Postmodern classic?

The moral dilemma

2007-03-05T03:29:00.000+03:00

"Anna Nicole Smith was not only a stupid sex symbol. She was a symbol for stupid sex."

I ran across this article at TCS which discussed Anna Nicole Smith, and I was very impressed with it, forget who recommended it first (might've been Winds of Change). It really delved deep into why she dominated the media coverage over the past week, what kind of example she led and the people who were fascinated by it. I heartily recommend it for full reading.

On another level, I was just thinking of the more influential books I've read, and I keep coming back to W. Somerset Maugham's 'The Razors Edge'. Wikipedia does a good review of it, with a plot summary and note that he kind of anticipates the Beats look towards the East, as his character Larry changed his life in India to aspire to happiness. But the moral at the end of the story is what really gets me, time after time.

Maugham ends his narrative by suggesting that all the characters got what they wanted in the end: "Elliott social eminence; Isabel an assured position; . . . Sophie death; and Larry happiness."

It's an interesting dilemma, I think- not that life is suffering, in the Eastern sense- but the Western sense of nihilism that follows the aftermath of achieving your goal, and not being able to cope with it or the consequences. I find that remarkably prescient when I look at certain things in my life, as you have to make certain compromises and sacrifices to do the things you want. Sometimes it seems I'm headed down that track. One of the things that is evident to me at this moment is the mess my personal life has become and I wonder if that's related. Maybe I'm just a little down at the moment. Not quite nihilism, but I understand...

Too much cynicism: time for a break?

2007-02-16T06:48:00.000+03:00

Well, what to write. Here I am, approaching gainful employment soon enough and nothing to say. I've linked to a few articles of interest, but I think I'm about done with the blog for the moment.

Lieutenant General William Odom wrote an Opus this last Sunday on how we can't win in Iraq. Then he elaborates more on Hugh Hewitt's show on why we can't win anywhere- North Korea, Iran, Libya, etc... You really can't waste much more time on this guy. You'd think he'd have learned something from his years in the military. A typical candidate to make the case for 'Playing at War'. Let's wake up one day, in the midst of people shooting and trying to blow us up for the last 30 years that we've been ignoring, and do our best not to learn anything from our past failures; let's repeat the same exact mistakes and call it realism. Hard to believe, but this is what America pays more than a half a billion dollars on defense spending for. No wonder many others, in search of effective foreign policy, are looking to other options. A more articulate presentation of this dilemma is the Parameters article 'Toward an American Way of War' by LTC Echevarria, which argues that America doesn't have a way of war but of battle. A cursory glance at this brings up the possibility that the political stability of our republic that creates this 'bifurcation' and subordination of the military to the elected representatives is stabilizing politically, but short-sighted strategically.

So we have to leave it to others to make the case for 'victory' since our president sure doesn't seem up to it. That's what I think, until I actually hear what he says and read the transcripts of his speeches. This discrepancy is puzzling. Then I start to think those cynical thoughts about why doesn't his rhetoric get the amplification effect of say, Ahmadinejad or any other Arab/Middle East dictator with a smooth tongue. You'd think the President of the United States would be listened to, but evidently not. It comes back to politics, politics, politics... politics where myths of the Iraq war are presented as fact, 'anti-military' military experts are taken seriously, and other follies of the present day.

I'm too young to be this cynical. Fucking hell. Despite these great reports following events developing in the Philippines or light-hearted cultural commentary in other places, as well as a video of the Chinese soldiers killing the Tibetans. And here is a great article on the Chinese language, demolishing those old myths about the character 'danger', which actually means that: danger, as in not some weird crisis/opportunity philosophical kick. Or perhaps a brief history on the carbine, via Wikipedia. Instead I'll just stick to humor. Here is a funny Japanese multimedia presentation that follows your mouse, and some idealistic commentary on 'Solving Racism' and other things that college kids do. Or if you haven't heard any Chuck Norris jokes... you are a sorry son of a gun.

So: I don't expect to be around for a while. I'll be taking a hiatus from this while I wait and see what's next on the agenda for me. Cheers to all!

Supporting the troops but not the mission?!?

2007-02-01T16:42:00.000+03:00

Ah, the blogosphere- where one's words are preserved in eternity. For better or for worse. While good portions of the blogosphere are anonymous, such as where you are visiting today, a growing portion chooses to use their actual names in order to have a more credible and approachable character. Using your name means that you stand behind your words. Which could be why journalism maintained it's character and reputation for so long. I stand behind mine, but I prefer the comfort of anonymity to avoid potential professional repercussions. I am not searching for some kind of sensationalist recognition, long-time readers know that this blog is more for my friends and family. Among those services I provide for my readers is to bring up the hot topics circulating in the blogosphere which might be missed in the major papers and media networks of our day, except maybe in tardy corrections or slyly-placed and obscure references. One of the nice things about blogs is that you can pretty much instantly check their references and make your judgment based on that aspect as well.

Today's topic is a certain William Arkin of the Washington Post, in some kind of position as a homeland security/military expert actually, having written an interesting little ditty about how the 'troops need to support America'. Innovative twist, let's just say... based on some video footage of troops grumbling to NBC Nightly News journalists visiting Iraq (Youtube footage here). I, and many bloggers with differing relationships to the military, felt that it was refreshing to hear our soldiers talk about how political differences back here affect them. However, our friend Mr. Arkin, has another perspective. Hint: political conflicts are not so abstract and sterile when you are at the point of the spear, but I digress. Oh, you should definitely read it.

I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon and offer my own refutation, since notable bloggers at QandO and Blackfive have already done so. Armed Liberal at Winds of Change has an interesting point of view as well, pointing out some of Mr. Arkins previous work (here too). John at OpFor really has the final say on it.

If there is a war that's unwinnable, it's the war on this type of horrid ignorance. The type of uniformed, intellectually lazy thinking that can only exist in the sheltered bubble of cocktail parties and classrooms. Arkin is a gazer. A man forever condemned to peering out the window into the real world, watching the exertions of men better than himself. And yet he fancies himself the educated one. Any logical human being would trade career in journalism for the expertise gained by serving a mere one month in the box, yet this slime fancies his opinion so informed, so expert, so utterly irrefutable that even the very soldiers who are fighting this war are shamefully ignorant for daring to challenge his infallibility.

That does seem to be the case in the current political climate. Our effete leaders cravenly following misleading polls and criminally warped media coverage to determine the fate of our military overseas. You expect that from one side, but the Republicans are now in the midst of this fever as well. In the words of the Roman rhetorician:

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague."
--- Marcus Tullius Cicero quotes (Ancient Roman Lawyer, Writer, Scholar, Orator and Statesman, 106 BC-43 BC)

I'm going to do my best not to waste any more time on this issue. It's all out there on the web if you want to find it. I don't present this because I feel victimized by it's slanderous tone- my skin is thicker than that. I bring it for you to see and judge because I like to know of the face of those who would become my enemy, hiding under duplicitous Orwellian Newspeak, especially when that facade somehow slips in cases like this. But I wouldn't go so far as to say that this guy is treasonous. I'm just saying I wouldn't trust him in the foxhole next to me.

Alternatives to the Surge

2007-01-31T15:51:00.000+03:00

One thing I've tried to discuss among my friends is a counterintuitive version of 'The Surge'. The closest I've seen to it is the Westhawk plan, which is superb, but it still doesn't articulate exactly what I would want, based on my experiences in Iraq. Because back here, people seem to be rather ignorant of the stakes and what's actually going on outside of these narrow partisan sniping events. It's not really all their fault; one could look to the fact that the elite of our country, who make up the majority the journalist profession from whom we are relying on for information(even if less and less), are profoundly ignorant on most military and many international subjects due to certain cultural trends tracing back more than a generation. That could have something to do with it, if I'm right.

Basically, in regards to the situation in Iraq, I think the first step would be scaling back our objectives. Let's install a military dictatorship sympathetic to our aims and dependent on our training and materiel. If the Iraqi's choose to develop a democratic system, that must be done on their own volition. How to do that? Well, the first thing is to let the ISF take over! And they will mess it up, majorly. Like Fallujah at the moment, but that's another story. Change the damn ROE's so that the PFC's and 2LT's won't be looking over their back all the time.

Troop levels? We're not fighting attrition warfare and no general really needs the extra troops. Cut them in half or more. That's right- I'm for a 'strategic redeployment'. If you do it right and enforce an Iraqi solution (which might be a little short of international human rights standards even if it's more culturally 'sensititive') you will not need so many troops. To fight Iran, yeah, you'll need more. But numbers are the comfort of the weak and bureaucratic. If you only knew how much waste was going on... I am a die-hard military supporter, but I was frankly embarrassed by the PX's and just.... general state of unreality back in the FOB's, Camps and Forts. You don't need all those people! The guys who are actually making the difference don't need that shit. If someone does need all that crap, they are in the wrong line of business. War is for warriors. Anything more is just waste.

If I really wanted to express what I felt alongside the grunts, it would sound something like this Staff Sergeant from Afghanistan (via B5). I can't say it better, so I reproduced it in full below. It's blunt and equal opportunity, addressing the unique problems of our bureaucratic way of war alongside the political problems that are confronted on a daily basis. This is more than a soldiers rant; it's testimony to the obstacles confronted by the American way of war. Don't take it lightly.

Things that I am tired of in this war:

I am tired of Democrats saying they are patriotic and then insulting my commander in chief and the way he goes about his job.

I am tired of Democrats who tell me they support me, the soldier on the ground, and then tell me the best plan to win this war is with a “phased redeployment” (liberal-speak for retreat) out of the combat zone to someplace like Okinawa.

I am tired of the Democrats whining for months on T.V., in the New York Times, and in the House and Senate that we need more troops to win the war in Iraq, and then when my Commander in Chief plans to do just that, they say that is the wrong plan, it won’t work, and we need a “new direction.”

I am tired of every Battalion Sergeant Major and Command Sergeant Major I see over here being more concerned about whether or not I am wearing my uniform in the “spot on,” most garrison-like manner; instead of asking me whether or not I am getting the equipment I need to win the fight, the support I need from my chain of command, or if the chow tastes good.

I am tired of junior and senior officers continually doubting the technical expertise of junior enlisted soldiers who are trained far better to do the jobs they are trained for than these officers believe.

I am tired of senior officers and commanders who fight this war with more of an eye on the media than on the enemy, who desperately needs killing.

I am tired of the decisions of Sergeants and Privates made in the heat of battle being scrutinized by lawyers who were not there and will never really know the state of mind of the young soldiers who were there and what is asked of them in order to survive.

I am tired of CNN claiming that they are showing “news,” with videotape sent to them by terrorists, of my comrades being shot at by snipers, but refusing to show what happens when we build a school, pave a road, hand out food and water to children, or open a water treatment plant.

I am tired of following the enemy with drones that have cameras, and then dropping bombs that sometimes kill civilians; because we could do a better job of killing the right people by sending a man with a high powered rifle instead.

I am tired of the thousands of people in the rear who claim that they are working hard to support me when I see them with their mochas and their PX Bags walking down the street, in the middle of the day, nowhere near their workspaces.

I am tired of Code Pink, Daily Kos, Al-Jazzera, CNN, Reuters, the Associated Press, ABC, NBC, CBS, the ACLU, and CAIR thinking that they somehow get to have a vote in how we blast, shoot and kill these animals who would seek to subdue us and destroy us.

I am tired of people like Meredith Vieria from NBC asking oxygen thieves like Senator Chuck Hagel questions like “Senator, at this point, do you think we are fighting and dying for nothing?” Meredith might not get it, but soldiers do know the difference between fighting and dying for something and fighting and dying for nothing.

I am tired of hearing multiple stories from both combat theaters about snipers begging to do their jobs while commanders worry about how the media might portray the possible casualties and what might happen to their career.

I am tired of hearing that the Battalion Tactical Operations Center got a new plasma screen monitor for daily briefings, but rifle scope rings for sniper rifles, extra magazines, and necessary field gear were disapproved by the unit supply system.

I am tired of out of touch general officers, senators, congressmen and defense officials who think that giving me some more heavy body armor to wear is helping me stay alive. Speed is life in combat and wearing 55 to 90 pounds of gear for 12 to 20 hours a day puts me at a great tactical disadvantage to the idiot, mindless terrorist who is wearing no armor at all and carrying an AK-47 and a pistol.

I am tired of soldiers who are stationed in places like Kuwait and who are well away from any actual combat getting Hostile Fire/Imminent Danger Pay and the Combat Zone Tax Exclusion when they live on a base that has a McDonald’s, a Pizza Hut, a Subway, a Baskin Robbins, an internet café, 2 coffee shops and street lights.

I am tired of senior officers and commanders who take it out and "measure" every time they want to have a piece of the action with their helicopters or their artillery; instead of putting their egos aside and using their equipment to support the grunt on the ground.

I am tired of senior officers and commanders who are too afraid for their careers to tell the truth about what they need to win this war to their bosses so that the soldiers can get on with kicking the ass of these animals.

I am tired of Rules of Engagement being made by JAG lawyers and not Combat Commanders. We are not playing Hopscotch over here. There is no 2nd place trophy either. I think that if the enemy knew some rough treatment and some deprivation was at hand for them, instead of prayer rugs, special diets and free Korans; this might help get their terrorist minds “right.”

I am tired of seeing Active Duty Army and Marine units being extended past their original redeployment dates, when there are National Guard Units that have yet to deploy to a combat zone in the last 40 years.

I am tired of hearing soldiers who are stationed in safe places talk about how hard their life is.

I am tired of seeing Infantry Soldiers conducting what amounts to “SWAT” raids and performing the US Army’s version of “CSI Iraq” and doing things like filling out forms for evidence when they could be better used to hunt and kill the enemy.

I am tired of senior officers and commanders who look first in their planning for how many casualties we might take, instead of how many enemy casualties we might inflict.

I am tired of begging to be turned loose so that this war can be over.

Those of us who fight this war want to win it and go home to their families. Prolonging it with attempts to do things like collect “evidence” or present whiz bang briefings on a new plasma screen TV is wasteful and ultimately, dulls the edge of our Infantry soldiers who are trained to kill people and break things, not necessarily in that order.

We are not in Iraq and Afghanistan to build nations. We are there to kill our enemies. We make the work of the State Department easier by the results we achieve.

It is only possible to defeat an enemy who kills indiscriminately by utterly destroying him. He cannot be made to yield or surrender. He will fight to the death by the hundreds to kill only one or two of us.

And so far, all of our “games” have been “away games,” and I don’t know about the ignorant, treasonous Democrats and the completely insane radical leftists and their thoughts on the matter, but I would like to keep our road game schedule.

So let’s get it done. Until the fight is won and there is no more fight left.

-D

Internet media contributions

2007-01-29T04:39:00.000+03:00

Both of these courtesy of LGF. Behold the Duck of Peace!

January 2007 links

2007-01-27T17:27:00.000+03:00

Mozilla tabs overflowing: time to post, even if just to list links.

Tigerhawk came across this letter to the editor in 'The New Republic' which really articulates my complaints about the mainstream media coverage of Iraq and American engagement overseas (military or otherwise). So I'll reproduce it here before I get to the rest of my links.

Reading the Iraq issue provided a sense of what is going on there. It also provided a sense of the notions held by a few upper-middle-class people who earn their living thinking and writing in comfortable neighborhoods in Washington, D.C.; Princeton; Cambridge; Palo Alto; and other non-war zones in the United States where water, food, rule of law, and utilities are taken for granted. What one wonders after reading the issue is, of the 16 views published, why the editors chose not to publish any perspectives by a) Iraqis -- Sunni, Shia, or Kurd; b) American military personnel who served in Iraq; or c) anybody who lives and works in the neighboring countries. Wouldn't Iraqis and American military personnel be in a position to test the viability of the ideas expressed in The New Republic by writers who have negligible direct experience with the realities of this war? What your magazine does is publish articles by people with fine academic credentials who believe in the superiority of their thoughts and who do not realize how limited they are by the combination of their privileged experiences, their inadequate knowledge of the region and circumstances, and the influence of the safe cities in which they reside. The ability of author after author to reference the terminology of the region is impressive. Yet this capability amounts to a faux authority -- kind of like someone who can weave into his language references to musical terms but cannot play a melody. By publishing this issue, the editors conveyed the message that the only important views are those of people who are like the editors in professional background, temperament, and geographical comfort. Next time, dare to try the unconventional tack of asking Iraqis, American military personnel, and other affected people what they think should be done.

Moreover, it is striking that, in all the essays published, no author wrote a single sentence exploring why none of the recommendations expressed have been put into action. What is the point of holding a dinner party in which you serve dishes to which the guests are allergic? Finally, it is interesting to see the editors apologize for their espousal of the war, because this apology gives rise to the question: If reason alone (in contrast to reason coupled with the experience of people who are confronting the realities directly) led the editors to a wrong conclusion, what basis is there to believe that, this time around, reason alone -- from people far removed from the realities of the war -- will lead to the right conclusion?

It's always sad when an American serviceman dies in a conflict overseas. 2LT Mark Daily recently passed in Iraq, and Hugh Hewitt reproduced some of his last words. It's a testament to his resolve how he articulated the reasoning behind his actions, even with their fatal consequences. Contemplation of death is a part of any service members day-to-day life.

Nick Cohen wrote a very interesting two part (1, 2) piece on the intellectual conflict between left and right and what the present conflict in Iraq means to otherwise ethical protesters. Christopher Hitchens echoes that schizophrenic aspect of the current intellectual contradictions in his review of Mark Steyn's 'America Alone'.

Speaking of those protesters, especially the 'Grassroots'- Mudville Gazette does a little investigating to see why 65 people 'Appealing for Redress' and their complaints over the Iraq War are somehow more important than the hundreds of thousands who've served honorably and are proud of their service.

I couldn't force myself to watch the SOTU this past week. Tired of listening to politicians speak I'm afraid, even if I'm told Bush did a decent job. Nonetheless, Jim 'Copperhead' Webb would've been interesting. Here is an interesting look at one of his writings in the mid-90's that shows why he can be such a compelling figure, especially in regard to the anti-Vietnam War protesters, whom the people in DC today apparently hope to emulate with such 'luminaries' as Jane Fonda (spit) and Susan Sarandon.

Discontent with contemporary politics leads me to question the current batch of politicos and their posturing. My ambivalence over the surge is shared by others as giving in to this sort of popular perception that it's window dressing rather than an effort to change the reality on the ground. But if that's what it takes to get people behind it, or at least get the enemies to stop hiding behind vague rhetoric- hey, drive on.

I ran across this article on gun rights the other day, and it really shows the lack of engagement with a substantial portion of our population on gun control issues- or at least should be grounds for reasonable debate. That 2nd amendment didn't come from anywhere, and there are solid principles behind it.

And always end with humor. The Onions 'American Voices' is always humorous- here's the news on Hilary Clinton entering the run for presidential nomination of the Democratic Party, What do you think? Or Greg Gutfeld of the Huffington Post discussing 'Patriotic Terrorism', haha...

Supervillain personality quiz

2007-01-21T23:53:00.000+03:00

I love these things! Leave your results in the comments. Found on The Mad Pigeon.

Your results:
You are Apocalypse

Apocalypse		73%
Magneto		69%
Venom		63%
Dr. Doom		61%
Juggernaut		55%
Catwoman		51%
Dark Phoenix		47%
Two-Face		47%
Mr. Freeze		43%
Kingpin		41%
Lex Luthor		41%
The Joker		39%
Mystique		39%
Poison Ivy		39%
Green Goblin		23%
Riddler		14%

You believe in survival of the fittest and you believe that you are the fittest.

Click here to take the Supervillain Personality Quiz

The 'Hollow Military'

2007-01-21T22:30:00.000+03:00

'Military experts' are like... use your imagination. Don't get me wrong, knuckle-dragging grunts like me (even though I'm no longer among that hallowed company I still bear the imprint) should be taken with a grain of salt too. What would I give to take a few of these so-called experts and beat them with the 'common sense' stick a couple times. But, as we all know, the problem with common sense is that it's not so common... and so all these unproven theories abound.

If only people were aware of my theory! It explains everything- buy my book since I'm so smart! Our loyal and selfless heroic troops (even if they're poor manipulated victims unable to adapt on their own, without my sage advice) are being betrayed by the current leadership which is leaving them without xxx item! Or so says the recent issue of AEI, in an article a new book on the 'Hollow Military' (found on Prof Bainbridge's site). One of my favorites (not really), Fred Kagan, is evidently a supporting author for one of the essays in this book.

Oh the hubris! A better example of a hollow military would be the years following Vietnam, when there were rampant drug use and other major institutional problems that wouldn't be effectively dealt with until the volunteer military had been fully integrated. Was that a hollow military? I don't think we're having those kind of problems now. In fact my experience suggests the opposite, that we have the best military we've ever had. This selection at Mike Yons site suggests similar thinking among those currently deployed:

I’ve heard senior Command Sergeant Majors and officers saying throughout 2005, and now in 2006 and into 2007, that this younger group of soldiers is far superior to the previous generation of American soldiers. The senior combat leaders tend to comprise an odd mixture between warriors and grandparents (truly, grandparents with grandchildren back home). Many have children who are older than these young soldiers who are fighting their hearts out and often being shredded before their leaders’ own eyes. There may be some cold and callous souls out here, but our senior combat leaders truly tend to be combat-hardened people who also know how to change diapers.

The people enlisting and reenlisting in the military do so with the full knowledge that they will be deployed to combat zones overseas, most likely Iraq and Afghanistan. This means that they know full well they will be exposed to mortal risks in defense of their country, before they sign up. This was not the case with conscription, which as we should remember, was the source of much motivation for the antiwar crowd, which surprisingly enough seemed to evaporate when that policy ended... but our military experts tell us the Army is 'hollowing out', and therefore morale must be bad.

One of the fundamental truths of Special Operations is that humans are more important than hardware. Take that as a leadership lesson, the ultimate conclusion of military science; the best equipment anywhere will fail before a better organized and committed unit. Functional and reliable military equipment is a great asset, but most critical is the human element.

Is this so hard to figure out? Evidently. Just look at our monstrous defense budget. I dare anyone to slog through that behemoth and tell me just what good are these massive inefficiencies. A $20 million dollar fighter jet that can be taken out by a $10,000 missile? The hundreds of billions of infrastructure required to maintain that and similar programs that might be spent on something else? Let me do the math on that... Super precision weapons that fail in bad climate? Dependence on electrical and satellite systems vulnerable to electro-magnetic pulses? Micro-managing bureaucracy based in Washington, DC? Check, check and check...

I don't want the military to do 'bake sales for B-2 bombers', to echo the old anti-war slogan. We need a healthy defense industrial infrastructure and development. We need a staff to manage that, working closely with the civilian leadership. But the state of things in Washington leads cynics like myself begin (?) to think that the art and management of actual warfighting going on in places like Iraq is more of an annoying distraction, rather than an opportunity to work and validate our existing doctrine, for the staff and associated bureaucrats of our defense community.

That might be a broader swipe than I intend. We need many people to serve in a variety of different capacities. However, this is another opportunity to look at some of the numbers these people should be crunching. Most important in my mind is the 'tooth-to-tail' ratio, measuring the proportion of combat soldiers to support. During WW2, it took about 3 people to support one infantryman. Now it's about 10. If this is the price for all our precision warfare and logistical excess, then we need to think that one through again.

While all soldiers and Marines can think of gear and kit that could be helpful, the fact remains that there is no silver bullet that solves all problems. What they need is support and the abstract, ill-defined but critical quality of 'leadership'.

Onion humor

2007-01-18T18:23:00.000+03:00

Doing a bunch of admin, updating my RSS feeds and all that kind of thing. Couldn't find this column, one of my favorites, but did a search and found it in text form. Preserved here in it's full cynical glory (via the Onion):

December 20, 2000
               
Darling, will you spend the next six to ten years with me?
By John McNally, The Onion Web site

Darling. We've known each other for more than a year now. During that time,
we've shared so much--our hopes, our dreams, our fears. I know when I met
you I wasn't thinking of starting up a serious relationship, but my
admiration and respect for you quickly blossomed into love. You're my best
friend and my confidant, and I can't imagine spending the better part of the
next decade without you.

I know I've been vague about taking "the next step," but all that has
changed. Your patience, loyalty, and love have made me see the world in an
entirely new light. It's a place where true love can exist. So I ask you,
Julie Bramhall... Will you spend the next six to ten years with me?

I realize it's sudden. We just moved in together three months ago, and I'm
still looking for a better-paying job. But when I look into your eyes, I see
all the things I never used to want. A big wedding. Kids. A house with a
white picket fence that I'll have to move out of in about seven years when
you discover I'm sleeping with my secretary. I never thought I'd say this to
anyone, but you're the only one I want to wake up next to for the rest of my
thirties.

I remember telling you early in our relationship that I never wanted to get
married. But, sometimes, I stay awake after you've fallen asleep and just
look at you and stroke your hair. I can't believe what a lucky man I am.
When the moonlight hits your delicate features just right, I see an angel.
An angel who will turn cold and indifferent to me in five years because of
festering resentment over my drinking. But if I could only capture how you
look on film during those moments, I swear we could make a million dollars.
God, you're so beautiful at this stage of your life.

Did you know that most of my friends are amazed that a woman of your caliber
would even be going out with me, much less be interested in marrying me?
They're always talking about how smart, funny, and drop-dead gorgeous you
are. I have no choice but to agree. When I take a step back and look at
things, there's no reason someone so luminous should be interested in a guy
like me. Of course, I always point out to them that your looks will be
pretty well faded by 2008. But when I think how stunning you are now, I can
only shake my head in disbelief.

Marriage is a big step to make, I know. But when I think of all the memories
we've shared together, it makes me want a medium amount more. Do you
remember that time we stumbled onto the bridge in Georgia overlooking a
moonlit river, and we just held each other close, watching the waves gently
lap on the shore? What about all the Sundays we lay in bed together until
early afternoon? I cherish these memories, and I want to share more until
our relationship is reduced to screaming fights, endless hours of legal
battles, and an attempt on your part to stab me with a potato peeler.

If you asked me two years ago if I was ever going to want kids, I would have
looked at you like you were crazy. But sometimes, when I'm walking with you
hand in hand, I imagine us pushing a stroller. And I like that image. I see
us with two kids, a boy and a girl. That would be perfect. They could hold
each other up after I'm gone.

I really think you'd make an incredible mother, Julie. And I think you'll
eventually make a great single mother, too. You've got that inner strength.

