re: "Hitting nails on the head"

nmleon had responded to my earlier comment of Thursday, February 9th at 9:42AM EDT, responding to Jeff Emanuel's post at Redstate.

nmleon said:

"Having spent 3 of the last 5 yrs in Iraq (DoD contractor), I can say that Consul has it exactly right as far as he’s commented.

Nobody ate MREs on an extended basis, and the massively complicated logistics supply chain was until last Dec managed by DoD under the aegis of our SOFA (Status Of Forces Agreement). With the failure of the administration to negotiate a new or continuing SOFA, we had no option but to withdraw our military forces from Iraq.

Without a SOFA, the remaining USG organizations (and the contractors managing their logistics supply chain) HAD to be folded into DoS (with diplomatic status) or be essentially left as tourists, fully subject to Iraqi law even in the performance of their duties.

As to whether or not USAID etc should have missions there at all, I’m less than certain. While we had a continued (small) military presence I think it was a no-brainer. Iraq is a country with a lot of potential if sectarian strife can be ameliorated. Without our continued military presence I have doubts that will happen."

2/9

re: "Unhappy New Year."

Col. B. Bunny at the Intergalactic Source of Truth ("Ridding the World of Inconvenient Infidels.") evaluated the dangers facing our country during the current year.

Money quote(s):

"I don't agree that the military's the problem. Ten tons of Joint Chiefs' "recommendations" for occupying Iran or Venezuela amount to precisely nothing when the president wants something else. McArthur wanted to turn portions of China into a parking lot and ended up retired.

But "dysfunctional Congress" works just fine. Why? Because We're dysfunctional." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

The problems with our Congress and with our two major political parties are self-evident, the topic of much learned discussion, and are too vast to be tackled in this space (particularly by someone who requires the "advice and consent" of the Senate).

"We tolerate a Supreme Court that couldn't find the Constitution in a box of Cracker Jacks and is like the aforementioned Chihuahua when it comes to safeguarding the liberties of Americans instead of the pissed-off pit bull that we should have."

There are some sharp legal minds on our top judicial bench, and not all of them read our Constitution from what you might consider a friendly perspective.

(Okay, those justices don't actually tend to have the sharpest Crayola's in the pre-school, but they each get a vote.)

"I wish for Americans to wake up. We don't have to become historians or a constitutional experts. We just have to start getting pissed when foreigners, barbarians, parasites, liars, and corrupt politicians tell us how great it is that we're being robbed, sidelined, and set up so our descendants, soon to be awash in a sea of hostile foreigners, can pay the bill for the looting that's been done in the name of "democracy," "equality," "human rights," "feminism," "fairness," a "living constitution," multiculturalism, libertinism, affirmative action, and anti-racism."

I don't always agree with everything the good Col. Bunny has to say; Hell, I frequently find myself objecting to quite a bit of his stuff.

But most often, when I take a step back, I find that my objections are often based upon his use of politically-incorrect speech rather than any objective or logical flaw of his.

(Which tells me more about myself than about him.)

1/3

re: "That's An Excellent Point, LTC Peters"

TSB at The Skeptical Bureaucrat ("From deep inside the foundations of our Republic's capital city") listened, as we all should, to the inimitable LTC (Ret.) Peters, speaker of uncomfortable truths.

Money quote(s):

"While channel-surfing TV news programs this morning, I caught a few seconds of the retired Army officer and writer/columnist Ralph Peters commenting on the Afghanistan situation and how it forces us into a highly troubled relationship with Pakistan.

Quoting him from memory, he said this:

“When I went to Command and General Staff College, I would have flunked out if I proposed to put 100,000 troops at the end of a single supply line that ran through a thousand miles of hostile territory.”"

This why we keep having to put up with Pakistan.

"After ten years, we still haven't found an alternative to routing all our Afghan-bound truck convoys from the port of Karachi through the Khyber Pass, thereby putting ourselves at the mercy of Pakistan's ISI and its Taliban allies. Shouldn't the CGSC have revoked some diplomas by now?"

