Sic Semper Tyrannis 2008

"The Butcher's Cleaver" Now for Sale

Please visit the web site for my novel "The Butcher's Cleaver."   It is now for sale on-line at Barnes & Noble, Amazon and iUniverse.com

pl

www.rosemontbooks.com

For sale at these lnks:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/104-0278800-4247125?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=The+Butcher%27s+cleaver&x=11&y=11

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?WRD=The+Butcher%27s+Cleaver&z=y

http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-47476-4

In the UK the book can be bought on-line at "Foyles" and at "WHSmith."  In Australia and New Zealand "Fishpond.com" carries the book.

A review of the book recently appeared in the Defense Intelligence Agency newspaper:

Download DIAReview.pdf

4th Generation Warfare? What about 5th and 6th Generation?

"In unusually strong language, Gates warned against what he described as a tendency in the Pentagon to fall back on Cold War mentalities and said he feared that lessons from the U.S. struggle against insurgencies in Iraq could fade unless military commanders understand that today's enemies are the foes of the future.

Gates said there must be a balance between meeting today's demands and tomorrow's contingencies, but he expressed concern that the defense establishment is not concentrating hard enough on what might be needed in future conflicts. He said the armed services and their corporate counterparts should steer technology and resources toward battling insurgencies. "  Washpost

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With respect for the opinion of my colleagues who count Gates among their close friends, (or at least close associates) this is not very profound.

Yes, it is true that the military would prefer to deal with enemies whose vagaries are more easily perceived and estimated in mechanistic sensor driven and applied mathematical kinds of ways.

The US Army did turn away from what it learned in the counterinsurgency wars of the 20th Century.  That was a bad thing.

Nevertheless, it seems clear that there is not some sort of evolutionary development in the nature of war.  There never was such a thing.  War is war.  It has always existed in many forms and usually simultaneously.  The metaphor of generational development in warfare is essentially flawed.  This image was created in the last decade or two to provide existing military leadership with a psychological crutch that enabled them to say that they had not been so woefully ignorant of history as to not know that irregular warfare had always been a major factor in conflict.  No.  The "4th Generation" label allowed the generals to tell each other that something new had appeared on the world scene - guerrilla war.  They could not be expected to have anticipated this new thing, guerrilla war, could they?

Now, Mr. Gates, who seems to be a sensible man, is espousing the idea that the armed forces should configure themselves to fight guerrillas as the main kind of enemy. Such an idea is superficially attractive, but not a viable solution for doctrinal thought and force structure design. 

The future is not really knowable.  It is, in fact, the undiscovered country.  History gives us a ghostly image of what people have done over the millennia.  Will people do the same things in the future? Perhaps they will not, but the record of the past is the only real indication we have of what mankind tends to do.

War remains a social activity which relies on basic attributes of the evolved human beast.  Weapons change but people do not in any time scale that is useful for contemplation.

The record of the past indicates that future wars will be fought in many different forms and often in many different forms within the same war.

Let us be careful that we do not prepare to fight only one of the many forms of war.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/13/AR2008051301265.html

Cat-fights

I was on a "road trip" until yesterday evening and did not have the time to deal with the personal dispute that erupted ove several days among two of our commmenters.

A reminder - conflicts that descend into personal attacks will lead to disciplinary action by the curmudgeon who runs this rodeo.  pl

Luttwak and Obama's "Apostasy"

"As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother’s Christian background is irrelevant.

Of course, as most Americans understand it, Senator Obama is not a Muslim. He chose to become a Christian, and indeed has written convincingly to explain how he arrived at his choice and how important his Christian faith is to him.

His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is “irtidad” or “ridda,” usually translated from the Arabic as “apostasy,” but with connotations of rebellion and treason. Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder (which the victim’s family may choose to forgive).

With few exceptions, the jurists of all Sunni and Shiite schools prescribe execution for all adults who leave the faith not under duress; the recommended punishment is beheading at the hands of a cleric, although in recent years there have been both stonings and hangings. (Some may point to cases in which lesser punishments were ordered — as with some Egyptian intellectuals who have been punished for writings that were construed as apostasy — but those were really instances of supposed heresy, not explicitly declared apostasy as in Senator Obama’s case.) "  Luttwak

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Edward Luttwak was allowed to publish the above quoted oped in the NY Times today.  What do I think of it?

