Sic Semper Tyrannis

Jim Webb's Navy Cross Citation:

Jim Webb, First Lieutenant, U.S. Marine Corps
Company D, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division (Rein.) FMF
Date of Action: July 10, 1969

"The Navy Cross is presented to James H. Webb, Jr., First Lieutenant, U.S. Marine Corps, for extraordinary heroism while serving as a Platoon Commander with Company D, First Battalion, Fifth Marines, First Marine Division (Reinforced), Fleet Marine Force, in connection with combat operations against the enemy in the Republic of Vietnam. On 10 July 1969, while participating in a company-sized search and destroy operation deep in hostile territory, First Lieutenant Webb's platoon discovered a well-camouflaged bunker complex which appeared to be unoccupied. Deploying his men into defensive positions, First Lieutenant Webb was advancing to the first bunker when three enemy soldiers armed with hand grenades jumped out. Reacting instantly, he grabbed the closest man and, brandishing his .45 caliber pistol at the others, apprehended all three of the soldiers. Accompanied by one of his men, he then approached the second bunker and called for the enemy to surrender. When the hostile soldiers failed to answer him and threw a grenade which detonated dangerously close to him, First Lieutenant Webb detonated a claymore mine in the bunker aperture, accounting for two enemy casualties and disclosing the entrance to a tunnel. Despite the smoke and debris from the explosion and the possibility of enemy soldiers hiding in the tunnel, he then conducted a thorough search which yielded several items of equipment and numerous documents containing valuable intelligence data. Continuing the assault, he approached a third bunker and was preparing to fire into it when the enemy threw another grenade. Observing the grenade land dangerously close to his companion, First Lieutenant Webb simultaneously fired his weapon at the enemy, pushed the Marine away from the grenade, and shielded him from the explosion with his own body. Although sustaining painful fragmentation wounds from the explosion, he managed to throw a grenade into the aperture and completely destroy the remaining bunker. By his courage, aggressive leadership, and selfless devotion to duty, First Lieutenant Webb upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and of the United States Naval Service."

Home of Heroes - US Marine Corps Awards - Navy Cross - Vietnam
http://www.homeofher...

Colin Powell and the Great Man Syndrome

My closest adviser (wife) coined the phrase, "The Great Man Syndrome."  (GMS)  She has the habit of watching the great or semi-great for signs of the appearance of this often fatal malady.  The disease is characterized by imagined indispensability and an inclination toward a reappearance in the adult victim of the "Fallacy of Centrality."

This fallacy is usually found in the emotionally immature and consists of a belief in one's centrality in all situations, indeed, in the universe as perceived by the sufferer.

In the "Great Man Syndrome," itself there is manifested a complete unwillingness to remove oneself from the central action (whatever it is), no matter how foolish this action may be as well as the expectation that one's opinions will be accepted as infallibly correct simply because they are the "Great Man's" thoughts.

This point of view is oddly reminiscent of Berkeley's argument in philosophy that all that is seen is an illusion created by the imaginer with the implication that since the imaginer is the creator, then the imaginer can not remove himself from a central role. 

A vulnerability to GMS is one of the prices paid for power.  Many are afflicted and it does not require a lot of power to be vulnerable.  Just a tiny bit of power will do. 

This article about Colin Powell is a "puzzlement."  Here is the case of a wise and great man (perhaps "dimly wise and rudely great" but, nevertheless..) who, I think, could have been president of the United States and who, with seemingly unwavering determination threw himself under the wheels of a bus. (rhetorical flourish) 

Powell knew that "W" was out if his depth as president.  He had to know that.  He must have known that the "Vulcans" were successfully tutoring his boss on the subject of "the world."  Powell certainly knew that the imagined connections of AQ to the Iraqi government were false.  He clearly doubted the whole tissue of falsehood surrounding the WMD "pitch."  (Wolfie's description)

If I am correct about this, than why on earth did he go up to New York to the UN to smear shit all over the memory of his service?  Why?

The answer given to me by my bag of analytic tools is that he just could not remove himself from the action.  He was a victim of GMS.

I urge anyone who thinks that he/she may be afflicted by this deadly illness to stand before a mirror at least once a day and repeat several times -

"GET OVER YOURSELF!!"

Pat Lang

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/27/AR2006092700106.html

Canadian Forces Structure

Canuck wrote to pose the following:

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"Dear Patrick:

I'm trying to find my Grandfather's Canadian military records.  When I searched for his records for the Boer War, there weren't any records found.  But I know he served in that war.

He also was in WWI and I did find his Attestation paper when he enlisted for the Expeditionary Force that fought in WWI.

One of the question he was asked was if he had previously served, he wrote "12th Field Battery-India  1904."  That took place in London, Ontario.  His service in the Boer War could have been from England. 

He was born in England and emigrated to Canada.  He married my Grandmother, who also emigrated to Canada in December 1912.  Their marriage took place on Feb 21, 1914.   He was declared fit for the Expeditionary Force, September 13, 1915. 

I'm hoping you know something about the battery/regiment?  When I search for it, there is tons of stuff that pops up.  But I don't have enough knowledge to even know if a Field Battery is an artillery or engineering group..  I do know my Grandfather ran wires and was called a sapper.  What kind of unit would include sappers? 

Or were all soldiers in WWI called sappers and could be attached to any regiment regardless of specialty.  In fact, were there many specialists for WWI?  Didn't most of the fighting of WWI take place by inches, in their trenches?

Someone needs to find his records.  I just don't know how to go about it?  Any help you could give me would be most appreciated. 

He came home from WWI, unlike my father who didn't make it back from WWII.  I once wrote a poem about the soldiers who are buried in the Commonwealth graves, it's very sad:

"The Unmourned:

Row upon row of crosses
On foreign soils
Husbands fathers, brothers, cousins and friends
Lie in graves
No flowers are laid and few have visitors
The grass is cut that won't have sorrowing mourners kneel on it
No tears fall on the ground above the soldiers who lie there
The lettering on their cruciforms
Marks privates, corporals, sergeants, lieutenants, captains, and colonels
Written by workers whose mother tongue wasn't         
English or French
Wives didn't get to say goodbye or lay a flower or wreath
Small children will never know the faces of their Fathers
The bodies and the minds that have been silenced don't hear the pain of their mourning families
That extends across the miles of oceans."

------

Medals are too small and cold to hug--he has been greatly missed. 

Thanks in advance for your assistance."

Canuck

"The Election Result and the Insurgency in Iraq"

Larry Johnson reminded me today that I published this way back when..

Pat Lang

"Here's what you said a year and a half ago

Larry

February 13, 2005
The Election Result and the Insurgency in Iraq
by
Larry Johnson

"Colonel Patrick Lang (US Army Retired) served as the US Defense Attache in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. He established and was the first professor in the Arabic Language program at West Point in the 1970s. He is one of the few genuine authorities who understands the cultural and the military obstacles we face in Iraq. Unlike Don Rumsfeld, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, Colonel Lang spent two tours in Vietnam with combat units. I prefer getting analysis on combat and local politics from someone who speaks the language and knows the lay of the land than from those who fight only from the warmth and safety of bunkers in Washington. The following is Pat's take on the Iraqi electoral results."

