Sic Semper Tyrannis

"Dead Man Talking"

Someone wrote to me last night to describe the Tenet appearance on "60 Minutes" in that way. The "show" that he put on for the world was typical of the man.  It was all about him.  He whined.  He blustered.  He tried to shout down and bully the interviewer.  He tried to portray himself as a wronged man, an intelligence professional who had been betrayed (along with his faithful "followers") by the politicians in the White House.  What a joke!

-George Tenet never did a day of intelligence work in his life before he became "Director of Central Intelligence."  He was not a collector of information.  He was not an analyst of information. He was not anything in any intelligence organization.  He was a career Senate staff aide, a bureaucratic politician.  He worked for a long time for the "Senate Select Committee on Intelligence," the SSCI.  By his mid 30s he was staff director there.  He was then a Democrat and the Democratic Party controlled the Senate.  In that capacity he was in charge of helping the senators exercise "oversight" of intelligence community budgets and moving "paper" around between the committee and the intelligence agencies.  During the early years of the Clinton Administration he was at the White House doing much the same thing.  Then he made the politically appointed jump to Langley.  Now, he is (in his own mind) a figure from a Tom Clancy or John Le Carre novel.

-He insisted in the interview that he should not be blamed for having been completely wrong in the judgments that he inflicted on the world about Iraq.  "I believed it," he whimpers as though that should "take care of" the whole thing.  Wrong, George!!  You were were in charge of "getting it right."  You failed in the task that you had accepted.  People have died by the thousands because of your failure.  Countries have been wrecked.  Tenet insisted in the interview that CIA has "not tortured" anyone.  When pressed by the interviewer he said, "you are not listening to me, we do not torture people!"   He still seems to think that he can bully people into accepting his definitions of words.  He says it is not torture, so, therefore it is not.  He must have been an awful child.  The interviewer asked if he had seen any of these "none torturing" interviews.  He responded in high dudgeon that he had not.  "I am not a voyeur!"  A voyeur of what, George?  A voyeur of what?

I weary of the whole thing.  Tenet is going to "feast" on the proceeds of his book.  Surely no decent person will buy the book.

I hope Georgetown University is happy with having him set an example of public service for its students.  He and Douglas Feith serve there together.

Tenet's "finest" moment in the interiew was in response to the interviewer's question as to why he had not simply told the president that he thought the "facts" backing up intelligence on Iraq were problematical.  He implies in the interview that he did have some doubts.  Tenet was seeing the president every single morning.  Tenet replied that the president was not an "action officer."  In other words Tenet claims that he, the chief intelligence official of the United States had to operate within the bureaucracy.   

It's not like that, George.  You know that.

pl

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/washington/30tenet.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

You want to leave who behind?

I keep hearing civilian pundits say that a partial withdrawal from Iraq is an option.  That is incorrect.  It is not a viable option.

There are several wars in progress in Iraq.  In contrast to some of the wishful-thinkers I do not believe that the commencement or completion of American withdrawal will bring about the end of hostilities among the various parties to these wars.  The wars are being waged for control of Iraq among ancient rivals and enemies.  It is not true that all those folks lived in the "happy valley" before we came along.  In fact, Iraq, (Mesopotamia) has always been held together (in various eras) by force and coercion.  The enmity among the "Iraqis" is not a matter of misunderstanding, or a failure to communicate among themselves. 

The announcement of the beginning of our withdrawal will merely signal to  all concerned that the "real" fight has begun.

In that context it must be understood that US logistical teams, advisers, the embassy, etc will all be at terrible risk during and after (the embassy) our withdrawal.

To withdraw our combat forces and leave these others in the country would be criminal.  As Voltaire said, "pire qu'un crime, c'est stupide!"  pl

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3091469&page=1

Scheuer on Tenet (and Scheuer)

"It's impossible to dislike Tenet, who is smart, polite, hard-working, convivial and detail-oriented. But he's also a man who never went from cheerleader to leader."  Scheuer

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I disagree.  I dislike George Tenet.  I always have disliked him.  I knew him well when he was head of the staff at the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI).  I then thought that he was an ignorant, oily, political "hack" who "weathervaned" constantly to know which way the wind blew.  He was pitifully under-qualified to be DCI and his lack of integrity under pressure in 2002 reflects his character in general.  His acceptance of the Medal of Freedom as obvious "hush money" speaks for itself.  PL

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I argued for preemptive action. By May 1998, after all, al-Qaeda had hit or helped to hit five U.S. targets, and bin Laden had twice declared war on America. I did not -- and do not -- care about collateral casualties in such situations, as most of the nearby civilians would be the families that bin Laden's men had brought to a war zone. But Tenet did care. "You can't kill everyone," he would say.   Scheuer

