Malice and Mistakes

I know that Hugo Chavez has supporters here because he spouts anti-American bile and claims the mantle of Che and Fidel (peace be upon them, naturally). But are people seriously confused about whether he is a dictator? Apparently so:

Some of the most sophisticated political analysts currently writing about Venezuela are defining Hugo Chavez's regime, either as a "procedural democracy" (Luis Vicente Leon, chief analyst at Datanalisis, a Venezuelan polling firm) or as a "hybrid regime" (Javier Corrales and Michael Penfold: "Dragon in the Tropics", Brookings Institution Press, 2011), but definitely not as a clear-cut dictatorship.

As a Venezuelan who has been closely living and watching our nightmare for the last 13 years and who has done his fair share of reading on what constitutes a democracy or a dictatorship, I find this tendency appalling.

Appalling? Yes. But hardly surprising. Thug rulers get a pass for their thuggery from progressives if the thug rulers share their hatred of America as we are.

As for the hybrid  or procedural notions crap, it isn't a hybrid to have a thug ruler operating under the color of democracy by following the forms of voting and democracy. The "democracy" is just a facade to hide the true, ugly face of Hugo.

Hugo Chavez may be a buffoon and an inept dictator who is wrecking his economy, military, and society with his silly notions of how to run things, but he is a dictator with a growing list of real Venezuelan victims of both his malice and mistakes.

The Season for Eggs

In this holy season, the practical effect on me is that eggs become a large part of my diet. Hard boiled eggs. Colorful hard boiled eggs. Well, coddled eggs, really, but there you go.

Why? Because my children like to color eggs:

Lamb loves it. And this year she colored eggs at dad's (a tradition) and at mom's, too. Mister is easing out of the game, requesting only four eggs to color. There is one egg I hate to eat, being a very impressive Easter camouflage pattern done by finger splotching the egg. I'll have to photograph it before I eat it. It had not been created yet in the photo above.

But I'm on an egg diet because they don't like coddled eggs. Lamb is not an egg fan at all. Mister will eat omelets and egg, cheese, and bagel sandwiches. But I can't make either with the eggs sitting in my refrigerator.

I've had many years of this and have many more years ahead of me, even as the torch is passed. I really should be more creative than eggs and hash browns; eggs, cucumbers, and rice; plain eggs; and, of course, egg salad sandwiches. On the bright side, last year was the peak with each child wanting a dozen eggs to color.

And I say this knowing full well that I'll feel an emptiness when spring no longer means an egg diet and scrubbing fingertip to remove food coloring.

Seasons end, don't they?

A Statistical Thought

I'm not sure why this association is surprising:

Researchers who study how people's sense of well-being varies from place to place decided to compare their findings with suicide rates.

The surprising result: The happiest places sometimes also have the highest suicide rates.

"Discontented people in a happy place may feel particularly harshly treated by life," suggested Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick in England.

Or, put another way by co-author Stephen Wu of Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., those surrounded by unhappy people may not feel so bad for themselves.

Hmmm. Maybe that explains it.

Or maybe surveys of the happiness of living people mean that where unhappy people are more likely to kill themselves that the resulting polling data skews to happier people?

Just a statistical thought. I had but one introductory statistics class in college, so I claim no particular expertise.

Reinforcing Success

I imagine more will come out in the coming days on this report if it is true (or at least plausible):

A senior Iranian military official investigating a mysterious computer worm targeting Iran's nuclear facilities says the country has been hit by a second computer virus.

The virus is called "stars."

This is good if true. Still, even a successful attack only slows down Iran's nuclear weapons program. Eventually, unless something else happens to stop them, Iran will get to their nuclear destination. I want to buy that time, of course.

But don't think that this is a painless way of stopping Iran.

UPDATE: While this is good news, if true, about the impact of the Stuxnet virus, it does not alter the basic truth that while Iran may have to go back two (or ten) spaces on the road to Nuclearland, eventually they'll get there.