"Well, folks, all the happy talk about who got what in the election and whether it is fair or not and whether the Sunni Arabs will be invited to "participate" in the new constitutional process is just so much hot air.

The people who voted were the people who stood to gain from the election in the context of a "one man, one vote" context.

These are not the people who have been fighting us and/or supporting the fighters among the insurgents.

Why do we think that the insurgents and their supporters will be impressed by this political interaction among their opponents?

The flaw in all the talk and "thought" about the "Iraqi People" and what percentage of them voted is that there is no "Iraqi People." There are only "Iraqi PeopleS." The Kurds, Sunni Arabs, Shia Arabs, Turcomans, Chaldean Christians, Assyrian Christians, etc. are "ethno-religious NATIONS." Iraq is a state, not a nation-state. The state of Iraq strove for 80 odd years to make the peoples of Iraq into one people. That process was ongoing when we interrupted it.

As a result the Sunni Arab ethno-religious nation is at least in part in rebellion at the sacrifice of its interests to those of the other "nations"
of Iraq.

The election has only sharpened their unhappiness and anxiety.

Iraqi nationalists as well as other people in the Middle East are quick to express outrage at the thought that they are still profoundly affected by the kind of divisions I mentioned above. We have to be careful not to accept easily their own "life illusion."

I invite readers to remember this argument in the coming months."

Pat Lang"

Bush Agonistes - 2

After having watched Tony Snowjob at work today, I have returned to an earlier conviction about the "invincible ignorance" of the Bush camp and its "minders."

They are impervious to rational persuasion, and will take any unfavorable evidence and spin it into a web of deception and half truths that serves their purposes.  This does not mean that I think they are lying.  No.  It is worse than that.  They believe their own baloney.  Their baloney is based on esoteric understandings of history and the "progress " of history.

Pity the poor intelligence analysts.  They have nothing at their disposal but their experience and arguments based on probabilities and always incomplete "evidence."

Whatever they say or write will be interpreted by the "Fourth Awakening"  as evidence of its own truth.

Pat Lang

Bush Agonistes

"On Tuesday evening the White House issued what it called a fact sheet lining up the intelligence estimate’s findings with President Bush’s own words in recent months, comparing, for example, the report’s account of the the spread of new terror cells independent of Al-Qaeda to Mr. Bush’s references to “homegrown terrorists’’ from Madrid to Britain.

But there is a difference in tone between Mr. Bush’s public statements and the classified assessment that is unmistakable.

The report says that over the next five years “the confluence of shared purpose and dispersed actors will make it harder to find and undermine jihadist groups.’’

It also suggests that while democratization and “exposing the religious and political straitjacket that is implied by the jihadists’ propaganda’’ might dim the appeal of the terrorist groups, those factors are now outweighed by the dangerous brew of fear of Western domination, the battle for Iraq's future and the slow pace of real economic or political progress.

Yet the intelligence report bears none of Mr. Bush’s long-range optimism. Rather it dwells on Mr. Rumsfeld’s darker question, which he put cheekily as, “Is our current situation such that ‘the harder we work, the behinder we get?’ ”

Tuesday’s declassified report asked a more subtle version of that question. It notes that while democratization might “begin to slow the spread’’ of extremism, the “destabilizing transitions’’ caused by political change “will create new opportunities for jihadists to exploit.’’"  NY Times

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I find this NIE to be an "average" piece of work, done by professionals and hopefully indicative of the kind of documents that the NIC will produce under DNI leadership (Negroponte).

Having gone this far, the government ought to release the rest of the document.  NIEs are not  written in such a way as to make "sources and methods" vulnerable to discernment by reading the text.

This is a potentially "deadly" document in the propaganda wars between the two parties.  It says that the war in Iraq, already known to all but the true believers to have been free of WMD not only is a recruiting tool for more and more jihadis, but the war also is not doing anything to contribute to the Bush Administration goal of revolutionary change in Middle Eastern minds.

People are asking if Bush read the NIE?  Of course he read it.  He just can't figure out what to do about it.

Pat Lang

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/politics/nie20060926.pdf

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/washington/27assess.html?hp&ex=1159416000&en=4390e3dcfece8e76&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Schoomaker to Rumsfeld - Where's the Beef?

"The Army's top officer withheld a required 2008 budget plan from Pentagon leaders last month after protesting to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that the service could not maintain its current level of activity in Iraq plus its other global commitments without billions in additional funding.

The decision by Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, is believed to be unprecedented and signals a widespread belief within the Army that in the absence of significant troop withdrawals from Iraq, funding assumptions must be completely reworked, say current and former Pentagon officials."  Spiegal

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"An army travels on its stomach.."  Did Bonaparte say that?  Whether he did or not, it is a profound truth.  The phrase is just filled with "truthiness."  Operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere are eating up huge amounts of money.  The fiscal year is ending and other departments of the federal government have been told that if they do not "obligate" all their funds they will be taken away and given to Defense to try to feed the maw of war.  The war in Iraq is "eating up"vast amounts of expensive equipment.  Procurement is slowing down in order to divert funds to operational costs.

A few weeks ago I told a meeting at a think tank here in Washington that the general assumption that the US has enough strength to do whatever it wants is incorrect, and that we are not as strong as we may think we are.  This notion was politely ignored.

I had doubts about Peter Schoomaker.  I wondered what he must be if Rumsfeld called him back from retirement to be Chief of Staff.  Lately I have been hearing that he is different from what I had thought, that he demands at meetings that officers stop trying to BS him with Power Point slides full of received wisdom.  He seems to actually want them to THINK.

Now, he has told Rumsfeld that the Army will not participate in a budgetary farce.  My.  My.

Pat Lang

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-military25sep25,0,5555967.story?coll=la-home-headlines

"Salvation*" and "Freedom?"

It is ironic to find this story in that newspaper's site

Nevertheless, it is striking, at least for me, that Benedict XVI who is head of an institution not famous in history for its tolerance of scientific dissent (or any dissent) is calling for religion to be discussed in terms of both faith and reason while supposedly secularist Egypt which is a signatory of international agreements protecting free speech and a free press is banning European newspapers for sacrilege and blasphemy.

The "Panzer Cardinal" has really come into his own.

The Bush Administration has flirted with the idea that there are "good" Islamists to be found in places like Egypt, and that they would be "change agents" for the neocon dream of a secularized Middle East.  It is probably the fear of ALL the Islamists that has caused the Egyptian Information Minister to act this way.

"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."  Thomas Jefferson

My. My.

Benedict XVI and Mr. Jefferson seem to be on the same side in this argument.

Pat Lang

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-09/25/content_5130248.htm

What is an "NIE?"

In 2002 the administration was eager to use the NIE on Iraq published in October as "proof" of its beliefs with regard to the Saddamist government.  Now, there is another NIE, parts of which have been leaked to the press from within one of the branches of the government.  This NIE, having to do with Terrorism contains within it the judgment that the occupation of Iraq has been an impediment to prosecution of the struggle against the international Jihadi movement.  Not surprisingly, the administration does not like this judgment.  Also unsurprisingly, the corporatist media have faithfully begun to denigrate National Intelligence Estimates (NIE) generally, reminding us all that the October, 2002 NIE on Iraq was an abomination of exaggeration, outright falsehood, and policy driven propaganda.  Yesterday I heard two cable news ladies question whether or not anything in an NIE could be trusted.  The paper is variously described in the media as "an intelligence report."  It is not.

