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Poor Obama.  This just isn’t what he signed up for when he decided that the World needed him to heal the planet and slow the rise of the oceans.

All those pesky, little people, yearning to be free.  They just keep fouling up his Plan to make the World love him, er,  America, again.

Every time Obama finds a nice authoritarian that he can work with, those darn democracy types throw the guy out or at least threaten to do so.  In Tunisia, for example, the ambassador sent by Obama as the point man for U.S. policy there, had many fond things to say in 2010 about the now-defunct authoritarian regime.

Now comes this Reuters article by Matt Spetalnick and David Alexander, “Obama Ratchets Up Pressure On Egypt,” to further highlight what a tough time Obama is having with the protests against his buddy Mubarak in Egypt.

President Barack Obama called on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Thursday to make “absolutely critical” political reforms, ratcheting up pressure on a key U.S. ally in the face of street protests seeking his ouster.

Weighing in for the first time after three days of Egyptian unrest, Obama was careful to avoid any sign of abandoning Mubarak but made clear his sympathy for demonstrators he said were expressing “pent-up frustrations” after decades of authoritarian rule.

Yes, one can imagine that after “decades” of authoritarian rule the people might have some “pent up frustrations.”  What kind of tongue-lashing did Mubarak get, exactly?

“I’ve always said to him that making sure that they are moving forward on reform — political reform, economic reform — is absolutely critical for the long-term well-being of Egypt,” Obama said as he answered questions from an online audience on the YouTube website.

Whoa!   That’s mighty strong talk, Mr. President.  Too bad Obama was not around in the 1970’s.   He might have said the same thing to Brezhnev after decades of authoritarian rule in Eastern Europe and saved the U.S.S.R. the trouble of collapsing on itself.  Talk about healing the planet!

Be careful, Hosni.  Barack might not send you a birthday present this year.   (Sadly, you will not be getting that bust of Winston Churchill that he was dying to unload).

How has that steady pressure by Obama worked out? According to the Reuter’s article:

Mubarak has rarely heeded U.S. pressure before over his government’s behavior, and it remains to be seen whether tougher language will translate into anything of substance.

Not fair, that.  Obama is trying to give Mubarak some tough love, but sometimes you just have to let a strong ruler figure things out on their own.

Then there is this:

U.S. influence at the street level in Egypt and the rest of the Arab world is also minimal. Anti-American sentiment remains high despite Obama’s outreach to the Muslim world and his efforts to ease hostility toward Washington generated by his predecessor George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

The administration is also hemmed in by its desire to avoid the impression of further U.S. interference in the region. Bush’s “freedom agenda” was widely reviled in the Arab world.

What???

That pesky “Arab street” again.   How could they have resisted the prophetic magic of the Great Orator’s 2009 speech?  Hasn’t Obama won them over with his teleprompter turn-of-phrase and smooth delivery?  According to the Reuters article, not so much.

Next we read that the “administration is hemmed in” because it cannot afford to be seen as interfering in authoritarian’s business.   Yes, that would be bad.   Afterall, the article notes, everyone knows that “Bush’s ‘freedom agenda’ was widely reviled in the Arab world.”

Funny thing about that, though.  Widely reviled?  Perhaps Spetalnick and Alexander suffer from a common ailment of the Left: revisionist memory syndrome.  Despite the undeniable unpopularity of the 2003 Iraq invasion, those pesky Arab people were surprisingly supportive of that Bush “freedom agenda.”

Strange, the average Arab seemed to strongly support democracy even while disapproving of U.S. “interference” in the region.   That darn Bush again!  He was just not sophisticated enough to realize that Arabs won’t support freedom if you interfere.

An excellent piece by Larry Diamond of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution is well worth a read in this regard.   Mr. Diamond has the audacity to suggest that more interference, not less, is the way to inspire greater democracy in the authoritarian Middle East.

Sadly, it seems that Obama, like much of the Left, is far more comfortable with authoritarianism than with the messy apparatus of democracy.  Time and again, the Obama Administration has failed to strongly condemn even the most brutal authoritarian regimes like Iran.

