Commentary on a Larger Military

Periodically I run across Arkin's column, and usually I'm confronted with this guys complete lack of a clue. You'd think the discussion on increasing the size of the military would be something that he'd have an easy time discussing, but he wanders off topic immediately.

Five years after Sept. 11, barely five weeks after a losing election, the President of the United States decides America needs a larger military?

These guys can't see past today's events to craft a strategy for tomorrow.

They say that the Army and Marine Corps has been stretched to a breaking point, that more troops are needed to fight the "long war" against global terrorism.

I might be convinced that America might need a larger (or different) military to address the challenges it will face in the future. But what it needs FIRST is to get out of the Iraq, a move that would instantly alleviate the pressures on today's military.

What does leaving Iraq have to do with correcting the manning of the military? If you argue that it will solve the manning issue, you neglect the security problem with failing to finish the Iraq war correctly. Alleviating pressure on the military won't happen if Iraq gets worse. It may even cause more pressure. At this time most of the fight against terrorists is occurring in Iraq. I know there are many who say that they wouldn't be fighting us if we weren't there, but that argument is superfluous. We are in Iraq, and if we leave the terrorists will follow. Don't forget the lesson learned from Afghanistan. (Remember what happened to the Jihadis when the Russians left? Yeah, they started attacking the west.)

The point of increasing manning is that the US has shrunk the size of the military too far to be effective in multiple theaters. Iraq is a sizable theater, and the manning necessary has required the command to dip into the reserves and National Guard. The whining thereof has been deafening. But, does Arkin discuss the changes to make a more effective military? Nope, he wants a larger non-military.

And America needs a larger non-military. Whether it's Iraq, drugs in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Africa, hurricane Katrina, or the increase in domestic crime it is so clear only Washington can't see that our tendency to see a military solution to everything is not only wrong but has had profound negative effects.

There is a slight problem with this logic. Who is going to do the war on terror if not the military? What civilian agency is going to provide large numbers of personnel to work unarmed in a zone of conflict? It's not that the US sees a military solution in every problem, it's that the military solution generally is there first. The conflict in Afghanistan would not have found any solution in any non-military method. That should be clear. I understand Arkin obviously must think Saddam should still be in power, but that was a military solution that, like all insurgencies, requires more than just military solution. But to put forward that a solely non-military solution is possible in Iraq is blindly stupid.

Of course, he then goes on to denounce the Generals.

News also came yesterday that Gen. John Abizaid, the overall commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, plans to retire in March. The Arabic speaking Abizaid was once seen as a soothing tonic after the bumbling Gen. Tommy Franks skedaddled from the scene less than a month after "victory" in Iraq in 2003. Culturally aware, politically sensitive, polished, he has reportedly been offered higher posts in the government.

Some in the Pentagon view Abizaid's departure as part of a bigger plan for a "new" strategy in Iraq, as if he is responsible for putting us in the losing column. The conventional wisdom is that Abizaid has "resisted" efforts to increase troop levels. As I wrote on Monday, the truth is far more complicated.

But the truth is that if the Pentagon indeed is intent on doing something really different in Iraq, then it is a repudiation of what has already been done. Confirmation of this theory would mean that Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has to be the next to go, along with Gen. Peter Pace, who has turned out as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to be a visionless yes-man.

The Los Angeles Times reports that a leading candidate to replace Abizaid is Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, an even more polished, media-friendly, soldier intellectual, which commanded the 101st Airborne Division in the 2003 war. Petraeus later deployed to northern Iraq, where he led the early "training" effort of Iraq forces, and has since driven Army counter-insurgency doctrine from Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas.

Maybe Petraeus is the Godsend everyone says he is: I guess I see him instead as captain of two losing teams, the stand up/stand down strategy, which these same guys thought was working, and the now abandoned effort to defeat the insurgency and provide security for the population, a strategy that never was and a play book that is not even being eyed as the plan for the future.

Abizaid has been the CentCom commander longer than any other general. His moving out is pretty much the norm, though it does open up changes in the command structure. Not sure why he seems to dislike Petraeus. His experience with counter-insurgency is exactly what is needed for the military component and providing security. Especially if he goes along the historical successful doctrine of establishing government controlled militias which allow the Iraqis to provide their own security. Arkin seems to think that defeating the insurgency and providing security are not inclusive. In fact, they are, and all insurgencies that have succeeded have required both.

Unfortunately, Arkin is another of the talking heads that has little concept that insurgencies require complicated and multifaceted solutions. And since the overall solution hasn't been working, then it must be that it can't succeed. This continued defeatism in the press gets us no where and soon will ensure that the Iraq conflict ends with the public running away from another conflict.

Skelton and the Reason Why Wars Aren't Fought by Committees

I was really hoping that Bush would announce some interim steps to some major announcement to what the action in Iraq will be. The political opinions floating around are pretty much useless. Mainly due to the fact that they don't actually have a say in what will be the actions taken and the political games are doing nothing but confuse the public as to what action is planned. Skelton is a perfect example:

Missouri Democrat Ike Skelton, who will become chairman of the House Armed Services Committee next month, said he opposes any temporary increase in the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to help secure Baghdad.

"I don't think it will change a thing," Skelton told reporters today in Washington. "It could exacerbate the situation further.''

President George W. Bush is exploring sending more troops to Iraq to help quell violence and train Iraqi security forces, White House spokesman Tony Snow said today.

Skelton said additional U.S. forces deployed in Iraq would have an undefined mission and send the wrong message to the Iraqi government about their role in securing the country.

"The Iraqis need to understand the responsibility for their future is theirs," he said.

Only a couple of problems with this. First, there hasn't been any announcement that there will be additional troops sent. Second, there hasn't been any statement of what said troops would do. Reports regarding discussions seem to point to the Generals not wanting to send more troops or to their desire that troops sent will have a clearly defined mission. That mission at present is vaguely to provide security in Baghdad. I would hope that those military planners are trying to look at just what the mission specifics are and where the deployments would be used. Skelton's statement implies that the troops are going and that they will have no mission. Another case of a politician talking for the press coverage, but not attached to reality.

Skelton called the conflict in Afghanistan "the forgotten war" and said his committee would examine battles with al-Qaeda forces on the Pakistani border and the country's growing drug production.

Additionally, Skelton said the committee would focus on the fight against terrorism in other countries, ensuring that the military has all the resources it needs, preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and ensuring that U.S. armed forces are prepared for future threats.

"We always seem to prepare for the last war, and we can't do that now," he said.

Skelton dismissed calls by other Democrats, including Representative Charles Rangel of New York, on the need for a military draft. He said current recruiting levels are sufficient to sustain the armed forces.

Skelton isn't totally wrong about Afghanistan, but the stability there is better than Iraq, and quite frankly will have less of an impact on the region than failure in Iraq.

As for the troop preparedness, I think we can be worried about that. I don't have much confidence that Gates will be one to stand up to the entrenched military leadership and continue the updating of the military that Rumsfeld started. I truly hope he has the muscle to continue forcing the military out of the near peer mind set and make a more agile and responsive military. His statement about being prepared for the last war is humorous, seeing that is a rut the US can't seem to ever break out of. I'd postulate that the political games played with funding are nearly as responsible for the behind-the-times nature of the military as much as the behind the times generals.

Now the question of the House Armed Services Committee's activities in the near term. How will they move toward upgrading the military. It's good to see that Skelton is at least on board with the increase in overall troop levels.

Still, Skelton told reporters that since the mid-1990s he has said that the Army and Marines Corps were too small. He pointed to remarks last week by Army Chief of Staff General Peter Schoomaker calling for a gradual increase in the Army's 507,000- person force as an issue the committee will review.

"We are going to have to pay attention to this," Skelton said. "You are stretching and straining the force, and if you want a strong, viable military, you're going to have to make it possible for them to have `predictable' lives."

"I worry that at some point you are going to break these forces," Skelton added. "The first thing we need to do is stop the bleeding. The stretching and the straining of the troops is serious."

"Predictable lives?" What in the hell is he talking about? The nature of the military is that its need is not predictable. If the troops lives are predictable then the military's abilities and actions are predictable, and that is a bad thing. I'm hoping he's not looking to go back to the Reserve and National Guard status where they don't ever get used except for national disasters.

I also wonder what Skelton's stand was when the Clinton administration was "decreasing the size of the government."

The Teddy Awards

I don't like Joe Klein. His Teddy (Theodore Roosevelt) Awards pretty much prove my reasoning for that dislike.

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again...who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly ..."

