Sic Semper Tyrannis

Happy Birthday to me.

I am taking a day off from SST and going out for a drink with this guy.

I wish I looked this good.

My favorite Washington statue.  I still feel like that.  pl

Korea War - Round 2 part 2

"I don't think the NK forces are a piper tiger, but I believe they would have a very difficult time with a long, protracted fight. And they know it."

CWZ,

IMHO I think you hit on a truth that's been slowly percolating among the US Army Korea specialists for the last five years. Now I'd be the last person to underestimate the capabilities of KPA (It's not that we'd expect so much regarding their sophistication or competence in terms of rapid adjustments during combined arms operations, but the sheer fighting will of an individual soldier seemed pretty impressive to me at least in my experience. Every time there was a cordon operation due to infiltration it would usually end with the team getting away or committing group suicide.). However, two decades of famine no doubt must have impacted the underlying social infrastructure very deeply. As I had posted earlier, I was shocked by the sight of very short KPA personnel at the Joint Security Area. Now the detachments selected for posting here were usually 6 feet for South Koreans (which was rare in the 70s but they managed then. Nowadays it's not that di fficult) and 6'2" for the US personnel. I don't think there was one KPA guy over 5'5" among the ones I could closely observe. Obviously the children of the Rodong-dang nomenklatura probably had normal nutrition while growing up. However, they also wouldn't be the ones standing guard at the JSA either. As far as I could tell, they seemed well disciplined enough, but according to a friend who'd finished his last rotation in 2007 with UNC/CFC CJ3, the KPA's winter exercises were cut short. He'd guessed that their readiness is probably at its lowest level in twenty years of observing the peninsula.

Oil Prices, OPEC and the Financial Markets

"It's a warm spring day in Vienna, and OPEC delegates meeting in the former imperial capital seem more relaxed than they have been in months. There is less behind-the-scenes skullduggery than usual. Instead, it's an opportunity to hold leisurely dinners with colleagues, or even take time out to watch Barcelona beat Manchester United in the European Champions' League soccer match on TV. And why not? The oil market, deathly ill just three months ago, has recovered faster than just about anyone—including OPEC—expected, with prices now above $63.50 per barrel. "They are jubilant," says Kamel Al-Harami, a Kuwaiti oil analyst.

It came as no surprise that with prices moving up OPEC saw no reason to change production levels at its May 28 parley. "Stay the course," the Saudi Oil Minister Ali Naimi shouted cheerfully as he left OPEC's glassy blue and white building to take in the sunshine. OPEC's medicine for weak markets announced late last year—a series of cuts amounting to 4.2 million barrels per day—seems to be working, even though demand remains limp and inventories are near record highs. "We worry less when prices are improving," says the Algerian Energy Minister Chekib Khelil. He added that he thought rising prices were sustainable if the European economies follow what OPEC sees as signs of improvement in the U.S."  Business Week

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Time to start up the oil wars again on SST.

If Business Week is to be believed, OPEC restraints on production (their right), market action and investor belief in future higher prices are raising price per barrel in spite of low demand and massive inventories. 

OK.  Now let's hear from the "Peak Oil" people as to whether or not these rising prices reflect the undeniable long term shortages of hydrocarbons.

My Escalade is still purring along nicely on Regular gas.  pl

Korean War Round 2?

"The United States could fight an old-fashioned war against North Korea if necessary, even while newer forms of conflict against terrorists and extremists continue, the Army's top officer said Thursday.

Asked whether the United States would be prepared to fight if war broke out between South Korea and North Korea, Gen. George Casey replied, "The short answer is yes," then added that "it would probably take us a little bit longer to shift gears" away from the type of counterinsurgency fighting that now occupies the Army."  Yahoonews

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1- As I have said before the phony new/old dichotomy in forms of war that is the "flavor of the decade" is just that.  War in its many forms has existed from time immemorial, often practised simultaneously in different conflicts or within the same conflict.  To think otherwise is to demonstrate limited education and imagination.  The current "kerfluffle" with the DPRK is a perfect example.  The picture to accompany this news piece shows George Casey in his new/old Army Blue uniform telling congress that the US Army can both fight an "old" war and fight "new" wars.  Incidentally, they should "lose" the wide gold cuff bands on the general officer uniform.  It makes them look like "doormen."

2- Everyone seems to think that the DPRK leadership is both fragmented and mad as hatters.  They also have a large ground force that has been planning an invasion of the South for fifty years.  Why is it that we seem to be sure that they (the DPRK) won't resume the Korean War?  No more momma and poppa USSR and China?  That would work as an argument in dealing with sane people.  Is a government that is building a ballistic missile force and nuclear program on the economic base of the DPRK really be judged to be made up of "rational actors?"  pl

National Journal blog- 25 May 2009

http://security.nationaljournal.com/2009/05/what-do-to-about-guantanamo.php#1331987

"A New Kind of War Part 1" Richard Sale

Escalating violence, an acceleration of targeted killings, and deniable attacks by U.S. Special Forces on Taliban strong holds in Pakistan will all be the major results of the administration’s U.S. latest change in command  in Afghanistan, according to senior Pentagon officials.

   The very public May 11 firing of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, replaced by Special Forces expert, Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, portends a much bloodier phase of the war, these sources said.

     “McChrystal is an expert killer. That’s what the teams he heads are good at,” said former senior DIA official Pat Lang.

     “The idea is to put out the eyes of the insurgency using force,” a Pentagon official said.

