The potential is clear:

 

1. North Korea issues threats of destruction against South Korea.
2. Something in South Korea shortly thereafter is destroyed in an accident.
3. South Koreas assume North Korea is responsible, and partially mobilizes just in case.
4. North Korea, knowing they didn't do the deed assume "war mongers and militarists" in Seoul are planning war on the pretext, and knowing that they are weaker than South Korea and so can't afford to let South Korea strike first, unleash their only military threat--they pound Seoul with thousands of artillery pieces poised north of the DMZ
5. South Korea then invades North Korea to at least try to clear the area within range of Seoul of North Korean artillery pieces and attacks longer range missile sites deep in North Korea. 

For a long time, North Korea could make threats secure in the knowledge that South Korea couldn't do anything about those threats without American help. And America is far enough away not to take many of those threats too seriously--at least not seriously enought to react hastily. Our capital (and a quarter of our population) was never threatened.

But now South Korea has the military power relative to a rotting North Korea to do something about those North Korean threats. And North Korea keeps making the threats.

Now we're having fun, eh?

So Much For the Arab League

Iraqis got a reminder that we who shed blood at their side are their true friends:

Delegates say Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari has walked out of an Arab League ministerial meeting in Libya to protest against Moammar Gadhafi's declared support for Saddam Hussein loyalists.

Iraqis, at least those who run the show now, are just not the Arab League's sort of people. Of course, I shouldn't pick on the Arab League. Plenty in our State Department and think tanks have the same view.

Iraq needs a long-term defense treaty with America.

Trembling and Obeying?

I half seriously wondered if Australia's Internet censorship was influenced by China's policy.

Well, it is worse than I feared. I have to wonder whether a lot of Australia's policies are being affected by China's rising military and economic clout:

The hardest heads in the Australian system understand what the Hu business is all about. Beijing has sent a message to Australia: tremble and obey. ...

Of course it is remotely possible that Hu, like millions of others in China, paid or received a bribe, although there is no reason to think so. But Beijing's decision to prosecute him, and the ostentatiously contemptuous manner in which it has dealt with the Australian government, was taken to intimidate Australia. In this, Beijing seems to have succeeded.

Read the article to get the context of Stern Hu. But for my purposes, the point is that China is clearly looming over Australia, and as the self-professed middle kingdom, expects those near them--like Australia--to orbit nice and quiet like.

At some level, Australians recognize that they need to bulk up to resist that gravitational pull that we can see now. If Australia doesn't tremble, Australia will have no need to obey China.

The Shy One Speaks

I think Osama bin Laden has been sniffing cave fumes for a little too long:

Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden threatened in a new audio recording released Thursday to kill any captured Americans if the U.S. executes the self-professed mastermind of the Sept.11 attacks or any other al-Qaida suspects.

The U.S. is still considering whether to put Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four of his fellow plotters on military tribunal for their role in the Sept. 11 attacks. The Obama administration is also looking into recommendations for civilian trials, and is expected to announce a decision soon.

In a brief 74-second audio tape aired on Al-Jazeera television, bin Laden said if the U.S. decides to execute any al-Qaida suspects in its custody — and explicitly mentioned Mohammed — his terror network would kill American captives.

The terror leader said such a decision "would mean the U.S. has issued a death sentence against whoever of you becomes a prisoner in our hands."

Is bin Laden seriously stating that only now is he willing to kill us?

It is humorous to see what angers the jihadis and "causes" them to kill us. Fighting back makes them hate us, now.

How long before this becomes a talking point of our Left?

Kill the jihadis. Kill them as fast as we can. Keep killing them until they can't recruit idiots fast enough to replace their losses.

Still Trust But Verify

The Obama administration will sign a strategic arms limitation treaty with Russia:

The new agreement to reduce long-range nuclear weapons would replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which expired in December. An important feature of the new deal is that it includes a legal mechanism for verifying that each side complies — an element that was absent from a 2002 deal, known as the Moscow Treaty, that accelerated the weapons reductions laid out in the 1991 treaty.

The Moscow Treaty set limits on both sides' strategic nuclear warheads at between 1,700 and 2,200. The new deal, whose provisions have not been made public, is expected to lower that to about 1,500. It also would reduce the permissible number of strategic launchers — the missiles and bombs that deliver warheads to their targets.

Verification will be the key to getting Senate approval. I assume nobody thinks that judging Medvedev's or--God fobid--Putin's soul status is enough.

While I'm certainly on record as judging that, given our conventional military superiority, we'd be better off in a world with no nuclear weapons; in practice I don't think we can ever afford to give up our nukes since I don't trust many governments to live up to any deal to eliminate all their weapons--or the ability to assemble one in hours or days from non-weapon components.

Missile defense is our insurance policy against the risks of going lower than we will agree to with this agreement, but even missile defenses don't give me the confidence to go without a significant number of nuclear weapons.

But I do hope that our verification concerns are addressed in the treaty and not in a nebulous "annex" that we are working on still, and which Russia may or may not consider important as a practical matter.

A Very Sensitive Issue, Indeed

I thought it would make sense for Russia to sell submarines to Taiwan.

But Russia doesn't seem like they're interested in that path:

Russia will continue to support China on the 'sensitive' issue of Taiwan, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Tuesday.

'Russia is very careful about (its) ties with China,' Putin said during a meeting in Moscow with Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, who is expected to succeed Hu Jintao as president.

I still think it makes sense for Russia to sell submarines to Taiwan. Perhaps one day, if Taiwan can't find another supplier and Russia concludes that it would be better to tie down China at sea and can't count on America and Japan doing the job all on our own, Russia will change their mind.

Remember, it does Russia no good if China can quickly overwhelm Taiwan. Russia needs China pointed at Taiwan--but not moving in that direction. Russia needs China fixed in the southern direction--not victorious. Once Taiwan has fallen, China can afford to direct more defense resources inland, where Russia's vulnerable and resource-rich Far East dangles in front of a hungry China. So it is in Russia's interest to make sure that Taiwan does not fall to China.

With a shield on Taiwan, assuming China manages to take the island democracy, to hold off our fleet from approaching China's shores, will China want to run their supply lines at sea where America (and India, and anyone else along the long route for that matter) can cut them at will? Or will the Chinese seek to gain land lines of supply safely away from our dominant naval and air power?

Maize and Blue and ... Is It Hot in Here, or What?

Do I love or hate Jessica Alba's "technicolor" eyes?

What is that author complaining about? In my book, that's maize and blue. If I was just a tad more delusional I could convince myself she's sending secret messages to me.

To answer the question, "yowser."

My first installment of Dark Angel arrives in the mail from Netflix this week. I don't know how I missed that series the first time through.

Clearly, as the expression goes, I'll be in my bunk.

It's a Big Effing Deal

The Arctic region will be part of the defense discussions we will have with our Canadian ally:

The Honourable Peter MacKay, Canada’s Minister of National Defence, and Dr. Robert M. Gates, the United States Secretary of Defense, met today at the Pentagon to discuss ways to strengthen and expand U.S.-Canada continental and hemispheric strategic cooperation.

I'm still thinking Polar Command would be useful. The Arctic is important, after all, as our vice president might say.

Or, as an Illinois governor might say, it's an effing valuable place.

Search No Evil

Given this news, I retract my Gulagle remark. The "people's republic" is being taken out of a lot of things in China lately.

Good for Google. I hope this works out.

UPDATE: Crikey:

Internet giant Google led high-profile criticism of Australia's controversial plan to filter the Internet Tuesday, saying it went too far and could set a dangerous precedent.

What's up with the Australians now? Trying to avoid making China look bad?

Confirming McChrystal's Policy

I know a number of war supporters are angry that we restrict our use of firepower in Afghanistan to an even greater degree than we did in Iraq. Many war supporters would rather have far more liberal rules of engagement that place innocent civilians at risk rather than risk our troops' lives.

