re: "Eat The Rich? Well-Funded, Nicely-Fed OWSers Won't Share Food With The (Other) Homeless"

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ observed the social evolution of the OWS movement, which had just about reached the if-you-share-all-your-crayons-you-won't-have-any stage.

Money quote(s):

"Lessons of social evolution, part 8: Sharing of resources only works within a small group with some natural connection (such as familial bond) or other emotional/personal fondness for each other. Sharing of resources generally only works for a brief period of time -- the natural resentment towards Takers can only be briefly suppressed -- and usually during special occasions (such as communal feasts).

Being expected to share with individuals outside of one's kin group quickly produces resentment, and soon after, a codification of the principle of private property, which is, of course, the right to exclude others from the use of one's property as one deems fit.

A shorter form of this rule: People like visitors and/or strangers with their hands full, not with their hands out." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Read the whole thing.

10/27

re: "Burned Korans & Riots & Feeding the Delusions of the Delusional"

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ offered a helpful suggestion.

Money quote(s):

"If someone's having a panic attack, the worst possible thing to do, as someone trying to help, is to play into it. To pay too much attention. To act very concerned.

People do that, thinking it's helpful. In fact, in exacerbates the situation.

My point is this: To what extent have we played into and exacerbated this absurd Muslim psychopathy over the Koran?

And to what extent would it be defeated if we simply stopped playing into it, and actually routinized the destruction of Korans (or other shows of disrespect, or, more accurately, "refusing to treat the Muslim religion as the officially sanctified state religion of America")?

To what extent are we encouraging these little spells by playing along with them? By treating the Koran as scared, most of the time, to what extent are we writing our own tragic ending when some stupid book gets burned?

Isn't it dangerous to feed the delusions of the deluded? Isn't the right course of action to insist on a more grounded view of reality?

Shouldn't we set the default, routine, expected mode of behavior as "we are not a Muslim nation and furthermore are forbidden by the Constitution from treating one religion as sacrosanct"?"

&

"(O)ur current policy also seems to not help, and is furthermore repellent."

3/2

re: "Sexy Russian Spy Anna Chapman Arrested Because She Was Getting Too Close To Someone Inside "Obama's Inner Circle"?"

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ provided a demonstration of how sometimes the best domestic U.S. news coverage comes from abroad.

Money quote(s):

"That's what a former FBI counterintelligence officer reveals.

The Independent (UK) highlights the six hundredth revelation that Iraqi informant "Curveball" lied. They bury the actual new news -- that the FBI felt it had to move quickly to arrest and deport Anna Chapman, for fear that someone close to Obama was about to snork her, and get caught in a "honey trap" (sex, followed by extortion for secrets/influence).

That someone "close" to Obama? A "sitting cabinet official," this FBI counterintelligence officer says." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

In counterintelligence, you want to find, neutralize, and exploit those hostile intelligence threats targeting you.

So while Ms. Chapman may have been identified some time prior to her arrest, she was probably under various sorts of surveillance in order to determine the extent of her own network and contacts.

That's the first sort of exploitation, by the way. But neutralizing the threat she, and her network, presented had to take precedence if she was infiltrating too close to our own inner circles.

4/2

National Day of Blogger Silence — This Friday

In solidarity with Ace of Spades (among others), CAA will be participating in the "National Day of Blogger Silence."

(If you don't know why, then you've got your reading cut out for you.)

re: "Marines May Face Prosecution For Peeing On Corpses"

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ considered the motivations.

Money quote(s):

"The real crime was the felony stupid of videotaping it.

A lot of people seem upset by this. I think it's upsetting that now these guys are probably going to get cashiered over a stupid act. But the act itself doesn't really upset me.

The whole point of a rule against corpse desecration is that you show respect and honor to the fallen one. But what if that fallen one had been trying to kill you not ten minutes before, and in fact you had killed him before he killed you?"

Hmm. Actually, I'm not sure about the precise rationale for non-desecration as part of the law of warfare, but assuming Ace's reasoning is correct (and upon reflection, it probably is) it's not a stand-alone value. It's part-and-parcel of a larger set of values having to do with an adversary being a lawful combatant who follows the same (or a quite similar) set of values known collectively as the laws of war.