Not having a Leavenworth diploma to put at risk, I will venture that the decisions, and the decision-makers, that are relevant are not at the CGSC-graduate level. They are at the war and electoral college level. These are policy and grand strategy-level questions, and they are putting the operational cart in front of the logistical horse.

9/24

Blogger vs. Internet Explorer vs. Google Chrome

CAA has been experiencing considerable difficulty of late with editing and preparing web log posts.

Blogger apparently no longer supports my version (if any) of Internet Explorer and recommends I use Google Chrome. So I'm trying that.

(But it still won't let me use "Text Color." Fascists.)

At the same time, Blogger is phasing-in an "updated Blogger interface."

(Don't they know that primates instinctively fear and resist change?)

re: "Nothing Toulouse"

Richard Fernandez at Belmont Club (the blogger formerly known as "Wretchard") examined some intelligence lessons-learned.

Money quote(s):

"French intelligence may have missed a few indications that Mohammed Merah was not the average guy. He was on the US no-fly list, apart from having been ejected from Afghanistan in 2008 by US forces. French intelligence itself apparently had orders to watch him and had interviewed him on the occasion of his return from Afghanistan, which he described as being a tourist trip."

Repeat after me: there are no tourists in Afghanistan. None. Ever. Niente.

"There was, as one French politician put it, altogether “too many arms, too many trips, too much money” — and too much pull for Merah to be your typical lone gunman next door. The natural thing for conspiracy theorists to suspect was that he was somebody’s asset — just whose and on which side of the fence — is fertile ground for speculation. But there is one depressing alternative. Everybody just screwed up."

And that's another harsh lesson of intelligence as practised in the real world. Not simply the sterile "mistakes were made," but the grittier fact that people make mistakes.

"The dangers of figuring out just who is working for whom was illustrated by the Camp Chapman attack in Afghanistan, when an entire CIA cell was blown up by their prize agent, who as it turned out, was working for the other side."

That disaster could have been prevented quite simply, more's the pity. CAA sincerely hopes that the CIA's operators have incorporated the lessons-learned therefrom.

"Intelligence operations are by their very nature a high-risk business. But as a CIA study remarked, the biggest intelligence failures are marked by two characteristics: a failure of fusion of knowledge and a lack of objectivity."

Good points. Intelligence fusion can take place at many levels; its quality is going to vary based on many factors, not least of which will be the quality of the analysts doing the fusion and the level and breadth of access they have to various sources of intelligence and information.

As for objectivity, well, there's always the danger of "falling in love with your source." Not actual love-love, you understand; just losing objectivity.

"Everything is always clear on Monday morning to the intelligence pathologist. But everyone who died in the Sunday game is still dead."

Harsh. But not untrue.

"Lack of Objectivity is even more damaging to the intelligence cause."

If you already have a conclusion, then why go through the motions of the intelligence process, why do all that collection and analysis, unless as a form of theater?

"(P)eople have agendas. They want to see the world in certain ways — whether the world is really like that or not — because their political masters want to view the world in that way. So you distort intelligence and if you want a world in which there are no jihadis, only right wing Neo-Nazis, then you get a world with only right wing Neo-Nazis.

The result of course, is that bad stuff happens. And here’s the third rule of intelligence failure which the CIA document omits. The really useful thing about post-mortems on failures is not what you learn, but who you can blame. The entire purpose of a post-mortem is to protect bias in the system. The result in these cases is that the least powerful bias is sacrificed to the gods. Such a sacrificial victim becomes the designated Fall Guy." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

3/22

re: "My "War" Story"

Bubblehead at The Stupid Shall Be Punished ("keeping the blogosphere posted on the goings on of the world of submarines since late 2004... and mocking and belittling general foolishness wherever it may be found") shared his "war" story from OIF 1.