You don't have to answer right away if you don't want to. It's a big
decision, and I wouldn't want you to take it lightly. Think it over. Talk to
your friends and family. I already asked your father for your hand in
marriage, and he gave his blessing. But before you answer, you should know
that I truly do love you and want to spend nearly a decade with you. Without
you, my life is incomplete. At least, until I meet our daughter's dance
instructor.

So, please, Julie Bramhall... Say you'll grow early middle-aged with me.


© Copyright 2000 Onion, Inc., All rights reserved. http://www.theonion.com/

Quotes on civilian/military tension referencing management of modern-day COIN

2007-01-17T20:00:00.000+03:00

Ran into this on American Future, quite an interesting quote from incoming GEN Petraeus and his 1987 doctoral thesis.

Very importantly, many in the military believe that the United States armed forces can win small wars if allowed to do so. Those who hold this view tend to believe that Vietnam was less an illustration of the limitations of American military power than an example of what happens if that power is limited and not used to best advantage. This feeling springs from conviction that the U.S. military in Vietnam were so hemmed in by restrictions that they could not accomplish their mission. The lesson for those of this persuasion, therefore, is that the military must be given a freer hand in future military operations. Even among the most fervent believers in this logic, however, there is a new recognition that the world is more intractable, and intervention with U.S. troops more problematic. . . .

The military also took from Vietnam (and the concomitant activities in the Pentagon) a heightened awareness that civilian officials are responsive to influences other than the objective conditions on the battlefield. A consequence has been an increase in the traditional military distrust of civilian political leaders. . . . While the military still accept emphatically the constitutional provision for civilian control of the armed forces, there remain from the Vietnam era nagging doubts about the abilities and motivations of politicians and those they appoint to key positions. Vietnam was a painful reminder for the military that they, not the transient occupants of high office, generally bear the heaviest burden during armed conflict.

No news is... no news

2007-01-10T17:35:00.000+03:00

If anyone doubts what is going on internationally is a serious threat, they should really spend some time in reflection, enjoying our lovely air transportation system (at least anal probes are still optional at this point). Spending a lot of time in airports these days.... an interesting side note, as it is. Ah well. My hope is that vigor for the blog will resume if I stay in the state more than a week at a time. That means not soon then, unfortunately.

I'm sorry to disappoint my loyal readers by not writing more recently. I started a few movie reviews, finished a few books worth noting, and of course recent developments on the War and the Surge which were of interest. All of these I have not posted. Partly 'cause I'm busy, but also it's just not time.

Best to all with the New Year-

More on the 'Surge' and 'COIN'

2006-12-21T17:32:00.000+03:00

My 'dashboard'- the tabs on Mozilla- is getting full, so it must be time to post.

COIN- The field of Counterinsurgency (COIN) is becoming well-debated. New experts and notables are emerging. Ralph Peters writes a quick column on the Joint Army-USMC COIN Field Manual that is being distributed at the moment, with it's updates based on the experience of the last few years. An important omission noted by Peters is the role of the media in Information Operations, a topic expertly covered by the Belmont Club's Richard Fernandez, from Australia. Another notable Australian coming to the fore is counter-terrorism expert David Kilcullen, whose articles have graced the numerous forums and publishings to which I subscribe, covering this very topic. An impressive fellow.

Surge- The debate in Washington over the 'Surge' is getting heated. People need to wake up and realize there is no substitute for patience and resolve; no 'silver bullet' for the Iraq problem (or even X-51 kinetic cruise missile). Reuel Marc Gerecht in the NYT notes very clearly the underlying problems of aggressive operations in the Shia community. We do want to take out Sadr, but the timing has to be right. Jed Babbin, former SecDef and a reliable voice of military advocacy, articulates the major problems of the 'Surge'. As readers know, I'm quite lukewarm over this whole 'Surge' thing- but doing something is better than nothing. I wouldn't go so far as to call it the 'latest bad idea for Iraq' as Fred Kaplan does in a recent piece for Slate, but it's clearly a reactionary plan rather than a long-term solution. It's a good thing the Service Chiefs are standing up for this, because a mindless surge without a comprehensive review of existing policy would be counterproductive, especially due to the temporary nature of it's execution. Once again, I'll recommend the 'Westhawk solution'.

Politics at large- The illegal immigration debate continues, here is a classic economic argument showing the effects of cheap labor on the domestic economy, even if the rhetoric is a little heated. It's one of the important considerations when looking at the overall effects of people coming into the US. On politics there is an interesting dynamic between Pelosi and Hillary these days, in light of the developing positioning for the 2008 elections. Another demonstration that the 24-hour election cycle is with us to stay. Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe notes that we hold Iran's rhetoric to a different standard than the UN does to say... Bikindi of Rwanda. Mary Eberstadt writes a long article, not an easy read but very interesting, on the role of scapegoats and victims in the American consciousness that affect the news cycle and our political perceptions. From my perspective, it's just another example of how the role of the American underdog has been undermined by the idea and centrality of the victim that plays such a central role in social debate these days.

Humor- Yesterday I linked to David Zucker as his return to the political debate is graced with his version of the Iraq Study group. Youtube has had some great ones, stumbled across these MadTV excerpts- their version of English-speaking Al Jazeera is great ('Death to America'), and they have another funny one of Iraqi protesters worth seeing. But whatever you do, in preparation for the Holiday season, the Onion has a guide for 'Responsible Holiday Drinking'.

Happy Holidays to all- have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Military 'Plan for Iraq'

2006-12-20T02:13:00.000+03:00

A few things going on. Some are debating over Powell's remarks from Sunday, and I think that's notable as well- although you won't find this individual gushing over the former Secretary of State's credentials and experience, in fact I am quite prepared to view them in a much less positive light. The Washington Post has had some good articles recently highlighting the military opposition to radical changes in Iraq policy.

But the most important over the past few days has been this article on TCS Daily about plans for Iraq. I've been trying to write something like this the past few weeks but this is much better than I've been able to manage. It is the cornerstone of military efficiency with clear end goals, realistic calculations and reserved ambitions. I have been reading his blog, Westhawk, for quite some time, and I would recommend it highly.

What are the chances that something this concise and easily implemented could be considered in our current government? Hmmmm....

UPDATE: The Zucker Youtube contribution. If you gotta say it, humor is best.

Iran, the ISG, updates

2006-12-16T17:45:00.000+03:00

Not a lot going on these days, enjoying the Holiday season for a little while. Sorry I haven't written anything recently, but there's really not much to report for me anyhow. Just my occasional rants on politics and international relations, haha... nothing new.

The Iraq Studies Group report has proven to be a complete farce. Where to begin? The focus on Israel as the way to peace in Iraq? Asking Iran and Syria for help? Just a brief perusal of this report illuminates everything that is wrong with the career diplomat field exemplified by men like Baker, willing to settle for mediocrity. Some abstract concept of 'we should all get along' if we just don't upset anyone's self esteem crap. It makes one a little more skeptical when we hear of Baker's financial ties to Saudi Arabian consulting companies, his son's employment as an agent representing Saudi interests in America. Not to mention his own participation in the creation of this current wave of ethnic and sectarian violence- it was his advice as Secretary of State for Bush 1 after the first Gulf War to not interfere with Saddam stamping out the Kurds and Shia with chemical weapons after Bush exhorted them to rise up. How do you think that would make you feel about Americans if your people had tried to change things but were totally abandoned by calculating politicians like Baker? With that context we should be happy they listen to us at all. Respect is earned by blood and effort- such as we are undergoing now- not by the highminded 'dictat' that make up the bulk of this man's work. Despite the problems we face today, there would be many more if we rapidly withdrew. The centrality of Israel to Middle Eastern peace is a red flag to those who discuss the influence of 'Arabists' in the State Department. Don't get me wrong, Israel plays a big role in the region- as a crutch for those who would maintain the Muslim victim mentality. We have enough of that in this country, do we really want to make that our foreign policy?

Another example of why consensus building is the tools of the weak- a good leader must be able to make decisive actions in the face of opposition, yet be able to back it up. Well, W has done some of that- it's easy to talk about what he hasn't done or has yet to do, but he's at least out there doing it. The Keane/Kagan program could be positive as well, although I favor the military plan which has been hinted in it's portrayal that more troops are not necessary, but a change in focus is. But decisiveness in action and a cohesive political justification is more important- I'll rehash my favorite Patton quote that 'a good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow'. Because everyone is watching, and we all know that Iran is next if the situation doesn't change soon. The Middle East is no bed of roses and we must have a plan, as the Washington Post clearly expresses. New generals coming in, or more accurately 'back', to Iraq are well versed in this problem, such as LTG Odierno. There's an interesting debate at Blackfive about the military options of attacking Iran I've dabbled in. I think we have time to focus on Iraq before that opens up, but if it gets down to it and we have to go in- so be it. Like I said there, my conclusion is based on the negative assumption that: as bad as things are now, they could be a whole lot worse (especially if a bunch of nukes were involved).

Ah well. In other areas, economic negotiations in China are continuing like usual- characterized by an almost complete ineffectiveness. Rumsfeld is finally stepping out of the way- I liked the guy, but it was time to go, and he left office with his characteristic articulation in identifying the problems of the day (the interview is definitely worth reading). Less comforting is the idea of ongoing investigations in the next Congress. But hey- it's their bag baby. Even though I would've voted Allen were I in Virginia, I think watching Webb make people squirm on both sides of the aisle alone will make it worth watching.

Life never fails to be interesting. Should have some time to train in the meantime. Happy Holidays to all!

Posturing

2006-11-09T16:18:00.000+03:00

Who has the 'mandate of heaven'? The newly victorious Democrats will tell you that the 'People have spoken', and so they have. Such is the operation of democracy, and such is the dilemma of our present situation.

I'm not exuberant over this change, but I recognize that it has some opportunities to rectify some of the excesses that the Republicans were blindly wallowing in, to their electoral regret. Among those is an over reliance on the 'Religious Right', which while important, should never have been considered decisive. Nothing like a 'thumping' to straighten these things out.

Rumsfeld is out, a relative unknown Gates is coming in. I'm not excited- I liked the change Rumsfeld wrought, although I believe it was the right thing and the right time for him to leave with dignity. I was a Rumsfeld supporter because I felt that his change was overall positive, breaking up the bureaucratic paralysis that seems to characterize the Pentagon's overall activity. While he was brusque and caustic, those who couldn't stand up to that frankly don't deserve their positions, much less my sympathy from their whining. They, the General officers and high-ranked civilian officials of the 'Five Rings', are supposed to control the Armed Forces of the United States for Christ's sake! Now that Rummy's gone, the same problems will continue, so good luck to Gates! Two milbloggers I like are pretty skeptical of the new guy's approach, but if he can reduce friction within the intelligence services and other bureaucracies like the Department of State, that would be a positive development.

While I don't like the message some overseas will get from this election (especially the EUNuchs who are currently rejoicing), such is the burden of democracy. Ignore the populace at your peril. I'm personally amused at the shift in coverage on Iraq we can expect in the months to come, now that a different party has to gain more responsibility for the outcome abroad. So let's see how people posture in the wake of this electoral shift!

More pre-election hysteria

2006-11-03T01:25:00.000+03:00

Donald Sensing and some of the other military bloggers are making a lot out of Ralph Peters recent 'transformation' into defeatism. Mr. Peters is a highly regarded former Army Intelligence Officer whose work as a pundit and writer has been quite prominent for nearly the past decade. I reviewed his book not quite a year ago, which I thought was well done. Evidently, in the weeks prior to the election, he's having a change of heart. It's not a novel thing, either. Another guy I like, New Sisyphus- a former Foreign Service Officer, has written about other people 'discovering the obvious failure of our war policy in Iraq'. He also mentions some other conservative notables with similar disillusionments.

WTF is going on here? I should note before I start, another friend of mine who got back from Iraq warned me I should seriously take a year before I say anything about the war and be able to relate it to people back here. But what I see is the 'popular' perception of Iraq as this distorted picture pushed about how horrible and dangerous it is... taken totally out of context. This Moqtada al Sadr thing- can no one else see how he's making his own coffin? Yeah, more people might die- but his organization is falling apart! Why did we have cordons around Sadr city? To protect the Sunni's, more or less. Now, who's against the Sunni's, or more importantly, who's there to protect them? Umm, the US?

I don't like the cynical 'conspiracy theory' aspect of some that you can't trust anything in the media. In some cases it is- but I also look at how an organization like Fox News can level the playing field by addressing an unmet need (the other half of the country!) and how those 'most partisan' sources like the NYT are having major circulation problems, while those that try to moderate (I think the Washington Post fits this best) seem to hold their ground- last week there was a good article on this based on recently released circulation figures but I can't be bothered to produce. So, IMHO, the market corrects itself- not saying that it eliminates partisanship but the competition minimizes it. But in between there can be 'irregularities' that are reflected in portrayal of the issues of the day.

But to finish my thought on Iraq- yes, if I believed that the media portrayal of our situation in the Middle East was accurate, I would be worried much more than I am. There's plenty to criticize, just keep a good hold on to your head and ego before you do.

But where do I and the rest of America, looking to the future, go from there, when contemplating the possibility that these elections which are highlighting this and other potential shifts of policy? You can't say 'Trust in Me and the Bush administration'. No, but this buildup to the election next Tuesday is causing many to rethink things, even if they won't change too much following it. Hysterical nonsense. If we could just bring the hysteric pitch down a little (just a little!), have some patience, things might just happen. Because it seems to me that manageable foreign affairs and good policy don't work too well on a short term attention span.

I am reminded of a quote I found in the third book (halfway down the page) of Thucydides, chronicler of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. Cleon, son of Cleaenetus, a popular, if violent, Athenian demagogue, in a discussion over punishing a recent rebellion of their subjects the Mytilenians, remarks that 'Democracy is incapable of Empire' due to their dramatic shifts in opinion and resulting contradictory policies. Because creative Athens, though bold and resilient, ultimately lost to the steadiness of Spartan resolve. History doesn't repeat itself, but we are wise to see how the Ancients stumbled and fell in an attempt to avoid our own calamities and minimize our own shortfalls. Draw your own conclusions.

Start of November

2006-11-02T02:38:00.000+03:00

A friend of mine sent this, thought it was hilarious- military humor at it's best. Did Kerry probably mean something else? Yes. But given his past performance, I'm not going to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Coming up on the midterm elections, what's going to happen? Having no crystal ball nor faith in polling, my personal opinion is that I don't see a Democratic upset occurring. While there is discontent, I don't see the kind of uproar that would lead to believe strongly in the popular hype of certain people's expectations. My $.02 is at worst, Republicans lose the House. From where I'm sitting that's possible, but not likely. Can't wait for all the posturing to be over and back to business...

Watching the Lehrer News report, and Fred Kagan came on. I'm quite a fan of the Kagans- their father Donald Kagan wrote what I think is just about the best book of the 20th century 'On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace'. Robert Kagan wrote 'Of Paradise and Power' which I greatly appreciated, so I just got his new one 'Dangerous Nation'. Frederick Kagan has written some good articles in the Neocon journal 'American Enterprise Institute', which I love (since I'm apparently a neocon if I believe that armed forces should be used to defend our nation abroad, ah well). He has a new book out about military transformation called 'Finding The Target: The Transformation of American Military Policy'. However, based on his performance on TV, I won't be buying it. Just another armchair general talking about how we need more troops in Baghdad, talking about how the military screwed it up.... I laugh.

Of course, in my own vanity I know the secret to winning the war on terror and if they'd listen to me everything would be good and people who disagree with me are idiots, bla bla bla. As much as I'm loathe to admit it, that's just not the case. I have substantial disagreements with individuals such as General Casey and how they're working in the context of the Bush policy in Iraq, of which I have additional 'differences of opinion'. But I respect the fact that most of these guys are making difficult decisions in a context of more updated information and political pressure from the locals and our allies that we can only guess at now but might be able to get a better idea of in the years to come. This is commonly known as the 'Fog of War', and should be respected- for it is only hindsight that is 20/20. Let there be no doubt- people should and will be held accountable for their mistakes, as well as their accomplishments. I am reminded of Teddy Roosevelts 'Man in the Arena'-

"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 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, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for 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, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

"Citizenship in a Republic,"
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

Having said that, I'm not going to waste more time on his policy prescriptions for Iraq. In case you were wondering about mine, let's just say they would require us relooking the Geneva Convention and then doing some majoring sovereignty trampling. Respect is earned, not preserved in meaningless treaties that are conveniently ignored at our peril. Speak softly and carry a big stick, another bit of advice from good 'ol Teddy Roosevelt. I'm sure there are some good objections to the direction my initiative would take, and if I was in that position I would appreciate an honest and constructive criticism of that, hoping that at the end we could hash out a good compromise towards the same objective.

Anyhow, life goes on. I'm certainly staying busy, whether or not I head off for a short tour or I stick around town a little longer. Wonder what kind of curveballs life will throw in the upcoming weeks and months...

The Korean situation

2006-10-14T03:07:00.000+03:00

What the hell is going on in North Korea and what are we going to do? Was it real? What's China's move? How did we get here (HT Belmont Club)? What have we been doing? The short answer: Diplomacy's fucked.

This is not a slogan. It's taken a while for me to come to this conclusion. Conventional wisdom seems to be that Chimpy McBushitler is so inept at diplomacy he can't help but being a military bumbler with his simplified 'Axis of Evil' formulation. As you can imagine, there are a few problems with this conclusion, not just the knee-jerk, run of the mill anti-Bush rhetoric. It's certainly the case that there have been no 'diplomatic breakthroughs' on his watch; but why is that?

I was at a presentation about Afghanistan this past week, and the lady was ranting about the ineffectiveness of USAID/State in planning and all these other things. It sounded almost like Iraq! The speaker and I were definitely coming from different political perspectives, but I could see the same things she saw during my experiences abroad. Our conclusions were different- she blamed the performance on the Bush administration, not entirely undeserved, but.... it's making more sense to me if you look at it as part of a deeper, more structural problem.

I'm coming to believe that diplomacy in the post-Cold War era is doomed to ineffectual paralysis. Certainly our own State Department has not been good working alongside the Defense Department during the recent conflicts, and I don't have the background to offer anything new or original on that. I am clearly sympathetic with partisans who claim that that Department has a dominant ideological outlook of other diplomatic institutions such as the EU or UN, although I wouldn't claim to know definitively. But it seems that we have adopted some sort of 'multilateral values'- the idea of harmony in an international community, even if the nasty, dirty world is just intent on making us fall short of these vaunted ideals. A few weeks ago, New Sisyphus wrote an excellent post about welfare dependency and how that affects our relationship with Europe, although I think it can be quite revealing if you compare that to how we relate to the world in general.

A book I'm reading at the moment mentions that historically, the US has not had political success that mirrors our military prowess; this makes us a curious world hegemon. It is not inaccurate to describe our military, cultural, and economic supremacy as hegemonic, although it's important to differentiate that we have not, by any historical standard, sought imperial domination as have many others with comparable military positioning. Which kind of makes us a problem by itself; in a counterintuitive way, our goals and aspirations do become suspect (who else would be dumb enough to dominate the world but not reap the riches of their position). The hegemon must justify its dominant position, which has traditionally been the role of religion, or ideology- or in the absence of that, naked power politics. But our capitalism and world globalization don't seem to have as intense of an effect as those of our opponents, even if the effects of this globalization event are not insubstantial. In its death throes, the oppositional political philosophy of Cold War Marxist-Leninism spawns some like-minded ideologies in the guise of multi-culturalism and transnational progressivism.

I don't think it's inaccurate to call transnational progressivism the official ideology of the UN, after all, who wouldn't like the idea of all the diverse nations of the world getting together, solving problems, making the world a better place? A great idea, this 'multilateralism', but is that what really happens? Unfortunately, no. A current joke in our household is trying to name a 'success story of the UN'. Another presentation I attended a few weeks ago the UN lady tried to pass off, among other winners, East Timor, Sierra Leone and Angola as 'peacekeeping success stories'. Notably absent were Somalia, Rwanda, Cambodia (just off the top of my head).... I think the only peacekeeping that could really be called a success was Korea- but then, where are we now? Just this week, we're literally back to where we started, 56 years ago! Some success!

Yet, by virtue of it never happening, you can't prove that the UN somehow prevented the US and the USSR going to war, although I would guess this to be the case. That is logically problematic, because that would be an End of Great Importance (and well-deserved utility)- avoiding the bloodbath that might have ended the modern era if the Cold War had gone hot.

This opens an opportunity to explore the logical fallacy of '20th century peace', which I will decline, at risk of further derailing my narrative. Instead, we arrive at the present day, where the institutions of the ColdWar- NATO, the UN- still exist, without the tension (the threat of Russian expansion or invasion) to bind them together. That's not to say there are no threats to the current international order, but that they are ill-defined and ambiguous- terrorism, of course, is the best example out of many to choose from (you don't wage war on a 'tactic'- you wage war on people or countries, etc...). States have carefully built up their institutions and influence over the past half-century within this perspective, and even now, fifteen years later, have yet to adjust. Understandable, really, we haven't adjusted either (see Iraq, Afghanistan post-war planning, see Department of State performance).

You start to look back at the diplomatic events of the 90's as hollow, meaningless events- markers in the ambiguous shift characterizing the power vacuum following the disintegration of the Russia and the end of the Cold War. The Oslo Accords between Israel and Palestine? Maybe next time.... Bosnia and Yugoslavia? Europe's problem, funnily enough dealt with by the US led coalition outside of the UN.... you know, you were there. And of course, of great importance, as the beginning of this post suggests- The Agreed Framework of 1994, halting North Korea's nuclear program for international aid.

Great at the time, but all meaningless. All discredited, and according to some Bush's fault? Count me unconvinced. All the time of these 'successes' of the 90's slowly simmering, under the radar of course, was the Rwanda massacres, the Cambodian coup, Congolese Civil War, etc etc etc... and people like Robert Kaplan cataloguing the future with his prescient 'Coming Anarchy'.

In this current lawlessness, just as many nations and minorities slipped their oppression to grasp their freedom, many other groups that would have been otherwise contained due to the tension of the superpowers, are now unrestrained. This is a problem for diplomats, used to the familiar structure of representatives talking about the issues of their country... the fact is, with more countries there is less people to talk to! The people who will talk almost don't matter. In this transitional time, the traditional dictator is losing control of his lands under the current trends of liberalization. So, counterintuitively, he falls back on the tried and true methods of repression (a la Putin).

So what are the diplomats to do? Nothing. They must fall back on the Military to be the decisive factor. Not surprisingly, their definitions of success are a bit different. In the past, these kinds of missions were the main functions of a fighting force. Now our American forces are rediscovering this mode of warfare... with many pitfalls along the way. But our diplomats, and those of the debellicized Europeans, are used to the restraint and 'peace' of the Cold War.

This is the context of the arena in which Bush and his administration looked upon the Middle East and now looks upon Korea. Diplomatic options? What are they? Yeah sure, let's give the UN another go- burn out another Colin Powell on misguided intelligence presentation maybe? Should we trust in China to produce a substantial solution amenable to 'international stability' or other abstract goals (except to those concerned) like 'nuclear non-proliferation'?

Until the US figures out how to integrate it's diplomacy with it's warfighting, we can count on this situation to continue. 'Stay the Course?' Yeah, diplomacy's fucked.

Sony Portable Reader is awesome!

2006-10-09T05:25:00.000+03:00

I have to post this as a gear afficionado. The Sony Portable Reader is everything it's cracked up to be. Check it out here at the Sony Style store, I went to a nearby mall to pick mine up. It should be available at Borders soon too.

In one word, it's portable- echoing many minor superlatives such as small, energy-efficient, stylish. It's the 2nd generation of Electronic Ink devices, black and white, takes a little while to load, but it's just what I needed. Whenever I travel, I always carry a bunch of books. This time I don't have to worry about it, it all loads up on one device. It even displays some of my more 'guilty pleasures', anime, pretty well. That's what the screen shot would be of above, if I didn't have such a hard time getting the lights to focus on. Unfortunately my photographic attempts will not be gracing this page, so you'll have to rely on Sony's corporate marketing to accurately reflect how nice this unit really is.

There's so much promise for it, it's hard not to be excited. Obviously, the market will have to expand, but imagine it as a substitute for textbooks- instead of filled and burdensome bookbags, just one little device. There are tradeoffs, of course, it takes some time to scroll through material and find what you're looking for in larger files. But still, with a little practice all students from gradeschool to college will think that it's a big plus.

In the future, it'll be faster, in color, bigger, and many other things. More and more books are arriving at the Sony Ebooks store, a decent selection even if some of my favorites aren't listed. Although some are. But I believe that for the next 2-3 years, this thing is the bomb. However, don't take my word for it since I'm an 'early adopter'

October update

2006-10-05T20:52:00.000+03:00

Working around politicians this past month has been quite interesting. Definitely a valuable experience, even if I don't know if I should stick around too much longer. It's the temporary nature of my recent life, you know. However, there are some politicians to look up to, as John Howard shows, to fight for us- even if he's not American. At the moment I'm thinking I wouldn't make it on Capitol Hill- my mother says it's because 'I don't like to compromise'. Ah well, elections coming up... will be interesting.

People always wonder why Fox News is so hated. I don't know, I'd have to say it's an almost biblical thing- remove the beam from your own eye before you complain about the mote in someone else's, or something like that. The ongoing success and expansion of Fox is testament to the ascension of a previously underrepresented and unheard cross-section of American thought and culture. The fact that Fox channel in particular falls prey to some of the same weaknesses of the other media platforms, using sensationalism, or entertainers like Bill O'Reilly (not a journalist), does more to highlight the weaknesses of the medium in general rather than the actions of one specific channel.

Here are some cool links- 'Maps of War' has a Flash presentation of the Imperial History of the Middle East over the past 5000 years, very informative. There are some continuing conversations over the conflicts brewing there, and some are trying to combat stereotypes of the Islamic threat. In 'One size doesn't fit all' a Navy man points out the fallacies of painting all Muslims with the same brush, and the point that our successes come from allying with the discontented among the Muslim world. I think that it kind of misses the point, the fact that some use Islam as a shield to legitimize their actions... but it's worth noting. Because certain countries seem headed toward disaster by willfully ignoring these developments. European military planning is a perfect example of this, contemplating their lack of youth, among other significant problems which make people of my perspective wonder how Europe would be defended in some manner of future conflict.

Such is the state of the world at the moment...

Dearth of posts

2006-09-11T07:08:00.000+04:00

A scene of normality, refreshing in some ways for me.