Little things like wearing a uniform, not targeting peaceful civilians, taking surrenders, treating prisoners humanely, behaving with honor, &tc.

(None of which is stuff the Taliban are particularly noted for.)

"I'm not sure there's any other way you can feel about a terrorist dirtbag who was just trying to kill you and your friends -- so you're not naturally going to feel that you should treat the corpse with respect.

Your training and discipline should kick in to supplement that and keep you from doing this, but your natural moral sense isn't there. Because, seriously, the hell with this terrorist."

1/13

re: "The Miserable Failure's War in Libya May Result In Victory"

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ doesn't buy into the whole responsibility-t0-protect schtick, he's a bit more Jacksonian and punitive.

Money quote(s):

"The Bush model of war -- go in heavy, attempt to win the war on the backs of American (and allied) soldiers, attempt to establish a monopoly on the use of violence, and then continue that monopoly on the use of violence by acting as the nation's law enforcement/army for five, six, ten years -- doesn't work, or at least does not work at costs the American public is willing to pay.

I see no point agitating for a Full War Model against Iran, for example -- to urge such a thing is futile. I do not believe the American public has the appetite for such an endeavor. (At least-- not unless Iran uses its soon-to-be-built nukes.)

We didn't use to take care of these countries in this fashion. We used to arm and train rebels within those countries (they've all got them), fund them, provide intelligence, spread some bribe money around, and, when necessary, bring in the sort of Word of God that our air and naval forces issue from the air or sea." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Using auxilliaries is hardly a concept revolutionary in warfare, it's an economy-of-force move that makes sense for a global power concerned (as we should be) unnecessary U.S. casualties and an extended logistics chain.

"Colin Powell's ludicrous statement -- "You break it, you buy it" -- is a formula for nonstop, decades-long nation-building of exactly the same type that George W. Bush campaigned against in 2000, albeit on a much longer and much bloodier scale than we saw in, say, Haiti.
Why do we "buy" it if we break it?

Broken societies reassemble themselves. In fact, they seem to do so more quickly than people expect, even when faced with great devastation.

There is no need for American troops to hand-hold them through this process.

If a country thwarts or threatens the US enough to invite a decapitating military strike, one that takes out the ruling regime and renders the state without any force to impose order -- they broke it themselves." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

And, if necessary, rinse and repeat. Sadly, we may be headed down this road whether we like it or not regarding Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan....

"(W)hat there won't be in the model of warfare I am endorsing is a large body of American troops in the crossfire.

Yes, our troops are the best in the world, and not just the best at destroying the enemy -- they are the best at destroying the enemy while sparing noncombatants' lives. They are the most disciplined and most precise forces the world have ever seen, in addition to being the most lethal.

So yes, the presence of our troops can in fact spare any number of noncombatants in such a bloody civil war.

But... I have to say: Who gives a shit? How many foreign citizens in an country we've gone to war with do I need to save in fair exchange for one American soldier's life?" (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Ace offers his own formulas for weighting that decision. It's a smarter way to evaluate strategic options than applying some sort of body count metric later on.

"These basket-case, broken, violent rogue countries have their own growing up to do. They have to go through their own spasms. They have to shed their own blood, and inflict their own massacres.

Yes, we can spare them some of this; but why should we? Someone is going to die in a war. I nominate foreign nationals.

American troops' heavy engagement is better for all parties in a war, except for the American troops themselves, and while they might be selfless enough to nobly volunteer for such missions, I'm a little too selfish to want to use them for such purposes any longer.

In some cases, we may need to fight a WWII style total war. Fine. In all other cases, we should go back to the 70s/80s model of backing indigenous fighters with the 90s/2000s addition of devastating airstrikes."

If we're not the world's policeman (as we claim not to be), then it might behoove us to be a bit more sparing in the application of our blood and treasure abroad.

"(T)he advantage of this style of warfare is that it is politically possible, which I no longer thing the Bush style is." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

The man has a point.

"We have a strong interest in disarming Iran.

Do we have that strong an interest in rebuilding it and pacifying it? No, I don't think we do."

