re: "We're taking the 2nd ausfahrt prior to the Friendship Bridge, it seems"

Phibian at Cdr Salamander ("PROACTIVELY “FROM THE SEA”; AN AGENT OF CHANGE LEVERAGING THE LITTORAL BEST PRACTICES FOR A PARADIGM BREAKING SIX-SIGMA BEST BUSINESS CASE TO SYNERGIZE A CONSISTENT DESIGN IN THE GLOBAL COMMONS, RIGHTSIZING THE CORE VALUES SUPPORTING OUR MISSION STATEMENT VIA THE 5-VECTOR MODEL THROUGH CULTURAL DIVERSITY.") evaluated Pres. Trump's plan for Afghanistan.

Money quote(s):

"(H)ere’s the Executive Summary: two of the best military minds of their generation, National Security Adviser McMaster and Secretary of Defense Mattis, helped develop a plan that they believe gives us a chance to salvage something in Afghanistan after seven years of dithering. Not a perfect plan, but a doable one. I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and fully support it. The major reason is that it returns to something I have written about for well over a decade, Conditions Based Planning, and throws away what remains of the Obama Administration's bollocked-up Calendar Based Planning."

As he stated later in his post, "with a calendar based plan, defeat is inevitable; it is only the timing and method that is in question"  

As a businessman, some of Pres. Trump's ventures have failed, gone bankrupt.  But no one should assume that was the intended goal.  Trump likes to win.  Any plan he attaches to his name-brand is, at the very least, intended to succeed.  Trump does not like losing.

"That is where Trump went Salamander. We are back to Conditions Based Planning – what military best practices tells us is the best path to success.

Another fundamental pillar of our new strategy is the integration of all instruments of American power — diplomatic, economic, and military — toward a successful outcome. Someday, after an effective military effort, perhaps it will be possible to have a political settlement that includes elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan. But nobody knows if or when that will ever happen.

Did you get that? All the traditional levers of national power. This is not just a military way forward. We are also willing to come to accommodation with SOME of the Taliban elements. Good to open that door."

Why ever might the phrasing "traditional levers of national power" ring a bell for even a larval student of strategy?  This might be why it's not always a bad thing to ex-generals and ex-admirals around the top levels of the national security apparatus, so long as you're very picky about the ex-generals and ex-admirals.  Not every problem is best treated as a nail, especially when you've got a whole toolbox to work with.

He concluded:

"For those looking for End States, Objectives, Decisive Points, Criteria for Success, etc – this isn’t the venue for that. This speech gives us approximately the Commander’s Intent and Initiating Directive. The Operational Planners can build a plan off that, and are."

re: "Discretion, Not Amnesty"

Andrew C. McCarthy at The Corner (" The one and only. ") had evaluated former-Speaker Gingrich's approach to immigration enforcement reform.

Money quote(s):

"A successful immigration enforcement policy, easily implemented under current law, would secure the borders; use the capability we have to track aliens who enter on visas to ensure that they don’t overstay; and target our finite law enforcement resources at (a) illegal immigrants who violate federal or state criminal laws (i.e., other than the laws against illegal entry), and (b) employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens and therefore provide the incentive that induces them to come. (An even better policy would deny illegal immigrants various social welfare benefits, but some of that would involve changes in the law so I put it to the side for present purposes.)

Such a policy would materially reduce the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. — if they can’t work, many will leave and many won’t come in the first place. Such a policy would also call on government lawyers to exercise discretion (as they do in all aspects of law-enforcement) to decide which cases are worth prosecuting. Obviously, if an alien has been here illegally for a number of years but has been essentially law-abiding (again, ignoring the fact that it is illegal for him to reside and work in the U.S.), and if his deportation would have the effect of ripping apart an intact, law-abding family, you don’t bring that case. Such a case is not worth the Justice Department’s time when there are plenty of more serious criminals, including more serious immigration offenders, to pursue." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Unfortunately, although DHS was tasked with implementing a means of tracking entry and exit by visa-holding temporary visitors, it's never been fully implemented at every port/point of entry/exit. It's just too hard, apparently, even with a decade's worth of funding and effort.

What they did put together, U.S. Visit, isn't bad and has proven a very useful tool in visa work, but it's just not comprehensive enough to reliably tell us whether any one visitor is (or is not) still in the country past his or her supposed departure date.