Money quote(s):

"CENTCOM headquarters normally had about 900 people assigned on PCS orders, but because they were running the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq they'd been augmented with about 3000 people on six month TAD orders. I got assigned to the Iraq Coalition Coordination Center and got put in charge of handling the financial aspects of supporting the Polish-led Multi-National Division (Central South) that was just arriving in country. The fact that I got assigned a job for which I had no training, and my turnover was spending a day with my predecessor who gave me his E-mail cache and a folder with a 2 page memo from Condi Rice saying we had $500 million in unbudgeted money to play with, a 4 page standard boilerplate agreement between the U.S. and Poland, and a 17 page agreement with no specifics between Poland and the other 22 countries involved -- none of which contained any mechanism for actually carrying out what they'd agreed to -- gave me my first inkling that the people running the war at the higher levels had no idea what they were doing. This was kind of a shock to me, because I'd always assumed that the Big Bosses knew what they were doing. It turns out that it was only the pockets of competence that existed at the O-4/O-5 level that enabled the war effort to function as well as it did from a staff perspective." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Bubblehead's account only confirms what became apparent at the lower, operational levels within OIF 1. No real plan for "Phase IV" other than the victory parade (but don't fly any U.S. flags) and the rose-petal "liberator" greeting.

Right.

(Oh, and I'd have to add the herculean competence that existed at the O-3 and E-8 levels that made all the O-4 & O-5's efforts worthwhile.)

"Despite having no training in finance, I set up the mechanisms for providing funding for the logistics support for the division of 10,000, got additional force protection set up less than a week before an unsuccessful suicide attack on an MND-CS base that probably would have caused extensive casualties had I not cut through the red tape, and realized that the Spaniards are among the most unreliable "allies" in the world. I came to understand that while you have to be pretty smart to make flag, there are no real intelligence requirements to make O-6" (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Let me offer a belated thanks for helping to make that suicide attack an unsuccessful one, since I remember that morning quite well (and always will).

(Oh, and as for the Spaniards; the troops were great, the government that sent them not-so-much.)

"I realized that the American military really was trying to do what was best for the Iraqi people, and the higher-ups really did have no plans for a permanent occupation -- they had no real plans at all. I saw the original plans for the invasion that showed that Turkey's refusal to let the 4th ID move in from the north negated what would have otherwise been a brilliant encirclement campaign that would have closed the big hole in the lines north of Baghdad, through which most of the future insurgent leaders escaped. Hanlon's Razor was confirmed: "Never attribute to conspiracy that which can be adequately explained by incompetence"." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Given that, aside from the actual invasion of Iraq itself, everything to do with Iraq was either done as an improvisation, it's amazing things went as well as they did. Apparently, making things up "on the fly" is an American strength.

Still, it's not wise to rely upon this as a plan.

12/15

re: "Next: Drone Strikes on Pakistan's ISI?"

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD at The American Interest's Via Meadia ("Walter Russell Mead's Blog") really put his brain to work with this one.

Money quote(s):

"If you read recent statements by senior US officials on the relationship between Pakistan’s ISI and attacks on US and NATO interests, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that a state of war exists between an agency of the government of Pakistan and the United States of America." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Remember, it can still be a war when one side isn't fighting back.

"One should be clear about this; attacks on embassies and on military personnel and positions are acts of war. They are not college pranks, they are not “signals”, they are not robust statements of policy disagreement and they are not bargaining chips in an extended negotiation. They are acts of force in violation of international law and they can legitimately be met by acts of force and war in return." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

As I noted on Facebook yesterday (paraphrasing aeklus' "the phrase "act of war" is really a political, rather than legal distinction"):

"Casus belli denotes a political decision rather than a legal consequence. It's a reason to go to war only if we say it is."

"(R)etired senior officials of the ISI at different times, and they make no bones about their attitudes toward the United States. They are our enemies and they are not ashamed to say so. They believe they have grounds: the US in their view is a treacherous ally which has never fully backed Pakistan in what they believe to be an existential conflict with India, and that today the US is openly in India’s camp, supporting its nuclear program, its global ambitions, and pursuing an Afghan policy which increases Indian influence in direct opposition to Pakistan’s efforts to ensure a friendly government in Kabul when the Americans leave. Moreover they believe that America is a power that is fundamentally hostile to Islam, and that our invasion of Afghanistan was an act of wanton mayhem which threatens the sovereignty and security of Pakistan and which has cost Pakistan untold billions of dollars, far exceeding any US aid.