It's a valid point of discussion, and should be discussed, rather than assuming that Iran is a likely candidate for the Grand Fenwick model.

8/18

re: "Democrats, Who Spent Months Arguing for "Compromise," Now Insist Obama "Throw Down The Gauntlet" "

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ vented more spleen.

Money quote(s):

"Is this worth a post? I don't know. It's more of the same, isn't it? While they mau-mau Republicans to pray at the altar of compromise, they demand Obama fight, fight, fight.

Why, it's almost as if they are entirely lacking in principle or intellectual integrity and are just freelance political strategists in service of the DNC and Organizing for America, eh?

The point is so obvious (and so obviously true) it's a waste of time to even spend pixels on it.
But yes, the devotees of compromise are now promoting the slogan "If you're not with me, you're with the economic terrorists.""

9/6

re: "Commanders Livid As Obama Orders Reduction of Iraq Troop Strength To... 3000"

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ cut to the heart of the matter.

Money quote(s):

"How can 3000 men in a foreign country accomplish anything, even securing their own safety?

This seems, yet again, to be a purely political decision, made without regard to any security goal or even the affected troops' safety.

If you're hollowing out the force to the point where they are no longer tasked with anything except defending themselves from terrorist attacks, why are they there at all?"

Lipstick on a pig?

(9/6)

re: "Mickey Kaus: Perry's Positions on Immigration Are Even Worse Than I Thought"

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ has his own ideas about immigration reform.

Money quote(s):

"I've long been in favor of a guest worker program. Liberals hate this idea because they want immigrant workers voting in elections, and also supporting the American social welfare system (because, being citizens, they'd be beneficiaries). The unions hate the idea because they don't like the idea of immigrants with legal status competing for jobs.

Many conservatives don't like the idea because they want illegal immigrants stopped, period."

Like a lot of consular officers who work hard and conscientiously in implementing lawful immigration programs, illegal immigration pretty much burns my shorts. (We are not amused!) There's an in-joke that plays on the predominently liberal flavor of our diplomatic corps: new foreign service officers are liberal, but after their first tour interviewing (and adjudicating) visa applicants they're still liberal, but not when it comes to immigration.

"(T)here is a fact on the ground that cannot easily be ignored that American agriculture relies, to a serious extent, on immigrant farm workers coming in to collect the harvests. There is a glib response to that -- "We'll just encourage Americans to take those jobs!" -- and I suppose that's possible, but the American public of 2011 is not the American public of, say, 1932. Whereas once American workers might take a bus to the heartland and work the fields for a season, American workers no longer feel they need to do that, as government unemployment programs don't require them to change jobs or to travel long distances for work. So, in the main, they don't." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

If things got bad enough (and here's hoping they don't), that lack of needful feeling could change drastically. But for now, with the modern welfare state (and the option of moving back home to your parent's house) American citizen labor is unlikely to be quite that mobile.

"(P)art of the reason there aren't any serious immigration reforms -- and I mean on the enforcement side, here -- is because neither side is particularly willing to confront the facts on the ground. Liberals demand an amnesty and citizenship to goose their vote share (and further drain our social welfare finances), which is a non-starter for conservatives. Business-oriented conservatives, however, block real immigration enforcement, because they feel those enforcement efforts don't take into account the fact that many businesses have come to rely on immigrant workers, and would be disrupted by any kind of crackdown that was more than superficial (which is what our current raids mostly are).

To me, the best solution is to permit guest-worker visas but only for those industries that have long relied on immigrant illegal workers (agriculture, mainly), with a smaller pool of visas for industries that have recently begun to rely on such workers (hotels, restaurants), and none at all for industries which are just recently beginning to indulge in illegal hiring.

Then start reducing the visas for the middle category (the hospitality industries), to begin ratcheting this practice down in a slow way, forcing them little by little to stop hiring illegals.
Such guest worker visas should only be generous for the one industry that seems to be historically dependent on seasonal workers (agriculture).

That is, less of a war on illegal immigration, and more of a containment and rollback model."

Ace seems considerably more in touch with public sentiment on this issue, in severe contrast to our elected/appointed leadership which seems bent on expanding categories of worker programs.