(I suppose it sets up a form of Schroediger's Alien.)

"The Obama administration currently exercises its discretion by not only refraining from any meaningful enforcement of the immigration laws but also preventing states (e.g., Arizona) from enforcing the laws." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

&

"Newt was quick to point out last night that he was talking about a humane enforcement policy. He was not proposing that the illegal aliens who were not prosecuted be given citizenship. They just wouldn’t get prosecuted as long as they didn’t make a nuisance of themselves."

This approach tackles the problem from the two critical directions, that of "push" and "pull."

Diminish the "pull" by cracking down on employers of illegal aliens and cutting social benefits that make America such a lucrative proposition, as well as providing the safety net that allows illegal workers to send millions and millions of dollars out of the country in remittances.

And at the same time, increase the "push" by enforcing deportation and other penalties on those illegal aliens who commit criminal offenses above and beyond their immigration violations.

11/23

re: "But It’s Just 19 Murders"

Mark Krikorian at The Corner ("The one and only.") was almost ready to miss the Bush Administration.

Money quote(s):

"The House Judiciary Committee has released a report on how many immigrants identified by the Secure Communuties fingerprint-matching system were released (i.e., not deported) after being arrested by local police, and how many went on to commit additional crimes. (The report is here and the Washington Times story is here.) According to the report, over a nearly three-year period, just in the jurisdictions using the Secure Communities system, almost 47,000 illegal aliens were arrested but released because ICE chose not to take them into custody."

&

"(T)he administration refuses to ask Congress for more funds to increase deportations — funds that would be approved. So they’re intentionally setting the ceiling on how many people they can deport lower than necessary, and then pointing to that ceiling to justify the release of illegal aliens who go on to kill Americans."

7/31

re: "The Muslim Brotherhood's American Defenders"

Caroline Glick re-posted her Jerusalem Post article at CarolineGlick.Com ("the most prominent woman in Israel"), regarding America's current mis-comprehension of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Money quote(s):

"On Wednesday, John Brennan, US President Barack Obama's assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism, made a quick trip to Israel to discuss Hezbollah's massacre of Israeli tourists in Burgas, Bulgaria last week."

&

"Unlike previous US counterterror officials, Brennan does not share Israel's understanding of Middle Eastern terrorism.

Brennan's outlook on this subject was revealed in a speech he gave two years ago in Washington. In that talk, Brennan spoke dreamily about Hezbollah. As he put it, "Hezbollah is a very interesting organization."

He claimed it had evolved from a "purely terrorist organization" to a militia and then into an organization with members in Lebanon's parliament and serving in Lebanon's cabinet."

This is what comes of having a "war on terrorism" and "violent extremism" rather than responding directly to the organizations and movements which have employed those tactics against us.

Namely the MB and her sister- and daughter-organizations like Hezbollah.

"Brennan's amazing characterization of Hezbollah's hostile takeover of the Lebanese government as proof that the terrorist group was moderating was of a piece with the Obama administration's view of Islamic jihadists generally.

If there are "moderate elements," in Hezbollah, from the perspective of the Obama administration, Hezbollah's Sunni jihadist counterpart - the Muslim Brotherhood - is downright friendly."

&

"On February 10, 2011, Obama's Director of National Intelligence James Clapper made this position clear in testimony before the House Select Committee on Intelligence. Clapper's testimony was given the day before then Egyptian president and longtime US ally Hosni Mubarak was forced to resign from office. Mubarak's coerced resignation owed largely to the Obama administration's decision to end US support for his regime and openly demand his immediate abdication of power. As Israel warned, Mubarak's ouster paved the way for the Muslim Brotherhood's ascendance to power in Egypt.

In his testimony Clapper said, "The term 'Muslim Brotherhood' is an umbrella term for a variety of movements. In the case of Egypt, a very heterogeneous group, largely secular which has eschewed violence and has decried al-Qaida as a perversion of Islam. They have pursued social ends, betterment of the political order in Egypt, etc."

Watching Clapper's testimony in Israel, the sense across the political spectrum, shared by experts and casual observers alike was that the US had taken leave of its senses."

DNI Clapper is not a working-level intelligence analyst. He has to function in the political realm and that can be expected to color his public remarks.

One does have to wonder what the non-public recommendations and assessments look like.

(CAA has no direct experience regarding the DNI but there are people CAA respects who have, and they respect him.)