But winning the hearts and minds of locals is the key to winning. While I wouldn't support such restrictive rules of engagement in a conventional campaign, it is absolutely necessary to win the war in Afghanistan.

Don't believe me? Let's look at how our enemies are doing with loose rules of engagement, liberally using roadside bombs (IEDs):

Last year, the Taliban employed 8,159 of these bombs, compared to 3,867 in 2008 and 2,677 in 2007. The peak year of use in Iraq was 2007, when 23,000 were employed. In both countries, most of the bombs are detected and destroyed before they could hurt anyone. In Iraq, the Sunni Arab terrorists (al Qaeda and Saddam loyalists) never fully accepted the fact that the bombs, by killing more Iraqis than foreign soldiers, turned the population against them. That was a major reason for the defeat of the Iraqi terrorists after 2007. The same pattern is playing out in Afghanistan, and the Islamic terrorists still can't come to accept the truth.

Our enemies are failing in the war by their narrow focus on killing as many Americans and other foreign troops as possible regardless of the price that civilians who get in the way pay.
The objective is to win the war. It is not to compile an impressive kill ratio that we can boast about long after we've retreated from a lost war. A lot of people admire the skills of the German army from World War II--but they lost the war anyway.

I'll take a victory over a gushing profile of our excellent soldiers in a lost cause written thirty years from now. Heck, the gushing will be all the better for the win.

Terms of Endearment

Say goodbye to the People's Liberation Army. And the PLA Navy and PLA Air Force, for that matter.

Not to worry. I haven't gone all loopy in a fantasy world. The Chinese have dropped the "people's liberation" from their military's names:

Without any fanfare, China has changed the names of its armed forces. Gone are the PLA (Peoples Liberation Army) prefix for the navy (PLAN) and air force (PLAAF). It's now just the Chinese Army, Chinese Navy and Chinese Air Force.

With an increasingly aware and restless public and your standard dictatorial government, it is best not to let the idea that liberating the people is something the military should think about.

Still Number One

As pundits here continue their man-crush on China's aging autocrats (notwithstanding their policies that are more brown than green), remember that America remains the number one manufacturing country in dollar value of manufacturing.

Manufacturing may be lower as a percentage of our economy than others, but not dramatically so. And if you are upset that fewer workers produce our goods, are you also upset that so few farmers produce our food?

American dominance is not guaranteed. We have to work at it. And even if we do work at it, our dominance still isn't guaranteed since other countries are working, too.

But we have a long way to go before we relinquish our pole position to China--or anyone else.

With All Due Respect

While I certainly respect Canadian insistence that they have freedom of speech in Canada, this letter to Ann Coulter seems to indicate that Canada does not, in fact, respect freedom of speech notwithstanding very impressive Charter citations. The figurative asterisk about that "right" gives the game away that freedom of speech is not so fundamental at all.

Wrote the university official to Ms. Coulter:

We have a great respect for freedom of expression in Canada, as well as on our campus, and view it as a fundamental freedom, as recognized by our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I would, however, like to inform you, or perhaps remind you, that our domestic laws, both provincial and federal, delineate freedom of expression (or “free speech”) in a manner that is somewhat different than the approach taken in the United States. I therefore encourage you to educate yourself, if need be, as to what is acceptable in Canada and to do so before your planned visit here. You will realize that Canadian law puts reasonable limits on the freedom of expression. For example, promoting hatred against any identifiable group would not only be considered inappropriate, but could in fact lead to criminal charges.

What is fundamentally clear is that the right of the most offensive and thin-skinned not to be offended is the fundamental "freedom" in Canada. Otherwise, the letter would have gone out to the Easily Offended communities of Canada that states that while Canada certainly has great respect for the feelings of their more--ah, "excitable" residents--as is evidenced by a number of fine statutes that urge politeness and respect, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom provides that freedom of expression is a fundamental freedom. So the easily offended who hear Ms. Coulter's words should get a pair, suck it up when their feelings are bruised, and fire up the word processor for some more of that freedom of expression so cherished in Canada--even if Ms. Coulter cries when she reads or hears their blistering rebuttal.

But that letter did not go out. As Mark Steyn writes, the letter that did get sent is "sad and embarrassing ". Canadians, in fact, have a fundamental right to freely express whatever the Hell the government says is reasonable. And the loudest and angriest (and bombiest) voices in Canada increasingly get to tell the government what that limit is. Sure, Ann Coulter can fight whatever the easily offended choose to dish out, but unlike the vast majority of Canadians who must knuckle under to the "reasonable limits" on their speech, she has the resources of time and money to make any prosecution or kangaroo court embarass the holders of the limits on free expression.

With all due respect to the Canadian government, the castrated freedom of expression their university lords celebrate  is no freedom at all. And yes, I use the expression in the sarcastic mode.

UPDATE: I'll not defend or endorse everything Ann Coulter states (or perhaps even most, but I really don't follow her to judge how much is agreeable versus disagreeable), but it is distressing that there is even a debate over whether she should be allowed to speak.

UPDATE: Hate mobs triumph over so-called hate speech--preemptively, of course, as Steyn writes:

Between them, the media, the law and the education system are actively shriveling Canada's liberties. It doesn't lead anywhere good.

So freedom in Canada dies a little bit more, at the hands of smug defenders of all that Canada now values. No point in taking chances that Coulter--or anyone else not approved by the mob and their enablers--wouldn't say something to hurt anybody's feelings. Best to keep impressionable Canadians easily swayed by hate speech into violence from hearing the speech in the first place.

Funny enough, the mob that  prevented Coulter from speaking demonstrated just that tendency, now didn't it?

UPDATE: Ms. Coulter responds. I'm sure the threats of violence and the actual mob that shut down her speech are the responsibility of Canadian tea partiers. I await the anguish of the media response.

UPDATE: A late update of hope. But first why I can't bring myself to be a fan of Ann Coulter even as I think she has a right to be heard:

Coulter is so relentlessly and deliberately abrasive that she almost chases support away. In her London, Ont., appearance this week, her harsh "take a camel" answer to a Muslim student was fingernails on a blackboard to our sensibilities. But then, I recall the Michael Moore images of kids kite-flying in Saddam's Iraq, which was a real shudder-inducing moment. Disneyfying the torture state that was Saddam's Iraq was the grander affront by far. Moore, playing to the easy line of George W. Bush as an idiot-Hitler, got feted at Cannes and won an Academy Award.

"Take a camel"? Is she serious? WTF? How does that help make her valid points? Why attack people who we've fought and died with side-by-side to fight jihadis? That type of talk pisses me off. And she doesn't need to do that. She says much that the Easily Offended Community doesn't like to hear, and pretty much anything will anger them. Why put off people--like me--with unneeded language? I have no idea if she even believes that stuff.

I wouldn't go see her. But I wouldn't riot to prevent her from speaking. Nor would I riot to stop the far more vile--because he adds dictator love to mere hateful speech--Michael Moore from speaking.

Anyway, here's the hope part:

Coulter's visit, finally, did have one permanent utility. It was another vivid illustration of how elastic and feeble, at least in certain quarters, the Canadian understanding of free speech has become. The idea, evidently held by certain of the protesters, that merely to call something "hate speech" licenses an attempt to halt that speech is depressing because it has become so common.

The talk of the university as a "safe space," meaning a place when people will neither hear nor confront speech or ideas with which they are not "comfortable," is politically correct cant of the highest order. It is close to a contradiction of the idea of a university. If Coulter's tempestuous visit teased a few of these considerations into the minds of those otherwise innocent of them, it was worth all the flurry and the fury.