"I think our laws do not reflect the reality that immigrants pick crops, and there aren't a huge number of Americans ready and able to step in were they to stop. Businesses will hire them illegally because they have to, and then the political structure will turn a blind eye to all of this because they know it's necessary, and the situation continues, with no support on either side for any kind of actual governing law.

Because there is no majority for any scheme of law here, we've all collectively decided, essentially, to keep the old "law" in place and just ignore the fact it's being broken left and right."

(9/6)

re: "NYT: We Cannot Possibly Withdraw From a War Before It Is Won Or It Might Undermine US Credibility (No Seriously, Stop Laughing)"

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ cherry-picked a great quote.

re: "SCOTUS to POTUS: You're Not Very Good At This Whole Law Thing, Are You?"

Gabriel Malor at Ace of Spades HQ commented on a consular notification case.

Money quote(s):

"A child rapist/murderer and the President teamed up last week to ask the Supreme Court to stay the rapist/murderer's execution in Texas so that Congress could have time to consider legislation that would invalidate the murderer's conviction. (As if that would ever pass Congress.) They believe that international law was violated because the criminal was not advised of his right to contact the Mexican consulate when he was arrested. You see, the criminal is an alien."

Nice summary of the facts in order of their importance.

It's also difficult to notify the consulate of someone, and illegal alien for instance, who doesn't tell you (or denies) that they're not a U.S. citizen.

"(L)ast year, in a separate case, the Supreme Court ruled that, while international law is violated when an alien isn't advised of this treaty right to contact his consulate, domestic law is just honkey-dory with it because Congress never implemented the treaty. So that guy was executed. Since then, Congress has done nothing to implement the treaty."

Three. Co-Equal. Branches. Of. Government.

Got that part? None of the three branches possesses the divine right of kingship. They each have their roles and missions.

re: "China: Please Repudiate Your T-Bills That We Own And Impose Trump-Level 1000% Tariffs On The Shoddy Crap We Sell You"

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ knows (as does China) that warfare is fought in many dimensions.

Money quote(s):

"This was sort of inevitable, and it's pretty bad. China has long supported every indecent country in the world, because America has alliances with most of the decent ones."

China has, and has had, for decades, a Non-Interference Policy (NIP). That essentially meant that it would do business with you and not worry overmuch about your internal affairs. Sort of the stance China would like the rest of the world to take regarding China's internal affairs.

"China has now made it official: an attack on Pakistan (terrorist hunting) is now to be taken as an attack on China.

They have extended their own security zone to the terrorist state of Pakistan, which means China is now officially a terrorist sponsor."

Ace is, as usual, a few steps ahead of the rest of the United States, including with regards to treating the state of Pakistan as an actual enemy of the U.S., rather than as a partner in the war on terrorism, &tc.

I'm not saying he's necessarily wrong, but perhaps prematurely right.

"(L)ucky us. We just found a trillion and a half dollars we thought we were in the hole for, but now we're not."

Chinese strategists plan for assymetrical operations in all theaters, all dimensions, of war, particularly against peer or near-peer opponents. Included in those battlefields will be the financial and economic dimensions. Being prepared to return fire effectively isn't the worst idea I've ever heard.

re: "In Case Anyone Cares, Obama Is Fighting What Is Actually, Demonstrably an "Illegal War" "

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ gets this about ninety-percent correct.

Money quote(s):

"The scheme of the War Powers Act is that a president can make war, absent authority, for sixty days. Once that sixty day limit is reached, he must begin winding down the effort as soon as possible, and must end all confrontation (even of the retreat/withdrawal under fire type) thirty days after that.

Now, the President can of course seek authorization for war in that sixty day window, in which case the Constitution is satisfied and the War Powers Act no longer applies.

The President has not sought any resolution or authorization. Has not even sought it."

There are some exceptions to this, such as when U.S. forces or territory come under attack.

According to the Library of Congress: "the President's powers as Commander in Chief are exercised only pursuant to a declaration of war, specific statutory authorization from Congress, or a national emergency created by an attack upon the United States (50 USC Sec. 1541)."

