Friend Me!

North Korea is on Facebook now:

The Facebook account, which describes itself as male, says it is interested in men and is looking for networking. The account had 50 friends as of Friday.

Facebook suggests Burma, Venezuela, Syria, Iran, and China for friends.

Annoyingly, all North Korea seems to do is play Farmville and Mafia Wars.

A Resilient Problem

Why is virtually any media reporting on the Taliban in Afghanistan accompanied by the term "the resurgent Taliban?" Is it a copyrighted phrase or something? Because reporters all seem to use the term constantly.

The fact that we have not defeated the Taliban yet does not make them "resurgent." It means that they are "resilient" perhaps, as any insurgency worth its salt can be even in the face of superior military power; but it does not mean that our failure to defeat them now indicates the enemy is resurgent and therefore defeating us.

Strategypage writes about the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan:

[The] "Taliban comeback" keeps getting headlines in the media. But it's the Taliban who are increasingly under attack. There hasn't been a "Taliban Spring Offensive" for the last two years, and the key Taliban financial resource; heroin in Helmand province, has been under attack as well. The opium crop declined over 25 percent this year. The Taliban hoped that drug gang profits, al Qaeda assistance and Pakistani reinforcements would turn the tide. But al Qaeda is a very junior, unpopular, and shrinking partner, and the Pakistani Taliban are sending refugees, not reinforcements. With all that, violence nationwide was up, mainly because there are more foreign troops in the country, being more aggressive against the Taliban and drug gangs.

I just don't see how the enemy is "resurgent."

Much as the enemies in Iraq were too difficult to beat right up to the moment we beat them, we will find that we are battling the "resurgent Taliban" right up to the point that our media finds that they have too few loud explosions to justify that description, and they'll quietly drop it.

And then they'll discuss why we haven't really won and that the price is probably too high to justify the result.

Or, their mis-reporting will convince us to retreat despite the fact that we are beating the enemy, leaving a bloodied and dazed enemy the last one on the battlefield, convinced that Allah really does want them to rule the world. How else would you explain their victory under the circumstances?

Alas, nine years into the Long War, the press corps collectively (there are exceptions on an individual level) still doesn't understand war or history, greatly handicapping their ability to report on the war. No food or fashion reporter would accept such a lack of knowledge even nine weeks into a job, but in foreign affairs, lack of understanding is no handicap to holding the job.

South "China" Sea

The Chinese and America are lining up to contest the South China Sea, which China claims as a core national interest it will control exclusively:

US warships are currently staging their third set of exercises in less than a month off the coast of China, in a show of force that has prompted sharp criticism from Beijing and fears of prolonged maritime tensions in the region.

In addition, to exercises with South Korea and Vietnam, we are training with the Japanese near China:

Japan and the United States are planning a joint naval exercise in southwestern Japanese waters later this year near islets disputed with China and Taiwan, a media report said on Thursday

The war games in December, to be joined by the US Navy's Seventh Fleet, are based on a scenario involving Japan recapturing an unnamed remote southwestern island from an enemy, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported without citing sources.

Japan is to send fighters and patrol planes, as well as 250 paratroopers from cargo planes guarded by F-15 fighters in the drill in Oita prefecture, near Okinawan and other southern islands, the report said.

Chinese assertiveness over what we believe are traditionally international waters leads us to counter Chinese moves to incorporate the South China Sea into their territorial waters. Islands in the area that other countries bordering China claim in competition with China provide us with leverage to gain allies to counter Chinese claims over the area.

A rising China encounters resistance from many neighbors who don't like falling under the shadow of China's lengthening military reach. And that worry makes our friendship more valuable to them than in the past when China--or other countries--had little ability to project power even far across China's border.

So as long as we maintain a military able to support Asian nations worried about China, China's increased military power generates balancing power among China's neighbors who aren't happy to fall under the influence of China. That keeps the South China Sea a geographic term.

But should we fail to maintain a military capable of fighting in the Western Pacific and blocking China, China's power will eventually compel many of the more vulnerable locals to make deals with China to accept Chinese dominance.

And the remainder who don't want to cut deals will most certainly go nuclear to deter China.

But in either case should we pull back, the South China Sea will effectively become part of Chinese territory.

Again in the Course of Human Conflict

Today is the 70th anniversary of Churchill's speech about "the few" pilots who held off the German aerial blitz hoping to soften up Britain for invasion. today it is a matter of celebrating "the few" who successfully defended Britain:

Vintage World War II fighter planes will fly over London Friday to pay tribute to "the few" — pilots who defended the country from German attack during the Battle of Britain.

Between July and October 1940, Royal Air Force fighter squadrons battled German bombers that pounded Britain's cities and airfields as preparation for a planned invasion.

Britain survived having so few in 1940. The British will be back to that state in no time:

The Daily Telegraph, which said it had seen detailed proposals for Ministry of Defense cuts, said all three military services face the elimination of major capabilities.

Alas, as is common in the course of human conflict, Britain owes so much money to so many that they cannot afford more than a few to defend Britain.

This is not their finest hour.

The Devil They Don't Know

There is some unrest in Bahrain as the government cracks down on Shia opponents of the government:

Political tensions have risen in recent days in the Persian Gulf state of Bahrain, where Shiite Muslim clerics and a prominent activist have been arrested as the island kingdom gears up for parliamentary elections in October.

Activists, mostly Shiites protesting government policies and the recent arrests, blocked roads near the capital Wednesday night, and set fires to trash cans.

Why should we be interested?