Light blogging for the next couple of months. The fabled job has come, and the prophecies are true: I will have less opportunity to record my profound statements here for the near future. It shouldn't scare you too much that this means my influence will be spreading among the decisionmakers in the government! Haha....

Review of Robert Young Pelton, 'Licensed to Kill'

2006-09-04T04:42:00.000+04:00

RYP's just released book 'Licensed to Kill' is the latest in a long line of books describing the use of private contractors in the ongoing GWOT. There is 'Corporate Warriors' by P.W. Singer, 'An Unorthodox Soldier' by Tim Spicer, 'A Bloody Business' by Col. Schumacher (Ret.), and 'War Dogs' by A.J. Venter. There are some others, but I think in this genre, that is, covering the recent development of large scale security contracting, these are the main tomes of record. I'm not a huge fan of RYP, famous for previous books and his website 'Come Back Alive'. But I have to admit that this book seems to be about the fairest, as well as broadest, of them all. It's kind of odd to say that, since this book is kind of a new thing for him- he is not typically a journalist, and doesn't make any claims to be one.

The subject has had some critical attention, as you can imagine. Singer's 'Corporate Warriors' is generally considered the reference point for the subject, since he takes the full academic outlook and properly referenced notes to support his arguments. His argument is strong against the employment and deployment of private contractors in the GWOT. In opposition, Col. Schumacher approaches it from a much more supportive perspective, almost a paean to the 'Bloody Business'. AEGIS director Tim Spicer, of course, is an advocate for military outsourcing in his 'Unorthodox Soldier', as he's currently making his money in Iraq by it. Venter's 'War Dogs' is good for a closer look at how the industry has developed in current-day Africa in the decades past, and a little background on some of the player's in the current commercial security expansion of Iraq and Afghanistan. If you want the completely uncritical version, check one of these trailers for videos at Youtube promising the 'inside look at the military industrial complex'- heavy on the entertainment and 'irresponsible war-profiteering American cowboy' kind of coverage (generously dubbed 'MTV journalism').

Above all, RYP is a great storyteller, and he doesn't disappoint here. You get the old guys telling war stories, of which red-blooded American Billy Waugh, having an extensive Special Forces/CIA background, provides many varying experiences. Not only that, RYP actually hangs out for a month with a Blackwater team doing the Route Irish run from the Green Zone to BIAP in Baghdad. These episodes are very entertaining, justifying the purchase of the book alone, but I waited for the eventual condescension and smeering you might expect, considering what he's written before. Funny enough, from my perspective he kept it fair. My (completely subjective) opinion was that he saved his contempt for contemptible people, like Chapter 9's Jack Idema, who's been written about before (I'm not one of his supporters, who I won't even link to). And of course, the reverses and bloody nature of African politics, especially where they involve white mercenaries.

RYP visits the main places, as hostile and inaccessible as they are, with a remarkable lack of agenda. He does a run in Afghanistan, finding the Special Forces/CIA bases with remarkable ease, interacting with a gruntled SF sergeant and sharing a long taxi-ride with an intel/ops contractor who lacks some sociability and has an oddly puritan streak. I sort of wonder why they would speak with him, especially someone like Billy Waugh who must have lived OPSEC for over 50 years. Breaking the code of silence makes me suspicious, even if he didn't seem to say anything malicious. Most everyone else kept their handles (nicknames given by the team), only a few of his friends in certain positions- like Karzai's personal detail- giving their name. Or at least giving him permission to use them. Moving on to Iraq, he focuses on Blackwater but also gets into the other big companies, such as Triple Canopy, KBR, as well as others. But he goes on to cover the important events, such as the An Najaf siege. When he gets to the Fallujah 'Blackwater Bridge' incident, this is almost the high mark of the book- he covers it fairly. He takes account of the different pressures and incidents that led to it, and how people perceived it, and the ongoing legal battle. That would've been the easiest place in the book to throw in a casual slam of the industry, and he holds back.

RYP's convictions come out when he interviews some of the big movers and shakers. But he doesn't try to tell you he's some objective journalist, he covers what he knows and addresses the omissions he's become aware of. So Tim Spicer comes off as an arrogant ass in his London office interview, while Eric Prince of Blackwater and his counterpart at HART, Lord Westbury, come off as enthusiastic professionals. Knowing what I know, this doesn't sound too far-fetched. He also covers the attempted coup of Equatorial Guinea, involving some of their close friends (and notoriously Margaret Thatcher's son, Mark) and a South African friend of his who had been his bodyguard during some of his African travels. Yet this personal touch doesn't overly stain his coverage- you can see his bias, and how he presents the facts. Like I may have implied elsewhere, I've been involved in some of this over the past year (a very minor role), so I've read most books covering these subjects, met some people who were in places or incidents that were covered in this book, and I was impressed.

RYP does raise valid objections in his coverage of the recent expansion that this industry has experienced in recent years. The consequences could be quite dangerous if improperly managed, as well as the efficiencies realized with an effective foresight. It's not unimportant, because as supportive as I am, we should all be aware of the potential pitfalls that might come with 'outsourcing the War on Terror'. The interesting story he brings up is how Haitian President Aristide's abdication came about in late February 2004, less willing than previously imagined. Basically, amidst the chaos of the ongoing coup attempt by opponents, it was the security team that decided to withdraw, taking him with them to Miami, allegedly (and convincingly) unplanned and unwittingly. This is not a small point- a security company can easily become the Praetorian Guard of the Regime, like the Vinnell Corp. of Saudi Arabia appears to guarantee the Saud Family. A weak regime must rely on foreigners to support it, and conflicted loyalties then become a possibility.

Ultimately, I'd recommend this book as a good picture of the environment and the personalities that the security contractors work among. Despite (or perhaps because of?) his lack of chronological, connect the dots bits-o-fact journalistic approach to shape a story, he has an open narrative. And his unflinching effort to be at the frontlines gives him a credibility denied to the desk-jockeying denizens of the blackhole known as the 'Green Zone'. Check it out if you get a chance.

Laughing at us

2006-09-03T03:34:00.000+04:00

The UN must think we are just big pushovers, a huge joke. The source of moral legitimacy, indeed! Champion of human rights, except for important ones, like the right to defend yourself (stupid American aggression, must be). World beware, this is the mess we will have to clean up after.

What is the future of war?

2006-08-30T17:44:00.000+04:00

UPDATE: This TCS Daily article by Michael Vlahos is an excellent summation of some of these trends from a Roman perspective, well worth your time. Ran into it via this excellent Chicago Boyz post by James McCormick of similar note. In addition, some thoughts at Winds of Change about another theory, I've put a few comments there.

And of course, most importantly! The Monty Python revolutionary model of the 'People's Front of Judea' via Youtube...

Original Post: There are some interesting thoughts on what the future face of war will look like. The current conflict in Lebanon sheds some interesting light on what is good and bad, victorious or failure in the current arena of the world. There's quite a bit of interesting ink spilt on the low benchposts for success (ie not being destroyed) that allowed Hassan Nasrallah of Lebanese Hezbollah to claim his victory.

Current events aside, there is this ongoing presumption that war will continue to develop in this manner. I paraphrase Kissinger when he said that in modern warfare a 'conventional Army fails if it does not win, while a guerilla army succeeds if it not destroyed.' I like Martin Van Creveld's reverse of Clausewitz even better, which I roughly paraphrase here as 'Von Clausewitz described war as the continuation of politics by other means, while guerillas use politics as the continuation of war by other means.'

This post at Global Guerillas perfectly captures this viewpoint, that we are 'Playing at War'. It's a succinct abstract of the major obstacles faced by modern warfighters. I don't want to reproduce it here, since I'd have to reprint the whole thing for you to get it, so please read it. It's quite a succinct and logical article, showing how current warfare is becoming hitched more and more to these abstract values almost entirely unrelated to the actual work of war. A guerilla must leverage the weaknesses of his enemy, most decisively in the gray realm of 'public opinion' and 'public perception'. It's the logical continuation to the 'People's War' of Mao and his successors, adapted to the context of the post-modern battlefield.

I should explain myself on that account, though, before I continue. There are many theories trying to explain the warfare I describe above as 'post-modern' (please forgive my lazy 'Wiki' research). Currently popular is one called '4th Generation Warfare', which is supposed to be the counter to the People's War, first successfully championed by Mao. Ideas matter, and to me '4GW' is just a twist on Mao, sharing the same intellectual framework and assumptions, which I have written about before and reject. To be brief, one sees that foremost among these assumptions is the historicist presumption of material progress in the Hegelian sense, their idea being that war also falls into a rational developmental pattern that can be defined arbitrarily by 'generations'. One must conclude that the proponents of this theory either share that basic philosophical agreement or are in ignorance of it's origins- characterizing to me, the weakness of their vague post-modern argument. As you may conclude, I love that word, 'post-modern' (re: the title of this blog), and do throw it around a lot. But not just for style- I believe it has meaning, mostly being the conceit that we've somehow divorced ourself from the past by entering an intellectual arena of the future. That's not the orthodox definition, but to me it epitomizes all the other issues associated in that kind of 'PoMo' conceit- radical human rights, secular denigration of religion, cultural relativism, etc... all concluding in nihilism (even if well-intentioned), from the point of view of a classicist or similar perspective to myself.

So what is it? Have we entered a new phase of warfare? Are we doomed to be stuck into these narrow and easily manipulated afflictions that are identified in the article from Global Guerillas? If you buy into the nihilist death pact of post-modernism, then the answer is yes. Is there an alternative, if one would avoid this?

One of the books that has influenced me the most is Robert D. Kaplan's 'Coming Anarchy'. Kaplan traveled to many different fields of war and conflict as a journalist. In describing the places in question, he made connections to a living history among different peoples and ethnicities that continued it's seemingly primitive existence on the outskirts of civilization . Often declared dead, but seemingly resurgent at any conflict, this 'history' still lives with us. This fresh perspective led to both praise and criticism, as you can imagine. Reading him and a few others, I found myself delving into the Classics of Greece and Rome, to discover the wisdom of our predecessors. I would be very presumptuous to try to summarize their lessons in a sentence or paragraph, due to the varied richness of their outlook and experiences. Because what I found was a refreshingly open and practical outlook, compared to the narrow focus of my organized studies in the formal education system. In this world of slaves and empires of long past, they somehow had the same problems of today.

In this context, the terrorist armies of Hezbollah and their compatriots echo that of the tribal chieftains bordering the empires of the past. The vacillation of the elites in the Republics of Rome and Greece led to the creation of opportunity for Alexander or Caesar to fill the vacuum by forcefully solving their problem to much acclaim. Great men, to be sure; but most definitely not interested in some of the other more valuable aspects of civilized life, such as liberty (or due process as we understand it). This paradox was a central conflict of the political and philosophical aspects of Western governance, and seemingly stays so today.

To return to the original question on what future warfare might look like, we see these trends of restriction and artificiality becoming dominant in the execution of contemporary warfare. What we don't see, if we lose the historical context, is how the rewards (basic economic/game theory) become even greater for the participants involved to ignore, if not reject entirely, these arbitrary restrictions on their conduct. The odd part is how we expect the other side to willfully disobey, yet somehow still maintain our obedience to these outdated ideals. We have this dominant legalistic attitude that perpetuates belief in ineffectual and antagonistic bodies like the UN, which you can see in debates such as those of unilateralism vs. multilateralism. Or what has become the perverted ideal of 'humanitarian warfare', seemingly held by the world's elite's and dominating the ethos of the UN. Much more likely is an even bloodier 21st century, explaining that selection on my booklist (which I'd like to review if it ever gets here!).

The comfort of wealth, along with the short-sightedness of Eurocentrism, leave us crippled to view the world through the intellectual prism of the past 100 years, leading us down the road to repeat their ineffectual disaster. Our civilization and wealth don't come free! Just as Macedonia picked up the pieces of Greece following the disaster of the Pelopponesian War, or as Caesar won the Civil War, we must follow the dictum laid down in the times of Sun Tzu.

'The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence, it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.'

Based on my experiences, I believe that the 'Art of War' is being relearned and maintained as we speak, even if begrudgingly. I feel sorry for those who would restrict themselves to the unworkable mess of post-modern warfare, mistaking that for the mess and disappointment to come when these artificial restrictions crash to the ground, along with their well-meant ideals.

Military humor

2006-08-27T19:19:00.000+04:00

Don't fall for it! Oh, the horror! (via B5)

A few excerpts of the week in news

2006-08-25T23:26:00.001+04:00

Google must have bought Blogger/Blogspot, since I see their logos when I sign in now. I don't really like that, the idea that they control and track certain aspects of searching, and now blogging. For example, LGF has a longstanding feud that they decide which of the blogs they list by partisan screening. So I use Yahoo search for my primary now.

What's going on here... well, there have been some great articles on TCS. Arnold Kling talks a little more about the increasing populist differences with elite opinion (and which supports my devaluation of language argument below), and Josh Manchester has an excellent article creating a new voter demographic which we should look out for- the 'Unfrozen Caveman Voter'. I think his barbecues might be a bit different from the ones I've been to, but the point still holds. Because vote they will, and it will be interesting to see the results. Michael Steele's race for the Senate in Maryland is definitely one to watch, because people are relooking the issues of race and economics. Feminism is another side issue, and while I might not agree with everything, I always like to look at articles like this as a relief from the majority of emasculating man-hating trash you see in other places. It raises common-sense objections to the haughty moralizing that passes for 'social science'. Another interesting series to see is the Bag Blog's series on home schooling (1, 2, 3).

And into the international arena we find people discussing Iraq and Iran. It's important not to raise strawmen- substituting weak arguments as representative of an opposition as a way to discredit them, but I must include this article as a peculiarly poor example of shoddy logic and sloppy reasoning. Mr. Karetsky of The Times (UK) seems to think that we should admit defeat and let Iran get the bomb as a way to integrate them into the international system. He makes a major errors in his assumption that we seem to have no real options, and that the military option is no good. Don't get me wrong, it's the last option- when negotiations fail. But since I don't see negotiations doing too much right now, I find myself thinking a lot about the military option. And only a fool would concede the use of arms to a low antagonist like Iran.

How are things in Iraq? Not as bad as some say, but not great either. I really appreciate the candor of this book review by Max Boot, discussing Tom Ricks 'Fiasco'- a good book with a bad title, as he says. Obviously, mistakes were made, but we should try to keep perspective when looking at the facts. In the meantime, VDH has an interesting article on the problems we're encountering in the prosecution of the current campaign. A related note is relevant at QandO, discussing terrorism in the context of Dr. Barnett's theories of globalization. And also interesting is George Will's look at Koizumi, in the context of my recent post on Japan's martial ethic and their future as our ally.

Soon I'll be working again and have no time to read all these articles. Can't wait.

Koizumi, War Criminals and the Warrior Code

2006-08-23T21:47:00.000+04:00

I visited Japan a few years ago, as I went into the entrance of Yasukuni Shrine I took this picture, a Shinto temple dedicated to the warriors of Japan. Let's just say I wouldn't tell my Chinese friends I went there.

Yes, Yasukuni is in the news again. The outrage of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visiting the Yasukuni Shrine has started again. It could be a month, a week, or even a couple of days from now, but the shrill moralistic farce that is international politics is gearing up for it.

Howard French of the IHT is a very informed observer of Asian politics, so I'd recommend reading his article as a first stop for an explanation of Yasukuni's place in Japanese politics. It echoes the drumbeat of other Asian countries that felt the sharp edge of Japanese Imperialism not so long ago. The Japanese did some awful things, no doubt- and 14 of these Class 'A' war criminals are interred at this place.

Both my grandparents fought in the Pacific. I try to be an informed reader of history, and as such I know pretty well what happened. Yet warriors should be treated as warriors, something I think even of the Nazi's.

Why is this?

Admittedly, part of this is my Westphalian conceit- the idea that decisions of war are the politician's realm, the soldiers duty is to obey, and the civilians support this or change the government. This doesn't apply to Japan at the time of the 2nd World War, as we know it was members of their military who initiated some of the hostilities- ie the infamous 'Manchurian Incident'. But we have some controversial people in Arlington as well- no war criminals, but I know many Southern people who consider William Tecumseh Sherman a 'war criminal'. No one is saying war doesn't bring out the worst of some people, and that it's not horrible. But we must still uphold the Warrior Code. This is not a 'moral equivalence' copout- they were in the wrong, they lost. But now that the war's over, we have to move on. And a healthy country will defend itself with it's own citizenry. Therefore we shouldn't fall prey to this pedagogic manipulation and criminalize their whole martial ethic by tarring this cultural shrine. The point holds true to my inner core. Don't blame their military, it was the nation that made them fight.

For a glimpse at a possible result of a society lacking these principles, take a quick look at the cancer that Europe has become. Their impotent faith in the UN is laughable, especially in light of France's recent 'contribution to world peace'. Who could they protect? It's hard to imagine something like this happening (if you need a smaller example of martial ethic) in Brussels or any other city there. They've grown fat, lazy and complacent on the security provided for them from outside. Such is life. They epitomize the rot that occurs when the martial ethic slowly fades away, as it has been for most of the past century... if they fight again, it seems more likely that it will be as miserly cowards. I can easily see bloody purges of 'unwanted' elements of their countries. Besides, most of those who would be warriors and not worriers or whiners have already come here to the US.

The martial ethic of the Warrior Code aside, who let's others direct their 'sovereign' issues anyhow? It looks like naked political opportunism to me. Weak governments that have to find external enemies to galvanize their countrymen to confirm their legitimacy. This was the primary reason the Soviet Union and other Communist organizations supported anti-war groups almost from the time they were found- not because they believed in the end of war, but they wanted to subvert and undermine their opponents will to fight in preparation of the conflict to come. No conspiracy theory here, it's all in the Venona files and other very credible sources. I didn't believe it myself, until I confirmed it in more than a few places. This was a conscious effort- part of the struggle to make the individual conform to the collective. An assertion of individuality worth dying for is an obstacle for those who want to destroy it. There lies the martial ethic, which is not the capitalist framework of exploiters (to borrow Marxist-Leninist dogma) manipulating poor and uneducated proles to fight for them 'against their interest'. Stop me if you've heard that one before, or one of it's more recent variants like 'Bush manipulated them to go to Iraq to die for oil'. The Code of the Warrior, epitomizing responsibility and duty, is fundamentally opposed to the primacy of the victim and accompanying blame, that socialism and communism feed off. There's something there, even if we do recognize our necessity to acknowledge the warriors of Russia who we fought against, along this line of thinking. For a more recent example, I think the rebuilding of Iraq is centered on instilling this code of duty and loyalty to the servants of Iraq in the military, along with ensuring that they are a source of pride to their citizenry.

But to come back to Yasukuni, there is one question that strikes me the most. What is Japan now, if not a loyal ally and faithful friend? Are we to sit aside and let others shame them? If I was a person of importance, I would visit the shrine as an American warrior- honoring the warriors there, supporting the Japanese people together. What a symbol that would make! I think MacArthur would appreciate it. Let the rest of them wallow in victimhood.

However, that wouldn't make me too popular. Jeesh, how many Koreans would threaten my life.... I'd be John Bolton of Asia, minus the 'tache. Ah yes, that's why I'm not a politician. I have much to learn...

When you should be doing something else....

2006-08-22T16:56:00.000+04:00

There's so much this morning, so much I shouldn't be wasting my time on it... ah hell. Here I go.

Cathy Seipp anticipated my previous blogpost (below) about the devaluation of language by political rhetoric. She, of course, gets it a little more concise than I did, even though I prefer my clunky logic. Mark Steyn is another of my favorites, also talking about how 'multiculturalism' can be so harmful. My friend Caesar is right, you have to learn to filter it out. Or you suffer from 'Idiot Fatigue', only countered by involvement in civil debate, at places like Dinocrat which I think is an excellent compromise of the viewpoints.

Starting at the world at large but coming back to home:

Who really won the recent conflict in Lebanon? Or more accurately, who's in a better position for the next outbreak of hostilities? Tigerhawk's article is a good overview, linking to this article in the Jerusalem Post about similar misperceptions following the Yom Kippur War of '73. Even with practical problems involving the recent experiences in Gaza of the past few years, the financial markets behavior, while I wouldn't go so far as to say predictive, are probably quite indicative of local perceptions. Either way Israel, and the world community, shouldn't depend on France and the EU for practical help. One thing that the international community right now definitely is, is divided. I hope (and I'm pretty sure that) my Israeli friends won't trust them for their security.

Europe is having some economic problems at the moment, besides typical impotence and idealism- or more incidences of fake journalism. Not just the typical 1930's allusions we American's are so fond of, even if they are increasingly accurate. Many educated people, though, worry not that they won't do anything about their demographic shifts, but rather that they will fall back on their long history of bloody purges, which would be interesting, to say the least. However, it does make me worry that it will be difficult to find a practical solution for Iran and increasingly commits us to armed conflict them. Paradoxical, that- how deterrence require a strong military to prevent the utilization of it.

Coming back to the US, everyone is looking into their crystal balls and putting in their predictions for the '06 elections. Too soon to say. I'm going to try hard not to get pulled into the partisan thing and keep as objective on that as I can, but even with the revised posturing on Iraq (which I'm quite skeptical about). Truth is, there's some good news that is curiously unreported, and continuing progress in programs like Welfare Reform. The President isn't on another planet, although some like to think so. It's always interested to see how people of the other perspective cover these same issues.

I will highlight this E.J. Dionne article, him being someone who I particularly disagree with quite consistently- even if he writes well, about the intellectual traditions of political debate. He concedes that his brand of 'Liberalism' is losing the intellectual arguments of the day due to a lack of rigorous argument. I quite sympathize with this, not just because I think his arguments are highly unsupported! But to the idea of non-polarized, civil, rational dialogue between differing political viewpoints- his column is a step forward. His side will need that if they don't reproduce enough- something that must be considered in the dominant laissez faire culture of the times. Maybe (just maybe) that might have something to do with abortion and gay culture? Not that there's anything wrong with that (oh no!)....

I'm going to close with this glorious salute to America, recalling Mount Suribachi and the journalist who preserved our effort for the ages.

'Perverse of the Converse', or the price of Hypocrisy

2006-08-22T05:08:00.000+04:00

The Converse of an argument, not to be confused with Converse shoes, is not the exact opposite of an argument, but the inference of that argument if it is reversed. For more, see the referenced Wikipedia article.

The converse argument is important to me, as it sort of represents the direction my line of thinking has traveled over these past few years. Not to bore you with all that, my stultifying boring and navel-gazing psychodramatic analyses, I'll try to focus on political arguments.

I had a funny conversation with some family members the other night about 'fascism', which has to be one of the most overused and underdefined words in contemporary English. Somehow it's okay to call Bush one, but not head-chopping Arabs focused on restoring some half-baked delusions of a religious-based 7th century dominion. Being so cheapened by rhetorical excess, the shock and shame that one should associate with something like 'fascism' has predictably diminished. So I grasped the converse argument, that if politically braindead people are still using 'fascist' as invective, then it must be a good thing. By being called a 'fascist', this must mean you are a focus of hate for the like of such impotent activistists (not a misspelling), or equivalent political representatives. If these people dislike you, then you must be doing something right. You not only reject their argument, but their assumptions and inferences. What else are they misleading you about?

As you can see, this is not restricted to those who scream 'fascism' at everyone who disagrees with them. This starts to get problematic when you consider other portions of the emotive criticism that certain people fling at their opponents. Epithets like 'racist' seem to no longer hold the definition of 'apartheid-like supremacists bent on maintaining their rule by oppressive violence' but fast approach the popular joke that a racist is merely 'a conservative who won an argument with a liberal'. What a 'Liberal' is I'll have to hold back to later, now is not the time for a discussion of 17th and 18th century British economic philosophers.... but it's the same principle (Anti-semitism is another, but don't have time for Mel Gibson and Hezbollah this evening, thanks for asking).

The people constantly using these epithets are only barely veiling their sophistric hypocrisy, or unwillingness to fairly argue. 'Anti-war' is another favorite. I think 'on the other side' is a little more accurate, such as the case of Orwells' conclusion that those who were anti-war during WW2 must therefore be objectively pro-fascist (in the true sense of the word). I know quite a few readers will object to that, even if they know I'm not questioning their patriotism or free speech. Most also know that the military man with a classic perspective realizes that to maintain peace, one must be willing to wage war. A temporary cessation of hostilities is never static from the military POV.

Obviously, it's harder to sit down and formulate a rational critique. So much easier to yell some inflammatory rhetoric, as those who frequent here know quite well I am also prone to at times. But if only we can step back from this and have an honest dialogue... and with some (if not most) people, we can. Witnessing the radicals in our midst, from both sides even though I focus the majority of my contempt for those of the left, we must condemn them for cheapening the dignity of this process and polarizing the national debate.

Words mean something. Save them for the appropriate time. Maybe some day they'll mean something again.

What's Al Anbar like?

2006-08-22T04:49:00.000+04:00

For a really good slice of what Civil Affairs does in a combat zone like Iraq, check out this interview by Blackfive.

Life in progress, a bit more busy than I would have liked, but things have to happen. As SSG Gilliland would say- 'Move fast, shoot straight, and leave the rest to the counsellors in 10 years.' Haha....

Communication

2006-08-13T11:03:00.000+04:00

I linked to a different and incomplete version of this earlier. Say what you want, the blogosphere produces some very interesting analysis. For anybody who is interested in the difference between how media cover the 'news' in places like the Middle East, or in this case, Lebanon, they will be quite shocked. Please read this story of the 'Green Helmet Man', if you want to understand my aversion to journalists (via EU Referendum). This has direct relevance to how societies communicate during conflicts.

A view from the office

2006-08-12T19:10:00.000+04:00

Traffic patterns here are a bit different than home, to say the least. You can see I'm showing respect and deference to the military convoy by pointing my weapon away from them as they pass. We were stopped, otherwise I wouldn't have taken the picture.

A few interesting thing on the net this fine morning. Upon contemplation of the conflicts in Lebanon and recent events in London, some people haven't gotten it in their heads yet that people want to kill us. The hawks are growing tired of empty rhetoric, and I admit I share their concern. There's a fine column in the WaPo of a Marine officer describing the fundamental questions of counterinsurgency, and how we need to 'Learn from Hezbollah', in a sense. Assassination should be considered as well. Laughing Wolf at Blackfive addresses the problem of 'Children as Targets in War'- or something like that but not as nice, worth checking out for the Socratic dialogue alone.

Well, looks like I'll be on my way again here soon! Might be my last from Dar al Islam for a while!

