A Second Hand Conjecture

And Egypt too:

The United States on Monday announced military aid packages worth more than $43 billion for Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states in an effort to bolster Mideast allies against Iran and others.

The United States plans to offer a $13 billion package for Egypt over 10 years and a $30 billion package for Israel over the same period, increases over previous military funding, as well as unspecified defense aid to Saudi Arabia and Gulf states, said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The Saudi package is expected to upgrade the country’s missile defenses and air force and increase its naval capabilities, a defense official told Reuters on Saturday. The package for Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf countries could reach $20 billion over 10 years, the official said.

This deal still has to be approved by Congress, and predictably there are questions being raised:

Two local congressmen are trying to block a deal to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia.

Congressmen Anthony Weiner and Jerry Nadler are introducing legislation aimed at stopping the Bush administration from going ahead with selling a $20 billion state-of-the-art weapons package to Saudi Arabia.

The package would include satellite guided bombs and new naval vessels and would also help boost the Saudi Air force. They fear the sale would put high-tech weapons in the hands of terrorists.

“A nation that sends New York 15 of 19 bombers on September 11th, provides 50 percent of all of the funding for terrorism around the world, and as much as $4 billion to Hamas shouldn’t get any U.S. taxpayer support and certainly no weapons to continue their deeds,” said Brooklyn-Queens Representative Anthony Weiner.

These are not illegitimate fears in my estimation. (more…)

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I just checked my e-mail after days of ignoring it. I have been moving onto my new house (yes, I am stoked) and I have sworn off doing more than checking in on what my blogging mates have been up to. One e-mail I missed was from Jed Nitzberg who has been helping out with the push to help Fisher House. I appreciate his response, though I feel guilty given the meager effort to support them we made, all the more so since it is the favorite charity of my brother, who will soon be back in Iraq, probably Anbar, which worries me a lot less than it used to. Still, it contains good news, and as always, please take the time to support the fantastic work that Fisher House does:

I just wanted to thank you again for your help and share with you the results of what you helped to make possible for Fisher House by spreading the word about the Best Buy donation campaign.

In-kind donations of equipment from vendors, customer donations in-store and on-line, and Best Buy’s marketing support for Fisher House via newspaper inserts and in-store advertising, totaled more than one million dollars in value! This doesn’t even take into account the awareness value Fisher House received from the partnership with Best Buy.

Milestones included over 30,000 customers donating in-store and on-line totaling $114,555, vendor in-kind donations valued at over $500,000!

Your part in spreading the word made this a great success! I hope we have the chance to work together again in the future.

I hope we can help more in the future as well, and next time maybe I won’t be so swamped and we can do a lot more.

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“Hmm – if you have been wondering who’s a nerd for twelve years, your research might well be conducted with a bathroom mirror (works for me!).”

Tom Maguire

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Well maybe not as fast as some of us would like. I’ve not been a big fan of Gonzales, but neither have I been a huge detractor. He strikes me as politically tone deaf, which is the primary cause of much of his current troubles in my opinion, and the evidence adduced so far reveals him to be an incredibly incompetent manager.

However, although I think Gonzales should have been put out to pasture some time ago, because I’m not a means-justifies-the-ends type of person, I’d rather see him forced out for the right reasons. While some have taken issue with his legal reasoning with respect to certain aspects of the administration’s approach to the GWOT, I haven’t been terribly persuaded by that rhetoric, especially after looking more closely at some of the challenged writings. Similarly, the current kabuki-like proceedings over the U.S. Attorney firings is complete nonsense no matter how you slice it and dice it, with the exception of what was revealed by Ms. Goodling’s testimony. Now certain members of Congress are threatening to try Gonzales for perjury. This is yet another inept tact to removing the AG:

Today the New York Times filled in the blanks on Alberto Gonzales’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. As we discussed in detail here and here, Gonzales testified that he had visited John Ashcroft in the hospital to try to resolve a legal dispute that had developed over an intelligence program, but that the program in question was not the “terrorist surveillance program” that had been confirmed by President Bush, i.e., the interception of international communications where one participant is associated with al Qaeda. About that program, Gonzales said there had been no serious legal question.

This testimony was met with incredulity by the Senators. “Do you expect us to believe that?” Arlen Spector asked. Committee members Schumer and Leahy flatly accused Gonzales of lying, and called for a special prosecutor to carry out a perjury investigation. …

Today the Times confirms that Gonzales told the truth. The legal dispute that broke out in 2004 was about the NSA’s “data mining” project, in which databases of telephone records were reviewed for patterns suggestive of terrorist cells

It was never really clear as to why Gonzales would have lied about this incident in the first place, and the hoopla surrounding his testimony usually skipped the fact that the AG offered to brief Senate members behind closed doors so as to not compromise classified information:

Gonzales could see that some of the Senators were confused, and he offered to explain to them where the controversy resided, and why it was different from the “terrorist surveillance program” that President Bush had publicly disclosed. Of course, this would have to be done in closed session, since it involved disclosure of classified information>:

SPECTER: Going back to the question about your credibility on whether there was dissent within the administration as to the terrorist surveillance program, was there any distinction between the terrorist surveillance program in existence on March 10th, when you and the chief of staff went to see Attorney General Ashcroft, contrasted with the terrorist surveillance program which President Bush made public in December of 2005?

GONZALES: Senator, this is a question that I should answer in a classified setting, quite frankly, because now you’re asking me to hint or talk — to hint about our operational activities. And I’d be happy to answer that question, but in a classified setting.

The Senators declined Gonzales’s invitation. That tells you everything you need to know: they are not interested in learning the truth, but only in seeking political advantage.

Again, as with the US Attorneys scandal, this is just political kabuki played out for partisan advantage. There are two real problems with this.

(1) The Democratic Senators are drowning out substantive reasons for Gonzales to be let go with their political maneuvering, and creating space for political opponents to support the embattled AG while sounding sane and reasonable. If the Leahy and Schumer had instead concentrated on the complete lack of oversight with respect to the DOJ, and on the apparently illegal IJ hirings uncovered by Monica Goodling’s testimony, they would have a viable issue on their hands with which to berate the White House.

(2) This entire fiasco is about as clear an example as you will find of Administrative bungling compounded by Congressional unseriousness. The Bush Administration has shown itself to be incredibly incompetent on more than one occasion, and the DOJ scandal provides yet more evidence. But the lack of any concern about “the People’s business” on the part of Congress is on grand display when Senators spend so much time attempting to score political points rather than effectively handling the very real issues put before them. If ever you needed a picture-perfect moment to underscore the idea that Congress is in the business of re-election, and nothing more, then the Attorney-Gate proceedings will suit that purpose just fine.

Is it any wonder that our political class is held in such contempt?

Technorati Tags: Attorney-Gate, U.S. Attorney scandal, Alberto Gonzales, Congress, Monica Goodling, Kyle Sampson, James Comey, John Ashcroft, Patrick Leahy, Charles Schumer, approval ratings, perjury proceedings

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Scott Thomas Beauchamp (”STB”) may be to the future of the GWOT what Gavrilo Princip was to the future of Europe. By that I mean that a relatively minor opportunist may serve to ignite and focus an underlying battle that has been looking for an excuse to truly rage. Princip broke the camel’s back and ushered in the Great War. STB seems poised to be the catalyst for the Great Left/Right divide.

The current conflict centers on STB’s most recent story published by The New Republic recounting tales of macabre humor, grave desecration and animal cruelty. If the tales had been merely personal anecdotes highlighting how the bar for appropriate behavior is lowered by the grave circumstances of war, then STB’s stories would probably have received little attention. But STB went further then that. He passed judgment on every fellow soldier in his unit and on his base (FOB Falcon).

From “Shock Troops” by Scott Thomas Beauchamp:

I saw her nearly every time I went to dinner in the chow hall at my base in Iraq. She wore an unrecognizable tan uniform, so I couldn’t really tell whether she was a soldier or a civilian contractor. The thing that stood out about her, though, wasn’t her strange uniform but the fact that nearly half her face was severely scarred. Or, rather, it had more or less melted, along with all the hair on that side of her head. She was always alone, and I never saw her talk to anyone. Members of my platoon had seen her before but had never really acknowledged her. Then, on one especially crowded day in the chow hall, she sat down next to us.

We were already halfway through our meals when she arrived. After a minute or two of eating in silence, one of my friends stabbed his spoon violently into his pile of mashed potatoes and left it there.
“Man, I can’t eat like this,” he said.
“Like what?” I said. “Chow hall food getting to you?”
“No–with that f***ing freak behind us!” he exclaimed, loud enough for not only her to hear us, but everyone at the surrounding tables. I looked over at the woman, and she was intently staring into each forkful of food before it entered her half-melted mouth.
“Are you kidding? I think she’s f***ing hot!” I blurted out.
“What?” said my friend, half-smiling.
“Yeah man,” I continued. “I love chicks that have been intimate–with IEDs. It really turns me on–melted skin, missing limbs, plastic noses … .”
“You’re crazy, man!” my friend said, doubling over with laughter. I took it as my cue to continue.
“In fact, I was thinking of getting some girls together and doing a photo shoot. Maybe for a calendar? IED Babes.’ We could have them pose in thongs and bikinis on top of the hoods of their blown-up vehicles.”
My friend was practically falling out of his chair laughing. The disfigured woman slammed her cup down and ran out of the chow hall, her half-finished tray of food nearly falling to the ground.

The Left/Right divide over this story is for some reason concentrated on the plausibility of STB’s story. The Left maintains that the Righties are in hysterics over nothing, and that far worse things have happened in every war including this one. Of all the people questioning STB’s accounts, none that I’ve seen have claimed otherwise. Instead, the Righties are puzzled about certain aspects of STB’s stories that don’t seem plausible for myriad reasons. For clarity’s sake, the implausible parts are bolded. However the most implausible parts are those that aren’t written — e.g. in the tale above, that in a crowded mess hall, where every one could hear Beauchamp and his buddy, these guys got away with crudely berating an IED victim because noone stepped in. That’s the tip off that something’s amiss. That STB and his friend survived that little incident without any one saying “boo” to them.

More importantly, the thing that fired up many Righties is the message that STB was trying to convey about the Iraq war and the people fighting it:

Even as I was reveling in the laughter my words had provoked, I was simultaneously horrified and ashamed at what I had just said. In a strange way, though, I found the shame comforting. I was relieved to still be shocked by my own cruelty–to still be able to recognize that the things we soldiers found funny were not, in fact, funny.

Not everyone was capable of such distinctions.

It’s here that he goes into the story about an infantry soldier (who is inexplicably constructing an outpost) uncovering a “Saddam-era” mass grave (which didn’t happen) and claiming the top of a child’s skull as a prize, which the soldier proceeds to wear on top of his head, and under his form-fitted helmet. Beauchamp describes the reaction of all the soldiers present:

He squealed as he placed it on his head like a crown. It was a perfect fit. As he marched around with the skull on his head, people dropped shovels and sandbags, folding in half with laughter. No one thought to tell him to stop. No one was disgusted. Me included.

Beauchamp’s point here?:

Funny? Of course not. But many of my friends were laughing anyway. That is how war works: It degrades every part of you, and your sense of humor is no exception.

In case you haven’t gotten the point yet, war is bad, and it makes those who fight insensitive killing machines who have no respect for life, whether animal or human, living or dead, and who can no longer comprehend cruelty. STB solidifies his theme with his final anecdote about the dog-hunting Bradley driver. This is how he describes the one “kill” he was unable to witness that day:

I didn’t see the third kill, but I heard about it over the radio. Everyone was laughing, nearly rolling with laughter. I approached the private after the mission and asked him about it.
“So, you killed a few dogs today,” I said skeptically.
“Hell yeah, I did. It’s like hunting in Iraq!” he said, shaking with laughter.
“Did you run over dogs before the war, back in Indiana?” I asked him.
“No,” he replied, and looked at me curiously. Almost as if the question itself was in poor taste.

So let’s be clear about what STB was writing. These anecdotes were not relayed as his opinions about the war, nor were they intended to be metaphors for the inevitable cruelty that must overcome a soldier sent to war. The stories were intended to relay fact. Pure and simple.

Scott Thomas is a pseudonym for a freelance writer and soldier currently serving in Baghdad.

Let’s also be clear that, whether the stories are true or not, STB violated his duty as a soldier. According to his own account, he participated in and failed to report incidents up the chain command that were violations of the UCMJ. Indeed, no one even disputes that dog-hunting with a Bradley or desecrating Iraqi graves are such violations, or that STB had a duty to report them to a superior officer (which, I am told, can be done anonymously). That he didn’t, and instead exposed these events via a liberal news magazine under a pseudonym, does not speak well for Mr. Beauchamp’s integrity, and it completely eviscerates any notion that he cares about his comrades in arms, much less his branch of service.

The worst case scenario is that STB made these stories up (or, at least, greatly embellished kernels of truth), and defamed all those with whom he serves. He also indirectly served the purposes of the enemy by making our troops out to be vile, uncaring monsters who have no concern for the Iraqis whatsoever.

From what I’ve read, those who have served or are serving are agrieved of the fact that STB disrespected all those serving at FOB Falcon by going outside the chain of command, and doing absolutely nothing to fix what he obviously saw as serious problems. Of course, that’s just if the stories were true. Every milblogger that I’ve come across, and every communication from a serving soldier, arrives at the conclusion that STB is making nearly everything up (see also, here).

I am a U.S. Army officer and have been stationed at FOB Falcon, Baghdad, Iraq since October of 2006. I am currently still here. The stories that “Scott Thomas” describes are completely fictional. From some of the things he talks about I am led to believe that this individual may possibly be in my unit since we are the only ones with Bradley Fighting Vehicles and I recall the child cemetery that was uncovered in our sector while constructing a Combat Outpost.

The Army is investigating all of these incidents now, and hopefully they will uncover the truth in short order. Unfortunately, the damage to those serving at FOB Falcon has already been done. It remains to be seen whether or not the Left/Right divide over this issue reaches any reasonable consensus. My guess is that, based on the conversations I’ve seen playing out in various comment sections around the web, no consensus will be reached.

Technorati Tags: Scott Thomas Beauchamp, The New Republic, TNR, “Shock Troops”, Iraq war, FOB Falcon, UCMJ, war stories

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For those of you who have been following the ‘Scott Thomas’ debacle, there is an interesting discussion going on over at QandO about the actions of Mr. Beauchamp:

The post yesterday about the revelation of “Scott Thomas’” identity (Howard Kurtz comments on the situation here) spurred quite a discussion about the concept honor and it’s place in the military. I’ll simply say that in my almost three decades of service, honor was an extremely important part of it. Probably more so than in any other profession of which I can think.

[...]

The military is a life and death business. It requires leaders whose values are unquestioned because they, in turn, will be required to make very important decisions which will effect the lives of many, may effect the course of a battle and even a war.

So there is a military culture in which these values are inculcated and enforced all up and down the chain-of-command.

[...]

Beauchamp didn’t hold himself to an ideal of conduct and he didn’t do what was right. … If the stories are true, he destroyed his honor by participating and/or not reporting the incidents. If the stories are not true, he destroyed his honor by lying and putting his profession in a bad light.

Either way, Scott Thomas Beauchamp isn’t an honorable man, and despite the fact that he has now stood up and taken responsibility, by name, for what he’s written, he’s done nothing which reinstates or rehabilitates his lost honor.

I’ve expounded on this in the comment thread over there, so I won’t rehash it here. The bottom line is, no matter how you look at it, Beauchamp’s actions were entirely dishonorable and he disrespected himself, his unit, his comrades in arms, and the military in general, not to mention his own country. Nothing is going to change that.

Technorati Tags: honor, integrity, honesty, character, Scott Thomas Beauchamp, military, Iraq War

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I’ve opined before about how NY Governor Elliot Spitzer is a perfect example of a modern day tyrant, judging solely by the intimidation tactics he used as Attorney General (quoting Prof. Bainbridge):

His [Spitzer's] attack on the mutual fund industry was “a gross abuse of prosecutorial power.” “Just a quick overview of Spitzer’s tactics over the past couple of years exposes the widespread abuse of authority and the rule of law in pursuing his popular agenda.” He has consistently exhibited “egomania and serial disregard for due process.”