"Clinton did the same thing with Bosnia. So this isn't the first time.

Odd that only Republican Presidents need to, and do in fact, seek resolutions of war, while the Democrats who scream the loudest about this part of the Constitution (one of the few they like) just ignore it again and again.

Obama's theory (as was Clinton's) is that because this is being fought "by NATO," then it's not... what, war? I don't get this."

It's always been my understanding that the U.S. was a fully-vested, voting member of NATO. And that the current supreme commander in NATO is a U.S. Navy admiral.

"Most nations go to war as part of an alliance of some kind. They always have. They likely always will.

Where does this idea spring from that when a Democrat wants to go to war without constitutional authorization, he can point to whatever countries he's in alliance with and say "I know the Constitution says I need an authorization of war, but look, I've got Martinique on my side, Hoss. Gold standard." "

&

"I(t) doesn't bloody matter what organization is nominally in charge of a war, or what combination of countries you're allied with. The Constitution does not say that you need either a declaration of war or France has your back.

There is one statement. It applies to all circumstances. It doesn't matter if we're doing it on behalf of the UN, NATO, the G-8, the NAFTA trade zone, SEATO, or fuck-all else."

re: "Another Day, Another Muslim Massacre"

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ recounts his evolving perspective.

Money quote(s):

"After 9/11 I was pretty sure what I wanted to see was Option 2. When Bush took nukes off the table, I was disappointed.

I did then, and still do, criticize Bush for being a Born-Again Christian. By which I mean: informed by the Christian ethics of mercy and regard for human life.

Which I thought were nice and everything but... too constraining.

After 9/11, I had a much less Christian sort of thought about how to deal with a murder cult.

Bush sort of changed my mind, and pursued, I thought, what seemed to be a less savage, more noble course. I gave him credit for that. Maybe I (and people who thought like me) were in fact giving license to genocidal hatred. Maybe Bush's decision to keep things civilized was a good one.

I was proud of what Bush, and the troops fighting for America, did for me, and for all of us. It wasn't just that they delivered justice -- justice could be more cheaply delivered via massive bombs dropped on cities and towns. They also delivered something finer than justice. Compassion, mercy.

I wouldn't have chosen that course -- but I was glad that cooler (or, warmer) heads chose it for me.

But as this goes on I am going back to thinking those are expensive luxuries and I no longer wish to pay for such things."

re: "NATO: Hey, We'll Bomb The Rebels, Too"

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ just keeps getting smarter all the time.

Money quote(s):

"If America wants to enter other states and declare a monopoly on sanctioned violence, well, that's a good way to keep outrages against civilians low, but comes at the cost of using American troops for every damn fight in the world.

If you're going to go a different way -- supporting indigenous fighters with air capabilities and intelligence -- you have to accept that there are going to be some vicious slaughters of civilians by "freedom fighters," but certainly you want as few such massacres as possible. What do you do? You can threaten an end to air cover and supply. But that doesn't thwart a slaughter in progress.

I'm not sure a threat to attack the rebels we're supporting is necessarily a bad thing. We need them to keep it clean. The temptation in any war, especially a civil one, is to get dirty and vicious as soon as possible and then keep topping yourself. Our troops don't do that (except for the occasional psychopaths who are then court martialed), but we don't want to have to insert our troops into every situation where we might want to flex some military might.

If we're going to fight in this limited fashion (and I think the old Cold War model of limited support is well worth revisiting), we do need to let our "freedom fighters" know that there are some things we just won't/can't countenance, and there's no way we can stay in a fight if our "freedom fighters" decide to unleash their inner Al Qaeda.

As for actually bombing them, though: I really can't think of a more preposterous situation than bombing both sides in a civil war.

Oh, and meanwhile, SecDef Gates said there won't be any ground troops in Libya as long as he's serving in his job. So, like, implicitly, he's threatening to walk."

&

"(O)f course, any time you have pilots in a war it means you're just one shoot-down away from a hostage situation."

re: "Mike Huckabee Alludes To Obama Growing Up In Kenya; Media Pounces; I Hereby Declare This Is Obama's Problem, Not Huckabee's"

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ begins with former Gov. Huckabee's recent mis-speech and swerves into a politically-cynical (and thus entertaining) run at the "birther" kerfuffle.