Another year gone. Time again for this column—which was named after the Theodore Roosevelt quotation cited above—to take note of some of the people who performed honorably as winners and losers in the public arena. This was not a terrific year for elected officials; only one is mentioned in this column, and he lost his race. Happily, the public arena is not limited to elected U.S. politicians. There were others who made their mark in 2006.

Kofi Annan's 10 years at the United Nations were not a "triumph of high achievement," but the Secretary-General was a force for civility throughout. His work—and the efforts of the U.N. inspection teams—in the months leading up to the Iraq war deserves special mention. The U.N.'s search for weapons of mass destruction was rigorous and accurate: there were no weapons to be found. Annan quietly understood that an American invasion would be a disaster. He suffered physically and mentally over his failure to prevent the war. After the invasion, he experienced a mild nervous collapse. For a time, he actually lost his voice. For his pains, he was subjected to a chorus of know-nothing blatherings by U.S. critics who blamed him—inaccurately—for the U.N.'s oil-for-food scandal and ridiculed him for his failure to bring the rest of the world into line behind an incomprehensible series of U.S. foreign policy errors. He, more than any other public figure this year, embodies Teddy Roosevelt's definition of "the man in the arena."

Great quote, too bad it's coming from a dolt like Klein. I suppose his hero worship of Annan should be no surprise. The know-nothings that blamed Annan for the corruption in the UN can't possibly have any points in their derision over a Secretary-General who over saw one of the most corrupt and useless UN's in all history. Annan deserves the derision thrown his way. His refusal to allow outside auditing of the UN and specifically on the oil-for-food CF is astounding. The additional issues with corruption related to UN forces raping in Africa, along with other allegations of UN officials on their party tours during national disasters have raised the observant persons ire to an all time high. Should I even mention the complete lack of any use for the "peace keeping" UN forces that do nothing except hide in their conclaves. If the President of the US is ultimately responsible for the actions of soldiers in situations like Abu-Gharaib, shouldn't Annan be held to the same standard? Or is this the usual do as I say not as I do politics.

Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, was nothing new to those who have listened to the former Vice President's inspired ranting about global warming for the past quarter-century. But it was time for that message to be delivered clearly, cleverly, with renewed urgency to a new audience. Gore's reinvigoration was a reminder that he has been prescient on a great many issues. He was one of the few Democrats to vote, correctly, in favor of the first Gulf War. He was one of the few Democrats to argue, correctly, on Sept. 23, 2002, that Bush's pre-emptive invasion of Iraq would be a serious mistake. Now Gore seems liberated, less awkward than he has ever before appeared in public and eager to propose more inconvenient truths—like the need for a tax on fossil fuels. I don't know if he's running for President. Probably not. But he should.

Ah yes. Al "the internet" Gore. His movie didn't even try to bring a reasonable telling of the issue of global warming to the table. The hyped screeching of Doom persists in his flavor of environmentalism. The thought of a fossil fuel tax is still astounding that it finds any traction with anyone that isn't a complete idiot. Klein loves the thought of course. Let's not forget that taxing the fossil fuels won't help anyone that is dependent on them and certainly won't hurt the big fuel providers in their profits. The end users will be punished, and you think the present cries for help from the old and poor to pay for heating oil is bad now, wait till the tax man puts the clamp on their heating oil or electricity. Is he running for president? Sure, and making Hillary look like a more reasonable candidate every day. Wonder if he's figured out who he is yet.

I'll skip Jim Leach as being a big yawn and not even in the arena of what could be an award.

Last summer Lieut. General David Petraeus invited me out to visit the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kans. Every U.S. Army major spends a midcareer year going to school there. Most of these officers are headed to Iraq or Afghanistan, and the curriculum has been revised to include intensive language courses in Arabic and Pashtu, the history and culture of Islam, a hefty dose of counterinsurgency strategy and tactics, plus the standard military disciplines. I came away inspired and infuriated: if only the Bush Administration—and the public—took the mission as seriously as the Army does! What a shame that we've inserted these fine people into such a mess.

Petraeus deserves this mention. Sadly Klein decides to make an asinine statement about Bush not caring which is to spin Klein's own distorted reality as our own. Shame to insert soldiers into a conflict that must succeed? Rubbish. The causation of the war is now completely irrelevant, no matter the howling of the anti-war parties. Success in Iraq can help change the course of the Middle-East and stabilize the region to the point where it could become a partner in the the world economy rather then a continuing threat. But to understand that Klein would need to step back from the petty whining of the anti-war crowd and understand that we are in the stream of events and the soldiers are one of the primary oars to completing this successfully.

Who would I have voted for? Rumsfeld for one. He did a very good job fighting a war and updating the US military in a theater where the services resisted extremely to change, and the monday morning quarterbacks constantly second guessed every action taken. The vilification of Rumsfeld was astounding for its complete lack of perspective. The constant bitching about how the Armed Services were used has always astounded me, for it is the yelping of those who don't understand that war is a fluid event and the enemy changes. Could things have gone better, yep, but I'm betting those that yell the loudest about him would have done far worse. Not that I expect many to agree with me on that one.

How about John Bolton? With the extreme vitriol thrown at him, he did an astoundingly effective job at the UN. Most of his critics even admitted that. But jackass' like Lincoln Chafee blocked his nomination and with the change of party control in the Senate, there is no reason to think that he would ever get in for political reasons alone.

I wonder if Klein understands that Theodore Roosevelt was a Republican?

Iran's Continued Defiance and Internal Shifts

The Iranians are still pushing the nuclear issue, and Russia is still going to sell them nuclear fuel. I'm still not sure how you can have sanctions against them when one of the largest partners to both sides is excessively wishy-washy on whether Iran should face sanctions and then they continue to sell them exactly what they need to proceed.

The United Nations Security Council will vote within days on whether to impose sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt its nuclear program, the U.S. government said.

"We are hopeful that we can get a vote in the very near future," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said yesterday. Nicholas Burns, the U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, told Cable News Network that sanctions will be passed against Iran ``in the next several days."

Talks on a resolution to pressure Iran to abandon uranium enrichment have been deadlocked for months. The U.S. government, which says the regime in Tehran is intent on developing a nuclear weapon, backs a resolution that would bar it from acquiring any materials and technology that could be used to develop an atomic bomb.

Russia, which is constructing a commercial nuclear reactor for Iran, opposes a proposed travel ban and asset freeze on officials involved with "proliferation sensitive" activities.

Though there is some sign of discontent with the ruling regime. The elections appear to be moving against the extreme conservatives like Ahmadinejad. The problem is, since the liberal candidates are disqualified from the start, it's hard to measure just how angry the Iranian people may be.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suffered an embarrassing blow in local council races, according to partial election results yesterday, in voting viewed as a sign of public discontent with his hard-line stance.

The balloting in Iran represented a partial comeback for opponents of Ahmadinejad, whose Islamic government's policies have fueled fights with the West and brought Iran closer to United Nations sanctions.

Former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, a relative moderate, polled the most votes of any Tehran candidate to win reelection to a key assembly post.

"Ahmadinejad's list has suffered a decisive defeat nationwide," said the Islamic Iran Participation Front, the largest reformist party. "It is a big no to the government's authoritarian and inefficient methods."

The biggest victory was seen as being for "moderate conservatives," supporters of Iran's cleric-led power structure, who have been sharply critical of Ahmadinejad, saying he has needlessly provoked the West with harsh rhetoric and has failed to fix the country's faltering economy.

Looks to me like nothing much will be changing in the near term. The UN Security council is toothless without Russia's compliance, and the people of Iran aren't allowed to fully display their displeasure in the voting booth. No movement inside or outside, so the status quo appears to be all that can be expected.

Idiots Perspective on War

James Carroll of the Boston Globe is an Idiot. No, wait, calling him an idiot is to insult idiots world wide. But then I can't come up with a term lower than idiot at the moment, so I'll go with it.

Another of the "It's all America's fault" crowd. I love his historical perspective. He uses the Bible. Oh how quaint. Couldn't actually find any history that isn't locked into a religious text. Just had to pop out Cain and Abel. I'll leave out his biblical rhetoric.

Instead of the originating sin of parents, the Cain-and-Abel combatants of today's Middle East (from the insurgent parties in Iraq, to the warring factions of Lebanon, to the antagonists in Israel and Palestine, now including the fratricidal Palestinians) are burdened by the fatal flaw of the United States of America. The indispensable nation, it turns out, proves indispensable only for the spread of chaos. The grievances of the Middle East are ancient, but so is the capacity for fragile balance, now upset. Iraqis, Lebanese, Israelis, and Palestinians all make violent choices and bear the weight of violent consequences, but the immediate context within which those choices are being made has been overwhelmingly established by violent choices made in Washington.