Protecting the fragile little egos of the Lefties on Canadian campuses hasn't inculcated a sense of respect for others. Their "safe space" that has become a shield from thinking they don't like that leaves them free to devote 90% of their time on attack to shut down all speech that they don't agree with.

Lost in the Crowd

Al Qaeda may seek to strike at sea off of Yemen:

The U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence said on its website that ships in the Red Sea, the strategic Bab al-Mandab strait between Yemen and Djibouti, and the Gulf of Aden along Yemen's coast were at the greatest risk.

"Information suggests that al Qaeda remains interested in maritime attacks in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, Red Sea, and the Gulf of Aden along the coast of Yemen," the office said in a statement, citing an advisory by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

"Although it is unclear how they would proceed, it may be similar in nature to the attacks against the USS Cole in October 2000 and the M/V Limburg in October 2002 where a small to mid-size boat laden with explosives was detonated," it added.

Adding to our joy at this development is the ability of the terrorists to operate among the many pirates who sail the area.

There is no will to go ashore in Somalia to raze the pirate bases and put a little fear of God into the pirates, but if we'd at least up our recent slightly more aggressive stance to one of shooting pirates on sight, sea-going terrorists would be lonelier and less likely to get lost in the shuffle.

Piracy isn't just a matter of insurance rates. It is a matter of life and death.

Death to Picnickers!

Unable to take on Western (and increasingly, even Afghan army) forces directly, the enemy in Afghanistan resorts to suicide bombs that usually don't work as intended (to kill our guys) and often just kill innocent civilians.

The Taliban may be able to increase the number of incidents and casualties, but this doesn't mean they are winning. I wrote much the same about the war in Iraq. Our side's power increases more rapidly than they can mobilize their power, and the killing the enemy does manage to carry out--because it isn't on a grand enough scale to intimidate given our presence and effectiveness--just angers the civilians who have to decide who to support. Strategypage has an interesting overview of the fight.

The Taliban pulled off another atrocity by killing ten Afghans:

"It was a suicide bomber who detonated a motorcycle as an Afghan National Army (ANA) vehicle was passing by," Daud Ahmadi, spokesman for the Helmand provincial government, told AFP.

"The blast killed ten civilians and injured seven others," he said, adding that it took place around 1.45 pm (0915 GMT) in the Gereshk district of Helmand, a cauldron of Taliban insurgent activity.

The blast struck a bridge in the Bughra-pul area of Gereshk, on the main highway between capital Kabul and Herat, Afghanistan's second city, he said.

Beneath the bridge, crowds had gathered on the banks of a stream to mark Nowruz, the Zoroastrian new year which falls on the March 21 equinox.

And thus the "resurgent" Taliban continue to lose battles and hearts and minds.

Losers

Anti-war protesters are still upset that we won in Iraq. While they are too late to reverse our victory in Iraq, they hope to lose in Afghanistan as a consolation prize:

Protesters rallied at Lafayette Park across from the White House and then began marching through downtown seven years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Seven protesters, including activist Cindy Sheehan, were arrested after the rally. Stops on the march route include military contractor Halliburton, the Mortgage Bankers Association and The Washington Post offices.

The protest — which calls for the immediate withdrawal of troops sent to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan — drew a smaller crowd than the tens of thousands who marched in 2006 and 2007. But organizers said many more people have become disenchanted with President Barack Obama, who has pledged to withdraw troops from Iraq, because he ordered more troops into Afghanistan.

The usual commies are involved. I guess they have to stay in practice in case they have to defend the Iranian or North Korean regimes.
 
Oh, you doubt me?
 

"We want to see the troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq," said Corazon Esguerra with Act Now to Stop War and Racism or ANSWER, which organized the protest. "We want all the troops wherever they are to come back."

Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark spoke at the Washington rally, calling on the Justice Department to investigate the officials who launched the Iraq war.

Later, activist and former U.S. presidential contender Ralph Nader said there has been no real difference in American foreign policy since Obama's election.

No, no. Not Clark or Nader, as odious as they are. ANSWER, the hard line communist group that was behind the big protests during the active fighting, is what I'm talking about. I'm grateful that the reporters mentioned this connection. During the major fighting, the fingerprints of ANSWER were often scrubbed in the press accounts of "ordinary people" protesting the war.
 
But short of digging up Saddam or his two sons and propping them up (with lots of air freshener), I don't think the protesters will get their happy dream of surrendering to the Baathists.

UPDATE: A trip down memory lane (tip to Instapundit).

Peking is Confused

It seems like we will eventually get Taiwan the F-16s they would like:

David Shlapak, an analyst at the Rand Corp. think tank, said that the chances China could deliver a "knock-out blow" to Taiwan's air force at the start of a conflict have "increased substantially in recent years."

"China is assembling a military capable of providing the leadership in Beijing with credible options for the use of force against Taiwan, even in the face of US opposition," Shlapak told the panel.

China strongly opposes US arms sales to Taiwan, arguing that they run counter to the US recognition in 1979 of Beijing as China's sole government.

China continues to oppose our arms sales, arguing that our recognition of Peking as the seat of China's sole government means we have to let Taiwan be absorbed into China.

I've never gotten why anyone buys that line of reasoning. Just because we recognize the Peking government as the legitimate seat of government for China, why does that imply that we endorse whatever borders that China claims is part of China? Does this mean that we must accept Chinese claims on land in the South China Sea, India, Russia, and the Korean peninsula, as well as Taiwan?

Please. We have no obligation to accept every land claim of Peking's rulers even though we recognize them as the legitimate government of China.

With This Ring

Stratfor (in an email notice) writes that our focus in Afghanistan is along the ring road that very roughly runs the perimeter of the country:

[M]ilitary and civilian development efforts -- a key component of the U.S. strategy -- are being focused on some 80 districts, most of them located on or near Afghanistan's Ring Road.

Over a year ago, when I wrote about our coming surge, I guessed the ring road would figure prominently in our strategy:

These American brigades and our fighting allies will concentrate on securing the ring road in Afghanistan out to the border with Pakistan. This will enhance economic growth and serve as a buffer zone to cut off the Taliban inside Afghanistan (within the ring road) from reinforcements and supplies from Pakistan and, to a lesser extent, Iran.

Securing the ring road will allow economic activity to increase Afghan income that doesn't rely on simply receiving aid from the west or NGOs. This is a necessary component of beating the Talibant and preventing al Qaeda from gaining a sanctuary in Afghanistan.

And of course, this approach is greatly helped by denying the enemy sanctuary in Pakistan.

This war is very winnable. Don't be confused by enemy bombings designed to be seen by Western reporters and amplified into another "resurgent" Taliban story line.

Sick Call

I had to go get Lamb from school since she was feeling under the weather.

No temperature but she does have a bit of a rough cough going. Now she's munching on her packed lunch and some crackers, with water and juice, on the couch set up in "sick mode"--bed spread and pillow, and watching Cartoon Network. She'll be just fine, I suspect, though I'll check her temperature so often that you'd think I was a nuclear technician diligently checking core temperature so nothing REALLY BAD will happen on my watch.

Lucky I had the day off today. Lamb seemed ok when I took her to school this morning, but I have to admit now that I think about it, that I briefly wondered last night if she was coming down with something. Just some little signs but then Lamb seemed fine and in good spirits, so I didn't think much of it.

I'm glad I did my grocery shopping right after taking Lamb to school. I could have been out, and I rarely turn on my cell phone (unless I want to, you know, call someone--I don't feel obligated to be reachable 24/7).

We'll hang out until it is time to go get Mister.

Men Really Can't Win--Ever

If you ever doubted that men just can't catch a break, check out this story:

Dads are helping out with childrearing more and more these days. The result can be both a boon and a letdown for super-moms, whose self-competence can take a hit when paired with husbands who are savvy caregivers, new research finds.

