I'm Not So Happy About People Having Life or Death Powers

Since the whole crossbow banning idea worked so well, why not ban killer robots?

Sometimes the United Nations distracts us from their worthlessness by displaying their stupidity:

"Moratoria are needed to prevent steps from being taken that may be difficult to reverse later," Heyns said in a 22-page report on "lethal autonomous robotics", due to be discussed at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva on May 29.

"Their deployment may be unacceptable because no adequate system of legal accountability can be devised and because robots should not have the power of life and death over human beings."

People have been put out of the kill loop for a long time. Pits with stakes, trained attack dogs, mines, IEDs, torpedoes, electrified barriers, guided missiles or bombs. Those are robotic weapons of one type or another where humans aren't in the loop for immediate kill decisions.

People seem only to get upset when we find ways to fight nutballs without risking our own people. Seriously, I'm not terribly happy that a lot of so-called people have the power of life and death over human beings.

I mean, if the jihadi claim that they love death while we love life is true, aren't our killer robots a win-win for both sides? I'm starting to think Mr. Heyns might be a little culturally insensitive, here. Hmm.

Let's just make sure our robots are better than their robots.



Good grief, even the papal ban against crossbows didn't apply to use against non-Christians.

I like the idea of fighting jihadis with robots. I think there is enough grey area in the Koran about dying while fighting robots that uncertainty about going to Paradise will hurt morale.

Really Glad I'm Me

So yesterday I'm running near my home.

A driver goes past me, slows a bit, and then pulls into a driveway ahead of me, behind a couple trees.

As I get closer the driver backs up, blocking the sidewalk. She is not obstructed from backing out.

Odd. But there's plenty of time to get out of my way as I approach.

Then a young woman gets out the car, with one foot apparently still in the car. She was looking at me--with an odd, not terribly happy look on her face--speaking incoherently (or perhaps just unintelligibly) at me.

I don't know her.

I keep running, and since she is still standing I dare to run in front of her car. It was around then that she apparently decided she didn't know me.

She stopped talking and got back in the car. And did not follow me down the road.

I can only assume there is another man in Ann Arbor who is relieved not to have been running down that sidewalk at that moment.

But he'll need to run faster--or at least away from the road.

UPDATE: Hmm. I wonder if I should have asked her if her name is Gloria?

Unrequited Love

During the Bush 43 presidency, many claimed that America's "unilateral" war in Iraq alienated the world and forfeited our moral standing to lead. Not so much.

American power is welcome. Other states may have worried that we were squandering our military power in the Iraq War, but rejecting our leadership and power wasn't a consequence of the war:

Security officials in countries as diverse as Japan and Poland, Vietnam and Romania desperately hope that all this talk about American soft power overtaking American hard power is merely that -- talk. For it is American warships and ground forces deployments that matter most to these countries and their officials. Indeed, despite the disappointing conclusions to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, rarely before has American hard power been so revered in places that actually matter.

The conclusions of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are not disappointing unless we allow them to be so. We've beaten down enemies and built up allies in both places to the point where our allies can win if we don't abandon them.

I worry enough about the surge of sectarian violence in Iraq--notwithstanding the good news that we "ended" that war--and now I worry that we will walk away from Afghanistan given that the president has foreseen an end to that war coincidentally taking place as we draw down. Good luck there, eh?

Poland, of course, would like it if we had more hard power available to them and are bulking up their armed forces:

The programme aims to spend about a third of the defence budget over the next decade on modernisation – amounting to about 140bn zlotys. That will buy a new missile defence system, new vessels for the navy fleet, upgraded tanks, new military training aircraft, 70 new helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles and equipment for troops.

Sitting on a big flat plain with no natural defenses will do that. Polish defense spending is still low--but not compared to non-America NATO budgets. And the way Russia's creeping Anschluss with Belorus is going, I don't blame the Poles. I'd like a stronger American Army presence in Europe, but the Bush-era plan to reduce our presence in Europe to two combat brigades will not be reversed by President Obama. I'd still like a REFORPOL program to provide a security blanket for the Poles.

And Iraq and Afghanistan did not wreck our military. Casualties, as tragic as they were, were historically low (foreign militaries are fairly amazed at the low casualty rate) and did not break our ground forces so much as make them combat hardened. As the veterans of these wars spend their careers in the military for another generation, we'll reap benefits if we must fight. I'd hope that we can institutionalize that experience to extend those gains, but I do try to be reality based, so assume nothing of the sort. Still, a generation is good. If our hard power declines, it will be because of choices we are making right now. Remember, you go to war today with the military you wished to have 5-10 years earlier. Clearly, a lot of nations wish we wanted to have a better military a decade from now.