I concluded then, on the dawn of Spitzer’s inevitable ascension to the Governorship:

I truly shudder to think what this man will do, in the name of the public weal, with the extensive police powers entrusted to the governor’s office, much less what he will do if and when he is elected to be a Senator or (heaven forbid) U.S. President.

Well, it didn’t take long to find out (emphasis added):

With the disclosure this week that close aides misused state police in an effort to damage a Republican rival, [NY Governor Eliot] Spitzer is facing the same kind of high-profile scrutiny that he was famous for inflicting upon others — from Wall Street executives to radio conglomerates — as New York’s attorney general. In a role reversal, the aggressive Mr. Spitzer now is on the defensive and vowing to make amends. …

While the report by [Democratic] Attorney General Andrew Cuomo found that no laws had been broken, it found that a close Spitzer aide schemed to create and give detailed reports to the media showing that Mr. Bruno had been using state aircraft to attend fund-raisers and other political events, rather than for state business as Mr. Bruno had certified. …

The report found that the governor’s communications director, Darren Dopp, and his top liaison to the state police pressured the state police to create, and in some instances re-create, records of Mr. Bruno’s use of state aircraft and police escorts.

The report also suggested that the governor’s staff gave a false story to investigators to explain why the information was being gathered, saying they were acting on a Freedom of Information Act request from a newspaper.

Within a mere seven months, Spitzer has already employed the state machinery withing his power to destroy those who oppose him. This was perfectly predictable of course, but astounding nonetheless. Now Spitzer is attempting to stonewall any investigation:

Gov. Eliot Spitzer vowed on Wednesday to fight any State Senate inquiry into his administration’s internal operations, even as Republican senators were laying the groundwork for an investigation that could lead to subpoenas of top officials. … The governor has maintained that he was misled by his staff and knew nothing about the effort to discredit Mr. Bruno. But two of his closest aides refused to be interviewed by the attorney general’s investigators, intensifying suspicion, especially among the governor’s critics, that Mr. Spitzer and his staff had not been forthright. …

“The governor’s people refused, people at the highest level, they refused to sit and answer questions,” [Bruno] said. “What did they do? They made a little statement. And these are the people who are the closest to the governor, who are governing the state.”

Prof. Bainbridge quips:

Can you imagine what Attorney General Spitzer would have done to a corporate CEO who told two of his executives to stonewall and who tried to fight off an investigation? Actually, we know exactly what Spitzer would have done …

If nothing else, perhaps this imroglio will end any future political ambitions for Mr. Spitzer. Then again, maybe not.

Technorati Tags: Eliot Spitzer, ethics scandals, Nixonian, Alcee Hastings, William Jefferson, tyranny

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(For those who wonder where I find the time for these daily news roundups, it’s usually during slow moments during the day. Because of my job, I have had none of those for a few weeks. And I’m sick of busting my ass to put these up every night and losing out on precious sleep or leisure reading time. While I do enjoy doing this—otherwise I wouldn’t do them every day for free, going on seven months at this point—I simply don’t have the time at the moment. I’ll revisit on Wednesday of next week and see if I can keep this kind of thing up while still, you know, having a life. This was cross-posted, in case you forgot, at The Conjecturer, where I’m in an interesting debate over whether we should desolate Iraq or not.)

• Talk about burying the lede: rather than crooning about how the invasion of Iraq wasn’t as barbaric in 2004 as some people thought it was, isn’t it significant that removing the mass murdering thug who ran the place didn’t result in a “statistically significant change in the risk of death?” I would certainly think so. One of the main arguments for continuing the occupation of Iraq is that, as bad as it may seem, it’s still better than Saddam. Even according to the people who still root for the war, the best they can throw—after years of complex statistical analyses—is that is isn’t any worse. A wash? We invaded a country, spent $800 billion dollars, and killed 3500 of our own soldiers for a wash? After four years?

  How disappointing. This is Michelle Malkin, remember, who, when not prancing about in cheerleading uniforms (remember, saying she uses her sexuality as a prop is out of bounds), is actively calling for the reopening of prison camps for the brown-skinned MOSLEMS in our midst.

  It’s worth noting, too, before another proud redneck blogger jumps on here complaining we’re not slaughtering enough Arabs in our quest to civilize them or whatever, that the reason this matters, the reason this is not “some defeatist liberal bashing America” (I am neither a liberal, nor do I dislike or bash this country), is because we are now the ones doing it. Shouldn’t that matter?

• Did you know al-Qaeda in Iraq attacked us on September 11 2001? I certainly didn’t. In fact, I thought al-Qaeda in AFGHANISTAN attacked us on September 11, 2001. Moreover, I thought Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn didn’t even exist until we invaded the country, which would certainly fuel the defeatists who say the war in Iraq has made our planet far worse off in terms of anti-terrorism. And yes, I know Bush simply said there were vast operational links between the two, but that’s totally beside the point: not only is there not, especially when Zarqawi was alive and chafing under bin Laden’s sponsorship (but not his pocketbook) but not even now, there never will be. This is because the two al-Qaedas are very different: one is a marriage of convenience that has, since Zarqawi’s death, been made into a franchise, while the other is the original network we wanted to target.

  We should go after bin Laden anyway, as we said we were going to until he ran away and Bush suddenly declared he didn’t care if he ever got caught. That is because bin Laden still carries hold, his network supports AQII, and his funding contacts are what keep it supplied (this is changing as time goes on, and this terrorist group—formed as a direct consequence of our actions—is growing increased autonomy). This is like attacking the legs of a spider, rather than its head—it’s satisfying to cut off a leg, but it will eventually grow back.

• Meanwhile, the crazies are doing an admirable enough job of undercutting their own support without us around to give them other incentives to unite. Meanwhile, sectarian violence—which showed promising movements at first—is back where it started, which to me indicates what I’ve thought all along: the surge (more particularly, Petraeus’ tactics) was a neat idea in 2004. But not 2007.
• I mentioned before that I was a bit baffled as to why Solzhenitsyn had suddenly become an apologist for Putin. Passport offers a very plausible reason: “It seems that even for Solzhenitsyn, who accepted a State Award from Putin in June, dictatorship is preferable to anarchy.” How understandably sad (Benjamin Franklin’s famous axiom comes to mind). But looking at who begrudgingly accepts Putin’s iron fist, and who chafes under it, is also very interesting. Passport again: “When did the freedom fighter become the apologist for dictatorship, while the spy became the dissident?” Indeed. Many things in Russia these days appears backward.

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The London Times reported Monday that al Qaeda is experiencing some internal discord over the gruesome tactics employed by the group:

Fed up with being part of a group that cuts off a person’s face with piano wire to teach others a lesson, dozens of low-level members of al-Qaeda in Iraq are daring to become informants for the US military in a hostile Baghdad neighbourhood.

The ground-breaking move in Doura is part of a wider trend that has started in other al-Qaeda hotspots across the country and in which Sunni insurgent groups and tribal sheikhs have stood together with the coalition against the extremist movement.

“They are turning. We are talking to people who we believe have worked for al-Qaeda in Iraq and want to reconcile and have peace,” said Colonel Ricky Gibbs, commander of the 4th Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, which oversees the area.

Tigerhawk (HT: Wretchard) uses the article to make some interesting analysis of the general situation, relying on his 1983 senior thesis to provide the framework:

If true, this is good news … It is fashionable to identify and decry blowback against American foreign policy, in part because it is often obvious. Blowback happens to the other guy, too. Fine. The real question is whether this story is evidence that the United States is finally resolving the “coercion/intelligence dilemma.”

According to Tigerhawk’s theory (and I recommend that you RTWT), application of the “coercion/intelligence dilemma” to insurgencies can explain in broad terms who has the upper hand in the conflict. Using what appears to be basic game theory (see a similar example here) one can look at how the general population, who is neither part of the insurgency nor supportive of the counterinsurgency, is incentivized to back one side or the other. This is the “coercion” side of the dillema:

In fact, most insurgencies begin with a nucleus of determined activists, and they usually confront a government that represents but a small fraction of the population (or a demographically discrete plurality or majority). In between the two groups lie the masses of the people, who rarely want anything more than to grow their food and say their prayers.

Neither side needs the love or loyalty of the population nearly as much as its cooperation. The insurgent must have nondenunciation so that he may carry on his war against the authority from the midst of the people. The counterinsurgent needs information, so that he may determine the nature, power and membership of the insurgency. Because a credible threat of sanction (death or torture, for example) frequently outweighs love or loyalty, the side that imposes stiff penalties for noncompliance will often win the cooperation of the people away from the side that inspires merely moral support for the merits of its cause. To the extent that cooperative action and the support of opinion among the population differ, there has been effective coercion.

He goes on to describe the different means of coercing the population, and posits that the level of “capriciousness” employed in the coercion is the key to success or failure:

Coercers fall into two general camps. The first would seek to cow a population through a combination of ferocity and caprice. One might, for example, terrorize a population into complying with one’s wishes by randomly burning down villages… The capriciousness can help to convey the impression of power; if however, the level of caprice is so high that compliance seems as dangerous as resistance (or noncooperation), the population will cooperate with the side it prefers. When that happens, coercion fails by definition.

The second sort of coercer seeks to create a language of force, through which coercion takes the form of an articulate expression of severity and regularity. The coercer establishes and communicates a well-defined list of desired actions, and punishes noncompliances in a manner closely and explicitly associated with infractions. The object is to gain cooperation consistently without sacrificing the support of the population, which may understand and accept the need for violence that it knows it can avoid by complying.

In short, the more capricious the coercion, the less likely it will be successful. Tigerhawk explains why this makes sense by pointing to the choices deduced by the non-combative population:

More concisely, a noncombatant will cooperate with the side that punishes noncooperation with the greatest specificity. If one side punishes capriciously, most rational noncombatants will decide that they are better off cooperating with the other side. Why? Because the more capricious side — lacking good intelligence about who is and is not cooperating — may punish noncombatants whether or not they cooperate with the other side. The side that punishes accurately, on the other hand, will only punish genuine noncooperation. Therefore, the smart noncombatant cooperates with the side that neither punishes too many actual cooperators or fails to punish too many actual non-cooperators, because he reduces his risk of punishment by the side that punishes efficiently without altering his risk at the hand of the side that punishes capriciously.

Said another way (hopefully without oversimplifying), the more predictable the punishment for non-compliance is, the more likely the non-combatant is to be moved by it. If a villager has roughly equal chance being killed by an insurgent’s bomb regardless of compliance with the insurgent’s edicts, but a very low likelihood of being subject to a counterinsurgent’s attacks if the villager is compliant, then that villager will be incentivized to comply with the counterinsurgency. The path of least resistance leads towards the side that allows the villager to most accurately predict the consequences of future actions.

Tigerhawk goes on to analyze the current counterinsurgency tactics in Iraq in light of his theory. The point that I find most interesting in his analysis is just how important a role perception plays in this game (my emphasis).

Al Qaeda’s methods of punishing noncooperation struck me as capricious; car bombs kill even more indiscriminately than American air strikes, so a noncombatant is at risk of dying from them whether or not he cooperates with al Qaeda.

The linked story suggests as well that al Qaeda’s brutality has widened the gap between the desires of the noncombatants among whom al Qaeda lives and operates and al Qaeda’s requirements for that population. That is, al Qaeda has to coerce a higher percentage of the population into cooperating, because they are less willing to coopoerate willingly.

[...]

Finally, it is crucial to remember that noncombatants measure relative caprice, efficiency, and brutality in punishment according to their perceptions. If one side is perceived as more capricious than the other, fewer noncombatants will cooperate with it. If one side is perceived as more brutal than the other, more noncombatants will have to be coerced into cooperating with it — that is, the side that is less popular because of its perceived brutality (and other considerations of popularity) will have to coerce more successfully in order to achieve the same level of cooperation. To some important extent, therefore, perceptions become reality.

So the more brutal and capricious the punishment is perceived to be by the non-combatant populous, the more time must be spent exacting compliance, and the less effective the coercion. Tigerhawk thinks that this may be what is happening to al Qaeda, if indeed the reporting is accurate. However, the counterinsurgency is just as subject to the perceptions of capriciousness and brutality, which is what makes the propaganda battle in this war so crucial to ultimate success. If the counterinsurgency is effectively branded as “occupiers” who indiscriminately brutalize the population, disrespect their families and/or religions, and brazenly exploit the non-combatants for their own gain, then the intelligence costs to the counterinsurgency go up, and the insurgency’s coercion costs go down. In real terms, the general population will be less sanguine about helping the counterinsurgency, even though they realize that the insurgents will make their life hell.

This does not mean that counterinsurgency mistakes and setbacks should not be reported, but instead that at least some semblance of balance be afforded the reporting. The AP making an unsubstantiated claim that 20 twenty beheaded and tortured bodies were found in Salman Pak, while refusing to report on al Qaeda atrocities committed outside the town of Baqubah, is a recent example of where reporting from Iraq got this precisely backwards. The poorly-checked stories printed by The New Republic is another. Tigerhawk explains it this way (my emphasis):

Because perceptions are so important in counterinsurgency, capricious acts and the publicity of those acts can actually hurt the war effort. When supporters of the Coalition and the government of Iraq object to the widespread and one-sided publicity of purported American war crimes, it is not that we think, a priori, that these events should be covered up or that we care about the political fortunes of the Bush administration. Rather, it is because we know that anything that increases the perception of the counterinsurgency as capricious will actually hurt the war effort insofar as it motivates noncombatants to cooperate with the other side. Similarly, relatively muted publicity of enemy atrocities artificially dims the perception that al Qaeda kills capriciously and brutally. Both problems would diminish if the press, which has an enormous capacity to magnify perceptions, applied the same moral standard to both sides.

The bolded part is the biggest liability to the US in this war, IMHO. The credulity with which the MSM and anti-war pundits approach any allegation of US mischief, no matter how far fetched, is stunning in comparison to the outright refusal to even acknowledge the routine barbarity that defines the terrorists. This penchant for screaming about perceived US perfidy from the roof tops undermines our ability to be successful in Iraq. While many of the thin-skinned Bush-haters war opponents like to whine about how they are being oppressed when anyone points that out, I think Tigerhawk nails it on the head: the worse we are made to look (i.e. perceived to be by normal Iraqis) the less likely we can succeed in Iraq. It really isn’t that difficult a concept. It would really be nice if those who claim that they want to see a positive outcome in Iraq could show that they understand it.

Technorati Tags: Iraq war, propaganda, media, counterinsurgency, insurgency, game theory

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Cross-posted on The Conjecturer.

Defense

• Actually, I think it is perfectly natural, even laudable, for Christians to assist in the defense of soldiers who plead not-guilty to war crimes. That would seem perfectly in line with that whole “innocent until proven guilty” thing the Founding Fathers were so up on, and is a principle I think is the height of justice. The language these groups are using, however, concerns me—it seems they have fallen into the political debate around the troops, and don’t seem to make a very good distinction between their religious beliefs and the decisions and rhetoric of elected politicians. That’s a problem, and it doesn’t help anyone.
• Ashley Tellis has a good take, seven months late, on China’s ASAT test from January. He makes a good argument that China is working on denial technologies, ways to knock out or put at risk our space assets and thus dissuade us from getting involved in any potential conflict… but I also think Tellis is pretty alarmist. It is, unfortunately, the classic security dilemma: when does appropriately building defenses become a hostile, aggressive act?
• Afghanistanica mentions a legendary Soviet COIN expert in Afghanistan from the 80’s. I was intrigued in particular at how he refused to fall for the bait tactic of firing from an otherwise peaceful village to draw return fire and have civilian casualties as a PR weapon. I think the same tactic is at play now, though obviously with more sophistication and not as clear lines defining the sides. Still, it is illustrative: our over-reliance on air power, “precision weapons,” and overwhelming firepower are actually hurting our cause. Maybe it’s time for a change.
• Speaking of a change: how about not building Fortress VaticanAmerica in Baghdad?
• Fabius Maximus has written an absurdly long (note: I have no idea if its length is really absurd or not) essay on the Long War. I can’t dig into it in the depth I’d like until the weekend, but from the brief skim I was able to give it tonight, it looks deeply thought provoking, which, even if I happen to disagree with, I would still greatly enjoy and respect. I welcome any reading comments any of you might have.