And really, if true, if makes me worry a lot more about the vulnerability of our energy infrastructure to similar attacks.

Traffic Analysis

You can learn a lot just by crunching numbers on patterns of travel and communications usage without ever hearing a single word:

Apple and Google may be intensifying privacy concerns by tracking where and when people use their mobile phones—but the true future of consumer surveillance is taking shape inside the cellphones at a weather-stained apartment complex in Cambridge, Mass.

For almost two years, Alex Pentland at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has tracked 60 families living in campus quarters via sensors and software on their smartphones—recording their movements, relationships, moods, health, calling habits and spending. In this wealth of intimate detail, he is finding patterns of human behavior that could reveal how millions of people interact at home, work and play.

Through these and other cellphone research projects, scientists are able to pinpoint "influencers," the people most likely to make others change their minds. The data can predict with uncanny accuracy where people are likely to be at any given time in the future.

So for all those enthralled by the idea of Twitter and Facebook revolutions, remember that the regime thugs can use your tools to predict what you will do and where you will do it.

And then let you rot in a very real dungeon until you really die.

Final Solution?

Jordan says Syria closed their mutual border and reports of troops are moving into cities and shooting at civilians across Syria:

Syrian troops backed by tanks stormed the flashpoint town of Daraa on Monday killing at least 25 people, witnesses said, as a leading rights activist accused Damascus of opting for a "military solution" to crush dissent.

Troops also launched assaults on the Damascus suburbs of Douma and Al-Maadamiyeh, witnesses said, as the head of the UN human rights agency slammed what she said was the security forces' disregard for human life.

Amman said Syria on Monday sealed off its border with Jordan in a statement quickly denied by a top Syrian customs official.

Does this indicate that the Assad regime has decided the killing option--as their patron Iran advises--is their only hope to survive protests that have escalated to demand regime change?

UPDATE: More thoughts on Syria.

The Great Escape?

Nearly five hundred Taliban made a mass-escape in Afghanistan:

Hundreds of prisoners escaped from a prison in Afghanistan's south on Monday through a tunnel dug by Taliban insurgents, officials said, a "disaster" for the Afghan government and a setback for foreign forces planning to start a gradual withdrawal within months.

While I tend to suspect that bribery rather than diligent tunnel-digging over months led to the escape, either way a lot of killers are on the loose. This is a setback and the enemy is reinforced.

Still, Taliban are on the move to help the escapees scatter, and if we can put resources into the chase, we might be able to kill or capture the bulk of the escapees and a good number of Taliban helping the escapees.

So I'll call this an operation in progress that could yet be turned to a Coalition victory. We shall see.

Between a Rock and a Hard Reality

Syria's Christians are in a difficult position during these days of unrest:

For decades, the government of President Bashar al-Assad has protected Christian interests by enforcing its strictly secular program and by curbing the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood. In recent years, Assad has visited the town of Maaloula and other Christian communities to pray and pass on messages of goodwill. At Christmas, he addresses Syria’s Christians, carrying similar tidings. Assad is himself from the minority Alawite sect, a branch of Shia Islam, and many Christians feel they can relate to him.

Christians, who make up about 10 percent of Syria’s population, have largely stayed out of the anti-government protests, fearing what change could bring. Many are wealthy and could have much to lose if the uprising succeeds. Christians also occupy a disproportionately high percentage of senior positions within the government and tend to work in the educated professions as doctors, dentists and engineers.

As a minority, the Christians have real fears of the majority Sunnis oppressing them. The Assad regime offered protection and prosperity in exchange for Christian support of his own minority Alawite regime. This is a common approach of any minority (or colonial) government--reach out to oppressed minorities to control the majority.

Can the Christians be nimble enough to switch sides in time to avoid retaliation (assuming Assad falls)? Or must the Christians rely on the international community to protect them from a majority enraged at their support for Assad. Focusing majority anger on a hated minority is also tried and true.