Bahrain hosts the United States Navy's 5th Fleet, which patrols the Persian Gulf. The majority of the population is Shiite but the oil-rich country is ruled by a Sunni dynasty. Shiites, some of them close to Iran, have repeatedly complained about discrimination in the job market and say the Sunni-dominated government, which has strong ties to Saudi Arabia, is trying to dilute their influence.

Bahrain is a problem. While it is not ideal to support a minority Sunni government against a Shia majority, that majority gains support from Iran. Worse, Iran would love to annex the whole place.

If that sounds very similar to Iraq under Saddam and their Shia south, it is. Which is why it is a delicate problem.

But of coruse there is a major difference, too. Bahrain's government is friendly and not a supporter of terrorism or expansionist or intent on getting weapons of mass destruction. And we have a major naval base there.

The article doesn't mention Iran's hand in any ot this. And given that the Shia's would naturally be unhappy with their lot in life even if Iran cared nothing about the place, I don't want to assume anything.

But I'd be shocked if Iran was not stirring up the locals and providing help in the hope of exploiting any unrest. Bahrain's Shia's may not like being under the control of a minority Sunni government, but I sincerely doubt that they'd enjoy being part of an Iranian client state.

Statistical Noise

For all the focus on our surge of forces in Iraq in 2007 that allowed our troops to disengage from routine combat in Iraq after largely defeating the armed threats to Iraq's new democracy, it helps to actually look at the number of our troops in Iraq over time to understand why I always asserted that the way the troops were used was more important than the numbers:

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11020270

The surge was simply never that dramatic in terms of added troop numbers. We could have won without the surge in troops, I judge, as long as we had the strategy.

Though the extra troops were perhaps necessary to beat the Washington clock that was speeding toward retreat at the time, since it surely would have taken more time since without the extra troopw we would have had to take some risks by thinning out on the ground in areas not the subject of the surge offensive in 2007.

And I should add it makes the long debate over whether we had enough troops look silly. For a long time, it was a cottage industry to argue we needed far more troops to win. I argued otherwise. Yet our troop strength did not vary that much through the years of successes and challenges.

Who's Phobic Now?

No, America is not "Islamophobic."

America is "jihadophobic," if you want to use that silly suffix for the purpose of describing our war on Islamo-fascists. But with no "backlash" against Moslems here in America and given that so many Moslems are fighting with our troops and government institutions against the jihadis that target Moslems more than Americans, one would think that a leading magazine such as Time would have difficulty propping up the withered, dead husk of so-called Islamophobia that they see every time some American is so much as rude toward Islamo-fascists or their ideology.

If wanting to fight jihadis is Islamophobic, according to the Left, doesn't that mean that the Left itself considers all of Islam equivalent to the ideology of the jihadis? If attacking jihadis is really attacking all of Islam, how else can you explain that logic of Time magazine and their ilk?

It seems to me that our Left is Islamophobic considering their inability to distinguish between jihadis and Islam in general. I see no problem in simultaneously wanting to kill jihadis and their ideology and my belief that we can work with Islam in general to achieve that goal.

These are sad days, indeed, when a knuckle-dragger like myself has more nuance than the progressives who would banish all the wrong phobias from our society.

Epic Vacation Fail?

Well, I'm recently back from over a week in Canada, about half near Sudbury and the rest in Toronto. I like Toronto, in particular. It is a great place to briefly set down parenting responsibilities and just be a single man. Although to be fair to Sudbury, I now know where to get crack when there. So I've got that going for me when I return.

Things went wrong, but I had fun. You just have to take the things that go wrong in stride.

It started out well. The night before I even took Mister's suitcase down from his bedroom and placed it by the fire place so I wouldn't forget it upstairs. I managed to get out my door in the morning on time and even left my Ex's house with Mister ahead of when I expected to go. Mister even got a magazine he ordered in the mail before we left. He counted on that to keep him occupied on the train trip. Lamb woke up to say goodbye though my Ex wasn't pleased with her loss of sleep. Personally, I think Lamb would wonder why dad and brother didn't say goodbye more than worrying about an hour less of sleep. But that's me, I guess. I've always been more of a morning person than her though objectively, I'm not.

And we made it to the tunnel with no delays. The only hiccup was choosing the wrong line for Canadian customs. I though the horse trailer I pulled behind was a two-car equivalent in line length, but it more than made up for that in the time it took to clear Canadian customs. Oh well. I over-optimistically noted to Mister that perhaps this was our travel mishap and it was all clear sailing from now on! Heck, even the fact that I'd failed to sign my passport didn't get me cavity searched! Once in Canada, all would be smooth--legally wise--until I had to run the gauntlet of US customs on the way back in. Let me just say that entering Canada with a child and leaving without one (though I do it year after year) seems to catch their attention.

But we'd gotten past a potential problem and were home free! In film, that would be called foreshadowing.

Only minutes later we pulled into the train station at Windsor and I parked the car. The station has always seemed in an odd place, with nothing of interest to a traveler nearby. The liquor factory nearby doesn't count.

Mister and I got out, grabbed what we needed from the passenger compartment, and I opened the trunk to grab our luggage.

"I forgot your luggage," is what I said the instant I looked down. Apparently, I never went near the fire place in the morning.

Mister was disturbed. In his short life thus far, going on vacation strongly implies having luggage. It has the clothes not on your back and other such things one would normally have in a large area of bedroom and bathroom.

So it was lesson in coping time. I was clearly still in parenting mode. We have options, I said. Let's go inside and find out what it costs to change our ticket to Toronto to a later departure. With a long layover in Toronto, we have the time to return to Ann Arbor and get the bag.