Around the World

• Pro-Kurdish parties gained seats in Turkey’s election. Excellent.
• Why can’t we have better defence correspondents? I would wager because they’re journalists first, with their beat coming second.
• Even rotting in a depot, I think the Soviets made the most beautiful military equipment.
• Michael Totten posts a nice, long tour around a part of Baghdad after the Surge. Of course people are happy to see us there—it means the militias aren’t there to terrorize them. But how long can we stay? How can we guarantee the militias won’t return? The man, at the end, certainly has doubts; he is perfectly well aware that if the wrong people saw him talking with, collaborating with the Americans, he and his family are dead. The troops there know it, Totten knows it. What do you do? Alas, such calculations will not enter into the domestic debate over whether the Surge worked or not.
• Decrepit old Solzhenitsyn is still kickin‘, that is, when he’s not posing in photo-ops for Vladimir Putin, a man he compares to George Bush Sr. Maybe old age has not been kind to him. Still, that interview with him, as with all things Solzhenitsyn, is riveting.
• He stole my nickname for Stomatologbashi! Well, my other nickname—Nathan came up with the “bashi” one. Seriously, though right now a gigantic Vegas-lite tourist trap is probably one of the last things Turkmenistan needs—on this I actually do disagree with Ms. Boyd. I would feel more comfortable seeing Uncle Berdy spend $1 billion on maybe rebuilding all the hospitals that were shut down under his predecessor, or perhaps some infrastructure development that isn’t more oil. That being said, Ms. Boyd is right that tourism would be a boom to the economy… but the local economy. Turkmenistan needs macro changes.
• Those surf-loving surrender monkeys in Australia, who hate themselves so much they’ll turn Muslim modesty into a market opportunity, have found that not just Muslim women love the burqini.
• Best headline ever.

Back at Home

• I got an email from the CU alumni association, informing they have terminated Ward Churchill for issues relating to his academic integrity. This is fantastic news—while I certainly did not like the man, thought him a pompous ass, he hadn’t really done anything firable… that is, until the investigation deeming his research and scholarship deeply substandard. Now that is a reason to fire him. Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say. I’m half-curious if Bill O’Reilly can bring himself to say something nice about the place. While I do doubt it, I certainly will not watch his show to find out.
• I don’t know about anyone else, but my job has been stressing me the eff out lately. That’s why I’m glad I have icanhascheezburger.com (seriously). I is not joking. See also this: “.” Oh yes.
• The government has been paying thousands of people billions of dollars to keep farming, even though they’re all dead. Naturally, we should also have the federal government take over healthcare.
• I do my best to avoid Presidential politics. But my buddy Chris tries to ask me about them, and inform me how pretty much everyone is retarded. In that, I agree. Then today my other buddy Dave sent me a video of Joe Biden calling a gun owner mentally unstable, and added, “that’s so true—machine guns are just so unnecessary.” Ignoring the many arguments against gun control (including the crucial one that it actually makes crime worse), this still bugged the hell out of me: if Biden really thinks all law-abiding citizens (the gun was purchased legally) are mentally unstable, I’m glad it came out, but the hoots and cheers with which his patronizing opinion were received only hurt the Democrats. You don’t win elections by taking a libertarian-leaning guy who just wants the government off his back and calling him deranged. As a similarly libertarian-leaning guy who really just wants to be left alone to live his as he sees fit (including the right to marry whomever I eventually fall in love with), Biden can just suck it.
• I had a humiliating experience today buying a sammich at the local Safeway. Normally, I sign those stupid credit card thingies with a squiggle, or if I’m in a restaurant or something, I’ll draw silly pictures. They never check, the charges always go through, so I stopped thinking anything of it. I have become increasingly brazen of late, writing things like “your mom” and “this card has expired,” and they’ve still gone through. So today, I’m going through all the swipey motions for my diet coke, Milano cookies (I am weak), and my sammich, and the electronic signature thing comes up. I sign it “I H8 You,” and while I’m getting my receipt, I notice the cashier lady is like, glaring at me, clearly not getting the joke. By the time I’m back at my car, looking in the rearview mirror to avoid the Soccermom Suburbans that love hitting 40 in the parking lot lanes, it hits me: the cashier lady was black. Oh. My. God. She totally thinks I’m a racist jerk now, instead of just a really emo jerk. When I was back at my office, I wouldn’t—nay, couldn’t—explain why my face was beet red.

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Cross-posted on The Conjecturer.

Defense

• Ms. Boyd takes a look at President Bush’s self-declared power to confiscate the property of anyone who aids the Iraq insurgency. She asks a very cogent question: what about Afghanistan? In fact, one could be forgiven for thinking we’re ignoring Afghanistan at our own peril… a constant worry I have, one painfully evident in all my frustrated writing on the topic.
• David Axe shows why the F-22 is such a waste: not only is stealth not really needed in an air-superiority fighter (we’re decades away from even the possibility of fighting against a technologically comparable foe), but most of the advanced fighter’s advantages are really in its avionics. Which means F-15s can be made stunningly more effective by upgrading their computers… which is what I’ve been saying all along.
• What does China’s new submarine mean? We don’t know yet. But I do wonder what they’re planning with their blue water fleet, and what that might mean for the future of our own strategic planning—might we trigger a self-fulfilling prophesy and cause conflict? Is it inevitable? Or are we worrying ourselves sick over nothing? Opinion is fairly evenly—and conclusively, if that makes sense—split over this in military and academic circles.
• It only took half a decade for the Army to realize we’re fighting an info war against Islamist crazies. Maybe by the time I retire they will have figured out you can’t dissuade suicidal crazies with the conventional global strike program, but you just might antagonize otherwise not-hostile countries into developing additional ballistic and nuclear assets.
• A bomber will lead the way in replacing the AC-130. Very cool. I think. I didn’t know the AC-130 needed replacing?

Around the World

• Months ago, I complained about how much I can’t stand reading the Instapundit’s writing on foreign policy—which I highly suggest reading for further context to the point I’m about to make. Under a link called “China addresses its Muslim insurgency,” the Instapundit links to this terrible post that tries to draw a connection between the Uighur tension in Xinjiang and the actions against Chinese citizens in Pakistan. Aside from there not being much evidence for it…yeargh. What a terrible blog, and what a great reason never to read the Instapundit again. May he grow up some day to look at the world with eyes unclouded by hate.
• Juan Cole did something useful: a variant of Informed Content that actually has legit experts (like Barnett Rubin, who should be one’s first stop when looking for high-quality scholarship on Afghanistan) talking about their areas of expertise. The most recent contribution on Pakistan’s judicial wranglings, by Manan Ahmed, is worth digging into. There is little hope for Musharraf lasting the year; I worry about what will come after.
• Oooh, St. Petersburg held a high heel race. Considering this involved women, Russian women at that, I suppose all you straight boys are perfectly content to stare at the awkward amblings and absurdly high heels. Of course, it couldn’t hope to compare with the two decades of drag races in the DC, in which men of all shapes, sizes, colors, and sexualities put on terrible drag costumes (with heels!) and race along 17th street. Then again, this was its first year; maybe, unlike DC’s drag race, which has developed its own cult following, the St. Petersburg can get sponsorship from, like, Manolo or something.
• Turkey holds elections, remains a functioning country. Maybe there’s a lesson in there for other Muslim states…
• In his 2003 book on Russia, Black Earth (which I am now reading and enjoying quite immensely), Andrew Meier says that Moscow was built to an inhuman scale, a city designed from the ground-up to make mere humans feel pitiful and insignificant. Looking at Moscow during the USSR’s height in the 60’s and 70’s, you really do get that sense: this was not a city designed for community, for locality. It is a stark contract from New York, or DC, or most other cities I can think of with firmly established local communities.
• Joshua Kucera not only shares my name, but my dream to travel, slowly, from Turkey to Beijing—retracing the Silk Road, as it were. He is in Turkmenistan for now, posting dispatches to Eurasia.net. I have to confess to a very deep-seated jealousy at his trip… I would give up many things in my life for the chance to echo it, even if I were left at the end with nothing else to do. Might I be warming up for a sabbatical? Maybe, in several years.

Back at Home

• OMG We’re SAVED! The victory caucus is back! Because nothing says “firm grip on reality” like U.S. government news sources and narrowly-filtered blogs!
• P.S. sorry, I couldn’t help it, but the very idea of a “victory caucus,” when even most supporters of the war aren’t angling for victory (but rather a non-defeat, which is a key distinction I feel) is terribly silly to me.
• Will Condi go Powell’s way and peddle her services like a used car salesman? I hope not. For one, she has useful classroom and scholarship experience—I would hope she’d be snatched up by a reputable think tank (or maybe Georgetown, which has developed a reputation for hiring as many State officials as it can). I am also disappointed by her tenure as SecState—ignoring the many diplomatic failures she’s endured (which I suspect has more to do with the Bush/Cheney hostility to diplomacy than Condi’s lack of capability), her reorganization of the Department, something for which I held such high hopes, has been forgotten back in the halcyon days of 2005.
• Jesse Walker, in a way, shows why I love Netflix—while I can’t check right now to see if that crazy old Soviet movie is on there, their vast selection of rare and foreign movies is a big reason why I continue to shell out money for movies I can’t watch nearly as often as I used to.

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As I’m sure I’ve mentioned on more than one occasion, my morning and evening commutes are usually accompanied by NPR news programming. The leftist bent is grating at times, but the production values are quite high, and I do enjoy some of the off-beat stories from time to time. However, one thing that routinely leaves me in traffic-stopping, head-scratching mode is the rank ignorance that pervades many a story with respect to basic economics.

For example, after the iPhone was released a few weeks ago NPR’s coverage matched the tech world’s hysteria, reporting almost daily on different aspects of the fun, new gadget. Predictably, part of that coverage including someone complaining about the price and the hype, lamenting the fact that we Americans are so caught up in our consumerism that we’ll pay inflated prices for things we don’t need. The head-scratching part came when this commentator declared that people who waited in line to buy two, three or more phones, just so they could turn around and sell them on eBay, sometimes at double the price, were creating an “artifical demand” for the iPhone. “Artificial demand”? What is that exactly? If Person B is willing to pay $700 for an iPhone that retails for $500, he can stand in line and wait in order to get the lower price, or pay Person A, who is willing to stand in line, for the higher price. How does meeting someone’s demand price by doing the legwork yourself create an “artificial demand?” It doesn’t, because their is no such thing outside of a monopoly (e.g. where the sole seller requires the purchasers to buy “extras” that they do not need), fraudulent pump-and-dump type schemes, or government mandates. Sale of iPhones, even on the secondary market, does not fit into any of those categories.

And just this morning I heard another head-scratcher in a report on recycling plastics.

Companies that reclaim the plastic resin from empty beverage bottles say they can’t get enough of the stuff. However, fewer than one-quarter of the billions of plastic bottles Americans purchase every year are recycled.

[...]

Public recycling bins of any kind are rare in the United States, but the industry that recycles the bottles’ plastic resin, known as PET, is hungry for more to make fabric, carpets and new bottles, says Michael Schedler of the National Association for PET Container Resources.

“The demand is almost bottomless at this point,” Schedler says. “There’s so much new demand coming on and existing demand can’t be met.”

How is the demand “bottomless” you ask? Well, another way to put it is that supply is severely limited. I don’t know much about the business of using reclaimed PET, but my guess is that it is only slightly less expensive for a manufacturer to acquire than purchasing brand new PET from a petro-chemical factory. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a direct government subsidy involved as well, meaning that the true cost of using recycled PET is likely higher than getting the fresh stuff. The reason that the demand for recycled PET is “almost bottomless” therefore, is because the buyers are getting it under a price-ceiling regime, which means that someone else is absorbing the costs.

The NPR story actually quotes some of those who bear these costs, such as grocers in states with deposit laws:

The 11 states with bottle bills account for more than 60 percent of the PET plastic recycled in the United States. But many grocers are against deposits.

“It’s somewhat dirty, it’s inconvenient and it actually costs us money,” says Ken Capano, who owns two ShopRite stores in Connecticut.

Capano says the deposit law in his state places too much of the burden of recycling on grocers, who have to provide space and machines to take the bottles back. It costs each of his stores about $20,000 a year, he says.

Because the grocer doesn’t sell the bottles to the recycle plant or the manufacturer using recycled PET, he has no ability to set a price on that product. In fact, the grocer is forced to pay for maintaining recycling centers, for which he receives no compensation. Similarly, consumers are forced to pay extra for their drinks, which extra they likely eat up in lost gas money and time when the go to get their deposit refunded. In other words, the grocers and the consumers are subsidizing the recycling plant and the manufacturer who buy recycled PET.

Actually, the most damning evidence that “bottomless demand” is due to buyers not bearing the cost is that no entrepreneurs are out there paying people for their recyclable materials. If demand was really as high as claimed in the NPR story, then the buyers would begin offering more money for recyclables (in economic lingo, a market-clearing price would be offered). That they don’t do this, and that others are forced to subsidize the buyers, underscores the suspicion that the true costs of using recycled materials are higher than buying brand new PET.

And if that wasn’t enough, one tell-tale sign that recycling is a government created market is when there are special interests exempted from the costs of the program:

Kim Jeffrey, president and CEO of Nestle Waters North America, says he’s not against container deposits, but he says beverages should not be the only containers targeted.

“Everybody that sells a plastic container that’s recyclable should have some deposit on it if we’re going to do this thing the right way,” Jeffrey says.

And he means everybody.

“If it’s P&G with a detergent container; if it’s ConAgra with a peanut butter container; or if it’s me with a bottled water container; or if it’s a dairy with a one-gallon milk container — this should be a level playing field on this,” Jeffrey says.

Milk production is one of the most protected industries in our nation, so it’s no surprise that it would get an exemption. I can’t say why laundry detergent manufacturers get a pass, except that perhaps it is too easy for them to switch their product to a non-recyclable container. Either way, it seems pretty clear that without the govern-mandates and subsidies that recycling would not exist nearly anywhere.

So when Mr. Schedler complains about bottomless demand, he is really complaining about not enough government interference, since that is the only way he will ever get the supply he needs at the artificially low price he expects.

Technorati Tags: economics, artificial demand, iPhone, artificial prices, recycling, NPR, bottle-bills, supply and demand

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You can predict the future. Really, you can. Maybe not next week’s lottery numbers, but some things are as amenable to prognostication “as the flowers is in May.” You just need to read the signs.

Some signs are easily evident, while others take a bit more deciphering. One evident sign occurs when someone wants to pre-emptively sink an argument, or support for an argument that they fear they cannot counter. An effective method for accomplishing this task (albeit a logical fallacy) is to “poison the well.” Essentially, you dare your opponent to make the argument that you fear most, all the while undermining it with conjecture and distortions. Lies make a frequent appearance, as does ad hominem (another logical fallacy). If your opponent does make the feared argument afterwards, he does so at a disadvantage since you have pre-emptively discredited him and his argument.

Poisoning-the-well (PTW) attacks are a sign that the speaker and/or argument against whom the attacks are directed have something useful to say, something that the attacker fears will torpedo their own position. The predictable part is that the low drone of the PTW attacks will be dwarfed by the hysteria and full-frontal force of the harangue delivered once the feared argument is made. The feared speaker’s reputation and credibility will be directly challenged, most likely be recalling the PTW attacks and using them as evidence of the speaker’s unreliability. Very little, if any, time will be spent evaluating the speaker’s points on their merits. All that pre-emptive poison will be sloshed about quite liberally in order to kill whatever credibility survived the initial onslaught.

A concrete example is in how Gen. Petraeus is being received by those in opposition to the war in Iraq, and particularly how his upcoming appearance before Congress is being attacked now. Bear in mind that the September 15 “deadline” is nothing more than the date by which Petreaus must make his report to Congress, a date that the President has requested Congress to wait for before making any decisions about Iraq. Instead, Democrats have been calling for troop withdrawals, declaring the war “lost” and agitating against the “surge” strategy based upon incomplete information. Contrary to the intent of the September deadline, it has become a date certain for a change in strategy, regardless of what Petraeus reports.