An NIE is the collective judgment of the analytic branches of all the 16 agencies of the national intelligence community as to what constitutes reality with regard to a particular subject at a particular time.  It is written by a body called the National Intelligence Council (NIC) which used to reside at Langley firmly under the control of the Director of the CIA in his second statutory capacity as titular head of the community of 16 agencies.  When that was the case, the CIA almost always filled the posts of members of the NIC with their own people, usually wrote the drafts for NIEs within CIA control and presided over the often prolonged and sometimes bitter editing and modification struggles that took place when the other 15 agencies were asked to accept the draft.  This was an interactive and iterative process and what always emerged were "negotiated" documents whether or not the heads of the agencies wanted to hear that term used or not.  I still have the scars.  In many cases CIA was forced to accept major revisions of the drafts.  In others, footnotes were demanded and received by one or more agencies.  At times, parallel text was included in columns side by side as though scripture was being variously translated.  Once a text had been "agreed" on, the document went to the National Intelligence Board (NIB) which was basically the heads of the 16 agencies sitting together.  After it was briefed they voted.  If the text was approved, that NIE became the "truth" of the United States government on that subject at that time, and remained so until superseded by a new NIE on that subject.  At policy meetings of non-intelligence people, where history is created, the policy people would refer to this judgment of the intelligence people and such reference often silenced opposition.  If you don't like that system, what other system would you prefer?  What we are talking about is the "reality" on which the government functions. 

Since the reforms of recent years, the CIA no longer runs this "show."  It is among the many functions that CIA has lost to other parts of the government.  The NIC now works for John Negroponte as the Director of National Intelligence (DNI).  It appears that Negroponte is trying to let the NIC function as it should, in splendid isolation from the policy confirmation needs of whatever administration might currently be in power.  It must be difficult.  The neocons believe that they "know better" than the intelligence people, and that estimates should be written on the basis of the needs of an administration for propaganda support of policy.  Negroponte evidently resisted that demand in this NIE.  He has tried to publicly distance himself somewhat from the judgments of this NIE, but he let it be published.  Congratulations Mr. Negroponte. Congratulations.

Pat Lang

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Intelligence_Estimate

More on the Hizbullah Rally

I received this report from my friend "Lubnani" in Beirut.  He is not Shia.  Attached find the BBC's verbatim report of Nasrallah's remarks at the big rally last week.

Pat Lang

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Mon Colonel:

I was struck by a photos of a female Hezbollah supporter in yellow T shirt and tight jeans .. with hair blowing in the air ... sitting on the shoulder of an equally modern male Hezb supporter ...

Long gone are the days of exclusive tchador covered women and ferocious bearded men ...

The NEW Hezbollah has Christian, Sunni, alcohol drinking, hip-hop listening, atheist, anarchists, bourgeois patriots.

HN understands the limits of his appeal and the open-sky potential of his movement. Forget the Islamic-state utopia and embrace Israel's enmity and the idea of a strong and honorable state."  Lubnani

Download nasrallahs_victory_rally_speech.txt

"They think they are still in charge"

"For many months, the administration of US George W Bush has been complaining that Iranian meddling in Iraq is a threat to the country's stability and to US troops. The irony of this publicity campaign over Tehran's alleged bid to undermine the occupation is that Iran may well be the main factor holding up a showdown between militant Shi'ites and US forces."  Gareth Porter

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HI22Ak01.html

"How to "Flip" an Enemy"

By popular demand:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0707/p09s02-coop.html

Pat Lang

"Lebanon Throng Hails Hezbollah Chief, Who Calls Militia Stronger"

"Ahmed Hussein, 78, made the trip to Beirut from his southern village of Kafr Kila. He said his house and most of his neighbors’ homes were destroyed, but that Hezbollah gave them tents and water tanks to help them get by. “All of us whose houses were destroyed we came here for Nasrallah, to tell him what we lost is nothing,” Mr. Hussein said."  Anthony Shadid

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800,000 people in that square.  A fair number of non-Shia among them.  Defiance, defiance, defiance...   A little known "tidbit."  When Nasrallah started handing out Iranian reconstruction money, Hizbullah prioritized payments in such a way that Christians and Sunnis had a higher priority that the Shia.  This was clever politically, very clever.

I was at a government owned think tank a few days ago and sat on a panel where I had the task of talking about the recent war in the Lebanon.  My views are known to you.  The interesting thing that happened at this meeting was that one of the people there was a leading Washington scholar on the subject of the modern Middle East.  He was "hell bent" to convince the meeting that Hizbullah had lost the war, had lost the war politically, militarily morally, had lost in every way and that the evident Israeli strategy aimed at reducing the Lebanese to a quivering mass eager to accommodate Israel had succeeded.

There has been a lot of that lately in the national media and among the chattering classes in Washington and New York.  The assertion is made over and over against that black is white, hot is cold, etc.  We are now being subjected to a massive propaganda (information operation) campaign designed to convince us all that Hizbullah was destroyed and discredited by the recent fighting, that Hizbullah lost "X' % of its weapons, equipment, men, political support, etc.  At root these claims of attrition against Hizbullah seem to have their origin in press releases from the Israeli Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv.  They started there, were picked up by the dolts in cable news, repeated over and over and are now well on their way to becoming "received wisdom."  In fact nobody knows what Hizbullah lost.

The demonstration in Beirut yesterday was undoubtedly intended as a corrective to the political warfare being waged against it.

By whom?  Make your own judgment.  Bearden was right.

Pat Lang

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/23/world/middleeast/23lebanon.html?ref=middleeast&pagewanted=all

"Faith, Reason and the University" Benedict XVI

"The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazm went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practise idolatry."  Benedict XVI

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gripping stuff isn't it?  Not for most of us. For a theologian it must be like catnip.  I reproduce below the entirety of Benedict's address to the University of Regensburg (where he was once vice-chancellor).  I do that so that those who are fascinated by his quotation from the dialog of Manuel Paleologus and the Persian scholar may see the quotation in its proper context rather than in the sensationalized and irresponsible isolation that the mass media placed it in.

In fact, Benedict quoted Manuel not to make points about Islam, but, rather to make points about Manuel and the intellectual tradition of Hellenistic thought in which Manuel resided.  This pope is engaged in a defense of the rigor of theological discourse within the Christian world.  He is certainly one of the leaders of Christendom.  He believes that we Christians have become slovenly and confused thinkers and he seeks to restore the clarity of our ideas.  I would say that this should not be surprising considering that he is a German university professor by "trade."  In other words, this talk was not about Islam at all, and the Byzantine/Persian dialog quotation was incidental to the argument.  If that was so, then why have we seen such a fierce and heated response from so many (not all) Muslims?

I would offer the opinion that this happened because the great mass of Muslims are not Persian scholars like the emperor's interlocutor.  The Persian was probably someone who had a wide ranging knowledge of the intellectual world from which the emperor came, and who, although he might reject the bases of the emperor's argument, nevertheless was susceptible to rational discourse within the emperor's framework.

