re: "The GOP's new love for Amb. to Syria Robert Ford"

Josh Rogin at The Cable ("Reporting Inside the Foreign Policy Machine") noted where a diplomat did well out of doing good.

Money quote(s):

"Ford has actively engaged with Syrian opposition groups and has put himself at personal risk by attending meetings of opposition leaders and funerals of Syrian activists. These efforts have convinced a large portion of the GOP, which stymied his confirmation last year, that his presence in Damascus is a useful way of confronting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and not a concession to the brutal dictator."

Every few years we see an ambassador like this, who rocks the boat on behalf of the United States or speaks uncomfortable truths to power.

"Ford said he still meets with Syrian Foreign Ministry officials, as has as recently as last week, but only about routine diplomatic business and not about the regime or overall U.S. policy. "There really is not a lot that we need to say to the Syrian government," Ford said. "We don't need to discuss their reform initiative because we don't take it seriously."

Ford said he is definitely not trying to get himself kicked out of Damascus, as some in Washington believe. He is also meeting frequently with Syrians who are "on the fence," and could be turned against the Assad regime, such as business leaders, government employees, Christians, and the Allawite community, which has until recently been loyal to Assad.

Amid discord between various opposition groups inside and outside Syria, Ford's message to the Syrian opposition is that it should unite and put together a plan for transitioning to a new government. "Otherwise it's just going to be very bloody and bad later," he said. He is also urging them to keep the protests peaceful in order to maintain international sympathy.

There has been some discussion in Washington about why Ford doesn't announce his activities in Syria or post about them on his Facebook page, which he has used to criticize the Assad regime. Ford said his activities are well-covered in Syria and around the region by the Arab language press.

"I'm thinking much more about my audience here in Syria; I'm not so worried about the Washington repercussions," he said."

9/23

re: "Afghanistan: A U.S. Soldier Who Went Lethally ‘Round the Bend’ "

Richard Falknor at Blue Ridge Forum ("Conservatives and culture in Maryland and Virginia") drew some larger themes from the war in Afghanistan.

Money quote(s):

"(W)e cannot ‘delegate’ our own moral responsibility as citizens for sending fellow Americans into harm’s way, nor our responsibility as citizens for seeing that they are properly led and supported.

This means paying a lot of public attention to the wisdom of the initial decision and how long it should be continued and insisting that the decision’s objectives be clearly stated and re-stated by whatever administration is in the White House."

By "we," the writer means us, the citizenry, holding our elected (and appointed/confirmed) officials accountable for what they do on our behalf.

"It took Lincoln whom Eliot Cohen calls “the greatest of American war presidents” some time to get his generals into line with his strategic vision — until, after watching U. S. Grant’s earlier victories, Lincoln appointed him to overall command in March 1864."

The U.S. (and her presidents) went through a similar evolution, taking a similar period of years, in the current war.

"Now is the time for conservatives to envision a military policy appropriate for our Republic in a post-Obama but even more dangerous world.

We suggest readers might find Eliot Cohen’s “Supreme Command” instructive to see how Lincoln ran perhaps the first of the modern wars.

Also instructive is the role the British Navy once played in policing the waterways of a prosperous and largely peaceful world between 1815 and 1914. The British Navy’s crucial performance in suppressing the slave trade was strongly supported by British voters but was a Herculean task often carried out with insufficient resources."

Herculean task, insufficient resources; stop me if you you've heard this before.

And why does the enemy look so familiar?

"(T)his founding document also gives great prominence to “provid[ing] for the common defense.”

Thus we caution that military affairs and how they are (and should be) managed in our Republic — as well as Anglo-American military history — are not some niche academic disciplines nor minor specialties in think tanks."

Always remember what John Adams had to say about this:

"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study
mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."

3/15

re: "Libya and MI6 (again): Sir Mark Allen"

Charles Crawford at Blogoir ("A digital hybrid of blog and memoir presented on a daily basis, or not.") described a thorny British problem that parallels one we have in the U.S.

Money quote(s):

"The issue here is not any claim that MI6/HMG engaged in torture. Rather it is that MI6/HMG are said to have been 'complicit' in torture in Libya of certain Libyans by certain other Libyans. Which raises the question: what does complicity mean?"

Let's see where he goes with this.

"(M)aximalists insist that even to possess information which is suspected as having come from torture amounts to 'complicity'. That position, as the House of Lords found in 2005, is incorrect as a matter of law (and common sense)" (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Not that this finding carries any water in the U.S., but one hopes that the U.S. Supreme Court would reason as well as the House of Lords.

"The problem here is that any secret 'rendition' by us or even a contribution to secret rendition by others is likely to have been endorsed by Ministers, either specifically or as a general rule. So to single out one civil servant for litigation is mischievous if not malevolent.

