Archive for the 'Politics' Category

My son is USMC, MOS 0311. So then, at the Captain’s Journal, we are unabashedly pro-grunt. We are the grunt’s apologist and advocate, and thus we discuss the good, the bad and the ugly. The show here is intended to be complete and challenging. On YouTube this video is posted along with some very leftist comments. I am not politically left, and so the comments are irrelevant to me. The video is not. Let’s let the readers speak to this video in the comments section. What do you think?

The U.S. is in an intricate dance with Pakistan, balancing concerns over a potentially unstable regime armed with nuclear weapons with the need for access to troubled provinces as well as A. Q. Khan, the father of the nuclear program in Pakistan.  This dance must end at some point, and the Taliban must be defeated while information is also mined concerning the Iranian nuclear program.

Since the intense pressure in 2001 on Pakistan to take sides in the GWOT, the U.S. has been in a tricky and tenuous dance with Musharraf.  Pakistan is armed with nuclear weapons, and the father of this program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, is widely regarded as a hero in Pakistan for putting Pakistan on even ground with India.

Pakistan also has strong elements of radical Islam in its intelligence services, but Musharraf has claimed that its nuclear weapons are under strict custody and will not fall into the wrong hands.  But the U.S. administration has taken the position that Musharraf, while weak in his handling of the radical elements in Pakistan, is better than the alternative should a coup topple his government.

It was a made-for-main-stream-media confession that Musharraf gave recently concerning their nuclear proliferation:

Musharraf claims he only suspected that Khan was passing secrets to Iran and North Korea until the then CIA director George Tenet confronted him with proof at the United Nations in 2003.

“(Tenet) passed me some papers. It was a centrifuge design with all its numbers and signatures of Pakistan. It was the most embarrassing moment,

Over at RWN, John Hawkins publishes a piece by Right Thinking Girl on the embarrassing, shameful and unnecessary practices of the TSA.  I and my wife have had some of these same experiences, and there has been no dearth of ugly words from me directed at the semi-literates doing the searching.

But no amount of ugly words can change things.  The TSA still suffers from the ghosts of Norman Mineta, notwithstanding the inept people it has working for the administration.  So here is the two-part solution I propose to ensure that we have a safer tomorrow in our air adventures.

Since it is commonly known that the real purpose of the searches is not to make us safer, but rather, to create the appearance of being safer, let’s turn these searches into something useful rather than something shameful, where little old white ladies who use walking canes are patted down in front of people.  Let’s profile men of Arabic descent.  In order to assure that the courts do not interfere, the Congress should use the power given to it under Article III of the Constitution, where it can forbid the courts from taking up the matter in judicial review later.  Since little old white laddies who use canes do not blow aircraft up, this should be a step in the right direction.

Second, the Congress ought immediately to draft legislation ordering the termination of all TSA employees and outsource the job of transportation security to private companies.  Then the TSA employees can go and compete for jobs based on their qualifications.

Until and unless we do this, we are not taking the GWOT or our own transportation safety seriously.  We only pretend to.

Prior:

• Stupid Searches by TSA
• TSA Shows no Respect for Military: One More Reason to Loath Them
• Norman Mineta Leaves – Thank God!

In honor of the great post by Right Thinking Girl, I am making a new category called “TSA Ineptitude.”  I welcome my readers to send me input for this category as you encounter TSA ineptitude in the future.

Harsher techniques are justified, but should be applied with caution due to possible misinformation.  Not a single person on whom these techniques have been applied has died, and all are still being detained. 

John Hawkins at RWN has an interesting post on the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  He cites a New York Post article by Richard Miniter who was recently at Gitmo.

The high-minded critics who complain about torture are wrong. We are far too soft on these guys – and, as a result, aren’t getting the valuable intelligence we need to save American lives.

The politically correct regulations are unbelievable. Detainees are entitled to a full eight hours sleep and can’t be woken up for interrogations. They enjoy three meals and five prayers per day, without interruption. They are entitled to a minimum of two hours of outdoor recreation per day.

Interrogations are limited to four hours, usually running two – and (of course) are interrupted for prayers. One interrogator actually bakes cookies for detainees, while another serves them Subway or McDonald’s sandwiches. Both are available on base. (Filet o’ Fish is an al Qaeda favorite.)