While these views are not universally held in the Pakistani military and government, they are prominent — perhaps central — in ISI strategy, and it is clear that the rest of the Pakistani government either cannot control the ISI or does not wish to." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Regardless of what they believe, from over here in the cheap seats it's obvious that the U.S. cares very little about Pakistan, certainly not enough to conspire against it with India, except insofar as Pakistan is necessary to our military efforts in Afghanistan. Period. Full stop.

(So just get over your bad selves.)

"The United States has generally also tried to run its Pakistan policy in ways that allow a split consciousness. On the one hand, we know much of what the ISI is up to while US forces seek to kill people that the ISI regards as colleagues and allies. On the other hand, we push the Pakistani military command to limit the space in which the ISI is permitted to operate and to collaborate with us on those areas where collaboration remains possible. There are, after all, some groups we both want to defeat. In a sense we try to exact the highest price possible for our willingness to turn a blind eye to ISI activities of which we disapprove.

This is the ugly logic of war." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Did no one ever tell you that war is an ugly thing?

Okay, you already know about the John Stuart Mills quote, right? Good. Moving right along....

"“Frenemies” are part of the international scene and have been for thousands of years.

But US-Pakistan relations seem to be moving past the “Bosom Buddy” stage to something sharper. When the nation’s most senior military official, a man who follows US-Pakistani relations closely and speaks frequently with the head of the Pakistani military, makes the kind of charges in a public forum that Admiral Mullen has done, it is no longer possible for either side to pretend that nothing is happening.

The United States is telling Pakistan that something must change. It is not, however, clear just how committed we are to this contest with the ISI. If the bottom line for the United States is that Pakistani cooperation is essential for our Afghan policy to work, the Pakistanis will play this card for all it is worth." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Y'know, when Adm. Mullins' made that statement I figured it was better than even odds that he'd was just about to retire in order to "spend more time with his family."

"The current tussle between the US and Pakistan involves an effort by the Americans to invoke the stated threat of a military aid cut off and the implied threat of a full-bore US realignment with India to force Pakistan to give up at least part of its fifth pillar: the links to terror and guerrilla groups and the use of these groups in Afghanistan.

There seems to be a genuine division in Pakistan about how to respond. There are some who see the present national strategy as suicidal (the Via Meadia view, by the way) and want to use the American threat as a way to force ISI hands off the levers of power and call a halt to activities in both India and Afghanistan that hurt rather than help Pakistan in their view. These are nice people, but there are not enough of them to swing the debate.

Then there are those who want to temporize: always in the past it has been possible to buy off the Americans with a few pretty gestures or even occasionally a real concession. Throw them a few more Al-Qaeda officials, give them a bit more help eradicating some rebel units you also don’t much like in the tribal areas, and guilt-trip the Americans into more aid.

There are those who think the Americans are bluffing: that America needs Pakistan so badly to get out of Afghanistan that Pakistan can safely defy the Americans at minimal cost.

And finally there are those who think that America is Pakistan’s enemy. Either for religious reasons (we are the leader of a global western and Christian assault against Islam as they see it) or national ones (we have decisively chosen to take India’s side) we are hostile to Pakistan and our cooperation and aid is intended to confuse Pakistanis, gain an intelligence edge and, quite probably, prepare ourselves for a strike to destroy or capture their nuclear weapons." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

America is only Pakistan's enemy if Pakistan makes us one. It's that simple. Afghanistan itself didn't become our enemy until it became the sanctuary state for those who attacked us on 9/11, and stopped being treated like an enemy as soon as a non-Taliban government was established.

"One must then ask what Admiral Mullen and his colleagues (who surely understand the basic facts of Pakistani national security policy better than a humble blogger) hope to achieve by ratcheting up the pressure in this public and official way. The most likely theory: they believe the last group of Pakistanis who think of America as a strategic enemy (presumably the ones responsible for supporting the recent attacks) are not yet strong enough to dominate Pakistani policy making. Forcing a showdown will lead the other groups in Pakistan to clip the wings of the ISI-types who might welcome an open breach. That won’t be enough to stop the ISI from playing games, but it may limit how far they dare to go.