I admitted my epic vacation fail to the staff--who were very sympathetic--but the sad fact was that it would cost me 140 Canadian dollars to do that. Add in the cost of the gas and two more crossings--and two more runs at customs--and the alternative of buying luggage and clothes in Toronto seemed far wiser. We could even have waited until arriving in Sudbury, but then Mister's grandfather would insist on paying and I didn't want to do that to him. So we had a plan. And we'd still have time to go to the island amusement park in Toronto.

So we boarded the train in short order and settled in. Mister's shoulder bag contained all his entertainment so the loss of his luggage wasn't even an immediate problem.

As I told my son, any problem that can be solved with an amount of money you have available isn't that bad of a problem, really. So there's your parenting lesson: don't panic, make and assess options, pick your option, and then move on--complete the mission.

The trip went smoothly. We ate our brunch, chatted, and read or watched movies. Mister didn't even tease me over the lost luggage. How did we raise such a good kid?

Once in Toronto we stored our bags and headed north underground since I'd seen both drug stores and luggage stores down there. We nabbed toiletries but the luggage stores had no useful sales. At Hudson Bay, we walked into the store at the luggage department. Sixty percent off. Huzzah! We selected a piece--ten year guarantee on the thing--and Mister picked a color. He travels with his mom and sister more than with me so I figured he should have it (and I can borrow it if need be).

That was fast. This will be a piece of cake. But the Bay didn't have clothes at reasonable prices. I was not paying what they asked for. Good grief, clothing prices are expensive in Canada! Why they don't all walk around buck naked is beyond me.

So it was off to Sears across the mall, suitcase in tow. It took a while, but I replaced everything piece for piece in the luggage with items on sale (needing only a trip to American Eagle for aanother pair of shorts). As a bonus, he had more underwear and socks. But I bought no belt figuring he could get a spare from his grandfather up north or I'd loan him one of my two, if all else failed. Luckily I had Mister's swim suit and diving mask in my luggage.

We dragged our stuff off to the Sheraton lobby and we quickly unwrapped clothing while I ripped off plastic tags with my keys, and packed them in the new suit case. We worked quickly because it occurred to me that this looked an awful lot like a stage in a child snatching--picked him up on the street, bought him luggage and clothes, and then we're off to hide from the law!

Just in case, I said to Mister loud enough to be heard by nearby strangers, "See? Losing your luggage wasn't so bad. We'll just tell mom we did your back-to-school shopping." With the problem solved, he felt free to jab me mildly over that ever so slight oversight on my part. Later, when I mentioned my tiny slip to my Ex, she good naturedly teased me. Well, at least I knew where Mister got his restraint (hey, I'm telling this story). She was happy to have a sturdy piece of luggage and was a bit jealous of how cooperative Mister was during shopping (he hates it). Take away all his clothes, I said, and he's surprisingly cooperative.

So we left the lobby without police entering and talking to someone pointing at us. Now we're cooking.

So it was time for an amusement park. We stored our additional suit case with Via Rail and headed for the ferry. Ominously, dark clouds were rolling in. We got on moments before it pulled out. But the clouds! Oh heck, did this shopping delay this long enough to repeat last year's debacle of entering the ferry when the rain drops started and reaching the island in a deluge?

But the rain held off. And though the staff warned against the wrist bands since the island closed in three hours, we laughed in the face of warnings. We don't need your stinking individual tickets!

And in the end, we had a ball, getting our money's worth with the bands despite the lines.

That's the Mill Ride on the way down.

Yeah, my son had fun:

So we left on the ferry at fading light:

We arrived back at the train station as dusk descended. As we crossed the street, I kept my eye on a driver edging forward, eager to make a right turn on red. And then she jumped forward as Mister an I were about to walk in front of her. "Hey!!!" I yelled, as I shot my right arm out and quite literally reversed Mister's vector. That would have prevented disaster alone, but the driver did indeed stop to the hoots of many locals around the intersection who mocked her driving skills. Move along.  Nothing to see.

We had a late dinner in Harvey's in the station and grabbed some donuts from Tim Horton's for dessert and breakfast in the morning. (I do like me my Tim's while I'm in Canada. Hello?? Corporate headquarters! Ann Arbor here!)

We settled into seats and checked in with Mister's mom so she'd know all was well. At her urging, we eventually go a four-seater when no family claimed it. Mister had his neck pillow his mom bought him for the trip and I had an inflatable courtesy of some airline. During a daytime trip, Mister would love the observation car. But for a night trip, it was just some movie for him and then sleep. I went right for sleep.

We arrived at Sudbury Junction in the pre-dawn hours--at a double-wide acting as a station--on time, and I called a cab to go to the hotel where Mister's grandfather was staying. Showers were welcome in my ex-father-in-law's room and the feuding couple in the room next door were long gone to the police station (and the workmen to repair the room not yet arrived). We did some quick shopping and it was off to the car for a long trip to the marina and a boat ride to the cabin that to this day leaves me lost.

There really isn't a lot to say about the time on the island. The weather was nicely warm and I even went swimming with Mister off the dock:

We pulled Mister behind the boat on an Airhead, and we had slow-paced fun. I enjoyed my days there, though I discovered I could not take as many pictures as I'd hoped since the shutter opened while the camera was in my pocket sometime during the first day's trip, draining the battery to one bar. Heck.

But as much as I really did enjoy my time on the island, I really am a city boy. See the harmless little tree frog?

Cute, huh? Apparently, its defensive maneuver is to turn its back on you, spray the predator with urine, and leap away in the confusion. This picture was just before that sequence, while I leaned in to look. Yeah, pretty cute.