Criticisms of the War in Iraq, part 11

2006-08-05T10:30:00.000+04:00

Plenty to be had. As a supporter of the war (even if not at first, before it started), I encourage an honest and constructive critique (ie: not like yesterdays onanistic drivel). My critiques of the war have to do with the execution, a sluggishness to adapt, but I clearly think the overall strategic goal is worthwhile.

Being more familiar with the criticial institutions of the American war effort, maybe I see more clearly (debatable!) than an outsider would. And what I see is really smart people raising critiques, much of it being ignored to political expediency or other motives. Political influence by itself is not bad, in fact, it's a critical component of democratic governance- someone has to make decisions, filtering out just as much garbage from all sides. It's not easy to sort out the critiques when there are 20 competing at any one time for an official like Rumsfeld's attention, although easy to cherry-pick them in retrospect. Part of the process, though. I think the best at explaining the problems has been a libertarian one (1, 2)- the Pentagon is the 'Post Office with Nuclear Weapons' with all the bureaucratic baggage that entails. In a certain way, we've built the Pentagon to counter the bureaucratic Soviet threat of the Cold War, and in the time following the disintegration of the USSR, have not kept up with the winds of change.

Because when people see how they can take advantage of a poorly prepared obstacle, such as the US has been in the Middle East, they will. That's why you have to give credit to Hezbollah and the Middle Eastern countries who are currently enjoying their PR bonanza, despite some credible reporting of their difficulties, and of course the obvious bombing. We are in a difficult position nonetheless, as Israel fights Hezbollah (for us, in a not so subtle way), while we argue about it in Congress.

An interesting thing for me too, is the 'Long War' side of it. While Americas involvement in the Middle East is important, I think the more critical component is a sort of existential worry over the future of war and conflict in our lives, and the continuing traditions of the 'West'. We have decent ideas, like the concept of 'Just War' (with which I hold qualms- mostly on interpretation, but respect nonetheless). But the truth to me seems that civilization as we understand it, is worthless unless we can defend it against those who have 'less civilized' appetites (excellently summarized here by an Israeli general). And in the face of ongoing missile bombardment, some anti-war folks seem to change their tune, which is comforting to know that they're not all insane nihilists bent on the destruction of their own societies.

Anyhow, maybe that's a bit more focused than my previous post. Glad I could finally post that picture of my cheesy Baghdad hat I bought before I went home the last time, which I love. Y'all take it easy then.

Are we looking at the same thing?

2006-08-03T10:27:00.000+04:00

I love columns like this: full of outrage at the supposed 'neocon' agenda and it's fruitless militarism. Look at these cherrypicked examples of the 'futility' of fighting those barbaric terrorists- an unnamed Israeli military official who says 'There is no military solution to this. Israel is under no illusion of defeating Hezbollah as a military foe.' A few logical hops and skips, then conclusion: the US is doomed to defeat in Iraq, just stop fighting. The money line is that America and Israel are 'trapped in the same kind of war, which they can't afford to lose but don't know how to win'.

I feel so much stupider after reading this trollop. Not only is it absolute circular post-modern pacifistic nonsense, but of the illusion that somehow you can stand aside and watch dispassionately like it doesn't affect you. (Angry run-on sentence alert) I see one of the major problems with the modern perception of war is exactly this kind of schizophrenic outlook: the media outlets of the day can give you previously unimagined up-close access to the action of fighting and it's grisly immediate details, but all the while maintaining the fundamental surreal detachment from this while you are observing back in the wealth and comfort of your convenient abode of choice.

Take this conclusion- 'can't afford to lose but don't know how to win'. This contradictory conclusion is exemplified by his statements in the 5th paragraph that '...in war, it's not enough to justify, you also have to win.' The Islamic fundies have some good justifications in the moral relativistic sense too, y'know! We must be just the same as them! Now, it's pretty clear already that this guy thinks Iraq was a mistake, detailing the missteps the neocon Bush administration took to get us here. Fair one! What is your solution then? This, from the second coming of Napoleon (I assume!) that we are reading at the moment, who sees fit to lecture us on the way we fight our wars, doesn't see fit to condescend to teach us how to change our ways so we can win these otherwise 'unaffordable' losses. Well, fucking thanks for sharing then.

Hmmm... maybe I'm not fit to come back yet. Still need to learn a little bit of moderation, I think. I don't want to read more of this- wasting my time and yours, but I can't help myself! I really wonder why have these people so divorced themselves from the horrible realities of the world and the way we do war? If they do value things, like the values we hold dear that help us support our representative system of democratic government and the society supporting that with diverse religions and businesses, then shouldn't they be defended? And for certain places in the world, like the one I'm in at the moment, some harsh words from rich diplomats in New York doesn't really faze them.

I would love to see one of these guys explain to us how Israel made peace with Egypt and Jordan (hint- diplomacy wasn't the driving factor) and why it seems they can't with the 'Palestinians', or why Iran is so dangerous now (see Jimmy Carter, '79), and how the situation has changed in the intervening years. Actually, no, I wouldn't. Has there been any effective diplomacy without corresponding military action since Nixon's visit to China? Even that took place within the context of Vietnam, so maybe what I'm saying is something different. While I believe diplomacy can be effective, the modern perception of ceasefires and 'peacekeeping' (stifled laughs) has been poisonous to any longterm improvements in the state of the world. That's one of the major deficiencies I've seen here, it's almost as if the State department is trying to ignore this country/area and it'll just go away! If not, those military folks will just deal with it. That could be unfair, but that's how it seems at times and I wonder if there's anything to it.

So then we must win and I think the way to do that- since holding hands and singing 'Kumbaya' hasn't seemed to work so far- must be the second best alternative, which is the determination to destroy and humiliate your enemy while assisting your friends.

Back in the sane world

2006-08-02T21:27:00.000+04:00

In that post-modern sense that this blog is all about, you know. It's an interesting time.

Just wanted to say that I don't know anything yet, but I'm safe and back (in Iraq, for those who might not have got the reference, haha). The jet lag was vicious this time, got stuck staying up all night the day prior. Anyhow, things are coming back to normal. Trying to wrap things up out here. Once the hours have rolled back in my internal clock, I'll be more able to think of something to say...

Conflicts, v 6.23 (update prior to next movement)

2006-07-30T01:30:00.000+04:00

I am quite conflicted at the moment. Life in progress... everything changing from week to week. It's quite uncertain at the moment where I will be at the end of next month, and I don't like that feeling too much. In some ways, it makes me happy that I am returning to a warzone, where the conditions on the ground resemble the turmoil currently rumbling through my head. The prices are high but the payoff is big.

The code of the warrior means you must make difficult decisions without regret. Achieving the objective with full awareness and responsibility for the consequences of your actions (not the same thing). And you must treat your life in the same manner. Easier said than done.

Like most people, one of the major conflicts in my life revolves around sustaining the material ends of my life through the aquisition of money. And my recent job is clearly a part of that- even if my savings will be mostly wiped out by Uncle Sam to back-taxes if I return early. I didn't go over there for the money, but now that I have some I don't want to piss it away- a problem at the heart of many political debates. Another time for that, because the more I think of it the more I am ready to go/come back. You have to be on your toes out there, the guys who compromise themselves for the paycheck risk too much in my opinion. While I could stay there for a longer period, it would compromise too many of the plans I've made to come back here. It's time to move on- from that company and situation to setting the foundations for the present.

That money, the comfort that it brings, if that was all it would be just a worrisome, but trifling, issue! No, the fact is I find myself looking forward to being out there again, in the midst of the chaos. Despite the fact that I really didn't get to rest much this leave, spending it constantly on the go... I went skydiving, scuba-diving, exercising, and of course drinking; these are just a few of the hobbies with which I try to fill the hole made in my life by leaving the crazy, but oh so real, world of the active combat zone. Admittedly a poor subsitute. But that urge must have an element of the Freudian thanatological impulse that seems to be a part of the adrenaline junkie's ambition.

Just like many of my peers, I want to etch my future career path, settle in a new place, see friends and family, etc.... This will have to be modified slightly- my idyllic jaunt as an intern will have to adjust itself to the need to continue the cash flow- by either not happening, or being abridged. I might not be able to work on Capitol Hill and have to continue my security stuff. But my life will be a long one, this financial train wreck a mere roadbump that, with perspective allaying my present disappointment, should be considered a very minor issue. Ultimately, I'm not worse off.

So I continue down the path of the warrior, imperfectly trying to address these concerns resolutely, in a way to minimize the minor regrets I carry along the way.

Really important stuff

2006-07-26T16:39:00.000+04:00

How could they kill Professor X, Jean Grey and Scott Summers in one film? Just stupid. I'm all about the amazing back-from-the-dead comic book storylines, bla bla bla... but that's just silly. X-men 3, you let me down!

Doom and gloom

2006-07-23T17:55:00.000+04:00

Just browsing through the Sunday morning op-eds, man, there's a lot of unhappy people out there. This little conflict in Lebanon is sure raining on some parades? I reserve special consideration for those who, contemplating the 4 prior existing UNSC ruling think another one will somehow help. But the NYT has problems of it's own, so that's probably a cheap shot anyways. Talking about Lieberman in Time magazine, Joe Klein throws out words like the 'Mesopotamian disaster' quite casually. One of the guys who I've generally liked, Tom Ricks at the WaPo, has a gloomy story about problems in Iraq. Andrew Sullivan writes some confusing piece about 'neocon's' which, despite the fact that I am one, I still don't understand what they are (and I even read Strauss because that's what I thought that's what neocons do, man!). Always interested to compare British/European press, they love the ideological distinctions and buy into the neocon thing big-time. Of course, even libertarians are divided about the war, who can blame 'em.

I look at it, and like I wrote below (since I'm back writing for a little while), it could get a lot worse. Looking at the problems of the world through our rich, powerful and stable perception will always be distorting- trying to understand how people live in the poor conditions they do. But that is not reason to be depressed for me- while war is tragic and awful, it could always be worse. You could be living in one of those Middle Eastern countries where the only news you get is from your imam, and he's telling you about the Jews and the Americans eating Muslim children, or whatever the story du jour is.

It crossed my mind, though, now would be a great time to triangulate Syria against Iran (not exactly what this guy meant, but similar). It would be difficult, we'd have to compromise on some of our stated ideals of democracy (why do I think that those who are always pushing for 'engagement' would not be suppportive?). But it could dramatically change the power relations of the Middle East. Further isolating Iran- as we're coming to accept is not a 'party for peace', etc...

Are we capable of making such a bold and risky move? At the moment, I rather doubt it. So I'll settle for the second best option, Israel killing terrorists so we don't have to. Hey, if there's a better idea, I'm all ears.

Understanding the Middle East

2006-07-22T05:12:00.000+04:00

Loving being home, being on leave. But then you start to think about it again...

Sometimes you can only start to think clearly about something when you are away from it. You have to digest it a little, listen to friends and family, debate it and then you start to articulate what's going on. As a side note, there was also this interesting debate at QandO about insurgency warfare, although I appear to be pretty much ignored.

Well, I don't 'understand' the Middle East by any means, but after reading about the recent Israel-Lebanon thing, there are some things I can confidently assert, based on my experiences and insights. I started to think about this as I contemplated the 'Blair-Annan Plan for Peace', more UN involvement via internationally legitimate forces peacekeeping. Laughable. Just look at UNIFIL, the 2000 'peacekeepers' from Ghana, India, and wherever, which peacefully observed Israel withdrawing from Lebanon and Hezbollah peacefully building up massive stockpiles of weapons and other forms of complicity. But, you say, this time would be different: they would have a different mandate. And because they're internationally legitimate, it would be different. It's obvious on this case I am totally alongside the Israelis- the UN and what Army? What 'international legitimacy'? What mandate would bring a force that would reasonably be able to enforce peace?

None that the UN could provide. A cursory look at the performance of the UN 'peacekeeping' operations shows this simply. But for those who believe in the UN (unkindly but guiltily called EUNuchs in derisory humor that I, of course, wouldn't promote... hehe) seem to see the solution for everything in their eye. The status quo has got to change. And so I kind of followed that line of logic to the US involvement, a lot of the shriller critics look at the problems that have been in the Middle East, and how we've been involved.

Here is where the logic matters. There has been nastiness in the Middle East ever since we were involved. However, we did not create this nastiness- just looking at the Suez canal incident of '58 will give you an insight into the problems of the Middle East. My Cliff Notes summary would be as follows: European powers had dominion over the Middle Eastern states they (pretty much) created in 1919 following the collapse of the Turkish empire, formalized in the Sykes-Picot treaty. After blowing the crap out of each other in WW2, the aforementioned European powers lacked the power to maintain their dominion, which was challenged by resurgent Arab nationalism and charismatic Arab leaders, such as Egypt's Nasser. The US's lack of support in the ensuing conflict proved to be decisive, as the Egyptians regained dominion over the Suez Canal, the Europeans could no longer control their region. Now, why would we do that? It doesn't follow the evil imperialist motif our enemies would have you believe. So they want to cherry pick other examples, like us supporting the Shah- to which I would say, if we had done a better job we wouldn't have the problems we are now, but I am starting to digress further than I would like.

So the logical chain is this: people are still killing each other over religion in the Middle East + it's been going on since we've been involved = it's the US's fault. It makes a simple, easily comprehensible political argument that is supported by fact. The fact that it's completely out of context, with an unashamedly narrow US-centric perspective becomes clear only after you examine it a little closer. Then you start to realize that, wait a second, they've been killing each other over religion forever. What changed and when did it change? Well, to me, it starts to make sense when you learn more about the dissolution of the Turkish empire. The model of Islamic political leadership, through coercion in spirit with the times (read more than 400 years of the Turkish caliphate in which many peoples feelings were hurt, to say the least) fell apart and the result was the French and British in control of the area we now call the Middle East. Their methods were different- organizing the areas into states, and their influence was little- a few decades compared to the centuries of the Turk.

So this little political assumption falls apart under closer examination. How can it be that the US is not the worst thing that happened to the world? Look at all the bad things we've done.

Yes, we have, and as long as we have responsibilities abroad, we will continue to 'make history', of the regrettable type. It was nicer when we could avoid that, and blame European empires for everything as we did in the 19th century as one of the minor powers of the day. But now we find ourselves picking up the pieces of those European empires, or the ravages of 20th century Soviet Russia's expansionary militancy in the 3rd world. No matter what we do, many people resent us. They have a right to do so- and when they do something about it I'd love to listen more. But until then, we'll just keep on going. Because if you think the Middle East would be better without us there, you have another thing coming. Israel's present conflict in Lebanon visavis Iran and Syria has more to do with the ineffectual UN than any US policy. If this thing is not managed properly, 10 years from now we'll be wishing all we had was Iraq. Such is life, such is war.

Still on hiatus

2006-06-15T12:37:00.000+04:00

But I ran across this post at (where else?) the Belmont Club and it almost made me cry. I'm hardly sentimental, but such a clear vision of the future! If only I could articulate something like that... in full, below, 'cuz I know you normally wouldn't follow my links. Also in the comments was a link to this article on modern Marxism. Anyhow, please read this. Even if I don't come back for a while on this blog.

Liberal Internationalism

Peter Beinart and book reviewer Michael Tomasky debate whether it's possible for liberals to lead the fight against terrorism without repudiating the invasion of Iraq at Slate. Beinart argues that the war on Jihadism remains the right war; whatever the merits of OIF may have been. "Your basic point," he says to Tomasky, "was that while my argument about liberal foreign policy may be valuable, you're not prepared to engage with it—because I vocally supported the war in Iraq". Beinart rejects this but he concedes, however that it would have been better to fight Jihadism in the Cold War liberal tradition—with its focus on legitimacy abroad and self-improvement at home—provides the principles necessary for winning the struggle against jihadism today ... it inclines liberals to support powerful international institutions—as they did at the dawn of the Cold War—not only because America cannot manage international problems alone but because we do not want unrestrained power. Because liberals recognize that America is not immune to imperial temptation, we build in the restraints that distinguish us from the predatory powers of the past. Second, recognizing that American virtue must be proved, not asserted, leads liberals to talk differently than George W. Bush does about democracy.

Tomasky on the other hand, refuses to address the question of how to fight radical Islamism because the debate has been poisoned. He regards OIF as making any liberal attempts to fight Jihadism futile. The soup has been ruined. No further point in stirring it. The only way back lies in throwing out the batch and starting from scratch. Bush's Iraq and "the warriors" have made it impossible to contemplate 'fighting the good fight' against the theocrats and made it impossible even to intervene in Darfur. Only after Bush's legacy has been scraped down to bare metal can one start again.

Is that will there now in either Democratic leadership or the American people? It is not. And the fact that it isn't is not the fault of the "abject pacifists." It's the fault of the warriors. It's because of Iraq. The war in Iraq is why we "missed" Darfur, a moral error that your magazine (under new editorship) recently lamented. And the war in Iraq looms over our national future. I fear that it renders the grand visions for liberal internationalism that you and I share useless nullities, for a generation, maybe more. That is the tragedy of Iraq; that's why I dwelt, and dwell, on it. And I tremble with fear—not for "my" side, but for the country and the world—that, should a Bush administration and an Iraq come around again, we will have forgotten everything I just said.

John Kerry agrees with Tomasky. The Boston Globe reports:

By Rick Klein, Globe Staff | June 14, 2006 -- WASHINGTON -- Senator John F. Kerry is placing himself at the center of congressional action over the war in Iraq this week with a crisply worded resolution to require President Bush to withdraw almost all US troops by the end of this year. The measure has exposed Kerry to attacks from Republicans and some Democrats, as critics rushed to tag the plan as a "cut-and-run" strategy. But it also has made him a rallying point for antiwar activists. ... "My friends, war is no excuse for its own perpetuation," Kerry said before a group of cheering liberal activists who had gathered in Washington yesterday for a "Take Back America" conference. "It is essential to acknowledge that the war itself was a mistake -- to say the simple words that contain more truth than pride. . . . It was wrong and I was wrong to vote for that Iraqi war resolution."

A New York Times article indicates that the Beinart-Tomasky debate, far from being academic, is actually the central issue dividing Democratic National security policy as reflected in the differences between Hillary Clinton (cast in the role as Beinart) and Barney Frank, John Murtha and Nancy Pelosi (and now Kerry) as the collective Tomasky.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, faced boos and shouts of "bring them home" from an audience of liberal Democrats here on Tuesday as she argued against setting a deadline, wading into what she called a "difficult conversation." Thirty minutes later, the same crowd applauded wildly as Senator John F. Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, the party's 2004 presidential candidate, implored the Senate to back his call for a six-month deadline for withdrawal, and said he regretted his initial support for the war.

Tomasky may be right though not for the reasons he thinks, when he says that "the war in Iraq ... renders the grand visions for liberal internationalism that you and I share useless nullities, for a generation, maybe more." Liberal internationalism faces what might be called the "body disposal problem". Post-Saddam Iraq, with it's internationally recognized government, constitutes an embarassing counterexample of what liberal internationalism has declared impossible to achieve. A President John Kerry would have to brazen out any invitations to Baghdad, pretending not to recognize that he is visiting a government he had done everything in his power to strangle in its crib. Even a semi-successful Iraq will have the same terrifying effect on liberal internationalism as the collapse of the Berlin Wall had on the "permanent stability" of the Cold War. The only way around the guilt of wishing Iraq to fail is to assure oneself that it was never possible for it to succeed in the first place. But it's inconvenient and one sympathizes with Tomasky's desire to make it all go away.

Unfortunately, there are even more bodies lying around defying disposal, and the most prominent of these is the decaying corpse of the Cold War world. Niall Ferguson in the Opinion Journal is not even sure of the survival of American power in the face of growing global chaos. He argues that in a world where America has "feet of clay"; "Old Europe" grows older; China faces its coming economic and demographic crisis; and Islam proves that it is only capable of fighting itself -- it will not be a question of supporting "powerful international institutions" but finding any effective institutions that will work at all.

The defining characteristic of our age is not a shift of power upward to supranational institutions, but downward. If free flows of information and factors of production have empowered multinational corporations and NGOs (to say nothing of evangelistic cults of all denominations), the free flow of destructive technology has empowered criminal organizations and terrorist cells, the Viking raiders of our time. These can operate wherever they choose, from Hamburg to Gaza. By contrast, the writ of the international community is not global. It is, in fact, increasingly confined to a few strategic cities such as Kabul and Sarajevo.

Tigerhawk points out that Pew research data showing a decline in public support for the War on Terror in Western Europe counterintuitively suggests it actually grew more popular from 2003 to 2006 in "frontline" countries.

Country 2003 2006
Jordan 2% 16%
Indonesia 23% 39%
Pakistan 16% 30%
Russia 51% 52%
India n/a 65%

The question of whether "liberal internationalism" really reflects the aspirations of the Third World and isn't largely implicitly and perhaps unconsciously Western European in orientation requires going back to the Second World War, which was welcomed in its way by independence movements throughout the Third World as ringing the death-knell of European empire. Support for Hitler in the Middle East was far from trivial; and many Asian "nationalists" immediately came forward to collaborate with the invading Japanese. If the Second World War were run to the same popularity standards as the GWOT the results would probably not be very flattering to Europe. The Atlantic Alliance was started by a rather exclusive club and while that does not invalidate it, it would be well to remember its provenance in a world where India is poised to overtake France.

The Beinart-Tomasky debate falsely revolves around the issue of Iraq when in fact it should revolve around whether the liberals have a strategy for dealing with the growing chaos and dysfunction in the Third World of which radical Islamism is simply an instance. Iraq only seems central to the debate because it has precipitated a crisis within liberal internationalism that can no longer be ignored. The world that gave rise to the Cold War; that gave international institutions "legitimacy"; the bipolar power alignments that made these institutions effective -- all of it -- is fading away. Long after George W. Bush's presidency is over the question will remain: can liberals and only liberals fight the global war on terror and make America great again?

Temporary hiatus

2006-06-13T16:23:00.000+04:00

Trying to plan a few things amidst the desert called Iraq... kind of difficult to figure out your life as a part of the American imperialist plans to dominate the world!

So I probably won't post for a little bit. I want to- I'm not happy with General Casey and his vision of Counterinsurgency-lite(TM), but that'll have to wait. Baghdad is making some funky decisions that seem to have less and less to do with conditions on the ground. Nothing is perfect for sure, but something really stinks.

Here's a few links of interest before I run off. Counterterrorism blog compares the punditry advocating who's winning; The West or Al Qaeda? Some locals are perceiving a change after Zarqawi, and in their relationships with Americans during these hard times. Here are some posts just to give you a better feel for the area; Midnight discussing a Lazy Sunday on his camp, and Lieutenant K talking about a run to the Government Center in Ramadi.

Anyhow, I should be back, but right now I'm busy.

Posting limitations

2006-06-05T17:41:00.000+04:00

Had a mission in the morning. I would tell more but I don't violate OPSEC/PERSEC (Operational and Personal Security) online- that is, posting details that an informed person could use to generate an accurate description of our activities, as well as any information that could identify me and be used against me. This is not because I do any kind of secret activities, it's more just standard professionalism in this line of work. Consequences can be pretty high: worst case leading to compromising security and death, or just losing my job. But unfortunately it makes for a dull blog at times since I can't really get into the specifics of what's going on besides some vague platitudes and occasional pictures.

In the meantime, trying not to think about coming home next month. Got to get a little sleep before I get on. A 'troll' in a Mudville Gazette comment said I didn't know anything about Marxism- no! Must... resist... urge... I will restrain myself. Even the Manxome one doesn't want me to start my treatise on Karl Marx inspired collectivist utopia evolving into Leninist authoritarian populism! I suffered through those tomes and so will you!

Nah, I'm really tired.

ADDENDUM: Here are some links, discuss amongst yourselves.

Wretchard at the Belmont Club is posting up a storm. Whether it's current events, like the unrest in Iran that is getting no publicity in the major media outlets, or other interesting looks at the UN's effectiveness in East Timor or current deliberations over the utility of doing something in Sudan or journalism in Iraq (via Mudville Gazette)- he's covering it. Anyone who doesn't read his stuff is really missing quite an interesting look into the way our world is developing. In milblogs, Buck Sergeant has an interesting overview on explaining the military perspective from France to Iraq. Much better than crap where people claim to speak for 'Army families', haha...

The Toronto terror bust was quite a big deal, despite odd efforts from certain media outlets to edit their coverage of it. If you have a better explanation, I'd love to hear it by all means.

And over at Cato Unbound is an interesting article on modern economic development, as we move through different trends in different regions of the world. The author, Richard Florida, calls it the importance of knowledge, innovation and creativity- aka the 'Information Economy'. He focuses on how that puts differing emphasis on geographic locations, as those who can will move to places where they have more opportunities. I'll let the resident economists call me on that one, as I'm not a subject matter expert. For me, I find this human urge to classify different economic developments interesting. I don't think that it changes the fundamental human urges to interact as we do in the varying economic spheres of the 'market' (or even armed conflict in it's own way, but I digress). If, during the various modes of industrialization in recent history, we moved towards mass organization, infrastructure and resources; now we appear to be moving back towards the importance of individuals and their contributions to the world. A similar sentiment is observed in related fields, from philosophy to military organization. A new sort of humanism is arising, which might end up differently than we think. Or it just might end up for naught, as the 'Iron Law of Oligarchy' states.

Enough vague theorizing for the day. At least you missed my rant on Marx, haha!

On the reading of blogs

2006-06-02T20:02:00.001+04:00

As you can see, I try to keep up with the news; domestic and international. And I'm fortunate to have the time to do so. We have a pretty steady internet connection so I can keep abreast of recent developments. I usually read some of the main media, like the WaPo, but mostly I stick to my favorite blogs. I use Mozilla, so when I open it my favorite 10 pages are automatically loading. I read fast, so I’ll scan them real quick, opening up the links that look interesting in new tabs. Once I’ve done that, I’ll have about 20-30 tabs open and I’ll go through and read them again- a little more thoroughly. If it’s not interesting I’ll just close the tab. If it is interesting I’ll read it again and compare it to the other ones, especially if they are talking about a certain subject- then I’ll try to find the opposite point of view. I try to record the best or most interesting here, for my readers elucidation as well as for later reference.