Thoughtful assessment comes down on the side of supporting the use of harsher interrogation techniques such as “waterboarding.”  The U.S. has been able to gain useful intelligence with these (and other) techniques, and it is manifestly obvious that the prisoners on whom we have used these techniques are alive, and that killing them on the field of battle is far more inhumane than use of harsh interrogation techniques.  But the history of harsher interrogation techniques is mixed, and so they must be applied with caution.  Waterboarding, for example, along with the progressively more harsh techniques, can lead to misinformation:

According to CIA sources, Ibn al Shaykh al Libbi, after two weeks of enhanced interrogation, made statements that were designed to tell the interrogators what they wanted to hear. Sources say Al Libbi had been subjected to each of the progressively harsher techniques in turn and finally broke after being water boarded and then left to stand naked in his cold cell overnight where he was doused with cold water at regular intervals.

His statements became part of the basis for the Bush administration claims that Iraq trained al Qaeda members to use biochemical weapons. Sources tell ABC that it was later established that al Libbi had no knowledge of such training or weapons and fabricated the statements because he was terrified of further harsh treatment.

“This is the problem with using the waterboard. They get so desperate that they begin telling you what they think you want to hear,” one source said. 

But the techniques can be properly used, and when this is so, reliable information is gleaned:

When properly used, the techniques appear to be closely monitored and are signed off on in writing on a case-by-case, technique-by-technique basis, according to highly placed current and former intelligence officers involved in the program. In this way, they say, enhanced interrogations have been authorized for about a dozen high value al Qaeda targets — Khalid Sheik Mohammed among them. According to the sources, all of these have confessed, none of them has died, and all of them remain incarcerated.

There is a chasm between serving up Subway sandwiches and waterboarding.  The U.S. public and especially the government must decide whether we will take the GWOT seriously.  If we decide in the negative, then release the prisoners.  We will get no useful information by serving up cookies and letting them play ball with each other.  If we decide in the affirmative, then we need to cease and desist with the hand-wringing.

Iran has been involved militarily in the region, and is now turning up the political heat to influence future events.  The U.S. State Department is woefully inept to counter Iranian influence.

I have been watching Iran for some time now.  Even with the most clinical of assessments, one can only conclude that the hard line extremists in Iran are pathological liars.  Iran denied that they had supplied Hezbollah with equipment, while almost simultaneously Iranian-made equipment was captured in Lebanon by the IDF.  While denying that they were in any way assisting Hezbollah, Iranian soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon.  Contrary to repeated denials of Iranian involvement in Iraq, the more complicated IED technology has an unmistakable Iranian signature.  While denying that Iran has meddled in the affairs of Iraq, even prior to the war, huge sums of money and Iranian intelligence assets poured across the border in an attempt to effect a post-war outcome favorable to Iran.  Again while denying that Iranians have done any harm to people or infrastructure in Iraq, Iranians involved in sabotage of oil pipelines have been arrested by Iraqi security forces.  U.S. border forts have not been able to supress the Iranian influence in Iraq or close the porous border.

In stepped up political maneuvering (by Iran), Iraqi Prime Minister Malaki visited Iran yesterday, attempting to tell him that the Iranian meddling must stop.  First, it is troublesome that he would visit Iran, since Iraq should see Iran as its most entrenched enemy — the one who would work towards a one-world Caliphate that would mean the diminution of trivial things like Iraq-Iran borders and state sovereignty.  But it is more troublesome that Iran seems to be playing the political game with Iraq.  The Ayatollah Khamenei weighs in on his position regarding the U.S. presence in Iraq:

Khamenei told al-Maliki that Iran “considers it an obligation to support the Iraqi government in practical ways,

We have seen over the past couple of years the growth in influence of the Shiite majority in Iraq, including the fielding of a Shiite army (Mahdi army).  This influence caused new Prime Minister Maliki to pressure — even threaten — the U.S. concerning recent skirmishes between the U.S. and al Sadr’s militia, saying that “this won’t happen again.”

In a special to Gulfnews.com, Sami Moubayed observes:

The journalist Ellen Knickmeyer coined a very important phrase on August 24 in The Washington Post, saying a “Shiite Giant” has emerged in the Arab world.

This is very true. The mind of this giant is based in Tehran. He has got arms powerful arms, in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Bahrain.