So Mister and his grandfather took me to Sudbury where I parked in a hotel lobby until the station opened so I could get on the 2:20 AM train. I will say that this at least has the advantage of getting me into Toronto in the morning in time for evening activities no matter how late the train. One year, when the train left in the afternoon, it got me into Toronto rather close to midnight, grossly constricting my evening.

I took a cab to the station with a brief detour to the wrong station downtown. As we passed on building close to the station, the driver warned to stay away from that place. Why? That's the local crack house and prostitutes hang out there, too. Ah, I said. Good to know. And, I joked, with the prostitutes hanging out at a crack house, you know they're high class hookers, eh? But I got to the right place eventually.

Mister would have some time alone with his grandfather who was going to teach Mister to drive the boat this summer. They'd hang out until his sister and mom arrived for a few days and then all drive home.

Me? I'd finally get to set down the constant burden of parenting for a few days. A burden? Yes, indeed. I say that without guilt.It is a burden I gladly and willingly bear, but you're darned right it is a burden. I always worry I've forgotten something more important than luggage--something that money can't fix. I love my children and constantly worry that I'll screw something up. Indeed, for years I did not know what it was like to really set down that burden. Single days here and there didn't count, nor did even a few days without the kids if they were on a short vacation with their mom. I was at home or at work, and always on "parent" setting. Dates didn't do more than suppress my awareness of that setting for a time.

The first time I went to Toronto after leaving Mister up north, many years ago, I had such a fun time on my own that it took me months to really settle into parenting again, though I kept the schedule of parenting. I truly worried that I was disengaging from being a dad--something I knew was common in divorce no matter how dedicated and committed the dad was to parenting.

The next summer, I worried that the feeling would kick in again after turning the dial to "single guy." That was the year I got Bell's Palsy and--worrying I'd had a stroke (I didn't think so at the time, believing accurately as it turns out to be a nerve issue--but I'm a history major!), took a taxi to the emergency room. I recovered nicely in short order, and semi-joked that it was God's way of reminding me not to have too much fun at the expense of being a parent.

Let me just say that it if that was God's intent, it worked. Since that event five years ago, I've had no problem eagerly moving the dial back to "parent" after enjoying myself on vacation.

Once on the ground in Toronto, only an hour late, I switched fully to "single" mode. My first stop was Tim Horton's for lunch. I had many hours to check in on my hotel on Bloor Street. That was way farther north than I'd like, but Priceline changed their territories for downtown and that's what I drew this time. Drat. But I planned to walk north from the station to eat up time. Tim's to get me started, and then lunch at a small brewpub-type place with outdoor seating for lunch and beer. Ah, vacation! I ate at my leisure, reading my book and enjoying the multi-cultural delights of Toronto's women walking or seated nearby, and drank my fill of fine Canadian brews.

As a bonus, I wasn't on the ground more than an hour before tourists asked me for directions. Score! I am passing for Canadian again! And I told them where China Town was.

I arrived at the Marriott an hour before formal check in time, 40 hours since my last shower and shave, 30 hours since my last change of clothes, and 30 minutes from my last beer. Ah! Vacation!

Somewhat to my surprise, they had a room for me. And it was on the concierge level, a grade up from the rabble rooms. And on Priceline prices! Life is good. I unpacked and headed out.

No need for lots of details, here. My usual haunt at "Gracie's" in the entertainment district was far away and I planned only one trip there--the first night--since the band was a Tennessee band that played a mix of rock and country. One guy in the band was from "Detroit," but as I chatted with him at the bar before they went on, he gave me the name of a small town north of Detroit. Nobody would know that town. So he's "from (near) Detroit." It was crowded but not as crowded as it would be on a Friday or Saturday. I had a blast.

I should have returned to the place the next two nights, really, based on the fun, but I thought I'd take advantage of my location to see if the northern edge of downtown had appeal. I researched some likely places on the Internet before the trip.

Heck, there was even a totally nude bar (not the patrons, I hasten to add) very close by. I was tempted. It has been decades since I've been to the Windsor Ballet (as it is called). But at some level, it seems pathetic to be a man of my age leering at strange nude women. Besides, I'd probably waste much of the advantage by struggling to maintain eye contact. I'm really that polite. The bottom line is that I fear I'd just wake up the next morning in my hotel room, broke, magic markered below the waist, and with no real memory of the main attractions at the bar.

At some point I may become resigned to settling for such entertainment, but that day has not arrived.

I also managed to see three movies, "The Other Guys" (stupid, plotless, but funny anyway in an off-kilter sort of way), "Salt" (surprisingly good, I must admit, with a Dark Angel flavor to it), and "The Expendables. It was entertaining in a loud and fast sort of way despite several scenes that just screamed, "Oh. Come. On!" Really, tactical sense was zero. And that running car chase in a US city with automatic rifles blazing attracted no police attention at all? Really?

The last I saw when I realized I was a weekend off for a baseball game and when I missed the lottery for tickets to the play "Rock of Ages" based on going to the wrong theater and going the wrong way around a block to reach the right theater literally as the staff announced, "we'll begin the drawings momentarily." missed it by that much. (Note: Get Smart! reference)

I also scored some of my Ballantine's History of the Violent Century books at the used book store I like to scour for this series (and you are daft if you think I'll give the name of this great place!) At first, I thought the place was closed down, it being dark with a long sign explaining how they were closing in August for restocking, with no indication that it was open while I was in town! Luckily, I pulled on the door before walking away in disgust, and it pulled open! Drive on!