Second, the whole case turns on the idea that 'complicity' can be stretched far beyond any immediate link to maltreatment. Any abuse or torture was not committed by HMG or its officials. Is it really fair to make us legally responsible for horrors committed by others far away?

Even if you think that it is reasonable to do so on the moral level, you need to draw a line somewhere and say that the actions alleged were too 'remote' to amount to complicity. Under what principle should the line be drawn in specific cases? What balancing factors should be taken into account?" (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

British civil (or foreign) servants are as unlikely as our own to go "rogue" and try to "Lone Ranger" this sort of thing. They like a policy, preferably written, that delimits what their authority, and liability, is.

"This nasty, bleak, lonely policy and moral frontier was where Mark Allen and his colleagues were operating. If the way is opened to sue them for outcomes which were far from ideal if not awful, who is going to be ready to do this sort of fundamentally important work?

The issue here is simple. Not what the 'right' choice is when you are dealing with a regime like Gaddafi's. There isn't one.

Rather it is 'who decides?'.

We seem to be ending up in the absurd position that sanctimonious lawyers and unelected judges far from the operational and policy realities of such questions are seen as more 'responsible' than elected politicians and civil servants who are elected to do our dirty work while operating to arguably the highest standards of public probity in human history.

Yes, judges have the benefit of detachment. And yes, Ministers and officials can get so wrapped up in what they are doing that serious errors get made. But this is one where the best people to judge are voters, not lawyers."

Our own courts, operating under our unitary written Constitution, have taken some pains over the years to differentiate between the political and judicial spheres of authority, ceding that some things are not for courts to decide, but are the province of executives and legislators.

1/31

re: "Re: Perry and the Illegals"

Michael Walsh at The Corner ("The one and only.") had a sympathetic perspective.

Money quote(s):

"(M)aybe it’s because I grew up on the U.S.-Mexican border in San Diego, or because I was a minority (white/haole) high-school student in Honolulu, or because I was a legal resident for years in Germany, where my American children (one of whom was born in Germany) got a splendid education in the German public-school system, that I think Perry has the principle exactly right on this issue."

It doesn't make sense to permit the growth of an under-educated (or un-vaccinated, &tc.) under-class in any American state or city.

(But we already do that.)

And what does it say when not subsidizing post-secondary education for illegal aliens is even an issue?

While I get what the poster is saying, in all the instance he cites, he was either a national citizen or a legal resident of one sort or another. Not an illegal.

9/23

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: "A mixed bag for the New Year"

Dr. Jerry Pournelle at Chaos Manor ("The Original Blog and Daybook") provided a historical snippet:

"The first Congress declined to appoint anyone from the US an ‘ambassador’ on the grounds that this was a royal title; the lack of that title meant that the US representative was always last in precedence."

So our representatives abroad were credentialed as "ministers," which certainly derogated their status and precedence in protocol.

We still have "ministers," but in general they work for ambassadors.


1/3

re: "Rick Perry Isn't Entirely Wrong on Illegal Tuition"

Christian Schneider at The Corner ("The one and only.") considered Texas' illegal alien tuition dilemma.


Money quote(s):


"(O)pposing tuition for illegals is about as popular as opposing the guys at the mall who squirt lotion on you when you walk by."


Oh, don't even get me started on all those "Zohan" wannabees violating their tourist visas (by working) at Tysons Corner.


"(C)hildren of illegal aliens born in America are American citizens, and therefore entitled to whatever tuition their state of residence permits for in-staters. Perry’s law dealt with the children of illegal immigrants who were brought here after their birth, making them just as illegal as their parents.


In most cases (and pursuant to the Plyler case cited by Kevin), these kids are already going to the same high schools as our kids (in the case of Texas, for at least three years of school). They have the same teachers. They play on the same sports teams. They take the same tests, and get the same high-school degree. They are indistinct from any other high-school students. By the time an undocumented child makes it from first grade to graduating high school, taxpayers have already sunk over $100,000 into that child’s education. To pull the plug on those children because of the actions of their parents would be unfair, and would nullify the investment taxpayers have already made in the kid."


Interesting argument. But in business school they teach the concept of "sunken costs." It means, in essence, don't "throw good money after bad."


9/23

re: "Obama's Gift To Cameron: Wood Burning Grill"

DMartyr at The Jawa Report ("Sand people: Get it?") noted another deliverable from somebody's protocol shop.

Money quote(s):

"Its actually a pretty nice gift, if you ask me. It's American made, grilling is an American past time, and it commemorates a service for our Troops. I'm actually impressed with the thought that went into the gift."

Concur. Much improved over previous efforts.