Money quote(s):

"In an interview, Huckabee alluded to Obama growing up in Kenya; he apparently mixed up Obama's complicated richly textured tapestry of nuanced diversity lineage and background, and misspoke.

He immediately clarified that he had misspoke."

Easy enough to mis-speak like that, I suppose. The truth, roughly, is that after being born in Hawaii, the president spent several of his earlier years in Indonesia before moving back to Hawaii where he completed his pre-tertiary education. Not being the president's biographer, I'll leave it at that.

"I have a weird take on the Birth Certificate Conspiracy Theory. Few share it. On one hand, I do not believe in it, at all. I disbelieve it for cosmological reasons, for one thing -- that Obama could be evicted from office due to this strikes me as such a Magic Button Happy Ending that I would almost be forced to confess the active hand of an Intelligent Designer in our political disputes, which I strongly doubt -- and for more specific reasons, there is evidence of his Hawaiian birth (notices in newspapers) that seems so fortuitous to seem just too unlikely to be credited.

On the other hand, those who reject such conspiracy theories tend to be convinced that the whole fooferall is political poison and will convince the world that we are nothing but crazy cranks.

I don't believe that last part. I believe this conspiracy theory is wrong (and often dumb) but politically pretty harmless. I base this on an imaginary conversation I have with a hypothetical, low-information, low-partisan-leaning independent voter I imagine in my head:"

Be sure to read the hypothetical dialogue he provides at his post.

I rather like the rejection of the "Magic Button Happy Ending" on grounds of it being a reverse-Occam's Razor.

"I do think that is why this whole Birth Certificate Conspiracy Theory has not, in fact, harmed conservatives, despite the media attempting to harm conservatives with it at every turn.

It's just that anyone who hears all this is going to ask, as my Hypothetical Independent kept asking, "Okay, I accept this is all crazy... but... why won't he release it?"

There's no answer to that. No one ever says why this is so outrageous a request. No one offers any plausible justification for withholding it.

No one ever asks the President. No one. Ever.

We have a secret, and we don't even have the courtesy of a cover story to explain the secret away.

If you act secretively, it is not crazy to imagine you have secrets.

This is Obama's problem. It is Obama's choice to withhold this document. That's a decision he made -- why? No idea. The White House won't even offer a cover story to explain why such a benign record must be guarded like Area 51.

It is not the problem of Obama's opponents to prop him up and explain away his decision. It is not our duty to make excuses for him, or to postulate reasons why he's withholding a trivial birth record.

It's the guy with the secret who has the problem.

And this is what annoys me in the media coverage of this: They demand that Republicans swear on a stack of Bibles to affirm facts they have no knowledge of while steadfastly refusing to ask the guy actually concealing the records which would end the controversy why, The Hell, he is continuing to conceal them."

The truth will out. The truth always outs. Always. Sometimes you have to wait for it, sometimes you have to really be paying attention to notice it's gotten out, but it always gets there eventually. Always.

What will it be? No idea. But I think Ace has nudged the conversation (such as it is) in a useful enough direction. For my part, I'm inclined to believe the original Hawaiian birth certificate is perfectly genuine and that the president is Constitutionally eligible to hold office as a natural born citizen. I'm also inclined to favor the notion that for some reason of political expedience or embarrassment, the president doesn't want the original document released. And that declining to release that document falls more into the realm, at this late date, of being either due to force of habit or because the president has one more presidential campaign to run and doesn't want whatever it might be to become an issue.

Although at this point, having kept whatever it is under wraps for this long would probably be the more politically damaging issue.

"This is Obama's problem. Not Boehner's, not Huckabee's. Not even Chris Matthews'. There is one person in the entire world who is legally permitted to release the document in question. And that's not me, not John Boehner, and not Mike Huckabee.

Obama won't release it. He's decided that it's better to have people speculate about the reasons for his refusal to release basic documents about himself than to release those documents and dispel all speculation.

That's his choice. And if his word is that it is worse for him to release it than it is for him to not release it, I take him at his word.