I even had a very pleasant surprise when my Ex flew through Toronto on the way up north and booked a night at the same hotel! I'd been downcast a bit that it would be so long between seeing my daughter, Lamb, since the plan was I'd be home after they left Ann Arbor. So I took them to dinner where my Ex dumped a glass of water on my lap at dinner (lightly spraying Lamb, too). I took it calmly, I should add, joking that it wasn't a vacation until a women threw a drink on me.

But I was not dialed to "single." I was firmly, if unexpectedly, dialed to "parent" setting, walking hand-in-hand with my little girl, delighted to have this time with her. I walked them back to their room so Lamb's mom could get her ready for bed, and I returned to my room to reset to "single", shower, and head out to a nearby (less than 15 minute walk) bar that was supposed to have live music that night.

Out of the shower, the fire alarm went off.

Reset to "parent."

Call their room and dress quickly. Walk down the stairs to their room, reassure Lamb that it is probably a false alarm, and walk outside just in case.

At the all-clear, they went up and I attempted to redial and have a few beers, despite the later start than I planned. I kept looking back to see if the hotel was in flames. And I left my phone on. Just in case something went horribly wrong.

I never did shift back fully to "single" mode after that. There was no band at the bar Saturday (the Internet betrayed me! Now it was Friday nights). And the bar was sparsely populated. So I watched a Canadian Football League game (Huh, do they really get a point for just attempting a field goal, or did I miss something?), had a few beers, and called it an early night, midnightish, so I could wake up early for breakfast with Lamb. Best not to be hung over, I suppose.

My northern expedition was a relative fail, though there are some other sites that could pan out that I had further down my list. I should have tried them, or just used cabs or subways to reach my usual grounds further south.

In the morning, we had a big breakfast at the hotel:

I helped Lamb and her mom south to the shuttle to their airport on the island. It was on my way to the train station. I got my last Tim Horton's meal--a BLT and donut for the trip with an iced coffee for the moment--and boarded the train.

I sat next to a cute lass heading to a municipal government conference in Windsor who turned out to be well educated, too, and we had wide-ranging discussions of urban transportation and planning policies (Yes, I know what you're thinking: how can I still be single with such a great opening line!), families, pets, and whatnot.

She casually referred to her boyfriend as we talked, when it really wasn't relevant. Obviously, she figured she needed to remind herself aloud of his existence so she wouldn't ravage me right there, right then, to become a member of the Meter High Club. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The train ride was going well, extending the vacation, when the train halted west of London. The problem? They couldn't get the computer to re-boot. WTF? Are we in orbit around a red star attempting to dock with a space station? We're on a train, for God's sake. We should have a coal problem. You can't re-boot the train? Seriously?

As time went on with no movement, a teenage girl nearby on her first train trip confessed to her seat mate that this whole experience was unbearable and she didn't know how she'd handle it. Never would she ride the rails, again. This is unbearable? No, going off the rails, crashing, and carrying your severed limb to a waiting EMS truck is unbearable. Missing your wedding is perhaps unbearable. Having your train break down safely and face a delay in getting to your destination? That's a walk in the park, my dear.

Eventually, another train towed us back to London (why they couldn't push us to Windsor is beyond me) where they dispatched buses to meet us. We arrived three and a half hours late in Windsor. I at least avoided the end-of-weekend casino patron traffic returning to Detroit. As a bonus, as we approached the station coming up Walker road from the opposite direction I always do, I spotted a Tim Horton's within easy walking distance of the station! It was set back from the road without even a sign on the road to announce it, hidden by the big brick wall that shouted "industrial" at me all these years. Is it new? Don't know. But as Tim as my witness, never again shall I go hungry or thirsty on the Windsor-Toronto run, forced to buy train food from a cart!

As a bonus, when going through US Customs, despite a worrying span of 30 seconds where I thought the questioning was veering into "pull over there so we can swab down your car for DNA evidence" territory (yes, I quickly responded when asked, as a matter of fact I did cross over with my son who is now with his grandfather--and probably mom, now too--to take care of him), the agent asked me where I worked, pulled out and looked at my business card I now keep in my passport folder, and moved on to what I was bringing back (stuffed animal, t-shirt, and history books) and sent me on my way after verifying I had no goat meat. Really. He joked. And I patiently waited without looking guilty while the agent talked in front of my car with the guy ahead of my who ran back from his parked car to see if he left one of the passports from his passengers with him.

So it was home, via a trip to feed Lamb's fish, who was doing fine, a quick scan of lots of email piling up in my absence, a few beers to ease my way into work life, and off to bed to go to work the next day. Nothing went amiss while away, this time. I had a brief bout of what seemed like a gathering cold virus so I took the next day off only to find it was a false alarm--perhaps my body reacquainting itself with local allergens.

And now my children are back in town! Set dial to "parent." And I'm delighted to do so.

It was a great vacation.

UPDATE: Lileks has complications, too. It's vacation. Things happen.

Where's the Dilemma?

Stratfor says we will have a problem cementing a pro-American government in Iraq and denying Iran too much influence in Iraq if we withdraw our troops too soon as the status of forces agreement provides after next year, speculating that we may have to negotiate a deal with Iran:

The United States cannot withdraw completely without some arrangement, because that would leave Iran in an extremely powerful position in the region. The Iranian strategy seems to be to make the United States sufficiently uncomfortable to see withdrawal as attractive but not to be so threatening as to deter the withdrawal. As clever as that strategy is, however, it does not hide the fact that Iran would dominate the Persian Gulf region after the withdrawal. Thus, the United States has nothing but unpleasant choices in Iraq. It can stay in perpetuity and remain vulnerable to violence. It can withdraw and hand the region over to Iran. It can go to war with yet another Islamic country. Or it can negotiate with a government that it despises — and which despises it right back.