     McChrystal, who headed U.S. Special Operations forces during the famous troop surge  in Iraq in the late spring of  2007, used a whole new array of methods to detect, locate and kill insurgent leaders which many claim was key to the success of the operation.

 

A Tale of Two Elections

Both Iran and Lebanon are going to the polls soon to elect new governments.

In Iran the citizenry face the choice between Ahmadinajad (al-majnoon) and someone else.  It is hard to imagine who could be a worse choice than Ahmadinajad.  Like the lunatic faction in North Korea that is driving the situation toward catastrophe, Ahmadinajad relentlessly serves up rhetoric that seems to purposefully eliminate any room President Obama might have for public accomodation with Iran.  Blah! Blah! Blah!. Paraphrasing - We are not afraid of you!  We are not afraid of the Israelis!  Blah! Blah! Blah!  Well, you damned well ought to be afraid.  Just keep it up and see in the end if the Iranian state,  the Persian "moment" in history or Islam are benefited by what might happen.  The issue is clearly in the hands of the Iranian people since Ahmadinajad is going to continue being what he is.  Does he really think the president of the United States is going to debate him?  Absurd.

And then there is Lebanon where Acela Joe Biden stopped by in Beirut to threaten the Lebanese electorate with Bush Administration  - Oops! Obama Administration disfavor if the Shia/Aouni forces win a bigger representation in parliament and therefore in the cabinet.  Is "egregious" too big a word for this display of "ward heeling" on a global scale?  The Obama/Clinton/Jones team has shown some finesse in the Middle East.  What on earth are they doing in sending Acela Joe to Lebanon to deliver this neocon/Likud message?  Do they really think that Bashar Assad is shamming in his protestations that he wants peace with the US and Israel?  Do they really think that?  The two clowns that they keep sending to Damascus surely do believe that, but does Obama believe it?

If you believe in prayer, pray for a reasonable outcome in Iran and for the scales to fall from Obama's eyes over Syria and Lebanon.  pl

"Dear Hearts Across the Seas" - W. P. Lang

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First published in "America" magazine in May, 2006.

The National Guard in a Time of endless war

"...On his first day, he woke up early, showered and beat his housemate out the door. Normally, the traffic during his commute to his new office in Charlottesville would have driven him crazy, but not today. He was thrilled to inch along the highway with everyone else on their way to work, and grateful that his new employer didn't seem to have a problem with his Guard service.

Still, he did not mention the rumors that had been floating around the 2-224th for several weeks. In the summer of 2009, the unit's two weeks of annual training were supposedly going to be in the snow-capped mountains of Canada, where the pilots could get used to flying at high altitude.

Which some speculated meant one thing for the battalion: Afghanistan as early as 2010. "  Washingtom Post

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It is often said now that there will be no surrender ceremony to mark the end of these wars.   The end can not be foreseen.  What can be foreseen is that Craig Lewis' dilemma will continue to be shared for many "part time" soldiers for a long time.

There was a time when the National Guard was a bit of a joke to the "real Army."  I spent a summer in the early '60s (1963 - well before VN) training National Guard and Army Reserve units from the northeastern U.S. at what was then Camp Drum, New York.  They were a very mixed lot.

There were states like Massachusetts and New Jersey that possessed division sized National Guard commands with ancient names and pride to match.  There was a brigade sized National Guard from the Connecticut suburbs of New York City.  That outfit had a battalion of infantry in which riflemen were commonly Wall Streeters, lawyers, businessmen, etc.  They  were an amazing group.  You did not have to tell them anything more than once.  There was a "bluestocking" National Guard infantry unit from New York in which the officers had their meals catered in the field from a famous New York City restaurant.  Units like these reflected the social structure of their home towns and were a kind of exercize in civic duty.  There were also National Guard units from rural and relatively poor parts of the northeast.  In those units it was clear that the small amount of money that came to the Guardsmen in drill pay was a major incentive for service.

On the Army Reserve side of things, the service units, medical, etc. were full of professionals from their civilian careers.  They were fine, but the combat units of the Army Reserve were just awful, undisciplined, slovenly, disrespectful, and full of hostile, resentful refugees from the draft.  In many of these units, the officers were plainly afraid of the men.  One reserve division buried two jeeps out in the woods while they were at Drum.  Somebody wanted to come back for them after they went home.

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That was an era that has little or nothing to do with today's National guard and Army Reserve.  The Army Reserve is now made up largely of Combat Support and Combat Service Support units (and individuals).   Combatant units (infantry, armor, artillery, etc.)are in the National Guard where they are supported psychologically by state tradition and hometown support. 

There no longer is much of a difference between the Army's reserve components and what the generals like to call "the active force."  Reserve units have served so much on full time duty and have been trained and equipped to "active force" standards that they are largely indistinguishable from the fulltimers.

Question - Is a mobilized reserve component unit part of "the active force?"  If it is not, then the Uptonian nonsense of calling the Regular Army the "active force" is truly unmasked.  Want me to explain that?

In any event, people like Captain Craig now have all the burdens of an "active force" career with few of the advantages.  A life in whch a man or woman is regularly uprooted from civilian surroundings, sent to war and then put back into civilian life with its very different mores and lifestyle is not a viable life.

Some of you will say.  "Oh, good.  They won't be like the brutal alienated professional soldiery!"

Unfortunately, you and all the therapists in the world do not seem to understand that soldiering is, in fact, a life apart and to some extent must remain that if long and serious wars are to be fought.

These militia soldiers should be kept on full pay and benefits between deployments.   pl

Artists versus Bureaucrats - WP Lang

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