I love blogs; not just because of the post itself, which are of varying quality and authority (basically op/ed’s), but the comments can sometimes be even more informative. You can sometimes find a polite and reasoned argument, supported by varying facts and reports, and you emerge a smarter person. Sometimes not- they can just as easily disintegrate into food throwing or partisan echo chambers. It’s good when you find a blog that can balance the two. I like it when my readers contribute their opinions, even if it’s because they mostly disagree with me, haha… that’s why I loves ‘em. Every once in a while I’ll leave a comment on other sites, but I’m usually more of a reader. I’m not trying to make my blog into some high-traffic website for ‘fame and fortune’, it’s more of a communications board for me, my friends and family. When you’re as cool as I am, you need the people who care about you to bring you back to reality. Even if you’re right, most of the time anyways…(no smart words from Manxome or you'll get it punk)

That's nice, but today I'm not too happy. A few things stuck out for me. Watching TV at the gym, dining hall and back at the hootch I heard about the journalist who survived an IED attack and is now recovering in Germany- on MSNBC they listed who else got killed: the cameraman, the interpreter, and (an afterthought perhaps?) a US Soldier. Hmmm.

Then of course, Haditha keeps coming up. There’s been a bit more discussion, even if there hasn’t been any new evidence. Some people seem eager, it seems to me, to finally confirm what they’ve known all along- even if they know nothing about military justice. Is that fair? Well tell me (as posted in the comments of the Mudville Gazette)- on September 12, 2001, we were already being told that we couldn't broadbrush an entire group of people--Muslims--because of the actions of a tiny minority. Why doesn't this apply to the military?

It's frustrating. I had to tell my roommate to turn off the BBC- kind of like being at home and having to turn off NPR. Who can you trust to give you a straight story on it? However, those that have been here (even reporters? oh my) or in similar situations have some differing points of view. I will defer to those who have seen it. There's a lot to complain about here. But if you want to see what kind of troops we have, check Michael Yon’s site, as he revisits one of his teammates from Mosul. It’s time for me to move on when this shit still keeps on making me mad. I need a break.

In other international issues, we wonder about Mexico and immigration. How does Europe look to the future?

Always end in humor I say- today is Iowahawk promoting Al Gore’s recent environmentalist documentary. Let’s see what we can learn about humans involvement in the environment!

As always, comments- especially disagreements, are welcome. Let me know if you especially like or dislike certain posts I've linked to.

Summer getting warmer in the ME

2006-05-31T17:01:00.000+04:00

I put another post below the previous with a picture of an Iraqi river, but messed up on the timing of it and couldn't change it. Someone more computer savvy could probably fix it, but I'm not bothered. It's getting hotter as the summer comes on- been up to 115, and I'm promised it'll soon be up to 140. I always thought home was hot during the summer, I've been roughly disabused of that! Looking forward to the humidity, sort of...

Iraq is constantly in progress. Not easy to explain, although if you put together pieces of it here and there it starts to make sense. Iraq the Model explains the recent political developments in the progress of the Iraqi government, while Westhawk explains their strategic importance. Bing West at Slate provides a close look at developments in Ramadi, which I can affirm the verity of based on my own experience. Why is that the best coverage is by former military people who actually know what they're talking about, I ask rhetorically.... here's another interesting post by Westhawk on what fledgling democracies under attack should consider in the case of Colombia.

'Hell in Haditha' has been on the news the past couple of days. I've been up in the area and know it's reputation, although I haven't been into the city. Knowing that I have mixed feelings, as many veterans do. On one hand, if they're guilty they should be fully responsible. But on the other- how can you prosecute a war if people don't defend themselves? The truth of the matter is that we don't know the details yet. The best bet in this incident will be to wait and see what the inquiry produces- no matter what Murtha or Chris Matthews and the Talking Heads on TV say. However, it's going to be hard to get a fair airing of the facts with the political importance this case is taking on. The more I hear their two-faced hypocrisy the more I feel that Ghenghis Khan is probably a better model for human rights than them...

The linguists have some more victims- aforementioned Iraq the Model has an interesting post on how CNN (mis)translated an official speech and what that means. Kind of disappointing, but not unexpected. Hugh Hewitt got into Iranian president Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush as well, probing experts on it's meaning. Not too hopeful, let's put it that way. Here is an extremely interesting article on Chinese strategy- Tao Guang Yang Hui, 'Hide brightness, nourish obscurity' (I hate the fact I can't write zi with this computer!) For more Chinese subjects, especially economics, check out Sun Bin, always supplies a thoroughly educated view with facts.

Anyhow, it's been an interesting day.

Back in Al Anbar

2006-05-28T19:20:00.000+04:00

Life in Iraq goes on- the minutes seem like hours, although the days are like minutes. A warped perception of time, for sure. It's been a long two days, battling with the different weather conditions and how it affects our mobility. When the choppers can't fly due to sand, it affects our movements as well. So we sometimes get long hauls which can be even longer when stuck behind a convoy or other conditions detain us underway.

***

As some people know, I'm a bit of a China buff. Here is an abbreviated history of China in 4 web pages, for someone who wants to understand this country a little deeper. Minxin Pei in the Weekly Standard attacks the idea of gradual political development alongside communist leadership in China's booming economy. And the Christian Science Monitor looks at China's history, particularly the Battle of the Bridge at Luding, where the Long Marching Communist Party fleeing from Chiang Kai Shek's (Jiang Jieshi- I hate Wade-Giles romanization!) KMT forces. Fact is a little different from the official story of the Chinese Communist Party.

In domestic news, today is Memorial Day. Tigerhawk takes a look at how military servicemembers have been portrayed in the media as of late. As a veteran myself, the last thing we need is special treatment of some sort. But to put it lightly, I do get a bit sensitive when feel that I am being condescended to. As descriptions of military people as brainwashed victims of manipulative administrations might do...

Harry Reid calling legislative efforts to make English the official language 'racist' might have been a bit uncalled for? Here is an interesting piece of punditry on what passes for intellectual discourse in some circles, elaborating on the rule that a 'racist is just a conservative who won an argument with a liberal'. I think the word 'liberal', used in the context of 21st century American politics, warps the English languge (Adam Smith and his peers had a far different meaning than we use). But check it out anyhow.

And for some humor, here is a candid look at what goes on at Fox News Channel.

Real Writing

2006-05-25T21:01:00.000+04:00

I must have really bluffed college, because I can't write.

Sure, I can write, organize my ideas, that kind of thing. But when you read good writing, you know it. It's one thing to organize your thoughts into coherent and easily followed thoughts, another thing to do that AND make it interesting to read.

Take Chicagoboyz- a bunch of good stuff, but they have contributors like this woman Ginny who often posts there. I assume she's a teacher in Texas somewhere, but about everything she writes seems to be just fascinating. She recently wrote about 'Hard America' and 'Soft America' as it pertains to the American educational system, in 2 parts (1, 2). It's really great stuff, makes you think about the different routes people take in their life. I don't, and a few others don't as well, buy fully into this artificial separation of 'Hard' and 'Soft' American, but it does make you examine things a little closer.

A little closer to my present station is Midnight, a USMC lieutenant in Fallujah (don't read to much into the 'hushed casket' thing, evidently it has something to do with video games and not politics). Better pictures and writing than here for sure- I guess he previously did an editorial in the NYT or something. His post on Port-a-John graffiti echoes a previous one of mine, although he includes pictures and mine is far shorter.

Here is an interview with Blackfive, of the famous Blackfive site. A great place for veterans and military issues, among other milblogs.

Blogs are a great medium for bringing a voice to people who you would otherwise miss out on. You hear about different people on different subjects through these various networks which are quite fascinating in how efficiently they transmit sophisticated data.

All these people have a lot to say and are quite successful in how they say it. I probably have something to say as well, just haven't figured out how to do it quite yet.

Posers and problems

2006-05-24T09:21:00.000+04:00

Got the day off! Yay! So I can waste time on the Internet!

One interesting thing has been the Swift-boating of antiwar hero Jesse MacBeth. Who is Jesse MacBeth, you ask? Ah, I guess it has not been in the papers. Jesse MacBeth is the former Special Forces/ 3rd Ranger Battalion slaughterer of Iraqis, now working as a conscientious antiwar advocate in the Seattle/Tacoma area, Washington State.

Let me just stop there before I make myself sick. This loser made a few webpages and put a video up on 'The Socialist Alternative' site and other antiwar affiliates. I guess he thought he could put out these easily checked lies and no one would catch him? Well, didn't work out that way. I first read of him the other night at Blackfive, a great milblog (where the stories are at least 50% more truthful, haha). Now he's an internet superstar, even has his own Wikipedia page. Another comprehensive collection of links to people dissecting this story is found at Hot Air. Interested parties all across the vast Web are getting all up in this guy's various frauds and mistakes, such as this thread at QandO. I don't think anybody reading this site would need to know, but for reference, here are some tips for fraudulent impersonation of military folks. Iowahawk has the first draft of Jesse's response. Here are some other 'fake but accurate' stories circulating around the Internet about the military and Iraq.

Anyhow, enough about that. There are enough interesting things going on in the world. Like Iran: wonder how that place will end up. Evidently, in the midst of these high oil prices they are having money troubles. Maybe it's not much, but their 'allies' in the Lebanese Hizbollah are also disavowing them. Doesn't look good for them. I'm reading an interesting book called 'The Case for Goliath' at the moment, about America's present dominant role in the world, and one of the interesting parts is how bad we are at nation-building. Which kind of refutes the whole 'imperial' accusation, we really don't have the desire or experience to do it, as a traditional empire would. One of our threats could be- don't make us pay too much attention to you, you don't want us to 'fix' your country. If the Iranians could've just kept a lower profile with their terrorism and regional aspirations, they would be in a very easier place than bordering US-allied countries to their east and west, but I digress.

There's always something about China being the next superpower, ran across this one at the Futurist, a blog devoted to following the trends of the future. Broad predictions are fun, but there needs to be something to support them. Here's an interesting perspective on the Korean/US relationship, something a bit troubled in recent days. And domestic political observers might be interested in the ramifications of this article on Google's information control...

I can't end this post without a link to the Belmont Club. IMHO, this site just has a great grasp on bringing events together, putting them in the political context of our times. How these cultural and intellectual trends battling in the papers affect the world we live in. In the post I linked to, they are discussing how modern countries fight and what for- using the interview of a current author to compare his outlook to what's going on in the world. Check it out.

Now I'll relax a little- watch some movies, go to the gym, etc. Enjoy!

Negotiating with terrorists

2006-05-15T20:23:00.000+04:00

Found this image at OPFOR, discussing the efficiency of the UNSC. Doesn't do too well for itself, I'm afraid. It seems there is much benefit to be made in this kind of thing, you know. Of course, for the in-depth analysis, go to The Belmont Club.

'Adventurists', 'Mercenaries' and 'China Hands'

2006-05-10T08:59:00.000+04:00

Book reviews for May '06

Finished a few books this month, the two most notable being Robert Young Pelton's 'The Adventurist' and A.J. Venter's 'War Dog: Fighting Other People's Wars, The Modern Mercenary in Combat'. Interesting stuff for an amateur Polisci like myself trying to make sense of the world. And not dull or overly dry academic either. Also fun is 'Mr. China: A Memoir' by Tim Clissold.

Robert Young Pelton, 'The Adventurist'

RYP is an interesting guy. Lived a tough childhood in Canada before settling in California to make his money. Real tough; after his parents divorce him and his brother went to this Christian boarding school in Alberta, Canada, that sounded a lot like training I went through in the military (known as the 'Toughest Boys School in North America'). He reflects on it a little when he reads that people were killed there recently, doing crazy things like canoe trips in blizzards.

Later on he settles down and is successful at what he does, but somewhere along the line he develops this itch to travel. And not normal travel either- he starts going to war zones in Africa, Asia and other areas. Soon enough he takes it up professionally. Makes for some interesting reporting as he develops his rough style of 'survival reporting' in places like pre-9/11 Afghanistan and Africa, among others. For someone like me, and others similarly impressed by these stories, it is pure 'travel porn'.

As 'The Adventurist', he proceeds with his storytelling and minimalist style to places of ill repute and dispute. He starts to develop this almost Nietzchean 'will to power' ethos of survival and flourishing amidst the suffering and danger he encounters. Entertaining, yes; but ultimately to me it's empty and hollow. A few episodes stand out for me- an encounter with the SEALS in Coronado, California and later on a plane; his interview of Filipino revolutionary/hitman (one of his victims being the CIA chief at the time); and another interview with guerrillas in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea where he lionizes their leader. But as you can imagine, he loses me in his condescension and incomprehension of the military. His encounter with the SEALs he soliloquizes on their differences:

"I feel at home with these men. Clear-eyed, focused men who wait for their moments. Nevertheless there is a difference. They wait for someone else to unleash them. I've never had a leash."

Can I get a psycho-therapist for that one, what what... nah, don't bother. I wanted to like this book and his work, based on his impressive exploits. But ultimately his nihilism was too much for me. Entertaining stuff for the magazines, but don't think I'll buy more of his books.

A.J. Venter, 'War Dog: Fighting Other People's Wars, The Modern Mercenary in Combat'

A.J. Venter's tome on mercenaries was a bit longer to get through, but good material for an overview on mercenary involvement in African wars over the past decades. The book focuses mostly on Sierra Leone, Angola and a few pages on past developments in the Congo, as well as looking forward to events in Sudan and Iraq. A lot of it was about the controversial 'Executive Outcomes' group, composed mainly of South Africans, but also British, American and a few other Westerners.

Not encyclopedic, but quite thorough- much of it based on personal experience, as well as quite a bit on illuminating interviews. 90% of what he said was true to my reckoning- with many of the people being fought were cannibalistic, rapist savages left to do what they want by an impotent international community hiding behind the ineffective UN. Revolving revolutions in many of these countries, different only in their destruction. A bleak picture for Africa in that way. In the end, those 'crude' but professional soldiers working for money can do way more with much less. Not theoretically- but proven over and over. And as a result, PMC's (private military companies) are on the up and up, as seen in current places like Baghdad and the Sudan. However, why are people so skeptical of these mercenaries? What has lead to this situation?

Not acknowledging the drawbacks directly weakens the overall point. Although my 'academic instincts' (for lack of a better word- those who know me will be hard-pressed to acknowledge any academic authority on this) kind of cringed at the one-sided presentation of things. For a guy who was intimately involved in some of these events, it makes it difficult to acknowledge the other side. Not the cannibalistic insurgents, hard to defend them or their backers in places like Taylor's Liberia or Ghadaffi's Libya, but the drawbacks of having to hire foreigners to enforce a nations sovereignty.

It's kind of funny, while I disagreed with P.W. Singer's 'Corporate Warriors', in a weird way it's more respectable. I'm deliberating over whether the reason for that is style or substance- but one must notice Singer's book is annotated and organized as a project for the Brookings Institution. He puts the issue in a more theoretical perspective which I disagree with, focusing on the centrality of the nation-state, something a cursory reading of Africa will quickly disabuse the reader of. Unless you mean nation-state only to apply to Western-style democracies or their authoritarian variant a la the Cold War and present-day Russia... but I digress.

The truth of the matter seems to me- as long as nation-states, or multinational organizations such as NATO or the UN or EU, etc., fail to provide some manner of security, someone will exploit that. You can expect that in a situation where many who are poorly educated will continue to push some old Soviet/Marxist people's war. Of course with some type of local characteristics (a la Africa, Nepal, and more- in places like that, discredited communist ideology can be an improvement from current conditions), unless given a reason not to. And for most in situations like these, policymakers and local statesmen are limited to few options- the primary one being military force of some type, depending on resources. The rational discourse of representative democracy and free-market economics won't 'spontaneously occur' without reasonable stability. Why work and educate oneself for years with a poor chance of success, when you can kill or rape and take it today. That's part of the curse of the 'Third World'.

Tim Clissold, 'Mr. China: A Memoir'

What's not to like about this book? It's a story about a guy who gets involved in China's business and foreign financing debacles in the 1990's. He, of course, wants to be 'The Old China Hand' (Zhongguo tong- putonghua de tong), the expert on the area. But there are problems during this crazy time China is 'discovering capitalism'.

The book is enjoyable, even if it doesn't go too in depth. Although it's lightness and vagueness is part of the story, I think. He travels there as a student, gets hooked. Comes back as a businessman after being bored in London and wants to see it again. Gets hooked up with a venture capitalist eventually who tours the country with him to pump some money into China- straddling Wall Street and the Great Wall he gets his hands dirty in post-Mao/post-Tiananmen China.

As you can imagine, people steal money, try to cheat the owners, pull bureaucratic strings and other debacles. The troubles encountered almost kill him with stress. But during this duress he realizes he has to provide a Chinese solution, rather than traditional business as we know it. He ends up staying out there, bringing his family along. Not mentioned much in the book, but 4 kids! That alone would be interesting.

An interesting look at the times- also a bit of insight into the crazy westerners who get caught up in the whole deal. A few things same and others different. A weird lot, for sure. I'll probably go out there again sometime, so it's nice to read books like this.

A few good reads, got more on the way.

Magic Tuesday?

2006-05-09T20:58:00.000+04:00

Not really. Feels like the tempo has kicked up a bit, we've been busy. Don't know if it's just me, but it seems like the selection of the Prime Minister and the breaking of the political stalemate in Baghdad has stabilized things. Less uncertainty. We've still got the 'long hard slog' ahead, but with the factional stuff and some local developments it was looking pretty messy the past couple of months. The IP and ING are back out on the roads, that's for sure.

In the meantime, a lot of stuff going on- work, bureaucratic infighting, sandstorms, new people, etc... hard to fit time for my reading, watching movies and sunbathing, not to mention fitness! Family traveling, graduating, working and all that too. Life is tough... guess you all know that.

Here's a few interesting reads- if nothing else, read this Mark Steyn article in The Australian. He really gets at the heart of things in a logical way- why is it so difficult to do something for Sudan? Choice quote: 'The UN kills.' His main point? 'At some point, the Left has to decide whether it stands for anything other than self-congratulatory passivity and the fetishisation of a failed and corrupt transnationalism.' Tough one to swallow. Let me know if you're persuaded (I know 'The Left' is a bit broad, but we must make some compromises for punditry).

Additionally, VDH is interviewed on Hugh Hewitt's show about recent happenings in Iran, while recovering from a burst appendix he had in Libya. He's always interesting with the Classic perspective he brings.

In other news, a minor editorial on Chinese debt. Who knows how it'll turn out, but ignore it at your peril. And an editorial in San Diego on Mexican influence on their home election, kind of interesting as a side issue. Even if not a particularly great editorial.

Always got more to do, but I'll have to stop there for the moment- good hearing your thoughts as well.

What? Another Dust Storm?

2006-05-08T23:09:00.000+04:00

This is a picture from Al Asad last year. I saw something similar to this today, this afternoon. Couldn't see 4 feet in front of the car at it's worst. A guy in Taji took some photos of what he saw at Dave's Not Here. Hopefully I'll put up some that a teammate took up soon. Eventually I'll get those oasis pictures from the camel trip, but waiting until my buddy downloads them...

Peace out- catch you in a few months hopefully!

The convenience of immigration

2006-04-30T09:42:00.000+04:00

Ran into this one at the Horses mouth. Since immigration is a big topic these days, we should think about it from the other side to understand it better. Which side is that? The American immigrants into Mexico, of course!

David M. Bresnahan
April 1, 2006
NewsWithViews.com

Dear President Bush:

I'm about to plan a little trip with my family and extended family, and I would like to ask you to assist me. I'm going to walk across the border from the U.S. into Mexico, and I need to make a few arrangements. I know you can help with this.

I plan to skip all the legal stuff like visas, passports, immigration quotas and laws. I'm sure they handle those things the same way you do here.

So, would you mind telling your buddy, President Vicente Fox, that I'm on my way over? Please let him know that I will be expecting the following:

1. Free medical care for my entire family.
2. English-speaking government bureaucrats for all services I might need, whether I use them or not.
3. All government forms need to be printed in English.
4. I want my kids to be taught by English-speaking teachers.
5. Schools need to include classes on American culture and history.
6. I want my kids to see the American flag flying on the top of the flag pole at their school with the Mexican flag flying lower down.
7. Please plan to feed my kids at school for both breakfast and lunch.
8. I will need a local Mexican driver's license so I can get easy access to government services.
9. I do not plan to have any car insurance, and I won't make any effort to learn local traffic laws.
10. In case one of the Mexican police officers does not get the memo from Pres. Fox to leave me alone, please be sure that all police officers speak English.
11. I plan to fly the U.S. flag from my house top, put flag decals on my car, and have a gigantic celebration on July 4th. I do not want any complaints or negative comments from the locals.
12. I would also like to have a nice job without paying any taxes, and don’t enforce any labor laws or tax laws.
13. Please tell all the people in the country to be extremely nice and never say a critical word about me, or about the strain I might place on the economy.

I know this is an easy request because you already do all these things for all the people who come to the U.S. from Mexico. I am sure that Pres. Fox won't mind returning the favor if you ask him nicely.

However, if he gives you any trouble, just invite him to go quail hunting with your V.P.

Thank you so much for your kind help.

Sincerely,

David M. Bresnahan

© 2006 David M. Bresnahan - All Rights Reserved

The Future of War: Africa

2006-04-28T19:39:00.000+04:00

I'm currently 2/3rds through this book on Mercenaries in Africa and it's all starting to blend together. Hard to keep events distinct from each other- it all blends into a revolution to replace a corrupt government, succeeds, differs from the previous in it's style of corruption and violence, then replaced by another revolution (in the meantime with advice and guidance from foreign mercenaries attached to neighboring states trying to undermine them). You can read about the 'West Side Boys' of Sierra Leone- brutal child warriors of the RUF, known for cannibalism. Not too much different from the seven other groups trying to wipe each other out at the time.

Anyhow, it turns out there's a lot of Ugandans over here in Iraq working for MNFI (Multinational Forces- Iraq). At first I thought it was an embarrassing farce, and it is a little. As a member of the 'Coalition of the Willing', they are here protecting the PX. Wow, I feel safer. Well, they do a bit more than that, working at some Camp entrances and other places, mostly (but not always) with supervision. Funny thing though- they don't come here directly by their government, their deployment is managed by different security companies in different locations. Makes you wonder if their presence here is just a matter of bribes, covered up in their home country.

However, they do their job well, and don't take shit at the checkpoints. All of them have a high understanding of English. And one would be stupid to underestimate them.

I was talking to one of those guards this afternoon, as my readings were on my mind- African war is quite different from this. Well, taking what he said with a grain of salt- every soldier is prone to exaggeration I'm sure, certain facts were true. According to him, he had been in the Army for 9 years- during that time he spent 2 years in the Congo and 3 in Sudan. For those unfamiliar with African geography, Uganda is a small country west of Kenya, east of Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) directly south of Sudan and north of Rwanda and Tanzania. Some of those names should ring bells- just think 'massacre' and some of the biggest ones have been around there. Idi Amin was from there...

I digress, falling into the same bloody history I was trying to avoid. There's so much the details really don't matter- unless, of course, you're going there. But for someone like me, listening to this former (or present, depending on his status) compare there to here, it was interesting.

He was happy that he was single- didn't have a wife and kids to feed or send back money to like a lot of the other guys in this situation. Seemed like a fun guy, although his eyes were a bit yellow (maybe previous malaria?), and yet I got this cold desensitized perception after talking a while. I have to attribute it to the veterans 'thousand yard stare'. It gave his claims credence, in the manner he spoke- not that of an inexperienced youth, or an impressed and overawed villager.

He got pulled out of school to fight Mobutu Sese Soko back in 1996, in the Congo. Bad stuff was happening, and it sounded brutal. But it was only 2 years and he survived. He had no 'post-modern' questioning of his duty, it was to protect his country. The same everywhere he went, he didn't like how the Army controlled him, but it was taken for granted that he did it for the 'better of the country'.

It was also taken for granted that Arabs (and all Muslims as well) are terrorists. They were in the Sudan when he went there, and that's the way they're treated at home (Uganda) too. To think otherwise is candy-eyed nonsense. There was an interesting story of working with an Israeli Mossad anti-terror team... probably something to it, even if it didn't happen to this guy. They are mentioned in my book as well as known to keep an eye on events such as Sudan, not to mention an interesting history with Uganda as well. But the Arabs or those who sympathize with them wouldn't leave the Christians alone and so they (the Ugandans) took part of southern Sudan. I'm missing alot, and my imagination is filling in the blanks with what I do know about how African states get 'involved' in their neighbors disputes...

Now he was done with that- earning big money by coming here to Iraq to guard gates. Afterward he would probably go back to school of some sort. In the meantime, he was kind of confused with how we treated the Iraqis, said we should 'just go and destroy their mosques, shoot them in the streets'. It sounded like these weren't idle threats, based on his experiences in Sudan. What would an army of these Africans do to a place like this if led? It's a chilling prospect to consider...

It makes you think; things have really died down here. Controversial political statement- I know, especially in light of the fact that people continue to die and danger continues to exist. The key word is clearly 'relative'. Relative to other places, relative to the past in Iraq even. But it is relative, even as there are holdouts and ongoing problems. Yet nothing like the dramatic upheaval that occurs cyclicly in the African conflicts.

I'm really not keen on Africa, but with things going the way they are, I don't see us being able to stay out of it. Ideally we'd go in with our eyes open, at the appropriate time. It's a different world there, very different. Hopefully someone else will think this through, not underestimating the Africans. It's easy to do, but one must also realize how we are looked down on for our 'kid gloves' in dealing with this situation here, someone similar to this Ugandan would wonder why we are so rich and powerful, yet so weak and unable to control things when they are 'relatively calm'.

I doubt my disjointed thoughts make this argument particularly coherent. In the end I wonder why I always end up with more questions than answers?

Update: an interesting debate developing in the comments of a related thread at the libertarian site Q and O.

A tired Wednesday afternoon

2006-04-26T17:36:00.000+04:00

Lot of stuff going on- is it already Wednesday? Jeesh. Between reading, meeting the Secretary of Defense, running into old friends and people I know, searching for jobs, going to Baghdad, I've been busy. But the best was catching up with my brother this weekend. We've both been busy, so it's been a while since I've had a chance to sit down and hear what he's up to. All good, same old- but good to hear. He's working hard too- just figured a way to do it without getting shot at, which gets props in my book. Although don't know if I'd be here otherwise...

Did I tell you it's green outside and it's been cool and rainy? Weird weather for here, I'm told. It's almost nice. True, most of nearby is a dustbowl, but as you travel along Al-Furat (The Euphrates) towards Baghdad it can be nice- all the farmers and irrigation. Wonder if it can be developed into more, or if it's artificially that way. Hmm. It'll probably just dry up in the scalding summer heat.

So what's gone on. Well, was a bit tired after that multiday trip to the South last week, where I saw the camels (still have a few more pictures to post). Turned out I had a day off, so I read a few books and magazines I just received, watched a few movies.