The findings reveal the fallout as women have entered the workplace in droves over recent decades, many of them leaving young children at home. One result is mothers have less time for care-giving. Past studies have shown working moms are torn between full-time careers and stay-at-home duties. And lately more diligent dads are helping out with the diaper-changing and other household duties.

But since mothers pride themselves on being just that - moms - their self-esteem can take a blow.

"While mothers are encouraged to join the workforce, socially constructed ideals of motherhood requires mothers to be primary caregivers," said study researcher Takayuki Sasaki of the Osaka University of Commerce in Japan. "Thus, employed mothers may feel pressured to do more care-giving to ensure the survival of their feelings of self-competence, even though they may wish for fathers' increased participation to lessen their burden."

Great. Now we're supposed to find that precise point between being a "deadbeat dad" and a loving father so that the moms don't get their self esteem all battered yet don't get to claim they are abandoned by the big jerk.
 
And as a bonus, I'm sure that the at-fault "socially constructed ideals of motherhood" were imposed by the male patriarchy that runs the world and secretly provides men with free beer, big screen TVs, and sporting event tickets. Once again, it's our fault.

It always is. That's the way it is. Luckily for women (and us, I admit), we're easily distracted into forgetting the unlevel playing field.

Close But No Cigar

International naval forces are being more aggressive with pirates based out of Somalia:

An international fleet of warships is attacking and destroying Somali pirate vessels closer to the shores of East Africa and the new strategy, combined with more aggressive confrontations further out to sea, has dealt the brigands a setback, officials and experts said Thursday.

The new tactics by the European Union naval force comes after Spain — which currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, and whose fishing vessels are frequent pirate targets — encouraged more aggressive pursuit of pirates and the coalition obtained more aircraft and other military assets, said Rear Adm. Peter Hudson, the force commander.

The EU Naval Force attacked 12 groups of pirate vessels, which normally includes several skiffs and a mother vessel, this month, more than last year. Half of those attacks were on the high seas and half close to shore, reflecting the new strategy to intercept pirates before they reach deep water and international shipping lanes.

This is certainly a welcome development, but it is just an inconvenience:
 

If the pirates aren't detained for prosecution — and most are not — they are disarmed and put back out to sea on one craft. Harbour said that while the aggressive tactics are not a long-term solution, they force pirates to find new vessels and weapons before they can launch more attacks.

 
Until we shoot to kill and just let them drown at sea, these guys will return to shore, find new vessels and weapons, and continue to seek weaknesses. It would be better to raze their shore bases and kill the leaders ashore, but raising the price of being a pirate from a mere inconvenience to death would do far more to end the threat.

Winning the Taliban War

Years ago, I wrote of the need to target the Taliban on the Pakistan side of the border in order to win in Afghanistan. This problem was just one of the reasons that the charge that we were "distracted" by Iraq from dealing with Afghanistan was always ridiculous. So this is good news:

Pakistan’s tribal leaders will discuss a strategy tomorrow to end support for militants, their biggest gathering since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and removed the Taliban from power.

At least 3,000 elders representing the 20 largest tribes in North West Frontier Province and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas will hold a meeting known as a ‘jirga’ in the provincial capital of Peshawar, Naeem Gul, one of the organizers, said in an interview.

Tribal support is crucial to efforts by Pakistan’s army to prevent insurgents from regrouping after an offensive in the region, focused on Swat Valley and South Waziristan, against groups blamed for 80 percent of nationwide terror attacks. Elders failed to stop the rise of militancy after the Taliban fled Afghanistan and thousands of tribesmen joined their ranks, killing scores of pro-government leaders.

I give credit to the Obama administration for getting Pakistan to commit to the fight against the Taliban. Granted, President Obama has had the advantage of dealing with a civilian government with its own reasons to rein in their own pro-Taliban intelligence people (in the ISI), but nonetheless, Pakistan has committed their power to the fight and lets us use our Predators to kill terrorists. I won't deny this success. As I've written, if I ever degenerate into reflexive Obama hatred, I should stop blogging on foreign policy.

The Taliban are a problem that inconveniently span two countries. An escalation in Afghanistan will always be at risk of failure if our enemy can just run across the border to Pakistan to rest, regroup, and raid into Afghanistan until we get tired of the cost and casualties.

Whetting Their Appetite

All is not well in the People's Democratic Republic of Korea.

In the land where all that the Dear Leader deems is made to happen, failure is dangerous:

North Korea has executed a ruling party official blamed for a botched currency reform, in a desperate attempt to quell public unrest and stem negative impact on Pyongyang's power succession, a news report said on Thursday.

The execution by firing squad in Pyongyang last week of Pak Nam-ki, Labour Party chief for planned economy, was for the crime of "a son of a bourgeois conspiring to infiltrate the ranks of revolutionaries to destroy the national economy," South Korea's Yonhap news agency said, quoting sources.

But both North Korean officials and even many in the communist country's public do not believe the explanation that Pak was a conspiring anti-revolutionary, Yonhap quoted sources knowledgeable about the issue as saying.

Failure is especially dangerous in times when the people are starving and increasingly desperate--and who increasingly don't care who in the government knows they are mad.

Still, I have to wonder about the wisdom of letting the peasants know that the proper punishment for failing in North Korea is death. Have the elites looked around the country much lately? Sure, their gated communities are looking superb, as usual. But the F in PDRK stands for "failure."

Ok, there isn't an F in PDRK, inconveniently spoiling this little witticism. But the fact remains that the entire country under the Dear Leader's enlightened rule is one giant failure rolling along at breakneck speed toward the cliff. "Ruining the economy" is the 5 year plan.

But now the people know what the proper punishment for failure is when they get their hands on the pampered elites who've dragged a nation along on their Thelma and Louise ride of defiance. Regime collapse is going to be ugly for the elites.

A Ruse By Any Other name

This is bizarre and inept:

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili's credibility in the West has been further eroded after a faked newscast sparked panic by announcing a Russian invasion, analysts and diplomats said.

The program on Imedi television, which has close links with Saakashvili, was a thinly veiled attempt to discredit the country's opposition that backfired, analysts said. It has prompted widespread condemnation - including from Georgia's chief ally the United States - as well as from European diplomats and ceasefire monitors.

If Georgian President Saakashvili had something to do with the recent "War of the Worlds" type news show that falsely broadcast "news" of a Russian invasion, I would not blame the voters there for dumping him at the first opportunity.

Remember, we support Georgian independence, democracy, and the current leader in that order. And the last is a distant third. At what point does Saakashvili harm the first two?

Hope, Change, and a Three-Week Assault

Austin Bay thinks that President Obama is reluctantly being dragged to the conclusion that we'll have to strike Iran to keep them from going nuclear:

The Khomeinists are 15 months closer to possessing nuclear weapons. A successful democratic revolt in Iran would get Obama -- and all of us -- off the terrible hook. Obama, and the rest of us, however, cannot bank on such fortune. In its own awkward, benighted and belated fashion, the administration of the American messiah of perpetual peace has begun preparing for "the military option" -- massive air and special operations strikes on the mullah's nuclear arsenal.

That could be right. I do think President Bush left President Obama the tools to strike Iran. And it is only a slight exaggeration to say that Obama will get another Nobel Peace Prize for de-fanging Iran when Bush would have gotten impeached for the same thing.

Hope and change can achieve a lot--as long as they come with a three-week blitz of Iran's nuclear, military, and political infrastructure.

Now This is Cowboy Language

I recall those pre-nuance days when an American president could demand Osama bin Laden be stopped--dead or alive:

Speaking with reporters after a Pentagon briefing on plans to call up reserve troops, Bush offered some of his most blunt language to date when he was asked if he wanted bin Laden dead.

"I want justice," Bush said. "And there's an old poster out West… I recall, that said, 'Wanted, Dead or Alive.'"