However, while Sunni Arabs are a majority, with Alawites, Christians, and Kurds a substantial minority, could a newly empowered Sunni majority afford to go after this minority? The example of Iraq's Baathists resisting so bloodily after their defeat for years may deter such a revenge campaign in favor of reconciliation.

Assuming Syria's Baathists won't want to wage resistance to regain power regardless of any hypothetical magnanimity of the new government.

Situation: Desperate But Not Serious?

As I've followed the Libya War, I've tried to keep in mind four things. One, air power alone has not delivered victory in the past. Two, air power is a crucial tool--even decisive sometimes--if there is something extra to exploit it. Three, America is very good at using air power and the West is not far behind in capabilities. Four, you can't rule out getting lucky.

Allied Force in 1999 is a case in point. I was convinced as we waged the war that we could not win that fight the way we were waging it. Yet in less than 3 months the Serbs cracked and backed down under our aerial barrage. Many air power purists thought that point number one above was disproven by the unmatched skill of point three. I think point one was proven because of point two--we finally did get something more than just air power--the growing threat of NATO invasion--even if I know that without point three being true that the threat might not have been enough to get the Serbs to back down. We might have been forced to actually carry out the invasion. Further, we got lucky by facing the Serb nationalists and not Baathists who might resist without caring about the effects on ordinary people.

So even as I believe point three is absolutely true in Libya and that point four might save us from the problem of point one, I keep watching for that needed something extra of point two for success that could deliver victory.

Strategypage writes:

Morale among government fighters is low. They know that the world, and most Libyans, are against them. That's why Kaddafi depends so much on mercenaries, who take their high pay (thousands of dollars a week) and send it home, hoping to get themselves out of Libya when the end finally comes. While Kaddafi is a proven survivor, he has never had to face this much opposition. But Kaddafi still has options. He controls much of Western Libya, and a third of the population (about two million people). He has some cash on hand (a few hundred million dollars, at least), but his overseas accounts are largely frozen by international sanctions. But Kaddafi knows he can hold the two million people he controls hostage, forcing the UN to allow "humanitarian" aid in. Kaddafi also has control of the western oil fields, but these produce only about a fifth of the nation's oil. Thus even if he is allowed to sell this oil, all he will end up with is the kind of "food for oil" deal that Saddam Hussein exploited in the 1990s. However, Kaddafi will be faced with an increasingly hostile population in Western Libya as income, and living standards, decline. Moreover, the rebels will probably succeed in halting shipments from the west Libyan oil fields. This would leave Kaddafi's two million hostages living on UN charity, meaning minimal food, medical and other aid. Thus Kaddafi's long term prospects are not good, and his most loyal followers have figured this out.

Is lack of money the something extra that could make the application of air power effective in this war? Because I don't believe "the world" is against Khaddafi. Plenty of countries want him to win--or at least want America and NATO to lose. Others just want "peace" for better motives without caring that it essentially saves Khaddafi from defeat. To this early list you can add Greece, which is working with Russia for a ceasefire; Turkey, which is doing God knows what to thwart NATO; and the Pope and UN Secretary General who both want a ceasefire.

I tend to think that if Khaddafi can hang on long enough, all those countries expressing open support for Khaddafi or just unease at what NATO is doing to Khaddafi will start to engineer a ceasefire that denies NATO a victory and lets Khaddafi survive. If Khaddafi appears he can survive, there will be people who will provide arms, ammunition, and money to Khaddafi despite sanctions, out of greed or ideology. The former since Khaddafi can hold out the promise of repaying much more from frozen accounts or from future oil revenues. The latter will help just to hurt America and NATO. Opportunities for further sanctions leakage to the Khaddafi loyalists will expand once the UN is involved in providing humanitarian aid. Further, it will be easy to gain sympathy under sanctions as the plight of poor, dirty-faced waifs is highlighted with plenty of images by the world press. And at some point, the dictator-self-protection-league will kick in to make Libya a firewall for toppling thug rulers.