The Robert Young Pelton book 'The Adventurist' is something I'll wait to post on later, pure travel porn for me- going to exotic warzones and such. A bit of a nut, although I wasn't totally impressed. I'm halfway through another book on modern mercenaries ('War Dogs: Fighting other people's wars') which is quite interesting, considering some people here know some in the book, and have different recollections. A lot of the guys here worked in Sierra Leone- most as British soldiers, others not. Pretty considerable stuff.

As for the movies; 'Walk the Line' about Johnny Cash- was pretty decent, mostly because of Reese Witherspoon. Joaquin wasn't bad, but he wasn't 'the man/ the legend', so despite a good story and a few other points, it was alright. Finished the 'Sonny Chiba collection' last week- some of his old ones (minus the Street Fighter series) which was pretty good, and also a 'History of Violence', which I disliked immensely. This guy was trying to leave his previous violent life, and in order to do it, had to rely on violence, and everybody disliked him for it- wife of 20 years, son, whatever. It seemed almost emasculating, how they demonized the fact that he was threatened and resorted to violence to solve it. I didn't see the point. I would really like to just shake that person.... 'Spy who came in from the Cold' last night was a thinker, even though I view John LeCarre in a dim light.

Met Donald Rumsfeld this morning at the American Embassy in Baghdad. Well, unfortunately 'met' is a bit of an exaggeration; he said 'what are you guys doing, standing in the bus line?' as he walked by with his big entourage. That was the man, in case you haven't noticed. That was in between running into a bunch of guys who I used to be with back in the military- 2 working in the Diplomatic security branch, 1 still in the military. It is definitely a small world.

Anyhow, got some admin done, tired and bruised from the ride there and back (second in a row). That's alright though. Looking for a job, and might have something started. Have to interview and do a few other requirements, but it sounds promising. Maybe later this year.

So you can see why I might be tired. No, it's not always like this, but it can be. I've always got a little bit too much going on for my own good, even though I mostly get away with it. Even if it's sometimes to the detriment of those who care about me, I'm afraid. Thinking of you all-

Southern Iraqi desert

2006-04-21T21:42:00.000+04:00

You don't see these every day, but it reminds you that we're not in Kansas anymore Toto. Evidently, someone owned them, but they let them run free to graze and drink on their own. They sure as hell weren't going to do it, not much foliage around- amazing how resilient they are anyhow. They say the white ones are supposed to be more valuable... interesting. A nice break from other distractions.

Last word on the 'Generals Revolt'

2006-04-20T18:29:00.000+04:00

Best to conclude with humor, eh? Just got back from a trip- should have some cool pictures up in the next week. But here is the last word about those generals...

U.S. Generals Call for Resignation of Media Leaders

by Scott Ott

(2006-04-19) — A growing movement of retired and active-duty U.S. military officers, angry at the mismanagement, arrogance and even deception that have hampered U.S. efforts to secure peace and democracy in Iraq, have begun quietly calling for the resignation of top leaders they blame for the difficulties.

“I believe that it’s time for them to step down,” said one unnamed retired three-star general. “The editors of The New York Times and Washington Post and the news producers at CNN, CBS, NBC and ABC should resign effective immediately.”

“They’ve formed a tight cabal that focuses only on news that reinforces their neo-journ ideology,” said another unnamed general. “Despite the urgent need for actual reporting from Iraq, they have failed to put enough boots on the ground in country.”

“As civilians, they make editorial decisions without any understanding of history or military strategy,” said another retired officer, “and they’re trying to run the war coverage from hotels in the cloister of the Green Zone, without consulting with our leaders and troops on the frontlines.”

The generals who all requested anonymity, in the words of one, “so I won’t be bothered by a bunch of calls from reporters writing redundant stories,” said the leading news media gatekeepers should be replaced by “more centrist voices” who will be honest with America, and not blindly devoted “advancing the neo-journ agenda.”

“We’d like to see leaders in there who will cover the Iraq story as Americans, or at least as those who believe in liberty,” said one active-duty general who has worked closely with reporters and editors.

Meanwhile, New York Times Publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. brushed off what he called “the incessant drumbeat of negativity” from opponents of his administration.

“You can’t relieve your top commanders while your side is winning,” Mr. Sulzberger said. “Frankly, the Pentagon doesn’t direct enough attention to the car bombings, sectarian strife and rumblings of civil war which show that we’re making progress in Iraq every day.”

Links and etc...

2006-04-18T22:45:00.000+04:00

Tired, a lot of stuff going on. And it's getting warm outside, warmer every day. I'll be out for a few days, but here are some of the things I've read recently.

Coming Anarchy has some interesting topics up- here's one on a new release from the Mitrohkin archives, how the Soviets were funding revolutions in the 3rd world. And another one about what the after-effects of Korean reuinification might be...

More on the 'Generals protest', haha... Zinni might have to make a correction on his stances, whichever one he's taking. Bruce Thornton at VDH's site has a look at what it means to the soldiers to hear Generals complain. Victor Davis Hanson puts it in a historical perspective. And there's an interesting thread at Q and O about the very same thing... Westhawk takes the generals protest to the logical conclusion- 'Do they want a Caudillo for the US?' And on a related note, here is the Tigerhawk post I mentioned in my last comment- Richard Clarke, Against all Solutions- another look at the pretty vapid opposition to the Iraq war.

Happy Easter

2006-04-16T09:04:00.000+04:00

Time flies here, thought it was Thursday until I checked my watch. Hope everyone is having a good time- was Passover last week, so makes sense that it's now Easter.

Was going to post some other stuff, but I'll just add it to the one below. Just my normal run of the mill stuff. Best to everyone-

Passing the time of day

2006-04-15T23:01:00.000+04:00

The Insurgency wins a Pulitzer

More analysis on Iraq- making it hard for Al Qaeda

Is this really happening in the US? Politically correct BS from the ones complaining of 'McCarthyism'

Tired man, even though we had a day off. Went running, it was warm out- gets warmer every day. The sun is starting to melt everything. Besides that, all well and can't ask for much more than that.

ADDENDUM:

Here's some more on the manufactured 'Generals Revolt', including background on the disaffected generals. Zinni has been a big name for some time, as one of my friends pointed out. The more I think about it, the more it pisses me off. I can count on one hand the General officers whose opinion I would seriously consider worth listening to, suffice to say, none listed here. The Pentagon has a funny way of firing or limiting promotion of the real warfighters unless it's to pull their ass out of the fire, so the status quo is the 'Perfumed Princes' who have mastered the bureaucracy.

A good discussion here at Q and O about the same thing, and more discusssion at Blackfive about what impact Moderate Muslim's really have.

Regulations as a substitute for sound policy

2006-04-11T16:53:00.000+04:00

Can't really get into the details, unfortunately. I don't want OPSEC/PERSEC info to be floating around the Google cache to haunt me at a later date, or whatever else could happen. However, I'll try to give a brief outline and you can make of it what you will.

Started last night- I had come back from dinner and we had a new Rules of Engagement (ROE) addendum to read. I wish I could tell you how absurd they are with some of these new requirements. Some politically appointed bureaucrat sitting at home in Washington DC trying to please his boss. Perfectly fine for operating in a stable, developed country that isn't a sectarian war-zone, like here. More hypocritical CYA regulation paper-fucking is all it is, so when someone fucks up they can blame it on someone else.

There was an incident that demonstrated something similar to this, happening earlier yesterday, which we found the details about today. To make a long story short, a convoy security company took some, uhh- poorly recommended choices in route navigation which took them through the nastiest parts of downtown. The first time they got ambushed, one person killed and another wounded, so they turned around and got ambushed again, resulting in a total of 3 dead and 7 wounded. And on the way, while they fought out of this contact they shot up a few cars killing 2 women and an Iraqi soldier. Kind of puts a bad light on it to be in the same league- ie: 'Security contractors'- as these guys. I know some good guys who have done convoys, but there is a lot of, for lack of a better word, 'cowboys' out there. But those stupid ROE wouldn't have done anything to save the civilians or the contractors. Law and order might have, but I digress.

Brings up the whole gray area of being here in a concrete way. I paraphrase Lenin when he said there were only two major questions- 'What is the problem and who is to blame.' We're really not responsible for the mess people have made of this country, and we provide services to assist those in charge. Do you take the structural argument and say it wasn't the contractors fault, they had to deal with the security here (ie US or Saddams fault for fucking up the country), even if they made poor choices? Or do you start clamping down on the 'cowboys', the poorly regulated and uncontrolled people (of, ahem, 'questionable' training and experience) making money escorting goods through the country?

I'm a firm believer in responsibility- a person must answer for their actions. Some are justifiable, such as mistaken shooting of civilians in a combat zone might turn out to be. But the ignoring of safety warnings and other considerations might reflect poorly for their case. We do our best to avoid those situations, with certain deliberate measures in particular, and hopefully won't have to deal with this. But the fact remains that these people are necessary- sometimes it's not even government convoys, local and multinational companies shipping goods in and out of the country must use these people to navigate through the country. People like me are regulated and controlled by the USG, though that shouldn't necessary be much more comforting.

All that mumbo-jumbo aside, a few more regulations won't do shit to help this country. It takes will and sacrifice. It is a delicate time right now, as the still unformed Iraqi government dances around these problems- I swear it seems no one wants to take any responsibility, the hint of it scares people more than any bomb ever will. In that vacuum of power, many other institutions arise to service the unmet needs of business, government and the people. Among them us- the security contractors, of whom many are expats. Sometimes American, British, African, Lebanese, whatever... but people not directly invested in the long-term good of this country. Not necessarily a bad thing... I have to repeat, bringing in outside expertise is mostly beneficial. But the more you have to do that, the less stable your national sovereignty will be.

I know I'm omitting some other fundamental questions that could be addressed. But I just wanted to show what it looks like from here. This isn't my negative Iraq war post, although it could be a part of it. Sometimes these things are just- embarrassing, especially in light of the sacrifices and efforts put forward by the people in the military.

Here's some other interesting things I found on the net:

Tigerhawk talks about the difference in coverage of Mubarak's comments about a withdrawal of Coalition troops from Iraq. Funny thing, the German paper was less 'nuanced', shall we say, than Al Jazeera. Hmmm....

Glenn Reynolds has his own look at Mexican immigration and an innovative alternative: Annex Mexico?

More gloom over Europe's future and prospects as witnessed in France and Italy.

Sage-like advice from the Shanghai taximan.

Another sandstorm yesterday

2006-04-08T17:04:00.000+04:00

Got a bit nasty the last couple of days, but today nice and blue, got back up for some tanning. After a run downtown in the morning of course. The fabled summer is back on, after a few cool days. Will update more soon.

However, do want to ask one question: if one was to study, say, counterinsurgency/insurgency as a part of military history, where would one do that? What schools would be the best place to do that?

Haven't seen this analysis in the paper

2006-04-05T19:35:00.000+04:00

An interesting report from Strategy Page, believe it or not, this is how it looks to me:

April 2, 2006: What you see in the Iraq news, is not what you get. The news business demands startling headlines, to attract eyeballs. It's business, as the eyeballs are rented to advertisers to pay for it all. But the reality of the news is less startling, and consists of trends. These are the current trends in Iraq.

After three years, the Sunni Arabs, who long dominated Iraq, most recently under the leadership of Saddam Hussein, are giving up. It took so long because of a quirk in Arab culture, one that encourages the support of lost causes. The term "cut your losses and move on" is not as popular in the Arab world as it is in the West. But even the slow learners in the Sunni Arab community had to finally confront some unfavorable trends. Chief among these was;

The Kurds and Shia Arabs have formed a national police force and army that is far more powerful than anything the Sunni Arab community can muster. Over the last year, Sunni Arabs realized that the police and army were in control of more and more Sunni Arab towns. This was a trend that could not be ignored. Added to that was the number of Kurds and Shia Arabs who had lost kin to Sunni Arab terror over the last three decades. Many of these people want revenge, and they all have guns. Many, especially those that belong to the police, or militias, are taking their revenge. The Sunni Arabs want protection, for they cannot muster enough guns to defend themselves. Now the Sunni Arabs want the Americans to stay, at least until there's some assurance that the Kurd and Shia Arab vengeance attacks have died down.

The alliance with al Qaeda was a disaster. These Islamic terrorists were obsessed with causing a civil war in Iraq, and they insisted on doing this by killing lots of Shia Arabs. The Sunni Arabs didn't want to kill lots of Shia Arabs, they wanted to rule them all once more. But that raised another contentious issue. While some Sunni Arabs were in favor of an Islam Republic, which al Qaeda insisted on, most Sunni Arabs wanted a more secular Sunni Arab dominated government. This dispute was never resolved, as the split between al Qaeda and the Sunni Arab community widened. At the moment, al Qaeda is not welcome in most Sunni Arab areas. That's "come near this place and we'll kill you" not welcome. This after al Qaeda tried to terrorize the Sunni Arab tribal leaders into compliance. Killing Sunni Arab tribal chiefs didn't work.

You can't kill enough Americans to scare them into leaving. Saddam, and most Iraqis, were convinced that, because of Vietnam (where 55,000 American died) and Somalia (where 18 died in 1993), the United States would withdraw if you killed enough of them. While that is sometimes true, it's good to remember that over a million Vietnamese died during the 1960s, and that 1993 battle in Mogadishu left over 500 Somalis dead as well. Moreover, this, "the Americans have no stomach for a fight" is nothing new. It's why Japan attacked in 1941, believing that if they beat up the Americans bad enough, the faint hearted Yankees would just go away. Hitler also believed the Americans would not fight. After three years, the Iraqi Sunni Arabs have discovered that the Americans can certainly fight, and the Yankees have also found ways to do it that involve extraordinarily low American casualties. This story has not really gotten the attention it deserves, but the Sunni Arabs have noticed. They have noticed that if you attack the Americans, chances are you will die, and the Americans will just keep on keeping on. It used to be that the Sunni Arabs could take heart from the occasional attack where they killed a few Americans. But no longer. Everyone knows the trend, and doesn't want to be another victim of it. Last month 32 Americans were killed in combat. The last time it was that low was in February 2004. Back then, the Sunni Arab tribes and al Qaeda had joined forces. Both of them had plenty of weapons, money and volunteers. Two years of bad trends have changed everything. The trend was that the Americans were much better at killing Sunni Arabs than Sunni Arabs were at killing Americans.

The economy continues to improve, except for those Sunni Arab areas where terrorists and gangsters are still out of control. Here's where it's all about money. Before Saddam fell, the Sunni Arabs had most of it. Since then, they have much, much less. The Sunni Arabs have been obsessed with getting their "fair share" of the oil money. When Saddam was in charge, the Sunni Arabs (who are 20 percent of the population), got over 80 percent of the oil money. Now they see themselves lucky to get 20 percent. Worse, all the oil is in areas dominated by Kurds and Shia Arabs. In response to this, the Sunni Arabs have continually attacked the pipelines that cross Sunni Arab territory. When paid to help guard the pipelines, some of the Sunni Arab chiefs just stole the money, and let the pipelines get attacked. The Sunni Arab attitude is one of, "if we can't have it, no one can." But now the Sunni Arabs have noted that much of the country is getting wealthier even without the oil. The Sunni Arabs have been living off oil for so long that they forgot there are other ways to make a living. The economic trends have been noted by the Sunni Arabs, and there is more willingness to do what needs to be done to bring some prosperity to the Sunni Arab areas.

Finally, there's the most important trend of all. How successful have Iraqis been in creating a civil society. This doesn't get much media play either, yet it is the ultimate goal in Iraq. A civil society is one that can run its own affairs without the constant threat of civil war or dictatorship. We take civil society for granted in the West, but in the rest of the world, it is more notable by its absence. American and British diplomats have been hammering away at the Iraqis for three years about how important honest government it. Many Iraqis agree. Yet the corruption continues, and three months after national elections, the various parties cannot agree on who will get what, and there is no government. That's because the lack of a civil society has the various ethnic, religious and tribal factions warily haggling over who gets what. There is not much trust, and the stealing goes on. Iraq's fate will ultimately be decided by how many honest politicians it has, not how many cops are on the street or what Iraq's neighbors think or do.

How many different ways can you title 'boring'

2006-04-01T20:55:00.000+04:00

Raining outside, not much going on. Had an interesting run through the country today, nothing too exciting. Switched positions, which should be nice for a break. Got to stay interested over the next couple of months.

One of my heroes pronounced this war over and Vietnam all over again. Martin Van Creveld, a prominent military historian, wrote a compelling article in 2004 making the comparison titled 'Why Iraq will end like Vietnam'. Disagree, but it's a concise and accurate portrayal of some things as they were and some could be. Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of room for pessimism. At some point I might record my own misgivings about this whole effort. Although mine will be focused on the execution of the war (maybe even some Sun Tzu nuance about what is a war and all that), not the implied assumptions denying the reasoning behind it or the justification for any war. Some nastiness is ongoing, even with few bright points. I tend to fall into a Michael Yon explanation- civil war has been going on for the last couple decades, now it's on the other foot. Another thing is I don't believe you can fight a 'People's War' with the modern understanding of human rights. Civilization (as opposed to barbarity) is secured by people who will fight for it, not people who willl argue ineffectually at impotent (but well-intentioned) international committees or similar appeals. And barbarians, as some are well aware, only respond to force.

Have to have humor in this world. Humor you can find in the impeccable logic of 'fascism'- I'll know I've arrived when people call me a fascist. That means I'll actually be doing something, instead of immediately claiming victim status and hoping for mercy. Unless you're convinced by drivel like this (14 points of why America is a fascist state)... for the naive dupes of Chimpy McHitlerburton.

I have to add this video, sent by Caesar (all hail!), about the Snack Attack, mofo!

For the best news on the web, we then move on to Scrappleface (News Fairly Unbalanced. We Report. You Decipher). Up-to-date on the latest regarding the Captive Coyote Death and Humans Inability to Manipulate God! Will the resident theologian comment on the last one, please? Not to be confused with those theocrats who are always on the verge of taking over here but ending up in the Middle East (another PJ O'Rourke reference).

Oh, also in my ebook pursuit came across this website, Baen books, that offers quite a bit of selection in the sci-fi department. Reading this one series written by an Airborne guy, and it's odd... clearly written by an insider with a comprehensive view of infantry operations, but to me sometimes cliched, heavily gear-fetishization and odd character archetypes. Best scifi ever written is still William Gibson's 'Neuromancer' which I just reread, and now have on my computer. Sony, release soon!

And that's another day in Iraq.

Seen inside a port-a-john the other day

2006-03-31T16:49:00.000+03:00

Among other selections, a few stood out- there was more but I couldn't remember them, should take a picture next time.

Iraq: The place where great stories are made (up)

People who write graffiti in Port-a-john's are stupid, d'oh!

Ebooks as a question of gear

2006-03-26T14:11:00.000+03:00

Because my brother says I need write more blog posts, here I am. Thinking of everyone at home, like my grandma and family. Don't want to rehash my old political treads, so maybe I'll write something a little different. Give all my readers a break from telling them how the European social model is breaking down to cold-hearted capitalism. As for me, recently had a few down days, but looks like it'll be busy for the next week or so. Staying busy. Have to...

In the spirit of self-indulgent capitalism, I'll take a moment to meditate on my acquisition strategies; what gear to buy. Lately I've been reading on the laptop quite a bit. But this hurts my eyes a little, since I don't want to go blind or wear glasses sooner than I need to, I started looking for some new toys. Sony is introducing this new ebook reader imminently (I keep checking and it still says 'Spring 06') that looks promising, with this new technology called 'E-ink'. Supposed to be much easier on the eyes. Although ebooks are quite interesting- you can get a lot of the classics and history (most of the books I do read) in text, html or PDF format for free. There is some talk of it replacing those huge textbooks college kids carry around, of course they've been saying that for some time.

However, the new ones are fickle in what format you choose, how they're modified to display, etc. The problem would be how they are stored, and how they would be transported if I upgraded my computer or reader- all those DRM problems. For example, Rough Guides offer some of their guides in ebook format (and maps too, but separately and only for PDA at the moment), although I'm waiting for the places I want to go actually visit be available. Lonely Planet doesn't even have that yet, although it will eventually. But for me, it would be so cool if I could just carry one electronic reader instead of 5 or 6 paperbacks. A portable library. The Philips Iliad does do some things, with e-ink, but it doesn't seem right- and is a bit too expensive as well. There is a generic Chinese model that could be interesting, Jinke V2 or V8, but don't know if it's reliable just yet. A comprehensive comparison of the leading models is here.

Instead of the idea of a portable reader, I'm back to looking at some sort of PDA that I'd need to recharge every day or so. Choices, choices- out here what else do you have?

Sunday morning reads

2006-03-19T10:08:00.000+03:00

Links on Iraq:

Progress in Iraq?
Sectarian war?
Problems in Baghdad
2004 vs. 2005

Moderate Muslims:

What does the Koran mean when it says...
How do Muslims really feel? (check the comments for an interesting conversation)
Marching for peace

Military reform:

SOCOM expansion and more covert ops?
More weird and arcane military theory- 5GW?

Miscellaneous:

Cindy Sheehan
State Department refutes Perkins book 'Confessions of an Economic Hit man'
VDH on 'Teflon Europe'
New York Times stretches it's credibility with another ill-researched article

The Fallacy of Relevance

2006-03-06T22:38:00.000+03:00

Or in simple English, so fucking what? A quote from PJ O'Rourke, whose most recent book 'Peace Kills: America's Fun New Imperialism' I'm sending to a good friend at the moment. Hope he hasn't read it yet, if so he can send it to another friend or return it to the 'library'.

There's a lot of stuff, like the lines above I borrowed, in this comments thread over at Samizdata, the British Libertarian website. It's talking about what we have learned over this recent cartoon controversy, also known as the Jyllands-Posten incident. The idea of the 'Moderate Muslim' is under debate... a nice and full overview is available at the Prague Post. Some selected quotes at Chicago Boyz are also nice.

One comment highlighted the contradictory responses, stating "It is strange how people who rail against state collectivism, are themselves so willing to condemn people collectively, as if the people concerned don't have individual wills, when talking about Muslims."

The idea of individualism requires people to think and act like individuals, but when they are only capable of ignorant mob violence, they must be treated like an ignorant mob. In fact, it would be impolite to impose my oppressive hegemonistic Western values on them! I had a talk with a friend about this, but it was, as you might imagine, a subject we might agree to not discuss further in respect for our friendship.

However, the more I learn, the less I like- when theology splits the world into Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb (the world of Islam and the world of war) it kind of makes ones ethical conduct suspect. Theologically, what infidelic Danes do should be no business of a Muslim imam- they all are decadent Satans, right? Nah, don't work like that.

Anyhow, the things I do to occupy my time. The issues I hope to be dealing in at some point in the future.

Machiavelli on Fortresses

2006-03-03T20:19:00.000+03:00

The military readers of this site might be especially interested in this older look at potential counter-insurgency strategy. I've certainly found it to be quite perceptive based on my experience.

From the 'Discourses'

CHAPTER XXIV

FORTRESSES ARE GENERALLY MORE HARMFUL THAN USEFUL

It may perhaps appear to these sages of our times as something not well considered, that the Romans in wanting to assure themselves of the people of Latium and of the City of Privernum, did not think of building some fortresses there, which would be a restraint to hold them faithful; especially as there was a saying in Florence alleged by our wise men, that Pisa and other similar Cities ought to be held by fortresses. And truly, if the Romans had been like them, they would have thought to build them: but as they were of another virtu, of another judgment, of another power, they did not build them. And so long as Rome lived free and followed her institutions and virtuous constitutions, they never built one to hold either a City or a province, but they did save some that had already been built. Whence seeing the mode of proceeding of the Romans in this regard, and that of the Princes in our times, it appears to me proper to put into consideration whether it is good to build fortresses, or whether they are harmful Or useful to him who builds them. It ought to be considered, therefore, whether fortresses are built for defending oneself from the enemy or to defend oneself form one’s subjects.

In the first case they are not necessary, in the second harmful. And I will begin by giving the reason why in the second case they are harmful, I say that that Prince or that Republic which is afraid of its subjects and of their rebelling, it results first from the fact that that fear arises from the hate which the subjects have for them, and the hate they have of the treatment given them. The ill treatment results either from the belief of being able to hold them by force, or from the little prudence of those who govern them; and one of the things that makes them believe they are able to force them, is to have their fortresses near them: for the ill treatment that is the cause of hatred, arises in good part because of that Prince or that Republic have the fortresses, which (if this is true) are much more harmful by far than useful: For firstly (as has been said) they cause you to be more audacious and more violent toward your subjects: afterwards there is not that internal security of which you persuade yourself, as all the strength and violence that is employed in holding a people are nothing, except these two: either you have always to place a good army in the field, as the Romans had, or you must disperse them, extinguish them, disorganize them, and so destroy them that they are not able to come together to attack you; for if you impoverish them, the despoiled ones will win their arms: if you disarm them, fury will serve as arms: if you kill the Captains and continue to injure the others, the Heads will spring up as those of the Hydra: if you build fortresses, they are useful in times of peace because they give you more courage to do evil to them, but in times of war most useless because they will be assaulted by the enemy and by your subjects, nor is it possible that they can resist the one and the other. And if ever they were useless, they are now in our times on account of artillery, because of which the small places, where moreover you cannot retire behind earthworks, are impossible to defend, as we discussed above.

I want to discuss this manner more tritely. Either you, a Prince, want to keep the people of the City in restraint with these fortresses, or you, a Prince or a Republic, want to keep a City in restraint that has been occupied in war. I want to turn to the Prince, and I say to him that such fortresses cannot be more useless to him in holding his Citizens in restraint for the reasons given above, for it makes you more prompt and less regardful in oppressing them, and that oppression will expose you to your ruin and will excite them so, that that fortress which is the reason for it cannot afterwards defend you; so that a wise and good Prince, in order to keep himself good and not give cause to his sons to dare to become bad, will never build fortresses, so that they will rely, not upon the fortresses, but on the good will of men. And if Count Francesco Sforza who had become Duke of Milan was reputed wise and none the less built fortresses in Milan, I say that in this case he was not wise, and the result has shown that that fortress was harmful and not a security to his heirs: for judging that through the medium of it to live securely, and to be able to oppress their Citizens and subjects, they indulged in all kinds of violence, so that they became so hated as described above, that they lost the State as soon as the enemy assaulted them: nor did that fortress defend them, nor did they have any usefulness for them in war, and in peace had done them much harm: for if they had not had them, and if because of little prudence they had not treated their Citizens harshly, they would have discovered the peril more quickly, and would have retreated, and would then have been able to resist the impetus of the French more courageously with friendly subjects and without a fortress, than with hostile subjects, and with the fortress, which do you no good in any way, for either they [fortresses] are lost through the treachery of those who guard them, or because of the violence of those who assault it, or by famine.

