Sic Semper Tyrannis

Recycling old nonsense

Toward the end of the war in Vietnam there were a number of odd arguments concerning withdrawal advanced by people suffering from non-combat fatigue.

One had to do with the idea that because people had been lost in the war, it would be necessary to fight until the psychological arithmetic involved in the loss could be justified emotionally by "victory" or at least "pay back."  I have heard that one several times in the last couple of days from dizzy blondes on 24/7.

A second argument was made in those days  concerning personal investment and profit involving; the careers people had made related to SE Asia, the loot collected by "Alaska Barge and Transport" or "Foremost Dairies," etc.  One was asked, "surely you do not believe that those so "invested" will ever allow the war to end?  Surely.  That argument has returned as well.

Then, there were the Democrats of the left.  Post Cronkhite, they wanted nothing so much as an immediate end, in all ways to American participation in the war.  Out!  Out now! The devil take the hindmost.  In 1975 they got their way by enacting their wish into law.  The devil DID take the hindmost.  If you don't think so ask the Vietnamese diaspora.  Ask them.  Now the Democratic Left is unhappy because President Obama has decided that we will leave Iraq in a prudent way.

Well, that war DID end and so will this one, the only question is "How?"  pl

A Farewell to Iraq

President Obama's policy speech at Camp Lejeune today -

It was a bravura performance.

It would be strange if I had not liked this speech.  The policies involved are ones that I have advocated for years.

In straightforward, statesmanlike, dare I say soldierly, fashion, he laid it all out:

- Major combat forces out of Iraq in 2010.

- ALL forces out of Iraq by the end of 2011 (no bases)

- A regional approach to serious diplomacy

- Outreach to Iran and Syria

- A reasoned study of what the US should do about Afghanistan and Pakistan. (not completed yet)

- Congratulation to the armed forces for duty faithfully and successfully performed.

His words could not have been clearer, and the 2011 date was completely unequivocal.  After that date it is up to the Iraqis.

No sooner had President Obama stopped speaking than the geeks and freaks assembled by MSNBC began to tell us that the plain sense of his words did not mean anything at all.

Before the president spoke, the same crew claimed that "the generals" would insist on a renegotiation (repudiation) of the recent US/Iraqi agreement on withdrawal.  This was and is patent nonsense.  The Iraqis played hardball with the United States last year over this agreement and got pretty much all they wanted.  What possible reason could they have now for agreeing to "renegotiate" anything with us?  They understandably want us out of THEIR country.  There are still many here who can not believe that we have not acquired Iraq as a neocolonial possession, a "jewel in the crown of empire."  Many of the media people are either challenged with regard to "the vision thing" or unable to deal with the idea of a selfless effort.  Perhaps they should have made careers in finance.

The marines understood Obama.  They did not applaud when he entered the room.  They stood, of course, but they did not applaud.  By the time he was finished they were with him 100%.  Barry McCaffery (the sane man among the G&F crowd) said that Obama had spoken perfectly to a military audience, especially to combat people.  I understand that.  For such as they, things do "go bump in the night."  McCaffery also said that his eyes filled with tears at several points.  McCaffery is a hard man.

Mine too, general, mine too.  pl

COIN is a platinum plated axe

"Support for the proposed influx of troops to Afghanistan, however, comes as Americans are about evenly divided about whether the war there has proved to be worth its costs. They also split 50 to 41 percent on whether it is essential to win in Afghanistan to succeed in broader efforts against terrorism.

Nearly four in 10 who said the war has not justified its costs back the new troops, signaling that some people may expect better results after the troop levels rise. (Among Democrats, that number is closer to 50 percent.) While most Americans opposed Bush's early 2007 decision to send additional troops to Iraq, the percentage who saw significant progress there trended sharply higher from the summer of 2007 through the end of last year." Washpost

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Kilcullen's graphic (above) on the elements of insurgency is interesting and instructive.  He attempts in that "mess" to show how complicated this kind of warfare may be.  Imagine how much more complicated are the efforts necessary to counteract all of that.  Those efforts collectively make up what is call "counterinsurgency."  (COIN)

I did COIN.  I did it in South America.  I did it in SE Asia.  I did it in Arabia.  I did it. 