"The slogan of the Muslim Brotherhood is "Allah is our objective; the Prophet is our leader; the Koran is our law; Jihad is our way; dying in the path of Allah is our highest hope."

How could such a high-level US official claim that such an organization is "largely secular"?

Every day Muslim Brotherhood leaders call for the violent annihilation of Israel. And those calls are often combined with calls for jihad against the US. For instance, in a sermon from October 2010, Muslim Brotherhood head Mohammed Badie called for jihad against the US."

One can always blame bad policy decisions on bad advice, but you then have to shoulder the blame for choosing bad advisors.

"The obliviousness of Brennan and Clapper to the essential nature of Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood are symptoms of the overarching ignorance informing the Obama administration's approach to Middle Eastern realities."

&

"(I)n October 2011, according to the Beirut-based Arabic news portal al Nashra, Dalia Mogahed, Obama's adviser on Muslim affairs, blocked a delegation of Middle Eastern Christians led by Lebanon's Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rai from meeting with Obama and members of his national security team at the White House. According to al Nashra, Mogahed canceled the meeting at the request of the Muslim Brotherhood in her native Egypt.

The White House canceled the meeting days after Rai visited with then French president Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris. During that meeting Rai angered the French Foreign Ministry when he warned that it would be a disaster for Syria's Christian minority, and for Christians throughout the region, if the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad is overthrown. Rai based this claim on his assessment that Assad would be replaced by a Muslim Brotherhood- dominated Islamist regime.

And nine months later it is obvious that he was right. With Syria's civil war still raging throughout the country, the world media is rife with reports about Syria's Christians fleeing their towns and villages en masse as Islamists from the Syrian opposition target them with death, extortion and kidnapping."

See my comment above about choosing bad advisors.

"Why is the Obama administration shunning potential allies and empowering enemies? Why has the administration gotten it wrong everywhere?

In an attempt to get to the bottom of this, and perhaps to cause the administration to rethink its policies, a group of US lawmakers, members of the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees led by Rep. Michele Bachmann sent letters to the inspectors-general of the State, Homeland Security, Defense, and Justice departments as well as to the inspector-general of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. In those letters, Bachmann and her colleagues asked the Inspectors General to investigate possible penetration of the US government by Muslim Brotherhood operatives."

Silly idea, right? Because of course none of America's enemies has ever tried to infiltrate our government for purposes of influence and espionage before.

(Well, not if you don't consider World War I, World War II, the Cold War..... )

"(T)he lawmakers made clear that when they spoke of governmental penetration, they were referring to the central role that Muslim groups, identified by the US government in Federal Court as Muslim Brotherhood front organizations, play in shaping the Obama administration's perception of and policies towards the Muslim Brotherhood and its allied movements in the US and throughout the world.

That these front groups, including the unindicted terror funding co-conspirators, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), play a key role in shaping the Obama administration's agenda is beyond dispute."

Do I really have to link to the Holy Land Foundation trial documents again?

I guess so.

"There is an ample body of evidence that suggests that the administration's decision to side with the hostile Muslim Brotherhood against its allies owes to a significant degree to the influence these Muslim Brotherhood front groups and their operatives wield in the Obama administration.

To take just one example, last October the Obama administration agreed to purge training materials used by US intelligence and law enforcement agencies and eliminate all materials that contained references to Islam that US Muslim groups associated with the Muslim Brotherhood had claimed were offensive. The administration has also fired counterterrorism trainers and lecturers employed by US security agencies and defense academies that taught their pupils about the doctrines of jihadist Islam. The administration also appointed representatives of Muslim Brotherhood-aligned US Muslim groups to oversee the approval of training materials about Islam for US federal agencies."

She concluded:

"It is clear that the insidious notion that the Muslim Brotherhood is a moderate and friendly force has taken hold in US policy circles. And it is apparent that US policymaking in the Middle East is increasingly rooted in this false and dangerous assessment.

In spearheading an initiative to investigate and change this state of affairs, Bachmann and her colleagues should be congratulated, not condemned. And their courageous efforts to ask the relevant questions about the nature of Muslim Brotherhood influence over US policymakers should be joined, not spurned by their colleagues in Washington, by the media and by all concerned citizens in America and throughout the free world."

7/27

re: "Springtime for Islamists in Libya?"