And if you want them to do you any good and to help you in recovering a lost State, where only the fortress remains to you, it behooves you to have an army with which you can assault those who have driven you out; and if you have the army you would recover the State in any case, [and] even more [easily] if the fortress did not exist, and so much more easily as men would be more friendly than they were to you, for you had maltreated them because of the pride of having the fortress. And from experience it has been seen that this fortress of Milan was of no usefulness either to the Sforza or to the French in times of adversity for the one or the other; rather it brought much harm and ruin to both, not having given thought because of it to more honest means of holding that State. Guidobaldo Duke of Urbino, son of Frederick, who is his time was an esteemed Captain, was driven out of his State by Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI; when afterwards because of an incident that had arisen he returned there, he caused all the fortresses that existed in that province to be destroyed, judging them to be injurious. For he being beloved by men, did not need them on their account, and with regard to his enemies, he had seen that he could not defend them; as they needed an army in the field to defend them, he resolved to destroy them. Pope Julius, after having driven out the Bentivogli from Bologna, built a fortress in that City, and afterwards had those people assassinated by one his Governors: so that that people rebelled, and the Pope quickly lost the fortress; and thus the fortress did him no good, but injury, and the more so, that by conducting himself otherwise it could have done him good. Niccolo Da Costello, father of the Vitelli, returning to his country when he had been exiled, quickly razed two fortresses that Pope Sixtus IV had built, judging that the good will people, not the fortresses, would keep him in that State. But of all the other examples, the most recent and the most notable in every way, and apt to show the uselessness of building them and the usefulness of destroying them, is that of Genoa which ensued in the most recent time. Everyone knows that in MDVII [1507] Genoa rebelled against Louis XII, King of France, who had come in person with all his forces to recover it, and having recovered it, he had a fortress built stronger than all others known up to the present time; it was impregnable because of its location and other circumstances, being placed on the apex of a hill that extended into the sea, called Codefa by the Genoese, and by means of this he commanded all the port and great part of the town of Genoa. Afterwards in the year MDVII [1512] it happened that the French forces were driven out of Italy, Genoa rebelled notwithstanding the fortress, and Ottaviano Fregoso seized the State, who, after sixteen months and with every industry, captured it by starvation. And everyone believed, and many counselled him, that he should preserve it as a refuge in any event: but being a most prudent man, [and] knowing that the good will of men and not fortresses maintained Princes in their States, destroyed it. And thus without founding his State on the fortress, but on his virtu and prudence, he has held it and still holds it. And where before only a thousand infantry usually were enough to overturn the State of Genoa, his adversaries have assaulted him with ten thousand and have not been able to harm him. It will be seen from this, therefore, that the destruction of the fortress did no more harm Ottaviano, than the building of it protected the King of France. For when he was able to come into Italy with his army, he was able to recover Genoa without the fortress being there; but without the army he could not come into Genoa even though he had a fortress there. For him, therefore, it was an expense to do [build] it and a disgrace to lose it: To Ottaviano the recovery of it was glorious and the destruction of it useful.

But let us come to the Republics which build fortresses, not within their own country, but inside the towns they acquire. And if the example given of France and Genoa are not enough to demonstrate the fallacy of this, those of Florence and Pisa will be enough for me; for the Florentines build fortresses in order to hold that City, and did not understand that to hold a City which was always hostile to Florentine rule, had lived in freedom, and had resorted to rebellion as a refuge for liberty, it was necessary in wanting to observe the old Roman method, either to make her an associate or to destroy her: for the virtu of fortresses is seen in the coming of King Charles, to whom they all surrendered, either through the treachery of those who guarded it, or from fear of a greater evil: for if there had not been one, the Florentines never would have based their holding Pisa on it, and the King [of France] could never in that manner have deprived the Florentines of that City: and the means by which they had maintained it up to that time would perhaps have been sufficient to preserve it, and without doubt would have stood the test better than the fortress.

I conclude, therefore, that to hold one’s own country a fortress is injurious and to hold towns that are acquired fortresses are useless: And I want the authority of the Romans to be enough [for me], who razed the walls of those towns which they wanted to hold, having taken them by violent means, and never rebuilt them. And if anyone should cite in opposition to this opinion that [example] of Tarantum in ancient times and of Brescia in modern times, both of which places were recovered from their rebellious subjects by means of fortresses, I reply, that for the recovery of Tarantum Fabius Maximus was sent at the beginning of the year with the entire army, who would have been more apt to have recovered it if there had not been a fortress: for although Fabius had used that means, if there had not been this means [fortress], he would have used other means which would have had the same result. And I do not know of what usefulness a fortress may be, if in the recovery of a town, a consular army with Fabius Maximus for its Captain is needed to recover it: And that the Romans would have recovered it in any event, is seen by the example of Capua where there was no fortress, and which they reacquired through the virtu of the army. But let us come to Brescia. I say that there rarely occurs that which occurred in that rebellion, that while the fortress remains in your power (the town having revolted) you should have a large army [and] nearby as was that of the French: for Monsignor De Foix, Captain of the King, being with his army at Bologna and learning of the loss of Brescia recovered the town by means of the fortress. The fortress of Brescia, therefore, (in order to be of benefit) also needed a Monsignor De Foix, and a French army which had to succor it in three days: Hence this example in contrast to opposite examples is not enough, for many fortresses have been taken and retaken in wars of our times, by the same fortune as field campaigns [have taken and retaken], not only in Lombardy, but also in the Romagna, in the Kingdom of Naples, and throughout all parts of Italy.

But as to building fortresses in order to defend oneself from external enemies, I say that they are not necessary to those people, or to those Kingdoms that have good armies, and are useless to those who do not have good armies: for good armies without fortresses are sufficient to defend themselves, and fortresses without good armies cannot defend you. And this is seen from the experience of those who are held to be excellent as governors and in other things, as was the case with the Romans and the Spartans; for if the Romans did not build fortresses, the Spartans not only abstained from building them, but even did not permit the City to have walls, because they wanted [to rely on] the personal virtu of their men to defend them, [and] not some other means of defense. When, therefore, a Spartan was asked by an Athenian whether the walls of Athens appeared beautiful to him, he replied “yes, if the [City] was inhabited by women”.

The Prince, therefore, who has good armies, may have on the frontiers of his State, or on the sea, some fortresses that could resist the enemy for some days until he could be checked; this may sometimes be a useful thing, but is not a necessary one. But when the Prince does not have a good army, then having fortresses throughout his State or at the frontiers, are either injurious or useless to him: injurious, because he loses them easily, and when they have been lost they are turned [make war] against him; or even if they should be so strong that that enemy cannot occupy them, they are left behind by the enemy army, and are of no benefit; for good armies, unless they are confronted by equally brave ones, enter into enemy country regardless of the City or fortress which they leave behind, as is seen in ancient histories; and as Francesco Maria did, who in recent times, in order to assault Urbino, left ten enemy Cities behind him, without taking any account of them. That Prince, therefore, who can raise a good army, can do without building fortresses: He who does not have a good army, ought not to build. He ought indeed to fortify the City where he lives, and keep it fortified, and keep the Citizens of that City well disposed, in order to be able to sustain an enemy attack so that he can [keep it] free by an accord or by external aid. All other plans are an expense in times of peace, and useless in times of war. And thus whoever considers all that I have said, will recognize the Romans as wise in all their other institutions, as they were prudent in their judgments concerning the Latins and the Privernati, where, not thinking of fortresses, they assured themselves of these people by wiser and more virtuous means.

Picture of the IZ, via Google Earth

2006-03-02T20:21:00.000+03:00

Roundup; back in the country and to work

2006-03-02T12:41:00.000+03:00

Visited a lot of friends on my recent travels. It was a great couple of weeks, even if too much time spent in airports and airplanes. But so good to see people from all over.

But now it's back in the Middle East. Been deliberating a lot about whether or not I'll stay here in this capacity or not. I've got some other options, but at the moment the opportunities here outweigh the drawbacks. It's so important to see how my country deals with this and who is doing it, experience that most people don't want (and for good reason). I've got a few leads to follow, but it's safe to say I'll be here for a little longer.

Actually, I'm in the IZ for a day, it's a little different from the last time I was here. A little quieter. Although I'm always amazed by how the foreigners dress, especially the women- high heels, a short skirt, then body armor and helmet. And the guys with hair gel.... hmmm. Have to see it to believe it. A bunch of Germans around, guess that means the new government is changing their policy.

Quite an interesting time, although far from a ‘civil war’ that excited political elements back home seem to be wishing for. Evidently things were a bit hairy in certain areas, but nothing too dramatic. The Iraqi government has to work a few things out. It's amazing how different this place is from the breathless reports of death and destruction, even though diplomacy seemed to have worked. For me it's amazing how invested the media coverage seems to be in portraying the Sunni's, who made up the repressive Baathist apparatus of Saddam Hussein and now have a track history of assisting Al Qaeda elements, as innocent victims. One expects this from Al Jazeera, covering Saddam's trial and all (conveniently omitting interesting facts), but not elsewhere. At least not so blatantly. This little mosque bombing thing seems to be actively advancing this perception- somehow it's outrageous that the Shiites might try to take action to defend themselves. By any comparison, they haven't begun to answer the outrages committed against them.

That's not to say all Sunni's are bad. Not at all. But they suffer from the same 'tyranny of the majority' that paralyses the rest of the Muslim moderates. Makes people start to wonder if they're really there. Just having come from staying with friends of mine in Malaysia who were, Muslim (imagine that), I think that they're definitely 'moderate'. They definitely don't agree about certain things, but with respect from both sides we can learn a lot. But the information is not being put out there. And the hypocritical agenda of the radicals gets a free ride in the global press. This is displayed quite cynically in the furor over the cartoons- tolerance for one but not for others. Ones choices are to either believe what seems to be the multicultural agenda of the press, or to cynically believe everyone's full of shit- we'll read who we already agree with, and Muslims want to kill us no matter what we do. It require a credible press to counteract this. One that might put forward 'conservative' opinions, not 'conservative misinformation'. That might even expose some of the hypocrisy of both sides.

Getting back to catching up on the Internet. You might've noticed I've put a lot of links in this post, a lot more than I usually do. There's so much out there, good information to know...

There's some interesting writing about the whole 'neocon' thing, saying that their philosophical ancestry comes from the Trotskyites, a la Christopher Hitchens. I wouldn't go that far, but I do see much of it coming from people who come from the Left and wonder why it has not worked. Some people might be amused to know I came from 'The Left' (although not quite as far left as, say, Trotsky), even if I've obviously traveled quite a distance since then. The Left has some great ideas, but then it pushes these insane, suicidal ideologies that seem to have no practical basis. The idea of free speech probably came from a leftist, liberal (in the true meaning of the word) perspective. Is this what they meant? Or this? Can anyone tell me what we have to gain by having the Taliban's former spokesman getting a full ride to Yale? How good can those ideas really be if there is no one to physically defend them? Looking around at the various perspectives in the US, there's the liberal/progressives, the conservatives (among them the paleocons, the neocons), and many more. After looking through the various groups, I guess I'm a neocon. I've come to this belief as a result of my lack of faith in idealistic policy hoping that people will act better than they do, but believing that there are things worth fighting for. Does that mean I have to write a neocon manifesto or something? An interesting college columnist complains that Bush destroyed 'neoconservatism' by his incompetent bumbling, an interesting twist I've not often heard (neocons- the suited hippies?).

One of the premier neocons, Sec DoD Rumsfeld, has some interesting comments at a recent foreign symposium. Talks a lot about how to handle the media and what that means to the US and the military. Love him or hate him, he's quite a guy. He doesn't mind defending himself from hard questions. Who would win, in a fight between him and Cheney? Inquiring minds want to know, but I'm for Rumsfeld.

There's an interesting discussion on military reformation over at QandO, although it's no longer active. I'm rather negative about it, as politicians and their starred peons in the Great Bureaucracy of the Pentagon always seem to rediscover the same problems but do nothing substantial about them. There's always crap like John Kerry's military plan- get a whole lot of soldiers and call them Special Ops. Actually, I believe it was something better-sounding than that, to double SOCOM in what was it, 2 years? Unrealistic and juvenile. People want to ignore the problems in the military by putting more and more off on the SOF so they don't have to fix the rest. Then they wonder why it's so difficult to create more SOF. Fix the other problems first.

Anyways, the world is vast- no comment about the India state visit and the UAE deal (althought IMAO has an humorous post on port security advice). Or the likely upcoming conflict with Iran, if diplomacy fails (but it's been doing such a great job the past couple of years). Some of my friends are trying to convince me one day I'll influence these things, knowingly feeding my already feverish delusions of grandeur! Pity the world if their predictions come true, haha....

Back to work soon

2006-02-25T17:36:00.000+03:00

Finally posted the photos from Indonesia below. They've got their share of problems, but not like the ones going on in the Philippines at the moment. Or maybe those I'll see back at home/work, for that matter (both courtesy of The Belmont Club). Maybe I should go visit the Fatherland, they'll like me there, haha....

Couldn't make it to Singapore due to missing the scheduled flight back from Jakarta, but no worries on that, next time I'm in the area I'll make it. But not soon; I will be headed back in the next few days. It's been quite an interesting trip. No new job yet, but still have a few leads and ideas. I really want to come back here for work, whether it's some type of security or business deal. That's the niche for me at the moment, until I can manage otherwise.

But that niche feels restrictive, so I'm kind of at a crossroads of what to do about it so I can take the next step. A part of me wavers and says 'go travel', a part says 'just keep working', a part says 'go study, there's always something to improve'. Honestly, I'm at a point now where I want to be getting enmeshed in work. That would be ideal when I'm just starting here and getting going. However, all the fields which would interest me most generally require me to be back in the States waiting for the next 6 months or so, even if it brought me back into this world. So school starts looking like a really nice option... really, the deal is I need to put the hard work in now and get established. In whatever field it ends up being. I'm getting varied experience, but in one way it's still like treading water- I might be getting stronger but I'm going nowhere, and eventually I'll tire of it.

All this negativity is unproductive though. In some ways having the opportunity to see the things I am now is immeasurable- shared by few outside the military community. This is true. However, the current vehicle for doing this is far from ideal. And the pragmatic questions of money and other material concerns linger...

Ah well, my friends and family- the captive audience who reads this blather- care about me. Good friends, some with bigger families too (congrats again, Obi). That's the main thing that matters. Even if they have to put up with this whinging (there I go with that English again, the proper term is 'whining' no matter what the Brits say).

Rice paddies

2006-02-25T15:25:00.000+03:00

It's not really Asia without rice, right?

Tea plantation

2006-02-25T15:23:00.000+03:00

Peppers brought the Arabs, cloves brought the Dutch, but tea is always in demand.

Local farmers houses

2006-02-25T15:21:00.000+03:00

Mountain view

2006-02-25T15:19:00.000+03:00

Even with a bit of smog obscuring the volcanoes.

Mountain Lodgings

2006-02-25T15:16:00.000+03:00

At a place like this you really don't worry too much about the traffic down in Jakarta. The mosquitoes still follow you, but that's probably unavoidable.

Ideological warfare

2006-02-24T06:31:00.000+03:00

This post at 'Armed and Dangerous' really gets to the heart of the matter. A bit long, but very important to me. Since I can't articulate my understanding of philosophy and politics in regards to the clash of Cold War ideology this well, I will simply reproduce it here for my readers (so many, haha- maybe a few will read this whole thing) to look over for their own edification. This is probably 95% of what I believe as far as the philosophical conflict of the modern world we face today- dealing with the attempts by opposition to undermine our legitimacy. Beginning below...

Gramscian damage

Americans have never really understood ideological warfare. Our gut-level assumption is that everybody in the world really wants the same comfortable material success we have. We use “extremist” as a negative epithetic. Even the few fanatics and revolutionary idealists we have, whatever their political flavor, expect everybody else to behave like a bourgeois.

We don’t expect ideas to matter — or, when they do, we expect them to matter only because people have been flipped into a vulnerable mode by repression or poverty. Thus all our divagation about the “root causes” of Islamic terrorism, as if the terrorists’ very clear and very ideological account of their own theory and motivations is somehow not to be believed.

By contrast, ideological and memetic warfare has been a favored tactic for all of America’s three great adversaries of the last hundred years — Nazis, Communists, and Islamists. All three put substantial effort into cultivating American proxies to influence U.S. domestic policy and foreign policy in favorable directions. Yes, the Nazis did this, through organizations like the “German-American Bund” that was outlawed when World War II went hot. Today, the Islamists are having some success at manipulating our politics through fairly transparent front organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

But it was the Soviet Union, in its day, that was the master of this game. They made dezinformatsiya (disinformation) a central weapon of their war against “the main adversary”, the U.S. They conducted memetic subversion against the U.S. on many levels at a scale that is only now becoming clear as historians burrow through their archives and ex-KGB officers sell their memoirs.

The Soviets had an entire “active measures” department devoted to churning out anti-American dezinformatsiya. A classic example is the rumor that AIDS was the result of research aimed at building a ‘race bomb’ that would selectively kill black people.

On a different level, in the 1930s members of CPUSA (the Communist Party of the USA) got instructions from Moscow to promote non-representational art so that the US’s public spaces would become arid and ugly.

Americans hearing that last one tend to laugh. But the Soviets, following the lead of Marxist theoreticians like Antonio Gramsci, took very seriously the idea that by blighting the U.S.’s intellectual and esthetic life, they could sap Americans’ will to resist Communist ideology and an eventual Communist takeover. The explicit goal was to erode the confidence of America’s ruling class and create an ideological vacuum to be filled by Marxism-Leninism.

Accordingly, the Soviet espionage apparat actually ran two different kinds of network: one of spies, and one of agents of influence. The agents of influence had the minor function of recruiting spies (as, for example, when Kim Philby was brought in by one of his tutors at Cambridge), but their major function was to spread dezinformatsiya, to launch memetic weapons that would damage and weaken the West.

In a previous post on Suicidalism, I identified some of the most important of the Soviet Union’s memetic weapons. Here is that list again:

There is no truth, only competing agendas.
All Western (and especially American) claims to moral superiority over Communism/Fascism/Islam are vitiated by the West’s history of racism and colonialism.
There are no objective standards by which we may judge one culture to be better than another. Anyone who claims that there are such standards is an evil oppressor.
The prosperity of the West is built on ruthless exploitation of the Third World; therefore Westerners actually deserve to be impoverished and miserable.
Crime is the fault of society, not the individual criminal. Poor criminals are entitled to what they take. Submitting to criminal predation is more virtuous than resisting it.
The poor are victims. Criminals are victims. And only victims are virtuous. Therefore only the poor and criminals are virtuous. (Rich people can borrow some virtue by identifying with poor people and criminals.)
For a virtuous person, violence and war are never justified. It is always better to be a victim than to fight, or even to defend oneself. But ‘oppressed’ people are allowed to use violence anyway; they are merely reflecting the evil of their oppressors.
When confronted with terror, the only moral course for a Westerner is to apologize for past sins, understand the terrorist’s point of view, and make concessions.
As I previously observed, if you trace any of these back far enough, you’ll find a Stalinist intellectual at the bottom. (The last two items on the list, for example, came to us courtesy of Frantz Fanon. The fourth item is the Baran-Wallerstein “world system” thesis.) Most were staples of Soviet propaganda at the same time they were being promoted by “progressives” (read: Marxists and the dupes of Marxists) within the Western intelligentsia.

The Soviets consciously followed the Gramscian prescription; they pursued a war of position, subverting the “leading elements” of society through their agents of influence. (See, for example, Stephen Koch’s Double Lives: Stalin, Willi Munzenberg and the Seduction of the Intellectuals; summary by Koch here) This worked exactly as expected; their memes seeped into Western popular culture and are repeated endlessly in (for example) the products of Hollywood.

Indeed, the index of Soviet success is that most of us no longer think of these memes as Communist propaganda. It takes a significant amount of digging and rethinking and remembering, even for a lifelong anti-Communist like myself, to realize that there was a time (within the lifetime of my parents) when all of these ideas would have seemed alien, absurd, and repulsive to most people — at best, the beliefs of a nutty left-wing fringe, and at worst instruments of deliberate subversion intended to destroy the American way of life.

Koch shows us that the worst-case scenario was, as it turns out now, the correct one; these ideas, like the “race bomb” rumor, really were instruments deliberately designed to destroy the American way of life. Another index of their success is that most members of the bicoastal elite can no longer speak of “the American way of life” without deprecation, irony, or an automatic and half-conscious genuflection towards the altar of political correctness. In this and other ways, the corrosive effects of Stalin’s meme war have come to utterly pervade our culture.

The most paranoid and xenophobic conservatives of the Cold War were, painful though this is to admit, the closest to the truth in estimating the magnitude and subtlety of Soviet subversion. Liberal anticommunists (like myself in the 1970s) thought we were being judicious and fair-minded when we dismissed half of the Right’s complaint as crude blather. We were wrong; the Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss really were guilty, the Hollywood Ten really were Stalinist tools, and all of Joseph McCarthy’s rants about “Communists in the State Department” were essentially true. The Venona transcripts and other new material leave no room for reasonable doubt on this score.

While the espionage apparatus of the Soviet Union didn’t outlast it, their memetic weapons did. These memes are now coming near to crippling our culture’s response to Islamic terrorism.

In this context, Jeff Goldstein has written eloquently about perhaps the most long-term dangerous of these memes — the idea that rights inhere not in sovereign individuals but identity groups, and that every identity group (except the “ruling class”) has the right to suppress criticism of itself through political means up to and including violence.

Mark Brittingham (aka WildMonk) has written an excellent essay on the roots of this doctrine in Rousseau and the post-Enlightenment Romantics. It has elsewhere been analyzed and labeled as transnational progressivism. The Soviets didn’t invent it, but they promoted it heavily in a deliberate — and appallingly successful — attempt to weaken the Lockean, individualist tradition that underlies classical liberalism and the U.S. Constitution. The reduction of Western politics to a bitter war for government favor between ascriptive identity groups is exactly the outcome the Soviets wanted and worked hard to arrange.

Call it what you will — various other commentators have favored ‘volk-Marxism’ or ‘postmodern leftism’. I’ve called it suicidalism. It was designed to paralyze the West against one enemy, but it’s now being used against us by another. It is no accident that Osama bin Laden so often sounds like he’s reading from back issues of Z magazine, and no accident that both constantly echo the hoariest old cliches of Soviet propaganda in the 1930s and ’40s.

Another consequence of Stalin’s meme war is that today’s left-wing antiwar demonstrators wear kaffiyehs without any sense of how grotesque it is for ostensible Marxists to cuddle up to religious absolutists who want to restore the power relations of the 7th century CE. In Stalin’s hands, even Marxism itself was hollowed out to serve as a memetic weapon — it became increasingly nihilist, hatred-focused and destructive. The postmodern left is now defined not by what it’s for but by by what it’s against: classical-liberal individualism, free markets, dead white males, America, and the idea of objective reality itself.

The first step to recovery is understanding the problem. Knowing that suicidalist memes were launched at us as war weapons by the espionage apparatus of the most evil despotism in human history is in itself liberating. Liberating, too, it is to realize that the Noam Chomskys and Michael Moores and Robert Fisks of the world (and their thousands of lesser imitators in faculty lounges everywhere) are not brave transgressive forward-thinkers but pathetic memebots running the program of a dead tyrant.

Brittingham and other have worried that postmodern leftism may yet win. If so, the victory would be short-lived. One of the clearest lessons of recent times (exemplified not just by kaffiyeh-wearing western leftists but by Hamas’s recent clobbering of al-Fatah in the first Palestinian elections) is that po-mo leftism is weaker than liberal individualism in one important respect; it has only the weakest defenses against absolutist fervor. Brittingham tellingly notes po-mo philosopher Richard Rorty’s realization that when the babble of conflicting tribal narratives collapses in exhaustion, the only thing left is the will to power.

Again, this is by design. Lenin and Stalin wanted classical-liberal individualism replaced with something less able to resist totalitarianism, not more. Volk-Marxist fantasy and postmodern nihilism served their purposes; the emergence of an adhesive counter-ideology would not have. Thus, the Chomskys and Moores and Fisks are running a program carefully designed to dead-end at nothing.

Religions are good at filling that kind of nothing. Accordingly, if transational progressivism actually succeeds in smothering liberal individualism, its reward will be to be put to the sword by some flavor of jihadi. Whether the eventual winners are Muslims or Mormons, the future is not going to look like the fuzzy multicultural ecotopia of modern left fantasy. The death of that dream is being written in European banlieus by angry Muslim youths under the light of burning cars.

In the banlieus and elsewhere, Islamist pressure makes it certain that sooner or later the West is going to vomit Stalin’s memes out of its body politic. The worst way would be through a reflex development of Western absolutism — Christian chauvinism, nativism and militarism melding into something like Francoite fascism. The self-panicking leftists who think they see that in today’s Republicans are comically wrong (as witnessed by the fact that they aren’t being systematically jailed and executed), but it is quite a plausible future for the demographically-collapsing nations of Europe.

The U.S., fortunately, is still on a demographic expansion wave and will be till at least 2050. But if the Islamists achieve their dream of nuking “crusader” cities, they’ll make crusaders out of the U.S., too. And this time, a West with a chauvinized America at its head would smite the Saracen with weapons that would destroy entire populations and fuse Mecca into glass. The horror of our victory would echo for a thousand years.

I remain more optimistic than this. I think there is still an excellent chance that the West can recover from suicidalism without going through a fevered fascist episode and waging a genocidal war. But to do so, we have to do more than recognize Stalin’s memes; we have to reject them. We have to eject postmodern leftism from our universities, transnational progressivism from our politics, and volk-Marxism from our media.

The process won’t be pretty. But I fear that if the rest of us don’t hound the po-mo Left and its useful idiots out of public life with attack and ridicule and shunning, the hard Right will sooner or later get the power to do it by means that include a lot of killing. I don’t want to live in that future, and I don’t think any of my readers do, either. If we want to save a liberal, tolerant civilization for our children, we’d better get to work.