To prepare for that longer struggle, I think Khaddafi needs to focus on taking Misrata, holding the line on the eastern front west of Ajdabiya by holding those oil infrastructure towns, and by capturing the rebel oil resources of the southeast. Much of that latter area is outside the formal no-fly zone and is practically beyond the range of persistent NATO surveillance. Do those things and there is no anti-Khaddafi enclave close to Tripoli where an enemy could sortie to strike at the heart of the regime; and the loyalists secure oil resources that the rebels can't exploit and that the loyalists will eventually be able to use as sanctions weaken in the face of greed and growing anger at NATO. This scenario could undermine the long-term bad prognosis for Khaddafi that Strategypage describes.

So lack of money could be the point two factor that makes this work, although I'm skeptical that this or plain material attrition will work. Yet even if lack of money isn't the point two that leverages our air campaign for victory, is there something else I'm missing that could do the trick? I keep looking for signs of ground threats to the loyalist regime. But that's my general bias at work, at least in part. There could be something else brewing.

Or we could yet get lucky with a bomb, or a secret dissident or disgruntled loyalist with a pistol standing next to Khaddafi, or Khaddafi slipping on a tile floor stepping out of the shower and supporting those statistics about the dangers of the bathroom.

Drive-By

We tried to get lucky in Libya:

An air strike on Moammar Gadhafi's sprawling residential compound early Monday badly damaged two buildings, including a structure where Gadhafi often held meetings, guards at the complex said.

By "we" I mean NATO. I assume the British or possibly the French took a shot at putting bombs in the same place as Khaddafi.

If we had a role, it might have been in providing information from our aircraft flying near Libya sucking in Libyan transmissions.

There is no indication that we actually got lucky.

This Is Not News

Chinese censors put out regular bulletins to their news media about what not to print, what to cover, and other instructions. Apparently it is a pretty handy (and sometimes specific) guide to what is happening in China (Via The Volokh Conspiracy through Instapundit).

Of course, the most effective propagandists don't need official bulletins to instinctively work to make the Chinese Communist Party look good in the press.

To the Shores of Tripoli--Again

Doyle McManus explains (as I did yesterday) that we are not witnessing mission creep in Libya:

To some critics, this looked like "mission creep," the problem that arises when a limited humanitarian intervention expands to become a more ambitious war. But that's not quite right. In this war, perhaps uniquely, mission creep happened at the outset, when Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy publicly committed themselves to removing Kadafi from power.

Now, NATO is facing a prospect even worse than mission creep: mission failure. To prevent it, NATO has adopted a strategy that won a bad name almost half a century ago in Vietnam: graduated escalation, the attempt to find the enemy's breaking point with the minimum necessary force.

Exactly.

McManus also notes that recalling the success of Allied Force to argue we must be patient for victory now must also include remembering that inconvenient fact that NATO was gearing up for a land invasion, too, as bombing alone failed to dislodge the Serbs from Kosovo. I covered that in some depth here.

Although it is not online, in April 1998 I wrote an article ("Landpower Needed for Decisive Victory") for Army magazine discussing the limitations of our strategy in the Tripolitan War. In part, I concluded:

With an "American" ground force in place, [NOTE: Referring to our expedition that had captured Derna in eastern Libya, consisting of a small Marine Corps contingent and mercenaries supported by our naval fire.] the Bashaw had been compelled to seek peace. Just as true, the expedition was a poor substitute for a regular American Army. Sufficient to force a peace of sorts, the Derna force could not win outright. This outcome should caution Americans against expecting only cheap, quick and clear victories in limited wars. The Tripoli settlement also demonstrates the price of avoiding "mission creep." Raising objectives requires greater commitment. Barron kept his objectives in mind and did not force the Bashaw to choose victory or death. Instead, peace was restored; Americans were released, and most of the American ships could go home. The war also emphasized the need to make sure the Bashaw kept the peace. Victory must be maintained, especially in a limited war that leaves an enemy intact.