Neo-Neocon (" slowly but surely leaving the fold and becoming that dread thing: a neocon ") is one of those who possess an Inigo Montoya-like sensibility regarding the meaning of words.

Money quote(s):

"The headline reads “interim [Libyan] ruler unveils more radical than expected plans for Islamic law.”

There’s that word again: expected. But those who thought they knew what to expect in Libya were either arrogant or daft, or both. And one of the many things that was clearly possible there was the ascendance of Islamist elements." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Wishful thinking, like hope, is not a plan. Nor is it a particularly useful analytical tool.

"David Warren contrasts the irony of the relatively orderly Bush-overseen judicial end of Saddam Hussein with Gaddafi’s extra-judicial lynching under forces promoted by Obama."

CAA has nothing but good things to say about Mr. Warren, one of our neighbors in the Great White North.

"Not unexpected at all. That’s why there is something to be said for what happened in Iraq, where—because we invaded and stuck around, despite the huge cost in blood and treasure—that country has at least a chance of coming out relatively well compared to others in the region."

From her keyboard to God's monitor.

10/24

re: "What Lies Beneath"

Richard Fernandez a Belmont Club critiqued the Administration's habit of pre-emption.

Money quote(s):

"Pre-emption was also in evidence in foreign affairs, but this Pearl Harbor was not directed against America’s supposed enemies, but at its allies. Mark Perry at Foreign Policy writes an article strongly implies that the Obama administration is pre-emptively leaking Israeli military cooperation arrangements with Azerbaijan to protect Iran from a potential strike. Perry says officials told him that Israel was acquiring airfields on Iran’s northern border, something that may not have been common knowledge."

&

"Well if the Iranians didn’t know about Azerbaijan, they know now. Lee Smith says that this may be a blatant tip-off. “A number of Israeli journalists, led by Ron Ben-Yishai, one of the country’s esteemed security correspondents, claimed that Mark Perry’s article was clear evidence the White House was leaking critical information about Israel’s strategy in order to pressure Jerusalem to abandon its war plans and wait for the administration’s sanctions to bring the Iranian regime to its knees.” Maybe they’ll have to wait a long time. But for what it is worth, John Bolton believes the administration is alerting Iran, the administration acting as their Chain Home system, so to speak."

Omitted from my selective excerption were the passages that suggest the information about Azerbaijan may not have been correct, and the whys of that.

About half of Wretchard's post had to do with the Supreme Court's then-pending health care reform decision.

4/4

re: "Ogabe Administration Makes it Official: Terror and Islam are Non-Related"

Emperor Misha at The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler ("HQ of the Rottweiler Empire. An Affiliate of the VRWC.") has no tolerance for those who would use political correctness as a weapon to disarm us.

Money quote(s):

"(I)t’s henceforth not permissible to use the words “muslim” and “islam” in anti-terror training (h/t Protein Wisdom)"

This sort of thing is going to lead to a seriously messed-up "The-Emperor-Has-No-Clothes" moment. Pres. Bush's "religion of peace" pronouncement has been renewed and expanded under his successor administration to the point where it's impermissible to even consider that perhaps, in just this one little thing, Pres. Bush may have been wrong.

(Pres. Bush may have even known he was wrong, but in CAA's opinion #43 was attempting to head off the Huntington-esque "clash of civilizations" that UBL so desperately wanted to spark.)*

"What “muslim groups” are offended that a “religion” closely tied to 99.99999999999% of terrorism attacks might be mentioned in materials used to train law enforcement to combat terrorism attacks? "

Can you guess?

"The move comes after complaints from advocacy organizations including the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and others identified as Muslim Brotherhood front groups in the 2004 Holy Land Foundation terror fundraising trial."

CAIR. What a surprise. Which reminds me. I need to make sure the Holy Land Foundation documents are linked in my sidebar.

10/21

* It occurs to CAA that #43's understandable reluctance to make this an us-versus-them fight in the near-term with the entirety of the Islamic world, but at the risk of handicapping our efforts in the longer-term, somewhat parallels #41's decision, after 100 hours of combat in Gulf War I, to accept Saddam's ceasefire rather than take Baghdad and inherit the mess that was/is Iraq.

In other words, an understandable and justifiable decision in the short- and near-term timeframes which ends up costing the nation even more dearly over the long run.

re: "Quote of the Day"

Andrew Exum at Abu Muqawama publicized a good quote but was having trouble allocating shame/blame:

"The enemy of my enemy isn't really a terrorist if his lobbying is really, really good."