3/14

re: "Infuriating idiocy about Islamists"

Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") presented an award.

Money quote(s):

"This wins the prize for complete inability to admit the blisteringly freaking obvious point that al Qaeda is an Islamist terror group, they are at war with us and we are at war with them. This member of the Defense Department wastes bushels of oxygen evading the simple fact that our enemies are religious fanatics of an easily-identifiable flavor, identifiable because they shout their "god's" name as they hack the heads off living men and women. It is sad reminder that our "leaders" would rather bury their heads in sand, that our enemies tread wearing the iron sandals of violent Islamist extremist ideology, than be shunned by the "right"-thinking left as politically incorrect."

He does have a point. Patterns and indicators, as any intelligence analyst will tell you, assist one in identifying opposing forces.

12/15

re: "Perry and the Illegals"

Kevin D. Williamson at The Corner (" The one and only. ") considered tuition benefits for illegal aliens.

Money quote(s):

"Under a Supreme Court mandate (Plyler vs. Doe), Texas and every other state is obliged to provide K-12 education for illegal immigrants. What Texas has decided, under Rick Perry, is to treat Texas high-school graduates like Texas high-school graduates for the purposes of calculating college tuition, including those who were brought here illegally by their parents, with a couple of provisos: They have to have been in school in Texas for three years prior to graduating from a Texas high school, and they have to be on their way to becoming legal permanent residents of the United States."

It's that last "proviso" that's problematic, IMNSHO; correct me if I'm wrong but this requirement can be met by an affidavit from the illegal immigrant that they're intending to become an LPR rather than by any proof of actual eligibility for that status.

"(Y)ou want to draw a bright line in the sand regarding illegal immigration; on the other hand, it’s hard to blame the kids for their parents’ wrongdoing, and the fact is that they’re here — some have spent practically their whole lives here — and we have to decide what to do with them. (I was once an illegal immigrant myself, so maybe I’m biased by experience.) In either case, it seems to me a pretty small thing compared to the robust border-security measures that are needed.

Deciding what kind of tuition to charge illegal immigrants who have graduated from high school and who meet the criteria for university admission is a very nice, rich-nation problem to have. (Seriously, you’re pretty well-off when your “problems” include college students.) That being said, in Texas the relevant question isn’t what we charge illegals for tuition, but whether we admit them to state universities at all. That’s because tuition in Texas is modest, even at the flagship universities, covering something on the order of one-fourth of the cost of operating the schools."

There are only so many seats in only so many lecture halls, as the writer notes below (in bolded typeface).

"Early in the 20th century, the state of Texas gave the universities a whole bunch of land, which turned out to have a whole bunch of oil on it, and West Texas is full of wells bobbing up and down and pumping grade-A education out of the ground. That, too, helps keep the professors in tweed."

&

"(T)hey really use tuition as an expedient tool of enrollment control. It is politically difficult to raise admission standards at public universities, but they can only take so many students. Once you’ve decided to admit an illegal on any terms, you’ve decided not to admit somebody else: The number of university seats is limited, and that is a more binding constraint than raw dollars, of which there are many billions in the Permanent University Fund." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Texas has created a zero-sum game and by providing an advantage to illegal immigrants, however "deserving" and sympathetic they must perforce disadvantage a U.S. citizen (and Texan).

"(I)f you have a student who has graduated from a Texas high school and who has lived for years in Texas, who isn’t going back to Mexico any time soon, and who qualifies for admission to a Texas university — it is not obvious to me that the most intelligent course of action is to make it more difficult for that student to go to college, rather than less.

If you want to neutralize the magnet that draws illegals to the United States, I think you’d be better off putting handcuffs on a half a dozen Tyson Foods plant managers than worrying about what the Aggies charge their undergrads."

There are reasons why CAA always purchases Perdue chicken when given a choice between Tyson Foods and Perdue products.

9/23

re: "The Unraveling"

George Smiley at In From the Cold (" MUSINGS ON LIFE, LOVE, POLITICS, MILITARY AFFAIRS, THE MEDIA, THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY AND JUST ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE THAT CAPTURES OUR INTEREST") expressed some skepticism and doubt.

Money quote(s):

"The situation in Afghanistan has entered the realm of the bizzare."

Haven't seen a warzone yet that didn't seem like Bizarro-World, especially at the wonky interface between combat troops and the garrison mentality we take with us.

"(A) stolen vehicle, driven by an Afghan, rolls onto the ramp just as the SecDef's plane was landing, but it wasn't an attack. True, no explosives were found in the truck, but a vehicle slamming into a jet aircraft (with a large fuel load) can certainly cause a lot of damage, and possibly kill the crew and passengers.