Remember how he was later derided for saying that? Quite liteally a cowboy moment, right? Sure you remember.

In our new nuanced age, we can just skip the "alive" part:

Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress on Tuesday that Osama bin Laden will never face trial in the United States because he will not be captured alive.

In testy exchanges with House Republicans, the attorney general compared terrorists to mass murderer Charles Manson and predicted that events would ensure "we will be reading Miranda rights to the corpse of Osama bin Laden" not to the al-Qaida leader as a captive.

Whoa there, cow poke! The corpse of bin Laden?

Still, you have to appreciate the nuanced thinking of ruling out torturing bin Laden for information by using the killing option.

Not that I disagree with what Holder is saying. I'm fine with atomizing Osama bin Laden and relying on DNA testing of the bits to make a positive ID. But I'm just a knuckle-dragger who believes we're at war.

Bill is Peeved

Snort!.

Polling the Horse Race

I know that many people here--including some military leaders--keep talking about the "resurgent" Taliban in Afghanistan, but do these polling numbers indicate anything even close to that view of the war in Afghanistan?

Yes, some polling numbers are better since the surge began at the end of the Bush adminstration, but it was never bad.

Assuming the data can be trusted, we are and have been doing far better than the Taliban in winning hearts and minds--and convincing Afghans about who the strong horse is.

Just have patience.

Harold and Kumar Go to South Waziristan

May these idiots enjoy their Pakistan accomodations:

A Pakistani court formally charged Wednesday five young Americans of plotting terrorism in the country, their lawyer said, in a case that has raised alarm over the danger posed by militants using the Internet.

The students, in their 20s and from the U.S. state of Virginia, were detained in December in the town of Sargodha, 190 km (120 miles) southeast of Islamabad, and accused of contacting militants over the Internet and plotting attacks.

If convicted, they'll spend a lot of time there. And yes, they're idiots even if they are innocent of the charges.

They won't be lucky enough to end up in Guantanamo Bay.

Just a Little Bit Pregnant

My. This is dumb:

Today, the United States has been actively fighting two wars with high casualty rates for both sides. It would be valuable for the commander in chief and senior military leaders to consider the merits of a nonlethal approach to warfare.

The term “nonlethal weapon” generally refers to weapons intended to be less likely to kill or to cause great bodily injury than a conventional weapon, i.e., guns, missiles, bombs, etc.

Nonlethal weapons can include chemical and biological agents, electroshock devices, acoustic devices, optical munitions, blunt or rubber projectiles, traction modifiers, nets or rapid-hardening rigid foam, radio frequency or microwave technologies, computer viruses, noxious smells, and acoustical interference technologies.

One, our side has not been suffering heavy casualties. And two, it's a good thing that the enemy is suffering casualties.
 
Oh! And bonus density! He uses as an example the so-called "threat" of nonlethal munitions to cover the withdrawal of peacekeepers from Somalia! That is not an example of winning a war. That's an example of an enemy allowing us to run away. Be still my heart. At best, it is an example of crowd control.
 
I have one question? How do we get the enemy to agree to one massive tickle fight on the battlefield? Because if our jihadi enemies don't agree to that, we'll face the situation of our guys trying to incapacitate the enemy while they kill us.
 
Imagine how that will work. Our guys will be burdened with body armor and MRAPs since our enemies will still try to kill our troops. And the enemy can run around, in t-shirts and trackshoes, more mobile because they are confident that maybe they'll get dizzy and vomit if we catch up to them.
 
And so what if we do incapacitate them and capture them? Could we hold them? Hah! Look how much trouble we have with the ones we do capture. Can you imagine the human rights lobby going ape over so many prisoners if we actually capture those we currently kill? At least the volume would overwhelm the number of lawyers in America willing to defend them (I hope), but other than that, what's the up side?
 
The effect on our morale and their morale would be obvious. Our guys would feel like they can never win and our enemies would feel like they can hardly lose. What's the downside for continuing the fight for them, after all?
 
And these issues are separate from the fact that "nonlethal" weapons are really just "usually not lethal" weapons.
 
Kill our jihadi enemies. Keep killing them. And then kill them some more until the idea of joining the jihad is a cruel joke said in hushed tones to scare small children in Karachi.
 
Anything less than fighting a war to win is foolish.

Mad!

Lamb made a newspaper recently. It is a four-pager titled simply "The Newspaper" The lead story was something about two people. It had a picture of two people--no faces--accompanied by squiggly lines indicating a story.

Page two had a happy person waving pennants of some sort, and a happy person at a restaurant holding food and a drink with a straw. And accompanying stories, of course.

Page three had stories of a happy girl with really large hands and a flower in her hair, plus a story about a court with a smiling judge and two witnesses in the boxes on either side. The stories remained squigglies so I don't know the details.

The back page, however, was where the real story was. It was the only story with words. Clearly it takes a journalism degree to get rid of those happy stories to the inside and make sure that if it bleeds it leads:

I laughed so hard when I found this lying on the floor one day. The angry teeth-baring protesters carry signs saying "Mad!" The story is that people are mad--very mad. And that it is "not good."

I'm not sure what this is about. But maybe it is all part of that 1848 vibe the world has had lately.

Like the story says, "not good."

Allow Me to Point Out the Obvious

This Guardian writer is perplexed that the American general in Iraq in charge of pulling out our forces is happy as can be:

Leading them is the senior American officer who will orchestrate the military withdrawal, a man who claims he has one of the highest job satisfaction levels in the country.

"I have the best job in Iraq right now," says Brigadier General Paul Wentz, of the US military's 13th Sustainment Command. "There is no question about it."

Whether that assessment is a reflection of the fraught earlier years of the occupation, or the imminent end of an increasingly unpopular war, or the fact that his staff have prepared so well that they can't fail, is open to conjecture. Either way, the men and women of the 13th Sustainment Command are raring to begin the biggest movement of troops and machines anywhere in the world since Vietnam, more than 40 years ago.

Occupation? I think not. We helped support the liberated Iraqis build their country in the face of vicious enemy attacks.

End of an increasingly unpopular war? Americans don't pay much attention to the war since we beat our enemies on the battlefield. I don't even know if our media bother to poll on American support for our actions and presence in Iraq.

Just doing their job well? Sure, in part, but were Brits happy in 1940 over a well executed Dunkirk?

Vietnam comparison? Check. Though I imagine our most recent "biggest" withdrawal would have to be the post-Persian Gulf War movement in 1991. But we won that war so it obviously can't be a Guardian point of comparison.

Let me suggest a reason that BG Wentz is happy: we won on the battlefield and are coming home as victors.

You know, as long as we're conjecturing here.

Let's Talk Real Troubles

It's bad enough that a couple of nutjob American women joined the jihad after converting to Islam. It's bad enough that one of the women turned her 6-year-old son over to the jihadis to teach him to hate Infidels and make pipe bombs. I mean, hey, it takes a village to raise a child, right?

This is the really disturbing part about the broad that pimped out her child to the jihadis:

Her conversion was so complete, Paulin-Ramirez changed her son's name from Christian to the Islamic name Walid after enrolling him in a fire-breathing Muslim school in Ireland.

Contemplate that fact. There is a "fire-breathing Muslim school" in Ireland. Which will train little boys to kill and hate. In Ireland! When you don't have to fly to some remote compound in the frontier areas of Pakistan or Yemen to get your Infidel-killing training and Alahu Akhar! phrase book, can we say we have some problems in the West?

The Irish thought they had The Troubles before? No. That was a stroll in the park. Now they've got real troubles.

Bear Hug

Yeah, what the heck. It was fun being independent and free, but Ukrainians have had enough, I guess:

Ukraine's new governing coalition in parliament said Tuesday it will pass a law against joining military alliances such as NATO, a move that is sure to please Russia while tilting Ukraine away from its previous pro-Western course.