And it's not my goddamn job or anyone else's to continuing spinning in support of his secrecy on the matter."

The president has a passport record. We know this because people were disciplined for improperly accessing the passport application records of several presidential candidates (including Sen. McCain, then-Sen. Clinton, and then-Sen. Obama) before he was even the Democratic nominee. So someone with the training and authority to do so pronounced on the president's citizenship long before he was president, and if there had been a problem with it there'd have been a passport fraud investigation by the Bureau of Diplomatic Security.

(And I don't believe for a second such a thing could have been kept secret for all these years.)

re: "Gates: Any DefSec Who Proposes Wars Similar to Iraq and Afghanistan "Should Have His Head Examined" "

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ reacts to SecDef Gates' recent West Point speech.

Money quote(s):

"He also talks about "reshaping" (that is, cutting) the Army's and Marines' budget because he thinks a large conventional mechanized-units-vs.-mechanized-units war is unlikely.

I don't know about that last part. I'd say we'll have few of those wars. And more of the smaller-unit/guerilla war. But I'd say the likelihood of either is pretty high. The former's at like 70% and the latter's at 100%. Just because most fights will be small-unit engagements doesn't mean large-scale warfare isn't going to happen."

There's a way to break down threats like this, into four quadrants, where you evaluate possible events in terms of both probability (i.e., likelihood) and risk (i.e., hazard or cost) as being either High or Low. So you get Low Probability - Low Risk, High Probability - High Risk, Low Probability - High Risk, and High Probability - Low Risk.

The probability that major mechanized combat is going to happen in any given year may be low, but the risk is so high that you have to prepare for it. After all, you can't just excrete a major mechanized force and the ability to project it globally on 11 months notice; it takes literally decades to build.

"After eight years of pacifying Iraq and Afghanistan, I'm not at all sure we were right to depart from the basic idea that nation-building was a bad idea.

This is less about Iraq and Afghanistan and more about the next war, which just might be Iran. Personally, I'd be on board for military action, but I would strongly prefer to leave the pacification and nation-building to the Iranians. Pay 'em, arm 'em, give them targeting lasers to paint targets for jet strikes, but I wouldn't support a massive, decade-long police action in a country with more than twice as many people as Iraq.

We used to do this a lot. We would arm indigenous fighters, train them, feed them intelligence, offer assistance. After 9/11, I think the decision was made that we had to show a very, very bright-line distinction between the real soldier -- professional, uniformed, acting under orders, scrupulously avoiding (to the extent possible) civilian collateral damage -- and the terrorist, and that led us to conclude, I think, that we couldn't just depart Iraq after smashing the Baathist state and let the Iraqis fight it out. Because there would be a whole lot of terrorist, civilian-targeting attacks, and we'd be on the hook for that."

"American troops are of course the most disciplined, ethical, and heroic in the world. So heroic, in fact, we typically expect them to put their own lives in danger for the purpose of reducing the chance of collateral damage. Few other troops would even consider such rules of engagement; our guys might complain about it, but in the end, they follow orders.

So if American troops are the primarily force in a country, we can expect the lowest possible number of civilian collateral casualties. But the question I'm asking myself now is: How much do I really care about the fewest number of civilian collateral casualties? In Iraq, if the deaths of 3000 American soldiers (in the later post-war campaign) saved, let's say, 60,000 Iraqi civilians -- was that a good trade? Or, more importantly, because the more important thing to me is the doctrine going forward: Would I be willing to make that trade in a hypothetical pacification campaign in Iran? Would I trade 3,000 US soldiers to make sure the fewest Iranian civilians died in the chaos that ensued after a decapitation of the state?

I think I'd say the Iranians will have to fight it out themselves."

Gates is only reprising MacArthur's (and Vizzini's) "never get involved in a land war in Asia" dictum. Odd how no one noticed both Iraq and Afghanistan are Asiatic countries before now.

The mathematics are a bit cold. Thinking the unthinkable is like that. But the calculus is necessary.