Of course, the modern Libya War is not a case study in mission creep, as noted. 

But the lesson of limited force ratcheted up during the Tripolitan War of 1801-1805 until we achieved our limited objective applies now for our war in the same location. Unfortunately, we can't heed the lesson of 1805 where we refused to raise our objective of halting piracy to one of regime change. I've lamented that President Obama denied us the option of a limited objective by stating that Khaddafi "must go." Yet we did not commit the means to achieve that maximum goal. Settling for less than regime change now would be a case of "mission retreat." That would be known as "defeat." A limited "victory" of fulfilling UNSC 1973 and protecting rebel civilians now will leave an enemy we have to contain--and probably have to deal with years later.

Khaddafi and his people are clawing and gouging for their very survival, believing their choice is between victory and death; and we're attempting nuanced applications of kinetic actions to signal they should go.

Gosh, how will this turn out?

Who Should Panic in Afghanistan

In America, the cottage industry of fretting about our doom in Afghanistan continues. Yet the reality on the ground is different:

The Taliban are entering the death-spiral phase of their comeback campaign. This can be seen by sharply reduced activity in the countryside (where the surge in NATO and Afghan troops has broken the fighting spirit of the Taliban), and the increased reliance on high-profile terror attacks. NATO casualties are down from the same period last year, although the media coverage of Taliban terror attacks might make you think otherwise. The fighting through the Winter was particularly damaging to the Taliban, and recruiting for this year's "Spring Offensive" has been difficult. It's been known for over two years that this switch in tactics was coming. It's the same pattern seen in Iraq. Moreover, many Taliban leaders are trying to negotiate some kind of deal with the government. Some of these settlements have already been made, and now the Taliban have one less ally and one more target. The terror campaign could go on, intensely, for a year or two. But eventually, the "fighting" Taliban are going to run out of money, men and places to hide.

The casualty comparison is especially noteworthy. Icasualties shows the statistics. For the coalition, it was 166 KIA through April 2010, while this year so far the larger Coalition army has suffered 134 KIA. I'll just focus on American casualties portion of that total since we are the spearhead and most of the surge of fighting forces last year was American. This year, we've suffered 93 KIA through April so far. In 2010, for the first four full months we suffered 104 KIA. Now, we could surpass the 2010 number with a week to go in April. But whether we do or not, the number will be about the same. Isn't that a stalemate showing we aren't making progress under the metric of our battle casualties?

No. Consider that in the first four months of 2010, our surge was just beginning. We probably had at most an average of 75,000 troops on the ground during those months. America started the year 2010 with 68,000 and didn't get to close to 100,000 until August 2010, I believe. So if the fighting is stalemated, we should expect the first four months of combat in 2011 to result in a third more American combat deaths, all other things being equal. We won't suffer 155 deaths (62 more over the next week) by the end of April 2011. Why not if we are losing and the Taliban are "resurgent"? The simple explanation is that we are not losing.

Every spring the enemy thumps their chest and flings poo, and our media dutifully soils their armor to report our impending doom. We keep smashing the Taliban up, and with our troops holding the Taliban at bay, the non-Coalition military means of defeating the Taliban in the south and east are finally starting to take hold.

Don't panic about the war in Afghanistan. Watch the enemy panic. We're winning this war.

Shameful Post Editorial

The Washington Post editorializes that the Obama adminsitration is "shameful" in its effective siding with the Assad regime as the Syrian government murders protesting civilians (over 300 so far, at least). Syria's record as a sponsor of terror with blood on its hands makes our inaction all the more shameful, as the editors describe:

The administration has sat on its hands despite the fact that the Assad regime is one of the most implacable U.S. adversaries in the Middle East. It is Iran’s closest ally; it supplies Iranian weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip for use against Israel. Since 2003 it has helped thousands of jihadists from across the Arab world travel to Iraq to attack American soldiers. It sought to build a secret nuclear reactor with the help of North Korea and destabilized the pro-Western government of neighboring Lebanon by sponsoring a series of assassinations.