While many congressional Democrats have been quite active in trying to undermine Petraeus’ mission (you know, the one that he was confirmed by the Senate to lead), the media and others have slowly been trying to discredit his planned address to Congress in September. Here the PTW arguments are embarrassingly obvious. Many war opponents are practically daring Petraeus to say that any progress has been made in Iraq and that the surge is producing results on the ground. On consecutive days, for example, Big Tent Democrat had this to say:

So what should Democrats do now? Let me be frank -the events of the last days on the Levin-Reed Amendment was about pressuring Godot Republicans to break with Bush’s Iraq Debacle. After the talk of how Sens. Warner, Lugar, Voinovich, etc. were breaking with Bush’s Iraq Debacle it was of course proven to be an absolute crock. These Republicans will never break with Bush’s Iraq Debacle.

Some believe that September will be the moment, after General Petraeus speaks. This is delusion. What do folks think Petraeus is going to say? Petraeus will STIFFEN Republican resolve, not weaken it.

And:

Does anyone believe that a proud soldier like Petraeus will provide a sense that he can’t succeed? Of course he will not. Heck, if he would, would you really want him to be leading the forces? Unlike Glenn [Greenwald], I am not as skeptical of Petraeus’ intentions; I just realize he is human and the commander of the operation is not going to be the one to declare his operation a failure.

In other words, any mention of progress in Iraq is mere puffery and not to be trusted. This despite the fact that reports of the “Anbar Awakening“, the turn-around in Baqubah (including some political success), and increased security in Baghdad would seem to indicate that Petraeus will have some actual good news to deliver (if, in fact, these preliminary results hold). But thanks to attacks such as that from BTD, the well has been poisoned, and any “good news” from Petraeus will be dismissed with an “I told you so” from the poisoners.

The PTW attacks are not just limited to the substance of Petreaus’ impending report. The General himself is also being attacked, most recently for having the temerity to be interviewed by Hugh Hewitt, a reliable Republican pundit if ever there was one. The Greenwald piece cited by BTD above actually pulls double duty in this regard, by both ridiculing the message and lampooning the messenger:

The “interview” consisted of Hewitt making one adoring, pro-war statement after the next, masquerading as questions, with Petraeus eagerly agreeing and then “elaborating” with the standard White House talking points. There is obviously no need to “wait until September” to know what Gen. Petraeus is going to say. It’s all right there in the very first “questions” and answers from the Hewitt interview … It sounds like the Surge sure is working, we are winning, Al Qaeda is on the run, The Terrorists are being killed, and Freedom is on the March. But while we are making progress, there is still work ahead to be done in order to achieve Victory, so we must stay longer.

Despite the Mandate Orthodoxy that Gen. Petraeus be treated as the Objective, Unassailably Credible Oracle for how we are doing in Iraq and whether we are winning, his track record of quite dubious claims over the last several years about the war strongly negates that view. It ought to go without saying that no military commander — particularly in the midst of a disastrous four-year war — is entitled to blind faith and to be placed above being questioned. It is not only proper, but critically necessary, to subject happy war claims from the military to great scrutiny.

In general, military commanders do not typically pronounce their own strategies to have failed; quite the opposite. The need for skepticism here is particularly acute given that there are plenty of Generals with equally impressive military pedigrees who disagree vigorously with Petraeus. War supporters — who are attempting now to make criticisms of Petraeus off-limits — long disputed the claims and views of Generals Casey and Abaziad, often quite vigorously, even insultingly. The statements about war from military commanders ought to be subjected to every bit as much scrutiny and skepticism as anyone else’s.

But Petraeus in particular has demonstrated that his statements merit particularly potent scrutiny. So many of the misleading government claims over the past several years about The Great Victory we are Achieving in Iraq have been based upon optimistic claims from Petraeus that turned out to be highly questionable, to put it generously.

Notice the extra logical fallacy (the straw-man argument) that I bolded in Greenwald’s screed (the same false accusation that has been echoed here at ASHC), which is also intended to devalue anything that Petraeus has to say. Petraeus is not the commander of Iraq forces who wrote the book on counter-insurgency, but instead a “deity” who is treated to messianic status, and placed on high by anyone that actually wants to hear his evaluation of the surge. Lance and McQ both noted this type a savagery upon the person of Petraeus, and how anything the man says is automatically dismissed by the anti-war pundits regardless of the truth on the ground. This all just classic PTW tactics, designed to kill any potentially positive effects from Petraeus’ September address.

Indeed, the Hewitt interview sent quite a few anti-war types into a tizzy. Here’s Ron Beasley’s take:

To reach the rank of general you have to be part politician, it has always been that way. A good general is always a general first and a politician second. Those who had been generals first have over the last six years have been driven from the service by Donald Rumsfeld and the Bush administration. What we have left are men like General Petraeus. Not only a politician but a political hack. We know what he’s going to say in September because he said it all yesterday on wingnut radio, The Hugh Hewitt Show.

Similarly, the Carpetbagger Report found that Petraeus’ credibility is now beyond salvage:

And speaking of Petraeus, what should we expect from him come September? It’s probably best to lower expectations now. Petraeus’ credibility suffered a serious blow this week when he appeared on far-right activist Hugh Hewitt’s radio show, and stuck closely to the White House script.

The media has done its part as well to undermine Petraeus’ coming report. Jules Crittenden noted how the AP spun Harry’s all nighter into a dramatic momentum for losing as quickly as possible in Iraq:

****
AP analysis trips through looking glass:

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent Sat Jul 21, 12:15 PM ET

WASHINGTON – Senate Republicans are growing increasingly nervous defending the war in Iraq, and Democrats more confident in their attempts to end it.

Apparently the special correspondent missed the outcome of last week’s sleepover.

Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, made that clear Friday when he dismissed any suggestion that it could be November before a verdict is possible on the effects of the administration’s current troop increase.

“September is the month we’re looking at,” he said unequivocally.

Contrary to some distortions, AP’s own reporting last week made it clear that goalpost has not been moved.
****

Powerline also weighs in on this theme:

****
But wait! The security situation in Iraq is not “deteriorating,” it is improving, by any statistical measure. But the AP is committed to the view that the “surge” is already a failure, having been fully in place for about a month:

American commander Gen. David Petraeus must report to Congress on progress in Iraq by September 15, and the absence of legislative progress will cast a heavy cloud over any attempt to paint a positive picture as the war faces growing opposition in the U.S.

***

The infusion of about 30,000 more American forces, completed last month, was President Bush’s attempt to calm the capital and provide “breathing space” to pass the legislation. But so far nothing of consequence has reached the floor of the parliament and violence has persisted.

The AP will, of course, do whatever it can to make sure that “any attempt to paint a positive picture of the war” fails, whether that positive picture is accurate or not.
****

Application of the media narrative here demands that Petraeus be marginalized as nothing more than a partisan hack, and that any “good news” he could possibly report be countered by “bad news” no matter how dubious the source. Therefore, before the September 15th report can be made, anything that could conceivably be reported by the General as evidence that the surge is working must already have a negative spin placed on it. In addition, any actions taken by those in opposition to the surge strategy must be shown in the best light possible. The stage is now set for the final conflict, with the words of Petraeus already deemed unreliable and drained of their efficacy, and the opposition to the surge and the war in general lionized. In this way, no matter what the General says in September, it will fall into the same old rubric of pro-Bush vs. anti-Bush, and the anti-Bush forces will be made to appear the sober, fact-based bunch.

Blackfive writer, Grim, discussed this phenomenon as part of a larger old media vs. new media post, specifically pointing out how the military is often portrayed as lapdogs of the Bush Administration:

Again, we don’t talk to Bush or administration figures. We talk to military officers, who are brother Americans and who have taken the same oaths to our Constitution that we have, at points in our lives, also sworn. I’ll give America’s military men a voice and a platform to talk directly to Americans anytime they want it. They are also citizens, and have every right to speak directly to me or to any other citizen they choose. Whether speaking in an official capacity of their office, or as a private citizen, they owe absolutely nothing to “the profession of journalism.”

But I notice that Mr. Silverstein’s attack is only one prong of a two-pronged attack on the US military coming this week from left-wing journalists. The other wing is an attack on General Petraeus, whose thoughts on the effectiveness of the Surge must be discredited by the Left for explicitly political purposes.

Grim rather offhandedly identifies the real problem in how we deal with the war — i.e. to the anti-war contingent the war in Iraq is a political fight between Bush and anti-Bush forces, while to the war supporters it is a knock-down, drag-out, bloody-knuckles struggle against radical Islamists who cannot, and must not, be appeased. The PTW rhetoric aimed at Petraeus is an extension of the political battle being waged by the Left against those whom they see as the real enemy: Bush and his Republican supplicants. Therefore, if Gen. Petraeus utters anything that is supportive of the policies advanced by their political opponents, he too must be savaged as a supplicant. For supporters of our military efforts in Iraq, the future for which they prepare is one where America and the West are safe from violent extremism. For the anti-war crowd, the future is never further than the next election.

Based on persistent PTW arguments advanced thus far, I would predict that when Petraeus delivers his speech to Congress on the ides of September (i) any good news he delivers will be dismissed as “administration talking points”; (ii) a surfeit of bad news, whether re-hashed, made up or genuine, will flood the air waves and print media; (iii) a Democratic hero and at least one “prominent Republican” will be nominated to carry the anti-Bush banner; and (iv) above all else, the surge will be deemed a failure.

Technorati Tags: war in Iraq, OIF, surge, Poisoning the well, logical fallacies, Petraeus, September 15, media bias, GWOT, media narrative

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Cross-posted at The Conjecturer

Defense

• Doug Bandow has a pair of great pieces up, on how the GWoT and Iraq are actually opposed to a free society, and more precisely just how badly the Iraq War has distorted us as a society—like, perhaps, the newly self-granted power to seize the property of anyone who “interferes” with the war (Bush then granted himself +10 Dexterity and equipped a new amulet to get +1 Attack). Because who needs a Fifth Amendment when there’s a war to be fought? I hope Doug doesn’t come home to find his house sacrificed to Iraq. The ever-cogent Ms. Boyd has more.
• Related questions—the argument that questioning the government is tantamount to treason (i.e. “aiding and abetting an enemy of the United States”) has a worrisome corollary: no one can or should ever question the President. That seems deeply unamerican somehow.
• Unfortunately, moving goalposts has been a defining characteristic of the way the administration has pathetically fought the war. But blaming Petraeus or his staff isn’t directing the blame properly—blaming Bush, for treating Petraeus as a messiah who has until September to work an unworkable miracle, on the other hand, is.
• Why, of course a brand new way of looking at warfare would require fundamentally new doctrine. This shouldn’t be a surprise. But notice, too, how “network-centric warfare” has been softened: no longer “eliminating the fog of war,” which was how it was conceived under Art Cebrowski’s pie-in-the-sky ideal, and not even “every unit the node of a network.” Now it is merely empowering units on the micro level to become more autonomous and self-directing—very 4GW, if you will, with network capabilities. It makes a lot more sense, and I’m glad this is how it’s wound up evolving.

Around the World

• I’m curious as to why we don’t get coverage like in the U.S. Of course, they’re a bit too “up” on Malalai Joya, which isn’t necessarily bad, but she’s also not exactly the paragon of virtue they’ve made her out to be. Still, there is a lot happening in Afghanistan you don’t hear about in the western press: new mass graves from who-knows-when, the rising tide of opium addicts, or the regionally persistent problem electricity.
• The courts in Pakistan are in full-blown rebellion against Musharraf. I wouldn’t write him off just yet; he still has a few tricks up his sleeve to cling to power.
• Is it a global labor shortage, or an unwillingness to pay higher wages? It’s usually both, in fact.
• Venezuela is facing a brain drain. Well if you were smart, with in-demand skills, would you want to stay there either? I didn’t think so. I just wish these things were successful ways of influencing the behavior of autocrats.

Back at Home

• The Plame suit against Dick Cheney has been dismissed, not because what he did was ethical and caused no damage, but because the laws are structured to protect him from civilian reprisal. Of course they are. He’s the f*cking Vice President, unaccountable to no one, outside the separation of powers, beyond the branches of government.
• My state’s drive to punish drivers (ha!) has spurred massive protests, as it should: today at lunch, one of my friends was wondering if it was going to cause a lot of Northern Virginians to move just across the river to Maryland. Why? Out-of-staters don’t pay the extended fines, which means all the people from Maryland and West Virginia and the DC who work in this state would be exempt from the $2500 add-on. In other words, these fees are really just punishing people for daring to live in Virginia. More importantly, from a libertarian perspective, there is the problem of turning the police into armed fee collectors (though some of the crazies already think of them that way).
• The Bush administration hates your broadband.

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Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

– U.S. Constitution, Art. 3, Sect. 3

The crime of treason is notoriously difficult to commit in this country, as it should be. I don’t mean that there are numerous barriers to entry, but that having one’s actions adjudicated as “treasonous” requires meeting a substantially high bar. Thus, speaking fondly of Osama bin Laden would not in and of itself pass the bar, while taking up arms in his service would most definitely do so.

With that in mind, this sort of aiding and abetting certainly appears to be flirting with that line (HT: McQ):

Today, in a briefing on Capitol Hill hosted by Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia and Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), ranking member of the Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, MEMRI’s president Yigal Carmon spoke about Islamist/Jihadi websites.

The briefing was based on a study prepared by MEMRI which highlighted the fact that all Islamist/Jihadi websites are hosted directly or through subservers by Western – primarily American – Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

If true, then American internet service providers stand accused of actively supporting Islamic radicals, at least some of whom are self-declared enemies of the United States:

And there’s this nice blog called “Supporters of Jihad in Iraq,” whose page top caption says: “Kill the Americans everywhere.”

At first blush, then, it would appear that you could prosecute a real case for treason against these ISP’s. Ah, but not so fast:

The study also discussed the question of what can be done about it, and stressed the fact that most – if not all – ISPs do not know what is the content of the websites they are hosting, due to the language gap, since most of these websites are in Arabic.

The bolded part tends to negate any ill intent on the part of the ISP’s (that’s mens rea for you, Pogue), and in fact suggests that they are completely unaware of what these sites are about, much less who is running them. Honestly, I’m not sure why they would be. Do we really want ISP’s routinely policing hour websites and telling us what they will allow and what they won’t? I know I don’t. Not to mention that fewer ISP’s would exist, and the costs of having a website would rise, if ISP’s were charged with responsibility for the websites that they host.

But that doesn’t mean that the ISP’s should be knowingly hosting jihadi websites, with extra emphasis on knowlingly. Here’s what McQ suggests:

Now MEMRI wonders what to do about this. And, apparently, so do some of our elected reps.

While they’re dithering over the fact that these websites exist and what to do about them, I’d suggest the following for the rest of us. If you’re doing business with any of these ISPs, you may want to advise them of your displeasure that your fees are helping support a company that is hosting websites of avowed enemies of your nation and culture. Granted, because these are in arabic, the ISPs may not even know what the sites are, but now you do. Point the ISPs to the MEMRI post. Tell them that websites which call for the killing of Americans, waging war against us and teaching radicals how to make bombs are unacceptable. This is not something which you must wait on government to do. These sites need to come down and they need to come down because of grassroots and market pressure to do so. Shut them down.

That looks about right to me. Frankly, I’m not sure what government can legally do, other than to place holds on bank accounts and seize assets here in the US. And I’m willing to bet that once these ISP’s become aware of whom they are hosting, they will take steps to kill these jihadi sites. Ergo, no government force necessary.

When putting pressure on the ISP’s, however, it is important that you keep a couple of points in mind:

(1) They are not committing treason. As I laid out above, it is easy to assume that the ISP’s are doing so, but only if you look at it superficially. It’s highly unlikely that the ISP’s are even aware that these are jihadi websites, so the way you enlist their help is by raising their awareness. If you want the ISP’s to stop hosting the jihadis, then what you don’t do is accuse of them of treason. The ISP’s will be much more co-operative if you don’t.