I think it is a poorly veiled attack on Obama's candidacy.  I doubt if Luttwak was the originator of this attack.  I have heard it before.

I will not argue the Islamic law point, but my comment would be - So What!

Are Americans to allow Luttwak and people like him to influence their choice of president on the basis of a denial of religious freedom by people who generally have no use for freedom of choice in anything?

This argument originated overseas.  You can work out the point of origin for yourselves.  pl

Israel, A country like the ones almost all of us came from?

"Growing up at Congregation Olam Tikvah, Michelle Pearlstein remembers how Israel was taught at religious school: "Black and white -- you can't trust anyone, and it was a united front in support of Israel." Today, Pearlstein, 35, is the Israel specialist at the Fairfax (Virginia) synagogue, where she teaches what is now the mainstream approach: "We call it 'Israel, warts and all.' "

The change in curriculum is but one manifestation of the changing relationship between American Jews and the Jewish state, even as the country celebrates its 60th birthday this week.

Multiple new polls show that younger American Jews feel less of a connection to Israel than older Jews. And while there is heated debate about some of the polls' methodologies and conclusions, most Jewish leaders are very concerned about the data. The leaders see them as a long-term byproduct of intermarriage, assimilation and controversial Israeli policies, including settlement expansion in the occupied territories."  Michele Boorstein

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In Alexandria, Virginia (my home town)  There is a beautiful Episcopal Church, one of several actually.  It is called Christ Church.   There is also a regrettably modern looking but suitably ancient synagogue, Beth El.  For as long as anyone can remember these two congregations have been celebrating Thanksgiving together.  They alternate between sanctuaries.  Although not congregants of either, we were invited by a VMI classmate to the joint service at Christ Church one year.  He is a member of Beth El.  It was as satisfying an experience as one could hope for. 

"You can't trust anyone?"  My God!  Here?  What was the justification for teaching children such a thing?  Not everyone liked Jews?  So what!  I have an original sign in my office from 1908 that reads "Help wanted.  No Irish Need Apply."  My father used to laugh about a sign he saw over the door of a women's dormitory at Hunter College in New York back in the 1930s.  It read "No dogs or soldiers allowed within."  Fortunately we did not need jobs in 1908 and my father had no interest in Hunter girls.

"You can't trust anyone."  Let us hope that we Americans are coming to end of that kind of idea.  I am not surprised that young Jewish Americans are not so gullible as to cower before the fears of their ancestors.  They have looked around them and have seen that there is no need.

I congratulate the Israelis on the birthday of their country.  I hope it prospers in justice and freedom for all.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/10/AR2008051002247.html

The Bushies and Beirut (The gang that can't shoot straight)

"...humiliating blows made clearer than ever the power and determination of Hezbollah, a Shiite group backed by Iran and Syria, and its allies. By Friday afternoon, armed Shiite fighters were riding joyfully through west Beirut in a long column of trucks, cars and scooters, shouting and firing their weapons into the air in a raucous victory celebration.

The government majority issued an urgent appeal for help from other nations on Friday evening, calling Hezbollah’s actions an “armed coup” against Lebanon and its democratic system using “weapons sent by Tehran.” Some government lawmakers, including the Druse leader, Walid Jumblatt, and Saad Hariri, the son of the assassinated former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, spent the day holed up in their compounds, protected by Lebanese Army contingents and the police."  NY Times

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Is this the best we can do?  What happened to the much feared covert interventions of the CIA, dreaded across the world by "liberation" movements for decades.  Is this the best we can do?

Our toadies (the government of Lebanon) are "holed up" in government offices and private compounds behind the protection of an "army" that specializes in parades and refereeing Beiruti political squabbles?