Why?  Ultimately it may be due to a basic worldview where it is far easier, in Obama’s mind, to effect change through one, strong, all-powerful ruler, than through persuasion of large groups of independent-minded people.  This is Obama’s approach, in general, to domestic policy as well.  He strongly favors Big Government solutions and is not afraid to act unilaterally (such as the FCC net-neutrality and EPA carbon emission rules) where Congress refuses to go along quietly.   It has been widely noted that Obama has a disturbing tendency to make himself the focus of everything he says or does.

In short, Obama treats authoritarians like Mubarak and Ahmadinejad with kid gloves because he has a natural affinity with them coupled with a deep fear of popular sentiment (see Tea Party movement, Obamacare opposition, reduction of Federal spending).

Not only does this not bode well for the cause of freedom in the Middle East, but we can expect more authoritarian reactions from Obama here in the U.S. as the Republican-controlled House increasingly resists his Big Government agenda.

WARNING: Cynicism Alert.

Is it just me or does this article, “Resurgent GM Nips At Toyota’s Heels In Sales Race,” by Tom Krisher of the Associated Press strike anyone else as fawning and full of half-truths and omissions?

Let’s see.

Here is the opening paragraph:

The resurgent automaker reported Monday that its worldwide sales last year came within 30,000 of beating Japanese rival Toyota, which took a big hit because of safety recalls.

There is part of me that wants to believe that this actually true, that GM (erstwhile known as “Government Motors” since the Federal bailout in 2009) is actually turning things around.  But then the cynic in me chimes in.

“Wait it minute,” that voice says. “Isn’t this the same Associated Press that has shilled for Obama without shame since the 2008 Presidential election cycle?  This good news wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that the GM bailout is one of the centerpieces of Obama’s claim to have actually accomplished something of value in his first, two years?  Failure of GM equates to failure of Obama and his Big Government philosophy.”

No, I reply, that is crazy talk.  Paranoid.  This is the Associated Press.

Taking a closer look at the article, it does mention that Toyota took a “big hit because of safety recalls.”   How big of a hit?  Why, the article doesn’t say.   Funny, too, that the AP fails to mention that the gains in sales that came at the expense of Toyota resulted, in large part, from aggressive buyer incentives such as zero interest rates and favorable trade-in terms.

And, as Megan Mcardle pointed out in an article in The Atlantic in April, 2010, troubling clouds loom over GM in the form of unfunded pension liabilities that will need to be paid starting in 2013.

According to a January 11, 2011 article in The Wall Street Journal, the sale of new stock in GM did not go very well for U.S. taxpayers either, but, oh well.   The WSJ article is also optimistic but, unlike the AP article, does not fail to mention the fact that GM stock price would have to reach at least $53 per share just for taxpayers to break even for the $50 Billion bailout.   The GM IPO in November 2010 was a lowly $33 per share.  But great news!  It is now trading at $38.91 per share!  It just has to rise another 26%.   Let me know if you are getting any returns like that on investments.

The point is that the article by AP’s Tom Krisher does not ask any of the hard questions.  In fact, it doesn’t ask any questions at all.   It reads like a GM press release.  I do not claim to be a journalism major nor steeped in the code of journalistic ethics, but from a consumer standpoint and as one who looks to news accounts for both sides of any issue, this article is worrisome.  Nothing in life is completely one-sided.   There is no such thing as unmitigated success or disaster.  Yet this AP piece is all sunshine and smiles.

A quick check of other articles by Mr. Krisher indicates that he has written quite a few, very positive articles on General Motors and Chrylser with almost unseemly titles since November 2009.

It is yet another example of how the news media in this country continue to fail American citizens, and fail them miserably with one-sided accounts.   This is the very kind of thing that makes all of us cynical and distrustful of media outlets.

And to make the cynicism complete, all indications about Obama’s State of the Union address are that he will focus on economics and the resilience of U.S. companies in competitive global markets.   Nice how Krisher’s article dovetails with that theme, just a couple days before it is delivered.