(2) Be patient. Even after the ISP’s become aware of the problem, they will have to step very lightly. Simply cutting off any of the allegedly jihadi sites could subject the ISP’s to liability for breach of contract or even discrimination. Each company will take its time figuring out the best way to extricate itself from the situation without fostering expensive litigation. It’s not as easy as you may think, so cut them a little slack.

(3) Not every Islamic website, nor every website with which you disagree, is a jihadi website. The website for Jaysh Al-Mujahideen? Yes, it’s run by terrorists who are enemies of the United States. The website for CAIR? No, it’s not. And I say that with the full understanding that CAIR most likely is ultimately supported by terrorists, Salafists, and anti-American jihadis (but I repeat myself), but that doesn’t necessarily make CAIR’s websites jihadi, and it doesn’t mean that ISP’s should be charged with shutting them down.

A few respectful consumer letters, and some blogospheric attention should be enough to deny the jihadis an American platform for the recruiting and propaganda efforts.

UPDATE: McQ links and adds this useful information:
“Another thing to let the ISP know is that MEMRI will give them a hand with translations if they have a question:

MEMRI announced that it is taking upon itself a public service – offering ISPs that want to know about the content of the sites they are hosting information regarding those sites within 7-10 days, so they can make an informed decision on whether they want to continue hosting these sites.

That’s an important bit of info to pass along as you alert these ISPs to what they may have on their servers.”

Technorati Tags: jihad, jihadi websites, MEMRI, ISP

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McQ beat me to it on the campaign to discredit General Petraeus as an Bush administration hack. This is doubly ironic considering Petraeus’ long standing and cogent criticism of the way the war was being fought. A man so devoted to changing things he bucked traditional combat doctrine and pushed hard, with career risk involved, to change things. His efforts included the rewrite of the military’s counterinsurgency doctrine, the aggregating of men outside the establishment such as David Kilcullen in putting together the doctrine and advising him in the present campaign. Yet Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Sullivan have the gall to portray him as a partisan hack. Sullivan didn’t even bother to read the transcript first.

If I were eager to maintain a semblance of military independence from the agenda of extremist, Republican partisans, I wouldn’t go on the Hugh Hewitt show, would you?

Actually I expect he will do what he has, appear in a number of venues and forums, not just those Andrew Sullivan approves of.
(more…)

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Cross-posted on The Conjecturer

Defense

• Hans Kristensen, who runs the Strategic Security Blog for FAS, keeps churning out essential reading after essential reading, this time on how Russia is really just playing the same ABM game it played in the Cold War. Because the more things change… SSB, by the way, should be in your RSS reader if it isn’t already.
• Nuclear secrets, schmecrets.
• Soon we shall pepper the world with robotic flies spying on our every move and finding the terrorists.
• The wars are approaching $800 billion. We will be well over $1 trillion by the time we pull out of Iraq; who knows how we’ll eventually pull out of Afghanistan if we don’t bother to pay attention there.

Around the World

• Apparently they grow the real punks in Turkey. Seriously. Henry Rollins, on the other hand? So not punk. Anyone who thinks a quickie trip to Tehran tells him anything about Iran aside from what the fascists in charge (of whom he is “not a fan”) want him to know, or (in my view, more eggregiously) that you can just “get” a film crew into North Korea (Lisa Ling had to travel undercover for her excellent documentary, and possibly placed future humanitarian journeys in jeopardy) is not operating on all cylinders. Turkey, by the way, has spent this week shelling supposed PKK strongholds in Northern Iraq. Because we didn’t have enough to deal with when they weren’t pushing Kurdistan to collapse as well.
• Prominent Marxists don’t like China’s capitalism. Perhaps they prefer the Cultural Revolution? The Great Leap Forward? I would guess not, as they probably prefer eating and not being denounced.
• I’ve been wondering what role China’s friendship with Pakistan may have had in the Las-Masjid mosque standoff. Given the recent terrorist attacks that could have been directed at Chinese citizens, and given the original incident with Chinese citizens that may have prompted the standoff, I think I might be on to something. Is China being baited in Pakistan? More interestingly, are these attacks in part inspired by China’s harsh treatment of the Uighurs?
• I sort of mentioned the other day that Kyrgyzstan detained the supposed local leader of Hizb-ut-Tahrir in Osh. Bonnie Boyd gives the background.
• neweurasia.net is not the only reason I’m convinced Central Asia has become the world’s most interesting case study in citizen-journalism. There is also the curious idea that, with the exception of Turkmenistan and to a degree Uzbekistan, the Internet isn’t very regulated. Which allows for a flowering of opinion online that does not exist in print.
• Karaganda is in Kazakhstan, not Russia.
• The World Bank has posted its latest study of Afghanistan, and it’s about what you’d expect: governance is terrible and unresponsive. Exactly what we’ve been saying for years. I hope people start to pay attention sometime soon.
• Moscow decided to respond to Britain’s PNG with its own. Meanwhile, Putin apparently has restarted the Pioneer Youth camps. Russia is in serious trouble, socially and politically. Meanwhile, Hugo Chavez bought some Kilos from Russia, which are advanced diesel-electric submarines. I’m not worried about the subs; even though they’re capable enough, we can handle them in the hands of the Chavistas. I’m more interested that Chavez was framing this in terms of supporting Russia, while Putin was busy snubbing him during his visit to Moscow earlier this month. The British, in the midst of all of this, claim to have intercepted some TU-95s on their way to buzz Britain’s airspace. I share Axe’s take on what this means: it’s more significant the bombers were deployed at all, and the the manner in which they were deployed isn’t nearly as important. Russia has extremely capable technology but no money, which makes it dangerous, but not for anything it might do… beyond selling advanced weaponry to our enemies.

Back at Home

• Things like this make me love Google, even though they’re slowly turning evil. I think, by allowing the public to easily search U.S. Patents, they can see how foolish our patent system is (like patenting swinging on a swing, congratulations Steve Otis!). Although, I would like to try a cheesecakesicle.
• “Is this really the best use of our prosecutorial resources?” Of course not.
• A rising boat satisfies all sorts of people. But not Democrats.
• Congress hates your my cigars.
• I got an email today announcing that a bar called Nellie’s Sports Bar is now open. From what I can tell, this might be only a tiny bit less embarrassing than the also unfortunately named Woofs, which I had the distinct pleasure of visiting this past November. Does that mean I’ll ever show up? Well, I do like that they show DC United games. So I just might sometime.
• …And on the third day, God created LOLBible.

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Thanks to McQ, I find this interview with the generally excellent John Burns of the NYT:

BURNS: “[T]he one thing I think that virtually all of us who work here or have worked here for any length of time agree is that the levels of violence would eclipse by quite a long way the bloodshed we`ve seen to date [if U.S. combat forces withdraw from Iraq in the near future].”

ROSE: “Can you give me more understanding of what you mean by that?”

BURNS: “Well, I think, quite simply that the United States armed forces here — and I find this to be very widely agreed amongst Iraqis that I know, of all ethnic and sectarian backgrounds — the United States armed forces are a very important inhibitor against violence. I know it`s argued by some people that they provoke the violence. I simply don`t believe that to be in the main true.

“I think it`s a much larger truth that where American forces are present, they are inhibiting sectarian violence, and they are going after the people, particularly al-Qaeda and the Shiite death squads, who are provoking that violence. Remove them or at least remove them quickly, and it seems to me — controversial as this may seem to be saying in the present circumstances, while I know there`s this agonizing debate going on in the United States about this — that you have to weigh the price.

“And the price would very likely be very, very high levels of violence, at least in the short run and perhaps, perhaps – perhaps for quite a considerable period of time…

“[T]here`s no doubt that the price of staying is very, very high in American blood, to begin with, and American treasure too. But it seems to me incontrovertible that the most likely outcome of an American withdrawal any time soon would be cataclysmic violence. And I find that to be widely agreed amongst Iraqis, including Iraqis who strongly opposed the invasion…

“General Lynch feels, as do the other commanders of the surge, that they have made substantial progress. And that they`re likely to make more if they`re given time. They know they don`t have beyond March of next year because March 31st, ‘08 is the deadline the Pentagon has set as a matter of troop limits to how long they can support the surge. But they believe that if they`re given that amount of time, they can make a real difference in the levels of violence. They`ll have more time to train up Iraqi forces to come in behind them and hold those areas…”

Good thing he just pointed out his opinion on what would happen, and didn’t say whether he thought that would imply we should stay. That would be advocacy and we know what the Times does to advocates.

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Senator and former presidential flop John Kerry astounds us with his ability for self deception. From Don Surber I find this:

Breitbart TV has video of Democratic Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts telling a whopper on C-Span.

Sen. John Kerry said during a C-Span appearance that fears of a bloodbath after the US withdrawal from Vietnam never materialized. He says he’s met survivors of the “reeducation camps” who are thriving in modern Vietnam. An award-winning investigation by the Orange County Register concludes that at least 165,000 people perished in the camps.

And 2 million in Cambodia.

You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in the Senate.

I am just speechless.

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Cross-posted at The Conjecturer

Defense & the War

• My respect for Kilcullen continues to rise. I hope he can affect some sort of change in the Army. But, I won’t be surprised if he doesn’t. His thoughts on how our over-focus on states is what is leaving us behind are essential reading (though he is not by any stretch the first, or even one of the earliest, to say it, he is one of the first from inside the military establishment to say it, and that makes it significant). James Fallows rightly cautions against deifying Petraeus, with the same concerns I see about THE SURGE’s ultimate impact.
• Kevin Drum reads the debate over the word jihad incorrectly. By allowing the crazies to define themselves in terms of a righteous or holy struggle, we agree to define their struggle as righteous and holy—it is clearly not. A jihadist it not a bad thing; an Islamist, on the other hand, who had mutated his religion into a violent political ideology, is.
• Yeah, that NIE released yesterday amounts to very little, though I suppose it’s at least a positive step that they’ve begun to call out Pakistan.
• Ahh, the hilarious travails of living in Arlington… Actually I pass this building every day on my way to work, and seriously, given the number of spook agencies around here, the number of security officers loitering around outside all the time and shooing away anyone who tries to park on that stretch of road should have been a reasonable clue that the building was sensitive. It’s annoying that guy was hassled, but that wasn’t out of the ordinary or even very noteworthy in a larger sense.
• I have a hard time buying the argument that we’re losing support for the war because of the media’s agenda. Aside from the obvious question (which media?), it also has a backside, if you will—namely, that we were only winning support for the war for the same reason.

Around the World

• Over at Registan.net, I ponder the fates of presidential daughters, and the sad fate of Lake Balkhash.
• It’s like the Justice League, only without the humor. Anyone else looking forward to yet more pious speeches from well-known pious moralists Jimmy Carter, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and Kofi Annan? Seriously—they call themselves “The Elders,” like we should all bow down before their sound wisdom and solid track records of effective governance. Drezner points out an even funnier angle: they were founded by Richard Branson and Peter Gabriel.
• It is often said that the poorest of the poor just aren’t a market, or it would take too much investment (including time) to make them a viable market. Except that’s not the case. I’m not talking about utopian micro-finance projects. I’m talking about Proctor & Gamble, which recently found that so-called “high frequency stores” (local shops in poor neighborhoods) constitute their largest customer. Solving poverty by creating wealth, not redistributing it. How novel.
• I’m sympathetic to the bind the British are in, especially when they might appear hasty or alarmist. But that doesn’t mean they should tolerate Russians assassinating dissident Russians on their soil. At some point, it has to stop, doesn’t it?
• The saga of the coal miners in Kazakhstan.
• I remember these terrible Soviet buses in Karaganda—especially those awful electric things. One of my friends said something hilarious when there were people pulling on the railings to squeeze themselves into the footwells—”that clearly violates every known safety rule.” I guess you had to hear it to find it funny. I’m glad, however, I never had to use one of these bathrooms; but I’d rather go there than at La Guardia.

Back at Home

• The silly Philip-Morris giveaways over clove-favored cigarettes (which apparently are to be distinguished from clove cigarettes) are just further proof that the government is alternatively run by morons and purchased by wealthy companies. Argh. That makes me sound like a lefty.
• Condoleeza Rice hates long term planning. That sounds about right.
• Gay-baiting at the NSA.
• Ted Kennedy murdered his young mistress 38 years ago today.

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Senator Reid, fresh from staying up all night (or not), in order to debate (or is that close debate) the redeployment/withdrawal/retreat/surrender from Iraq, will not give the enemy tips on his strategy…

Reid declined to say when he might bring up Iraq-related proposals again or what the measures might be.

“I’m not tipping my mitt,” he told reporters after the vote. “We have a lot of other arrows in our quiver, and our quiver is filled with the wishes of the American people.”

So, let’s get this straight. He’s not going to tip his mitt to fellow countrymen about how or when he’s going to bring up debate of what we should do in Iraq, one of todays biggest issues, but he’s all for giving the enemies of our country, and the enemies of progress in Iraq, a date certain for when we will be drawing down our troops and strategically withdrawing them from the battlefield.

OK then…

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The Iranian security apparatus is on the job, They have found out our secret. The CIA has called in the squirrels.

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Well, figuratively, since this al Qaeda in Iraq leader was taken alive and has been providing information to the coalition. So, how many foreign agents do people need to see to be reminded that al Qaeda in Iraq is not some home grown anti-occupation insurgency.

Also note the PR apparatus they’ve set up for themselves.

The U.S. command said Wednesday the highest-ranking Iraqi in the leadership of al-Qaida in Iraq has been arrested, adding that information from him indicates the group’s foreign-based leadership wields considerable influence over the Iraqi chapter.

Khaled Abdul-Fattah Dawoud Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, also known as Abu Shahid, was captured in Mosul on July 4, said Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, a military spokesman.

“Al-Mashhadani is believed to be the most senior Iraqi in the al-Qaida in Iraq network,” Bergner said. He said al-Mashhadani was a close associate of Abu Ayub al-Masri, the Egyptian-born head of al-Qaida in Iraq.

Bergner said al-Mashhadani served as an intermediary between al-Masri and Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri.

“In fact, communication between the senior al-Qaida leadership and al- Masri frequently went through al-Mashhadani,” Bergner said.

“Along with al-Masri, al-Mashhadani co-founded a virtual organization in cyberspace called the Islamic State of Iraq in 2006,” Bergner said. “The Islamic State of Iraq is the latest efforts by al-Qaida to market itself and its goal of imposing a Taliban-like state on the Iraqi people.”

In Web postings, the Islamic State of Iraq has identified its leader as Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, with al-Masri as minister of war. There are no known photos of al-Baghdadi.

Bergner said al-Mashhadani had told interrogators that al-Baghdadi is a “fictional role” created by al-Masri and that an actor is used for audio recordings of speeches posted on the Web.

“In his words, the Islamic State of Iraq is a front organization that masks the foreign influence and leadership within al-Qaida in Iraq in an attempt to put an Iraqi face on the leadership of al-Qaida in Iraq,” Bergner said.

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Sometimes we all just want to make a point so badly that we read self-justifying points into the arguments of those whom we oppose. Case in point, John Cole takes aim at John Hinderaker, but completely confuses the point being made. First, Hinderaker:

Buying Time…

…but not much. Rasmussen’s latest survey suggests that the administration has convinced most Americans that we should wait until General Petraeus reports in September before deciding on any change of course in Iraq: 51% hold that view, compared to 38% who disagree.

That’s good, I guess. The problem is that September is right around the corner. How realistic is it to expect conditions in Iraq to change enough in the next eight or nine weeks to convince Americans, most of whom are now pessimistic, that a corner has been turned? If the Democrats were smart, they would have joined with the administration in identifying September as the key date, rather than trying to undermine the surge from the opening gun. In September, it won’t be hard for them to argue that any improvements are modest and the surge, having been given a fair chance, should be terminated.

The emphasis is Cole’s, which he interprets as:

You see- things are going badly because the DEMOCRATS ARE UNDERMINING our efforts. Just last week, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi were spotted placing IED’s near Baghdad.