It works.  It worked in Iraq.  It has been very expensive in Iraq, expensive in money, expensive in political capital, and very expensive in blood if some of that is yours.

Was it necessary to do COIN in Iraq?  Yes.  It was.  The ground was ripe in Iraq for irregular warfare against the US occupation.  The "human terrain" was perfect for it.  The illusions that accompanied the occupation made the US occupying force a perfect target for irregular warfare.  Having made so many mistakes in Iraq, COIN was the only method that would bring the US success in Iraq other than mass murder.  The Republican and neocon slogan word "Surge" is just code for COIN.  The additional US troops were just part of that COIN effort.

Afghanistan is another place where COIN can work.  The ground in Afghanistan is even more fertile for long term irregular warfare against the foreign other than was Iraq.  Irregular warfare in Afghanistan is an age-old way of life.  In Afghanistan, the people in the next valley are often one's tribal enemy.

Nevertheless, COIN can work in Afghanistan.  The question is not if COIN will work in Afghanistan.  The question is whether or not we should pay the exorbitant price that COIN will exact from us for the privilegege of using this methodology in that country.

Ten years? 150 billion dollars?  5,000 dead (ours)?  What will the cost be?  Do I know? No.  Neither does anyone else, but everyone who knows anything knows that it will be very expensive.

There are other ways to accomplish the goal of "neutering" Islamist extremists.  I, and other people have suggested them.  None of them involve becoming Afghanistan's "godfather."  pl

"Business Cycle" or "Gotterdammerung?"

"The S&P Case-Shiller National Home Price Index reported that prices sank a record 18.2% during the last three months of 2008, compared with the same period in 2007.

Case-Shiller's index of 20 major metropolitan areas fell 18.5%, also a record.

"The broad downturn in the residential real estate market continues," said David Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor's, in a statement. "There are very few, if any, pockets of turnaround that one can see in the data."

All 20 metro areas in the 20-city index recorded declines, with home prices falling more than 20% in eight of those cities. National home prices have dropped 26.7% since they peaked during the second quarter of 2006.

The decline does not seem to be slowing - just the opposite. The average home price dropped 2.52% between November and December in the 20 top metro areas. That was a larger increase than the 2.25% drop a month earlier."  CNN.com

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Ironically, the real estate market in Washington seems the least affected by all this.  We sit near the trough.

I wish to propose here an economic question for which I will, at least rhetorically, not admit of having an answer of my own.

Whether for crass political reasons or for genuine difference of opinion, the two American political parties are projecting diametrically opposed views of the nature of the present economic crisis and its probable outcome.

The Democrats state that the present depressed state of the economy is different both in quality and depth from any recession that we have seen since WW2.  They seem to believe that, if left to its fate, the economy of the United States and therefore probably of the world will spiral downward into a dark abyss from which it might well not climb for a long, long time.  In that pit would be; very high unemployment rates, deflation, low levels of investment, etc., We have not seen doctors and lawyers paid for their services with baskets of eggs and dead chickens for a long time, but that seems to be what the Democrats seem to think possible.

On the other hand the Republicans seem to think, or at least to say, that what is going on is really just the trough inherent in an exceptionally deep business cycle.  They seem to believe that if left alone the economy will "right" itself like a swamped boat, shrug off the water and rise to the surface.  Having that view, they say that all the money being appropriated and disbursed for "recovery" is just unnecessary and a surreptitious means to enactment of the Democrats' desired socialist re-structuring of the United States.  The belief in the "business cycle" theory of the crisis appears to be largely ideological, but subject to test by events, but the "socialist conspiracy" theory is, to some extent, supported by some of the items that the House Democrats chose to fund under the "stimulus" bill.  The Democrats would argue of course that all expenditures are stimulative.