The high culture of Islam has been exposed throughout its history to the "blandishments" of Hellenistic philosophy and rationality.  Within two hundred years of the emergence of Islam (Sadr al-Islam) there was a fateful competition in learned circles over this very issue, the issue of whether or not Islam would be saturated with Hellenistic thought as Christianity was, and is.  This contest was won by the pietists, traditionalists and scripturalists who in my opinion have bound Islam (especially Sunni Islam) in golden chains ever since.  The losers in this struggle, and here I am thinking of the "Mu'tazileen," were variously disposed of and others of similar inclination toward "reform" were later exiled or marginalized.  That process continues to this day in one form or another although there is now some measure of debate in learned circles as to what it means to be Muslim in the 21st Century.

As a result of domination of the religion by the pietists, the view of Islam and the world that is held by a great many Muslims does not contain much of the traditions of freedom of opinion and discourse which have generally dominated much of our lives and history in the West.  (Yes.  I know about the Nazis and the Inquisition)  In the idea of Islam held by the masses, no one in Christendom (or anywhere else) has the right to say anything that raises the possibility that Islamic practise or past belief might have been in error theologically.  Such expressions are simply not acceptable to those who think of Christianity as the "house of war."  As a result, Benedict's illustrative use of this ancient quotation in his argument in favor of Hellenistic thought became for them a declaration of hostility and disrespect by someone whom they think of as the "leader" of the "kuffar." (the unbelievers, the polytheists)

Should the pope have apologized?  No.  He should not have done so.  There was no reason for Muslims to be offended by this academic discourse.   The lecture was not really about them at all.  By apologizing, Benedict encouraged those in the Islamic world who wish to believe that the West is in decline and that in time Islam will become a truly universal phenomenon through the disintegration of Western societies.  The danger in this tendency of thought lies in the simple reality that, in fact, the West and particularly America are not in decline, in fact are stronger than ever and that a general belief in the necessity to act in response to the call to Jihad  can lead to actions that "trigger" the world war that the neocons like to talk about.

The pope should not encourage such delusions.

Pat Lang

Milt Bearden on Interrogation

Milt Bearden wrote this three years ago for the New York Times. He has offered it for our consideration.

Pat Lang

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"In February 1993, a Pakistani named Ramsi Yousef mounted the first attack on the World Trade Center. His goal was to bring down both towers, along with their occupants. His plan failed. Two years later, with the help of Pakistani intelligence, Mr. Yousef was captured in Pakistan, and brought before American justice. He was given a speedy trial and he and his cohorts were convicted and sentenced to multiple life sentences. Once in the system , however, Yousef never gave his interrogators anything of value, save the haunting premonition shared with FBI officers escorting him in a helicopter ride over the New York skyline still dominated by the World Trade Center that next time they wouldn’t fail .

"Al Qaeda and the Jihadis"

I have an oped piece in this week's "America" magazine.

------------------------------------------------------

"The Al Qaeda that most Americans imagine does not exist. It is largely a figment of our imaginations and fears, a phantom that never existed in the way that many of us imagine. Al Qaeda is not an "organization" in the Western sense of the word. It is a movement, a historical phenomenon and a set of ideas offered to Muslims across the world. This does not mean that there are not violent and dangerous jihadi terrorists in the world. There are, but they are not members of a sprawling and tightly organized secret "army" of Islamists who operate in obedience to orders from Osama bin Laden. There is no cave in the Pakistan/Afghanistan border country that has a sign in Arabic over the door that reads "Jihadi World Headquarters, Osama bin Laden, Commanding." There is no central command for the jihadis....."

To see the rest you will have to go to "America" magazine.

Pat Lang

http://www.americamagazine.org/articles/langAlQaedaJihadis.cfm

"What Is Interrogation?"

   With the earsplitting din of the current debate about whether to use torture in interrogating terrorist prisoners, it may be helpful, even educational, to define what an interrogation is, and how it is properly carried out, as opposed to the disagreeable prospect of torturing information out of prisoniers, a practice which would puke up America's record of promoting human rights..

    According to retired a former very senior CIA official, interrogation is, in the first place, a function of counterintelligence which he defined as: “A huge research effort that involves consulting of massive and detailed  files.” It is the data in those files that plays the key role, the official said. How the data is applied and used, especially the timing of its use, depends on the perceptiveness, the sensibility, the sheer artistry of the interrogator, he said.

   

"Crank" - A Review

Download Crank.doc

Alan Farrell

OSP redux?

One of you has written to suggest a thread about the "new" OSD Iran Desk.  I suggest you start by listening to Mary Louise Kelly's piece on NPR.

Pat Lang

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6108983

An Interesting Question

One of you sent me this interesting question which I offer for general discussion.

Pat Lang

----------------------------------------------------------------------

"Dear Colonel.

I've been enjoying your blog. I'm always happy when I find out where the grown-ups are in serious conversation. And my father, the Commander, taught me to take some talk very seriously.

I just came across a news story that says Hezbollah was able to read message traffic Isreal sent using the frequency hopping U.S.-designed communication system called the Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wocode184896831sep18,0,3091818.story?coll=ny-worldnews-print

I don't know a lot about Signal Intel, just what I picked up third hand while my dad was flying with VQ-2 out of Rota Spain in the 60's.

However, if Hezbollah really has cracked these systems, it raises several questions.

Is it reasonable to assume that some black project in Syria or Iran was able to do this?

Is it more likely that some Syran or Iranian graduate of MIT or CalTec was able to put together electronic gear from Tiawan, China, Russia or the EU and get this capability? I don't know if this isn't more frightening than the above or the next option.

Or is it more likely that someone among the major players sold the top of the line to Iran so it could be tested against the best of the last remaining super power. (I note that France or Russia was supposed to have jammers to protect sites from our GPS guided bombs. They sold them to Iraq, but they didn't work as advertised.)

I wonder if this is something you'd like to send up for your readers to comment on."  MM

"Hollywoodland" a Review

Download Hollywoodland.doc

Alan Farrell

"Elicitation" and the Law of War

"Powell wrote that he opposed Bush's proposal to redefine the Geneva Conventions standards that require humane treatment or prisoners. Bush insists this is essential for the CIA to elicit valuable information from "high-value" detainees.

White House spokesman Tony Snow called the former secretary of state "confused" and Bush rejected Powell's objections as "flawed logic."

Powell declined to address Bush's comment, The Washington Post said.

"To say that we want to modify, clarify or redefine Common Article 3, which has not been modified for the 57 years of its history, I think adds to the doubt" about U.S. morality, Powell said. "Plus I believe that the legitimate concerns that the administration has can be dealt with in other ways.""  Washpost

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"..essential for the CIA to elicit valuable information from "high-value" detainees."

Elicitation?

"Elicitation."  I know all about that.  This is a standard  technique in the HUMINT business for causing someone to tell you what you want to know without asking him directly.   Stating something incorrectly to elicit a correction, praising someone for a position taken to elicit a comment, feigning ignorance to elicit an explanation, these are all techniques of "elicitation."  This is typical cocktail party business.  It often works.

I doubt if what President Bush wants authorized in American law is elicitation.