The Iraqi Arabs I have been teaching lately make a specialty of mocking most Beirutis.  They imitate their "cute" accent, lisp and swish away when laughing at them.  They don't feel that way about the Shia militiamen (Hizbullah and Amal).  I have never asked them about the Aounis.  I should do that.

If I were Saad Hariri, I would "get out of Dodge."  That "army" is not going to protect him if its own safety is at stake.  Siniora (Sonora)?  Nice is nice this time of year.  He probably has a place there.

We Americans (well, the Bushies) brought this on with our insistence that Shia numbers and electoral success would not be reflected in the division of power within the government of that sad little country.

Did we encourage the Sonorans to think that they could demand the self-disembowelment of Hizbullah?  Did we really think the Government of Lebanon actually could do that.  We may well have.  It would be of a piece with the fantasy driven policy of the last eight years.  Any gamble, no matter how absurd and improbable of success has fit the pattern of desperate longing that has driven American policy this last decade.

Would McCain's policy in the region be any more grounded in real calculation of the odds?  Doubtful.  Would Obama's be better?  I wonder.  Look at his advisers.  pl

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/10/world/middleeast/10lebanon.html?th&emc=th

Qustioning the Value of Our Culture - ?

"Just remember, inside every zip there's an American trying to get out."  The crazy cavalry colonel spoke this line on the beach in "Apocalypse Now.  A marine DI said much the same thing in "Full Metal Jacket."  The attitude was so sadly typical of our entrance on the scene in Vietnam.   Maybe one was quoting the other...  In any event, I used to joke about this attitude.  I no longer think it is funny.  In the last year or so I have wandered the country a lot giving talks to college and other audiences.   In doing that it has become more and more clear that many, if not most Americans still, (not the right word) as always (better) have a deeply embedded reflexive belief that mankind is evolving socially toward a unified world culture and that this culture is the culture of the West, more specifically of Anglo North America. 

After a recent talk at a small college, a faculty member in the business sciences asked me if I had really meant to say that the Iraqis and other Middle Easterners did not want to be "us."  When assured that I had meant it, he said that this was most disturbing and that the thought had not occurred to him before.  He continued that such a notion was threatening because, if believed, it would require a re-appraisal of the worth of Western culture. He said that he had always assumed that people who lived in significantly different ways did so either from ignorance or because the structure of their societies functioned to hold them in subservience to a primitive way of life.  He said that if that were not true and in fact most non-Western people wanted a better life in material terms without adopting the values of the West, then much of his life had been lived in error.  "I think of all the foreign students whom I assumed were just waiting for enlightenment."

I asked him, "why can't you just accept the idea that there are many authentic and legitimate ways of life and forms of governance, and that what is good for us is not necessarily wanted by others?"   I hope he is still wrestling with the issue.  pl

End Game in Beirut?

""The decisions (of the government) are tantamount to a declaration of war and the start of a war ... on behalf of the United States and Israel," a defiant Nasrallah said at a rare press conference via video link.

On Tuesday, the government launched a probe into a communications network Hezbollah has set up in Lebanon and reassigned the head of airport security over his alleged links to Hezbollah."  AFP

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It should be apparent by now that Dick Cheney is touring the Middle East lately for some purpose.

In Jerusalem the Olmert government seeks an opening to settle its problem with Syria.  Bashar Assad seems to want the same thing.  Cheney is said to have arrived in Israel with the message that the Bush Administration rejects the conclusions of last year's NIE on Iran in favor of some mysterious and super secret "evidence" that the Israelis supposedly have that contradicts the NIE.  Olmert's government is now threatened with removal.  What a coincidence!

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the forces of information management are doing all they can to beat the drums for further war in the Middle Eastern region. 