A lot of countries love us. They worry we don't return the love enough.

Playing With Lives

Rebels in Syria (unfortunately aided by a growing jihadi element as the fight has dragged on) have stripped away large chunks of Syria from our enemy Assad's control. The price has been 80,000 lives lost so far. In what world is it moral to give the rebels the choice to endure more casualties to keep fighting or endure the continued survival of Assad?

I'm starting to think that nuance thing is over-rated:

Washington threatened on Wednesday to increase support for Syria's rebels if President Bashar al-Assad refuses to discuss a political end to a civil war that is spreading across borders. ...

The U.S.-Russian proposal for a peace conference has raised suspicion among Arab countries that Washington is watering down support for Assad's opponents, who had long refused to negotiate unless Assad is excluded from any future settlement.

I don't know why we have the basic inability to understand what our enemies understand--that negotiating is a complement to fighting and not an alternative. We think talks should include a halt to fighting. Our enemies always seem to understand that talking is just another means of getting to the end--victory.

That's our problem. We aren't focused on victory, and talking becomes the objective rather than just another means to the objective of victory. That's always been our weakness and it is always the reason I worry when we send in the diplomats.

And John Kerry makes me worry more than usual.

I don't rule out talking as a way to resolve this crisis depending on what our objectives are. But I insist that we view the ultimate removal of Assad and his Baath Party as the ultimate objective regardless of what we decide to pursue in the short term.

Actual Brown Water Combatants

Keep those expensive Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) out of the littorals. You want green and brown water vessels? Send the Cyclones.

Ah, the sweet smell of sanity (via my Jane's email updates):

The US Navy (USN) will forward deploy five more coastal patrol (PC) boats to US 5th Fleet in Bahrain with plans to move its remaining fleet from Virginia to Florida, officials told IHS Jane's on 14 May. Cyclone-class PCs USS Tempest (PC 2), USS Squall (PC 7), and USS Thunderbolt (PC 12) are scheduled to arrive in Manama by the third quarter of 2013[.]

Insanity is expecting LCS to operate close to shore. Patrol craft like the Cyclone class are cheap enough to risk in the littorals if we can't patrol them with drones.

But the Cyclone's are wearing out.

Why not build a new class of this type with the room to mount Griffin missiles to give the little ships a little more range?

Core Syria

Syria is winning the war within Core Syria from the coast to Damascus. The rebels have the recruiting base to overcome the Assad local advantage if they can keep up the war of attrition.

The new Syrian government militias have allowed Assad to go on offense within the smaller region of Core Syria that allows Assad to claim to rule Syria despite rebel conquests of northern and eastern Syria (and increasingly south Syria south of Damascus, it seems). While the loyal militias have been trusted to go on offense, I figured they would be better used to free up whatever regular army forces are available. Stratfor says the latter is being done, too, on top of press reports I've read that say the militias are being used as frontline troops:

External help also enabled Syria to create a new militia, known as the National Defense Force, to offset the losses incurred by the army. With the help of Iranian and Hezbollah advisers, the regime was able to rapidly train and deploy members of this militia. The National Defense Force has brought reliable manpower to the loyalist cause, but equally important, it has helped free up the conventional army to execute difficult offensive operations.

Using militias to free up regulars is the best option. But it also seems as if the militias are being used as frontline infantry, too. I'm curious about whether the Syrian army is crewing infantry fighting vehicles but using NDF militias as the infantry carried in them.

I think the burn rate on the militias will chew them up over the summer. Will the militias currently freeing up regulars be called to the front, too? Will Assad secure his Core Syria and halt offensive operations while the militias are still intact or will he burn through them attacking until they are used up?

And given that Hezbollah and Iran have trained these militias, will Assad want to burn them up to prevent Iran from gaining an independent ground force to influence a rump Core Syria? In many ways, if Assad can rebuild his regular infantry while the militias wage a war of attrition with rebels, the casualties in both forces might be to Assad's long-term advantage. As long as Assad wins the short-term fight for his Core Syria.

Note that Assad's Core Syria seems to extend north to Aleppo--which I think is too much to hold--but does not extend down to the Israeli and Jordanian borders--which I figured were needed to keep Assad's claims to be a "frontline" state against Israel alive.