This stinks to me of Government Press.  Whether this AP article actually resulted from coordination with the Administration, it certainly has the appearance of it.  The Associated Press and its writers have a duty to report the good AND the bad AND the ugly.  This article, at the very least, fails that test.

But I doubt that anyone at GM or in the White House will be complaining.

In a Daily Beast article yesterday, Peter Beinhart takes a measure of relief in the fact the United States seemingly has nothing to do with the apparent uprising in Tunisia that has (for the time being) tossed out the autocrat, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali.

What a great country we have. Where else would you find opinion leaders applauding evidence of their own country’s irrelevance to international affairs?

The critical thing to understand about the movements stirring against tyranny in Tunisia, and throughout the Arab world, is this: They aren’t about us. And that might be a good thing.

Beinhart’s point, in essence, seems to follow along these lines:  Tunisians rose up against the oppressor-thugocracy without American help, therefore American support for oppressed peoples– particularly in the Middle East– is not only unnecessary but actually counterproductive.   Furthermore, he seems to argue, the Tunisian experience validates the view he terms “optimist” that freedom/democracy is an irresistible force that will, eventually, prevail.   (This he contrasts with the straw-man “militarist” view that democracy can only spread along with American power and influence).

To be fair, Beinhart does concede eventually that it is a “good thing for the U.S. government to want democracy in the Middle East.”  This is a nice concession that, afterall, we should not feel guilty about wanting democratic governments in the Middle East. It’s just that we shouldn’t want to do anything about it.

This allergy to the use of American power in the world is, however, disturbing on two levels.

First, it is incredibly naive.  We can all agree that the Tunisians have shown incredible bravery while, at the same time, acknowledging that the prospects for a democratic government taking hold there are slim to none without some type of external assistance.  The chances, moreover, that the autocratic governments in the Middle East will somehow fall to a rising tide of purely indigenous democracy without external aid is equally fanciful.

Second, and perhaps most disturbing, Beinhart’s approach is incredibly wrong.  Immoral.  How can we, as Americans, stand idly by while unarmed, peaceful protesters are clubbed, raped or gunned down by the security forces of pariah regimes?

It is simply not in our national character to refuse aid to any people that is willing to put their lives on the line to gain their freedom from oppression.

Does this require that the U.S. send in the tanks every time there is a political protest put down by government violence?  No.   Rather, there should be a sliding scale of involvement that begins, at the very least, with persistent and public expressions of condemnation toward the regime, followed by economic and/or diplomatic sanctions, followed (where appropriate) by tangible aid to the democratic movement (covert if necessary) and, at the extreme end of the scale, open, military assistance.    This approach leaves plenty of time and opportunity for public debate over the merits and extent of support.  But there can be no argument, such as the one Beinhart hints at, that the U.S. do nothing.

We have already seen the consequences of Beinhart’s approach.  In 1991, tens of thousands of Iraqi shia in Basra were killed by Saddam Hussein’s thugs when they revolted in 1991.   The U.S. did nothing and paid the price 12 years later when radical Islam had taken root in the region, making pacification infinitely more costly. The democracy movement in Iran is another example of ordinary citizens giving up their lives for a chance at freedom.  Obama, clearly favoring the Beinhart approach, has left them helpless against determined torture and murder by the regime.   Sudan and the Congo stand out as well.  Oppressed people of the world have rightly looked to the U.S. and we did nothing, absolutely nothing to help.  These are blots on our national honor.

In the end, Peter Beinhart may be right on one point:  democracy and freedom may (somehow) break out in the Middle East without meaningful U.S. support.  Anything is possible.

The real question, however, is this: why should we ever want that kind of world?

Obama intends to play some pickup basketball.

U.S. President Barack Obama, who enjoys shooting hoops with family and friends, will take on a couple of tougher — and much taller –opponents Sunday: the Phoenix Suns’ Grant Hill and the Houston Rockets’ Shane Battier.