&

"Shameful move by the Dept. of State.

Update: Former Obama Administration State official Tamara Cofman Wittes says I should be blaming the Congress, not the Dept. of State."

Oh, they're terrorists right enough, or were (and have never owned up to it).

5/15

re: "When Good Politics Is Bad Policy and Bad Law"

DAVE SCHULER at The Glittering Eye considered the Arizona immigration testimony before the Supreme Court.

Money quote(s):

"The Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in the case Arizona v. United States, the federal challenge to Arizona’s immigration law, considered draconian by its foes and obvious by its defenders. You can’t draw hard and fast conclusions about how the justices will rule based on oral arguments but the day did not go well for the Obama Administration."

It's tough to make strong arguments when your case is so weak.

"To my untutored layman’s eye the federal government’s argument appears to be that it can have its cake and eat it, too. The Congress can pass and the president can sign laws and then, if enforcement or even simple management is too burdensome, it can merely ignore them. That strikes me as a political argument rather than either a policy or a legal one. Congress should either authorize the resources necessary to enforce the laws it passes or limit their scope so that they can be enforced with the resources they’re willing to grant." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Mr. Schuler isn't wrong about what Congress should do, but getting Congress to do what it should do is beyond the powers of mortal men.

"On immigation the Congress has chosen the path of political least resistance by in theory having fairly strict immigration law while in practice having very limited immigration law. That doesn’t make any sense either from a policy or legal standpoint.

Just to restate briefly my views on immigration I don’t think we have an immigration problem in this country. I think we have a temporary problem of Mexican immigration in this country, temporary because of Mexican demographics and, indeed, Latin American and Caribbean demographics more generally. I think that we should increase the number of work permits available to Mexicans by at least an order of magnitude, possibly several orders of magnitude, give employers better tools for verifying the status of the workers they hire, and thereafter enforce immigration laws strictly in the workplace, imposing severe penalties on employers who refuse to comply. But, honestly, I’m not worried about the issue because, as I’ve said, it is temporary and the recent stories about immigration from Mexico slowing or even reversing recently fully support my view."

Congress has gotten around much in the way of immigration-related costs by putting the financial burden for legal immigrants firmly on those immigrants themselves, by requiring DHS (and State) to impose fees, making many of these functions pay for themselves.

The costs of dealing with illegal immigrants aren't amenable to such an approach.

4/25

re: "NC Democrat Recommends Suspending Next Congressional Election"

DMartyr at The Jawa Report ("Sand people, get it?") noted a statement by NC Governor Beverly Perdue:

"You have to have more ability from Congress, I think, to work together and to get over the partisan bickering and focus on fixing things. I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that. The one good thing about Raleigh is that for so many years we worked across party lines. It's a little bit more contentious now but it's not impossible to try to do what's right in this state. You want people who don't worry about the next election."

Money quote(s):

"I was reading an unrelated article where a commenter suggested the possibility that the Obama Administration is deliberately stoking racial and class tensions with the intention of inciting riots and anarchy in the streets. The Administration would then declare Martial Law and use that as a pretense to delay or suspend the 2012 Presidential election.

I laughed at the suggestion. Until I read the article above."

9/27

re: "The Obama Foreign Policy (Part I)"

The DiploMad ("Wracked with angst over the fate of our beloved and
horribly misgoverned Republic, the DiploMad returns to do battle on the world
wide web, swearing death to political correctness, and pulling no
punches.") began a valedictory series of posts about our foreign policy apparatus.

Money quote(s):

"My career in the Foreign Service began when Jimmy "Wear a Sweater" Carter was President; the Shah sat on the Peacock Throne; the Soviets and their Cuban servants were all over Africa, Central and South America, and the Caribbean; our economy was in the sewer; our cities drug and race-fueled combat zones; our military, a hollowed out racially divided horror; and CIA and State, under appalling leadership, could do nothing right internationally. And things only got worse: the Shah fell to the Muslim crazies; the Soviets invaded Afghanistan; Communism, Socialism, and Liberation were on the march around the world. The bon pensant knew the future belonged to the Soviets and the Japanese, while we sat in the dark, shivering in our cardigan sweaters, suffering "malaise," and praying Moloch would eat us last.