Really, let's not bicker and argue about who killed who. We have a perfectly lovely outreach going on, here. We can't let downtrodden people get in the way. Did we let simple bloodshed against protesters get in our way of reaching out to Iran's Ahmadinejad? Heck no. Did we give up after the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? No! And we won't give up on Assad.

Silly Post editors! What is shameful is their lack of nuance in appreciating that one can only make peace with your enemies! Why, Syria under Assad is just a friend who has yet to be made. You know, don't you, that Secretarty Clinton said that some say (but not her, no way!) that Assad is a reformer. If we'd just give him a chance, he'll change. Really.

We're witnessing freaking, big-brained, smart diplomacy in action over Syria, and I'll be damned if I let a bunch of ink-stained wretches at the Post stain the purity and brilliance of hope and change applied on an international stage by highly credentialed Ivy Leaguers who know more about salad forks than you or I will ever appreciate.

Avert your eyes puny mortals! You shame America by even questioning the brilliance of The One's foreign policy! You. Are. Not. Worthy.

Our Best and Brightest

Emma Watson didn't receive much of a welcome at Brown:

The insider says Watson didn't shy away from class participation and often would "answer something in class and get it right," calling the 21-year-old actress "really smart." Unfortunately, this brought out the sophisticated wit and cinematic expertise of her Ivy League peers.

According to the source, her classmates "would respond [to her answer] with a quote from 'Harry Potter.'" The most popular choice was "Three points for Gryffindor!" – a reference to the movie's dormitory system, and a congratulatory phrase in the films when a student got a correct answer.

Whether or not that treatment--or just the problem of being a celebrity on campus or filming needs--led her to drop out for now, it does show that the students at one of our "elite" institutions caters simply to those who want credentials and not an actual education.

Not having seen any Harry Potter movies (and with no interest in the books) I don't have a dog in this fight to defend Watson. Heck, I wouldn't have recognized her, I confess. Although body guards in orange vests would have given me a clue that she was "somebody." But when students in an elite higher education institution mock actual learning, can we say we are in a higher ed bubble?

Staying the Course of Attrition

Really? This is a sign of progress? Admiral Mullen says that we've destroyed 30-40% of Khaddafi's ground forces:

"It's a tougher fight than it was at the beginning," the chairman said.

"At the same time, we have 'attritted' somewhere between 30 and 40 percent of his main ground force capabilities," Admiral Mullen said. "Those will continue to go away over time."

I'd love to know what the metric of this is. Is he talking about tanks? All heavy equipment? Because I think Khaddafi could last quite a while under this attrition:

Libya started the war with 2,000 main battle tanks, over a thousand infantry fighting vehicles and armored reconnaissance vehicles, a thousand armored personnel carriers, nearly 2.5 thousand artillery pieces, and nearly 500 anti-aircraft guns which could be used on ground targets, too. If NATO knocks out 50 per day, Libya could in theory carry on for 140 days. Do the British and French have enough precision weapons to carry on at that rate for nearly four months? And Libya is using civilians vehicles, too. Further, while not all military vehicles or heavy weapons are in working order, even the hulks could be towed out to simulate a real, working tank to serve as smart bomb bait.

Using Mullen's figures and assuming he's talking about all heavy weapons, we've knocked out 60-80 heavy weapons every day since we intervened. I sincerely doubt that we have inflicted that much damage each and every day. But until I know what the metric of destruction is, I can't really say.