And, no one's bothered to explain how the truck got past security and onto the flightline in the first place. Incidentally, the ditch where the vehicle came to rest was alongside the same ramp where Panetta's plane was scheduled to park. Coincidence? You decide."

See the ADDENDUM below. That, at least, has the distinction of seeming somewhat plausible.

"(A)fter surviving the "non-attack," Panetta's visit grew even stranger. Before his speech at Camp Leatherneck, Marines in attendance were asked to leave their weapons outside. It was the first time U.S. military personnel had been asked to disarm during an appearance by a senior official."

Disarming. American. Marines. In Combat.

Does. Not. Compute.

"Did someone in the chain of command think a Marine was going to take a pot-shot at Mr. Panetta?"

Apparently someone did.

"They represent the line between hope and chaos in Helmand, but their leaders aren't comfortable with them being armed in the same tent as the SecDef. It was an insult of the first order, putting brave men and women on the same level as the soldier who murdered Afghan civilians and the various Afghans who have killed Americans because of some perceived slight.

As Victor Davis Hanson observed on John Batchelor's radio show last night, we are witnessing the rapid unraveling of the American mission in Afghanistan."

CAA wouldn't go as far as Prof. Hanson, with all due respect to him as a scholar of warfare. But the top-down political correctness can sometimes reach down so far, as with ROEs, that it interferes with the reality of combat operations.

"To be fair, the situation in Afghanistan could be described as beyond repair. But an equally fair question is now the "good" war got that way."

Another question is why the U.S. military is in the "repair" business in the first place.

"There is no doubt we will be out of Afghanistan in 2014, but that timetable sets the stage for something even worse: the full-fledged return of the Taliban and their Al Qaida allies. As Dr. Hanson observed on the radio, the terrorists apparently learned more from their defeat in Iraq than we learned from our victory."

Ouch.

That being said, the terrorists learned they couldn't win against us in a country as relatively (compared to Afghanistan) easy for us to operate in, where they didn't have the terrain advantages (including human terrain) and the sanctuary country right next door.

"ADDENDUM: Two days after the fact, the Pentagon has changed its tune on the Camp Bastion incident, describing the stolen truck (and its burning driver) as an attempted attack against a group of VIPs waiting for Secretary Panetta. They also told the Washington Post they could not rule out the possibility that the incident was aimed at the Defense Secretary."

3/14

re: "The MEK is the new Code Pink"

Josh Rogin at The Cable ("Reporting Inside the Foreign Policy Machine") told us about the PMOI's visit to Capitol Hill and Foggy Bottom.

Money quote(s):

"About 50 supporters of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) took over the first three rows of the audience at Tuesday morning's hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee in the Senate Hart Office Building. The hearing was to examine President Barack Obama's decision to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of the year, and featured testimony by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey."

This was in mid-November of last year.

(Sorry about the time it took for me to get to this.)

"(T)he MEK supporters at the Hart building today sat politely in their bright yellow sweatshirts and ponchos, which had slogans printed on them calling for the State Department to take the MEK off of their list of foreign terrorist organizations -- a move that is supposedly under consideration.

We overheard one staffer at the hearing quip, "When your critics allege you are a cult, you probably shouldn't dress like one." "

Good one.

On the other hand, you see tour groups doing the same thing abroad. Maybe they just didn't want to lose anyone?

"The MEK, whose ideology fuses Islam and Marxism, was formed in Iran in 1965. It allied itself with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and fought against the Shah and his Western backers during the Iranian Revolution. After falling out of favor with Khomeini, the group was given shelter in Iraq by Saddam Hussein, who used them to conduct brutal cross-border raids during the Iraq-Iran war.

After the fall of Saddam, the United States helped broker an agreement whereby 3,400 MEK members were confined to a complex in northeast Iraq called Camp Ashraf, protected by the U.S. military. The camp was handed over to the Iraqi government in 2009."

Fusing "Islam and Marxism." Check. Very good. Now: what could possibly go wrong there?

"(F)alling out of favor with Khomeini"? You've got to be kidding me? The PMOI and the Revolutionary government went to war with each other!

"Since 2009, the MEK has conducted a multi-million advocacy and lobbying campaign in Washington, with the help of dozens of senior U.S. officials and lawmakers, many of whom have been paid for their involvement. The list includes Congressman John Lewis (D-GA), former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, former FBI Director Louis Freeh, former Sen. Robert Torricelli, Rep. Patrick Kennedy, former CIA Deputy Director of Clandestine Operations John Sano, former National Security Advisor Gen. James Jones, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Myers, former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card, Gen. Wesley Clark, former Rep. Lee Hamilton, former CIA Director Porter Goss, senior advisor to the Romney campaign Mitchell Reiss, Gen. Anthony Zinni, former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, former Sen. Evan Bayh, and many others.