Regardless of the exact boundaries and fate of the militias, once Assad has his core region secured reasonably well it is a war of attrition with the rebels, and the rebels have more manpower resources than the minority Alawites. If the rebels don't give up, they can eventually crack the Assad military.

The Diversity Riot

Who knew the Nile was a river in Sweden?

Huh. Riots in Swedish immigrant suburbs?

A fourth night of unprecedented riots in Stockholm has seen unrest spread, with a restaurant and up to 40 cars burnt, police told the BBC.

Three police officers were hurt as rioters threw stones and directed laser pointers at emergency services.

The worst of the latest rioting was in the south of the city, not the north-west where it began on Sunday.

Stockholm police spokesman Kjell Lindgren said the rioters were a "mixture of every kind of people".

The violence began in the deprived, largely immigrant suburb of Husby, days after police shot dead an elderly man there who had reportedly threatened to kill them with a machete.

I know what you're thinking. Car burnings. A machete. Attacking firefighters trying to put out fires. Immigrant suburb. Must be Moslem immigrants.

Not so fast! Swedish authorities may not be prepared to lay the blame on Tea Party activists, but they are clear that these rioters were a "mixture" of people. As a police spokesman helpfully explained:

"My colleagues say the people on the streets are a mixture of every kind of people you can think of," he added.

"We have got Swedes, we have got very young people, we have got people aged 30 to 35. You can't define them as a group.

"We don't know why they are doing this. There is no answer to it."

Yeah. Swedish Moslems. Very young Turkish Moslems. Moslems aged 30 to 35 from Pakistan. It really would be difficult to define them as a group. I have no doubt that the police spokesman "can't" define them as a particular group. The mystery may never be solved.

Obviously, not all Moslems--not even a large minority, I dare say--are rioting thugs. But I will make a bold guess that these rioters are Moslems. If the Swedes keep pretending there is no answer to this problem, Malmo will be the first Western city to become Sharia compliant.

I've no problem with welcoming Moslems fleeing the violence, backwardness, and social dysfunction of their homelands. But we should insist they leave those things behind. The West is a refuge from those problems because we are different from them, remember? We can be proud of Western civilization. Defend it.

UPDATE: On the bright side, locals are reacting against the minority rioting:

There are signs that residents in the affected areas are getting fed up with the violence. Many community leaders, dressed in fluorescent jackets, have taken to the streets to try to calm things down.

Good. Rioters are giving all Moslems a bad reputation.

Burning Down the House

An American passport is not a personal force field against America's military if you wage war against America.

Why is this something to get worked up over?

The US government has acknowledged the killing of four American citizens as part of its drone attack program – one person intentionally and three others not specifically targeted but killed in strikes aimed at terrorist suspects.

The information comes in a letter to congressional leaders from Attorney General Eric Holder, reported Wednesday by several news organizations, first by The New York Times.

We are under no obligation to refrain from killing an enemy just because he is an American citizen. And killing an American citizen fighting for the enemy doesn't require them to be an imminent threat to us. War consists of destroying enemy assets--ideally long before they are a threat to our forces.

If an American jihadi is sitting in his living room here in America, attempting to arrest the jihadi rather than striking him with a drone missile is the first choice. Which is why back in the day I was outraged at the Philadelphia police bombing that MOVE rooftop "bunker." The MOVE members were nutballs. But law enforcement methods should have been used for a law enforcement problem.

This is an obvious exception to using air power on domestic jihadis. But we're far from that and I don't think we'd ever get even close to that stage.

Perhaps if our administration wasn't so committed to fitting completely normal wartime drone strikes on enemies into a domestic law enforcement template, this wouldn't be so awkward. The collateral damage to our civil rights could be far worse than that MOVE bombing conflagration.

We remain at war with nutball thugs who will hate us regardless of what we do or don't do. And restricting or repealing the 2001 authorization to use force is part of the insanity.

UPDATE: This post was a scheduled post written before President Obama's "war over" speech. Funny enough this was intended to defend the president's war powers against critics. Silly me.

UPDATE: And imagine my surprise that the president announced a restriction of drone strikes right after a stirring defense of their legality and effectiveness, using an explanation for targeting American citizens that I started this post with:

[When] a U.S. citizen goes abroad to wage war against America – and is actively plotting to kill U.S. citizens; and when neither the United States, nor our partners are in a position to capture him before he carries out a plot – his citizenship should no more serve as a shield than a sniper shooting down on an innocent crowd should be protected from a swat team.