The Bush administration embraced the cult of war when it did not have to. Bush re-legitimized that cult, and sponsored it anew. In this, he was supported by the American people, its press and its political establishment. In the beginning, the nation itself re affirmed war as the way to justice-and-peace. We did this. The first fallacy lived. By now, even Washington's one self-proclaimed "victory" has led to further defeat. The "good" war in Afghanistan put in place structures of oppression that promised an inevitable resumption of savagery, which has begun.

There you go. Not that the Bush administrations actions were reactions to being attacked by terrorists. No that wouldn't be a reasonable thing to defend ones self. Cult of war is cute, though another cliche that lacks any real substance for debate. How the US is the catalyst of the Chaos in the middle east isn't stated. I'd give you that on the present Iraq war. But as for the Israeli/Palestinian conflict or the Israeli/Lebanese/Hezbollah conflict I don't see it. The US supports Israel in its right to existance and thus self-defense. If that is wrong, I suppose any one that defends themselves against an agressor is wrong, and I truly think Carroll would say that is a truth.

This column began with an eye on the far past. Because of the destructiveness of modern weapons, there will be no distant future unless humans, having seen through the congenital illusion of justice-and-peace through violence, come to the rejection of war. That must begin now. Democrats, take heed: Bush must not be allowed to further the chaos. Having led the world into this moral wilderness, America has a grave responsibility to lead the way out. We have to cease killing other people's children, which is the way to stop them from killing ours. Stop the war by stopping.

Wars stop by the combatants just stopping? I don't know of any historical basis for that. Usually the side that just stops gets butchered. One doesn't stop others butchering your children by lying down. That just ensures that they will be butchered. Reality. Something Mr. Carroll has been out of touch with for a long time.

Big Brother is Watching

From SayUncle. It appears that some of this posting has been attracting hits from some LEO agencies.

I’d like to give a shout-out to my homie Ray-ray from the U.S. Dept. of Commerce Implementation Center.

Given the ATF’s recent ruling that the Akins Accelerator is a machine gun after having ruled it wasn’t (be wary of fickle bureaucrats), there have been quite a few searches for Akins Accelerator landing at this site from various .gov agencies, including:

U.S. Dept. of Commerce Implementation Center
DOJ
Dept. of Treasury
Office of asset forfeiture
NYC.gov

And they’ve been hanging out for a while when reading. I never bought one but was going to after I got my Christmas shopping done. Guess that’s out of the question now.

Not that I'm particularly surprised. The question is, are they reading for info collection and legal investigations or is this intimidation? I'd like to avoid the postulation of intimidation, but in a world where it is so simple to avoid having your viewer information link you directly to the agency that they work for, you'd think they'd be a bit more subtle.

"Person of the Year" - Cop Out

Lame. Lame. Lame. Can't actually find anyone worth making person of the year, well, make it everyone.

Congratulations! You are the Time magazine "Person of the Year."

The annual honor for 2006 went to each and every one of us, as Time cited the shift from institutions to individuals - citizens of the new digital democracy, as the magazine put it. The winners this year were anyone using or creating content on the World Wide Web.

"If you choose an individual, you have to justify how that person affected millions of people," said Richard Stengel, who took over as Time's managing editor earlier this year. "But if you choose millions of people, you don't have to justify it to anyone."

What a crock. Imagine having to actually work to find someone and justify their naming.

They would have done better just to have had an online poll, at least that way they could blame the cattle, uh, people who voted.

Another View of the ISG Report

Niall Ferguson makes some fairly interesting observations about the ISG Report positioned against how the MSM has reported it.

Most commentators have interpreted the report of the Iraq Study Group as a well-crafted admission of defeat. Predictably, that was exactly how President Bush himself reacted to it. "I… believe we're going to succeed," he told reporters on Thursday. "I believe we'll prevail… One way to assure failure is just to quit, is not to adjust, and say it's just not worth it."

Addressing one of the report's key recommendations, he bluntly declared that Iran and Syria "shouldn't bother to show up" for negotiations about Iraq if they don't "understand their responsibilities to not fund terrorists" and if the Iranians won't "verifiably suspend" their uranium enrichment programme.

Yet anyone who bothers to read the ISG's report carefully — as opposed to skimming the executive summary — can see that it neither proposes "quitting" Iraq nor pins serious hope on Iranian or Syrian assistance. Quite the reverse.

Persuasion in the realm of grand strategy is more a matter of rhetorical art than science. The first essential step is to identify your target audience. Most readers of the report assume that it is directed at President Bush. That is wrong. Its principal target audience is Congress, and particularly the new Democratic majorities in both houses. And the aim is not to persuade a stubborn president to admit defeat. Rather, the report's aim is to persuade legislators that withdrawal from Iraq — no matter how much their constituents may yearn for it — is not an option. The report's other intended readership is Arab governments throughout the Middle East. The message for them is the same: an American exit from the region is what you most have to fear.

I have to say that Bush's statements on Syria and Iran talks being non-starters was something that should have been left unsaid. Though the ISG Report is fairly restrained in its enthusiasm on the topic, it does make a case for trying to get them involved. I think there is a tactical action on this point that is still being missed. Taking a diplomatic mission to these countries will force them into the arena of public opinion in the Middle-East more than they are now, and if they refuse to assist openly, they will be on the losing side of the propaganda war. I do see a Information War occurring in the Middle-East right now and the US has been fairly weak on succeeding their. I don't expect that we could get much out of Syria or Iran, but we could push them into being the fall guys who would allow other countries to participate who would never help otherwise. I'm looking at Saudi Arabia and Turkey specifically.

The Persuasion argirment, with regards to the congress doesn't get me much thoughs. If their idea was to persuade the Congress, then they could have made their arguments toward a win rather than just surviving. That would get more people on your side rather than just reading the MSM and then shrugging it off.

The second step in the process of persuasion is to conjure up a nightmare vision of the future if the action you envisage is not taken. In The Economic Consequences of the Peace, for example, John Maynard Keynes depicted Central and Eastern Europe laid waste by anarchy and civil war, if the 1919 Versailles Treaty were not revised and Germany appeased. In his 1946 "Long Telegram", George F Kennan portrayed the entire world subverted by a ruthless Soviet Union, if the United States did not adopt a policy of retaliation and containment. Both masterpieces of persuasion; both highly influential.

The worst-case scenario proposed by the Iraq Study Group is the one about which I have been writing since February: "Sectarian warfare, growing violence [and] a slide toward chaos", leading to "the collapse of Iraq's government and a humanitarian catastrophe". Here are the report's most important lines: "Neighbouring countries could intervene. Sunni-Shia clashes could spread … across the Islamic world. [There could be] Shia insurrections — perhaps fomented by Iran — in Sunni-ruled states. Such a broader sectarian conflict could open a Pandora's box of problems."

The consequences would be much more than a propaganda victory for al-Qaeda and a humiliation for the United States, which is what they worry about on Capitol Hill. In such a conflagration, no Middle Eastern government — with the exception of the fundamentalist Shiite regime in Teheran — could feel secure. And that is precisely why Arab rulers should dread an American exit.

That's convincing. Al-Qaeda has done better at getting their propaganda out that it is a glorious win for the faith to drive out the westerners. They don't even want the thought of civil strife to be acknowledged, mainly because it would make the sectarian friction more evident and allow the moderates to make some gains in smoothing out the problems. Again, a propaganda or information operation that would be in our interest to make progress on.

Step three in the art of persuasion is to propose remedies that sound attractive to your target audience. These the ISG has produced, and in profusion. But you need to read the small print of all 79 recommendations. Consider the long-anticipated "diplomatic offensive to build an international consensus for stability in Iraq and the region". Much has been made of the willingness of the ISG's co-chair, James A Baker III, former Secretary of State, to open negotiations with Iran, once a reviled member of President Bush's "Axis of Evil", as well as with Syria, no friend of the United States.

"A nation can and should engage its adversaries and enemies," declares the report in a sentence that Mr Baker must surely have written, and should offer them "incentives as well as disincentives". Note that word "disincentives". Mr Baker's idea here is not to go cap in hand to Damascus and Teheran. Rather, as he explained to the press this week, it is to "flip the Syrians" by appealing to Sunni solidarity, and to isolate the Iranian regime by exposing its "rejectionist attitude".

In other words: get the leaders of all Iraq's neighbours into the same room and play "spot the Shia". The calculation is that if Iranian aspirations to regional hegemony can be laid bare, then it will be much easier to get broad support for some serious "disincentives".