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Really?  Most of the "tough guys" who like to talk about killing civilians have never seen a dead human other than in a casket in a funeral home.  Tough guy talk from civilians is amusing but sad.  Score one for Tenet.  pl

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"..to sate the former's cowardly pacifism..." Scheuer

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Scheuer is referring to Bill Clinton here.  I never voted for President Clinton, never gave him any campaign money, thought he was ludicrous in many of his actions, but to call a former president of the United States a coward and a pacifist takes a lot of hubris.  You have to be really full of yourself to do that.  He avoided military service?  If that were a criterion for public service then Washington would be a "ghost town," depopulated of the leading lights in both parties.  Shall we name them?  "Pacifist?"  He was commander in chief of the armed forces.  He accepted that responsibility with his oath of office.  Is the claim that he was forsworn? pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702052.html

His "star" is rising?

"Obama wants to increase defense spending. He wants to add 65,000 troops to the Army and recruit 27,000 more Marines. Why? To fight terrorism.

He wants the American military to "stay on the offense, from Djibouti to Kandahar," and he believes that "the ability to put boots on the ground will be critical in eliminating the shadowy terrorist networks we now face." He wants to ensure that we continue to have "the strongest, best-equipped military in the world."

Obama never once says that military force should be used only as a last resort. Rather, he insists that "no president should ever hesitate to use force -- unilaterally if necessary," not only "to protect ourselves . . . when we are attacked," but also to protect "our vital interests" when they are "imminently threatened." That's known as preemptive military action. It won't reassure those around the world who worry about letting an American president decide what a "vital interest" is and when it is "imminently threatened."

Nor will they be comforted to hear that "when we use force in situations other than self-defense, we should make every effort to garner the clear support and participation of others." Make every effort?

Conspicuously absent from Obama's discussion of the use of force are four words: United Nations Security Council.

Obama talks about "rogue nations," "hostile dictators," "muscular alliances" and maintaining "a strong nuclear deterrent." He talks about how we need to "seize" the "American moment." We must "begin the world anew." This is realism?"  Robert Kagan

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Motive on Kagan's part?  I would guess that the idea is to reduce the threat of Obama as an anti-war candidate.  Kagan is working for McCain.  Perhaps he thinks that McCain would be better of running against Clinton (both of them)

In any case, Obama must be considered in the light of his words in Chicago.  Kagan has a point.  Neoconism is a body of ideas as well as loyalties.  The ideas expressed by Obama in Chicago are neocon words.  The neocons are not conservatives and neither is Obama, but he shares their ideas in foreign policy.

If he meant what he said in Chicago then he embraces interventionism for the purpose of Utopian reform in the world, ARMED intervention.  (I can hear the "oilies" "revving" themselves up for a response)

He wants to spend 50 billion of our dollars a year for "nation building" in foreign places?  How many Americans want that?

Some candidates are criticized for being "conniving" and "calculating."  I would prefer that to this kind of foolishness.

The last thing the USA needs is another destiny driven president.  I yearn for candidates like the ones produced in my youth in smoke filled rooms.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702027.html

"Can this man save Iraq?"

I listened with interest to his "presser" today.  Very well done, very plausible, impressively educated, good on his feet.  All he has to do is win in Iraq and he can follow in Eisenhower's footsteps.

He did not "write" the COIN manual.  His command at Leavenworth wrote it and to some extent he participated in the process.  He deserves credit for participating in the process.  Most generals would not.

He clearly now understands the complexities of the inter-communal struggle for Iraq and its relationship to the "outside" players in the surrounding countries and across the Islamic World.  He is careful in what he says.  He knows that the struggle is "political" in the broadest sense and that the historical balance of power in the Islamicate World is what is at stake.

Bravo!

He sees that the "galaxy" of insurgent groups; Sunni and Shia secular Iraqi nationalist, Arab tribals, Baathis, specifically Iraqi jihadis, AQ  in Iraq takfiris, etc, are a melange that have little in common other than a deep desire to avoid the long term control of Iraq by some coalition of Iranian oriented Shia parties and militias.  Having seen that, he sees the utility of using the less "offensive" groups against the more "offensive" ones.  This is wisdom.

He will have a hard time doing that in the context of the simplistic simpletons in power and the masses of people whom they taught to bray "Bad!  Bad!" every time they hear the word, Baath.

I wish him luck.  I really do.  pl

Download how_to_work_with_tribesmen.pdf

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070426/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iraq_military

There will be more of this...

"A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-rigged truck into a US military outpost near Baqubah on Monday, killing nine soldiers and wounding 20 in one of the deadliest single ground attacks on U.S. forces since the start of the war in Iraq, military officials said early Tuesday.