But just accepting Mullen's statment at face value doesn't mean that Khaddafi's military ground combat capability is reduced 30-40%. Khaddafi uses civilian vehicles to haul around troops and weapons, has called in mercenaries, and--as I've mentioned--only uses a small portion of his arsenal for his remaining forces. How much attrition do we have to inflict before there are any shortages of heavy weapons amongst the loyalists in combat? I mean, if Khaddafi's frontline troops can only man 1,000 heavy weapons of all types (this is purely a wild-ass guess for illustrative purposes only), we'd have to reach the destruction of 6,000 of Khaddafi's pre-war 7,000 (87%) to even begin to impact the equipment levels of the loyalists. Does non-America NATO have that many smart bombs?

And the figure Mullen cites assumes we have accurately assessed the battle damage of our air strikes.

I just don't think heavy weapons counts are any better than body counts in measuring our progress in getting Khaddafi to go. The only sure way is to make sure somebody's army marches into Tripoli.

And with Russia and Greece talking to Libya to save Khaddafi by getting a ceasefire put in place, that army had best march in fast.

Target of Opportunity

So what are the various jihadis invited to Syria to fight in Iraq and Lebanon going to do in the current unrest?

I did warn that the Assad regime could experience blowback one day:

If jihadis who flock to Syria and then cross into Iraq increasingly see Iraq as a one-way ticket to defeat and pointless martyrdom, those jihadis may decide to stick around for an easier target--Boy Assad.

Has Assad managed to keep jihadis out of Syria since their effort to destabilize Iraq failed during our surge?

Or will they add a new dimension to the struggle between the people of Syria and the regime?

Heck, I suppose the regime could make lemonade from these jihadi lemons and use their existence as a pretext to kill their way out of the unrest.

No Retreat

I was puzzled when I read this development in the Libya War:

Libyan troops captured by rebels in Misrata said on Saturday the army had been ordered to retreat from the western port, marking a possible shift in a two-month revolt against leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The Libyan government said earlier NATO air strikes meant it no longer made sense for the army to fight in Misrata and local tribes would take over the battle in Libya's third largest city.

After all the talk of how NATO aircraft can't identify targets in Misrata, the loyalists are pulling back even though Misrata is critical for the loyalists to capture? Have we been more effective than we thought?

But then I read a more recent article that completely nullifies the first report:

Intense fighting gripped Misrata on Saturday, overwhelming its hospital with casualties after Moamer Kadhafi's regime gave its army an "ultimatum" to take the besieged Libyan city.

At least 10 people were killed and 50 wounded in the street battles that came after NATO air raids struck near a compound in the capital Tripoli where Kadhafi resides. ...

Saturday's upsurge in the fight for the port city came after Kadhafi's government said it had given its army an "ultimatum" to stop the rebellion in the city, 200 kilometres (120 miles) east of the capital.

Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim said: "There was an ultimatum to the Libyan army: if they cannot solve the problem in Misrata, then the people from (the neighbouring towns of) Zliten, Tarhuna, Bani Walid and Tawargha will move in and they will talk to the rebels.

I sincerely doubt that the loyalist civilians will "talk." But they will be tough to distinguish from civilians or armed rebels.

Khaddafi clearly understands the importance of taking the city. He may be changing tactics, but he's still going after the city. Four American Predators over Misrata won't stop Khaddafi.

UPDATE: Something is going on. The Libyans are pulling back from Misrata after a flurry of fighting (as a warning?) so loyalist tribal leaders can talk the rebels into leaving:

Libyan tribal leaders are trying to get rebels in the city of Misrata to lay down their arms within 48 hours, a government official said early Sunday, after a day of fierce clashes between opposition fighters and Moammar Gadhafi's forces.

Is this related to or even being coordinated with the Russian-Greek effort to get a ceasefire in Libya? Heck, the Russians even say they'd " send observers to monitor a cease-fire."

We have demanded a pull back from Misrata as a condition for agreeing to a ceasefire. Would we and NATO consider this a face-saving way out of a war that nobody on our side wants to complete? Sure, we'll say, Khaddafi is still in power, but we saved Misrata and Benghazi. Mission accomplished!