In a statement of purpose published Tuesday in the parliament's official newspaper, the coalition supporting President Viktor Yanukovych said new legislation will "enshrine Ukraine's nonaligned status in law."

As if Moscow will be happy with "nonaligned status" for Ukraine! Failing to ask "how high?" when Moscow tells Kiev to jump will be a dangerous sign of Westward drift as far as the Kremlin in concerned.
 
Ukraine had the choice of being free within NATO or being a vassal state to Russia. They've chosen. Good luck with that.
 

The Tyranny of Distance

Strategypage writes--again--that Chinese military power does not come close to matching our military power and that they cannot threaten us. Strategypage then likens this to over-stating Soviet power during the Cold War, arguing that the Russians were no threat to us.

As I often do when I read these pieces, I like to respond that yes, indeed, our military power is far greater than China's and will likely be far greater than China's for as far as the eye can see. And even if China matches or exceeds us, we're likely to have far greater deployable power than China which faces nearby enemies and potential enemies on their borders.

But to conclude that China is therefore no threat ignores the fact that China can be a threat to our interests near their shores and in a localized conflict. Anyone remember the Korean War?

Today, the threat is over Taiwan. Again, China does not have to beat us to defeat us. China has to beat Taiwan. And to beat Taiwan, all China has to do in regard to America is delay us long enough to defeat Taiwan.

China could build a small core of more effective forces in order to conquer Taiwan even as their overall military remains of poorer quality.

As an aside, I also disagree with their assertion about the Soviet threat to America. Yes, we were stronger than the Soviets in the Cold War, but we faced a worse problem geographically than in regard to Taiwan. In NATO, the critical battlefield was West Germany and the Soviets had the advantage of being near with most of their power, while we were far and had but a fraction of our power available to fight on day one of a soviet invasion.

Apartments of Mass Destruction?

I can't believe that the issue of apartment building on disputed land in the West Bank is creating a crisis in US-Israeli relations. Sure, it was rude to announce it during our vice president's visit, but come on.

I was going to blog on the bizarre contrast of anger at Israel on this issue with our outreach to Iran and Syria, but this author did it for me.

It's a wonder we still have any friends at all left.

UPDATE: For an administration that claims it is out to "repair" the damage that George W. Bush did to our alliances, it sure is working hard to make 2001 to 2008 look like a Golden Age of Allies. How many friends will we have when 2012 comes to a close?

But then, I've been complaining about this for more than a year now.

At the Joe

It's already playoff time for the Red Wings with every game counting to make it into the post-season.

Mister and I went to see the Red Wings beat the Sabres (with Miller--Team USA's goalie in the Olympics--guarding their net) on Saturday. It was a great game with a thrilling fast two goals for Detroit, and then a slow tying of the game by Buffalo, followed by an overtime goal to give Detroit the win and two points:

Give me a break on the picture--I'm taking it.

The lads are getting ready to play:

Father-son time doesn't get much better. We have one more game at the Joe this year--assuming I don't get tickets for a playoff game!

Go Wings! Beat Calgary!

Transitioning to the Traditional Excuse

Secretary Gates explains that it really wasn't George W. Bush's fault that Iran won't agree to halt pursuit of nuclear weapons:

The president's policy over the past year, of reaching out to Iran, was in the hope that the Iranians would respond positively and provide a way out of the current difficulties that the international community has with Iran.

As has become clear, the Iranians have rebuffed the initiatives of the president for a better relationship. By the same token, his policy of engagement has now exposed the Iranian regime, for what it is, and their unwillingness to try and find a negotiated outcome here.

Still, some delusions persist, as if our years of quiet talks with Iran and approval of European efforts to talk to Iran didn't demonstrate our willingness to use diplomacy instead of force and so earn the support of allies for sanctions as a step in between:

And that creates the basis I think for widespread support for moving to greater pressure on Iran, in an effort to persuade its leaders to change course and to acknowledge that they will not pursue nuclear weapons.

I think that one of the benefits of the president's policy has been that it has contributed to very broad support in the international community as well as here in the region.

And that is the direction in which we are headed, for a new U.N. Security Council resolution, which in turn will provide a legal platform for individual countries that may wish to take more severe action, economic action.

We can't get China, Russia, or even Brazil, to agree on sanctions that hurt even now. Who is Gates fooling, here? Any sanctions we can get with the sainted international community's blessings will be so weak that they will be meaningless. And any tough sanctions that we apply and ask for voluntary compliance in enforcing will be ignored by enough countries to make them meaningless.
 
And besides, the sainted international community (and our Left) has always had a trump card to play when it comes to looking the other way as Iran goes nuclear, as the Al Arabiya interviewer asked:
 

The prevailing view in the Arab world is that the U.S. avoids talking about Israel's nuclear arsenal. Does this weaken the American campaign against the Iranian nuclear program morally and politically?

It's funny how the Islamic world can't solve its problems until some Israeli-related issue is resolved first. At some point, when does that claim become obviously an excuse to do nothing?

For a while, the Moslem world and their Leftist allies in the West chose to blame George W. Bush (and the dreaded Neo-Cons) for the lack of progress in Moslem issues. But with Bush gone, they're transitioning back to the traditional game of blaming the Jews.

Mailing the White Flag

Mark Steyn has written quite a lot about the slow surrender of Western Europe to Islamic thinking as Moslems immigrate to Western countries and the native Europeans give in to direct and indirect demands to accomodate the most radical form of Islam as a distinct entity within Europe and adjust European society to adapt to that new entity's society and legal thinking.

While I think that the Europeans will in the end go Mediaeval on this threat when push comes to shove, actions like this don't exactly fill me with hope:

In late April, if all goes according to plan, a resident of Kabul will fold up a paper ballot and push in into an empty box. It will mark the first time an Afghan citizen will have voted - for a candidate in the United Kingdom.

That's the idea behind an initiative called Give Your Vote, in which U.K. citizens will voluntarily give up their votes in the parliamentary elections expected to take place May 6 to residents in the developing world. The aim is less to tip the British elections one way or the other than to highlight the limitations of local decision-making in an increasingly interconnected world. "Right now, the people making decisions on things like climate change aren't getting their authority from the guy in Bangladesh whose house is being flooded," says James Sadri, one of the founders of Egality, the British activist group behind the project. "But what if the politicians did have to answer to these people? Would it change their position on climate change, poverty and war?" (See pictures of the presidential election in Afghanistan.)

Here's how the program, which launches on March 15, will work: British volunteers will pose questions from people in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Ghana to U.K. parliamentary candidates at town hall meetings or through party offices, and the answers will then be discussed on television and radio in each of the three countries. A week before the U.K. vote, Egality will hold an American Idol-style election in the countries, in which people will cast votes for their preferred U.K. party - Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrat. The following week, British citizens who decide to participate in the program - organizers are hoping for a few thousand - will receive a text message from Egality telling them how to cast their ballot. The votes will be doled out based on the proportion each party received in the overseas elections.

Wow. Surrender your Vote, is more like it. The priceless right of electing their leaders, won over centuries of struggle, is to be surrendered in a game show format. How much more symbolic can the decline of the West get? Not exactly a "we will fight them on the beaches" moment for our British friends, eh?
 
You'd think that the British would understand--after wishing so hard that they could have a chance to vote in our 2008 presidential election--that such ideas don't work out as you hope.
 
While the people likely to turn over their hard-won vote to foreigners are likely to vote for the jihadi-friendly (or jihadi-appeasing) types, is it really a stretch to see this voluntary program extended as a right at some point in the future? Perhaps reserving a certain percent of the vote to foreigners? Or simply letting resident aliens vote since they are allowing non-resident aliens to vote from abroad? After all, they could argue, how fair is it to allow distant people to vote when some of your neighbors can't vote?
 