Yet we'll greatly reduce the drone strikes. The recent lull wasn't a pause, it was a trend already in place before the speech. Let's remember this warning from the president:

I must weigh these heartbreaking tragedies [unintended civilian deaths while targeting jihadis] against the alternatives. To do nothing in the face of terrorist networks would invite far more civilian casualties – not just in our cities at home and facilities abroad, but also in the very places –like Sana’a and Kabul and Mogadishu – where terrorists seek a foothold. Let us remember that the terrorists we are after target civilians, and the death toll from their acts of terrorism against Muslims dwarfs any estimate of civilian casualties from drone strikes.

President Obama made an eloquent defense of drone strikes. So he was for them 9right) before he was against them. This will work out swell.

War Over?

The president's "receding tide of war" speech is troubling. It is a troubling mixture of stringing up a "Mission Accomplished" banner, excluding South Korea from our defensive perimeter, and "why do they hate us?" garbage that assumes jihadi grievances somehow make their bloody rage understandable.

The president says the war is over and that drone strikes can be limited to narrow areas and focused even more than they are now.

And the notion that we must address their grievances rather than insist that they restrict their response to ways that do not infringe on our rights or kill us is preposterous.

The president was so close to insight in saying that military force is not the only part of the Long War. I've droned on about helping the Moslem world reject the jihadi impulse. But the president missed it and went back to the "why do they hate us?" guilt that assumes we have done wrong and we must make it right, or who can blame the jihadis for their violent rages.

And when a Code Pink (I can only assume from the shrillness evident) heckler condemns President Obama (who mistakenly engages her and tolerates her interruption--and even salutes her!) for his speech contents as being insufficiently supine, I can only assume that we are in retreat.

Violence isn't the only way to fight the Long War. But it is a vital part of it. And it reminds us that we are at war, does it not? Violence may eventually recede. But it doesn't just happen. It happens because we fight and win. But the war is over, it seems. We shall retreat.

When we retreat, enemies will advance. One side's receding tide of war is always the other side's rising tide that lifts all jihadis. We'll learn that again before this president's term of office ends.

UPDATE: Yes, the protester was purportedly Code Pink's pinkest Medea Benjamin. Luckily, she is part of the president's base so when she figuratively yelled out, "You lie!" she got the gentle treatment rather than the frog march that a Tea Partier would have gotten.

But the cruelest cut was the president's invitation to Ms. Benjamin: "Let Me Finish, Ma'am."

Ma'am! That's gonna leave a mark.

UPDATE: Casualties mount in Iraq even though President Obama "responsibly ended" the war. Our president says the war in Afghanistan will end when we pull most (all?) of our troops from that geographic entity, so of course India wonders what they will do:

As NATO troops solve the logistical challenges of a draw-down from Afghanistan, there is a sense of déjà vu among foreign policymakers in New Delhi. When the Soviet troops left Afghanistan in 1989, and US attention turned elsewhere, Pakistan used the militant infrastructure of the war to support a popular militant uprising in Indian-administered Kashmir while the Afghan mujahideen finished off the communists in Kabul.

Because the funny thing is, when we leave--the war goes on.

So forgive me for not sharing the confidence that the war on terror has gone on long enough and can be summarily ended by presidential decree. It doesn't take two to make war. Indeed, for the side at war, it is pretty ideal if they are the only side at war.

For those concerned with civil liberties (as I've raised over the years), declaring the war over yet institutionalizing in a peacetime setting many of the wartime practices to detect and stop terrorists should be of deep concern. When we are at war, some strengthening of state power occurs but when the war is actually won, those increased state powers are expected to be repealed or reduced. Is TSA being reduced? Border controls lifted? The PATRIOT Act repealed?

But if in peacetime we keep those restrictions because in practice the war is not really over, don't we simply accept a permanent ratcheting up of the security state?

If we're going to have to live like we are at war, we should say we are at war. At least then we have the ability to end war practices when the threat is low enough to declare victory on the figurative corpse of our enemies.

Right now the only question is how bloody the reminder that we are at war will be.

UPDATE: Oh, and silly me, I thought I was defending the president and his ability to wage war in this post. Who knew McCain was just telegraphing the president's intent?

What is Permissible?