The essence of the dispute over the president's desired law to make the use of "alternative techniques" legal is the nature of the "alternative techniques" themselves.

What exactly are we talking about? 

It is clear that President Bush wants to make actions legal that were illegal to conduct in the US in the past.  That is why these "techniques" were used outside the US in the past.  Will they now be used in our homeland against suspects?  And who will the "suspects" be.  Who will they be?

The administration does not want to tell us what the "alternative techniques" are.  They say that this is because the terrorists will train against the "techniques."

Loud noises?  Deep cold? Talkin' about yo mama? The rack? What?

Folks, you can't "train" against "waterboarding."  What are we really talking about? 

Pat Lang

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/19/AR2006091900038.html

Webb and Allen on MTP

"Mr. Webb responded: “I know what it’s like to be on the ground. I know what it’s like to fight a war like this, and either — there are limits to what the military can do. Eventually, this is going to have to move into a diplomatic environment, and that’s where this administration seems to have blinders. They are not talking to Syria, they are not talking to Iran, and there are ways that we can do this, move this forward.”

Mr. Webb also took several digs at what he called theorists in the administration and among its allies who know combat only in the abstract. Mr. Allen, like the majority of the current Congress, did not serve in the military.

In recent days, the Allen campaign, acknowledging a newly competitive race, has gone on the attack. A Mason-Dixon poll conducted this month found Mr. Allen’s lead, once in the double-digits, had shrunk, with 46 percent for Mr. Allen, 42 percent for Mr. Webb, and a margin of error of 4 percentage points." Washpost

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"Allen is probably going to win.  Money.  Money.  Money.  This is all about money." That is what the politicians believe and they may be correct.  Allen has money coming out his ears.  The national party is intent upon keeping that seat and the right wing of the party wants Allen, who, it is whispered, will fill GWB's chair without making any problems at all.

Webb?  Dour. Unsmiling. Serious. Haunted. Short.  Not a showman.  Not strikingly handsome.  Not enough money.

Is Virginia still inhabited by eccentric, independent and tough minded people?  Or is the Old Dominion now just another administrative province of the marketing state.  Churchill called this the "Great Republic."  Perhaps it is better that he should not see what we have become.

This is the Navy Cross.  It is the country's second highest medal for courage.  Webb has one, earned as a company officer.

This is the Silver Star, the country's third highest medal for courage.  Webb has one of these as well.

By the way, I think Webb ought to "lay off" about the cowboy boots.  A lot of Southerners wear cowboy boots and often in the very areas where he needs votes.

Pat Lang

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/18/us/politics/18webb.html?hp&ex=1158638400&en=6f075f84b72cf84e&ei=5094&partner=homepage

"Bear Necessities"

P. Brownlee offered this for the game. 

Pat Lang

It came from...

..another world, maybe?  Same game.

I handed this one off to Bodo earlier today, and he has not yet come up with the title, artist or location.

Pat Lang

The Advisor - 16 September, 2006

Download the_advisor_16_september_2006.pdf

Mystery Woman

One of my favorite paintings.

Who is she?

Where is she?

When was she painted?

Pat Lang

"We walk with them as brothers,"

(The Regimental Insignia of the 1st Special Forces Regiment)

"Training foreign military forces is a core Special Forces mission -- and the top priority of the U.S. command in Iraq. The Iraqi scout platoon, recruited from the Albu Nimr tribe and coached by the team in Hit, displayed an agility and confidence unusual among Iraqi soldiers. And the Americans fostered loyalty in the platoon.

"We've been to their homes, we've treated their children. They are our partners," said the team captain, an energetic officer from Los Angeles. 

"We walk with them as brothers," said Mokles Ali Mukhlif, the Iraqi platoon leader." Tyson

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(The Coat of Arms of the 36th Infantry Regiment)

Some things really do not change.  The antipathy felt by the officers of the conventional army for Special Forces soldiers (Green Berets) continues unabated.  This problem is now fifty years old and shows no sign of disappearing.

This article in the Washington Post is illustrative. 

I enclose a piece I wrote some time ago on "how to work with tribesmen." I had Anbar Province specifically in mind.

Pat Lang

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/14/AR2006091401900.html

Download how_to_work_with_tribesmen.pdf

"Outrageous and dishonest"

IAEA protests "erroneous" U.S. report on Iran

By Mark HeinrichThu Sep 14, 5:51 AM ET

Reuters

U.N. inspectors have protested to the U.S. government and a Congressional committee about a report on Iran's nuclear work, calling parts of it "outrageous and dishonest," according to a letter obtained by Reuters.

The letter recalled clashes between the IAEA and the Bush administration before the 2003 Iraq war over findings cited by Washington about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that proved false, and underlined continued tensions over Iran's dossier.

Sent to the head of the House of Representatives' Select Committee on Intelligence by a senior aide to International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei, the letter said an August 23 committee report contained serious distortions of IAEA findings on Iran's activity.

The letter said the errors suggested Iran's nuclear fuel program was much more advanced than a series of IAEA reports and Washington's own intelligence assessments have determined.

It said the report falsely described Iran to have enriched uranium at its pilot centrifuge plant to weapons-grade level in April, whereas IAEA inspectors had made clear Iran had enriched only to a low level usable for nuclear power reactor fuel.

"Furthermore, the IAEA Secretariat takes strong exception to the incorrect and misleading assertion" that the IAEA opted to remove a senior safeguards inspector for supposedly concluding the purpose of Iran's program was to build weapons, it said.

The letter said the congressional report contained "an outrageous and dishonest suggestion" that the inspector was dumped for having not adhered to an alleged IAEA policy barring its "officials from telling the whole truth" about Iran.

Diplomats say the inspector remains IAEA Iran section head.

The IAEA has been inspecting Iran's nuclear program since 2003. Although it has found no hard evidence that Iran is working on atomic weapons, it has uncovered many previously concealed activities linked to uranium enrichment, a process of purifying fuel for nuclear power plants or weapons.

IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said: "We felt obliged to put the record straight with regard to the facts on what we have reported on Iran. It's a matter of the integrity of the IAEA."

Diplomats say Washington, spearheading efforts to isolate Iran with sanctions over its nuclear work, has long perceived ElBaradei to be "soft" on Tehran.

"This (committee report) is deja vu of the pre-Iraq war period where the facts are being maligned and attempts are being made to ruin the integrity of IAEA inspectors," said a Western diplomat familiar with the agency and IAEA-U.S. relations."  Reuters

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Once again, we seem to be in the business of "manufacturing" our own reality.  Before the Iraq intervention the US government asserted that SH's government was in violation of many UN Resolutions that had required Iraq to disarm.  Iraq HAD disarmed and all the world knows that now, but the US government insisted that this was not true.  The US government also insisted that SH's government was impeding the work of the UN inspectors under Blix.  The inspection team insisted then and now that this was not true and that delays were temporary and overcome between the two sides.

Now we are "manufacturing trut" about Iran.

What is the purpose of this deception?

Pat Lang

Anbar - The Wild West

By Ann Scott Tyson

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 12, 2006; Page A19 

"The Pentagon is taking "very seriously" a classified intelligence report concluding that the U.S. military has fought to a stalemate in Iraq's western Anbar province as political conditions also worsen in the "epicenter" of the country's Sunni insurgency, a senior defense official said yesterday.

