Cross-posted at The Conjecturer. I’m going go try to shorten these and better group them thematically at some point, but I just find too much during the day to really limit things. Should I give up the pretense of exhaustiveness? I might.
The Pentagon
- More on the brave testimony of Jessica Lynch and Kevin Tillman, brother of Pat Tillman. Talk about speaking truth to power: both were to puncture the Pentagon’s meta-narrative of the War on Terr-uh, and to convince me that nothing (instead of simply “mostâ€) coming out of the Pentagon can be considered factual. They lie quite deliberately to manipulate opinion and perception… And I am embarrassed to have considered the leadership honorable.
- Case in point is Lt. General Ray Odierno’s limp defense of the new Baghdad strategy of walling off ethnic enclaves. When you have to create separate prison areas to keep people from butchering each other, it means the goal of sustainable security has fundamentally failed. Calling a collection stockades a city is a little more than an unfunny joke. Meanwhile, despite hapless bloggers proclaiming the various surges a “success,†millions of Iraqis have fled for their lives, and no one seems to care.
- Par for the course is this Pentagon propaganda announcement that claims extended tours (announced, let’s not forget, just after President Bush proclaimed his desire to bring the troops home) will actually reduce stress on the Army and give family members a more predictable time table. It is this precise inversion of reality that has sharply driven down my confidence in the military. I just don’t trust them to tell the truth anymore, about anything.
- Speaking of which: the Air Force says it won’t make payroll if $800 million diverted to the Army isn’t recovered in the next few months. Because clearly the problem is diverting money to support the ground troops, and not building mismanaged multi-billion dollar paperweights. It’s almost like their pig-headed insistence on ultra-high tech, minimal personnel air wars strained the DoD so much it needs their airmen to fill gaps in the decidedly lower tech, but far more critical, Army. Go figure.
- Meanwhile, the CBO warns that future budgeting is shorting weapons research by about $20 billion in 2007 dollars. Part of this is the DoD’s acquisition strategy, which involves funding the research and development even of failed weapons concepts. It removes the cost of making bad or impractical weapons, leading to waste, fraud, and budget bloat.
Around the World
- So, what’s up with Iran’s military collaboration with India, you say? How about this: Iran needs friends, and India needs friends on the other side of Pakistan. And India’s own illegal nuclear program was just blessed by the Bush administration.
- About 400 North Koreans, 80% of them women, are on hunger strike in Thailand to avoid being forced back to North Korea. Returned escapees are often tortured to death in the prison camps. The South doesn’t know what the prudent move is, but the right move is to save these people from certain murder. Meanwhile, North Korea continues to sponsor terrorism.
- Turkey has long struggled with the tension between secular and religious society. Indeed, it is a test between realism and idealism. It’s main ruling party, the AK, sprang from Islamist roots, and, as I’ve repeatedly noted elsewhere, immediately moderated its policies. That is because democracy is bad for extremism, and extremists (almost by definition) never fare well in free elections. Turkey, however, still has a long way to go—perhaps starting with its treatment of ethnic and religious minorities: Armenians, Kurds, and even Christians.
- Meet Isaias Afewerki, dictator of Eritrea.
- Hey, who knew anarchic libertarianism would be so… anarchic? That is because people find ways to profit from misery all the time. That it is economically feasible should not make it moral, no matter one’s opinion of The Fountainhead. Background here and here.
- A fascinating look at what kinds of skills and passions translate into BoP, or Bottom of the Pyramid, entrepreneurship.
- Georgia has a flaky plan to tempt South Ossetia away from its Russian patrons. It is a loser for separatists, for they will give up separatism (which is really a preference for domination by Moscow rather than Tblisi). But it is a winner for the South Ossetians themselves, as they do not want Russian troops turning their province into Ingushetia or Chechnya. President Saakashvili knows who butters his bread, too, which would explain his recent commitment of more troops to Iraq.