In an August rally outside the State Department, Kennedy declared, "One of the greatest moments was when my uncle, President [John F.] Kennedy, stood in Berlin and uttered the immortal words ‘Ich bin ein Berliner,'" Kennedy exclaimed. "Today, I'm honored to repeat my uncle's words, by saying [translated from Farsi] ‘I am an Iranian, I am an Ashrafi.'"

Kennedy admitted he was paid $25,000 to emcee the rally."

CAA would have served as "emcee" for free, but wouldn't have done it in as cheerleaderly a fashion as 25k to a Kennedy will buy you.

11/15

re: "If Every Immigrant Were Like This . . ."

Mark Krikorian at The Corner ("The one and only.") doesn't care much for the mass immigration model.

Money quote(s):

"The new national commander of the American Legion is Fang A. Wong, who moved here (legally) from Hong Kong with family members at age twelve in 1960 to join his father. He enlisted in the Army during Vietnam, where he served for more than two years, and retired from the service in 1989."

This is why CAA loves legal immigrants. CAA loves legal immigrants who, like CAA's forefathers (and mothers) re-made themselves from Grand Fenwickians, Graustarkians, and Ruritanians into un-hyphenated Americans. Yes, CAA favors the melting pot theory of assimilation and proudly identifies himself as a "Heinz 57" American.

"Does Wong’s example somehow mean that mass legal immigration is therefore a good thing, that our current arrangements ought to remain untouchable? The question sounds silly (especially since Wong came before Ted Kennedy got a hold of our immigration law), but that’s exactly the kind of thing apologists for mass immigration say all the time. Now, I might conceivably be willing to rethink my position if there were some kind of highly accurate test to ensure that every immigrant we admitted would become not only a productive, law-abiding member of society but also an ardent patriot, deeply committed to the principles of the Constitution, displaying a genuine enthusiasm for our nation’s history and culture, and immune to the wiles of our post-American elites.

But there is no such test."

The United States, or at least its political elites, have swapped out the very successful "melting pot" assimilationist model for the "salad bowl" model which has been so successful in no place where it can be identified. This presents problems which now amount of chanting the Orwellian "diversity is strength" mantra will solve.

9/23

re: "My New York Times Mini Op-Ed'

Peter Van Buren at We Meant Well ("How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People") shared some observations and predictions.

Money quote(s):

"The State Department’s reduction of staff in Iraq is the final act of the American invasion. The war is now really over.

The U.S. has finally acknowledged that Iraq is not its most important foreign policy story."

This is due to a couple-three factors.

First, the change in administrations. The Bush administration made the invasion and reconstruction effort in Iraq a national priority or mission. That national priority or mission drove things like causing Iraq embassy and PRT personnel requirements to, along with similar requirements in Afghanistan (and, to a degree, Pakistan) drive the Foreign Service's human resources engine.

As CAA predicted before the CPA was ever replaced by an actual U.S. embassy mission, Iraq was going to be the tail that wagged our assignments system dog. For better or worse.

The U.S. post-war reconstruction and security effort in Iraq, as of January 2009, became the Obama administration's war to lose.

Second, and deriving from the first, with the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq, what media attention still focused there has dissipated. Until such time as things really go south, and the networks can get footage of helicopters lifting U.S. diplomats from the embassy's rooftops, that not really going to change.

"(O)nly days after the U.S. military withdrawal, the world’s largest embassy watched helplessly as Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki tried to arrest his own vice president, who fled to Kurdistan where Iraqi government forces are powerless to intervene."

What's that saying about history repeating itself as farce?

In any case, this episode alone makes the prognostications of others, such as Vice President Biden if I recall correctly, about Iraq best becoming three separate countries, a lot less risible. Likewise for the post-pandemic predictions of John Ringo.

"The U.S. has finally acknowledged that Iraq is not its most important foreign policy story, and that America’s diplomats cannot survive on their own in the middle of a civil war. The embassy will eventually shrink to the small-to-medium scale that Iraq requires (think Turkey or Jordan). America’s relationship will wither into the same uneasy state of half-antagonistic, half-opportunistic status that we enjoy with the other autocrats in the Middle East. Maliki will continue to expertly play the U.S. off the Iranians and vice versa. U.S. military sales and oil purchases will assure him the soft landing someday of a medical visa to the United States à la Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen, and not the sanctioned disposal awaiting Bashar al-Assad of Syria."

The prediction piece of Brother Van Buren's article could do with some un-packing. Frankly, the second part of the first sentence is simply not so. The U.S. continues, in Iraq and Afghanistan (and, to a degree, Pakistan) to expect our diplomats to "survive on their own in the middle of a civil war." They just do. I can't explain it.