I don't get the dilemma. Of course we should maintain troops in Iraq for decades to come. I hope the Iraqis negotiate such a deal with us. Iraq knows they need us until they can build a conventional military to fight Iran, Syria, or Turkey, if need be. And they know they need our support to maintain peaceful political conflict over allocating internal power that doesn't dissolve into traditional violent methods. And they know they need our help to defeat remnant terrorists supported by outside Sunni Arabs and Iran.

Any casualties in Iraq will be scattered and dwarfed by Afghanistan campaign casualties. The American public won't notice such casualties to the degree to provoke a backlash. Did we notice the casualties in South Korea in the 1960s as the Vietnam War raged?
 
And we'll help cement our battlefield win over time. And in time, Iraq will become an accompanied tour for our troops and it will seem no more dangerous than Germany, Italy, Japan, or Belgium.

UPDATE: We are still needed:

An Al-Qaeda group on Friday claimed it was behind a suicide bombing on a crowded Iraqi army recruitment centre in Baghdad that killed 59 people in the deadliest attack this year, US monitors said.

Al Qaeda isn't a threat to the Iraq state, in their current strength, but it is a threat to individual lives.

Another Mission Accomplished

This is a milestone in Iraq:

Seven years and five months after the U.S.-led invasion, the last American combat brigade was leaving Iraq, well ahead of President Barack Obama's Aug. 31 deadline for ending U.S. combat operations there.

Of course, the 50,000 US forces that will be in Iraq after this month include training brigades--six, I believe--that are essentially combat brigades beefed up with extra personnel for training and liaisson missions with the Iraqis.

The troops remaining have a lot to do yet to make this a "mission accomplished" moment in a string of missions accomplished yet to be achieved in Iraq.

Don't rest. Drive on.

UPDATE: My memory is correct--six advise and assist brigades remain:

By the end of this month, the United States will have six brigades in Iraq, by far its smallest footprint since the 2003 invasion. Those that remain are conventional combat brigades reconfigured slightly and rebranded "advise and assist brigades." The primary mission of those units and the roughly 4,500 U.S. special operations forces that will stay behind will be to train Iraqi troops. Under a bilateral agreement, all U.S. troops must be out of Iraq by Dec. 31, 2011.

Ultimately, I assume we and the Iraqis will negotiate a deal beyond 2011 that allows a smaller American presence that still deters foreign conventional threats, assists in hunting remaining terrorists, and reinforces the habit of domestic politicians to rely on ballots and not bullets to decide questions of who holds power.

Georgia On His Mind

Senator McCain notes Georgia's defensive needs that I urged us to supply two years ago:

Another area where Georgia needs U.S. support is in rebuilding its defenses. Georgia is doing more fighting in Afghanistan than much of the NATO alliance it wishes to join. Yet it has been a struggle to get the administration to provide Georgian troops heading into combat even basic equipment, armored vehicles and replacement parts. Beyond this short-term assistance, Georgia needs long-term support to provide for its own defense. This is likely to entail antitank capabilities, air defenses, early-warning radar and other defensive systems that should not be misconstrued as U.S. endorsement for any Georgian use of force against its separatist regions. Georgia will always be less powerful than Russia, but that is no reason to leave it vulnerable two years after a Russian invasion. [Emphasis added]

Russia lost the Russo-Georgia War of 2008, having gained nothing but what they already had--two break-away regions already under Russian control.

But like any war won on the battlefield, our side can suffer if it won't wage the post-war. Supply the weapons Georgia needs to destroy armored vehicles and shoot down aircraft (and train them to use them!). Do that and the distant Russians will think twice about initiating round two.

And supply Georgia with appropriate weapons so other countries in Russia's near abroad won't conclude that Russia won in 2008, and so move toward appeasing Russia at our expense.

Telecommuting on Full Auto

This is an interesting development that bridges the gap between humans and robots on the battlefield:

The U.S. Department of Defense is developing a device that enables the ground controller, who usually talks pilots down to the location of a ground target, to take control of sensors (cameras and ground radars) and weapons on UAVs, or even manned aircraft, and pull the trigger himself. Developing this gear (PCAS, or Precision Close Air Support) is actually not a major undertaking, because some of it already exists.

I guess my notion of doing this on ground vehicles wasn't as imaginative as I thought.

Calculations

President Karzai will get some of our people killed with this order:

Afghanistan's president is issuing an ultimatum to thousands of private security contractors he says are undermining his nation's army and police force: Cease operations in four months.

President Hamid Karzai's strident decision, announced Monday by his spokesman, is expected to meet resistance from NATO officials who rely heavily on private security companies to guard convoys and installations across the country. ...

According to the Pentagon, there are about 26,000 private security contractors working in Afghanistan for 37 different companies — 17 of them Afghan-owned. The State Department and USAID rely the most heavily on the companies to provide their employees security.

Karzai knows we need those contractors--yet he also knows that the order won't lead to the Taliban beheading him after marching on Kabul. The order could only hurt our war effort and not undermine it fatally.

So what's the deal? Is Karzai that upset over our decision to field local defense forces over his objections?

So there will be a struggle over this issue. We'll win, ultimately, though I don't know what price we'll pay. Through it all, remember that as much as we may have trouble with Karzai, we can't own the war by replacing him with "our" man. It has to remain a matter of America and our allies supporting the Afghans at war, with leaders they choose (however imperfectly) and support.

In time, we should expand the local defense forces even more despite Karzai's unease. We fight subtraction with addition

The math sucks, but that's the way it is.