One hopes this calculation is correct, but it would be unwise to underestimate the degree to which many Pakistanis think they have the US in a trap, how deeply a culture of brinkmanship has embedded itself into Pakistani security thinking, and how much contempt many Pakistani decision-makers feel for many of their US counterparts.

The ISI and its allies just might not back down. At that point, the US would face some extremely difficult choices — although there are plenty of people in the US armed forces and diplomatic corps who are angry enough with Pakistan at this point to make and to implement those choices." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.

9/23

re: "State Dept Throws Sink + All Fixtures But One to Fire FSO-Non Grata, Peter Van Buren"

Domani Spero at Diplopundit ("an obsessive compulsive observer, diplomatic watcher, and opinionator") had a good summary of Peter Van Buren's situation (as of March 19th).

Money quote(s):

"Perhaps it is comforting to some to hear that the State Department will finally get to penalize Mr. Van Buren for linking to two non-secret cables on WikiLeaks. But we gotta ask -- whatever happened to the 2010 Diplomatic Security investigation on the leak of two secret 2009 Eikenberry cables to the NYT in 2010?

Or for that matter, is anyone investigating the leak of Ambassador Crocker's top-secret cable to Washington in January this year, warning that the persistence of enemy havens in Pakistan was placing the success of the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan in jeopardy.

Somebody really should check out the status of these investigations and see if anyone has been prosecuted yet. The public may get the wrong impression that linking to non-secret cables in a blog is more dangerous than the actual leaks of secret and top secret materials to the newspaper of record."

There're leaks, and then there are leaks. Different spanks for different ranks. Sometimes a leak is unofficially official, or perhaps just when it's to the New York Times, well, that's just okay then.

"The comment that we often hear is that, he should have done the honorable thing and resigned from his job before writing this book or before skewering his employer in his blog.

And we understand that sentiment; for the bureaucracy to “function,” it must have order. For order to exist, employees must follow the line and not be going off every which way. If employees disagree with a policy, there is what they call the “Dissent Channel,” to register one’s disagreement with official policy. As an aside, AFSA even gives out awards for what it calls “constructive dissent.” We have it in good authority, by the way, that Mr. Van Buren has been nominated by more than one person for AFSA’s William R. Rivkin Award for midlevel officials. Let’s see if AFSA can find an excuse not to give out the award this year.

In any case, it is worth noting that the State Department is not obligated to share the dissent received with the American public, nor is it obligated to report what action it takes in response to such a dissent. If that fails, resignation from one’s job has been the accepted course of action, a norm drilled into the heads of our State Department folks."

Diplopundit has an entire post, dedicated to how the AFSA creative dissent awards turned out this year.

"While we understand what appears to be a prevailing collective desire that the employee who disagrees with policy leave in polite terms, we are wondering if the time has come to rethink that. Getting off the bus quietly is encouraged in that culture, and presumably from the perspective of the organization that’s the best course of action. It avoids controversy and the parties can pretend the separation is like a marriage that no longer works, etc — but is this necessarily good for the paying public? Should the employees ought to just be thankful they have a job and keep quiet? And for those who can’t keep quiet for whatever reason, must they give up their livelihood for pointing out the stinky elephant in the room?"

All good questions and ones going to the heart of the Foreign Service corporate culture.

"Instead of taking this case seriously as a good excuse to look inward and review the policy of reconstruction in war zones, and absent a change of direction, develop more effective metrics and accountability for these projects, the State Department took its fight to the messenger. And wasted time and resources there."

CAA hasn't read Brother Van Buren's book. CAA may never read his book. Not that it's an unworthy book, but.... while CAA's heart may feel that the work of PRTs and E-PRTs was/is good, worthy, and well-intended, CAA's mind has told him from the beginning of GW2 (Gulf War II) that the U.S. was never going to stay long enough, in either Iraq or Afghanistan, for nation-building (as such) to do much good in the long run.

So the money (and the lives) spent were going to go towards buying only temporary successes.