2/11

re: "Heresy over defense, part 2"

Tom Mahnken at Shadow Government ("Notes from the Loyal Opposition") responded to Kori Schake.

Money quote(s):

"Kori Schake responded to my call for a debate over defense spending by firing a volley in defense of the new orthodoxy on defense spending. Specifically, she attempts to make the case that the federal debt is a national security threat that demands further defense cuts, that the United States has a large margin of superiority over potential adversaries, and we need to seek greater efficiency in defense.

I agree with Kori that our national debt is an important national security concern, but I also agree with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey that it is not our most important one. In my view, it would be strategically unsound, even if it were economically possible, to balance the budget on the back of defense.

I agree that defense should not be "out of bounds" in budget matters. But the fact is that in a period that has witnessed a massive expansion of government spending, the Defense Department has already sustained several rounds of cuts, dating back to the first months of the Obama administration. As both Robert Gates and Leon Panetta have argued, additional cuts cannot help but affect U.S. security." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Entire departments, not to mention lesser agencies, have little-or-no Constitutional basis. Even Gov. Perry could probably name at least two.

"Some parts of the world (Europe, for example) are clearly safer and more secure than in decades past. But other parts of the world, such as Asia, are less secure. Of particular concern is China's ongoing military modernization, a portion of which is aimed at coercing U.S. allies and denying the United States access to the Western Pacific. As I have argued elsewhere, the United States has consistently underestimated the scope and pace of China's fielding of new weapons, including those designed to counter U.S. power projection forces. Moreover, over the past decade the weapons most needed to respond to such developments have received short shrift in the Pentagon budget. As a result, the United States faces an increasingly unfavorable military balance in the Western Pacific."

Europe, at least the central and western portions, are safer and more secure from threats posed by other central and western European states. And even, it seems, from Russia (hopefully). That still leaves non-state threats as well as NATO's seeming inability to manage, collectively, even their Libyan intervention without lots of heavy lifting by the U.S.

And by "heavy lifting" I mean logistics, ISR, and basic re-supply. Shiny fighter-bombers are just pretty paperweights once you can't re-arm them anymore.

"(T)he post-9/11 military buildup has produced few new weapon systems, and those that have been fielded over the past decade have been geared toward a particular kind of war against a particular kind of foe. For example, the United States fielded thousands of Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected (MRAP) vehicles for Iraq and a sent a second generation to Afghanistan. Such vehicles are unlikely to be of much use in future wars, however. And the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles that have been crucial to U.S. success in combating insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan and targeting terrorists in Pakistan are unlikely to survive in a conflict with an adversary that possesses even a rudimentary air defense network.

Whole parts of the U.S. armed forces have been left out of whatever "rolling modernization" has taken place. U.S. Air Force aircraft are on average more than 23 years old, the oldest in Air Force history, and are getting older. Many transport aircraft and aerial refueling tankers are more than 40 years old, and some may be as old as 70-80 years before they retire. The U.S. Navy is smaller now than it was before the United States entered World War I, and is getting smaller. No "rolling modernization" will reverse these trends; only full-scale recapitalization of the U.S. armed forces will."

The Air Force, like the Navy, suffers from the huge per unit capital outlays needed to launch even a single ship or new airframe.

"(T)he ultima ratio of defense is effectiveness, not efficiency. That is, defense spending ultimately exists to provide security to the American people. Inefficient yet effective defense remains preferable to efficient yet ineffective defense."

10/14

re: "It's Still The Politics"

Andrew Stuttaford at The Corner ("The one and only.") looked at systemic and structural problems with the Euro.

Money quote(s):

"The notion of a “stand-alone” single currency was always an idiocy."

No, really, don't sugar-coat it. We can take it. No need to beat-around-the-bush: tell us what you really think.

"German voters never wanted the euro, and were never given the chance by their political class to say no. Adding injury to injury, the promises that were made to them about their new currency have been shown to be false."

9/23

Paus-Ex for EER Season

CAA will take a pause in posting (pip?) for the next two weeks in order to give full and due attention to EERs.

Those who know, will understand. Others must be patient.

That is all.

re: "diplomacy"

CAA (that's me!) continued his response to Jeff Emanuel's post at RedState:, responding to Jack_Savage's comment of Friday, February 10th at 8:40 AM EST(link).

Jack Savage said:

"When we are in a foreign land, aren’t we ALL diplomats?"

My response:

"Only when we screw up.

Seriously, I got that same briefing as a Private (E-2) in Germany back during the Bad Old Days (TM) of The Cold War as well.

So in a broad-swath philosophical sense that’s true.