Suicide attackers rarely penetrate defenses that surround American troops, but a 10-week-old U.S. counterinsurgency strategy has placed them in outposts and police stations that some soldiers say have made them more vulnerable."  WAPO

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I had a talk last week with an old Army friend who had a lot of experience as an airborne adviser in VN.  He has a son now in the Army.  We talked about the "quadrillage" and the establishment of the multiplicity of "Joint Security Stations" and "Combat Outposts" across Baghdad and apparently up into Diyala as well. 

The probability that the Kagan/Keene/Petraeus method will actually pacify parts of Iraq is not the subject of this post.

Here, I am concerned with the additional risks that this method imposes on the troops involved.  It is argued that  the previous deployment in large, fortified cantonments was ineffective.  That may be, but what is intuitively obvious to people with experience of combat against guerrillas or conventional forces fighting by infiltration is that all these small posts are prime targets for attacks by fire and by attacks on the ground in assaults.  They are also prime instruments for setting up ambushes.  These posts are in built up areas.  The streets necessarily canalize movement and limit it to predictable routes in and out of the position.  These positions require supply and are places from which operations are launched.  The use of predictable routes makes it an appealing idea for guerrilla commanders to watch these routes and establish patterns which can then be used in planning ambushes.  Such ambushes can be of the primary force going to or coming from the outpost and additionally of reinforcing quick reaction forces coming to the rescue.  The same process applies to air movements in and out of the post.  This potential is multiplied by large number of such posts.  Ambush requires fairly small forces.  Defending against them adequately requires a lot of assets.  This is especially true if many routes (however predictacble) are needed in and out of many posts.

There is going to be more of this...  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/23/AR2007042301704.html?hpid=topnews

IT House Call

My IT guy feels this way about me but usually tries to hide it.  pl

Download IT_Pro.wmv

Just a Little too Medieval Maybe?

The Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party had denounced the wall's construction earlier Sunday.

"Isolating parts of Baghdad with barbed wire and concrete barriers will inflict social and economic damage and it will lead to more sectarian tension," it said. "This measure will harm the residents and it will have a negative impact on the areas instead of solving the problems."

Aides to al-Sadr, who had been a key al-Maliki backer but has since withdrawn his support, also criticized the barrier as an "unacceptable" move by the United States, saying they feared Shiite areas in Baghdad like Sadr City would be next.

The military said in a statement earlier this week that U.S. soldiers had begun building the wall to protect the minority community on the eastern side of the Tigris River. When the wall is finished, Azamiyah will be gated and traffic control points manned by Iraqi soldiers will be the only entries, it said, stressing that the decision had been made in coordination with the Iraqis.

U.S. and Iraqi forces have long erected cement barriers around marketplaces and coalition bases and outposts in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities to prevent attacks. U.S. forces also have built huge sand barriers around towns such as Tal Afar, an insurgent stronghold near the Syrian border.

But many residents were alarmed by the plan, and said they had not been consulted. "This will make the whole district a prison. This is collective punishment on the residents of Azamiyah," Ahmed al-Dulaimi, a 41-year-old engineer who lives in the area, said on Saturday"  Yahoo News

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Did we really think that the Iraqis and Arabs in general were going to accept this?  pl

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070422/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_neighborhood_barrier

Check out this...

At "The Athenaeum."  pl

Everything Old is New Again

"U.S. soldiers are building a three-mile wall to protect a Sunni Arab enclave surrounded by Shiite neighborhoods in a Baghdad area "trapped in a spiral of sectarian violence and retaliation," the military said.

When the wall is finished, the minority Sunni community of Azamiyah, on the eastern side of the Tigris River, will be gated, and traffic control points manned by Iraqi soldiers will be the only entries, the military said.

"Shiites are coming in and hitting Sunnis, and Sunnis are retaliating across the street," said Capt. Scott McLearn, of the U.S. 407th Brigade Support Battalion, which began the project April 10 and is working "almost nightly until the wall is complete," the statement said.

It said the concrete wall, including barriers as tall as 12 feet, "is one of the centerpieces of a new strategy by coalition and Iraqi forces to break the cycle of sectarian violence" in Baghdad. "  Yahoo News

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"Mahalle,"  "Mukhtar," "Muhtasib."  These are terms in Arabic that one should become familiar with:

"Mahalle" signifies a "quarter" of a pre-modern Islamicate city, functioning as a sub-jurisdiction underneath a city government.  (It is one of several Arabic words for that.) They were often walled and had an inner social and business life as well.  Such subdivisions of European cities were also common before the renaissance.  Within a "mahalle" lived the self-segregated members of ethnic, guild, sectarian and tribal groups.  People grouped themselves in that way because they did not trust others outside their own groups.  Typically the streets on the outer edges of the "mahalle" were open at first and then were gradually encroached on by building until it was easy to put up a gate and install watchmen.  Yes, I know, we have gated communities in the US.