On a daily basis we hear the names of various Shiite leaders who have become iconic, national, pan-Arab and pan-Islamic names in the Arab and Muslim world. This Shiite giant has been created by a variety of politicians and leaders including clergymen such as Ayatollah Khomeini, Moosa Al Sadr, Mohammad Hussain Fadlallah, Ali Al Sistani and Ali Khamenei. It has military leaders such as Moqtada Al Sadr and Hassan Nasrallah, and pragmatic politicians such as Abdul Al Aziz Al Hakim, Nabih Berri and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

This giant was born out of the Islamic revolution of 1979, since one of its objectives was to emancipate the Shiites around the world. Before that they had been an underclass in most Arab countries, being poor, underdeveloped, uneducated and had very limited social mobility.

This was particularly true in Lebanon and Iraq, the two countries in which today, the Shiites enjoy a vary different standing.

This “Shiite Giant” has raised fears in the Arab world. It caused King Abdullah of Jordan to express fears that a Shiite Crescent was emerging in the Arab world. Earlier this year Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak made similar comments on Al Arabiya TV, saying that the Shiites were more loyal to Iran than they were to their own countries.

This observation makes one wonder exactly what kind of Iraq we are leaving behind (i.e., will the Shiite majority in Iraq be a proxy for Iran)?  There is news now concerning the cohesion of the three main groups in Iraq and the future of the country.  From Arab News:

BAGHDAD, 7 September 2006 — Iraq’s dominant Shiite alliance yesterday submitted a draft of a new law to govern the division of the country into autonomous regions …

The United Iraqi Alliance, the dominant Shiite parliamentary bloc, is promoting a “law of regional formation

On June 23 I posted “Normal Mineta Leaves – Thank God,” sensing a slight upwards tick on the U.S. securometer.  But little seems to have changed.

On August 16, I posted “TSA Shows no Respect for Military: One More Reason to Loath Them.”

And now, courtesy of Mary Katharine Ham, we see this photograph:

If it were me doing the search, I would refuse unless my head was covered by a hood of shame so that people could not tell who I was.  Then I would do it to keep a job but inform my superiors what an asinine practice it was to search little old white ladies.

This proves that we still do not take the GWOT seriously.  We are not yet engaged in the fight.  What will it take for us to wake from our slumber?

The ghosts of Norman Mineta have not yet been exorcised.

Global Guerrillas has a very interesting piece up entitled “Playing with War.”  In it John Robb argues that:

The western way of war in the 21st century is a pale shadow of the warfare it waged in the 20th. The reason is simple: for western societies war is no longer existential. Instead, it’s increasingly about smoothing market flows and tertiary moral concerns/threats. As a result of this diminishment of motivation, western warfare is now afflicted with the following: 

John continues with a complete description of what I will include as an outline listing (for editorial and space reasons):

• Operations of low lethality
• Marginal placement within national priorities
• Muddled objectives

The upshot according to John is that wars will become increasingly difficult to win, because:

• Asymmetric motivation (of the enemy)
• New methods of warfare
• Proliferation of opposition

Finally, the following points are outlined as a summary for learning to live within the constraints imposed by this new breed of warfare (I will quote completely).  We should learn to avoid:

• Nation-building as a global social policy. Historically, counter-insurgency against an established enemy has almost never worked (and when it has, it usually involves bloody exterminations). Any attempt to build a nation will likely, particularly in the current environment of globalization, yield an opponent that will be impossible to defeat through limited means. Further, the durations of these conflicts will exceed the capacity of the western states to maintain a cohesive set of objectives — they will shift with opinion polls and political winds.
• Collapsing rogue states. In almost all instances, despite how easy it is to collapse a weak state with modern weapons, those wars launched to collapse rogue states will not yield positive results. The collapse will necessitate calls for revival (see item one). Unless states are willing to live with partial collapse without resolution, they should not undertake the action in the first place.
• Escalation of tension. Given an inability to resolve conflicts through nation-building and state collapse, western states should endeavor to deescalate conflicts rather than ignite them. Escalation is a false God that promises a return of the motivational clarity found in the wars of the 20th Century. It cannot deliver this. The only thing it provides is a widening and deepening of the conflict through the proliferation of opposition. 

Mr. Robb probably knows about one thousand times as much about the current subject as I do.  So it is with all due respect that I say that I think that his characterization of the problem(s) is incomplete.