On the Other Side

Assange is on the other side of the Long War.

If you doubt it, note that he is no pacifist opposed to war and killing. He has just decided that he'd prefer our troops and our allies die rather than other people:

Any U.S. and allied casualties that result from the publication of classified Afghan war documents would be an acceptable risk, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange suggested Monday, saying "such information is also likely to save a great many lives."

This is no dissent. Assange not being an American is only the starting point of that assessment.

Assange is on the other side waging war on us. How do we respond?

Yes, We Will Have Fries With That

General Petraeus thinks we can do fine at war in Afghanistan. He will not make dramatic changes from the fundamentally sound  campaign plan that McChrystal put in place while under Petraeus' CENTCOM. But one policy change will be welcome news for the troops:

One policy he has opted not to continue, however, is his predecessor's asceticism. He suggested that the fast-food restaurants McChrystal ordered closed on bases probably will reopen soon.

"With respect to Burger Kings, all options are on the table," he said.

Good. I opposed that policy when it was first made. Fast food is not a luxury--it is a tool to fight PTSD. The special forces commander did not seem to appreciate that not all his troops were A-Team killers (and I say that with all the respect and thanks in the world).

Most of the troops really would like fries with their meal. And sleep better for it.

Marines Fight Battles?

Apparently, the Marine Corps isn't happy about being the Army's largest allied ground force in the Long War:

The U.S. Marine Corps is again threatened, this time with a sharp reduction in its size. In response, marine commanders say they would prefer to be a smaller force, one that concentrates on its main mission; amphibious operations. The marines were unhappy with the way they have been used as an army auxiliary over the past decade.

Interesting. The old saying is that the Army does war and the Marines do battles. You could see this early in the Iraq War when the Marines were just about pulled out of Iraq before being recommitted to fighting a growing insurgencies problem.

At the height of their commitment, the Marines deployed two regimental combat teams to Iraq while maintaining a regimental combat team in the Western Pacific and keeping a couple Marine battalion-sized units afloat in Marine Expeditionary Units. The Marines did this with eight regiments and 3 reserve regiments.

If the Marines want to avoid war to focus on amphibious battle by shrinking, won't they have to get down to fewer than four regiments so that they can't rotate even a single regiment in a long-term war?

I hate to lose the largest ally the Army has had at war, but if the Army gets the funding to add four brigade-sized units to its force structure, I say we should wish the Marine Corps good luck and a happy life.

The Oracle of the Potomac

The DOD's annual assessment of Chinese military power is finally out.

The portions on Taiwan--like the portions on the rest of the document--are very vague. I can only assume that the portion that are done under security classifications are much more useful, else there is no excuse for the report being so late.

It is particularly annoying that there is a lack of internal consistency. On page 6, the report judges that despite Taiwanese defense purchases, the "balance of forces continues, however, to shift in the mainland's favor."

Yet on page 49, the report implies the opposite, stating that Taiwanese defense efforts "have, on the whole, reinforced Taiwan's natural defensive advantages in the face of Beijing's continuous military build-up."

So what is it? Or is there no contradiction, with the DOD simply stating that Taiwan is taking efforts to strengthen defensive efforts that complement the defensive advantages of their geography, yet is still losing ground to China? If so, they should have written this more clearly.

I will say that I am encouraged that the report says Taiwan has "taken important steps to build" their war reserve stocks. But I won't be happy until the report says that Taiwan has actually "built" war reserve stocks. If it takes longer for us to reach Taiwan, Taiwan needs to rely on local ammunition and parts stockpiles for longer than they once assumed they needed until we could airlift supplies.

China has a long way to go to challenge us as a global power, but I didn't need a DOD report to tell me that. I'd rather see judgments on how Taiwan could respond to various Chinese military actions, including invasion. And I'd like to see judgments about what Taiwan needs to defend their island. I'd like to see this report applied to all of China's neighbors, actually. A blogger can dream, can't he?

Maybe it's just me, but I find the report increasingly useless. As I said, I hope the classified version is much better.

UPDATE: Well, the first news report about the report I read did not notice anything particularly newsworthy in the report. Although I can forget that such a report is useful for the vast majority of people who don't pay attention to the issue on a near-daily basis.

Although it did note the report was delayed 5 months amidst tensions with China. Given the nture of the information provided and considering that there is nothing in the report that the Chinese certainly shouldn't already know, why we'd bow to China by delaying it, as the story implies, is beyond me. That's a bigger story itself than anything in the report.

UPDATE: A Pentagon press conference on the report. Nothing really new about China in the report, so I didn't miss anything. And the DF-21 carrier killer has a way to go before the missile is operational. Spotting, tracking, aiming at, and hitting a maneuvering carrier through any defensive weapons is no small feat.

And Taiwan replies with a request for F-16s and submarines. Taiwan needs both. I hope we supply them. Were I the Taiwanese, I'd be lobbying the Russians hard for planes and subs, too, in case we think we can appease the Chinese by saying no.

No Sanctuary and No State Support

Steven Metz questions our strategy in Afghanistan, asserting that terrorists do not require a physical sanctuary to plot against us and that terrorists do not need a state sponsor to plot against us. The September 11th attacks could have been achieved without sanctuary or Taliban regime support, he claims, so why bleed to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan?

After all, he argues, it is false that lack of our troops fighting on a large scale will just let the Taliban march on Kabul and take over the Afghanistan state.

I do agree with Metz that lack of our direct troop support doesn't mean the Taliban will march on Kabul. But if we can't defeat the Taliban and leave Afghan security forces at national, regional, and local level able to fend off the Taliban, it does mean that the Taliban will get a sanctuary in southern Afghanistan even if they never take Kabul and become the nominal national government.