Is it not disturbing that our president want new laws to prevent the executive branch from attempts to silence and intimidate media criticism of the administration?

Isn't the president saying that he has no limits on what he will do to press critics unless there is explicit statutory prohibitions? Is he really unable to do what is right to accept the spirit of the First Amendment's press freedom provision?

Shouldn't it be the other way around for our government? Shouldn't the government be unwilling to infringe on freedoms unless explicitly authorized?

About Those High Capacity Magazines

Who knew I was so liberal? Tip to Instapundit.

With an amusing discussion of worries about Peak Seed.

Which we all know was nullified by horizontal fracking.



UPDATE: Obviously, I simply have no objections to the practice, in theory. Further conclusions are purely speculative and beyond the scope of this post.

What Goes Around Comes Around?

Our left saluted the shoe-throwing Iraqi reporter that President Bush faced.

President Obama entered office throwing a shoo at reporters to keep them friendly or quiet. First it was just Fox News. Now it has spread to anyone not part of the JournoListic public relations firms that much of the rest of the media once was.

Will our press start (figuratively) throwing shoes at this president as they realize that their 100% love is valued less than their 100% loyalty?

It might actually become the fourth estate again rather than the public relations arm of the executive branch.

But not without a fight, it seems.

Rip Tide

A man linked to the Boston Marathon bombers may have been about to confess to three brutal murders in Boston, according to ABC news, before the man was shot by FBI agenst during questioning.

To say this story is "odd" is to totally ignore the word "incompetent:"

The man shot dead by an FBI agent in Orlando, Florida early today was "about to sign a statement" admitting to a role, along with Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, in an unsolved triple murder in Massachusetts in 2011, two people with direct knowledge of the case told ABC News.

Ibragim Todashev "just went crazy," and pulled a knife during his interview with the FBI, said state and federal law enforcement officials briefed on the latest strange twist in the investigation of the Boston Marathon bombing.

The good news is that the agent's wounds aren't fatal.

But in what world does the FBI interview a suspect in a brutal jihadi-style multiple murder case without searching the suspect for weapons? Or search the man so poorly that the knife remained? Seriously? The man had a knife on him?

I suppose we should just be grateful he didn't have an underwear bomb on him. What the heck. What difference, at this point, does it make? The tide of war is receding, right?

Good News and Bad News

Jay Carney offered some reassurances to the public regarding the reporter investigation scandals:

"If you're asking me whether the president believes that journalists should be prosecuted for doing their jobs, the answer is no," he said.

Unasked was whether the president considers the jobs of journalists as being cheerleaders for the president, as they've largely done for five years.

So take your reassurances at your own risk.

Always Read to the End of the Contract

Spanish shipbuilders have constructed some very advanced submarines for the Spanish navy. They can submerge. Can they surface? Not so much.

This is amazing:

After spending nearly one-third of a $3 billion budget to build four of the world’s most advanced submarines, the project’s engineers have run into a problem: the submarines are so heavy that they would sink to the bottom of the ocean.

But other than that, they're pretty impressive.

I suggest reading up on "buoyancy."

In Defense of Lois Lerner

Lois Lerner of the Internal Revenue Service could go to jail even if she is innocent. Pleading the 5th Amendment isn't necessarily as damning as it appears.

So IRS official Lois Lerner defended her tenure and actions but doesn't want to testify before a House committee:

Lerner's opening statement before the committee was the only information she would provide at the hearing. As advised by her attorney, Lerner invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself by testifying and declined to respond to questions from lawmakers. She added that by refusing to subject herself to questions "some people will assume I have done something wrong. I have not."

Recall that "Scooter" Libby did hard time despite having broken no laws in the Affaire La Plame non-scandal. He was nailed for incorrect statements under oath ("lies") about a non-crime he was not involved in.

How much worse could it be for Ms. Lerner when the IRS already admitted to doing something wrong?

UPDATE: Related thoughts (tip to Instapundit):

The American people have a right to know both how deep and how high the corruption of our government runs. The White House has an interest in minimizing the scandal, and surely that is Obama's objective if he is trying to throw Lerner under the bus. Let's reserve judgment on her and make sure not to let off the hook the man whose re-election the IRS's abuse of power helped to advance.

Well, the 5th amendment was her only way out in the short run, since "What difference, at this point, does it make" whether some IRS employees planned to target Tea Party activists or were just out walking around and spontaneously got worked up over some YoutTube Tea Party video has passed its shelf life in Washington.