Now, there's a school of thought that posits things like good and evil, success and failure, if they're going to be measures or used as any sort of metric, must be matrixed against time or duration for them to have any sort of useful meaning.

So some temporary success, some lives improved (if only for a few years) are not things to be scoffed-at or disregarded; but they're going to be analyzed against dollars and cents they must include their duration as well.

"The State Department spends much money and effort to recruit and train the “best and the brightest” to represent America overseas, then proceeds to hammer and shape them into, I’m sorry to say, drones, who follow directions, not create waves and most importantly, whose stingers are without barbs."

CAA exists. Ponder that.

Diplopundit closes with a thoughtful question:

"I’m sure the State Department can argue that “enforcing” the rules, however selectively, is done to promote the proper functioning of the Service. But should the proper functioning of the Service trumps everything else? Whether you agree with Mr. Van Buren’s message or not, his method of delivery or not, his case has created a precedent. Throwing the sink and all fixtures at him would help ensure that nothing like this ever happens again. I suspect that would be good for the State Department. Order restored. Life goes on.

But are we, the American public better served?"

3/19

re: "We Need To Put This Idea To Bed...."

DEEBOW at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") outlined his objections.

Money quote(s):

"(E)vidently, this has now climbed out of the rabbit hole of political correctness and right back up onto the stage. Appearances are that the illiberal liberal caucus in Congress and the Progressives/Feminists felt like they have the wind at their back with the DADT decision."

Reinforce success.

(Just because it was Soviet battle doctrine doesn't make it wrong.)

"(E)xchanging gunfire with an enemy force while in a war zone can be loosely defined as "direct ground combat," but being involved in direct ground combat and being assigned or detailed to a unit that does it day after long, arduous, bloody day are as comparable as apples and coconuts; sure, they both grow on trees, but they have zero relation to one another."

CAA started out in combat arms before migrating, as a reservist, into combat support arms (with a mercifully short detour, shudder, into a combat service support specialty). It's just not the same.

CAA values quite highly the contributions of my many female colleagues and comrades with whom I served, in peacetime and war, and without whom I cannot imagine we would have successfully completed our missions. Full stop.

But combat support, even when engaged by (or engaging) the enemy during combat operations, just isn't the same thing, as Deebow correctly states.

"A couple of gunfights does not an infantryman make. Just because you have been in a gunfight, doesn't mean you are a gunfighter. I would argue that they have proved their effectiveness as capable war-fighters by flying Apache helicopters and dropping bombs and missiles on our enemies, and in this war, they are serving in ways that could not be imagined 20 years ago. They have been detailed everywhere in the media, including this blog; and their contributions have been noted and honored." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Iraq and Afghanistan, and the earlier examples of Panama and the Balkans; more importantly the media depictions of those operations and campaigns, have given a perhaps false sense that troops of all sorts have much the same experiences. While, to an extent, this is somewhat true, it masks the deeper, darker truths about combat.

Those truths are well-expressed by the tales of "fobbits" (the modern-day REMF; and CAA has been this also) versus the soldiers in remote outposts, without daily showers and post exhanges, internet cafes, and fast food franchises.

"(I)n every category necessary for the endurance of direct ground combat, women are behind men. They rank behind men in every category by large margins except in lower body strength, where they are the least behind."

Note that lower body strength is not the same thing as being able to cover distance quickly, carrying a full combat load, due to the other sorts of strength involved, as well as average leg length and resultant stride.

"(R)egarding reproductive differences or the needs that women have regarding that, nor have we delved into what introducing 18 to 24 year old women into a Rifle Battalion would do to a unit full of testosterone filled, type A++, motivated, steely eyed killers, who are also 18 to 24 years old.

But let's put that marker down on the table right now; I say virtually everyone of them pregnant at some point during the unit deployment life cycle, higher rates of reports of sexual assault, sexual harrassment, constant reassignment to other sections and units of boyfriends and girlfriends, more sensitivity training (instead of machine gun training), and pretty much overall unit ineffectiveness based on the fact that the 18 to 24 year olds would rather be " justa he'in and a she'in" instead of doing their job.