Having a son in the Marines, I study everything I can get my hands on pertaining to his training, the history of the Marines, the nature of the current conflict, and what he will likely be doing in several months.

One of the more interesting things that I have learned is the concept of “small wars.”  I highly recommend reading the Small Wars Manual, and I especially recommend visiting the Marine Corps Small Wars web site and another site called Small Wars Journal.  I make a daily visit to these sites (and sometimes more).

What Mr. Robb describes has already been described in detail in the Small Wars Manual.  In fact, the Marines have known this not since the publication of the manual in the early ’40s, but essentially since the birthday of the Marines, 10 November 1775.

Since their birthday, the Marines have been engaged in small, low intensity conflicts at the behest of the President, oftentimes without the support of the public, without a declaration of war, and without clear goals or orders, while battling both regular forces and insurgencies and while also having to deal with more pedestrian issues such as electrical power and the restoration of government.  Such engagements have often relied upon rapid, mobile and robust force projection.

The above paragraph is not an advertisement.  The Small Wars Manual is as salient today as it was when it was first published.  It is an admonition for the Army to consider its future.  The Marines have had to adapt, modify, adjust and make-do based on the changing conditions of the over three hundred low intensity engagements in its history.  The Army will do the same, or it will become irrelevant to the twenty first century.

If this type of warfare is not new, then what has changed?  My contention is that politics has changed.

Politics and failure to act decisively allowed Bin Laden and many in Al Qaida leadership to escape Tora Bora.  Politics failed to execute a warrant for al Sadr’s arrest during Paul Bremer’s watch in Iraq (I recently saw an interview with Bremer on FNC in which he attributed this failure to a military decision, saying that he was in favor of al Sad’r arrest.  I know nothing of the decision making or line of authority concerning this matter, but if the military made this decision, then the one who actually approved of letting al Sadr escape arrest should be on the receiving end of a courts martial).  Politics has caused us to cease hostilities on Ramadan.  Politics has caused us to refuse to fire upon Mosques (until very recently).  Politics has caused problems for Gitmo.  Politics has dragged generals in front of congressional inquiries to be battered by those seeking to stake out a position for the upcoming elections in November.

There is a deep division in America, with one side being not just anti-military, but rather, socialistic and anti-American to a large extent, and this is a failure of American society, not American military strategy or might.  Even though the Marines have engaged in conflicts before in which the public was unsupportive (or unaware), the difference now seems to be politics in the highest ranks of the military brass.  The military establishment seems less willing to insulate the decision-makers from politics, and potentially risky decisions are avoided due to their being seen as potentially career-ending decisions.  To summarize, my contention is that the main difference today is the deference being paid to politics by the military brass (and senior leadership, including the Secretary or Defense and even the President).

When properly posed, I believe the question to be “do we have the political will to win?”  The tactics, strategy, manpower, know-how, equipment and patriotism are already in place.

It is not a question of warfare.  It is a question of politics.

Postscript: Even if I am right, this post doesn’t address the other issues raised in the GG post such as nation-building.  I will post on this at a later time.

The LA Times carried the story of the 21 former generals and other diplomats who sent the open letter to the President on Iran “not being a crisis.”  General Robert Gard was on the talking heads circuit trying to talk to anyone who would listen to him on the dangerous Bush policies in the Middle East.

From OneWorld US:

“We call on the administration to engage immediately in direct talks with the government of Iran without preconditions to help resolve the current crisis in the Middle East and to settle differences over an Iranian nuclear program,” their letter read.

“An attack on Iran would have disastrous consequences for security in the region and U.S. forces in Iraq,” they argued. “It would inflame hatred and violence in the Middle East and among Muslims everywhere.”

In a telephone news conference Thursday morning, the former security officials took particular aim at the Bush Administration’s policy of refusing to negotiate with terrorists or with states that support them.

“That seems strange since Ronald Reagan was willing to negotiate with the Soviets even though they were the ‘Evil Empire,” said retired Lt. General Robert Guard (sic), who served as special assistant to Defense Secretary Robert McNamara during the Vietnam War and now works at the non-profit Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. “One wonders why George Bush can’t negotiate with the Axis of Evil.”

The generals further argued that the Bush Administration’s invasion of Iraq is at least partially responsible for Iran’s drive to develop a nuclear program.