I am curious to hear the arguments on both sides.  pl

PS  Watch your language.

 

"How to win in Afghanistan?" National Journal blog

http://security.nationaljournal.com/2009/02/how-to-win-in-afghanistan.php#1296359

pl

Will Netanyahu kill the US/Israel romance?

"Moreover, Netanyahu will in all likelihood swiftly return to his old habit of alienating Israel's friends. Even Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak once admitted the Israeli nationalist leader made him "very, very, very exasperated." Jordan's King Hussein, who at one point ceased all contact with the former premier, openly accused him of betrayal and trying "to destroy all that I have worked to build between our peoples."

And who can forget how the Americans talked about him after his last stint as premier? Former White House staffer Aaron David Miller described in his book how President Bill Clinton reacted to Netanyahu's habit of lecturing foreign leaders: "Who the f*** does he think he is? Who's the f***ing superpower here?" Former White House spokesman Joe Lockhart described him as "one of the most obnoxious individuals you're going to come into - just a liar and a cheat." Surely President Barack Obama will have even less patience for Netanyahu's attempts to obstruct a peace settlement."  Daily Star

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Probably so.

It is unlikely that Barack Obama will tolerate Netanyahu's normal arrogance and overbearing demeanor.

It is, however, likely that Netanyahu will "try it on."  Why?  Because he is compulsive and will not be able to help himself.  Like a lot of extreme nationalists in various parts of the world, Netanyahu deeply believes in the intellectual and moral superiority of what he thinks of as his people.   For him, innate feelings of group superiority are the bedrock of his personality.  The Oval Office encounter which I forecast some time ago is inevitably in the cards now.  Ah, to be a fly on the wall in that one.

To see such a confrontation approaching does not require "moral and intellectual superiority."  Therefore one must ask why the Israeli electorate has created the preconditions for that meeting.  I will leave the question open for debate.  PL

 

Of course it was racist!

"The cartoon shows a police officer, after his colleague just shot dead a chimpanzee, saying, "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."

Critics said yesterday that the chimpanzee served as a crude interpretation of Obama, the nation's first black president, who signed the $787-billion economic stimulus package into law Tuesday. The cartoon sparked a heated debate among journalists, elected officials and community leaders about the appropriateness of comparing an African-American president to a primate."  Newsday

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I hate to agree with C. Matthews, but this cartoon was so obviously a crude, humorless, racial insult to the president and all Black people that one must take notice of it.  Newscorp and the Murdoch people everywhere should "examine their consciences" over this.  The reference to the stimulus bill makes the target of the cartoon as clear as it could be.

Some people have said that this cartoon might have been funny fifty years ago.  That is not true.  It would never have been funny.  Decent people have never thought that idiotic comparisons of Blacks to animal primates were amusing or acceptable as humor.

The New York Post has the largest circulation in the city?  Well then, there is an obvious corrective for this kind of behavior.

Don't buy it.  pl

http://www.newsday.com/news/printedition/longisland/ny-popost196040929feb19,0,7014832.story

National Security Blog - 17 February, 2009

Should the NSC function be strengthened?  pl

http://security.nationaljournal.com/2009/02/a-more-powerful-nsc.php#1293128

How far down are the banks and real estate headed?

I think these are fair questions:

Are we headed for a general collapse of the big banks, the ones that the federal government has shoveled money into?

Is the crisis of mortgage foreclosure going to take down the structure of price and value to the point that the banks fall into an inevitable federal seizure situation?

Is the general economic trend going to be deflationary for several years?

Any good questions that I missed?

There are a lot of smart, experienced people here?

Let's hear it!  pl

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-finance-qna18-2009feb18,0,986612.story

Let's Talk Talking Heads

I am inspired by listening to Thaddeus (Christopher) Matthews (a member of the Philadelphia "troika" of Smerconish, Shields and Matthews) to invite a general discussion of the personalities and views of the talking heads seen on our present media.  pl