In congressional testimony on security in Iraq, Pentagon officials also said the rise of "ethno-sectarian violence" has laid the conditions for civil war, aborting plans by U.S. commanders to begin withdrawing U.S. troops. Gaps in the capabilities of Iraqi security forces leave open the prospect that U.S. forces may have to stay in the country for as many as five or more years, they said. " Washpost

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"has laid the conditions for civil war"  Who do these people think they are kidding?  How many angels will have to dance on pinheads for these people to force themselves to use the "CW" words?  Clearly the administration believes that the use of those two words will trigger a dispute, debate and massive revulsion on the part of the American public at the thought that their armed forces are mixed up in someone else's Civil War.  This is inherently dishonest and the longer the administration keeps doing this, the less confidence and trust the people will place in them.

"stalemate in Iraq's western Anbar province"  Stalemate?  To quote "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell. "We got the hell beaten out of us.."  He was talking about Burma in WW2.  So far as I know, no American units have been defeated in Anbar, although this is becoming a possibility, but the USA has taken a real "beating" in our failure to pacify the huge western province of Iraq.

In fact, the virulence of the Islamist presence in Anbar threatens to make the province into a "redoubt area" in which AQ in Iraq is the strongest player in spite of the small numbers of foreign fighters on the ground there.

The repeated attempts by coalition and Iraqi forces to pacify Baghdad, itself, has exacerbated the scarcity of military resources available for Anbar.

There have never been enough troops in Iraq.  This continues to be true.  Bremer's decree abolishing an army that could have been reformed into something useful to the coalition is largely responsible for this situation.  But, then, as he is reputed to have said of that decree, "I have my instructions..."

Pat Lang

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/11/AR2006091101005.html

Miller Center Talk

I was at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia on September 11th, 2006. I have put this post back at the head of the cue because of its relevance to Barak's recent discussion of IDF readiness.  pl

http://www.millercenter.virginia.edu/index.php/scripps/digitalarchive/forumDetail/3678

Pat Lang

The Dick and Condi Shows

It was "great."

First we had Condi (iconic figure symbolic of American social evolution and personal fixation [hers] on the redemptive power of legal and constitutional forms).  She had a tough time with the relatively "soft ball" questions rolled at her by Chris. Wallace on FNS.  He asked her about the DIA analytic paper of February, 2002 on the subject of the likelihood that SH might have shared WMD thingies with Jihadis.  The SSCI report released on Friday cited this report.  The paper said it was unlikely.  Her response was that DIA is a subordinate element in the Intelligence Community and that the WH only listened to the DCI (Tenet) and that he had had an opposite opinion and so "la-di-da!!" 

Well, having been called to WH myself on a number of occasions to talk about DIA papers to presidents, vice-presidents, NSC staffers and everyone else but the marines on door guard, I beg to differ about the willingness of other White Houses to talk to DIA.

Tenet (code name: SlamDunk) may have told them sommat other but he was wrong.  They are both fools.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then there was Darth Cheney over at MTP.  "Well, Tim, what part of this don't you understand?"  or "You are not in season, Tim."

This man flunked out of Yale (no?) and is reputed to be "impatient" with the niceties of US constitutional government.  His belligerence, closed mindedness and  dismissal of the opinion of the American people (as expressed in polls) were impressive.  After a while I began to expect (kidding) the Monty Python moment in which a king says "Guards, kill this man!"  His toughness (rhetorical) and dogged Churchillian ferocity made me want to salute until I remembered that this man asked for and received five deferments from the draft during Vietnam.  He reminds me of the creeps who used to walk through hospital wards in VN and pin the Purple Heart on pillow cases,  "With the thanks of a grateful nation..."  Fool.

Pat Lang

Give me the transcript URLs and I will add them.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,213211,00.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14720480/

Liars or Fools? - Annex

Consider this to be an open thread on which to make nominations for additions to the two that I contributed in "Liars or Fools?"  Additional categories are welcomed, i.e., crooks, military and intelligence incompetents, "useful idiots," etc.  Caution: no scurrilous personal attacks will be tolerated.   There must be narrative and justification for nominations.

Don't bother to nominate me.  I already know who I am.

Pat Lang

The Advisor - 9 September, 2006

Download the_advisor_9_september_2006.pdf

Liars or Fools?

"A declassified report released yesterday by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence revealed that U.S. intelligence analysts were strongly disputing the alleged links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda while senior Bush administration officials were publicly asserting those links to justify invading Iraq.

Far from aligning himself with al-Qaeda and Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Hussein repeatedly rebuffed al-Qaeda's overtures and tried to capture Zarqawi, the report said. Tariq Aziz, the detained former deputy prime minister, has told the FBI that Hussein "only expressed negative sentiments about [Osama] bin Laden.""  Washpost

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The report released yesterday by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) makes a lot of things clear, but the thing it makes the most clear is that a number of people in Washington and in New York who facilitated the acceptance of "sources" proffered by the Iraqi National Congress (INC - Chalabi) were either liars or fools.

I would nominate the former DCI Woolsey for membership in one or the other of these groups.  Woolsey has been a member, perhaps founding member would be the right term, of the neocon group since he and Richard Perle were senate staffers together many years ago.  How this neocon came to be nominated for the post of head of the intelligence community (DCI) by Clinton is an interesting illustration of the way the neocons pursued power by inserting themselves into all sides of party competition.  According to the report, Woolsey repeatedly "sponsored" sources provided by Iraqi exiles and facilitated their more or less forced acceptance by the agencies, especially DIA.  He did this by calling the Directors of the agencies and vouching for these people.  Such a procedure ensured that the HUMINT operators and analysts who had to deal with these phonies were at a profound disadvantage since they had to justify to their top bosses their opinion that Woolsey was "pushing" bogus information.  Before the war, I was on a news panel TV show with Woolsey during which he made a point of saying that whatever I said "did not matter."  He was right.  What he said is what mattered.

Then there is Stephen Hayes at the Weekly Standard.  Hayes has written repeatedly on the subject of the Saddam/Al-Qa'ida (AQ) connection.  First he wrote an article in that magazine, then wrote a book about it.  In both he asserts that a long string of unconfirmed reports found in the files of the IC about possible connections must prove an organizational and operational relationship because there are so many of them.  This reasoning is on the basis of the old saw, "where there is smoke, there must be fire."  Any fool knows that a multiplicity of bad information proves nothing if none of the elements is correct.  The IC receives masses of reports every day.  They are all appraised for the reliability of their sources and the veracity of the information.  All of Hayes' tidbits, gleaned from IC holdings, had been judged BAD by IC analysts but he cited them anyway as proof.  Why did he do this?  Like all the neocons, Hayes is a man of superior intellect and education who "knows" the truth about the world, tyrants, the destiny of mankind, etc.  He knows what the truth is so therefore he knew "proof" when he saw it.  I nominate him for "fool."

The media should "examine" their collective conscience, if they have such. (Sorry for the RC terminology there) CNN in particular "sold" these two men to the world.  Fox, I will not speak of.  It would be pointless.