"I wouldn't support an Iraq-style American-troops-as-primary-combatants pacification.
And I don't even think that it matters what I think -- I don't think any President, Republican or Democrat or Tea Partier, is going to propose such a thing. Which makes this question very important, because unless the country can accept that arm-your-proxies style of limited warfare, I think we're going to have a Vietnam Syndrome going forward. Given the choice between no military action at all and full-scale invasion plus pacification/nation-building, I think the country will select, by large margins, "no military action at all," and I think that is very dangerous.

We will need to fight another country again, most likely sooner rather than later. We need a doctrine about such a war that can actually gain popular support.

I just don't believe the country will undertake another Iraq or Afghanistan you-break-it-you-bought-it plan, at least not for a long time. So I think those who believe that warfare must always be a possible tool available to us (even if only occasionally used) must formulate a doctrine in which the post-war pacification campaign is specifically ruled out and our goals in the post-war scenario are achieved by means other than heavy presence of American troops as primary combatants.

I just don't think the Iraq model of post-war pacification is an option in the next five to ten years, at least, for political reasons."

Frankly, I suspect we'll have U.S. troops, at some level of strength, in both Iraq and Afghanistan for at least five of those years, so I'd envision that, barring a catastrophic event that "resets" U.S. grand strategy, five to ten years is a very conservative estimate.

"(I)f we actually want to credibly threaten a country like Iran -- and do more than merely threaten, should it come to that -- we need a doctrine that has a chance of getting the nation behind it, and we have to begin conditioning the nation to realize what happens when disciplined, heroic American troops are not the primary combatants -- a lot of civilians are going to die, most likely, because only American troops (and some other professional Western-tradition troops) are brave enough to put the lives of civilians before their own."

re: "President Silent on Libya Due To (Pause To Gulp Water) "Scheduling Issue""

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ is critical of the president's (earlier) silence.

Money quote(s):

"Good Reason? DrewM. points out that Americans are being evacuated from Libya:

Supposedly it's because Americans are being evacuated
today and the worry is Kadaffey would grab them.

Not sure how much I believe that but let's see what
happens this evening when they are clear.

Ah. Well, that would be a very good reason to delay a statement. I'm with Drew in taking a wait-and-see attitude then, I guess. I confess I hadn't considered that and now that I do my criticism is half-cocked.

I'll wait for the evacuation. (Although, seriously, this didn't already begin and end?)"

re: "Obama Condemns Violence in Libya; Somehow Manages to Not Mention Moamar Qadhafi"

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ has some observations.

Money quote(s):

"Although I should be fair: I don't think I want tangible American action here. Arabs have enormous chips on their shoulders about the West and like slightly-demented loser little brothers they sort of need to make their own way, even it it's a bit pathetic. American involvement gives them what they most need -- a scapegoat, someone to blame their failures on."

Passing over how generally bad an idea it is to make sweeping generalizations about entire regions, cultures, or ethnicities; I think he's got a point.

"On CNN... A guy is saying that Libya, the state, may not survive Qadhafi's ouster; the state may split into tribe-controlled regions.

Does anyone care about this? Is there a single good reason to champion these arbitrary lines and larger-than-needed-or-wanted states which unite tribes that don't want to be under a single authority?

Do we have some sentimentalism about our old maps? Do we fear having to draw new ones?
This expert wasn't necessarily against Libya splitting into smaller states, but his general tone was one of alarm.

I don't get that. Why do we care if Libya splits into seven more homogeneous tribal regions?"

You'd think it'd be no skin off the United States' nose, but consider the following.

Making a single heterogeneous Third World state into seven homogeneous Third World states means that a single pool of resources (human, mineral, &tc.) able to support a nation state become divided, unevenly (because that's how God distributed them), between seven smaller Third World states. All of them aren't going to get the petroleum reserves.

Another thought; seven smaller tribal states mean seven new states liable to fall prey to any number of the ills small tribal states are liable. Islamicism (which would certainly capture at least one) would be bad enough; Al-Qaeda is worse and becomes an immediate problem for the West.

Lastly, what about Libya's stocks of non-nuclear WMD, chemical munitions, and not-yet-weaponized uranium?

re: "Austrian MP Tells Off Turkish Ambassador In Very Undiplomatic Terms"

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ has an interesting bit of video from the Austrian parliament.