“When you announce an axis of evil of three countries and invade one and then say that Iran should take that as a lesson, it does seem that it may give them an incentive to do precisely what they don’t want them to do,” Guard (sic) said, “develop a nuclear weapon.”

The pathetic OneWorld US can’t even get General Gard’s name spelled correctly (I had to use OneWorld because not many news outlets covered this story).  More pathetic is that the poor General can’t get his facts straight.

Ronald Reagan talked to Mikhail Gorbachev at a time when Perestroika was being pursued.  Reagan did not talk to Nikita Krushchev when he was shouting “We will bury you!” and banging his shoe on the table.  The times — if the General would simply recall — were the so-called “cold war.”  The USSR was once a powerful and recalcitrant Nation, but the arms race had bankrupted them and with the advent of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), Gorbachev, the kind of reformer who wanted to compromise anyway, was ready to come to the table without preconditions.

Its a strange idea, this notion of talking with these Hitleresque terrorists in Iran.  What, pray tell, would be the purpose?  To what end would we engage in talks?  What do you aim for when talking with a man that has sworn genocide and takeover of Israel and absolute destruction of the U.S.?  Do we aim for an agreement for partial rather than absolute destruction?  Who would we sacrifice in this partial destruction of our country?  Who gets swept up in this death march?

On the other hand, perhaps General Gard believes that if we just talk persuasively enough, we can persuade him not to wish and work for our destruction.  Is this it?  Do we propose to send our State Department representatives over to Iran to tutor him in the correct understanding of the Qur’an?

What specifically does General Gard propose?  Do we compromise by allowing him to enrich Uranium, thinking that the IAEA will actually be allowed to inspect his secret facilities to ensure that they stop at reactor-grade and do not proceed to weapons grade?

To say that threats against Iran if they continue to enrich Uranium will cause them to enrich Uranium rather than stopping it is analogous to saying that a threat to spank a child for bad behavior will only cause him behave more badly, so we shouldn’t spank him.  No one in the U.S. has, to the best of my knowledge, ever spoken of an attack on Iran in the case that it gives up its weapons program and support for world-wide terror.  It would make no sense, as Iran would hold no strategic value if they weren’t a sponsor of terror.

Finally, the General says that the Iranian nuclear situation is “not a crisis.”  Unless the General has specific knowledge of all of Iran’s centrifuges and how efficiently they were operating, and had performed SWU (Separative Work Unit) calculations to assess how far along Iran was with their enrichment program, how would he know?  Answer: He wouldn’t.

How sad.  General Gard, I feel sure, once had a stellar career.  The capstone of his career will now be rembered as this silly statement and his emotional antics on Television a few nights ago.

I have always looked at the TSA with some degree of loathing, for reasons that would be too many to innumerate here (including but not limited to: (a) it was at one time run by the pitiful Norman Maneta, (b) it is a government agency when it should have been privatized, (c) the times that I have seen them in action them seem to show little regard for true risks and favor busy-work, and (d) anyone who asks a little old Caucasian lady with a walking cane to disrobe or take her shoes off should be whipped and excluded from contributing to the gene pool of the country rather than given a job.  Yes, I have seen a TSA employee search a little old white lady with a walking stick.).

Now I have found the best reason of all of loath the TSA.  Our friend Oak Leaf over at Polipundit has a post on the TSA searching men and women in uniform, and cites a commentary at the Orlando Sentinel:

A little-known fact about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is that the U.S. military requires soldiers to travel in uniform from theater. An even lesser known fact is that the Transportation Security Administration aggressively targets war veterans as they travel home to their loved ones.

At Baltimore’s airport on my way back to Orlando from Iraq, there were about 50 soldiers in line, waiting to be cleared by TSA. I noticed soldiers taking off clothing, and then they assumed the position so commonly seen in police-chase videos, arms and legs spread wide as a screener passed a wand close to their bodies. Soldiers were asked to remove belts, boots and shirts, and their carry-on bags were ransacked.

“We’re fighting a war. Do you guys think we’re a threat?” I asked as I spread my legs and arms.

The screener replied, “I dunno,” and kept his wand in motion.

There you have it.  Your tax dollars going to perform meaningless and silly busy-work intended to embarrass your men and women in uniform rather than decrease the collective risk to our country.

There it is again ringing in my ears: “I dunno.”  Someone whip that jackass, please?

But Oak Leaf has a solution for it: the registered traveler program.  Go check it out at Polipundit.