Since those dark "Carter on Mars" days, thanks to Ronald Reagan, with his optimism and ability to see through mainstream cant, our country underwent a massive social, economic, and political renovation that showcased an unmatched American ability to regroup, reinvent, and implement. Our economy came roaring back; our military reaffirmed its unequaled status; the Soviets, unable to compete with the American economy and technical wizardry, came crashing down; and mighty ten-foot-tall Japan could not match the United States for innovation and the
ability to put it to work at a dazzling speed. Even Bill Clinton learned not to fix a working model; he went along with GOP efforts to reform welfare, and poured money into sustaining and expanding the world's best special forces--as the Taliban and al Qaeda soon discovered. The confused waning days of the Bush administration, alas, pried opened the Gates of Hell once more; the inept McCain campaign couldn't close them, allowing the malevolent Obama misadministration to escape the Depths, and take over the White House--immediately making us nostalgic for Carter. We are in crisis mode, again." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Persons quibbling with the above summary of those several decades will reveal far more about themselves than they might wish.

"In its defense, let me say that to call it a policy designed for America's defeat gives it too much credit. My experience at State and the NSC, has shown me that most Obamaistas are not knowledgable enough to design anything. Foreign policy for the Obama crew is an afterthought. They really have little interest in it; many key jobs went vacant for months at State, DOD, CIA, and the NSC. The Obama foreign policy team is peopled by the "well-educated," i.e., they have college degrees, and as befits the "well educated" in today's America, they are stunningly ignorant and arrogant leftists, but mostly just idiots. They do not make plans; they tend to fly by the seat of their pants using a deeply ingrained anti-US default setting for navigation. They react to the Beltway crowd of NGOs, "activists" of various stripes, NPR, the Washington Post and the New York Times. Relying on what they "know," they ensure the US does not appear as a bully, or an interventionist when it comes to our enemies: after all, we did something to make them not like us. Long-term US allies, e.g., Canada, UK, Israel, Japan, Honduras, Colombia, on the other hand, they view as anti-poor, anti-Third World, and retrograde Cold Warriors. Why else would somebody befriend the US? Obama's NSC and State are staffed with people who do not know the history of the United States, and, simply, do not understand or appreciate the importance of the United States in and to the world. They are embarrassed by and, above all, do not like the United States. They look down on the average American, and openly detest any GOP Congressman or Congresswoman, especially
Representative Ros-Lehtinen and Senator DeMint, who dares question their wisdom. They have no problem with anti-American regimes and personages because overwhelmingly they are anti-American themselves (Note: I exempt Hillary Clinton from the anti-American tag; she is just ignorant--more on that in my next posting)." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Bear in mind that Rep. Ros-Lehtinen is the Chairman of the House Committee of Foreign Affairs. For anyone who is a staff member at NSC or State to ignore her is about as stupid as ignoring gravity.

"Our foreign policy is not made in any real sense. It slithers out from this foggy fetid leftist primeval mire and "evolves" into the weird amorphous "policy" we now have. It is guided by The Anointed One's long-standing Triple AAA motto: Apologize. Appease. Accommodate. There is no understanding of the relationship between military power and diplomacy, between expending the blood and treasure of America and our interests. For the Obamaistas the topics of burning interest tend to be those far removed from the core national interests of the United States, e.g., treatment of prostitutes in Sri Lanka, gay rights around the world, the status of women in Africa, beating up the inconsequential junta in Burma, helping overthrow U.S. ally Mubarak, but doing nothing about the Iran-Venezuela alliance, the imprisonment of an American AID contractor in Cuba, the growing anti-Americanism spreading throughout Latin
America, the disintegration of the few remaining moderate Muslim states, and on and on. This leftist, anti-American disease is contagious. Just look at the recent statements by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, once a moderate middle of the road politician, now spouting rubbish about needing "international permission" to deploy US military power, undermining over two centuries of US defense doctrine, not to mention the Constitution. " (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

This stuff ("There is no understanding of the relationship between military power and diplomacy, between expending the blood and treasure of America and our interests.") is actually taught in (at least some of) our senior military schools, the war colleges and such. DIMEFILS, for the initiate. Strategy and Grand Strategy. The up-and-coming majors and lieutenant commanders, the lieutenant colonels and commanders, and the colonels and captains, the ones from among tomorrow's generals and admirals will be selected, are at least exposed to the concepts that can mean life or death for entire nations and alliances of nations.