Funny how that part about disincentives is nearly completely missed in reporting.

I'll skip the part on troop numbers. In fact I think his argument is a bit fuzzy due to his naming more people from the DoS and the DoJ coming in, which wouldn't be from the DoD.

He also discusses more money for economic assistance which doesn't really address that a lot of that money has been redirected to protecting existing infrastructure from the insurgents. Personally, I think the use of economic aid as a carrot for cooperation of various groups could be helpful if used in a tactful manner. You can't just yell that we won't help you if you don't help us. There needs to be more subtlety than that.

If the ISG Report was supposed to be such a success in the art of persuasion, I'm afraid I don't see it. It was too easily twisted out of shape by the press and those who want extreme measures in Iraq. Unfortunately, the citizens of the US will just take the word of the MSM rather than reading the report, and the back pressure on the congress from the constituency will block the viability of many of the good ideas in the report.

Castrating Intelligence

Nothing like oversight to really wreck a system. No doubt that this was coming when the Dems took over, but with Leahy's screeching and now Pelosi's plans, I'm thinking that things are going to end in a wreck.

House Democrats unveiled plans Thursday to create a single congressional panel to oversee both the budgets and operations of American intelligence agencies, a realignment that would give lawmakers greater control of the expanding U.S. espionage community.

The proposal would mark the first significant change in congressional oversight of U.S. spy agencies since the House and Senate intelligence committees were created in the mid-1970s.

It also would allow the newly elected Democratic majority to exert more influence over the nation's 16 U.S. spy agencies.

Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said the reorganization "removes the barriers" between existing committees that control spending and monitor the overseas operations of the CIA and other spy services.

"This panel will have the responsibility to hold hearings, to consider the budget for intelligence," Pelosi said. "Its purpose is to protect the American people with the best possible intelligence."

Have you ever worked a job where there were more auditors than workers? I have, in the nuclear industry. It typically starts with the workers getting ready and then the auditors poor in and get in the way. Then the auditors begin providing "helpful" suggestions on how to engineer the job. Which usually stops the job because the engineer that documented the process isn't there. So they go and talk to the engineer who gets really angry having now to justify a simple procedure to a bunch of fools who didn't bother coming to the procedural review, but now want to throw their weight around. I've done this at multiple levels, from worker, to engineer, to technician, to auditor. (I'm an excellent auditor by the way. I don't say squat unless the work wanders away from procedure.)

Can anyone tell me how more oversight of the intelligence community is going to make it better?

Does this strike anyone else as a power grab?

The proposal is designed to fix flaws in congressional oversight that were outlined by the commission that investigated the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

In particular, that panel concluded that congressional controls were routinely undermined because the lawmakers responsible for monitoring the overseas operations of the CIA and other agencies lacked authority over spy agency budgets.

There is some benefit, no doubt to some increase, but I'm betting that that isn't what's going to happen here. I'm betting on a bunch of investigations on previous issues solely for political purposes. Pretty much what you'd expect when the opposition regains power.

Pelosi's plan is aimed at closing that loophole by creating the Select Intelligence Oversight Panel. It would develop a detailed budget for intelligence agencies, then deliver that blueprint to the defense subcommittee, which sets the so-called black budgets of U.S. espionage.

That truly scares me. Letting politicos have detailed control of a budget. Not only will funding for secret things be made public, but they won't be secret any more. Politicians are so good at keeping secrets.

Wonder if they'll do anything about the oversight regarding security leaks from the intelligence agencies. Nah, that would remove a convenient path for getting them information that they aren't supposed to spread around.

It's almost like a train wreck. I can't not watch.

Ghoulish Politics

Yeah, I know the politicos have to consider what could happen, but the amount of press related to this has been nauseating.

Democratic Senator Tim Johnson lay in critical condition but was described as recovering yesterday after emergency overnight surgery to repair bleeding inside his brain. His illness raised questions over whether the Democrats would hold their newly won control of the Senate.

Johnson was on "an uncomplicated postoperative course," the US Capitol physician said after visiting the 59-year-old South Dakota lawmaker yesterday afternoon. Johnson had a hemorrhage in his brain caused by a rare and sometimes fatal condition.

"He has been appropriately responsive to both word and touch. No further surgical intervention has been required," said the physician, Admiral John Eisold. He had said earlier, "The senator is recovering without complication."

Johnson was responding to the voice of his wife, Barbara, and following directions after the surgery, the senator's office said in a statement. "He was reaching for and holding her hand."

Johnson was stricken as Democrats prepared to take a 51-to-49 majority in the new Senate when it convenes next month. Democrats seized control of both chambers of Congress from Republicans in November midterm elections.

If Johnson were to leave office, a replacement would be named by South Dakota's Republican governor, Mike Rounds. A Republican appointee would create a 50-50 tie and effectively allow the GOP to retain Senate control because of Vice President Dick Cheney's tie-breaking vote.

Don't you think it would be better to just wait a little bit to see how he does before making plans?

MSM Complaining About Snow's "I Don't Know"

You'd think that these simps would find the honest answer informative. Especially when you read the moronic questions that Dana Milbank quotes from the press.

To paraphrase Howard Baker's immortal question: What didn't Tony Snow know, and when didn't he know it?

The answer: A lot, and frequently.

When will President Bush roll out his new Iraq policy? "We do not know," Snow said at yesterday's White House briefing.

When did Bush decide to postpone the speech? "I don't know exactly when," the president's press secretary said again.

Has everyone working on the policy read the Iraq Study Group report? "I don't know," came the refrain. "I'm assuming -- but I don't know."

Strikes me as there is a lot of complaining about Snow's answers, when there would be a lot more constructive activity if the press didn't ask so many bloody stupid questions.

As for Snow's answer, well, if he doesn't know, what the hell do you want him to do, make up an answer?

Increasing the Size of the Military

Can anyone remember Saint Bill's "reduction of the government?" Remember how he ripped out that big section of the military as part of the new peace dividend from the end of the Cold War? No? I'm not surprised, though those actions are bearing more bitter fruit now.

The review of Iraq policy by senior commanders appears to be headed toward a recommendation to increase the size of the American military, both to sustain a long-term commitment in Iraq and to leave the United States better positioned to deal with potential adversaries, in particular Iran and North Korea, Pentagon and military officials said Thursday.

Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, is proposing an increase in active-duty troops.

The latest indication came when the Army chief of staff, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, called for expanding the force by adding more active-duty troops and by making more use of the National Guard and Reserve.

His statement, on Thursday, came a day after President Bush met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon’s secure conference room to discuss reshaping strategy in Iraq. That session, officials said, included a detailed discussion of whether the armed services are large enough to sustain the mission in Iraq and meet other global security threats.

And what a surprise, the writer focuses the blame on guess who.

That conclusion is being punctuated by the departure of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who officially leaves his post on Friday and who was long the champion of the idea that high technology and better intelligence could substitute for a bigger military.

This fascinating bit of sophistry is pathetic. Rumsfeld in fact moved to restructure the military to move away from the Cold War massive armies that were intended to fight gigantic wars. The positioning of such an argument denies what Rumsfeld did do, which was refocus the military to be capable of handling more than just huge army movements in Europe. Rumsfeld worked to make the military effective in the world environment that exists now. He's forced the military to move into the modern world, though you'd never get that from this article.

A new study by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative research group in Washington, that was released on Thursday also called for a surge of forces to Baghdad over the near term on the grounds that the nascent Iraqi security force is not up to the task.

The report was written by the military historian Frederick W. Kagan and by Jack Keane, the retired general who served as vice chief of staff of the Army. It calls for adding four to five additional combat brigades to Baghdad and deploying them in neighborhoods that have mixed Sunni and Shiite populations and have been the scene of sectarian violence.

The report argues that this can be done without stretching the Army and Marines to the breaking point, but it also advocates increasing both forces by a total of at least 30,000 per year for the next two years.

I haven't read the report yet, though you can read it from the link found here. Note that they are quoted as stating that the military can be more heavily deployed in Iraq without brining it to the breaking point. Something that most talking heads of the MSM seem to continually argue will happen. I'd say there are further steps that can make the military more agile and capable as they stand, and the means are primarily to reduce the overhead for the military. The support structure for some of the services is huge. I believe I've read the Marines have 12 support Marines for every combat Marine. Every Army soldier that fights has 15 support troops. That's quite ineffective. And that doesn't even mention the antiquated military bases throughout Europe that serve no purpose in the military needs of the US today.