Now I, unlike some people, get sarcasm, so I am well aware that Cole is being hyperbolic in this instance. I also appreciate good snark regardless of the one being zinged. Yet, Cole’s vitriol seems more than a little misplaced in this instance, since he’s assumed a motive and an argument for which there is no support. Of course, making fun of one’s political opponents doesn’t require accuracy (but it sure helps), and one could be excused for chalking Cole’s post up to an over-the-top comment on how ridiculous Hinderaker is being. Except that Hinderaker isn’t making anything like the argument for which he is ridiculed.

Despite Cole’s attempt to read accusatory tones into the post, Hinderaker merely made the point that the Democrats could have handled the politics of the situation better. Later on the comments, however, Cole makes it perfectly clear that he believes Hinderaker is attempting to set up the Democrats to take the fall for the “surge’s” imminent failure:

[Commenter "Eric" says:] From what you’ve quoted, I don’t think Hinderaker is saying that the Dems are to blame for the problems in Iraq. I think he’s saying that the Dems should have gone along with a September deadline for results because (1) it’s not that far away; a month or two wouldn’t make a big difference in the grand scheme of things, and (2) it would have put them in a better political position—they would have looked somewhat magnanimous and would have opened themselves up to fewer attacks of wanting the surge to fail. Whether this is a valid point or not, I reserve comment.

[Cole responds:] Nonsense. HE is laying the groundwork to state that the Democrats are the reason the surge failed, when the reality is that the Democrats have given Bush and the Pentagon EVERYTHING they have asked for and stopped nothing.

Go ask the far left- they are pissed at the Democrats for capitulating.

Never underestimate the hubris from these folks.

Regardless of whether you agree with Hinderaker or not, it takes a pretty tendentious reading of his words to arrive at the conclusion that he’s blaming Democrats for a failure that he does not believe will happen. It seems pretty clear that Hindraker is instead highlighting a missed political opportunity for the Democrats, in that they have been wasting a lot of effort to end a military strategy with which they disagree, when they could have made it easy on themselves and simply waited for the benchmark proposed by their (political) enemy to arrive and then declared the surge a failure. Cole somehow misinterprets this to mean that Hinderaker is blaming the Democrats for a failure that has not yet happened, one that Hinderaker does not contemplate happening (at least not in this post).

Cole’s inability to grasp the meat of Hinderaker’s rather modest political advice is only surpassed by his inability to grasp at enough straws to build the strawman he wishes to slay. In taking Hinderaker to task for suggesting that Democrats could have made much more political hay with much less effort, Cole reveals his utter lack of reading comprehension. Where in that entire post does Hinderaker even mention a failure in Iraq? In what possible way can a comment about the specific political tack chosen by Democratic leaders, in light of opinion polls concerning the war, be conceived of as accusing the Democrats of causing the surge to fail? How is it even plausible that Hinderaker is making such an accusation with his analysis that America’s pessimistic view towards the war and the surge bore much more political gold than the Democrats were able to mine? The truth is, Cole saw something in Hideraker’s post that just wasn’t there, but he let loose with both barrels of snark anyway.

As I pointed out to Joshua earlier, a strawman argument requires some actual straw. Completely changing someone’s argument to the extent that the original is entirely absent is not only a poor attempt at making a strawman argument, it’s a poor attempt at making any argument. In short, you’re just screeching “Look at me! I hate this guy whose argument I don’t even understand!” Frankly, it’s a little embarassing to have one’s fundamental a misunderstanding of the word’s one seeks to ridicule out there in the blogosphere forever. But at least he got in a good zinger!

Technorati Tags: War in Iraq, strawman arguments, logical fallacies, Balloon Juice, Power Line, John Cole, John Hinderaker

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Cross-posted on The Conjecturer

Defense

• “I honestly don’t think it will be apocalyptic, but it will be ugly.” So says retired Col. Gary Anderson, after concluding a series of wargames about a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. I wish he weren’t such a defeatist and America-hating and al-Qaeda loving Dumbocrat. Anne Applebaum doesn’t see things as clearly.
• I can understand the deterrence argument for maintaining at least some nuclear capability with regards to interstate warfare—a kind of international dead-man’s switch. Chemical and biological weapons, on the other hand, are as morally indefensible. That’s why I’m glad to see the U.S. is leading the charge to destroy its chemicals, along with new American BFF Albania.
• Can the CIA be fixed? Color me skeptical—there is so much bureaucratic flimflammery, anything short of catastrophe won’t really shake things up. And, much as our political elites like to say, 9/11 really wasn’t a catastrophe.
• David Kilcullen, the latest it-boy of the OMG SURGE (whose work on COIN is actually really good), ably explained why the rest of the world sees us as militant conquerors: “there are substantially more people employed as musicians in Defense bands than in the entire foreign service.” That is because 93% of our foreign policy budget is the military. In fact, the DoD has so much money, it has essentially taken over nation-building, democracy promotion, public diplomacy, and intelligence operations from the agencies who should be handling it: the State Department, USAID, and the CIA, respectively. In a typical example of this drastic imbalance, a typical Colonel’s post in Ft. Bragg has a larger operating budget than every U.S. Ambassador in the world combined. That tells the military, the diplomats, and more importantly the rest of the world where our priorities lie.

Around the World

• A deeply fascinating look at the social churning in Pakistan—in particular Asma Jahangir, the supposed Aung San Suu Kyi of Pakistan. Listening to Mr. Dalrymple discuss the many different protest groups active there, including his comparison of Pakistan to Argentina in the 70’s and his discussion of the supposedly booming economy, is also deeply interesting. And counterintuitive. Kudos to Nick for the link, as this will provide much food for thought once I have a chance to reflect on it, perhaps in how Dalrymple (who actually lives there) differs in his rosy account from John Robb’s worries of a “hollowing out” of the state.
• Meanwhile, Bush’s camp not admits it totally failed at fighting al-Qaeda in Pakistan. Could it perhaps be related to its disingenuous drive to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq… before it ever existed?
• Japan learned a lesson in the messy problem of building nuclear power plants in earthquake zones.
• Roger Williams makes me wonder why it is Americans seem to have such soft spots for brutal tyrants. Are we all political bottoms? Err, so to speak?
• You know, it’s interesting: we knew Iran had ties to Al-Qaeda, we knew Iran was developing weapons of mass destruction, and we certainly knew Iran actively sponsored international terrorism. Yet we invaded Iraq, which maybe did a little bit of the third thing, but neither of the first two. Hrm.
• WOAH: Dariga Nazarbayeva, the daughter of Kazakhstan’s dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev, estranged wife of Rakhat Aliev (currently awaiting trial for his alleged involvement in kidnapping, murder, and extortion at one of Kazakhstan’s national banks, but even more importantly opposing Nazarbayev), will not be a candidate in the upcoming parliamentary elections. I wonder why…

Back at Home

• John Edwards vows to end all bad things by 2011.
• On the off chance you thought the RIAA was all about fairness and equality, read this.
• ” So the TSA finally let me onto my flight with the two devices they told me they weren’t going to let me take on my flight. They told me the device looked like an I.E.D., then let me on the plane with it.” I feel safer already.
• Ryan Siegel wrote a devastating critique of the seventh graders who wrote the latest National Intelligence Estimate. Read his whole post. I should add that we are not helped when the government refuses to make the distinction everyone else has, namely that al-Qaeda had nothing to do with Iraq until we invaded it.

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In the New York Times we hear the rather blunt assessment of the commander of the 3rd ID of why he feels we need to stay. The Iraqi civilians are taking huge risks to work with us, and those civilians will pay the price for doing so should we leave.

[Gen. Lynch] implied that an early withdrawal would amount to an abandonment of Iraqi civilians who he said had rallied in support of the American and Iraqi troops, and would leave the civilians exposed to renewed brutality by extremist groups. “When we go out there, the first question they ask is, ‘Are you staying?’ ” he said. “And the second question is, ‘How can we help?’ ” He added, “What we hear is, ‘We’ve had enough of people attacking our villages, attacking our homes, and attacking our children.’ ”

General Lynch said his troops had promised local people that they would stay in the areas they had taken from the extremists until enough Iraqi forces were available to take over, and said this had helped sustain “a groundswell” of feeling against the extremists. He said locals had pinpointed hide-outs of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, an extremist group that claims to have ties to Osama bin Laden’s network, that had been used to send suicide bombers into Baghdad and they had helped troops locate 170 large arms caches. The general said the locals had started neighborhood patrol units called “Iraqi provincial volunteers” that supplied their own weapons and ammunition.

The general declined to be drawn into what he called “the big debate in Washington” over the war, saying American troops would continue to battle the enemy until ordered to do otherwise. But he made it clear that his sympathies were with the Iraqis in his battle area, covering an area about the size of West Virginia, mostly between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, that extends about 80 miles south of Baghdad and includes 4 of Iraq’s 18 provinces. The offensive he commands is part of a wider push by American and Iraqi forces in the areas surrounding Baghdad, and in the capital, that began in February.

“What they’re worried about is our leaving,” he said. “And our answer is, ‘We’re staying,’ because my order from the corps commander is that we don’t leave the battlespace until we can hand over to the Iraqi security forces.” To hold on to recent gains, he said, would require at least a third more Iraqi troops than he now has, and they would have to come from other battle areas, or from new units yet to complete their training. “Everybody wants things to happen overnight, and that’s not going to happen,” he said.

General Lynch said he was “amazed” at the cooperation his troops were encountering in previously hostile areas. He cited the village of Al Taqa, near the Euphrates about 20 miles southwest of Baghdad, where four American soldiers were killed in an ambush on May 12 and three others were taken hostage. One of the hostages was later found dead, leaving two soldiers missing. Brig. Gen. Jim Huggins, a deputy to General Lynch, said an Iraqi commander in the area had told him on Saturday that women and children in the village had begun using plastic pipes to tap on streetlamps and other metal objects to warn when extremists were in the area planting roadside bombs and planning other attacks.

“The tapping,” General Huggins said, was a signal that “these people have had enough.”

That is pretty much what I hear repeatedly from those there. They don’t want to abandon these people.

Huggins has a better impression of Iraqi troops than many, which is a pattern in every war we have fought in the last hundred years. Our soldiers see our allies as more capable than the folks back home. That was true in WWI, WWII, Korea and the gap was especially large in the last few years of the Vietnam war.

General Lynch also challenged an argument often made by American lawmakers who want to end the military involvement here soon: that Iraqi troops have ducked much of the hard fighting, and often proved unreliable because of the strong sectarian influence exercised by the competition for power between Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish political factions.

“I don’t know,” he said, how American war critics had concluded that the new American-trained Iraqi Army was not up to the fight. “I find that professionally offensive,” he said, after noting that there were “many Iraqi heroes” of the fighting south of Baghdad. “They’re competent,” he said. “There’s just not enough of them.”

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Cross-posted on The Conjecturer.

Defense

• The nasty business of involving yourself with the Sunni militias. And 85 people were killed after a bomb exploded in Kirkuk. But there weren’t Coalition casualties, so clearly THE SURGE is working.
• Much like with General Pace, it appears General Petraeus is on track to be Bush’s sacrificial lamb. Of course, he knew that going in. Doesn’t make it fair, though.
• Wired finally wakes up and sees the Pentagon militarizing anthropology. I share Weinberger’s ambivalence on the project. If the only way to fund culture research is through the military, while I’m glad it’s getting done, it still kills me it can’t be done without attaching weapons to it.
• Congress is holding a hearing Pat Tillman’s death. They’ve invited Rummy to testify. I hope they get a chance to ask him why he lied about the man’s death to create a phony hero the man never wanted to be in the first place. Now if only they could get the White House to stop trying to silence the investigation, I could maybe believe them when they say they care about the troops.
• Not even the Pentagon can be said to care for its troops, though. At least that is what you’d think when you look at how the horrendous bureaucracy stymied desperately needed MRAPs for years before assenting to their deployment. Now, I don’t think the MRAP is a cure-all (previous posts will confirm this), but the unresponsive nature of the DoD is just galling… especially when they talk so prettily of how much they care.
• John Robb on the OMG SURGE: “If an open-source counterinsurgency is the only strategic option left, it is a depressing one. The militias will probably create a situation of controlled chaos that will allow the administration to claim victory and exit the country. They will, however, exact a horrible toll on Iraq and may persist for decades. This is a far cry from spreading democracy in the Middle East.” Oh wait, he wrote that in 2005. Same as before, same as now…

Around the World

• The world is more religious, yet less free, than ever. For some other local context, revisit my look at religious persecution in Central Asia.
• I also took a look at what swarming means for Afghanistan. And, just for the hell of it, I panned a critically praised novel of the First Anglo-Afghan War.
• Could hookers really undo centuries of oppression? I knew they were good for something!
• We’re throwing money at Pakistan, right when their much-maligned (by me) deal in NWFP went south. Because why shouldn’t we prop up ineffective, corrupt, malignant dictators with hundreds of millions of dollars? After all, it’s not like Musharraf sold out the eastern half of Afghanistan, or sheltered the world’s worst nuclear proliferation network, or actively supported the very extremists we paid him hundreds of millions of dollars to fight so he’d have an asymmetric force against India… wait. Scratch that.
• Britain has expelled four Russian diplomats in retaliation for Russia’s refusal to extradite Andrei Lugovoi. Lugovoi is the primary suspect in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, a prominent former-KGB officer (Lugovoi is also former-KGB) who had made a name for himself as a vocal critic of Vladimir Putin. At least Litvinenko has a national government zealously pursuing his case; Anja Politkovskaya, one of the infamous journalists murdered in Russia for the crime of not supporting Bush’s soulmate in Moscow, has yet to see a single charge in her fatal shooting. Of course, this is an empty gesture: an equivalent number of British diplomats will be PNG’d, and Lugovoi will remain free. The very laws of Russia, you see, forbid extradition.
• Is China really teetering on the brink of collapse? Maybe. Recall, if you will, that Japan was meant to collapse, and by most indicators it did. Only it didn’t, not really—and remains the world’s #2 economy. And Japan never went on the foreign influence offensive China has, particularly in its backyard in Oceania.
• I’m still laughing at this exchange over the merits of Diet Coke in Afghanistan. As one who chokes down the stuff for flavored fizz without the sugar, I relate to both sides’ utter incomprehension.

Back at Home

• Anyone else remember Late Night Shots? It’s some uber-exclusive town for trust fundies that helps them derive identity and fulfillment by lording their wealth and exclusivity over others. They’ve been a favorite target of Wonkette for a while; now Washington City Paper has set them in its sights, and, as anything with the group, it’s not very pretty. Heh.
• Of course Wonkette manages the best last word: “When they quit crying that the mean free alt-weekly made fun of them and get back to coming up with comical terms for date rape and revealing their intense fear of black people without stock portfolios, maybe we’ll once again give them the attention they so intensely desire. Or not, we’re still pretty bored with them.”
• I might as well slit my wrists open now: “crunk” is now an actual word. What’s next—badonkadonk? Actually, that one probably is. It’s like we hate our own language.
• I’d be interested to see if it’s geography or culture that makes West Virginia the worst state in the country for business, and Virginia the best. I know on our part, the proto-fascists in the legislature can’t have much to do with it; I suspect Mark Warner’s tireless work to up our credit rating played a big role. What’s holding WV, where several good friends of mine live, back? I would guess it’s a lousy education system, poor resource management, and an unwillingness to leverage its comparative advantage (i.e. raping entire mountains and vast tracts of wilderness for coal).

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The increase in the amount of bio-fuel production, specifically ethanol, is driving up the costs of anything that feeds or is produced with grain. This is leading to higher prices for milk, ice cream, cereal, and a host of other staples. The UN is also having a harder time buying grain to feed the hungry in Africa.

Well, good think I don’t have much a of a sweet tooth anymore…
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/united_states/article2080599.ece

What’s the connection between ethanol, the biofuel produced from corn, and a cherry vanilla ice-cream?

Answer: the first is responsible for pushing up the price of the other.

This month, the price of milk in the United States surged to a near-record in part because of the increasing costs of feeding a dairy herd. The corn feed used to feed cattle has almost doubled in price in a year as demand has grown for the grain to produce ethanol.