These field-grade ("mid-grade, in State Dept. parlance) officers will have already proven themselves tactically and operationally proficient (or at least not criminally inept) by the time they are selected for these schools and colleges, where their studies will be at least nominally at the graduate and post-graduate levels.

And what do we have on the diplomatic side of the house?

The Institute for Peace? Not quite sure what they do, but has anyone else who's worked in Foggy Bottom ever noticed how often they seem to be having big parties and receptions over there across "C" Street at their post-modern building?

(The big catering trucks and the blocked lanes of traffic are kind of a giveaway. As are the hispanic waiters, bartenders, and waitresses coming and going from the Metro Station by GWU.)

Well, there's the Foreign Service Institute, which has a nice campus on the former Arlington Hall Station site (a.k.a. "the George P. Shultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center").

"The Foreign Service Institute is organized like a university and
consists of five schools:
The School of Language Studies
The School of Applied Information Technology
The School of Leadership and Management
The School of Professional and Area Studies
The Transition Center "

The key word in that passage is "like." FSI has deans, t-shirts, a registrar, and an attractive coat-of-arms, but it's not a university, not a college, not really a center of advanced or even (for the most part) undergraduate-level education. NFATC is what it says it is in the name, a "Training Center." It's the equivalent of a corporate training center.

Don't get me wrong, FSI training is in fact essential for preparing our employees to accomplish their missions when they deploy abroad to our more than 260 embassies and consulates. The language school alone would be worth the investment of staffing hours and funding. And I hasten to say good things about the FS and CS orientation programs as well as the consular training. Couldn't have done it without you guys!

But it's emphatically not the equivalent of any of the DoD's war colleges, or even the C&GS School.

Former SecState Colin Powell was a big believer in the notion of a training continuum, as befitted a career U.S. Army officer, and he led the Department of State long enough to make that notion part of the corporate culture. That's a good thing.

But there's still a lingering institutional prejudice against professional development education. As FSO blogger Two Crabs quoted from a recent article:

"The people who are successful in the State Department are people who
can be thrown in the deep end of the swimming pool and not drown; but the department never teaches them to swim, and the successful ones even come to discredit the value of swimming lessons, because they succeeded without them."

The FS Written Examination (now reflagged as the computer-based FS Officer Test) and the FS Oral Assessment do select for broadly- and highly-educated candidates. While eschewing the explicit requirement of a particular diploma or credential, the more years of formal education a bright FS candidate has completed, the more likely they are to be successful in the FSO accession process.

So our newest diplomats enter the Foreign Service already highly educated (graduate degrees or other post-undergraduate education such as law school, more often than not) unless they manage to wrangle a training assignment (or a sabbatical to take even higher education) away from the State Department they're never really going to get anything but training from FSI.

Training is not education. It's training. Nothing wrong with training; training is good. But training will only train students about how to do things or sets of things. It's a lot less likely to prepare diplomats to think about the why of things any more than their pre-State Dept. education already did.

Heretical statement: diplomats, like leaders, can be born to be diplomats or they can be educated to be diplomats. But even the born-diplomats can be educated to be better diplomats.

"The career Foreign Service is hapless. Many of the FSOs, especially the young ones, come from the same "educational" background as the political Obama types. Many have strong sympathies for the Obama view of the world because it is easy, it requires less work--thinking is hard. It is best to come up with long carefully nuanced memos regurgitating the most conventional of conventional left-of-center "wisdom," so that the powers above do not get displeased. Deny a
problem exists, then you do not have to do anything about it, "He is just an agricultural reformer . . .". " (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Hmm. My initial thought was the "agricultural reformer" line was just Castro, but it was used to label Mao as well.

(And it was "agrarian reformer" the way CAA learned it.)

At least I can't dismiss DiploMad's critique of career FSOs as more outdated stereotypical nonsense about striped-pants and passing cookies. That gets old, although, like Don Quixote, CAA will continue to tilt at that windmill until it finally falls like the skewered ogre it ought to be.

No, DiploMad's comments are up-to-date and Millenial. They encompass the transformational and (for those who can't avoid it) expeditionary diplomacy that currently encoils the Foreign Service.

3/15

re: "Obama Has Been Hurt by the Media's Leniency"

rdbrewer at Ace of Spades HQ remembers a time when the media gave less deference to power.