The Republican Party and the Bush Administration, even people in the VP's office, should consider "dumping" these men, and many others, before they are dragged down with them.

Pat Lang

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/08/AR2006090800777.html

Mass Drivers

I first became interested in these about twenty years ago after watching a "Nova" production about  them.  They feature prominently in the old Heinlein novel "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" as a cheap way to deliver the ore products of Lunar mining to target areas in the Pacific Ocean where they could be recovered.  If you are getting the idea that I am interested in space programs, you are right.

Pat Lang

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_driver

Senate Intel Committee Bloodies Bush's Nose

Senate Intel Committee Bloodies Bush's Nose
by Larry C Johnson

WOW! WOW! and Wow! Message to Karl Rove and Dick Cheney--read it and weep baby. Cheney's newly appointed biographer, Stephen Hayes, is blown out of the water. Bottomline, Saddam rebuffed cooperation with Bin Laden, tried to capture Zarqawi, and did NOT repeat NOT train foreign terrrorists at Salman Pak. The Senate Intelligence committee today released Postwar Findings about Iraq's WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism and How they Compare with Prewar Assessments and The Use by the Intelligence Community of Information Provided by the Iraqi National Congress as part of its long awaited and long promised Phase II report about the accuracy of the intelligence and it is ugly for the Bushies.

I will do more detailed analysis in the coming days. Here's the down and dirty on the questions about Iraq's links to terrorism:

1. Postwar findings indicate that Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qa'ida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Aq'ida to provide material or operationa support.
2. Postwar findings have identified only one meeting between representatives of al-Qa'ida and saddam Hussein's regime reported in prewar intelligence assessments. Postwar findings have identified two occasions, not reported prior to the war, in which Saddam Hussein rebuffed meeting requests from an al-Qa'ida operative.
3. . . .Postwar findings support the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) February 2002 assessment that Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi was likely intentionally misleading his debriefers when he said that Iraq provded two al-Qa'ida associates with chemical and biological weapons (CBW) training in 2000. . . .No postwar information has been found that indicates CBW training occurred and the detainee who provided the key prewar reporting about this training recanted his claims after the war.
4. Postwar findings support the April 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessment that there was no credible reporting on al-Qa'ida training at Salman Pak or anywhere else in Iraq.
5. . . . .Postwar information indicates that Saddam Hussein attempted, unsuccessfully to locate and capture al-Zarqawi and that the regime did not have a relationship with, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi.
6. Postwar information indicates that the Intelligence Community accurately assessed that al-Qa'ida affiliate group Ansar al-Islam operated in Kurdish-controlled northeastern Ira, an area that Baghdad had not controlled since 1991.
7. Postwar information supports prewar Intelligence Community assessments that there was no credible information that Iraq was complicit in or had foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks or any other al-Qa'ida strike. . .
8. No postwar information indicates that Iraq intended to use al-Qa'ida or any other terrorist group to strike the United States homeland before or during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

<A HREF="http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/09/senate_intel_co.html">Link to NO QUARTER</a>

Phase Two Report - Lamentations for the Republic

"As recently as an Aug. 21 news conference, Bush said people should "imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein" with the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction and "who had relations with Zarqawi."

Democrats contended that the administration continues to use faulty intelligence, including assertions of a link between Saddam's government and the recently killed al-Zarqawi, to justify the war in Iraq.

They also said, in remarks attached to Friday's Senate Intelligence Committee document, that former CIA Director George Tenet had modified his position on the terrorist link at the request of administration policymakers.

Republicans said the document, which compares prewar intelligence with post-invasion findings on Iraq's weapons and on terrorist groups, broke little new ground. And they said Democrats were distorting it for political purposes."  Yahoo

----------------------------------------------------------------

I have been over this ground so many times, beginning with "Drinking the Koolaid" that I am not going to detail it again.

You will find the report attached.  It will quickly be buried by the media management machines and all the careerists manipulated daily by those machines.

Read it and weep.

Pat Lang

Download inc_info_to_us_intelligence_comm.pdf

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060908/ap_on_go_co/iraq_report

"The Best Defense is..."

  Download thebestdefense.pdf

I wrote this article (with a friend) thirty years ago just after the Indochina War ended.  That was a period of depression and re-assessment in the US Army.  The strategy known as the "Active Defense" was in fashion as a method of fighting overwhelming Soviet strength in the event of a European war.  This envisioned what amounted to a controlled withdrawal under severe pressure and held out no hope of defeating the Soviets as well as the possibility of a "forced" release of nuclear weapons to prevent the loss of all Europe.

I had seen many NVA units destroy themselves attacking American positions and after thinking over the possibilities in Europe I thought that it might be possible to employ available NATO strength in such a way as to defeat the Soviet Army through attrition of mind and body. The way I thought this might be done was to construct a wide belt of field fortifications in West Germany that would serve as a "grid" of "hard points" on which a mobile defense could be based.  The concept is described in the article (downloadable above).  The piece was published in the "Military Review," the journal of the Command and General Staff College.

I thought of it recently in the context of the recent Hizbullah defense of southern Lebanon and found it on the website of the magazine.  The "internets" are a miracle.

"Medley Global Advisors" (MGA) in New York City is publishing an essay by me online today to their clients bringing this line of thought up to date.  Anyone who would like to read that should contact MGA at [email protected]

As further background on the Lebanon War I recommend the following article suggested by one of our colleagues and commenters.

Pat Lang

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2330624_1,00.html

The Disney Movie

"We need to have a post on the Disney movie for discussion purposes.

The Disney movie, in my opinion, is very, very big news.

It strongly implies, to my mind, that this particular administration intends to keep a very large contingent of troops in Iraq forever_____________. In fact, as a kind of tripwire, like our troops in South Korea, against an attack from just about any Arab nation.

Now, that's obviously a little fuzzy. But this movie is not just a mosquito buzzing at the edges of the national debate. It's at the center."  Arbogast

-----------------------------------------------

Arbogast. 

I have removed the words "to protect Israel" because I think the argument is unsupported that this is true.

On the other hand, I do think that a mistaken belief that revolutionary change in the ME would protect Israel figured prominently among the motives of the Bush Administration in invading Iraq.

Pat Lang

Space Elevators

I enjoyed the copnversation on "peak oil" so much that I am curious to see what this subject elicits.

Pat Lang

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

No negotiating with enemies!

""Syria knows that we limited ourselves in our operations in Lebanon, and it knows that in an operation against Syria, against Damascus, Israel won't limit itself," Israel Radio cited Olmert as saying.

A meeting participant told The Associated Press that Olmert told lawmakers that Israel sent a message to Syria during the war, ruling out negotiations. That position still holds now, he said. 

"This is not the time to talk to the Syrians," he quoted Olmert as saying, added that no new message has been sent to Damascus. 

"He said he would not negotiate with Syria at this time because Syria is the enemy," committee member Ran Cohen added. 

Olmert has articulated this position before, saying Damascus must first end its support for Lebanese and Palestinian extremists. 

After the war, Syrian President Bashar Assad signaled a harder line against Israel. He delivered a hardline speech praising Hezbollah and warned that future Arab generations might succeed with force where peace talks have failed so far — a reference to regaining control over the Golan Heights, the plateau Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast War.  AP

-----------------------------------------------------------------

It appears that Olmert, Ran Cohen, etc. share the Arab proclivity for viewing negotiations not as a Hegelian process of give and take leading to "synthesis" but rather as a process of discussing the surrender terms of the weaker party to a dispute.