From a perspective of international law (specifically the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations), anybody we send over on a diplomatic passport (IF THEY ARE GRANTED A DIPLOMATIC VISA BY THE IRAQI GOVERNMENT) is a “diplomat.”

But in terms of reality, it’s our Foreign Service Officers (FSO; both from State, USAID, and Dept. of Commerce “Foreign Commercial Service) and Foreign Service Specialists (FSS) who are “actual” diplomats by training and profession.

You could add to that some (but not all) of the various attaches (such as military ones) from other government “tenant agencies” as they get specialized training for working in a diplomatic environment."


2/11

re: "Jihad in Manhattan"

Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs ("Evil is made possible by the sanction you give it. Withdraw your sanction.") shared an eye-opening essay:

"It is illuminating of Muslim attitudes and assumptions in New York City in the 1990s -- attitudes and assumptions that are likely to be only more, not less, prevalent today".

1/31

re: "RQ: What Do FSOs Do When Not At Work?"

OSB at The OpSec Blog ("focused on security issues, safety overseas, and privacy online… and perhaps a few tidbits here and there about being a Specialist if I’m feeling uninspired") answered a reader's questions:

"What do Foreign Service Officers/Specialists do when they’re not working? How is the social scene? Do FSOs tend to clump or do they “go local”?"

Money quote(s):

"(I)t depends a great deal on where one is posted. Those serving in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Pakistan (AIP) will not be going off the compound very much. Each post has its own unique social culture. Even in places I wouldn’t consider very dangerous, sometimes the current work force just isn’t interested in going out much. Other times the embassy community is very tight knit and very supportive of one another (there’s something about being trapped together in Lagos that really brings a group of Americans together…)."

True. Oddly, the worse (for relative values of "better") a post is, the more likely that post will have a more closely-knit embassy community. The fewer opportunities there are for activities (travel, sight-seeing, safety) outside the embassy, the more they will fall back on their own resources. Some really nice Western European posts don't have that cohesive a community simply because the people assigned there have so many other things to do, either traveling out of town on a weekend or on the town after work hours.

"In my opinion, holing up in your government housing is a good way to go crazy during your tour. Participating in the embassy community, while not only one of the Foreign Service dimensions, is a good way to network both for yourself and your family."

In the Army, we called people like this "barracks rats." Don't be a "barracks rat."



9/22

re: "Soldier Murders Afghans, Generals Murder Soldiers"

Ralph Peters at Accuracy in Media ("For Fairness, Balance and Accuracy in News Reporting") pulled no punches in telling us what he thinks.

Money quote(s):

"For a final analysis we’ll have to wait until all of the facts come in, but it appears that a soldier who had served honorably during multiple tours in Iraq broke down and went mad in Afghanistan. We should not be surprised that this happened. We should be surprised that it hasn’t happened sooner and more often: The shock of this incident after a decade of hopeless, meandering efforts that have thrown away the lives and limbs of our troops while ambitious generals lie about progress, seek promotion, and engage in military masturbation is actually a tribute to our men and women in uniform out on the front lines (to the extent that “front lines” exist)." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Let's get up front, as LTC Peters does, that suspects and defendents are innocent-until-proven-guilty.

"(T)he amazing thing is how disciplined, patient and tenacious our troops have been. Given the outrageous stresses of serving repeated tours in an environment a brand-new private could recognize as hopeless (while his generals fly back and forth congratulating themselves), it’s remarkable that we have not seen more and even uglier incidents. The problem in Afghanistan isn’t our troops—although craven generals routinely insist that everything is the fault of “disrespectful” soldiers—it’s a leadership in and out of uniform that is bankrupt of ideas, bankrupt of ethics, bankrupt of moral courage—and rich only in self-interest and ambition.

If there’s a “battle cry” in Afghanistan, it’s “Blame the troops!” Generals out of touch with the ugly, brute reality on the ground down in the Taliban-sympathizing villages respond to every seeming crisis in Afghan-American relations by telling our troops to “respect Afghan culture.”

But generals don’t have a clue about Afghan “culture.” They interact with well-educated, privileged, English-speaking Afghans who know exactly which American buttons to press to keep the tens of billions of dollars in annual aid flowing. The troops, on the other hand, daily encounter villagers who will not warn them about Taliban-planted booby traps or roadside bombs, who obviously want them to leave, who relish the abject squalor in which they live and who appear to value the lives of their animals above those of their women. When our Soldiers and Marines hear, yet again, that they need to “respect Afghan culture,” they must want to puke up their rations." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Ralph Peters is one of the few military intelligence officers to make something of themselves once he took off the uniform. He's widely respected, in and out of uniform, as someone who at least tries to learns the lessons of history, who has walked a lot of this ground years before any of the rest of us, above all, who is unafraid to call a spade a spade, a bad idea a bad idea, and an enemy an enemy.