- Afghanistanica posts on the myth of pre-Taliban anarchy. I haven’t bothered to check his many sources, but assuming he is right, then my suspicions about Khaled Hosseini—namely, that The Kite Runner was a beautifully written but also overly dramatic and exaggerated “portrait†of Afghanistan, are even more true.
- Meanwhile, the UN’s main guy on drugs wonders why there is so much opium, and where it might be hidden. He could be right that it’s being stockpiled as a cushion against price shocks… But his solution, which is a nimbler version of the same old failed policy (addressing distribution instead of production), is destined to fail. What about licensing the opium crop, following India and Turkey’s examples? It has worked elsewhere, unlike the Colombia plan of drawn out insurgency wars.
- Bill Roggio has written on the fighting in Waziristan. Let’s see if I can discuss his analysis (at Registan.net, natch, where we’re also running a support drive), hopefully this time without inciting his holy outrage at my daring to misunderstand how we agree. Then again, Lance thinks I’m inciteful. So, umm… yes.
- I’m glad to see Uncle Berdi didn’t meekly grovel before the all mighty Putin. Very glad, in fact.
- And what does Russia get for trying to forbid Moldovan wine? A massive dumpster dive, that’s what.
- Lastly, Hugo Chavez, the Goron of Venezuela, has, in a cruelly ironic demonstration of Marx’s infamous axiom, begun indoctrination sessions to train the workers into socialist elites. Because that has a long pattern of wild success the world over.
Back at Home
- So, what’s with Wal-Mart and Disney hiring intelligence analysts? I can understand the need for an advanced global security force to protect a global supply chain, but intelligence? Really? I’m so in the wrong industry. The best/worst sentence: “Harrison told a meeting of security professionals last year that Wal-Mart was learning to defend itself by using the vast information it routinely collects about its employees, shoppers and suppliers.â€
- I was given a slight chill today when I realized the casually cynical Lobbyist on Wonkette is probably the most reasonable person in my decrepit town.
- Earth-like extra-solar planets are the new red white & blue.
- What? John McCain is an angry angry man? I mean, I want to vote for a guy who jokes about IEDs and kicking dogs. That being said, it was nice to see someone asking questions.
- Funnier still is Samantha Bee hating Gaia.
Update: Lance probably wasn’t joking when he said I was inciteful. I’ve managed to incite the holy outrage of Robert Templer (and not, at least yet, Bill Roggio), the Director of Asia Programs for the International Crisis Group, for daring to say the UN is anti-Semitic and ineffective. Seriously, read those comments he left, and then compare my reaction to other comments, both in that thread and, if you have a lot of free time, elsewhere. I don’t mind (and most often enjoy) friendly disagreement. Lance, in fact, excels at the sport. But I have zero patience with needless condescension and patronism.
As one of those hapless bloggers, I haven’t called the surge a success, but I will take issue with a couple of things.
If stemming this tide of murder means putting more troops in and erecting barriers, it certainly shows failure before. Once those things are done and time goes on one might call the attempt a failure as well. I certainly expect (and I am sure Petraeus does as well) that some initiatives will fail and new things attempted. Obviously the attempt earleir failed or the surge and tactics such as this would not have been contemplated.
Also, I think it shows a bit of cheek to assume no one cares about those fleeing, hence the happiness over reports that some of those people have returned. Hopefully they will not be branded as automatically suspect as the millions who fled Iraq under Saddam have been in subsequent years. I have been unsure of success from the beginning, I wasn’t sure about the surge either (I have a podcast to prove it over at QandO) but I do think it is the best course we have available, and has shown some signs of progress. I will now go back to being uncaring and low on hap.