The game of presidential pickup will be held at Fort McNair in southwest Washington before an audience of “wounded warriors” and participants in the White House mentoring program, the White House press office said.

Hill told the Washington Post he was in town to play, along with a handful of other pros, including Battier.

First Shooter Obama, at 6’2”, will find some tough competition on the court: Hill and Battier, both forwards, are each 6’ 8”.

It’s been a bachelor sporting weekend for Obama, whose wife , Michelle, and younger daughter, Sasha, are in Spain and whose older daughter, Malia, is away at camp. On Saturday he played golf at Andrews Air Force Base.

Is this a bad joke?  Let’s contrast one administration official with another.  One might agree or disagree with the decisions made by Secretary Gates, but he cares about the men under his charge (from February 2008).

At the Marine Corps Association’s annual dinner in July, Gates cried while eulogizing Capt. Douglas Zembiec, a marine known as “the lion of Fallujah,” who had recently died in battle. By that time, Gates was writing personal notes at the bottom of every condolence letter sent to families of troops killed in battle. “I want the recipient of that note to know that the secretary of defense actually saw that letter, signed that letter, thought about that letter,” he told me on the plane ride back from Fort Hood. “It forces me to pay attention to every single one of the young people killed — how they died, where their hometown is, what other members of their unit were killed. I’ve kept count — 796 Americans have been killed in Iraq on my watch.” (This was as of Nov. 27.)

He takes his job seriously, and in fact doesn’t even really like the job due to the burden of it all.  It could be that Obama doesn’t like his job either, but for different reasons than he takes it so seriously.  I’m not even sure I know the two NBA players, but professional basketball has become a thuggish sport, and I don’t watch it.

Instead of spending time at Walter Reed or Bethesda Naval Hospital watching wounded warriors in rehabilitation, praying for them in their rooms out of sight of the cameras, urging them on, and ensuring that they get the best care possible, he is sporting it up in front of them.  Get it?  He expects them to watch him as he plays a game of fantasy ball with his heroes.

What an egomaniac.

We have discussed the difficulty of combat outposts in the mountainous Eastern part of Afghanistan, and the tactical problems caused by attempting to defend low terrain.  This contributed in no small part to the casualties at Wanat and Kamdesh.  A fire fight around Kamdesh typically looked something like this (the scene is of COP Keating from OP Fritschie).

The terrain surrounding COP Bari Alai is different.

Hostile sniper and automatic weapon fire is a normal part of life here, provided by an enemy who strains to dislodge Afghan National Army and International Security Assistance Forces from the mountaintop in eastern Afghanistan’s Kunar province.

For example, in a 74-day period starting in February there were more than 50 recorded attacks against the base, U.S. Army officials said. The Soldiers who live here are well aware of how contested the base is.

“If you freeze up in combat, you’re either not ready to be a leader or you aren’t ready for a place like this,” said U.S. Army Spc. Shawn D. Hufford, of Evansville, Ind., the mortar noncommissioned officer attached to 2nd Platoon, Troop C, 3rd Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment, Task Force Destroyer.

The base was set on its high summit in the Ghazibad district in March 2009 and manned by the Afghan National Army. Officials named it for an ANA Soldier killed earlier that year.

It has been almost a year since a subsequent attack killed five Afghan soldiers, five ISAF advisors and a civilian interpreter, causing a fire that levelled much of the post. Despite persistent efforts, the enemy has not been able to duplicate that act since.

The base – 3,000 feet above sea level – oversees three valleys and at least ten major villages, providing a vast overlook of the surrounding territory, according to U.S. Army 1st Lt. Richard R. Rowe, 2nd platoon’s leader.

“It’s all about terrain,” Rowe said. “It’s a pretty volatile stretch.”

This position helps provide protection for neighbouring communities, the nearby district center and Afghanistan National Security Forces – as well as ISAF – as they conduct business with area residents.

The relative isolation of the post is an illusion, as ANA Soldiers at the post maintain contact with Afghan National Police who secure the communities below.