It isn't enough to worry that the British (and other Europeans) will wave the white flag of surrender when radical Islamic thinking rises to dominating levels. Now we have to worry that the Europeans will mail the white flag to the Third World, saving the jihadi types the trouble of actually coming to Britain to demand surrender.
 
This is not Britain's finest hour.

A Base By Any Other Name?

China is building a commercial presence in a North Korean port (which my atlas calls Najin and not Rajin) on the Sea of Japan:

China has gained direct access to the Sea of Japan for the first time in 100 years through a North Korean port, leaving the other two regional players, Japan and South Korea, deeply concerned about the communist state’s ambitions.

China made an agreement to lease a pier at North Korea’s Rajin Port for 10 years, China’s Global Times, an official newspaper and the international arm of the People’s Daily, said on Wednesday. China claims the move is purely economic.

“China has finally found a direct trade outlet to the Sea of Japan … It is the country’s first access to the maritime space in its north-east since it was blocked over a century ago,” said the newspaper, adding that infrastructure renovation is “currently underway”.

 
Japan and South Korea are a bit concerned, it seems.
 
For now it is to be a commercial port. But building the infrastructure of a proper Chinese port facility means it could be quickly turned into a military facility. You know, in case China takes over all or even part of North Korea in a collapse scenario. Of course, absorbing Najin means that Russia gets cut out of the partition of North Korea that I speculated about five years ago.

The Last Refuge of Scoundrels

It has always annoyed me that the jihadis claim the mantle of keeper of the true faith when it comes to Islam.

For those who claim that jihadis have nothing to do with Islam, explain to me why jihadis so often get their way in defining their own view of Islam as the true form? When non-jihadi Moslems fight jihadis, there is always that "problem" that consists of the issue that it is tough to get Moslems to fight other Moslems.

Yet the jihadi Moslems have no problem killing other Moslems. Jihadis use mosques to store arms and hide in--yet it is wrong to violate the sanctity of a mosque to search them.

It is wrong to catch a glimpse of enticing female ankle flesh, so women should be hidden--yet it is ok to use such hidden women to disguise bombs that target other Moslems.

And of course, in the West, our more culturally sensitive citizens insist it is anti-Islamic (against all Moslems) to point out that jihadis rather successfully appeal to Islamic solidarity to gain support. As a percentage, more Moslems reject the appeal than they did before 9/11 and the Iraq experience of seeing jihadis gleefully slaughtering Moslems, but the jihadis count on even the reduced amount of support to continue their murder spree.

And here we have a jihadi exploiting Islam by appealing to Islam in order to kill the non-jihadi Moslem:

An American al-Qaida suspect detained in Yemen fooled his hospital guards into unshackling him by asking to join them for prayers, security officials said Saturday. He then killed a guard who laid down his weapon as he went ahead at prayer time.

The new details of Sharif Mobley's failed escape attempt, obtained by The Associated Press, indicate the 26-year-old American of Somali descent has a level of training and cunning characteristic of the terror network.

The guard was gullible enought to think that the jihadi was a true Moslem--but Mobley clearly felt no solidarity based on Islam with his Moslem guard. At least not enough solidarity to not kill him.

Can we at least agree that false Islamic faith is the last refuge of a scoundrel? Kill the jihadis. It is no insult to Islam to do so. Indeed, it is a kindness to Islam to help them kill off the jihadis who give them all a bad name.

On the bright side, after years of enemy offensives that accelerated during Ramadan, confused Westerners no longer speak of Ramadan ceasefires being culturally sensitive to our enemies.

Universal Insurance Policy

Iraq's election is a good thing. But it is just one more good thing on a path that requires many more good things to achieve a lasting victory. We're past the military victories that were good things on the past, but the future good things are important to transform the victory of flipping Iraq from Saddam's enemy status to the current friend status.

As I've written since even before the Syrian- and Iranian-stoked violence that required the surge, we need to stay in Iraq to cement rule of law and provide a visible guarantee to all Iraqi groups that they don't need to worry about another group going outside the law to seize power.

Gerecht has a good piece on Iraq, including this advice:

The next few months will be telling as politicians come down to earth after the campaign. If the Sunnis can live with the fact that a democratic Iraq will always disappoint their clannish aspirations for political preeminence and a right to live off state subsidies, then Iraq’s future is pretty bright. The Americans really ought to have one overwhelming goal: hang around. Not in large numbers. The drawdown of U.S. troops is a good idea. But we should view Iraq the same way we viewed postwar Germany, France, and Italy. The presence of American troops was the ultimate guarantor that those countries would not slip back into dictatorship.

Washington shouldn’t choose sides in Iraq, and it shouldn’t intervene in Iraqi politics except in extremis. But we do want to be there, in the background, as we were in Europe. Even Shiite politicians who vociferously oppose an American troop presence can privately suggest a more nuanced view. As the journalist Tom Ricks has suggested, American combat troops could be given a more anodyne label—stabilization forces, a support presence. Our training mission with the Iraqi Army and police is going to take years. Needless to say, most Sunnis will be thrilled. The problem will be with the Shia. We’ve not played Shiite politics brilliantly (as the stupid war against Chalabi demonstrates). But a constructive, unobtrusive U.S. presence is doable if the Obama administration handles the issue deftly.


If the White House really is worried that Iraq could become an Iranian satrapy, that’s another reason for a small but potent U.S. military force to stay there. Iraqi democracy is a big deal. The American left and right, which have dismissed its evolution and belittled the American achievement in giving it birth, are stuck in the past, in an unchanging Middle East that never existed. What’s happened in Iraq since 2003—and what’s happened in Iran since last June 12—really ought to plant the possibility that the Islamic Middle East isn’t a hopeless case. Some change there just might be progress. Accepting this will cause indigestion for those who’ve been unalterably attached to the image of post-Saddam Iraq as “the biggest strategic failure in American history” and who’ve denounced the pointlessness of promoting democracy “through the barrel of a gun.” Unfortunately, Barack Obama once belonged to this group. But as president he has proven flexible in foreign affairs. With him, as with Iraq after another successful election—freer and more competitive than any election in the history of the Middle East—there are reasons to hope.

I do have hope that President Obama can shepherd Iraq forward by refusing to bug out too early. My hope isn't based on any particular confidence in the president's ideology or foreign policy skills. As I've long thought, I still think that the president practices foreign policy in a manner to minimize the distraction it provides from trying to achieve domestic transformation to the left. If it would cause more distractions to lose a battle, he'll try to win it. If it causes more problems to win, he'll retreat. In Iraq and in Afghanistan, so far, I believe the calculation thus far is that losing would cause more domestic problems than continuing Bush policies that put us on a path to victories.

I'll have more confidence if the president negotiates a pact with Iraq's new government that continues to allow American combat brigades (regardless of what they are called, like the new "advisory and assistance brigades" (BCTs with more advisors in them) that are replacing our brigade combat teams) in Iraq after 2011.

I'd like to see a Stryker brigade in the north to reassure Kurds and try to hold the line on sectarian violence upt there, while helping to hunt  the rump al Qaeda. Add a heavy brigade and motorized infantry brigade combat teams deployed from Fallujah to Baghdad in the center; and a couple heavy brigade combat teams in the Shia south to watch the Iranians there. With a battalion task force in Kuwait centered on equipment that can quickly be reinforced to a full BCT, another BCT equipment set in the region, and an afloat Marine Expeditionary Unit in the region (plus air and naval assets, of course), we'd have a potent combat force both to worry Iran and Syria and reassure Iraqis that we hold the ring against both internal and external threats.

While the calculations could change and lead to retreat, I hope that the current math doesn't change and we can pursue victory in Iraq.