Currently, because government intervention has driven up demand, bio-fuel producers are running with whatever is easiest to find supply for. The biggest problem in America right now is the grains we are using are the least efficient plants to use for ethanol production. We need more research to determine what is best source of renewable plant life for our needs.

In fact, research already shows that “there’s not enough corn available to make it a viable long-term source.”

UPDATE: Instapundit links to an article about making CELLULOSIC ETHANOL in Georgia. “Liquid pork,” probably an apt description of the politics involved in the ethanol industry.

And why should this be of interest for us…

Cellulosic ethanol can contain up to 16 times more energy than is required to create it! If that doesn’t sound ridiculously impressive, consider that gasoline contains only 5 times more energy than was required to create it and corn ethanol is totally lame, containing only 1.3 times the energy required to create it.

Oh, and it should bring the cost of ice cream, and milk, etc, back down, since we wont be using food crops as an alternative to foreign oil…

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Cross-posted on The Conjecturer.

The War

• Iraq has failed to meet most of its benchmarks for five years (in a very real way, they’re 0-18), yet the pro-war types keep begging the other 70% of the country to give diplomacy and political processes more time. Kind of like the anti-war movement in 2002, only on the other side. There comes a time at which you question the ability of some people to gauge reality dispassionately; one of those realities is that the Maliki government will never produce a functioning country; so long as he is in power, we are tilting at windmills. Every tiny little improvement we’ve seen can be traced back to Petraeus’ pragmatism, not competence from Baghdad. More here.
• Coincidentally, the reliance on the Iraq Study Group report troubles me. The thing is 8 months old, and one of its fundamental assumptions—being able to hand over control to Baghdad with some measure of confidence—simply isn’t possible, and doesn’t look to be possible in the near to medium term future. So, again: why do we bother?
• I’m sympathetic to the idea of handing off power in Iraq, but not when the police are with the insurgents and stealing hundreds of millions of dollars. Don’t worry though, you have the Instapundit to supply the media conspiracies and Rich Lowry to glow about how President Bush hates the will of the people! We’re on a surefire path to success!
• Meanwhile, the DoD wonders why the insurgents seem to know their plans and movements so well. I would guess it is because of the astounding amount of sensitive material placed on . The men we’re fighting aren’t stupid; what’s more, they’ve learned how to use the Internet and its inherent network effects to vastly increase the utility of their otherwise minor harassing techniques.

Around the World

• Over at Registan.net, I’ve gotten into a running debate with a reporter from RIA Novosti, and co-blogger Daniel Koehler has a great look at how Turkey factors into the Caspian energy calculus. I also took a brief look at religious persecution in the region.
• Robert Mugabe is not going to be saved by our friend Thabo. Thank the gods. If, as Roger speculates, it was international opprobrium which finally stayed the SADC’s hand, then progress elsewhere might be possible.
• More fun times in Pakistan: I posited before that China is the reason the Lal-Masjid mosque was stormed. A Pakistani journalist is now wondering if there wasn’t an additional layer of underhandedness to the siege: a desire to mask the connections between the Pakistani military establishment and the Islamist network. China, it should be noted, is the largest supplier of Pakistani military equipment, and Pakistan has been looking at making inroads into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. So what is Pakistan up to? I can’t say for sure, but it really does look like Musharraf’s iron rule is decomposing.
• Related: why is China upgrading its northern nuclear forces? A lot of analysts have speculated for a while that Russia and China would go to war over the eastern bits of Siberia that are known to be particularly energy rich; now that Russian gas companies can raise their own armies, could China be worried it might be shut out of the far eastern energy markets?
• Two fascinating pieces on Afghanistan: a worrying trend toward a swarm-based insurgency like what we see in Iraq (more on this as I have the time to write), and a critical take by Sarah Chayes at what role NATO might have played if Bush hasn’t been so imperious about Article V commitments early on. I don’t think she’s entirely right in that more NATO troops (if they even existed) would have helped things; then again, I don’t think the military can solve anything on its own, the DoD’s turf grabs notwithstanding.

Back at Home

• Yes, the incredible shrinking deficit sure is something to behold. Of course, the rate at which it is shrinking has slowed, and still the idea of deliberately spend hundreds of billions of dollars more than you make is baffling. Still: since 2004 Bush has bought us $1.2 trillion in debt, the vast majority of which is not actually war spending or pork (the two bugaboos of the left and right, respectively) but entitlements like medicare and social security—something everyone says they want to reform, but something neither party has quite wrapped its head around. At this rate, Bush will have only doubled our national debt since taking over from Clinton (who, it should be noted, reduced the deficit by more while increasing the size of the government by far less and actually generating surpluses).
• Really, it’s like they want me to hate technology: first AT&T gleefully filters the Internet and the iPhone on behalf of the NSA, and now it seems printer manufacturers spy for the Secret Service. And if you even so much as ask, the government harasses you for wondering about your right to privacy. Not that we’re turning into a police state or anything.
• So, I saw this and took it as confirmation that I should continue keeping an eye toward moving back to Denver.
• Lastly, it’s saucy, but I felt we needed something amazing for the weekend. So, enjoy Jonté and his amazing cadre of backup dancing performing his single, “” in NYC. It’s a bit NSFW because of the language, and really gay, but the dancing is absolutely incredible. I don’t know how they dance like that.

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Here I present for the world, my award winning chili. Granted, the award is only for our company’s annual cook-off. But I have won it 4 out of the last 4 cook-offs (the latest being today…)

Keith’s Chunky Chili

Ingredients:

3 lbs of Round Steak
1 lb of Chorizo Sausage (bulk)
2 lb Red Onion
4-6 Hot peppers (various depending on heat desired)
2-3 table spoons chopped garlic
24 oz can Crushed tomatoes
8 oz can Diced Tomatoes

To taste:
Salt (1-2 teaspoons)
Pepper (3-5 teaspoons)
Cumin (2-3 teaspoons)
Mexican Chili Powder (1-3 tablespoons)
Tabasco (1-2 tablespoons)

1/2 cup of Capt Morgans Spiced Rum

McCormicks Chipolte & Cinnamon Rub

Prep:

Trim fat from steak, coat with McCormicks rub
Chop the Red Oinion
Dice the hot peppers (be carefull)

Cook:

Grill the steak to medium (pink throughout.) Let rest.

Heat some oil in a stock pot over medium high heat
When hot put in the garlic, onion, and hot peppers
Cook until onions are semi-translucent
Add Rum, turn to high heat, cook until alcohol burns off
Turn down to medium
Add Chorizo, and let cook, stiring to break chorizo down.

Chop the steak to bite sized cubes.

When chorizo is browned, add tomato products, meat and spices. Stir very well.

Cook until steak is tender. 2-5 hours. The longer the better.

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Boy oh boy! Were the headlines in the media and blogosphere ever more hyperbolic and littered with ignorance than they were today? Actually, they probably have been, but today’s gaggle of garbage certainly has to rank up in the top ten media explosions (or should I say implosions since, as usual, they’ve gotten the facts totally wrong). I’m referring, of course, to the latest proclamation from Rome regarding the relationship of the Roman Catholic Church to other Christian denominations (specifically Protestant denominations [in which, despite evolutionary differences, I shall lump the Mormons]). For the only reasonable and sane MSM explanation of Pope Benedict XVI’s new policy paper, please see here. For those uninitiated in the mysteries of theological doctrines, Dominus Iesus, issued by Pope John Paul II merely confirmed prior Church doctrine regarding its beliefs on salvation. The new document released by the current occupant of the Chair of St. Peter merely reaffirmed and clarified portions of Dominus Iesus. The basic doctrines stated are not new. This is a not a radical, wild-eyed Pope creating theological doctrines out of thin air. Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Sallus has been accepted doctrine since at least 1215 and there are more than minor hints at it before then. The media (no fans of Catholicism) are merely jumping on this as evidence that the “elitist, exclusionary Catholic Church thinks everyone who isn’t Catholic is going to hell.” Um, no. Further clarification of Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Sallus (that is there is no salvation outside the Church) in, among other documents, Dominus Iesus, opens up the possibility of ecumenicism and communication between Catholic and Protestant branches of Christianity. Of course, the same people claiming that Pope Benedict is the new Torquemada waste no time in pointing out that his previous position was as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (which they always say is the newly renamed Inquisition; it is no such thing as any clear study of either Catholic history or the history of the Inquisition will show). This is a simple ad hominem and has no merit other than to show that the man is an academic theologian with excellent credentials. The Pope would not appoint a poor scholar to be head of such a critical organization. As Father Morris’ article points out, our current Pope is not the charismatic, media-friendly man that John Paul II was; instead he operates as he always has: as an academic. It’s time for the rabidly anti-Catholic media to sit down, shut up, listen and learn rather than project their darkest persecution fantasies onto what is merely the head of a world religion restating his own religion’s doctrinal beliefs. Enough of the ignorance. Enough of the stupidity. And for goodness’ sake, enough of the hyperbolic headlines.

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Since the entire concept of carbon credits emerged a few years ago, I’ve constantly found myself questioning not only the actual effectiveness, but also the underlying motivation behind them. Donating or purchasing carbon credits basically seemed, to me at least, to be the designer way for rich (or wealthier than average) people to buy their way out of guilt over the environmental damage that their private jets, power boats and collection Hummers and Ferraris do. I was pleased to notice this Thomas Friedman (whom I usually disagree with) article addressing exactly this point. Notice the absurdity of carbon credits when compared, accurately, to simply buying away our sins? Those advocating carbon credits (Al Gore, Laurie David and pretty much every group that appeared at Live Earth) need to talk a long look in the mirror on this issue before their hypocrisy swallows them whole.

(H/T Red State)

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Today we have conflicting reports, as we have for the past couple of months, of Fred! intending to announce in August, or is that September???

So, why, oh why, isn’t he just coming out and declaring what is obvious to everyone, that he will indeed be running for the President nomination??

My theory, he wants to tie up donors, and maximize his return on investment. With his popularity in the polls, he is liable to get a big boost in donations when he finally does declare. Do it too soon, and that money wont last through the nomination cycle (as McCain seems to be finding out.) Get in the fight too soon, and his message may run out of steam by the primaries. He’s also possibly dissuading donors from picking which candidate they want to back also.

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MichaelW was wondering the other day if there were Economists Who Didn’t Take “Econ 101.? Well, it looks like the New York Times has found a few…

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For those amongst you looking for more from Fred Thompson RedState has a series of interviews for you to listen to. Fred starts with a discussion of his potential candidacy and Scooter Libby. He follows with his views on Iraq and ends discussing being a fiscal conservative, and what he’d do first as President.

He is of course most attractive to me because he has a hot wife with large breasts. That is important because it seems to set off all kinds of disagreeable and hypocritical types on the left. Most satisfying.

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Of Iran. Layer upon layer of info at your fingertips.

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Once again, Louisiana leads the nation in the “bad” categories. In this case, it’s per capita number of national level elected officials involved in scandals. While Representative William Jefferson winds his way toward what I can only hope will be jail, Senator David Vitter has recently been exposed as a “not so family values” kind of guy. I admit to two separate reactions to this: 1. Remember the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal? Shouldn’t this be a “private family matter?” Want to bet the people pushing that line will be out for Vitter’s (and any other Republican caught up in this Flyntgate scandal) blood? 2. What is it with politicians? Do they not have the common sense to know that if one has ANY ambition of being involved in national politics, one’s entire past life will come under microscopic scrutiny? This is not exactly a new revelation (remember Gary Hart?). Senator Vitter claims that he has sought forgiveness from God and his wife. More power to him, since he has to live with both much longer than he does the electorate (theoretically; heck the Mrs. may be filing for divorce as we speak). Nonetheless, a person who claims to have character and believes himself worthy of being a United States Congressman should display that character now and resign. It would be absolutely hypocritical for Mr. Vitter to remain in office. Politics be damned. This is one of those times where the Republican leadership needs to step up to the plate and show us that they really are better than the Democrats. I will be highly disappointed, though not terribly surprised, if they don’t. Still, I continue to hope that the party that claims to have at least some family values will live up to them. Sad.

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Hmmm, al Qaeda in Iraq wants to wage war against Iran. And now AQ proper wants to wage war against Pakistan, you know the country where they most likely reside…

Al-Qaida’s deputy leader issued a video Wednesday calling for Pakistanis to wage a holy war against their government in retaliation for the attack by Pakistan’s army on the Red Mosque in Islamabad.

Meanwhile, although there are no “credible, specific” threats to the US, there is a rumored to be a significant chatter, the most in several years, and reports of FBI agents tracking down leads.

So, we shouldn’t be altogether shocked should there be (God forbid) a successful terrorist attack. Especially with signs of success emerging from Iraq, you can expect al Qaeda to do everything possible, both in Iraq, other countries, and even here at home, to sap our will.

Personally, I wont be flying, or taking the train this summer, but then, it wasn’t likely I was going to do that anyway. What you do with this fore-knowledge, that there is a significant amount of chatter, is up to you. We’ve seen the types of attacks al Qaeda likes, flying bombs, suicide bombs, bus bombs, train bombs, and subway bombs. So, there are 2 questions, what are you going to do, and what do you expect the government to do??

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An interesting graph showing Africa’s slide from colonialism to democracy, and everything in between…

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Following a link from Insty to read about the latest misery in Zimbabwe, I encountered this jaw-dropping line:

Most economists say Mr Mugabe’s policies are to blame for ruining the economy.

Most economists? Most? Really? Praytell, who is holding themselves out as an economist and claiming that anything other than Mugabe’s policies have created the nightmare posing as an economy in Zimbabwe? Seriously, shouldn’t the BBC at least name and possibly quote one of the “economists” who can say, apparently with a straight, a-humorous face, that things like inflation of over 3,700% (some say as high as 5,000%) and mass starvation, are not the direct result of policies such as government-mandated prices below cost? What economist can plausibly reason that a country which once was deemed the “breadbasket of Africa,” a country that until 2000 was “exporting wheat, tobacco, and corn to the rest of the continent and beyond,” simply fell upon a spate of bad luck, completely coincidental to Mugabe policies of land redistribution (to favored political allies natch) and rigid centralization of the economy?

From what I’ve read, the BBC has largely done a magnificent job of telling the woeful tale of Zimbabwe and Mugabe’s repressive regime. So I don’t understand why they would fudge now and lend cover to any so-called economist who can’t see that the ruined economy is a direct result of Mugabe’s policies. And any economist who provides apologia for Mugabe should be required to renounce their degree effective immediately.

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, economics, inflation, marxism, centralized economy, breadbasket of Africa, land redistribution, totalitarianism

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Cross-posted at The Conjecturer. I hope you all survived a few days last week without my daily aggravations; I was on travel.

Defense

• I call it “Reckless Victory Mongering.” I’m really quite annoyed reading the illusion that there is victory to be had in Iraq. I comfort myself, however, with the knowledge that this view is now a deep minority. But to call a withdrawal from Iraq “surrender” (or its variants pushed by guys like the Instapundit) stretches the bounds of credibility. So, now that Al-Qaeda has taunted us into invading Iraq, and they want us to stay, so therefore staying is not surrender? I don’t get it. If anyone thinks Al-Qaeda has much say in what happens in Iraq, they’re fooling themselves: Iraq is a toxic pastiche of dozens of violently competing militia groups—most of the violence is Iraqi-Iraqi, not Iraqi-American. Tragic as it may be, we cannot control the situation (Michael Yon has inadvertently demonstrated this with his reporting of the horrendous atrocities; we just do not have the manpower to keep 20 million people safe). What’s worse is: our presence there serves as a unifying force, a lightning rod giving common cause. I feel the way now I did a year ago: let them fight it out. We don’t have to sacrifice our descendants any more to the gods of war.
• Why am I not worried about Iran occupying Iraq should we withdraw? Well, Al Qaeda in Iraq really doesn’t like Iran, and just as I’m sure Iran isn’t funding its enemy the Taliban in Afghanistan, I’m certain they won’t stand for AQII on the opposite bank of the Shat al-Arab. I’d rather let Iran fight the insurgency, ya know? Oh, and also wasn’t the U.S. military bragging at one point for having killed Abu Omar al-Baghdadi? Oh yeah. What else can we just not believe the military has done?
• For further context, there are an excellent pair of posts by the inimitable Ms. Bonnie Boyd, in which she makes two really good points: 1) the NYT has actually had really good overall war coverage (even the Right’s favorite warbloggers, Roggio and Yon, have said glowing things of NYT reporters), and 2) we must look at the many mistakes that led us into this war not with anger, but with the desire to understand why we got it wrong and thus to evaluate what best to do now—stay or go. She is, of course, right.
• We can defeat the deadites… with science. Of course, they can defeat us with the internet. Let’s hope the DoD doesn’t fall for the same trap.
• Who runs the CIA? Private companies, of course, some of which are foreign-owned. Unlike the Dubai Ports World debacle, which was a lot of racist hubub over nothing, this is something that actually deserves very serious scrutiny, but receives little. RJ Hillhouse’s book, Outsourced, is a fun and well-written fictionalization of how PMCs are distorting the War on Terr-uh. I highly recommend it.