“We have a good partnership between the ANA and ANP,” Rowe said. “Now that it’s established, I can’t imagine not having it.”

Although there are taller mountains nearby, the post’s position is high enough to protect the Soldiers and low enough to help protect the community, Rowe said.

But recall that this is also the scene, approximately one year ago, of around 100 Taliban fighting uphill towards the COP, resulting in the deaths of three U.S. Soldiers due to collusion between the Taliban and Afghan National Army soldiers.  Terrain is important, but it cannot overcome treachery.  When possible though, the physical positioning of COP Bari Alai is an example of a wise tactical choice.

From Mark Schultz.  His Letters from War served as the centerpiece of the U.S. Army’s 2004 “Be Safe—Make It Home” campaign.

Seeing our son off to Mohave Viper yesterday for 30 days of training (here is another good description), and waiting for him to get a “medium-reg” haircut in the Semper Fi barber shop in Jacksonville, N.C., this caught my eye hanging on the wall.  I thought I would share it with you.

A dead soldier who has given his life because of the failure of his leader is a dreadful sight before God.  Like all dead soldiers, he was tired before he died and undoubtedly dirty.  And possibly, frightened to his soul — and there on top of all of that, never again to see his homeland.

Don’t be the leader who failed to instruct him properly, or who failed to lead him well.  Burn the midnight oil, that you may not in later years look at your own hands and find his blood still red upon them.

In lieu of Friday night music, here are two pictures.  The first is taken from Grandfather Mountain, North Carolina.  The second is of Daniel in his dress blues.  It takes a lot to get a Marine into his dress blues.  This was a lot.  Daniel’s best buddy, Andy Strickland, got married.  Andy and Daniel went through MEPS, Boot Camp and SOI together, were picked up by the fleet together and are in the same platoon at Camp Lejeune.  They will deploy together.  There isn’t any doubt in my mind that either one would die for the other.

Many things can cause the diminution of a military.  During and after Vietnam it was the drug culture, political upheaval, and changes in core value systems in the family and society.  In measure, this was addressed by General Alfred Gray, the 29th Commandant of the Marine Corps, whom I hold in iconic status.  General Gray brought back the warrior ethos to the Marine Corps after the Vietnam era.  I requested that General Gray send my son an autographed picture of him as a boot camp graduation gift.  He kindly obliged with a picture of himself in cammies, autographed and with a nice note congratulating my son on becoming a “warrior.”  It is framed and hanging on our wall at home.  It is of note that he signed the photograph “General Al Gray, Marine.”

No pretentions, just “Marine.”

There are other dangers for our military, due in no small part to the military-industrial complex.  There is a very sobering piece entitled “Regression,” by William Lind.  In part he says:

When I was in Israel several years ago, I said to my host, a retired Israeli general with several interesting books to his credit, that I thought the IDF had begun to regress to the Second Generation after the 1973 war. He told me I was wrong; the regression had begun after the war in 1967.

The question of how it happened, and why maintaining the culture of a Third Generation military is so difficult even for armed services that have attained it—the Royal Navy lost it after the Napoleonic Wars, for reasons brilliantly set forth in Andrew Gordon’s The Rules of the Game, and the German Army lost it when the Bundeswehr was created, for political reasons—is of interest far beyond Israel. A number of Israelis have traced it in their case to the development of a large weapons R&D and procurement establishment, and I think there is a lot to that argument.

The virtues required in military officers involved in weapons development and procurement are the virtues of the bureaucrat: careful, even obsessive attention to process; avoiding risky decisions, and whenever possible making decisions by committee; avoiding responsibility; careerism, because success is measured by career progression; and generally shining up the handle on the big front door. Time is not very important, while dotting every i and crossing every t is vital, since at some point the auditors will be coming, and the politicians and the press will be waiting eagerly for their reports. Remunerative careers in the defense industry await those officers who know how to go along to get along. While the Israeli defense industry has produced some remarkably good products, such as the Merkava tank, getting the program funded still tends to be more important than making sure the weapon will work in combat. As time goes on, efficiency tends to become more important than effectiveness; not surprisingly, the simpler and more effective Israeli weapon systems came earlier, and more recent ones tend to reflect the American tendency toward complex and expensive ineffectiveness.