Feminists need to understand, but it is very unlikely, that college is the place for this kind of experimentation, not in the nation's military. Combat involves physical strength, proper mindset, physical skills, aerobic capability, sharp vision and a killer instinct."

At this point, CAA hisself only has a plurality of those last listed qualifications; back in the day that wasn't the case. Still, it's mighty hard work even for a young man in peak physical condition.

"The nation's wars against our enemies, who don't have these issues in their armies, are not going to wait for us to sort this issue out. In fact, I bet they are falling out of their chairs right now laughing hysterically. I personally just want the Feminists to agree that they value women as much as they say they do, because putting them in places that they are even more likely to be violently killed, subject to capture, torture, rape by our enemies, or mostly for not thinking that women are above the day to day drudgery of life not only in an infantry unit in extended ground combat, but the drudgery of the job while not deployed seems to me to be a bit in conflict with the idea of honoring them and their abilities."

11/18

re: "In Your Face"

Richard Fernandez at Belmont Club ("the blogger formerly known as Wretchard") explained our logistical and political difficulty.

Money quote(s):

"Translation: Both you and I know we’ve stabbed you in the back, but keep paying us and like it.

How can Islamabad have the temerity to act like this? Well consider their hand. Pakistan’s biggest ace in the hole lies in being able to hold Afghanistan, Barack Obama’s strategic centerpiece in his war against terror, hostage. The full price of waging operations in an area that can’t be supplied from the sea has become apparent. America is maritime power and to conduct land warfare without being able to look back on the sea is to forgo a major source of strategic strength. In fact Afghanistan is the only major military operation in US history, apart from the Indian wars, in which America had to supply its troops largely through a foreign power’s sovereign territory.

That choice to shift emphasis to Afghanistan gave Pakistan veto power over the major part of NATO’s ground effort. Its multinational character made it a particularly expensive political investment. And it was all conditional on Pakistan’s support."

How's that working out for us?

9/23

re: "The FY13 Inactivation Schedule"

Galrahn at Information Dissemination ("The Intersection of Maritime Strategy and Strategic Communications") critiqued some planned decommissionings.

Money quote(s):

"Basically, those 11 ships represents an entire Carrier Strike Group and more. That is a lot of capability to retire in a single fiscal year. Obviously the Navy has no choice with USS Enterprise (CVN 65), the ship is going to run out of nuclear fuel and at over 50 years old. Also noteworthy, USS Crommelin (FFG 37), USS Underwood (FFG 36), USS Curts (FG 38), USS Carr (FFG 52), and USS Klakring (FFG 42) will all be over 30 years old at retirement. The Oliver Hazard Perry class was built to serve 30 years, and that the ships made it truly is a reminder to the sturdy nature of the Perry class frigate. The USS Reuben James (FFG 57) will only be about 28.5 years old at retirement, and I am unsure why the ship is being retired before 30 years."

Money, almost certainly. Money to run them, money to crew them.

"In my opinion, unless there are serious undisclosed material condition problems on these ships, this is a Bullshit Popsicle. The over 500 VLS cell missile capacity of these 4 warships exceed the combined missile capacity of the Royal Navy, the French Navy, the Italian Navy, the Spanish Navy, the Dutch Navy, the German Navy, the Turkish Navy, or the Danish Navy. These four ships are about equal in total missile capacity to the existing surface combatant force of the Royal Navy today.These ships have a decade of life in them and were on the verge of modernization towards becoming four of the most powerful surface combatants in the history of naval warfare - all four for less than half a billion dollars. When the reality is the Navy couldn't spend 6x that much money to build even one of these ships new today, and all of these ships can serve at least a decade, the retirement of these ships at a time the Navy has scarce money for new ships, and is already short on capable warships, makes no sense at all to me.

I privately hope these ships are legitimate pieces of rusted crap behind the scenes, because if they aren't, the Navy is retiring good ships way too early."

Hat tip to Drew M. at Ace of Spades HQ.


3/15

re: "Showing contempt"

David Warren at DavidWarrenOnline ("Newspaper columns") wrote a column, the whole of which should be read.