"Israel won't limit itself."  Since they are unlikely to use nuclear weapons and are too smart to occupy Damascus, what's left?  It would appear that an even more ferocious bombardment of the Syrian population and infrastructure would be what's left I suppose.  This is Douhet gone mad.

"..must first end its support for Lebanese and Palestinian extremists."  Once again, one must ask if this is negotiation as it is understood in the West.

Pat Lang

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/09/04/africa/ME_GEN_Israel_Syria.php

Subkommander Dred speaks.

Not sure I agree with all this but it makes for an interesting discussion.  Lovely place Charlottesville.  I am going to the "Miller Center" at U. Va, next Monday to speak.

Pat Lang

------------------------------------------------------------------

"Charlottesville, Virginia

4 September 2006

Sir;

I appreciate the invitation to expand further upon my view regarding the transformation of oil from commodity to strategic asset. Indeed, in much the same way quantum physics proposes that light behaves both as a particle (photon) and a wave (light wave), a duality that exists at a level I unfortunately do not understand all that well. But, the science of physics, being what it is, is an unforgivable one. Alas, every geophysical report, scientific paper and industry review I have read of late would reveal a significant and real worry amongst a number of policy makers in other countries regarding access to oil for their own domestic needs.

Further, I would like to mention some of the excellent work on this very subject of oil depletion with regards to fueling the major exporting nations own economies (and protecting a strategic resource that will be needed for their own populations) done by West Texas on The Oil Drum WWW.Theoildrum.com for a much more comprehensive and comprehensible view of decreasing exports from major oil producing regions over the next several years.

"He is very angry.."

"..the extent to which he has become marginalised was demonstrated last week when fighting broke out in Diwaniya between Iraqi soldiers and al-Sadr's Mehdi army. With dozens dead, al-Sistani's appeals for calm were ignored. Instead, the provincial governor had to travel to Najaf to see al-Sadr, who ended the fighting with one telephone call.

Al-Sistani's aides say that he has chosen to stay silent rather than suffer the ignominy of being ignored. Ali al-Jaberi, a spokesman for the cleric in Khadamiyah, said that he was furious that his followers had turned away from him and ignored his calls for moderation.

Asked whether Ayatollah al-Sistani could prevent a civil war, Mr al-Jaberi replied: "Honestly, I think not. He is very angry, very disappointed.""  Telegraph

------------------------------------------------------------------------

An interesting situation in Iraq just now:

-We have on the one hand the Sunni Iraqi Islamic and secularist insurgents waging their war against the coalition and the Shia.

-We have on the other hand, the international Jihadis of "al-Qa'ida in Iraq" fighting for a Utopian Islamic state according to their belief as to what that might be.  (fat chance)

-We have Sistani declaring himself out of the process.

-We have the three major Shia factions fighting each other for control of the "rump" state of Iraq.

-We have the Kurds running ads on TV here saying that they are "the other Iraq."

-We have the Kurds declaring Kurdistan to be an inappropriate place to fly the Iraqi flag.

What's left?

Ah! We have the coalition forces in the middle of all this.  Let's see--What was John Warner saying about a re-authorization?

Pat Lang

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=3HYQXH0E3XYXVQFIQMGSFGGAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2006/09/03/wirq03.xml

Note for Don.

Donald Rumsfeld

I thought your comment was well written and sounded much as you do on similar subjects, but the e-mail address did not work and so I deleted your comment.  Try again.

By the way, I am still puzzled by the response you gave me a couple of years back concerning Army logistics in the new organization.  pl

"The Advisor" 2 September, 2006

Download the_advisor_2_september_2006.pdf

Civil War and Partition

"During the period from the establishment of the new Iraqi government on May 20 until Aug. 11, the average number of weekly attacks jumped to almost 800. That was a substantial increase from earlier this year and almost double the number of the first part of 2004.

As a consequence, Iraqi casualties increased 51 percent over the last reporting period. The document notes that, based on initial reports, Iraqi casualties among civilians and security forces reached nearly 120 a day, up from about 80 a day in the previous reporting period from mid-February to mid-May. About two years ago they were running about 30 a day.

“Although the overall number of attacks increased in all categories, the proportion of those attacks directed against civilians increased substantially,” the Pentagon noted. “Death squads and terrorists are locked in mutually reinforcing cycles of sectarian strife, with Sunni and Shia extremists each portraying themselves as the defenders of their respective sectarian groups.” "  Michael Gordon

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"defenders of their respective sectarian groups"

"Sectarian groups?"  What has been missing from the start of our Iraq venture has been a willingness to accept the idea that Iraq was and is a "state" but it has never been a "nation-state."

In fact, the country created by international agreement after World War One remains what it always was - an artificial construct built on the land that was always just "Mesopotamia" before.

If there can be said to be an Iraqi People, then that "people" are the result of the more or less forced union of several ethno-religious nations over the last eighty odd years.  These people were subjected to "pressure cooker" efforts to develop "Iraqi Man."  The schools were a major instrument in that effort.  Police and media pressure were used as well as all the other instruments of successive governments.  Progress toward "Iraqi Man" took place.  In some segments of the population, a self-awareness of being Iraqi rather than Sunni Arab, Kurd, Chaldean, Shia Arab, etc. took root.  This was most noticeable among army officers, the secular Shia and other more groups directly connected to the central government.

At the same time the masses of Iraqis retained their essential group identities in the categories now so familiar to us all.  These groups are closely tied to similar categories throughout the Islamic and Arab worlds;  Sunni, Shia, Kurdish, Turcoman, etc.

The Americans who launched the war in Iraq imagined that none of this was real.  Believing deeply in a Utopian vision of human social progress and inclined to think that Israel would be benefited by a Middle East no longer obsessed with a view of the world which involved a moiety of Muslims against all others, the American revolutionaries whom we generally call "neocons" openly called and still call for transformative westernization throughout the region.  I would include President Bush and Condoleeza Rice in this group.  It is unfashionable to call for "westernization" these days, so the rubrics of "democratization" and "globalization" are applied with the result that great and revolutionary outcomes have been expected from constitution writing and elections.  These mechanisms of democracy do not yield the results the "neocons" had hoped for because these mechanisms are not transformative.  They are merely expressive of what lies within the collective minds of the people voting.

What lies within the psyches of the peoples of Iraq is a belief that their communities are not "Iraq" as President Bush imagines it.  He believes that these peoples see themselves as individuals, acting as individuals within the polity of Iraq, but most of them see themselves in far older and more deeply rooted categories.

These categories are now engaged in combat on the dusty plains of Mesopotamia.  They are like lions fighting over the "kill" that our intervention has left for them.

Pat Lang

Download 20060901_military_report.pdf

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/02/world/middleeast/02military.html?th&emc=th

Olbermann/Dean on Countdown

http://youtube.com/watch?v=0kQDBVOYLBs

This is the URL for the Olbermann/Dean exchange last night.  Thanks to all for the help in finding this.

Pat Lang