(If he had not invented himself, we should have had to invent him ourselves.)

"When I was a young officer in training, we mocked the European “chateaux generals” of the First World War who gave their orders from elegant headquarters without ever experiencing the reality faced by the troops in the trenches. We never thought that we’d have chateaux generals of our own, but now we do. Flying down to visit an outpost and staying just long enough to pin on a medal or two, get a dog-and-pony-show briefing and have a well-scripted tea session with a carefully selected “good” tribal elder, then winging straight back to a well-protected headquarters where the electronics are more real than the troops is not the way to develop a “fingertips feel” for on-the-ground reality."

From my reading about the Vietnam War, we re-invented the "chateaux generals" at least that early.

After all, there's a reason BG McMasters wrote his famous book.

"(O)ur troops are being used as props in a campaign year, as pawns by dull-witted generals who just don’t know what else to do, and as cash cows by corrupt Afghan politicians, generals and warlords (all of whom agree that it’s virtuous to rob the Americans blind).

What are our goals? What is our strategy? We’re told, endlessly, that things are improving in Afghanistan, yet, ten years ago, a U.S. Army general, unarmed, could walk the streets of Kabul without risk. Today, there is no city in Afghanistan where a U.S. general could stroll the streets. We may not have a genius for war, but we sure do have a genius for kidding ourselves."

As much a disciple CAA is about the multi-dimensionality of warfare (i.e., DIMEFILS, &tc.), it seems as if the object of the thing has morphed into more of an on-going development project, sort of like re-claiming a slum or ghetto, than is safe or sane. Re-fighting the Vietnam War was never the Republican's idea, after all; it always seemed to be more of a Democratic obsession.

(CAA always assumed this was because certain among the Democratic Party faithful wanted America to lose. Again.)

"Now we’re told that we have to stay to build the Afghan military and police.

....We’ve been training and equipping the Afghan army and the Afghan cops (and robbers) for ten years. In World War II, we turned out a mass military of our own in a year or so. The problem in Afghanistan isn’t that we haven’t tried, but that the Afghans are not interested in fighting for the exuberantly corrupt Karzai regime. Right now, our troops are dying to preserve a filthy Kabul government whose president blatantly stole the last election and which has no hope of gaining the support of its own people. Meanwhile, despite repeated claims that the Taliban is on its last legs, the religious fanatics remain the home team backed by Afghanistan’s Pashtun majority. (If the people didn’t back them, the Taliban would, indeed, have been long gone—we need to face reality.)" (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Afghanistan isn't really a country, as we understand countries to be. It's a patchwork of tribal regions located between neighboring countries. The king or president is essentially the major of Kabul, with the limited power and influence that suggests. That mayor's influence beyond the Kabul city limits is a function purely of force projection and bribery. And this is nothing new. The tenure of each mayor of Kabul lasts exactly as long as he can avoid calling down the wrath of a tribaly power base.

"Sure, we whip the Taliban every time we catch them with their weapons (if they’re not holding weapons, we can’t engage, even if they just killed Americans). But we dare not attack the Taliban leadership in Pakistan, where it’s protected by our “allies.” And no matter how many Taliban we kill, they still attract volunteers willing to die for their cause. The Afghans we train turn their guns on us.

It appears that the staff sergeant who murdered those Afghan villagers had cracked under the stresses of a war we won’t allow our troops to fight. But the real madness is at the top, in the White House, where President Obama can’t see past the November election; in Congress, where Republicans cling to whatever war they’ve got; and in uniform, where our generals have run out of ideas and moral courage." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Aside from the congressional buffoonery where Gen. Petraeus was mocked and called a liar (by whom? do you recall?), the average American holds our generals and admirals in some regard. Having learned some of the lessons of the Vietnam War, the citizenry is typically in something of a hurry to treat our soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen with respect and dignity. And I think we over-do that for our top-ranking service members, giving them a double-helping of that respect rather than being properly skeptical or at least not unduly credulous.

If Ralph Peters is taking our top-ranking military leaders to the woodshed in this fashion, then perhaps this is deserving of some attention. It's not just emperors who lack rainment sometimes.

"That staff sergeant murdered sixteen Afghans. Our own leaders have murdered thousands and maimed tens of thousands of our own troops out of vanity, ambition and inertia. Who deserves our sympathy?

In war, soldiers die. But they shouldn’t die for bullshit."

Not being a creature unduly burdened by vaulting ambition, CAA finds within himself an abyssal dearth of sympathy for flag and general officers (not to mention SFSOs) who go-along-to-get-along and are too timid to tell their bosses what their bosses don't want to hear.

3/13