Around the World

• Apparently we know Nicolas Sarkozy is a true right winger, not because of any of his policies, but because of his jogging. Curse that American infatuation with physical fitness! He should be sitting in a cafe drinking dark espresso and inhaling packs of Gauloises.
• Why would Iran build tunnels near its nuclear facilities? Maybe protection from anticipated bombing?
• The world chose a giant statue of Jesus over the Eiffel Tower and Stonehenge. Hax!
• Good old Uncle Berdi—bling daddy.
• At the airport yesterday, I wrote an essay, combining several Registan.net posts, on the relative decline of America’s soft power in Central and South Asia. It’s worth a read (that is, I believe it worth a read).

Back at Home

• Michael Savage apparently hates oppressed women. I really wish I wasn’t surprised… but I am. Go figure.
• Nothing like press releases disguised as reporting… especially about IT. Seriously, the idiocy of tech reporters continues to amaze me, especially when they fundamentally misunderstand basic technological and political processes.
• SRSLY, I H8 spammers. Since this morning, Conjecturer.com has been pinged 248 times. Argh!
• One of my sort-of friends, who lives in Manhattan, is always accusing me of having Williamsburg envy. He’s referring, of course, to the Brooklyn neighborhood, not the historic town that hosts the College of William & Mary. I always deny this vociferously—if I am attached to a hipster neighborhood in New York City, it is Park Slope, Brooklyn, where my best friend Chris lives; not Williamsburg. Gurl please. I have class.

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It seems that we rather quietly passed our first anniversary, and reached our 1,000^th post, all without the requisite kudos and fanfare. Over the past year, ASHC has grown from just Lance (with a few posts from Robby), to a triumverate, then there were four, and now we are 4+. Along the way we managed to become a member of the Pajamas Media Network (to whom goes a special thank you), and the site migrated through several changes to arrive at the template we use today. So congratulations to us!

I especially want to thank the denizens of QandO for unwittingly being our launching pad (we all “met” in the comment sections there), and for the many links and gracious attention we’ve received since then.

Also, a big shout out to all those who linked to us, whether it was specific posts, or just general blogrolling. We comprehend and appreciate the respect that such links signify. Thank you for helping us get this far.

Most importantly, a ginormous thank you our readers and commenters. Without you all, there wouldn’t be much point. In particular, I want give a nod to Peter, Pogue, glasnost, and ChrisB, all of whom keep the comments section lively. In fact, sometimes the comments are more interesting and informative than the actual posts.

Finally, I want to thank my blog brethren for participating in this experiment with me. I’ve enjoyed it all a great deal and I look forward to the coming year.

Technorati Tags: blog anniversary, A Second Hand Conjecture

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Of media laziness, incompetency, bias, or sheer mendacity, I suggest this, from Hot Air, on NBC’s misreporting on the body armor that our military uses. Of particular interest is that all the evidence that the military provided was ignored. They had it, but they didn’t use it.

I also suggest that this quote from a journalist published at Instapundit does explain a lot. Simple self interest, which drives much reporting:

A journalist whose name you’d recognize emails:

Yon’s story doesn’t get attention because it is humiliating.

It is humiliating because it is obvious that we media – and our allies in the state department, the legal trade, the NGOs, the Democratic Party, the UN, etc., – can’t do squat about such determined use of force.

Our words, images, arguments and skills can’t stop the killing. Only the rough soldiers and their guns can solve the problem, and we won’t admit that fact because the admission would weaken our influence and our claim to social status.

So we pretend Yon’s massacre – and the North Korean killing fields, the Arab treatment of women, the Arab hatred of Israel, etc. – doesn’t exist, and instead focus our emotions and attention on the somewhat-bad domestic things that we can ‘fix’ with our DC-based allies. Things such as Abu Ghraib, wiretapping, etc. When we ‘fix’ them, then we get status, applause, power, new jobs, ego, etc.

Please don’t be surprised. We media are an interest group not much different from the automakers, the unions, and the farmers.

The media gets power and prestige from fixing something. Thus every aspect of our lives are something for which the media must identify problems and drum up a solution for, and act as the “voice of the people.” Self interest explains a lot about many things, which is why the media should be given no more special privileges than anyone else. They are just people with their own interests and deserve no more protection from the government than any other part of our society. If they were viewed that way they might also be more attentive to the liberties of others, including our speech.

Technorati Tags: media, freedom, speech, special interests

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Any thought that is passed on to the subconscious often enough and convincingly enough is finally accepted.
– Robert Collier

The power to mould the future of the Republic will be in the hands of the journalists of future generations.
– Joseph Pulitzer

Narratives are powerful devices through which complex ideas can be simplified and passed on to others. Wrapping a compelling story around an important message can breathe indelible life into what many might otherwise find a mindless platitude. For example, instead of repeating the phrase “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” ad nauseum, we tell the story of “The Lion and Mouse.” Obviously, this is an ancient, time-honored tradition of teaching, one that even Jesus employed through the use of parables.

Where narratives are less useful, in that they tend to obscure the truth rather than illuminate it, is in the business of conveying facts. I would call that business “news reporting” but that seems to be a particularly dead art. News reporting today consists almost entirely of developing a story line and then conveying facts (or rumors) that fit the story line to the exclusion of all else. When relaying nebulous ideas, narratives can provide a structure in which to comprehend those ideas. When relaying facts, however, and especially when doing so in a selective manner, narratives provide a framework for argument rather than explanation. The result, of course, is that people remember the narrative first and foremost, while the facts are recalled only insomuch as they fit the framework through which the story is told. Once the narrative is set, you see, there can be no deviation, or else the whole story falls apart. (more…)

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Perhaps the old saying “If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a life time” should be revised to include “invest in the man buying a fishing boat, and you feed and employ hundreds…”

Investment in Africa, the private kind, as well as some well placed aid, and infrastructure investments, would likely raise the majority of Africa’s standard of living. Such a thing would go a long way towards by-passing the corruption that is entrenched in governments.

http://www.american.com/archive/2007/july-0707/africans-to-bono-for-gods-sake-please-stop

It is true that from the villages of Darfur to the slums of Soweto, thousands of people on this continent die unnecessary deaths each day, but Africa is home to 900 million. Tragedy is a small part of a much larger and more complex story.

Of the 47 countries that make up sub-Saharan Africa, only five-Sudan, Chad, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Somalia-are home to active conflicts. Last year, Africa saw its highest growth in GDP in two decades. Sixteen African countries have favorable sovereign credit ratings. Botswana’s is higher than Japan, yet it still struggles to attract investment.

For the thousands of foreign-educated lawyers, businessmen, and architects from the Diaspora who are leaving cushy corporate jobs to return home with their skills and their dynamism to open businesses, it’s about creating wealth, not reducing poverty. Africa is not a victim in need of saving: it’s a land of opportunity.

Kenyan economist James Shikwati, who in advance of the 2005 G8 summit in Gleneagles famously asked rich nations, “for God’s sake, please just stop” giving Africa aid, thinks even misery is an opportunity.

We can fight malaria by distributing free mosquito nets, which may cost $10-$60 each by the time you get them down often impassable dirt roads. Or, as Shikwati suggests, we can train locals how to operate a business spraying homes with an insecticide that will keep them mosquito-free for six months at about $2 a family.

We can spend billions importing medication, or you can invest in local farms that grow the Artemisinin, a Chinese herb with potent anti-malarial properties, and the factories that process it.

We can continue the endless cycle of need and dependency, or you can create jobs, develop indigenous capacity, and build a sustainable future.

Aid not only crowds out local entrepreneurship, it makes governments lazy and deprives countries of the incentive to build effective institutions. Public revenue derived from taxes makes governments directly responsible to their citizens. Free money builds white elephants and bloated bureaucracies, it being far easier to create new government jobs than implement policies to fight unemployment, especially when someone else is footing the bill.

The perverse result is that many of Africa’s best and brightest become bureaucrats or NGO workers when they should be scientists or entrepreneurs. Which is why some are wondering: why not just take the aid money and invest in local business?

“If you make Africans rich, they’ll be less poor,” said Idriss Mohammed, a financier who wants to raise a private equity fund for Sub-Saharan Africa. “Forget making poverty history. I want to make Africans rich.”

Audacious, blasphemous, foolhardy—possibly—but that philosophy is precisely how China has been able to lift millions out of poverty in only a few decades and become a magnet for foreign investment.

Still, it would be plain stupid to say aid doesn’t matter for Africa.

When aid builds infrastructure–roads, railways, power plants, electric grids–it makes it cheaper for farmers to bring their crops to market, medicine to get where it is needed without spoiling, labor to flow where the jobs are. Ninety percent of roads in Angola are unpaved, 70 percent of those in Nigeria. It might not be as sexy or photogenic as holding up the child with the swollen belly in front of a television camera, but that is the real crime.

This is why China’s seduction of Africa has been so complete. While Americans are pestering their leaders to Save Darfur–an unlikely prospect absent full-scale military intervention–the Chinese are busy building roads and hydroelectric power dams. China believes Africa is a huge economic opportunity and deals with Africa like a business partner. The Chinese see Africans the way many would like to see themselves.

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Cross-posted at The Conjecturer.

Defense

• There goes Bob Gates, recklessly fear-mongering and not supporting the troops again.
• An example of the general malaise facing the military: the San Antonio-class amphibious ship, $840 million over budget and two years behind schedule, is still not completed… but the Navy wants nine of them anyway.
• An example of the bureaucratic inefficiencies that are slowly losing us two wars, true to form.
• David Axe gets angry when the Dutch accuse him of needlessly hyping one of their soldiers’ death. I side with Axe on this—they had sloppy tactics, especially knowing the standard operating procedures of the Taliban.

Around the World

• An excellent essay on the curious disease of orientalism/occidentalism and self-hatred in the Western Intelligentsia. I think part of the reason I don’t notice this stuff as much as others do is I automatically discount it out of hand of silly and rambling… while truly unfortunate people it at face value. No, I didn’t mean to say I’m better than everyone else but… ya know.
• An intense, and slightly mind-bending (at least to me; maybe I’m just overworked) look at how critical treaty design is in negotiating complex transnational issues, like global warming.
• Speaking of pollution: China has grown in influence so much that it can successfully engineer (i.e. censor) embarrassing or damaging reports from IFIs—in this case, the World Bank. Then again, if 750,000 of my citizens were dying each year from my refusal to institute pollution controls, I’d want to cover it up. Oh wait, no, I’d rather the people not die.
• Economics 101: as demand falls, .
• It’s no longer a surprise that Old Europe is growing… well, old. But New Europe is getting old, too—really old and really fast. And they don’t have the income or health infrastructure to handle it nearly as capably as Old Europe.
• The National Press Club hates your freedoms.
• Awesome news for counter-proliferation fans: AQ Khan, the infamous Pakistani who sold nukes to Libya, Iran, North Korea, and God knows who else from a suite in Dubai, has been released from house arrest. Maybe Musharraf is nervous. Meanwhile, there was a violent clash at a mosque in Islamabad, supposedly over its love of Al Qaeda.
• Sadly missing from this account of another 33 civilians being killed in Afghanistan is the realization that in 2007 more civilians have died at the hands of NATO (most in air strikes) than at the hands of the Taliban. That is the kind of calculus that will lose us the war.

Back at Home

• When MTV doesn’t like your documentary on socialized medicine, maybe you have overstepped your popular welcome. Yes, I speak of he-who-must-not-be-named, natch.
• For real, I want more pictures of Bush riding a Segway and wearing crocs ‘n’ socks, with Putin following closely behind…

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So, does this mean the an Energy Bill signed into law before we do???

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No more Rubiks cube …

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Cross-posted on The Conjecturer.

Defense

• Luckily, terrorists appear to be idiots.
• Anyone else remember the motion tracker from Aliens (note: that movie had some of the coolest, most realistic-looking sci-fi gear I’ve ever seen). Well, we’re working on that.
• “Private spies, are watching you…” …in Iraq. The first sentence ably summarizes the entire lazy culture of the Defense Industry: “On the first floor of a tan building inside Baghdad’s Green Zone, the full scope of Iraq’s daily carnage is condensed into a 30-minute PowerPoint presentation.”
• Related is this Noah Shachtman look at exactly how and why the generals seem tightly focused… on losing the next war. They just don’t get it, when “it” is defined as, alternatively, “the changing nature of the international system and the role of states within it,” “the changing methods by which non-state actors challenge the supremacy of the state,” “the changing methods by which war is conducted,” or even “the increasingly chaotic nature of conflict.” Almost no matter how you slice it, that brass rambling tells me they don’t want to win the wars they’re currently fighting, to say nothing of the next several they probably will. Shachtman said it ably: “when the Army has spent the last five years or so fighting a pair of insurgencies — and not exactly burnt out the scoreboard with its performance — isn’t it time to make counterinsurgency a core competency?” You’d certainly think so, Noah, you’d certainly think so.

Around the World

• I got another article published on counternarcotics policy in Afghanistan (pdf). I also go out on a limb (”Total Conjecture,” lulz!) and speculate about what Iran might be planning in Central Asia. It’s nothing terribly new, but it is brewing into something unpleasant, and it needn’t. Also: Foreign Policy should read more Registan.net—as should you. And here is a touching account of the suicide attack on the Dutch at Tarin Kowt.
• The Washington Post is being just a touch belligerent in their editorial complaining about how Bush is kowtowing to Russia by inviting Premier Putin to be his guest. After all, Bush has gazed into Putin’s soul (”yea it hath goodness,” he uttered upon viewing)—and since when is the Post gung-ho about missile defense? Like many things in the big media today, their editorial is totally devoid of all other context, including Putin’s recent snubbing of Hugo Chavez and a possible setback Russia has faced in the Caspian basin. Bush’s meeting with Putin has two sides, but it is ultimately the same song and dance heads of state play when they visit each other: take pictures, shake hands, and grin like idiots, while the underlings possibly try to hammer out a good sound bite for the press.
• Talk about bad science. By only looking at post-Soviet countries, some UMich people think they’ve proved something on the health implications of capitalism? Perhaps they could specify between “Soviet” and “Eastern Bloc” countries, and between degrees of repression and economic planning in each. Across the former Communist world there was a wide variety of national experience; to draw any conclusions from simple mortality rates (and other, fuzzy social indicators) is at best specious. Furthermore, comparing Poland’s experience to Russia’s (or any country in Europe, save perhaps Albania or Romania, to the former SSRs in the Caucasus or Central) is ridiculous—they neither started from, arrived at, nor are heading to the same place.
• The idea of starving Iran through starving the F-14 of replacement parts is hilarious.

Back at Home

• I have to confess to little more than a passing interest in the private commercialization of space, but this line was brilliant: “And hey, if the the business opportunities don’t pan out, it’s a great name for a girl band, so the URL won’t go to waste.”
• George W. Bush, the anti-Churchill.
• You know, despite all the carping (comparatively few white people actually ride it to work), the Metro is better than most light rail systems I’ve found, with the obvious exception of the New York Subway. That being said, Metro has gigantic design flaws, like intracity-transit (it was originally designed to ease commuter traffic, not make it easier to transverse town), or an inability to reach one of the world’s busiest airports. But it’s far superior to, say, San Jose’s mess. Or the nightmare Denver’s Longmont Express will become.

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