Now we have the Siniora government (the Sonora government in the Bush pronunciation) in Beirut seeking a confrontation with Hizbullah?   We have come to the end of the "fiddling around" in the Lebanon?  Have the Jacobins, their Israelis allies and whatever it is that Cheney is, decided to end the suspense and trigger a war on Hizbullah and maybe Syria.   We live in interesting times.  pl

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gitppiJxG2wQdk1DG2SCvgiiK92w

Habakkuk on Sir John Scarlett et al

"J:  The British do not think that the U.S. is their 'colony/state to use and abuse at their whims.' The key divisions here are less between states, than within them. The problem is that the neocons have gained ascendancy both in your country and mine. In both, there is a very visible reaction against this. In Britain this has probably had less effect than in the U.S. at the level of high politics -- probably more at the mass level. Tony Blair really is a neocon -- so are influential figures around the Tory leader David Cameron. As for what used to be the conservative press: I go the Times website, and find Irwin Stelzer -- author of "The Neocon Reader". I go to the Telegraph website, and find Irwin Stelzer. I open the Spectator, supposed to be the Tory ideas magazine. Who do I find -- Irwin Stelzer! As to Sir John Scarlett,  there is an irony here -- in that he was case officer for Oleg Gordievsky, who was a double agent working for us, rather than the Russians. This was the reverse of the situation depicted in Le Carré's novel, where the 'bureaucratic whore' Percy Alleline is persuaded that the Russian spook who Bill Haydon runs is our double agent, while in fact Haydon is theirs. But the evidence produced by the Hutton Inquiry made clear that Scarlett is a 'bureaucratic whore' -- although perhaps 'corrupt courtier' would be a more appropriate term. As chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee -- supposed to apply a filter of critical analysis to material produced by the agencies -- Scarlett played a key role in the dissemination of the intelligence which suggested, quite incorrectly as it turned out, that Saddam had WMD he could launch at 45-minutes notice, and had sought uranium from Niger. In so doing, he played a played a significant role in getting both you and us into a disastrous war. That he should be colluding with elements in Israeli intelligence -- and doubtless, elements in the U.S. -- in what appear to be moves to soften public opinion up for another disastrous war is hardly surprising. Unfortunately there is a lot of evidence that the rot at MI6 goes a lot deeper -- as also the rot in British journalism. When Scarlett was appointed as head of MI6, the Observer journalist David Rose defended him against the suggestion that his role in the Iraq intelligence fiascos disqualified him for the job. Explaining why his colleagues had come round to think Scarlett the best man, Rose wrote: "What has changed? The biggest factor is the evidence to Lord Hutton, which suggests that if Scarlett did cross the politico-intelligence frontier, then others were also culpable - none more so than the current C, Sir Richard Dearlove. On 12 September 2002, in response to a last, desperate call for new content for the dossier, it was Dearlove who went to see Blair at Downing Street, bearing the false and fateful claim that Iraq could deploy its WMD within 45 minutes. "At the time, there had been no attempt to assess this report by passing it to the JIC's intelligence analysts, nor to the acknowledged WMD experts at the Defence Intelligence Staff - including David Kelly. Supplying raw intelligence to a Prime Minister 'is just never done,' one official says. 'It's rule number one. Dearlove was undermining Scarlett's position - and it's just not fair that Scarlett alone should be blamed.' "Moreover, the final dossier was 'signed off' by all the members of Scarlett's committee, Dearlove included, who had the support of all his most senior colleagues - some of them eventual rivals for Scarlett's new job. As for the Butler report, it will deal with methods, not individuals. If it did, all four men who were candidates to be the next 'C' might have been criticised." (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2004/may/09/davidkelly.uk.) So it seems that even if an incoming prime minister had actually wanted to appoint a head of MI6 who would tell him the truth, rather than what he wanted to hear, he could not have found one within the organisation. But apparently this does not worry David Rose one bit -- which is hardly reassuring, particularly as he writes for the independent Guardian group, not the Times or Telegraph. Not long after retirement, incidentally, Dearlove signed the Declaration of Principles of a new organisation called The Henry Jackson Society, which champions the agenda for 'global democratic revolution' beloved of the neocons, and involves both leading American neocons and their British fellow-travellers. I suppose if one has an intelligence chief who is happy to associate himself with the memory of 'Scoop' Jackson, whose record at threat inflation and the politicisation of intelligence is almost unrivalled, one should not be surprised that one ends up with a dysfunctional intelligence organisation. "  David Habakkuk

Put up or shut up. (Israeli intelligence and Iran)

"Scarlett, 59, is likley to be briefed by Meir Dagan, 63, the head of Mossad, on Israel’s latest information about the Iranian nuclear programme. It is understood that Israel has made a breakthrough in intelligence-gathering within Iran.