On the road

2006-02-20T05:36:00.000+03:00

Made a few changes to my travels: I will be taking a brief trip to Indonesia today. Part for pleasure and merriment; part for the purpose of job-seeking. I hope to come back here for a more permanent stay. I end up thinking that every time I come down here to SE Asia (as you can imagine from the pictures below)- whether it's Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia or Indonesia. It'd be nice to be somewhere I could use my linguistic skills and not be confined to a desk, so I'm going to follow up a lead or two. I want to look more towards the future, and that's what I can do when I'm not working. When I'm there, you can imagine one must be quite focused.

In the meantime, some ideas are forming for where I want to be in the next half year or so. I've gotten myself in some odd situations, and I plan to keep that habit for the future. But one must go home at some point. Developing...

The beach

2006-02-20T05:29:00.000+03:00

How could you not get a little sunburn with a place like this? I hear back home there's this thing called snow, but it sounds so strange, haha... I'm definitely not a beach person, but I understand.

Diving off the West Coast

2006-02-20T05:09:00.000+03:00

Amazing stuff here, just beautiful. I wondered briefly, if my brief visit here would be worth it, a waste of time. I saw this here and didn't really wonder too much more...

Rain on the streets of Phuket

2006-02-13T18:31:00.000+03:00

Wait until you see the beaches, you will curse me then, haha...

Raining on Khaosan road

2006-02-13T18:16:00.000+03:00

The most dangerous place in Thailand

2006-02-12T13:52:00.000+03:00

Of course I must find it. Is it dark alleys? Battlezones? No, the live poultry section of Chatuchak, the world's largest open-air market. Can you handle that!

After jumping 5 time-zones and about a day of travel I'm in Thailand again. It's funny what you remember and forget about this place- the energy and dynamism of the people and the activity in the markets, everything going on around the place. Along with the impressive skyscrapers you have the unregulated sprawl along the coastline, just going on while the buses trawl for more riders or make unplanned stops. Hard to figure out where the city starts and ends.

This place really has it's own character, like all places for good and bad- lush in foliage, even with the pollution and trash in places. The markets are everywhere, not just in certain places. We foreigners see an odd section of the country that tries to cater to their real and perceived needs- whether it's the backpackers or the sex tourists or the enterprising businessmen. There's so much else going on despite the weird-looking foreigners walking along the way. It's nice here in climate and the locals are friendly, but don't think I would want to stay too long for some reason. That's what vacations are for, anyway- definitely better than work.

Traveling here and there

2006-02-08T11:27:00.000+03:00

So I'm in the Middle East still, visiting Israel and the amazing sites here. My friend is worried I'm not leaving an excited endorsement. But I hope I am! However, I think my version of excitement is a little say, abnormal, and people who would come out here would probably be more hesitant to come with my endorsement ("It's really safe here, I don't have to carry a gun" or "The Arabs here usually just use knives and stones, almost harmless"). That's probably not the best advertisement for tourism. No, this place is amazing, and you can see why when visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulcher as I did the other day, or the Western (Wailing) Wall. Of course, not totally safe, even if nothing like where I've been working, but something to see and will see more of in the future. Barring a third intifada, no reason not to come. Media reports seem a little overblown, but I guess they're just about as accurate as those coming from my workplace.

The future, ah- so scary to contemplate! At the moment, I'm just trying to focus on the travel ahead of me, next to dive in Thailand, then maybe Malaysia and Singapore, then back to work. But what next, how do I get ready for my future career? I suppose I'm scared I'll get stuck in this line of work, but it's more like there are other things to do, that I have to get on with- like maybe going back to school. I joked about that with my cousin- my experiences in the military were what gave me the motivation to finish school in the first place, as sick of it as I was anything was better than that, and now I might be falling into it again. I have to do something I like though, and there are some interesting opportunities I'm considering.

Well, onto a plane soon, put some more pictures up in the next couple of days. They are better than my attempts at humor. Thinking of friends and family- especially new additions like young S in the past weeks, and those expected soon. See ya around-

Jerusalem

2006-02-07T00:43:00.000+03:00

My first look on to the Old City of Jerusalem this morning. On a hill amidst hills, foughten over for millennia, here it is. The weather has been great, looking forward to tomorrow.

Tel Aviv/Yafa

2006-02-07T00:23:00.000+03:00

The metropolitan center, the business and artistic center of Israel, home to the family of my friend who I'm visiting this trip. Tel Aviv was originally built as a beach town, typically by the British as they seem to like. Yafa, on the other hand, has been there for some time protruding from the shore in what is western Tel Aviv. It was the site of some considerable history- some say where Jonah went off to the whale, and the Greek myth I can't recall of the beast from the sea (started with an A- ah! no wonder it was difficult, Aspidoceleon, courtesy of Google) .

Morning on base

2006-01-29T16:10:00.000+03:00

This one seemed to come out real well, hopefully it'll be similar here. Mornings and evenings can be quite nice, and the contrast of the camp below gives it an odd feeling.

Sandstorm

2006-01-29T16:06:00.000+03:00

The other day this weather crept up, stopping all planes and making a mess of everything- spreading the omnipresent dust over all.

Car Quiz

2006-01-25T18:22:00.000+03:00

I'm a Lamborghini Murcielago!

You're not subtle, but you don't want to be. Fast, loud, and dramatic, you want people to notice you, and then get out of the way. In a world full of sheep, you're a raging bull.

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

Mental illness

2006-01-22T19:40:00.000+03:00

According to this article, nearly 1 in 5 of every teenager is bipolar. Actually, upon closer read, you realize that the 1 in 5 number is among current psychiatric disorders, not just normal people. But even allowing for sensational media statistic, one has to wonder at this 'increase' in mental illness. Is it just me, or does this seem, pardon the expression, insane? The more we study people, the more it seems that they don't fit in these nicely defined parameters. The obvious reason must be that they're crazy... so let's just drug them up. Kids acting up in school, give them some Rytalin. Everybody needs something, from 'mothers little helper' to the latest designer drug to hit the club scene.

As someone who has been inside and outside the psychiatric health industry (psycho-pharmacology, counseling, etc..), like most things, I have found that the people involved really do think that they are helping. But I think they will be surprised when they pay attention to the actual science comes in, showing that inequality, violence and greed are in fact, more natural than the nonviolent compassion we hold as the ideal. Learning to fight and get along with ignorant people in school is the best social education one can ask for, as dysfunctional as it may sound.

Stop medicating people, let them fight it out- you'll be surprised to see how people's happiness and mental stability improves. We've evolved for millions of years to surive amidst powerful and dangerous beasts and inhospitable climates, not to mention the wars among our own people, but now we can't handle the soft life of modern living? Give me a break. Let the chips fall where they may.

Collateral damage, what is the worth of foreign lives?

2006-01-19T20:21:00.000+03:00

So we missed Ayman al-Zawahiri in the targeted missile airstike last week in Pakistan, too bad. Looks like we killed about 4-5 of his henchman, perhaps even some big guys like they're making this Damadola out to be. Unfortunately, around 18 local Pakistanis also got it. They were either hosting this celebratory dinner, or they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The concept of collateral damage- an attempt to quantify the moral calculus of targeting. Is this a futile exercise?

The rhetoric flies... is this just propagandized cover your ass? Certain people seem to think so.

I would like to think there is a balanced way of looking at this. Ultimately, I don't think any moral calculations will be satisfying. You can cold-heartedly say (like I would), those Paki's were probably sympathizers, whatever- it's still regrettable. A part of me thinks, in some kind of romantic 'code of the warrior', that those who are willing to make a moral stand and put their life on the line are to be respected- one can imagine that in the right circumstances, they would be a credit to their society. But they have the misfortune to fight a more organized and capable force. This is the price paid when we follow through on our stated objectives of capturing or killing members of Al Qaeda, devoted to the endangerment of our way of life.

We don't need some heightened circumstances of 'being in a war' to justify this kind of violence inflicted on other people. Some people in the comments of the Washington Monthly raise some interesting, if facetious comparisons- what if it was Americans or other Westerners? Wouldn't we feel the same way?

No. We, by our very nature (or at least the broad set of cultural values known as the West) generally value our individuals very much (some would say out of proportion). While in the 'West' 18 people would be a tragedy (ie: recent story of the 13 miners), for the billions of 3rd worlders living in the chaos between anarchy and authoritarian government, a different calculus exists. Maybe when you reached 180,000 people would start to pay attention, but then probably only a decade later and with little fanfare. A famous quote of Stalin comes to mind: 'One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic.' The truth of the matter is that it seems to take something like a democratic institution of government to give individuals their value, not easily done outside of aristocratic institutions like royalty or wealth in these societies, much more restricted than our own.

But we can't justify our actions on their failures. That might illuminate their hypocrisy, but it does not legitimize this effort. Archaic viewpoints, as institutionalized in irrelevant codes such as the Geneva convention attempt to provide an answer to this 21st century conflict and fall short. This Euro-centric outlook falls apart when you are not fighting Europeans. We look to the world, valuing our people, and wishing to defend their way of life against those who would take it, with little value for their own people. The dictators of the 20th century have followed the patterns of the past, attempting to overwhelm with numbers and force what they could not master by negotiation or ideas, and failed despite the conventional wisdom.

This is the dilemna of the West in the 21st century, an existential war in the midst of our culture. For what is worth fighting for? I read this awful article about the problems that many countries are having with their Muslim immigrants, or their nationals living in Islamic countries- violence on women being a central difference. We have tried to value our women (even if one must frankly admit a lack of perfection), while others have made no such efforts. How can we defend our ideals if we can't defend ourselves?

Meanwhile, more and more people come into the world, and we look to new technology as our solution while natural resources decrease. Clearly competition exists still, even among the 'civilized' the cutthroat murderous impulses lie deep in the recesses of our psyche.

The lives of those supporting the local insurgent networks here cross my mind, along with a contemplation of what additional methods might be applied towards the goal of their pacification. But a more urgent example may be the fact that roughly 70 million people live in Iran. How much time will they give us until the value of their people drops below acceptable standards with the contemplation of the nuclear ayatollahs? Then perhaps there is some moral math, when our perception of danger reaches a certain zenith that we value their lives at the same level they do, this can only mean destruction is imminent.

Collateral damage seems to be merely a psychological displacement to avoid the consequences of our actions. We need to face up to this. Following these outdated moral codes is a recipe for suicide. Following no codes is nihilism and anarchy. We must look at this in a determined manner, because once the math takes over- rationality of this sort can be very bloody.

Technology taking over the world

2006-01-15T13:45:00.000+03:00

I’ve just watched a movie called ‘Stealth’, about advanced technology taking going haywire. An experimental fighter jet is run by a program that malfunctions, giving it access to all kinds of military information and power, making it a military threat first to enemies but then eventually to the builders. Turns out all right in the end, but it did make me think of a few things in the process. It’s another rehash of the ‘technology’ taking over archetype, most perfectly represented in the Terminator series. Or the malicious Hal 2000 in ‘2001’.

This threat of ‘Artificial Intelligence’ is a recurring theme in popular fiction, but if I think back on it, it isn’t new. By definition, archetypes point at the primal urges of our psyche. This fear of the inanimate animating itself can be seen to me most clearly as the civilized looking down at the uncivilized, such as the ‘Barbarians at the Gate’. The men and people of the Classics had the latest technology and tactics of the day, and always worried about keeping them away from their enemies. They did this by enforcing a separation of them by tradition and culture. The Spartans worried that, as a part of Lycurgus’s laws, if they waged war too much on their neighbors they would learn their methods and be able to defeat them. As Epaminondas eventually did later with the Thebans in their uprising shattering the Spartan rule. The Romans worried about training the tribes, in the fear they would turn against them. And they were right to worry, as seen with Arminius uniting the Germans, as well as later the Roman-trained Huns sacking Rome, along with the Gaul’s numerous attempts.

They considered these people to be barbarians, incapable of civilized thought or actions. Contradictorily, they feared them wielding the tools of civilization with their modern military methods of the day. The Iranian situation is a good parallel, or WMD’s in general- undeveloped, theocratic or communist enemies wanting the power of nuclear weapons to make up for other shortcomings. Although that topic is relevant I shall have to restrict it to another discussion, as I am raising it here only to show it’s comparison to this recurring archetype. We seem to have this surprising parallel with the contemplation of computers, although I would suggest that this is probably more to stay in the annals of science fiction than present reality. But the idea of barbarians- those incapable of civilization or logical thought- remains a fear of our people. Of those educated in the Western civilization, we rightly fear those who don’t share our values. Therefore, empowering them with our technology would be very dangerous, you don't want to wake up with the Terminators putting their feet on your neck! The problem with the development of technology is not that it develops out of control, but that it is easily abused by the people it is now accessible to- when prior it was unavailable and inaccessible.

What to do about it then, do we sit around with our multi-cultural niceties, or do we destroy those who would do the same to us (but seem to only lack the means)? The movies seem to usually have a good ending, maybe it'll work out that way here as well. Haha...

Movies

2006-01-11T20:47:00.000+03:00

Well, when one has free time on his hands, even the gym gets boring. So a bunch of movies tend to circulate around. Just saw 'March of the Penguins', a documentary on Emperor Penguins in the Antarctic. Amazing, you don't even mind the fact it's been dumbed down for kids a little. The footage is just beautiful. And I was raised on nature documentaries, so even better.

The normal stuff fares a bit worse. Narnia wasn't bad, but nothing I'd bother to see again. Then there's the fun stuff, like 'Doom' or 'Aliens vs. Predator', passes the time, fun... My mom sent me the complete set of A&E's version of Horatio Hornblower, that's really good. My brother sent me Deadwood and Rome- HBO makes some good stuff. The guys here seem crazy about 'Lost' and '24' series seem to be easier to watch.

Ah, best get up and back...

Rainfall

2006-01-07T15:58:00.000+03:00

Quite nice; outside it is raining, good for a change. Even if it does turn everything into a slush of mud, just means I won't be out there in it. I've got my books! Thinking of Asia and when I'll return there, possibly next month. Trying to get my travel arranged.

It'll probably rain into tomorrow, but it could stop and dry a little. The ground here certainly won't absorb it, not enough plants or sediment. Maybe it'll help with the pollution- outside our area there's this big factory, everytime you pass it you see the long, black snake of smoke trailing across the sky. I'm not a big fan of the weather here, especially when it gets so hot. At least in the tropics there's shade and water. But you've got to make do.

On the bedside table- Machiavelli's Discourses on Titus Livy

2005-12-29T21:38:00.000+03:00

I learned some interesting things in college, but I didn’t feel as if I learned anything until I began to read the books of the Classics (roughly defined as the Canon of history and philosophy written by mostly Greek and Roman sources influencing European thought for the past 2 millenium). I had picked a few up before, but as a senior one of my professors led me to explore them in a fuller fashion to great benefit.

Now, my background interests in military conflicts and history prejudice me towards an uncommon fascination with the affairs of early European history, true enough. But I feel now that it is a shame how their valuable lessons are so undervalued today- in the height of what we call ‘Western power’, usually referring to the dominance of European nations, a Classic education was the foundation for the gentleman, or any other aiming for esteem and power in our world. I’m afraid that most people seem unaware of the treasures hidden among these books, much less the cultural heritage. Even worse, in what I can only call post-modern conceit, there seems to be an active agenda to discredit this way of thinking as archaic and (take your pick) parochial, patriarchal, oppressive. A healthy discussion on the history of Rome would quickly illuminate the flaws and weaknesses of this great and influential nation, but the aim doesn’t seem to be this. Rather more often, I’ve encountered a blanket condemnation of anyone who would seek to emulate or praise the customs of our ancestors and cultural forebears. Condemnation and denigration of the martial virtues extolled in these books.

As a military man and now as a security professional, I’m consistently curious and sometimes worried about the viability of the warrior culture in our wealthy country, as mentioned previously. Surely, the man of the 21st century is capable of being a great warrior, even as circumstances differ and technology changes. The fundamental similarity is the primacy of human nature in relation to human interactions.

At the moment I’m working my way through Machiavelli’s Discourses- commentaries of his on Titus Livy's famous history of Rome. I understand why his works are so academically troubling and inconsistent- among his generalizations he places little importance on an empirical framework to support his claims. His support comes more from the assumptions of his culture and education. But his conclusions are so articulate and biting- he really gets to the essence of his topic. And his vision of the inherent difficulties of statehood and an honest appraisal of the hypocrisies of their administration. Quite a great book.

There's an interesting chapter here on fortresses, rather how despicable and useless they are. Should be a significant chapter in any counter-insurgency manual, how walls insulate and isolate, making people do things they wouldn't otherwise do in getting along with the locals. This and many other things make it such an interesting read.

Makes you wonder though, why is that the writers of some of these great books, like say- Confucius, Socrates or Machiavelli, books of great importance- written by someone who was unsuccessful in their chosen aims? Confucius always wanted to find the perfect prince of virtue, so did Machiavelli even if his prince would have been different, Socrates wanted to find the Truth and Plato recorded him for posterity. All basically failed- but in that individual failure their students or their writings lived on.

The world would have been a drearier place without them. I suppose at best, the victors themselves would have written tracts like Caesar. You know, okay- but dodging all the controversy, a few shades from self-supporting propaganda. So perhaps it's good they do. You probably don't want novelists to be world leaders, if certain 20th century notaries such as Hitler, or even Mao and Stalin, exemplify.

Well, I'll crack on then-

Violence and popular culture

2005-12-29T20:34:00.000+03:00

Movie box office receipts have been slipping in the recent years. Profits are going down- some attribute this to copyright infringement and other competitive aspects of the international movie market. But as far as Hollywood USA is concerned- I think intellectual property rights is probably not the most important. When 'Brokeback Mountain' is credible as Oscar material, one has to say hmmmm.... who's out of touch?

I wonder what our friends abroad in places like Israel think of Hollywood when lauded director Steven Spielberg makes a film like 'Munich'. Just reading reviews and seeing the trailers has relieved me of the urge to see it for myself. VDH takes a good bash at it- 'Hollywood's Misunderstood Terrorists'. Spielberg seems to have been trying to make a point of moral equivalency between the Israeli Mossad agents and the terrorists they tracked down. Is that a defensible argument? Is all violence supposed to be morally reprehensible and unjustifiable? That's what I am left with, unless I'm way off point here.

But I'm not content to leave it there. One of the undercurrents of this trend is an overall attempt to deligitimize violence through various means- 'gun control', 'mediation', all these other high minded efforts to overrule human nature. One of the side effects is the marginalization of the warrior culture- those who would protect the ability of these 'high-minded intellectuals' to produce their work and safeguard the market to sell it in. Unless you thought that every place in the world has a Best Buy or a movie theatre... reality alert, these things don't come easy. They are secured by the stability provided by the efforts of others. And unfortunately at times, that requires more violence.

But when you get film after film highlighting this emasculation, you have to wonder.... and wonder some more, since my incomplete thoughts won't be that satisfying. So I'll defer to someone saying it better than me, a la 'The Belmont Club'-

"Implicit in the model of Western warfare is that the warrior should never seek to persuade. That job has been assigned to the diplomats and civilians -- including the press. The most subversive thing imaginable is a military as good with words as it is with guns. That division of labor has been coextensive with the origins of uniformed armies. As old as the distinction between men in uniform and franc tireurs. Men under discipline might be allowed the occasional inarticulate "hoo-ah" but politics was to be left to civilians. But in the second half of the 20th century a strange thing happened. The neat division between uniformed and un-uniformed combatants collapsed; and the firewall between man-at-arms and man of letters disappeared."

He was writing about the problems the military has in countering enemy propaganda through what are called 'information operations'. I would point to something else, the ability of a society to produce warriors for its preservation, content to fight for a righteous cause. Fighting together, across lines of class and ethnicity. The converse being avoiding those who might otherwise protect degrade into thugs when their secular identity no long pulls weight, and no one dares question them. I believe this is what we see going on in Europe with the rejection of militancy and the moral corrosion of socialism. Tough words, I know! But I've yet to be convinced otherwise.

The question is open, shifting and changing. But I reckon it won't be too long before more people are asking what role do they want violence to play in their life, and what are they willing to do to achieve it? Can we just ignore it and deligitimize it, hoping it will go away by shame? Perhaps the ideal of a warrior might be useful, as it has in the past. Not perfect, but able and willing to defend what's important.

Day to day

2005-12-27T07:29:00.000+03:00

The sunsets here are really quite nice, a sort of purplish haze. Makes you forget there are people trying to kill you. And all the lights go out at night, so you can clearly see the sky and all the amazing stars. Nature and it's simple delights...

The speakers went off yesterday afternoon when we had some incoming, but there hasn't been any in a while out here. No big deal. Had some out on site the other day but it was a dud- Thank God, it landed 50m away. EOD was trying to defuse it, but probably ended up blowing it. Another day...

Merry Christmas!

2005-12-24T21:28:00.000+03:00

Got put on call for the next couple of days, so can't post the normal things. Seen a couple friends and family out here, which is nice. Just wanted to send a shout out to friend and fam from over here-

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Back

2005-12-21T12:42:00.000+03:00

In theatre, in the box, whatever... a few flights, some jetlag and I'm back. Kind of crazy, almost like I never left, life is back to normal in a way. I guess it would seem that way to someone who chooses to be here.

Saw a cousin of mine yesterday, good to hear from him. He's here as a soldier, a little different perspective but good. Funny how things work.

I'll put up a post here in a few days. All is well.

Review of Ralph Peters 'New Glory'

2005-12-08T20:10:00.000+03:00

Ralph Peters recent book 'New Glory: Expanding America's Global Supremacy' is a thoughtful, if overly emotional book. With some big problems, I believe it will still stand as a prescient look at America's strategic future and the choices which we face, even if it is ignored by most people.

Ralph has the intelligent and informed perspective of the military professional, although his prejudices (of which I share more than a few) undermine what I believe are coherent arguments outlining the problems of the future we face. If I was to simplify the book into one thought, it would be: America must move away from Euro-centric paralysis we are currently in to embrace our strengths and achieve our ideals in the world abroad. Failure to do this will just prolong the political and military battles of the future.

Tigerhawk was right in calling this a 'patriotic book'. Mr. Peters correctly points out the material and intellectual contributions America has given the world. It is refreshing in one sense, this glowing portrayal. However, it does the book discredit to gloss over our failings and hypocrisy so completely- while we shouldn't spend our time in constant 'mea culpa' for these mistakes, we need to acknowledge them as natural and show how we would improve them. Perfection is not the American ideal, but the opportunity to do better in a changing world.

His emphasis on human rights is more balanced to me, since he shows the military cost that we would pay in enforcing this ideal implies. When we can, we have to act- but not everywhere. We have to have a moral goal, for ourselves as well as the rest of the world and their hypocrisies. We too have shortcomings, but must not get bogged down with the misbegotten justifications of others failures- of which the Europeans are the leading example.

The book is consistent in it's criticism of Europe- France and Germany in particular, for good reason. The UK is treated differently, and there is much mention of the promise offered by the newly emerging Eastern European states. To me this is unbalanced. There is much truth and blame to go around, and I am in complete agreement there should be devastating consequences to those seeking to actively undermine our objectives (ie France). A more 'nuanced' view of Europe would not change my criticism of this- but we must accept their failings and make something more from it. Yes, NATO is a joke only dwarfed by the UN and other outdated zombies, but we were successful in dealing with Russia. Even in the worst of these offenders, there is a hope for a newborn commitment to international freedom, despite the feverish rants of an outdated bureaucratic elite trying to keep Communism alive.

Regarding Asia, he doesn't seem to know that much. Can't blame him for it, most don't and anyone who claims to is probably mistaken. Simplistic conclusions about the Koreans, Chinese and Japanese just don't cut it. Might've been better to avoid that.

Regarding the military-industrial complex and the insidious influence of 'contractors'; over the top. I'm a contractor myself, so I'm obviously sympathetic to that, but he doesn't even try to get a balanced perspective on their role. The Air Force's political maneuvers and acquisition accomplishments are rightly criticized as a travesty of corruption, but to paint everyone in that light is unbalanced. If I understand his portrayal accurately, the only reason anything still works is due to the 'saintliness' of NCO's and officers who persist amidst the decadence in Washington. My interpretation: when I was in the military, I wasn't around a lot of saints- we were hard workers focused on a common goal, but not saints. I might not've signed up were that the case. And among the workers 'on the outside' most are focused on the bottom line somehow, but wouldn't be there if they didn't think it was helping. Ultimately they do a job that the military shouldn't do or do it better- deal with it. There are some structural problems in how the military works with the private sector, but I don't think he really means that he would want it all run by the military... he hasn't thought that one through.

Regarding 'Rumsfeld and his civilian elite', a one-sided bashfest is all I can use to describe this. There is more than enough legitimate criticism of this guy and the workings of the Pentagon, but if you want a balanced assessment of what is going on there as the world changes- don't look here. Just one contemplation of oh, maybe a Kerry or Dean administration is chilling enough to rein in harsh invective on the problems encountered by the Department of Defense in the last year. But if we do address these problems, well, there is enough to go around outside of these scapegoats. Hate to say it, but some of those politically appointed generals have to take the blame for the ineptitude in Iraq. Oh, but they're 'saintly', and the civilians are 'corrupt'. Not buying it. We have a professional military, but there is a problem when it takes such a bureaucratic mess to support it- makes you wonder how much is just there to support itself in the typical self-perpetuation of bureaucratic infighting. I sometimes think when we fought the Cold War we ended up adopting the methods of the Soviets to understand them better, in that weird way armies mirror each other when trying to counter their opponent... but I digress. End result: it takes 10 men to support 1 warfighter. That seems a little out of balance. Can't blame that on the contractors or the shortsighted politicians who spend time in the Pentagon. That's part of the American constitution- the military is subject to civilian authority, and most of the time this works by keeping us involved in important affairs of the state. Mr. Peters leaves that little snippet of information out, resulting in a lopsided condemnation which undermines the purpose of otherwise legitimate complaints and criticism.

Conclusion: some good thoughts and important things to think over, but hamstrung by a one-sided evaluation of current events. Obviously a smart and dedicated officer, but not the grand vision of America's future I wanted, and frankly, kind of expected.

A little disappointed actually, but there still is Kaplan, whose 'Imperial Grunts' was nothing short of genius. Along with 'Coming Anarchy' in 1994 and 'Warrior Politics' in 2003. Looking forward to the next of his works. Might as well list my other favorites: Kagan's books also are standing the test of time and vision, 'Of Paradise and Power' along with his father Donald's 'On the Origins of War, and the Preservation of Peace'. Not all lost, by any means. Or Martin VanCrevelds 'Transformation of War'. Enough book porn- you get the picture. Open to any recommendations.