Still, I find it hard to imagine that Khaddafi would suspend the civil war short of regaining the critical port facilities of Misrata. Somehow, he's hoping to leverage the rebels out so he can recapture the city--perhaps slowly under Russian cover--rather than trying to get an actual ceasefire that leaves Misrata in rebel hands.

Escalation

Syrian protesters have raised their goals from regime reform to regime change as the Syrian government has escalated violence to the point that even President Obama had to react to it:

Syrian security forces fired on tens of thousands of mourners during funeral processions Saturday, killing at least six people following the deadliest day of the uprising against authoritarian President Bashar Assad.

The funeral processions for some 75 people killed Friday were highly charged gatherings, with people shouting slogans against the regime as they carried coffins through the streets. ...

In Washington, President Barack Obama said the violence was "outrageous" and called on Assad to obey the will of his people by giving them freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly and the ability to choose their leaders.

I guess everyone but our president and his smart diplomacy team accepts that Assad is not a reformer now.

Another article also raises the "stability" issue of Baathist rule that could keep the protests from reaching a critical mass:

Older Syrians well recall the spate of coups and counter coups in the 1940s and 1950s before the Baath Party took power in 1963, which from then on ruthlessly stamped out any signs of dissent. Few Syrians want a return to that era, particularly having witnessed bloody civil wars in neighboring Lebanon and Iraq.

Let me just say that if Syrians are worried about falling into civil war like their neighbor Lebanon or experiencing high levels of violence like in Iraq, Syria will have the extraordinary advantage of not having the Assad regime around to enable violence in Syria, as Assad carried out in cooperation with Iran in both Lebanon and Iraq.

So they have that going for them.

Means Creep

We are not witnessing "mission creep" in Libya.

Already, Egyptian special forces (and maybe others) are on the ground in Libya helping the rebels, and arms are reaching the rebels. As the NATO-led intervention in Libya expands further, with British, French, and Italian advisers being sent to help organize the rebels; American non-lethal aid promised; American Predator drones added to the arsenal; and pressure on non-contributing NATO members to fight, some have called this "mission creep." But it isn't. This is just plain old-fashioned gradual escalation.

To be "mission creep" the mission itself has to creep up. As in Somalia when the first American mission to enable food relief to starving civilians edged up to defeating the militias and trying to cobble together some sort of state to stabilize Somalia. That was mission creep with the means lagging.

But where is the mission creep in Libya? Admiral Mullen notes:

Regime change is not a part of the NATO mission, and the U.N. resolution does not address it, Admiral Mullen said, but it remains to be seen whether the Libyan dictator will step down.

"The long-term political end-state is to have (Colonel Gadhafi) gone," he said. "Globally, the guy is a pariah, and every single action the vast majority of countries are taking are going to continue to put the squeeze on him until he's gone. Is (Colonel Gadhafi) going to figure that out? I don't know."

I find it odd that we would deny that the mission is regime change while admitting that it has always been the goal for Khaddafi to be dethroned. Smart diplomacy is like that, I guess.

But the mission has always been to get rid of Khaddafi. Once, the administration and its international allies thought that rebels marching into Tripoli would do it, but now we hope that continuing to squeeze the loyalists will result in Khaddafi's departure. But Khaddafi and the loyalists are feeling pretty good about surviving the aerial onslaught. So the means to squeeze the loyalists a little bit more are being explored and put into effect to match our existing mission.

Our military certainly knows that gradual escalation just allows the enemy to adapt to higher levels of violence directed against them. I know the term "shock and awe" is derided these days, but the Iraqi military did crumble in three weeks when we hit them hard and fast. Our means matched our objective.

More than a month after NATO hit Khaddafi's forces, the Libyan loyalists still fight and we have no idea how we'll win this war other than hoping that just a little more force will crack the resolve of the loyalists or make Khaddafi figure out he is doomed.

But what our military knows that our civilian rulers have no clue about could fill books. Pity that Von Clausewitz didn't write On Limited Kinetic Actions.