There is mounting concern in Israel that Iran’s nuclear capability may be far more advanced than was recognised in a declassified assessment by the US National Intelligence Estimate last December, which concluded that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons development programme in 2003 in response to international pressure.

One source claimed the new information was on a par with intelligence that led Israel to discover and then destroy a partly constructed nuclear reactor in Syria last September.

Israeli officials believe the US will revise its analysis of Iran’s programme. “We expect the Americans to amend their report soon,” a high-ranking military officer said last week."  Timesonline

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"It is understood that Israel has made a breakthrough in intelligence-gathering within Iran." 

Oh yeah?  Let's see it.  Out in the open where the ordinary people of the world can look at it.  No?  Prefer to use it in private where the politically appointed grandees of the world's intelligence communities can be bullied into accepting a lot of crap in the same way that happened before Iraq?  That's not intelligence.  That's just political bullying.

What could the Israelis possibly have?  Something grand from their little photography satellites?  Something spooky from HUMINT in Iran?  How could we possibly verify anything from their HUMINT ops in Iran?  Do they have something from the world banking or technical communities?  OK.  Let's see it.

"Sources and Methods?"  Ha Ha.  Do they really think that the security of their sources are worth another war to the rest of us? 

I can only imagine the pressure they have exerted on the British and American spooks to get them to accept your views.

Scarlett sounds remarkably like one of the bureaucratic whores who took over "The Circus" in Lecarre's books, but, I confess that I do not know him.   The Robin Hood legend is a major part of "The Matter of Britain."  {Arthur, etc.} (political science people should ignore this part.  It might interfere with your "clarity")  In the recent anachonistic, but fun, Robin Hood series on BBC America (perhaps they don't watch this kind of thing in Britain any longer), the legend is described as "lying at the heart of England."  I surely do hope that this is true. pl

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3867880.ece

A Tale of Two Incompetents (Bush and Rumsfeld)

""Yes, sir. Our report validated everything you told us — that Franks issued the orders to discard the original twelve-to-eighteen-month occupation deployment, that the forces were drawing down, that we were walking away from the mission, and that everybody knew about it. And let me tell you, the Secretary did not like that one bit. After we went in to brief him, he just shut us down. 'This is not going anywhere,' he said. 'Oh, and by the way, leave all the copies right here and don't talk to anybody about it.'"

"You mean he embargoed all the copies of the report?" I asked.

"Yes, sir, he did." "  Time

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This is the characteristic Rumsfeld style; cruel, manipulative, unconcerned with the truth, eager to escape responsibility for failure.  He knows these generals are completely self-serving careerists and that they can be made to do anything that is desired by the implied or direct promise of reward or the threat of punishment.  These modern generals have been cultivatd like plants to have the reactions of people on the way up in the business world where the war of "all against all" is the underlying psychological paragdigm.  The inappropriateness of this mind set in the military world where cooperation and self sacrifice are called for completely escapes Rumsfeld.  For the blind, selfish narrowmindedness that leads to that fatal incomprehension, Rumsfeld must be judged incompetent.  pl

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1736831-3,00.html

""What's probably counterintuitive to you is that this has been a great experience for our family. I've lived in the White House now for seven and a half years, and the furniture is interesting but it's like a museum," he said, the crowd laughing.

"And there's love in that White House, thanks to a good wife," Mr. Bush said of first lady Laura Bush, as the crowd applauded. "She's great ... which is one of the reasons this has been a fabulous experience.""  Washtimes

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It is a far, far better place that he goes to... and the sooner the better.  He says he might be a talk show host?  Yes.  He can do an afternoon radio show from Crawford, something akin to the radio fandango in "Tuna, Texas."  The grotesque buffoonery of this man offends the eye and the soul.  "A fabulous experience?"  History will judge him.  A true incompetent.  pl

http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080503/NATION/120439342/1001