On this I disagree, since I favored them doing this before hand and for the same reasons. If you take it to mean they wouldn’t prefer doing it differently, then you are correct it doesn’t help. What the release is saying, given the force requirements the 12 month tour was leading to units having less than a year at home. By extending the tours to 15 months the rotation works better. Would they prefer to be able to do 12 in, 24 out? Of course. That unfortunately is off the table. So what is the best way to deal with that? Extend the tours (which makes training and deployment cheaper) and the stay at home. The stay was otherwise going to be shortened. That is what they are talking about, and was discussed in such terms long before this press release or the announcement of the change. It also wasn’t George Bush’s decision.
As opposed to any other bureaucracy? The military has no great claim to honesty, but it isn’t any worse than anywhere else. I agree with you on Tillman, but this is nothing new. Especially in wartime, when once again I will point out (my wife made the point last night to me, and she voted for Bush’s opponent both times, that this is how it always is, in fact it is better now) that as bad as this may seem, they are actually better than their predecessors. There is a reason for the old saw, “the first casualty of war is the truth.” We have had more truth than usual in this war, including that we have even found out about the cover ups. Typically that has been decades later.
As I keep saying, humanity may have set a low bar, but they have generally jumped over it.
Oh, and my two quibbles aside, nice roundup!
Though I did beat you to the punch on the Chavez thing. The Chavistas claim the classes are not mandatory, but read what was said earlier and see how it sounds to you:
Decrees? Laws? I always love when socialists claim they have voluntary laws.
Oh man. I have to do these in order. Forgive the numbered list.
1. When’s the last time you heard anyone in the media or military or entire administration express sympathy for the millions of people? Or any sort of emotion? This is a crisis for which we are responsible, and our national silence damns us.
2. I must have missed the time where we thought longer tours would lessen the institutional strain on the Army, or the psychological strain on soldiers’ families (the other crucial lie in that press release). Let me summarize Shachtman. So two years off for one year on would mean that about a third of the total force should be deployed at any one time. Time recently reported, however, that nearly half the Army’s 43 combat brigades are deployed overseas, with the rest either recovering or preparing for their next tour. And more time in Iraq is supposed to ease that pressure? Similarly, the idea that deploying loved ones for longer will be better for either the soldiers or their families (“the tour extensions will provide more predictability and stability for soldiers and their families”, Odierno said) is bunk—more combat is bad for soldiers and their families, not good (I shouldn’t have to say this, but apparently I do). The general working metric is 60 days of sustained combat is the maximum most people can take; the situation in Iraq is an uncomfortable medium between combat and non-combat; we have no idea how many IEDs you can survive before you break. Trying to find out is not good policy—it is bad for the troops, plain and simple. It is probably necessary, given our forces have not kept up with our demands of them. But to pretend it is a net good is to lie.
3. The military most certainly does lay a claim to telling the truth, unless all that talk of sacred duty and honor and whatnot is just more lies. The soldiers I know pride themselves and their services for their commitment to the truth and morality of their cause. I fully believe that of 99% of all the soldiers deployed—they have their honor intact. Their superiors, apparently, don’t. And you applaud this, write it off as normal?
4. I know you beat me on the Chavez thing, but I realized today that he really does look like a Goron:
Chavez
Goron
The Legend of Zelda can explain many things about our world today…
That’s it. Thanks for the compliment. I love the new comment box, by the way.
No, it isn’t. Re-read what I said. More time in Iraq is a given, I and the press release are just talking about how to deal with that fact. The other choice was 12 in country and shorter stays stateside. I think for a number of reasons they made the right choice. 12 in country, 24 stateside isn’t an option. If your point is that the war is a strain then neither I nor the press release is arguing that fact. How do you best manage it is the question. I have deep personal and tragic knowledge that it is a strain. I saw no attempt in that press release to claim it was better than the traditional rotation.
It was a quibble. You said “no one” and indicted all of us bloggers who support continuing the efforts to solve the problem. That was a bit unfair, as I know the topic has been addressed. Slam the administration all you want, though I have heard the administration express sympathy, if not for that particular aspect, for the Iraqi people. I also doubt that not pursuing the tactics Petraeus now is will make the problem better.