Further discussion on the military's needs:

The nation faces three choices or “we will break the active component,” General Schoomaker said in an appearance before the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves. He said the choices included reducing demand on the military, which seems unlikely; gaining the guaranteed ability to mobilize the National Guard and Reserve; and increasing the size of the active forces.

On the last point, said that “current demand on the force makes this a wise and prudent action.” He gave no figure on his goal for the Army, but noted that even in an optimistic best case, the Army probably could grow by only 6,000 to 7,000 soldiers per year.

Congress authorized a 30,000-soldier increase in the active-duty Army after the Sept. 11 attacks in what was described as a temporary measure. Army officials say they hope to reach that authorized total troop strength of 512,000 by next year.

Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, the former Army chief of staff who now heads the Association of the U.S. Army, a private support group, said in an interview that senior Army officers have told him in recent months that the service needs an active duty strength of some 535,000 to 540,000. General Sullivan said that figure assumed assured access to mobilize the National Guard and Reserves.

Well, at least I didn't see the word Draft thrown about. And with the recruitment goals being met and exceeded, it may not be impossible to reach those goals. Though you can be certain that the yelps for a draft to relieve the disproportionate numbers of minorities in the military will come up again. You'll love that AP article I linked. They spend more than half the article describing how public opinion is so bad with regards to Iraq, and then they sneak in at the end that all services have met their goals for recruitment. The only failures have been seen in the reserves and National Guard, which is no real surprise, since those groups have higher levels of people who want the cash but not the fight.

Now it's a question of whether the military and the Administration can move to clean up some of the more wasteful military spending supporting Europe for a threat that doesn't exist. I'm thinking the occupation of Germany, at a minimum should come to an end. I just won't hold my breath.

Consensual Searches

SayUncle has the correct answer here. Just say NO.

After an uptick in city homicides this year, the vast majority of them involving guns, law-enforcement officials have created a task force to try to rid the city of illegal guns.

The unit, funded with $5 million from the state, will hire retired Philadelphia homicide detectives and others to target neighborhoods where gun violence is most pervasive.

Police also plan to ask home owners at times for consent to search their homes without a probable-cause warrant, District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham said Monday.

"If we go to a house, we're going to ask the owner of the house if they will consent to a search for illegal weapons," Abraham said at a news conference. "Any gun that we can find that way is one more gun we can get off the street."

However, Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett, whose office will oversee the task force, does not plan to include his investigators in the warrantless searches, Corbett spokesman Kevin Harley said.

"We'll be taking information gathered from those searches, but we're going to be specifically investigating gun crimes that are already committed," Harley said. The task-force agents will conduct searches only after getting warrants, he said.

Yep, one more gun off the street and likely one more innocent person in the slam. I believe if the police search your home and find anything illegal, they can act upon it. You can be certain they won't be limiting what they search for when they ask.

There is only one answer when they ask, and that is NO. You can be assured that will mean that they'll return with a warrant, but if you got nothing to hide the warrant will be a waste of time.

One commenter at SayUncle believes this is a conspiracy to violate civil rights. I'm not certain of that, but it is an interesting argument.

Bush Action on Iraq

Bush still doesn't get it. He's still not telling the public anything, and that is when he's at his worst. After reading the Rumsfeld memo and the report for the Iraq Study Group, it strikes me that there has to be a lot of things that can be set into motion immediately. Not only should he start the easy and effective things into immediate motion, but he should tell the public what is being done and what the time frame is for further actions. Jobs programs, infrastructure work, Police training, embedded trainers in the military. These are all initial steps that should be at least in motion as we speak.

My frustration relates to why Bush is delaying and then not informing the public. Yes, it is for a political purpose, and informing the public will get you some support. No doubt there will be loud screeching from the left on why he just doesn't do all the recommendations of the Iraq study group, but any honest analysis will show that some of the recommendations are difficult, some are completely useless, and some are unlikely to succeed. That doesn't mean you can't start with the best ones ASAP and make further changes as you proceed.

Now, Senator Nelson goes to Syria, and Bush is objecting. Not that Nelson can negotiate anything in the name of the US. Bush should have let the DoS object and then left it alone.

Despite objections from the Bush administration, Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson met with Syria's president in Damascus on Wednesday and urged him to tighten his nation's border with Iraq, a major crossing point for arms and aid for the insurgency.

Nelson said President Bashar Assad told him Syria was willing to help control the border, but made no specific promises.

"We in fact have a common interest to stabilize Iraq," Nelson said in a conference call Wednesday from neighboring Jordan. "Assad clearly indicated the willingness to cooperate with the Americans and/or the Iraqi army to be part of a solution. I think it's a crack in the door for discussions to continue."

Nelson is the first senior U.S. official to meet with Assad since the bipartisan Iraq Study Group called for reaching out to Iraq's neighbors, Syria and Iran, to help find a solution to the Iraq war.

This appears to be a major waste of time. Nelson is also playing politics on a big scale, but that's what politicians do when they can. It also strikes me that people constantly miss the point that Syria has no interest in seeing the US succeed in Iraq. The contention that they don't want to see a destabilize Iraq is ludicrous. Of course they want to see the US solution in Iraq to fail, which means there will be instability. The key is how much, and who gets the hegemony during the wash out when the US leaves. If Syria had the alleged desire for a stable Iraq, you'd think that they would have secured their borders rather than assisting the terrorists/jihadis getting to Iraq. There is something to be said for actions that they have already taken when analyzing what their intentions are and likely will continue to be.

As for the "crack in the door," that is just stupid. He doesn't set or even affect policy, so starting a dialog that has nothing as a base gets you nothing.

Nelson said he would report to the State Department and the Senate, where he serves on the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees. He also was named this week to the Intelligence Committee.

"I approach all of these discussions with realism, not optimism," he said.

The trip to the Middle East had been planned for some time but Nelson added the stop in Syria after last week's release of the Iraq Study Group report.

Realism? Seeing as this is a last minute change, it looks like grand-standing to me.

Nelson said other senators, including Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, John Kerry of Massachusetts and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, were expected to visit Syria in the coming weeks.

Oh, good. A bunch of dimwits will be going to Syria. Hope they can all get air time with Assad. I'm certain they'll be of wonderful assistance to getting Syria to stop supporting terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, and in sealing the Iraq border.

The Iraq Study Group report of course has been taking a beating. They have some things factually wrong, such as the DIA resources for Iraq.

Last week's report from the study group, led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Rep. Lee H. Hamilton, said the agency had fewer than 10 analysts with more than two years of experience studying the insurgency.

"Capable analysts are rotated to new assignments, and on-the-job training begins anew," the 10-member bipartisan commission said.

In a statement, the agency said it wanted to correct the record.

"The Defense Intelligence Agency has more than 300 dedicated analysts focused on the many complexities of Iraq," the statement said. "They include a core cadre of 49 analysts focused exclusively on the insurgency, at least half of whom have more than two years experience working this issue."

This isn't really that big of a deal, other than the fact that an Intelligence agency is openly stating resources to a specific region. That strikes me as a bit foolhardy. Better to leave the enemy thinking you're incompetent than indicate your true ability.

The problems with the Iraqi politicians take on the report don't bode well either.

The president also had a 15-minute telephone conversation with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who a few days ago sharply criticized the Iraq Study Group report.

In a written statement, Talabani said that Bush assured him that he would make no decisions on his new Iraq strategy that would be "against your interests," telling Talabani that he supports his efforts to achieve national reconciliation.

Talabani, the statement said, thanked Bush for his role in the liberation of Iraq and said the Iraqi government is moving forward. He pledged to work with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on his efforts to implement a Baghdad security plan and to initiate a national reconciliation project.

It still strikes me as there is far too much of one side saying "do it all" and many just throwing the report away as a complete waste. There are good recommendations in the report. The militia laws, the economic incentives, infrastructure work, embedded trainers for the military, military supplies and infrastructure for the Iraq military. No doubt it will take time to get the best of the recommendations acted upon, but some can be enacted quickly, and even those that take longer should be spoken to for the public edification.

There also is a point on Bush's complaint of being rushed. That just doesn't fit. Not all recommendations require immediate activity, but the really good ones should be moved on immediately.

President Bush on Wednesday defended his decision to put off his widely anticipated shift in Iraq policy until early next year, saying he wanted his new Defense secretary to weigh in and warning he would not be rushed into making a decision on how to proceed.

As part of his review, Bush held another round of discussions with senior officials involved in Iraq planning, this time meeting the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon, along with outgoing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his successor, former CIA Director Robert M. Gates.