Money quote(s):

"Remember the days when the press rudely shouted questions at Ronald Reagan during news conferences? I do. There were times when they seemed angry and wouldn't let him answer. Now they won't even hit-up Obama over something as serious as, say, Operation Fast and Furious where lives were lost and the trail of dirty deeds appears to lead all the way to the White House. When they do venture close to a topic not on the official White House approved topics list, they are sheepish, almost apologetic. Pathetic, primitive, in-group territoriality. I'd call it childish if it weren't so reptilian.

Republican administrations have to stay on their toes. Democrat administrations do not."

This actually seems to changing, or at least shifting a bit, as the presidential election campaigns (and politicking, to include class- and race-warfare smokescreens) begin to gain momentum.

Nonetheless, it doesn't seem to have penetrated into the White House press corps.

8/28

re: "Just Shut Up, Moron...."

Deebow at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") didn't sugar-coat this much.

Money quote(s):

"This is wrong on so many levels that when I saw it, I had to wrap my head in duct tape to keep it from exploding.

Sure the formal liars in formal wear are important, and I know that to some extent, the circle jerking that goes on during these meetings and confabs and seminars is important on some level to ensuring that we maintain some sort of relations with a country that we liberated from a tyrant and asked for no tribute in return. I am disappointed, but not surprised, at the fact that the eggheads in this administration couldn't negotiate some sort of agreement on troop placement and further security arrangements."

Don't worry; the guy who headed up the unsuccessful negotiation team will now be the next U.S. ambassador there.

(I seem to remember something of Soviet military doctrine about reinforcing success. On the other hand, this may be the Peter Principle's revenge.)

"Are soldiers less important than diplomats? HE double toothpicks no. Diplomats can't do their work without the hard work completed by those on patrol, and the American Soldier is the quintessential diplomat."

This was an optical fail. It goes to unstated, even unconscious, assumptions (i.e., biases) about the military, military members, &tc.

(After all, if they'd been successful in life they wouldn't have had to join, &tc.)

And just to turn Deebow's point on its head, there are certainly those who would claim that without the work of diplomat's, there would be no work for soldiers (to clean up their mistakes).

"Even Bill Clinton didn't say things this galactically retarded. And I will echo the sentiments of others on this blog that have pointed out that Satan's Handmaidens in this administration have the thankless job of going out and defend these retraded (sic) statements from a guy who is out of his depth in a parking lot puddle. We need to put this guy on the rocket sled back to Chicago for his extended presidential retirement soonest."

As someone who has done volunteer work with retarded young people, I take serious exception to Deebow's use of the term, even misspelled, as a pejorative with which to label the president's statement. That's unfair and cruel to the cognitively-challenged. (No, I'm not kidding.)

12/14

re: "Remind Me Again, We're at War in Afghanistan Because . . . ? [CORRECTED]"

Andrew C. McCarthy at The Corner ("The one and only.") took issue with the Foreign Terrorist Organizations list.

Money quote(s):

"(T)he Taliban is not included in State’s listing of Foreign Terrorist Organizations — not the Taliban whose terrorism and safe haven for al Qaeda are the justification for continuing to have our troops fight and die in Afghanistan"

&

"I’ve argued before (most recently here) that Congress should amend the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force — the legal foundation for conducting U.S. combat operations in the War on Terror — so that the Taliban organizations (among others) are expressly specified as the enemy. But what’s the chance that we will be clear about who the enemy is if the administration can’t even bring itself to say the Taliban is a terrorist organization?" (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Recollecting from the dim recesses of memory, but we went to war in the territory of the Taliban-controlled government of Afghanistan in order to get at Al-Qaeda, the Taliban having declined to give them up to us when we asked nicely.

That approach having lacked much in the way of positive results, a U.S./NATO-led coalition went to war with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan since the two seemed unwilling or unable to extricate themselves from one another.

"(I)f the Obama administration were encouraging negotiations with the Taliban (it is) and even anticipating a settlement in which the Taliban were brought into the Afghan government (ditto), the State Department wouldn’t want to complicate that by naming the Taliban as a terrorist organization, right? So we are putting our forces in harm’s way in the War on Terror order to fight an outfit that we won’t call “terrorists” and that we actually see as part of the future Afghan government we are building."

8/25