Bring Out Your Sad!

Huh. You've heard of the saying, "the beatings will continue until morale improves"?

Well, this business owner turns that thinking up to "11."

About 10 years ago I was having my annual holiday party, and my niece had come with her newly minted M.B.A. boyfriend. As he looked around the room, he noted that my employees seemed happy. I told him that I thought they were.

Then, figuring I would take his new degree for a test drive, I asked him how he thought I did that. "I'm sure you treat them well," he replied.

"That's half of it," I said. "Do you know what the other half is?"

He didn't have the answer, and neither have the many other people that I have told this story. So what is the answer? I fired the unhappy people. People usually laugh at this point. I wish I were kidding.

Yeah. I wonder how long it took for his employees to realize that the saddest seemed to bite the dust? I sure bet reported "happiness" improved as he made his rounds through the office.
 


I can see his office now.



Yes, indeed, it's a good office. Nobody thinks bad thoughts about Mr. Goltz. It's a very happy office.

Over The (Beep) Top

Are we witnessing the first hints of a transformation in warfare (and not the one we are planning) on the Israel-Gaza border?

So what is the Hamas response to Israeli tactics that don't even give the terrorists the pleasure of at least killing a Jew before they are killed?

Over the last five years, Israel has automated it's security along the Gaza border. Vidcams, with magnification and night vision capability, cover much of the border where Palestinian terrorists try to plant bombs next to Israeli patrol routes, or to try and get through the security fence.

Remotely controlled gun towers with sensors and machine guns, robotic vehicles, and backed up by troops only when necessary. What's the glory in being killed by R2D2 for your terrorist grunt brought up on the joys of killing Israelis? I suspect that this is discouraging to even the most committed jihadi. I mean, what does the Koran say about dying in battle when you are killed by a souped up toaster and not an Infidel?

I have to wonder if the next step is for Hamas to switch to robots to attack the Israeli border defense robots. Perhaps crawling mobile mines or EFPs try to work their way through the border defenses, taking days or weeks to try and evade detection. Maybe tunnels are dug to push the robot to the surface where it will begin its infiltration mission. Perhaps UAVs  with mine or EFP payloads are sent on one-way missions to land by a road to hit an Israeli vehicle. Perhaps the crawlers wash up on shore as "junk" and then move out. Or maybe terrorists assemble a robotic terrorist inside a city or out in the countryside and then set it to deploy and attack hours or days after the construction team leaves?

Perhaps enough terrorist robots can overwhelm the robotic sensors to clear a path to allow "human" terrorists to exploit the gap and actually reach human targets before getting themselves killed.

Of course, I fully expect that one day even conventional warfare will have this feature. First robotic and remotely controlled recon elements and outposts will duel in the no-man's land between armies.

Eventually, more and more of the armies (and aerial units) will be robots or remotely controlled. In time. we may return to mass armies and attrition tactics, but with robots replacing humans as the cannon fodder that we shovel at each other.

Which means that the ability to out-produce rather than out-breed the enemy becomes important as armies need constant replacements for the robot casualties. This will be a dramatic change from the small professional armies that advanced countries developed over the last several decades and which seems like the wave of the future.

We've seen small professional armies replaced by mass armies before. I suspect we'll see the same happen again. But at least this time there will be fewer letters to parents since scrap iron won't be mourned.

This will raise lots of broader questions, too. If people worry that the public is disconnected from war because we rely on so few volunteers to fight in our military as compared to our total population, what will the effect be when relatively few soldiers die in battle behind the shield of robots? What are war crimes in those circumstances and who is prosecuted? And what happens when you don't surrender on the deck of the battleship Missouri but to the battleship?

Could we see the first hints of this transformation from small, professional armies to mass robotic armies on the Israel-Gaza border?

Preparing to Fail in Two Contingencies

The QDR sets assumptions for force planning (or force rationalization, depending on how you want to look at it). Fine. But how can Defense Department officials perpetuate this fiction?

Rather than focusing on preparing to fight two major wars at the same time to achieve these goals, the military instead must prepare to "succeed in a wide range of contingencies," the official said.

While this decision signals a major change in a policy that has been the staple of U.S. force planning since the 1990s, the official emphasized that this new direction was, in fact, a continuation of the previous administration's work in the 2006 QDR.

We're just now stopping the assumption that we can fight two wars at once? Oh, please!

We have not had a two-war strategy for a very long time. That 1990s strategy called for us to be able to fight two wars nearly simultaneously. That is, if two enemies attack at once, we hold in the less important theater while we focus on the most important one and win there; after which we shift resources to the holding front and win there. I think the last round of the QDR we changed "nearly simultaneously" to "in overlapping time frames," which is the same thing.

The danger in not undestanding that we are continuing the same assumptions we've had for fifteen years is that by trying to argue that only now are we reducing our warfighting goal from two wars to less than that is that it will be used to argue we need less capability. After all, the reasoning could go, why prepare for two war-level forces as we did in the past when we no longer need to fight two wars?

The problem is, we never planned to fight two wars. So we cannot justify reducing defense spending on the assumption that we don't need to achieve as much.

Squirming

This is good news:

The Afghan Taliban's former second in command has been "singing like a male canary" since his capture last month, officials here told The Washington Examiner.

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was arrested by Pakistani security agencies in Karachi, has become "a vital asset in gathering information on the Taliban and other extremist groups operating in the region," one Pakistani counterintelligence official said.

And even if he isn't singing like a canary, saying he is could cause rats to scurry because they know if he is talking he'd talk about them. So just watching to see if anyone runs or disappears--or just starts calling around a lot to get reassurance that all is well--will tell us a lot even if Baradar isn't talking.

Sure, for many captured terrorists, the friends of that terrorist have to assume the captured guy will talk, and only hope the captured guy resists talking long enough for colleagues to go to ground. But can the Taliban under Baradar afford to scatter--and leave subordinates leaderless--when a high-ranking guy is swept up? Wouldn't these guys double the guards and watch the skies more closely but continue to operate until they know they've been fingered and located?

The enemy just can't know for sure whether news like this is true or not--which is why just the capture is useful even if he never talks at all.

Fields of Fire

The ability of smaller units to slug it out with access to recon and precision strike assets is fairly amazing to me. And with organic UAVs reaching down lower and lower, this ability to spread units out continues the long trend of moving away from a line of troops standing and firing shoulder-to-shoulder.

Organic precision firepower will drop to battalion level with precision 120mm mortar shells that will reach units in Afghanistan this year:

The program -- called Accelerated Precision Mortar Initiative (APMI) -- emerged as a result of an urgent request from commanders in Afghanistan who seek the ability to pinpoint targets using precision or GPS -guided mortar rounds.

APMI improves upon the 136-meter Circular Error Probable (CEP) of conventional mortars by reducing it to about 10-meters, said Bruce Kay, Department of the Army Systems Coordinator, Mortar Systems.

"This is a 120mm mortar round that provides precision capability to ground forces. A current conventional mortar round has an accuracy of about a 136-meter CEP. With APMI, we have been able to demonstrate a less than 10-meter CEP," Kay said. "This provides a far improved capability to the ground forces commander. "

Get precision into 81mm mortars and a company becomes potent.

Drop it down to 60mm mortars and platoons expand their horizons.

Those little UAVs at these levels become far more lethal teamed with organic precision firepower even if the HE content is small.

And the reduction in the supply burden will be significant, although as the article says, we'll still need area and suppressive fire using dumb bombs. If we can see something, precision lets us kill it; but if we can't see the target, covering a broad area just in case would waste the expensive precision mortar bombs.

Smaller and smaller units will not know the demoralizing effect of just having to sit and take punishment because an enemy's weapons outrange their own, relying on higher echelons to intervene and save their bacon.