Although Bush declined to comment on the advice he received from the military leaders, Pentagon officials have said in recent days that top uniformed officers largely have rejected recommendations made by the Iraq Study Group to withdraw most combat forces over the next 15 months, a rejection Bush appeared to agree with.

Instead, many military commanders have voiced support for a sharp increase in troops as part of a last-ditch effort to restore order, a suggestion Bush has not rejected.

No doubt the new Defense Secretary needs to be involved, but that doesn't mean that there need be delay in some of the actions that don't require his input. The militia laws will have to be part of an Iraqi and military agreement. Personally, I think these are extremely important. There seems to be very little in the press regarding this very important military part of the solution.

My greatest frustration remains Bush's inability to talk to the public. I don't care if he says it himself or press releases it, but some indication of where they are going would be better than listening to the the pundits who refuse to wait and continue to babble on about where could be going or not. Far to much of the commentary out there is just noise and could easily be extinguished with a simple statement of the immediate actions and process that is being performed.

Leahy Tirade

Looks like the Judiciary committee will be worse than usual. Vermont's knee jerking Senator is expecting bipartisanship for his crusade against all things Bush. Personally, I hope the Repubs give him the same level of cooperation that he gave them, nearly none at all.

Incoming Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy said yesterday that he plans to rein in President Bush's program of wiretapping without warrants, rewrite the policy for handling terrorism detainees and more closely scrutinize nominees to the federal courts.

"As a Democratic majority prepares to take the lead on the Judiciary Committee, we do not have the luxury of starting with a completely clean slate," the Vermont Democrat told an audience at Georgetown University Law Center. "We begin knowing that we have a duty to repair real damage done to our system of government over the last few years."

Mr. Leahy accused Mr. Bush of "corrosive unilateralism," eroding the privacy rights of Americans, erasing constitutional checks and balances, and "packing" the federal judiciary.

How is it that all but one of the Dems that have been briefed on the NSA wiretapping have seen no issue with how things are being done? Feingold, being the only objector, is by far in the minority. Leahy, who hasn't been briefed, is screeching violations of privacy rights, though he has no evidence to back that claim. If the program was as far out of the mainstream as he appears to think, you'd think that those Dems that were briefed would have affirmed that stand. Especially since they've had years to do so and for easy political gain.

You have to love the "corrosive unilateralism" statement. If that were true the Intelligence committees, in both houses, that were briefed, would have stood up and taken the program down. As for packing the federal judiciary, that is so laughable that it's sad. He's been in office long enough to have assisted in packing in huge numbers of liberal judges and can only complain when the opposition party tries to seek some balance.

"I came to the Senate during the ebb tide of Vietnam and Watergate. In my 32 years since then in the Senate, I have never seen a Congress so willfully derelict in its duties," Mr. Leahy said. "This has been an unfortunate chapter in Congress' history, a time when our Constitution was under assault, when our legal and human rights were weakened, when our privacy and other freedoms were eroded."

I hope the public in general isn't so stupid as to believe this claptrap. Erosion in this case was legislated for the most part and it all has been given a time limit. Let's not forget also that it's the erosion that the likes of Leahy don't approve of, but if it were gun rights or some other pet peeve, that would be just fine with Leahy. None of these politicos seems ever to support enforcement of all rights, just those they think are appropriate.

"Protecting legitimate privacy rights while ensuring the safety and security of the American people from terrorists is not a zero-sum game," he said in response to Mr. Leahy's comments. "We have done and can do both. Indeed, we should be seeking ways to add more tools to fight terrorists, not begin dismantling the effective laws Congress has passed in recent years."

This guy is like a squeaky wheel. And again, since he doesn't know the extent of the protections put in place by the Administration, he really has no clear basis for his statement.

Mr. Leahy criticized Bush nominations to the federal bench. "For too long, this White House has used judicial nominations for partisan political purposes and refused to work with us on consensus nominees," he said.

Must be aggravating for him to have to go through what Clinton did while he was in office. Dems don't put in consensus nominees, so why would he expect Repubs to do that? Well, it sounds good to vilify the opposition. It makes politics the blood sport that it is.

Those remarks reopened a rift with conservatives, who see only partisan politics in Senate Democrats' filibusters of several nominations.

Mr. Levey said Mr. Leahy's calls for consultation overlook the Constitution, which gives the president the "sole power of appointing judges."

"Leahy apparently views himself as the president's partner in selecting nominees, rather than as part of the limited advice-and-consent process envisioned for the Senate by the Constitution," he said. "Moreover, when Senator Leahy speaks of wanting 'consensus' judicial nominees, what he appears to have in mind are nominees that are acceptable to the coalition of ultraliberal groups that have orchestrated much of the opposition to the president's judicial picks."

Well, Leahy's preparing the battlefield. Hope he appreciates what he has incited.

Libertarian Vote

Certain reader's have previously emphatically stated that Libertarians wouldn't vote Democrat. Well, looks like there's some evidence that he didn't know what he was talking about.

In our study, "The Libertarian Vote," we analyzed 16 years of polling data and found that libertarians constituted 13 percent of the electorate in 2004. Because libertarians are better educated and more likely to vote, they were 15 percent of actual voters.

Libertarians are broadly defined as people who favor less government in both economic and personal issues. They might be summed up as "fiscally conservative, socially liberal" voters.

In the past, our research shows, most libertarians voted Republican—72 percent for George W. Bush in 2000, for instance, with only 20 percent for Al Gore, and 70 percent for Republican congressional candidates in 2002. But in 2004, presumably turned off by war, wiretapping, and welfare-state spending sprees, they shifted sharply toward the Democrats. John F. Kerry got 38 percent of the libertarian vote. That was a dramatic swing that Republican strategists should have noticed. But somehow the libertarian vote has remained hidden in plain sight.

This year we commissioned a nationwide post-election survey of 1013 voters from Zogby International. We again found that 15 percent of the voters held libertarian views. We also found a further swing of libertarians away from Republican candidates. In 2006, libertarians voted 59-36 for Republican congressional candidates—a 24-point swing from the 2002 mid-term election. To put this in perspective, front-page stories since the election have reported the dramatic 7-point shift of white conservative evangelicals away from the Republicans. The libertarian vote is about the same size as the religious right vote measured in exit polls, and it is subject to swings more than three times as large.

Well, what do you know, I was right. Libertarians do poll over a spectrum of beliefs and thus do vote on both sides of the two party system.

Byrd Blocking Earmarks?

A true sign of the coming apocalypse.

ONE OF THE MASTERS of pork-barrel politics in Washington is the dean of the Senate Democrats, Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia. Eager to funnel tax dollars back to his state for roads, sewers, clinics and other projects, Byrd has been a tenacious defender of "earmarking" — the formal term for a lawmaker directing federal money to a pet local project.

That's why it was stunning to hear Byrd, the incoming chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee, and his House counterpart, Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wis.), announce that they wouldn't support any earmarks for the rest of the fiscal year, ending Sept. 30. All the projects previously approved by either the House or the Senate in nine yet-to-be-completed spending bills — nearly 10,000 projects costing about $17 billion, according to Citizens Against Government Waste — will be dropped.

I'd be more convinced of their sincerity if they would legislate earmarks out of existence, but that is a bit too much to hope for. But I will applaud them for taking this action.

It's a welcome shift in the way Washington does business, even if it may only be temporary. In a statement released Monday, Byrd and Obey said they would support earmarks again after "a reformed process is put in place," including "new standards for transparency and accountability." Longtime appropriations veterans, Byrd and Obey believe that it's proper for lawmakers to steer funds toward specific projects. But they're also astute enough to recognize how corrupt the process had become and to see the damage it was causing to the institution each has served for more than three decades.

I'll believe it when I see it. The Rethugs better jump on this and be seen as even more restrictive if they want to survive. They didn't get any reform of any importance through on this in the last year, so they had best be seen to be enthusiastic on these reforms.

Shockingly, the LATimes actually concludes this article intelligently:

Ultimately, the test will be how far Congress goes in the name of earmark reform. If lawmakers agree to disclose not only the sponsors of each pet project and tax break but the interest groups that sought them, the lobbyists involved and the campaign donations that flowed, then Byrd and Obey's action will be more than a mere timeout. It will be a watershed moment in the cause of clean government.

Now, what will they do to start reducing the size of government?

Slip of the Lip?

Israel's ownership of Nukes shouldn't be much of a surprise. Funny how Olmert's comments are causing such a stir.

"Iran openly, explicitly and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map," Olmert said. "Can you say that this is the same level, when you are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel, Russia?"

Israel's newspapers reported the remark Tuesday under front-page headlines, one calling it a "nuclear slip of the lip."