And while a sanctuary is not required to attack us, it sure does help a lot. So there is value in denying al Qaeda a sanctuary to complicate their efforts to plot new 9/11-scale attacks. Just slowing them down buys us time to discover the plot and stop it before they strike.

As to state sponsorship, while a Taliban regional victory would deny al Qaeda a formal UN-recognized state sponsor based in Kabul, al Qaeda would have a pseudo-state sponsor in the region. Plus, with a regional sub-stae base, they could get a sub-state sponsor from Pakistan, as elements within the Pakistan government use their UN-recognized state privileges and resources to support the regional Taliban government in southern Afghanistan.

Metz seems to forget one of the reasons we don't want al Qaeda to have state sponsorship is that we fear an escalation from 9/11-scale attacks to those that use chemical, biological, or even nuclear weapons to attack us. Remember, that is one of the reasons we destroyed the Saddam regime--we couldn't afford to risk that such a terror-sponsoring enemy of ours might help terrorists attack us with weapons that a state has access to making.

Further, Metz ignores that giving the Taliban a sanctuary in Afghanistan could allow Pakistani Taliban to draw support from Afghanistan to threaten Pakistan's central government--already a nuclear power. This is a single campaign being fought in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and we'd have little comfort from suffering a nuclear attack from Pakistan-based al Qaeda if we can say at least the plot did not originate in Afghanistan. Giving up defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan just shifts the major theater to Pakistan. And given how tough it has been to get Pakistan to fight this war with our troops doing a lot of fighting, too, how hard will Pakistan fight if we essentially pull out of the fight?

Finally, I firmly disagree with his assumptions that the Taliban would not be so foolish as to allow an al Qaeda sanctuary and that if they did that we could easily crush an al Qaeda sanctuary in Afghanistan if we detect it forming after we leave. On the former, the Taliban would see us retreat from Afghanistan and count it a glorious Allah-provided victory. How would that convince the Taliban that we'd return to defeat them?

On the latter statement, how well did our no-fly zone attacks work in Iraq in the 1990s? How has Israel done with Gaza and Hezbollah in sotuhern Lebanon? The fact is, Moslem world opinion will not tolerate attacks on Moslems for long even if they are terrorist targets. Al Qaeda and the Taliban will make sure that plenty of children, puppies, and women die in our attacks, and that baby milk and medicine factory signs appear in the rubble of what we destroy.

If you accept Metz's first two assumptions without examining them, his condemnation of our military campaign make sense. I can understand why one would question our strategy if you believe the first two assumptions, since his third assumption that the Taliban couldn't easily reconquer Afghanistan if we were not there fighting is accurate, I think. But examining the two assumptions about the value of sanctuaries and state support, what al Qaeda could get from them, and then looking at the fights in Afghanistan and Pakistan as a single Taliban Campaign make that final accurate assessment rather pointless from the point of view of deciding on our strategy.

We can argue about what we need to achieve our goals, but I have no doubt that we need to deny al Qaeda a sanctuary and state support in either Afghanistan or Pakistan. And right now, beating down the Taliban in Afghanistan with our forces while supporting Pakistan's efforts on their side is needed to allow a decentralized Afghan government and local allies to hold the ground we clear.

Metz is right to question our assumptions nearly 9 years into the fight in Afghanistan. We should never fear to do that. But this effort falls short of providing a reason to follow his advice.

A New Worst Case Scenario

For several years now, it seems as if the South Koreans considered a North Korean collapse that led to South Korea absorbing North Korea to be worse than a North Korean invasion because in case of the latter, South Korea (with our help) would win; while the former would cost South Korea a generation of treasure to just start to bring North Korean standards of living up to southern standards.

But now, South Korea seems to have realized there is something worse than South Korea absorbing North Korea--China absorbing North Korea--via investments that lead to invervention--and taking the place of the North Koreans on the DMZ:

But what South Korea really fears is a North Korean agreement that would allow massive Chinese investment in North Korea. The Chinese investments would be safe, because the Chinese would not hesitate to send in troops to deal with any North Korean misbehavior. Large scale Chinese investment in the north would enable China to eventually take control of North Korea, and annex it. Many starving North Koreans would prefer to be prosperous Chinese, while North Koreans who opposed such an arrangement would be killed. China is still a communist police state, and knows how to act like one. This Chinese takeover would solve China's problem with the growing economic decline and political instability in the north. The South Koreans are horrified at the thought, although China has taken control of the north before (in the distant past). China would apparently prefer not to have control of North Korea, but the growing problems there will not go away.

Yeah, right now China would prefer not to occupy North Korea because of the cost. But like South Korea's realization, China will understand that having South Korea on the borde of Manchuria is worse than absorbing North Korea.

If China and South Korea no longer consider occupying North Korea the worst case scenario, how do we prevent a collapse from leading to war?

I say, partition the damn place.

Why Do They Hate Japan?

Jihadis targetted Japan. Remember that recent mysterious accident in the Strait of Hormuz?

Fortunately they weren't good at terrorism

The attack on the tanker was amateurish, as the explosives were not prepared properly. The fertilizer based explosives are difficult to make correctly (the fertilizer and fuel oil must be mixed in the right proportions, and mixed properly). When the explosives are mixed badly, there is a much smaller explosion, and a very slow going one as well. ... All the "low (speed) explosives" could do was dent the hull, while turning the suicide bomber into fish food and his boat into kindling.

Those darned NeoCon Japanese invading Iraq, and all that. What do they expect?