And obviously, I meant that pleading the 5th isn't necessarily as damning to Ms. Lerner as it appears.

The Headline Writer Full Employment Act

Oh please, run. Oh please, run. Oh please, run.

Anthony Weiner (Clown--NY) has officially thrown his--er--hat into the ring to run for mayor of New York City:

Disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner announced his candidacy Wednesday for mayor of New York City. But he will have a harder time than Rep. Mark Sanford did in staging a comeback.

A harder time, indeed. The headlines write themselves. Good grief, it won't be just the New York Post, either.

I can hardly wait for the official Weiner campaign slogan: "Being your mayor ... excites me!"

And if Donald Trump would be kind enough to run against Weiner, I think I will dump all my Lockheed Martin stock and invest in the Comedy Channel.

Let's Fight Them "Over There"

Jihadis murdered a British soldier and conveniently waited 20 minutes for armed British police to arrive to shoot them.

It's a long war:

Eyewitness Michael Atley, 28, who works for a building maintenance firm nearby, said the two killers were in a blue BMW 3 series which mounted the pavement and knocked the victim over.

They then beheaded him with either a meat cleaver or a machete before both were shot by police officers who were on the scene within moments.

He told the Telegraph: “We heard the gunfire from the police shooting the two people. There were a few shots, then a pause, then some more shots, maybe eight shots in total.

“I spoke to an eyewitness who had seen the whole thing and he said they had run the guy over and then started decapitating him.

“When the police arrived the black guys were waving a pistol and a machete or a meat cleaver in the air and the police opened fire.

Another witness said the police took 20 minutes to arrive. Oh yeah, and the killers yelled "Allahu akbar!" Odd thing that last part. I wonder why they'd do that?

Obviously, with May 22 being the first day of the War of the Roses, informed investigators will no doubt move past that strange exclamation to get right on combing greater London for die hard supporters of Richard of York.

Let's not be shy about killing jihadis wherever we find them. JDAM akbar, and all that. Because they'll kill us wherever they can.

Informaton Ops Fail

This Army information site remains nearly worthless.

That's just sad. It used to be good. So much for full spectrum competence.

Really? I'm Not Prepared to Accept This Much Stupidity

I find it hard to believe that the Benghazi "consulate" was buying back Stinger anti-aircraft missiles from Libyan rebels or that a general was fired for trying to save Americans in danger.

But that is what the rumor mill says will come out:

Stevens’ mission in Benghazi, they will say, was to buy back Stinger missiles from al-Qaeda groups issued to them by the State Department, not by the CIA. Such a mission would usually be a CIA effort, but the intelligence agency had opposed the idea because of the high risk involved in arming “insurgents” with powerful weapons that endanger civilian aircraft.

Hillary Clinton still wanted to proceed because, in part, as one of the diplomats said, she wanted “to overthrow Gaddafi on the cheap.”

Why send Stingers--our top man-carried anti-aircraft missile--when there were so many Russian-made missiles out there? And why send Stingers when we could have bought and shipped in Russian weapons to hide our involvement?

Where would the State Department even get Stingers? It would have to be from our military, I assume. Wouldn't it be easier to buy Russian models from allies?

And one more question on that: why bother arming rebels with any anti-aircraft missiles when we established a no-fly zone (and then expanded it into a regime-change air campaign)? The rebels didn't need anti-aircraft missiles for the limited use of helicopters that could avoid the air patrols.

This makes no sense on many levels. On the other hand, stupid things happen. We'll see. I'm skeptical.

The other rumor is of more interest to me:

Regarding General Ham, military contacts of the diplomats tell them that AFRICOM had Special Ops “assets in place that could have come to the aid of the Benghazi consulate immediately (not in six hours).”

Ham was told by the White House not to send the aid to the trapped men, but Ham decided to disobey and did so anyway, whereupon the White House “called his deputy and had the deputy threaten to relieve Ham of his command.”

I thought that General Ham's retirement in April 2013 was scheduled. Although I'd heard this basic rumor before, I thought it was discredited--or at least not proven correct. Perhaps not. That would be a helluva thing to have happened. We'll see. I can believe higher authorities halted rescue efforts. But I'll need proof to accept linkage between that possible action and Ham's retirement. But it isn't nearly as far-fetched, in my opinion, given the administration efforts to portray the war on terror as over.

Like I said, stupid things happen.