Olmert's office said the quote was taken out of context and that he had been listing "responsible nations," not nuclear states. Aides also noted that the prime minister had refused several times during the interview to confirm that Israel has nuclear weapons and that he had spoken in English, not his native language.

Regardless, his critics pounced on the centrist prime minister for undermining a hallowed tenet of Israel's defense policy.

Seeing that Israel isn't a part of the NPT, I don't see that this matters a great deal to the rest of the world much. Those calling for Israel's destruction likely already understand that Israel won't be extending their necks if attacked.

He also told the participants, "Thanks to people's wishes and God's will the trend for the existence of the Zionist regime is downwards and this is what God has promised and what all nations want.

"Just as the Soviet Union was wiped out and today does not exist, so will the Zionist regime soon be wiped out."

Ahmadinejad was cheered by the delegates as he made the scathing remarks. The 60 plus attendees included several writers, hardcore opponents of Israel and the so-called believers in the "white supremacy". Many of them made presentations doubting the existence of gas chambers and concentration camps that were used by the Nazi Germany to exterminate the Jews and other "undesirable" people and arguing that the claims of the Holocaust were fabricated or exaggerated. Among the attendees was David Duke, former Ku Klux Klan leader, who spoke at the conference saying Israel feared an inquiry into the Holocaust more than a nuclear bomb from Iran.

It's nice to note that the prominent nut jobs from the US showed up to this gathering. Though I'm surprised Jemma didn't participate. Seems to be along the lines of many of his arguments against Israel during his lifetime.

This whole issue makes one wonder if Ahmadinejad and his ilk are Moslems advocating apocalyptic views. In many ways that would explain a lot of the rhetoric that must be understood as lowering the gates that restrict Israel from using its arsenal should the be attacked.

Obama Nausea

Not nausea related to Obama himself, but more for the fauning and breathless admiration for him. Frankly, he hasn't presented his position on much of anything and the crowds seem to be going into convulsions every time he shows up at a democratic event.

Barack Obama-mania landed in New Hampshire over the weekend, when the man many have the audacity to hope will bring the Democrats the presidency in 2008 paid a visit to the site of the first Presidential primary. A fundraiser for the New Hampshire Democratic Party, originally intended for about 500 people, sold more than 1500 tickets to people from 13 states — and that didn't include the more than 100 reporters who showed up. Seven hundred came to another event to hear Obama speak and sign copies of his best-selling book. "It harkens back to RFK," said Lou D'Allesandro, a New Hampshire state senator, "all of the new people coming out. And this phenomenon is country-wide."

RFK? Next he'll be the new JFK. And from the looks of how the cattle are fainting away every time he shows up, I don't doubt he's getting the same reactions. Just what we need, another president voted in based on his looks and carisma rather than on his abilities.

And his audiences were not disappointed. "He was so inspiring," said Sarah Blodgett, a 30-year-old who drove 30 minutes from her Massachusetts home to attend an Obama book signing in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. "He had me on the verge of tears. No politician has been this eloquent and this personable in years."

Cattle. "Verge of tears?" Sweet Brighid give me strength.

I saw the film footage on the news of Obama in Portsmouth, and as usual, the politicians always seem to choose the worst part of the square to stop. Why can't they move to the big part of the square in front of the church. They always seem to stand right where the three incoming roads converge. It's the smallest part and has the most traffic, and frankly the frig up the whole place. I always hated having to deal with this crap when I lived there. Now I'm just happy I don't have to.

Well, let's hope Obama is more substance than looks. No doubt the cattle will follow along irrespective of that, but one can hope.

9th Circuit Overturned Again

No big shock here.

The Supreme Court today unanimously upheld the conviction of a California man who had contended that he was denied a fair trial because people sitting in the courtroom were wearing pictures of the man he killed.

The justices ruled, in a case that addressed the relationship between federal and state courts as well as the conduct of courtroom spectators, that Mathew Musladin was not entitled to a new trial in the 1994 slaying of Tom Studer outside the San Jose home of Mr. Musladin’s estranged wife, Pamela.

Mr. Musladin admitted that he shot Mr. Studer to death, but he claimed that he did so in self-defense. After a two-week trial in which some of Mr. Studer’s relatives sat behind prosecutors while wearing small pictures of the victim, the jury found Mr. Musladin guilty. He was sentenced to more than 30 years in prison.

In today’s ruling, the justices overturned a finding by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, which had held that the California state courts and a federal district court erred in rejecting Mr. Musladin’s bid for a new trial. Today’s ruling revolved around the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, by which Congress curbed the power of federal judges to grant habeas corpus petitions to review state court convictions.

Of course the decision also came with this from the most liberal conservative ever to come from NH.

And today’s decision may not be the last word on the issue of spectator conduct, to judge by the words of Justice , one of three justices who wrote separate opinions concurring in today’s judgment. From a defendant’s standpoint, Justice Souter wrote, it does not matter if the issue is official conduct — putting a defendant in shackles or prison garb, for instance — or personal behavior, like wearing pictures of the victim.

Either way, the trial judge has an affirmative obligation to control the courtroom and keep it free of improper influence,” Justice Souter wrote, adding that “one could not seriously deny that allowing spectators to wear visible buttons with the victim’s photo can raise a risk of improper considerations.”

It almost pushes me to the opinion that the court observers should be screened from the official trial participants. That way there would be no second guessing on any even slightly tenuous situations. The observers would still be witness to the proceedings but would not influence the jury directly.

Of course, having the whole Supreme Court overturn your ruling should really make one pause. Another reason why there should be some kind of review of judges with in the judiciary system.

Goodbye Kofi, and Good Riddance

A parting shot from Kofi Annan, the man who oversaw the most corrupt and useless UN ever.

Annan, who steps down at the end of the month, to be succeeded by Ban Ki Moon of South Korea, said, "We need US leadership; we have lots of problems around the world . . . and we require the natural leadership role the US played in the past and can play today."

"None of our global institutions can accomplish much when the US remains aloof. But when it is fully engaged, the sky's the limit," he said.

Right. mainly due to the fact that the US has to initiate any military action because the rest of the world refuses to do the really nasty jobs, and the US has to pay for most of them in any case.

"When power, especially military force, is used, the world will consider it legitimate only when convinced that it is being used for the right purpose -- for broadly shared aims -- in accordance with broadly accepted norms," Annan said.

How very predictable. Again the UN is stating that the US can't defend itself unless the UN says it's ok, and then you can be assured that we'll be criticized beyond all reason for being the most restrained of actors the world has ever known.

The United States has historically been a leader in human rights, Annan added. "When it appears to abandon its own ideals and objectives, its friends abroad are naturally troubled and confused," he said in an apparent reference to charges of abuse at US prisons at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Iraq's Abu Ghraib.

Annan seems to miss a point on context. The US has always followed its ideals, and primary to those ideas is that we don't allow others to murder our citizens. Most of the anti-war crowd and the sanctimonious liberals in this country seem to miss this point. It's fine with them that US citizens die from terrorist attacks, just as long as it isn't their relations.

I'm so very glad Annan is nearly out. Maybe the UN will actually start reforming some time in the near future. I won't hold my breath though.

Sheehan Again the Voice of Unreason

I wasn't going to even mention this, but every time she opens her mouth I'm astounded at what crap falls out. This is what she had to say after her trespassing conviction where she got a little scolding and told to go home.

"We should never have been on trial in the first place," Sheehan said in a statement after the verdict. "It's George Bush and his cronies who should be on trial, not peaceful women trying to stop this devastating war. This verdict, however, will not stop us from continuing to work tirelessly to bring our troops home."

Devastating? How is this devastating? The US has used incredible levels of restraint unseen on any battle field anywhere at any time. Devastating? No likely.

The women, calling their campaign "Women Say No To War," had hoped to give the petition to Peggy Kerry, the mission's liaison for non governmental organizations and sister of Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, as they had in 2005.

Peggy Kerry refused to meet with the women in the presence of Sheehan and the media. She testified that the presentation seemed like a publicity stunt.

Publicity stunt? You don't say.

The women ignored police orders to leave and were reading the petition aloud on the sidewalk when officers arrested them. The women sat on the sidewalk and were carried to patrol wagons.

The women asked for an apology yesterday when they returned to the US Mission and resubmitted the petition.

No report here on whether they received any apology, but frankly, I don't see why anyone would. They acted like dingbats and were treated as such. If you or I had done this I'm betting we'd have gotten a lot more of a fine or time.