The Israeli inquiry into the Lebanon fiasco is unlikely to address this issue for the same reason it is not addressed in the United States: too much money is at stake. The R&D and procurement tail now wags the combat arms dog. Nor is the question of how to reverse the process and restore the virtues a Third Generation military requires in its officers an easy one. Those virtues—eagerness to make decisions and take responsibility, boldness, broad-mindedness and a spirit of intellectual inquiry, contempt for careerism and careerists—are not wanted in Second Generation militaries, and officers who demonstrate them are usually weeded out early. A Third Generation culture is difficult to maintain, and even more—impossible perhaps?—to restore once lost.

Yet, as I have said many times in these columns, a Second Generation military, no matter how lavishly resourced, has no chance against Fourth Generation opponents. In this conundrum lies the fate of the state of Israel, and the fate of states everywhere.

I am quick to speak out on the need for advancements in technology when it comports with troop protection and effectiveness, and when the technology is something other than R&D adventurism.  I posted on “Thermobaric Weapons and Body Armor,” and I posted here and here on proper funding of the Marine Corps.  But if you’ll notice about these posts, the equipment, if successful, would redound directly to increased safety for troops and effectiveness of our forces.  And … immediately so.

There is a darker side of the military establishment.  This side nurtures careerism, avoidance of responsibility, networking, and bowing to political pressures.  May I speak for the grunt for a minute?  When the grunts see this, they always judge it for what it is, and they immediately lose all respect for those who behave this way.  This loss of respect is irrevocable.

The most technologically advanced equipment is no replacement for well-trained, well-led and motivated troops.  To be frank, for those who have their career as the premier concern, they should just step aside and save their reports the trouble of cleaning up their mess and suffering the consequences of their careerism.  For the military-industrial complex, I have more harsh words for you.  If you are selling inferior products to the military, doctoring or embellishing data just to make a sale when you know that some other product is better suited to the mission, or in any way endangering our boys at arms in order to make a buck, you may be able to keep up the pretensions before men, but God sees things that take place in secret.  He knows the thoughts and intentions of the heart, and there will be a day of reckoning.  That will be an awful day for you.

I was dropping my son off at Camp Lejeune the day after labor day, and I saw Daniel’s eyes light up, as he said “Awesome.  Big flag today!”  He proceeded to inform me of the size of the flag and to mark the days that they flew that size flag.  He then said something rather stunning to me.  He said, “There are no more patriots.”  I rode the rest of the way to his barracks in silence.  He got out of the car, hugged me tightly, and said, “I love you dad.”  I have noticed that things that a boy wouldn’t otherwise do when he is a teen or in his early 20’s, Daniel has no problem doing, even around other Marines.  Somehow, the things that the Marine Corps instills and teaches makes them into something different than they were before.  They have a certain confidence that seems unshakable.

As I drove away from the base, I thought, “I know at least one patriot who is left.  And, I’ll bet that there are more than 2500 more who have perished in Iraq.”

With boys like these, we may just be okay.

My son’s billet has been decided (of course, as I am told by him, everything is subject to change at any time for any reason).  But as of right now, he is the SAW operator (Squad Automatic Weapon).  You can read about it at USMCWeapons.com and at Answers.com.  He functions as the SAW gunner for his fire team.  You can read about the fire team at Wikipedia.  His description of Squad rushes for 6000 meters on a Friday afternoon in 90 degree F weather makes me glad that I sit behind a desk.

So now rather than just carry 40 lbs of body armor and a 100 lb backpack, he has to tote another 25-30 lbs depending on the amount of ammunition he has.

When he gets to come home on the weekends he is very tired.  The Sergeant Major is an inspiration to him, though.  Much older than the young Marines, all of the young ones have trouble keeping the pace he sets on “humps.”

Daniel asks for prayer regularly.