Double-timed on The Conjecturer.
Defense
- It’s the 1980′s all over again. Not only are we stuck in another Iran-Iraq war, but Russia is buzzing our forward bases with TU-95′s. What’s more, Putin knows, and clearly relishes knowing, that no one can do anything to make him back off.
- Richard Myers, former Chairman of JCS and current “Colin powell Chair of Character, Leadership, and Ethics” at the National Defense University, pushes back against a Foreign Affairs essay claiming he demonstrated poor leadership skills during the runup to the Iraq War. He is partially backed up by Mackubin Thomas Owens, who can never quite bring himself to criticize The Don Rumsfeld for… well, anything, really. It’s not quite the 12/31/01 National Review cover, which featured Rummy coquettishly popping and locking his hips beneath a banner declaring him, at the age of 70, a “stud” (I may dig this up and scan it, as I was a subscriber at the time… and JarJar Nordlinger’s delirious hagiography might be amusing-to-frustrating nowadays). But it’s close. These starry-eyed militarists are balanced by Lawrence Korb, who counters with significant evidence of the Bush Administration’s shameless use of the uniformed military (which cannot legally dissent or disagree with his policies) for a partisan political agenda, including
JesusPetraeus himself, and Michael Desch’s final response. It’s all far too involved to discuss here, but I do highly suggest reading it in its entirety… and kudos to Foreign Affairs for providing such a forum for debate. - Related: is every small local success Petraeus racks up actually undermining the ultimate reason for the surge? That would certainly match what I’ve seen but never really articulated, but I don’t think we have enough data yet. That is to say, I wouldn’t feel comfortable that the Maliki government’s collapse is because of Petraeus’ surge. At the very least, though, it hasn’t had much of an impact.
- The MoD joins the DoD in gagging soldiers in the field.
- Interesting: “in future events, cyber-conflicts may best resemble guerrilla battles, or even spontaneous riots, in which the general opponents are known, but the immediate attackers are not.” That has rather serious implications for Network-Centric Warfare, and for battling any sufficiently advanced enemy—the insurgents in Iraq included, should they choose to crash NMCI or a similar partially-open military network.
Around the World
- Really, the title says it all.
- The miracle of Uncle Pervy’s continued existence. Pervy, by the way, has backed off his intention to impose martial and law and thus rule foreva… most likely because of a 2 a.m. phone call by none other than Condoleeza Rice.
- In Afghanistan, U.S. SOF have been so deeply counterproductive the local UK commander has asked them to withdraw for fear of permanently losing the Sangin area in the north of Helmand (coincidentally, the Taliban’s heartland, and the source of much of Afghanistan’s annual export of 6000 metric tonnes of opium). This is not a new concept, but it is nice to see a non-blogger finally saying it in the open. Meanwhile, we have to question why the Afghan police have such a hard time getting on their feet, when they’re not only the most targeted by the Taliban (who have learned that undermining support for Kabul is how they’ll win, not by attacking Americans), but are one of the lowest paid jobs in the world. Indeed, salaries are a big missing piece from the development which might drag Afghanistan into maybe at least the 20th century. And, to sort-of repeat an oft-repeated axiom here: money talks.
- Iraq comes together, right now, over me: “On the unruly outer fringes of the Sunni area south of Baghdad known as the Triangle of Death, American soldiers navigate more than a dozen battle zones straddling the fault lines of sect and tribe. Al-Qaeda in Iraq — identified by President Bush and his generals as the main U.S. enemy — is just one of myriad armed groups competing here for influence and authority.” But they have the surge!
- Oh, and all those expensive reconstruction projects we’re funding in the “cleared and held” areas might just be funneling money back to the insurgents. I hope it doesn’t become an echo of Basra, in which the British surge (for lack of a better turn) had the opposite of its intended effect, handing them an embarrassing defeat and turning the city over to the Shiite militias.
- Paul Wolfowitz should be ashamed at how the World Bank ruined everything in Iran. Wait, that’s not it. Oh hell, just read the damned link.
- Meanwhile, the subprime meltdown went global, and it appears a global economic crisis is brewing thanks to our idiotic fiscal policies. Maybe we should all look into moving to China, considering it scored its second highest monthly trade surplus ever.
Back at Home
- Clearly, the one thing holding us back from our rightful place as the world’s unified moralist is another large scale terrorist attack. So, rather than celebrating the world’s seeming decreased danger, we should wish for more destruction, in the hopes those damned liberals will stop all their bitching and “America’s righteous rage” can once again, finally, assert itself.
- Luckily, everything is going so well in this country that Congress wants to revamp Intellectual Property law to include cheap knockoff fashion at stores no one respectable would ever go to! At long last, I am saved from the horrible assault of Forever 21. (Note: I am not forever 21, and I’m actually quite grateful to have moved on from the days of upside-down vomiting off the 3rd floor balcony.)
- Last weekend, I had the distinct pleasure of watching the Criterion Collection version of Solyaris, a 1972 Soviet film adaptation of the Stanislaw Lem novel about man’s insignificance against the universe. Tarkovsky cracks this grand theme open into the much more human idea of grief and loss (itself a probable inversion of Lem’s original intent)—making a slow, captivating, gut-wrenching descent into what might pass for madness. That a Brezhnev-era film, denuded of a discussion of God by the censors, could achieve such intense depth and impact, is quite literally stunning. I’m almost afraid to see Soderbergh’s 2002 remake with George Clooney; the original Kris bore an unnerving similarity to Reason editor Nick Gillespie (leather jacket and all), and one of the original’s biggest powers over me was the stunning performances from actors I didn’t know from any other contexts. I know I would see Chris in the new version and think of Daniel Ocean—hardly a welcoming backdrop for a torpid meditation on the nature of man’s humanity.