They were met by Peggy Kerry and Richard A. Grenell, the mission's director of external affairs, who said the women apparently were unable to find the original petition and handed over a document bearing 32 signatures.

That's just precious. They lost the petition. Everyone say it with me. LOSER!

Review of the Holocaust: Global ReVision

If you wanted an honest look at history, not to mention the holocaust, would you really want to do it in Iran?

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran on Monday opened a Holocaust conference that it said would examine whether the genocide took place, claiming the meeting was an opportunity for discussion in an atmosphere free of Western taboos.

The conference, "Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision," was initiated by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has described the Holocaust as a "myth" and called for Israel to be wiped off the map. Even before it opened, the gathering was condemned by Germany, the United States and Israel.

The organizers, the Foreign Ministry's Institute for Political and International Studies, say the two-day conference has drawn 67 foreign researchers from 30 countries.

In his opening speech, the institute's chief, Rasoul Mousavi, said the conference provided an opportunity to discuss "questions" about the Holocaust away from Western taboos and the restrictions imposed on scholars in Europe.

In Germany, Austria and France, it is illegal to deny the Holocaust.

"This conference seeks neither to deny nor prove the Holocaust," Mousavi said. "It is just to provide an appropriate scientific atmosphere for scholars to offer their opinions in freedom about a historical issue."

Right. Not out there to prove or deny, just going to discuss it. You can be certain that they will give an honest assessment at the end of the conference that it never happened.

How to Win a Guerrilla War

This is a reprint of T.X. Hammes article originally from Nov. 25 in the WaPo. I'm frankly surprised that my local communist rag chose to print it. Hammes doesn't really give you much on the title theme, but he does tell you a bunch of resources on getting actual resources to read on the topic. I already have all of the books he mentions, and I have looked up many of the articles. There is an especially good reference to multiple articles at the Small Wars Journal.

Hammes does give some perspective relevant to the present conflict in Iraq, which I have stated before, but it's nice to have affirmation from a professional.

But complicating our problem today is the fact that insurgencies are no longer the unified, hierarchical organizations that the Chinese, and later the Vietnamese, developed from the 1920s to the 1960s. Rather, they are loose coalitions unified only by the desire to drive out an outside power. All elements of the insurgency know that when the outside power is gone, they will fight a civil war to resolve their differences. Learning to adjust is the key to success in counterinsurgency. Conventional military weakness forces insurgents to be adaptable, so defeating them requires coherent, patient action – encompassing a range of political, economic, social and military activities – that can only be executed by a team drawn from all parts of government. You don’t outfight the insurgent. You outgovern him.

This was one of the real sources of frustration during my brief tour of duty in Iraq in 2004. The United States had clearly failed to learn from previous insurgencies. We were focused on killing insurgents rather than providing security and governance. Fortunately, we’re now showing signs of learning – thanks to some smart people who are both practitioners and students of counterinsurgency.

The "outgovern" part is pretty telling. It is also the major failure for the US policy so far. It didn't start down the government role at the beginning and was slow to get started. I'd say it still is falling behind, unfortunately due to the present man in control of the Iraqi government. The military also didn't refocus in a timely manner, though that is a major judgment call. They did go from an active combat phase against a fairly sizable, if not capable, military force. In the best Monday morning quarter back style, it appears that the military didn't shift to counterinsurgency operations in a timely manner and things have been sliding around to the worse for it.

Journal articles offer another rich vein of enlightenment on the conduct of counterinsurgency. In “Best Practices in Counterinsurgency,” in the May-June 2005 issue of Military Review, Kalev I. Sepp, a former Special Forces officer and now professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, studied 51 recent counterinsurgencies to develop a list of 12 “best practices” common to all successful ones, and nine “worst practices” of the unsuccessful ones. Sadly, in Iraq, the United States scores below 50 percent on the first and above 50 percent on the second.

The Sepp article he mentions I believe is here. You can also see a slide presentation that appears to go along with the article that is linked on the Small Wars Journal link above. Sepp goes into the various things that need to be done, and they are telling for what the US hasn't been doing, or in reality has been having a great deal of difficulty getting in place. Here are some of them:

Human rights. The security of the people must be assured as a basic need, along with food, water, shelter, health care, and a means of living. These are human rights, along with freedom of worship, access to education, and equal rights for women.

I always wonder about this one. It must be one of the hardest parts due to being the easiest thing to attack from the point of the insurgency. They don't have to necessarily supply human rights, but they can destroy the infrastructure that provides the means of living that the coalition attempts to provide. It always strikes me as odd that the people in the regions that lose these means of living don't hold the insurgents more to blame.

Law enforcement. Intelligence operations that help detect terrorist insurgents for arrest and prosecution are the single most important practice to protect a population from threats to its security. Honest, trained, robust police forces responsible for security can gather intelligence at the community level. Historically, robustness in wartime requires a ratio of 20 police and auxiliaries for each 1,000 civilians.

This one has been especially difficult. The insurgents have been using the police forces against the people, and between the fake police uniforms and the infiltration of the police forces, not to mention the sectarian violence perpetrated by the police, this has been a real mess. Part of a solution would be to use the military in this role and rotate them periodically to different areas to ensure that they don't become an entrenched problem. The problem with that is that they don't become familiar with an area and understand who belongs and who doesn't, making them less effective. Using police from the locality that they patrol isn't a good idea because it will allow entrenchment of sectarian police who won't work to secure all of the population, but bringing outside police won't solve that problem either. Very difficult problem.

Population control. Insurgents rely on members of the population for concealment, sustenance, and recruits, so they must be isolated from the people by all means possible. Among the most effective means are such population-control measures as vehicle and personnel checkpoints and national identity cards.

This is another extremely difficult problem, especially in Baghdad. The Sectarian conflicts as well as tribal conflicts have populations directly adjacent to each other. The insurgents use these zones to attack and then hide. They attack the US military and neighboring sects. These attacks prolong the fighting and continue to stir up sectarian violence which causes the human rights issue to be aggravated. I can see why in many of the insurgencies in history why the political powers took to segregating populations and placing them into "concentration camps." That's sounds worse than it was in reality. These mostly enabled law enforcement to clearly understand who belonged and who didn't and allowed for controlling the populations supplying the insurgents. This clearly isn't possible with Baghdad. Several million people aren't readily segregated.

Political process. Informational campaigns explain to the population what they can do to help their government make them secure from terrorist insurgents; encourage participation in the political process by voting in local and national elections; and convince insurgents they can best meet their personal interests and avoid the risk of imprisonment or death by reintegrating themselves into the population through amnesty, rehabilitation, or by simply not fighting.

It appears this process has been somewhat more effective, but the integration of more of the Baathists back into the political and governmental processes is still an issue. It has been making more headway as of recent times with the allowance of more Baathist civil servants. Unfortunately, many of the insurgents are foreign and have no interest in becoming part of a solution to fix Iraq.

Counterinsurgent warfare. Allied military forces and advisory teams, organized to support police forces and fight insurgents, can bolster security until indigenous security forces are competent to perform these tasks without allied assistance. In the U.S. Armed Forces, only the Special Forces (SF) are expressly organized and trained for counterinsurgent warfare and advising indigenous forces.

The US military has been better at this, but I'm still of the opinion that they aren't doing so well due to any ability to hold the regions they clear. Special Forces have been a large contingency in Iraq as in Afghanistan. It is difficult to understand their effectiveness due to the greater secrecy usually attributed to their actions.

Securing borders. Border crossings must be restricted to deny terrorist insurgents a sanctuary and to enhance national sovereignty. Police and military rapid-reaction units can respond to or spoil major insurgent attacks. Special-mission units can perform direct-action operations to rescue hostages, and select infantrymen can conduct raids.

The border control issue on the other hand has been poor. Especially with the issue of Iran and Syria both being parties who would gladly see the US fail in the region. The large border regions would require a large contingency to patrol, but with the UAV technology, you'd think this would be easier.

Executive authority. Emergency conditions dictate that a government needs a single, fully empowered executive to direct and coordinate counterinsurgency efforts. Power-sharing among political bodies, while appropriate and necessary in peacetime, presents wartime vulnerabilities and gaps in coordination that insurgents can exploit.

I'm not very up-to-date on this topic. I know that the politicos have been clawing at getting a say on how operations are run in Iraq, and with the Iraq Study Group results it has gotten worse. From what little I have gleaned, Bush has empowered Abizaid to have a great deal of control on this, but without better information, it is hard to know how well this has been accomplished.

There is more of course, especially the section on failures in historical counterinsurgency. The Hammes Op-Ed does provide a list of good resources if you're interested in the topic.