re: "Errors Were Made"

Lex at Neptunus Lex ("The unbearable lightness of Lex. Enjoy!") posted as good a recap of why this is important as any I have seen.

Money quote(s):

"In the era of the Soviets, reforms were quietly enacted by bureaucrats with the concession that “errors had been made” by their predecessors. It was a nifty way for current party apparatchiks to distance themselves from policies that had resulted in the death of millions, while attempting to reassure citizens that things were now in good hands.

Of course, the new gang would end up being pretty much the old gang, and errors would continue to be be made by the nomenklatura."

All that studying on the habits and habitats of our onetime enemies is still paying off. Nomenklatura indeed!

"(T)he Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms – which many wags have said ought more to be a privately owned convenience chain than a federal office – allowed the sale of AK-47s through known gun runners to Mexico in order to round up the “big fish” south of the border, irrespective of how many “little fish” had to pay with their lives." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

"(T)hings got serious when US Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was killed by a weapon sold to southron drug cartels by agents of the US government.

It’s hard, in modern times, to imagine a policy more deliberately amoral."

As they say, it's all fun and games until somebody (on our side) gets hurt. Of course, if your agents and employees are just pawns, you know, the sort of people who didn't go to the right schools, then eggs and omelets, right?

"(S)enior US officials – including SecState Hillary Clinton – were using the reality of such activity as an ostensible reason to burden the legal purchases of firearms to law abiding US citizens.

Hanlon’s Razor applies: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”"

Hard to believe Sec. Clinton, who is way too smart to be tarred by this brush, would have been stupid enough to become incriminated, er, involved. If you follow the embedded link you find that her statement had much more to do with drugs than with guns.

re: "Sunburned and Buttsore (Or, “How I Spent My Memorial Day Weekend”)"

Diplogeek at Diplogeek ("Geekery in the U.S. Foreign Service") takes a swing at chipping away at the outdated stereotype.

Money quote(s):

"I want to encourage everyone to go here and have a gander at a great editorial discussing Memorial Day, particularly as it applies to people in the Foreign Service. I do this not to pat myself on the back, because my life is relatively cushy in a lot of ways, at least by Foreign Service standards, but because I currently have a number of friends serving in places like Yemen and border towns in Mexico, where they’re putting themselves at very real risk in order to serve our country. Doing this job isn’t about being a striped-pants cookie pusher, sitting around on a veranda drinking G&Ts and hasn’t been for a while."

re: "Soft power, or flaccid power?"

"The Phibian" at Cdr Salamander ("Proactively “From the Sea”; leveraging the littoral best practices for a paradigm breaking six-sigma best business case in the global commons, rightsizing the core values supporting our mission statement via the 5-vector model through cultural diversity.") is always insightful with regards to the naval aspect.

Money quote(s):

"As an already dangerous nation started to disintegrate last week, I heard it first from Charles Krauthammer - the phrase that always comes up when something nasty turns towards our people or a national interest - "where are our carriers."I don't know about you, but I count this as a moment of national shame last week. The world's greatest naval power, its citizens in danger and need evacuation by sea - and our answer is ...."

Apparently the only U.S. warship in the entire Mediterranean Sea, and area I always to have a Fleet dedicated to it, was a destroyer, and one rather pre-occupied beyond mission parameters.

"I know the argument that the American military presence would be destabilizing - but I just say it is wrong headed in the extreme.

At this touchy moment - letss not even talk about which ship is where. What the Big E is doing and not. If there is a CSG and an ESG in the Gulf of Sidra or the Gulf of Mexico - or on liberty in Caan; it does not matter to the argument ... but we'll get to that later.

For an untold number of times, American citizens have relied on the Navy-USMC team to get them out of a country falling apart. Our citizens in Libya are lucky that things did not go south. Nod our heads and be thankful that we got lucky this time. Ask yourself why we did not have other ships out there, and know we are not alone.

I think the nations of the world are re-discovering the joys of having and effective navy - and the consequences of not having one."

As a consular officer, it's always been a source of reassurance to know that my Navy and Marine Corps colleagues had my back, especially since consular officers are virtually the last official Americans to be evacuated, occupied, as they/we are with assisting in the evacuation of American citizens.

"(I)f you ever wanted to create air supremacy - a no fly zone if you will - either to cover evacuations or to keep the Libyan runt Air Force from bombing their own people - there is only one way to do it - with Aircraft Carriers. Big deck aircraft carriers. Way to far for land based air even if you could get basing rights.

If you want to do it for any length of time, you need two at a minimum. Longer - three. Two American and one French would be nice. Two American and then perhaps Brit/Italian/Spanish as help would be."

It's an awfully big world out there. Since nearly the founding of the Republic, the U.S. Navy has helped ensure that freedom of the seas and of navigation meant something more than an aspiration. They've made it stick. But they can't do that from the Pentagon, from Norfolk or San Diego; they have to have hulls in the water and sailors to crew them.