A Second Hand Conjecture

Cross-posted on The Conjecturer.

Defense

• The IDF is generally thought of as one of the world’s top armies—though it lacks expeditionary capability (which is usually a function of solid logistics), its warfighting is top notch. Not so, according to the Winograd Commission, which examined IDF policies in the wake of the Hezbollah war last year. Why bring this up here? Well, the Commission’s conclusions—which include warnings of the dangers of military overreach, a refusal to accept the limitations of precision weaponry, and the distinction between praising troops and honestly assessing their abilities—are applicable to the U.S. military as well. I’ve run across these on several occasions, from getting into bicker-fights over the need for hyper-expensive individually guided artillery shells during urban combat, to shouting matches over the difference between criticizing a badly run war and the troops themselves. In other words, Israel provides us a lesson we don’t have to painfully learn ourselves, should we choose to.
• I think we should add to that a general overreliance on high tech solutions to broader strategic problems. Those supposedly “bomb-proof” MRAP vehicles are not fully deployed for several reasons: they’re incredibly expensive, they’re incredibly slow, and they’re still just one generation of EFP away from being no better than before (i.e. undercarriage plating doesn’t help stop a shaped charge fired at the cabin).
• We could also try speaking the truth about the reality of our warzones.
• OMG what, the CIA hires contractors? Like, no way.
• DCI Hayden says 15% of the CIA’s workforce is less than two months old, and is emphasizing field operations over analysis. Hrm. Related is this bit about the possibility of harmonizing the DoD’s rather ham-fisted intel activities with all the other intel agencies’ activities. I wonder if the two are related?
• So, if we do indeed give two-generation old night vision equipment to the ANA commando units, what happens should they get snatched by the Taliban?
• The treatment of OIF Veteran Adam Kokesh is indeed shameful, but Wonkette gets the terms of his punishment-for-speaking-out wrong: he is not being reinstated to be dishonorably discharged, he is being reinstated to be other-than-honorably discharged. It might sound like a semantic distinction, but a dishonorable discharge results from a general courts-martial (equivalent to a felony). An OTH discharge just means they think he behaved in a deeply dishonorable fashion—usually this level of discharge is used if a soldier gets convicted in a civilian court or in some other way seriously violates the UMCJ (though it still denies the recipient any veteran’s benefits, including VA care). Kokesh was inactive reserve, so he can be reinstated if need be. But the USMC is reinstating him for the sole purpose of downgrading his discharge—an action surely less honorable than speaking out against an unpopular war.

Around the World

• Another neat finding from the DoD report on China? China has developed an information first-strike capability, most likely to gain an edge over Taiwan should the Strait go tense. It’s worth noting that China has this capability primarily because of the willing and eager complicity of U.S. security companies like Cisco, the same ones that helped China build the Great Firewall to censor and imprison online dissidents.
• Speaking of dissidents, do you remember RCTV, the television station in Venezuela Hugo Chavez shut down? They’ve reinvented themselves on , so if any of you speak Spanish (I don’t) you can still get your daily dose of anti-Chavez activism—online. Awesome!
• At a fashion show in Japan, key chains depicting Kim Jong-il tied up in Japanese-style bondage ropes sold out at once. Apparently the world’s most brutal dictator has become a hipster icon on the home islands.
• Meanwhile, in retaliation for the new sanctions, the Sudanese ambassador to the U.S. threatened to cut off the world’s supply of gum arabic, a crucial component in soft drinks, 80% of which is supplied by Sudan. As Dana Milbank points out quite correctly, it is a bizarre, if creative, response: “Try to stop the killings in Darfur, and we’ll take away your Coca-Cola.” I can go without Coca-Cola should it come to that.
• Remembering the Falklands, a war the British fought for strategic sheep purposes, and it’s almost hilariously mismatched engagements. I’ve often heard people say Thatcher’s decision to counter attack Argentina was what revived Britain’s national character. And, not coincidentally, what makes the Argentina-England games at the World Cup so much fun.
• I suppose M.D.s are the new leaders of choice: Latvia joins Syria and Turkmenistan in the “ruled by doctors” club.
• Irony of ironies, South Africa wants to boycott Israel for its “occupation of Arab lands.” Interestingly, there is no mention of which “Arab lands” they mean (and if, like HAMAS, it means the very existence of Israel is an “occupation of Arab lands”), nor was it coupled to an injustice-based boycott of Zimbabwe, Sudan, North Korea, China, Thailand, Burma, Uzbekistan, Angola, DRC, Venezuela, the U.S., or any of the dozens of other countries actively engaged in acts of injustice. Which makes me think there’s just something about Jews in that union.
• Vasili Rukhadze has an excellent piece on the Russian geopolitical offensive across its near abroad. It’s long, but very much worth reading.

Back at Home

• Luvs it: “[B]eyond surface differences like party and ideology, there is ample evidence that Bush is to Carter what Mary-Kate is to Ashley.” Of course, the rest of that piece does a terrible job of actually comparing the two. But that sentence… man, that made me tittle.
• Lou Dobbs, vicious liar. But that’s no surprise. Just last night, while in a discussion of whether or not the immigration debate was being driven by xenophobia and racism, I flipped on The O’Reilly Factor to watch Bill complain that “the liberals” want to use immigrants to tear down the “white Christian male culture” our society was founded on. I suppose noting that Mexicans, which are the overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants, are just non-white Christian males, is beside the point.
• Is Fred Thompson the next Barrack Obama? Sort of, with the exception that he’s actually run against an opponent for national office, has defined stances on issues, doesn’t believe hope to be audacious (whatever the hell that means), and doesn’t smoke. In other words, he is an actual contender, and not Sanjaya.
• ArsTechnica raises what I see as a false alarm over some metadata attached to the new unlocking iTunes Plus tracks: if ITMS users can just torrent what they want without purchasing it, why would they bother paying for an unlocked copy? Moreover, the information is vague and easily spoofed, which limits its use in catching determined file sharers. To me, it seems more like a way for Apple to soothe the Luddites at the record companies than anything else, and maybe to catch idiots.
• Oh, so we’re not replicating World War II, we’re replicating ? President Bush can’t be that big a daft git, can he? Also note we never won the Korean War—we just fought the commies to a nearly six decade (so far) standstill/gridlock. Is that how Mr. Gung Ho Win Iraq At All Costs President Bush has degraded our chances of “winning,” however that was supposed to look?

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