Money quote(s):

"Perhaps we are all getting sick of the word "terrorism." The word is misused as if it represented an ideological faction, rather than a method for getting one's way; and at that, it is used evasively, to avoid naming one's enemy, which, under current strictures, counts as a faux pas." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Terrorism is a noun. It's not an enemy. Terrorism is how the U.S. was attacked on 9/11; terrorism isn't who attacked on 9/11.

"What the Iranian apostate Shia-Muslim revolutionary regime is accused of having plotted - an atrocity in a high-class Washington restaurant, whose focus would be the murder of the Saudi Arabian ambassador - was not exactly terrorism. It may never have been meant to work; it may have been meant to be discovered. In which case, it was pure diplomatic gesture, the meaning of which takes a moment to sink in." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

It's basically flipping us (the U.S.) the bird, and doing it so the Saudis can't help but be forced to see it.

"We have to believe that Barack Obama's people are saner than Ali Khameini's people; or else, where would we be?"

By "people," our Canadian friend (Mr. Warren) seems to mean all of us in the federal departments and agencies, not just the White House or the Democratic Party.

(Which is quite correct, regardless of how individual civil (and foreign) servants may choose to vote.)

"Yet here was an unambiguous act of war, against both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, that traces to Iran's "supreme leader" Khameini, according to State Department sources speaking anonymously but purposefully to the media. Perhaps not, they say, to the Islamic Republic's malicious clown of a president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (leaving an opening for one of their pet "Iranian factions" theories)." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

As I read earlier today:

"the phrase "act of war" is really a political, rather than legal distinction."

Oh, and there are factions a-plenty in Iran, even within the Iranian government and power structure (which aren't quite congruent).

But evidence that any of these are particularly "moderate" (in Western terms) belongs primarily in the eyes of the beholders.

"(T)he U.S. is now showing the FBI evidence in foreign capitals; presumably to confirm what everyone long suspected: that Iran's leaders are (as we say in Persian) "Majnun."Unhinged they may be, but even a detached wooden door should understand the consequences of an unambiguous act of war. For that would be, war.

Did the Iranians think they wouldn't be caught, or did they think that, if caught, nothing would happen?

The first proposition is crazier than the second; for sad to say, "bad guys" all over the world have been learning that, since the last Stateside election, they can do anything they want to the U.S. with impunity. Unless, they are not actually heads of government, in which case they must watch out for drones." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

This problem goes much further back than the last election; it ebbs and flows with the political vicissitudes. Even Pres. Reagan, he of sainted Conservative memory, isn't remembered for getting much in the way of payback for the Marine barracks bombing (Beirut 1983).

"When the ayatollahs learn that senior figures in their elite Quds force may be denied visas, I'm sure they laugh. They probably laughed harder when Susan Rice, America's UN ambassador, marched into their New York mission Wednesday to deliver a solemn letter. They know the U.S. has no leverage, short of military force, and that for the foreseeable future, force is off the table.

They even know that the U.S. military is about to be asset-stripped, when the current congressional budget-cutting exercise fails: for huge defence cuts automatically kick in when the Democrats decide they don't like the Republicans' alternatives. America has been quitting its thankless old job as "world policeman," with the whole world watching.

The greater risk is now being on the U.S. side, as the Saudis have been nervously discovering."

Denying visas to unsavory corruptocrats is a form of "soft power" that has legs in some parts of the world, but not-so-much in a country like Iran. And anybody who thought that it was a sort of "magic bullet" might consider tendering bids on a certain bridge.

"That Iran has international reach, through agents that can sometimes act competently, should be part of general knowledge. There is, for instance, an under-reported Argentine dimension of the plot."

Iran, or at least "factions" therein, has seen itself as the vanguard of a worldwide (Shia) Islamic revolution since their fundamentalist takeover in 1979. And parallels between their post-revolutionary behavior and that of the Bolsheviks are not accidental, they are deliberate, studied, and intentional. And that includes fielding a revolutionary "international" to do their dirty work abroad.

"(T)heir primary target was the Saudi ambassador. That is the key. The fact this mission was to be carried out on U.S. soil, was meant as a gesture of contempt for American power."

10/15