Applaud? No. Normal? Yes. In fact better than usual. Call me cynical and jaded, but that is the history as your many missives on the waste, fraud and stupidity of the military procurement process shows.
It was just an excuse to point out how stupid the “voluntary” claim is.
Yeah, I like the comment box a lot better myself.
And Gorons. GORONS.
Now for that press release.
Still think they’re not saying this will ease pressure and make things better for families? They are explicitly saying this is better for everyone involved, when it clearly isn’t, and is likely to stretch an already stretched force beyond its breaking point, at least psychologically.
Oh, the “no one” in reference to the refugees was everyone, not just bloggers. As a country (and you don’t think Bush expressing generalized sympathy for “the people” can count, do you?), we have ignored the problem of literally millions of people being forced into refugee camps by our own policies. We freak out and tear out shirts over far smaller numbers of people in Darfur… yet the victims of our own policy suffer in silence. That’s all I was saying.
Yes they are, and it will, relative to what they are dealing with now and expect to in the future.
Hopefully it will.
I think it will help, but it is still tough.
I hope so. Up to now my brother has had no real idea. It kept changing, both when leaving and when they would return, and it was going to get worse.
Will this work? I don’t know, but it seems the right way to handle it. The only other answer is to expand the military even more, which is irrelevant for a while as it takes time to get the troops ready. This is the best way to deal with a situation which under the previous rotation had become unmanageable and unpredictable. From a maintenance and readiness standpoint making sure the rotation keeps them home for 12 months makes sense, even if it means longer tours.
You are misreading what I and the military is saying here. I have no illusions about the military’s capability to feed us a line of horsehocky. That doesn’t mean they are here unless you assume it means something ridiculous, when it means exactly what was being discussed before the policy change was implemented. They are not arguing they wouldn’t rather have a force large enough to keep troops at the peacetime rotation schedule. They don’t, this is how they are dealing with it. It makes sense. Wil it work? I can only hope so, but considering I wanted them to do this, and for those same reasons, it seems a bit weird to claim that those reasons mean what you say they mean, which is that less time at home is good. That isn’t what they are saying and neither was I beforehand.
I got that, I am saying it isn’t true. I count you, me, and from the piece on Michael Yon I just put up, that makes three;^)
I can find more. It was a quibble Joshua, don’t be so sensitive. I agree that we don’t talk about it enough, but that is true of many things. I get your meaning, but since you brought up us hapless bloggers I thought I should clarify that some have worried about it. We have three here today so progress is being made:^}
Oh, Michael Totten has discussed it as well. So there a few souls with a bit of hap out there.
Again, I think I must be missing the logic that says randomly extending tours of duty is easier on Army units and soldiers’ families. I don’t get it. I was heartbroken to hear that my friends are going to be stuck in Iraq longer, as were their parents and wives. I’ll admit this is better than the even more arbitrary stop-loss orders of before, but it represents such a fundamental failure of policy and (as many things are these days) leadership I don’t even know where to begin. If we cannot maintain a certain deployment schedule, our leaders should not brag about that schedule while violating it for years and then changing it. It is beyond dishonest—it is disrespectful. And I think our soldiers at least deserve that.
I’m pretty sure “a bit of hap” is my new favorite phrase, ever.
So, the answer was not to do it and have tours constantly revised? They think it will improve things. It may not, but it made sense to me and was glad they did it.
No argument there. If we are going to undertake occupations, or risk having to do them, then we should have expanded the military. Rummy didn’t want one, and then prayed it wouldn’t last too long when he was overruled. Oops, the insurgency counted on just this and has conducted itself accordingly. Maybe they should have thought of that before invading Iraq and deciding not to raise an occupation level force.
This is depressing, go read Michael Yon! His news ain’t exactly cheery, but the photography is excellent.
I can’t believe that I missed your point, I will have to do some research on this.