"Mukhtar" denotes the "selectman" of a "mahalle."  He is the community leader.

A "muhtasib" was an official of a "mahalle" who supervised the economic activity and markets of a "mahalle."

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This kind of organization of Islamicate cities gradually disappeared in most places in the late 19th and 20th Centuries C.E.  It disappeared as the colonial powers sought to impose the kind of town planning that they were familiar with and as early independent governments sought to foster a civic life centered on inter-communal loyalty and "national" identity.

Baghdad was a lot like that before 2003.  There were still places in the city that were inhabited by all one thing or another but the trend was towards integration in housing and in marriage.

We are successfuly re-medievalizing Baghdad, so it would be a good idea to become familiar with the old terms.  They are lurking in the back of the collective mind of the city and will be back.  pl

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/20/iraq/main2709467.shtml

Baghdad Huddle Talk

"Gates huddled in the former Al Faw Palace at Camp Victory for nearly three hours Friday morning with Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Peter Pace, the top Middle East commander, Adm. William Fallon, and Gen. David Petraeus and Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the No. 1 and 2 commanders in Iraq.

The session centered on operations in Iraq, as well as the progress of the ongoing military buildup, and it came as Gates ratcheted up the pressure on the Iraqi political leaders.

"The clock is ticking," Gates told reporters Thursday. "I know it's difficult, and clearly the attack on the council of representatives has made people nervous, but I think that it's very important that they bend every effort to getting this legislation done as quickly as possible."

A suicide bomber infiltrated the parliament building in the heavily fortified Green Zone a week ago, dealing a blow to the U.S.-led effort to pacify the capital's streets.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called the violence in Baghdad an "open battle.""  Yahoo

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You have to ask yourself what a meeting like that must be.  "Well, how are things going?"  (Gates)  "Bad day yesterday..."  (Petraeus)  [Pause - silence]  "How are things going for you Admiral?"  (Gates)  [Pause - Silence]  "How about you, Ray?" (Gates to Odierno)  "Mmmm, Ahh,  Mmmm" (Odierno)  ""Hey how about Maliki?  What is he up to these days?  Does he have many Sunni friends yet?"  (Gates)

There has been a continuing thread in the egregious incomprehension that has governed US policy in Iraq.   That has been the notion that a lack of communications is at the root of the hostility among the three major "nations" of Iraq.  An insistence on belief in the unitary nature of Iraqi society persists and this results in endless efforts to have these groups and their sub-components "play nice in the schoolyard."  In fact, the issues among these communities are quite real, are substantial and a reflection of millennia of competition for power and wealth.  Good luck!

A retired ambassador with a lot of ME experience commented here a few days ago that Iraq's population was largely unified in spirit before the '03 intervention.  That is partially true, but only partially.  The country was on its way to establishing a "national" identity.  The performance of Shia officers and soldiers in the Iran-Iraq War showed that, but coalition invasion and occupation halted that process and reversed it.  pl

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070420/ap_on_re_mi_ea/gates_iraq

Show of Force in Baghdad - 18 April, 2007

"The U.S. Defense Department called it "a very bad day in Iraq."

In the deadliest of the attacks, a parked car bomb detonated in a crowd of workers at the Sadriyah market in central Baghdad, killing at least 116 people and wounding 145, said Raad Muhsin, an official at Al-Kindi Hospital where the victims were taken.

A police official confirmed the toll, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

Among the dead were several construction workers who had been rebuilding the mostly Shiite marketplace after a bombing destroyed many shops and killed 137 people there in February, the police official said."  Yahoo New

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In what is clearly a coordinated demonstration of capability, suicide and other bombers struck all over Baghdad today to show the world and the Shia Arab population of Baghdad that the Petraeus/Kagan/Keene plan for the pacification of the city will not succeed without a tremendous fight in the course of which many Shia will suffer.

The bridge demolitions last week were undoubtedly part of the plan for this counter-offensive.  As can be seen from the BBC chart below, there are many advantages to be derived by the insurgents from isolating East Baghdad from the increasingly Sunni Arab western side of the city.

It will be interesting to see how this campaign develops over the coming months.  pl

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070418/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

BBC Chart on Baghdad

Very interesting resource from the BBC.  pl

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/in_depth/baghdad_navigator/

Directions to Picadilly

Take 60 seconds to do this, I guarantee you will show someone else, it's too funny not to.

1. go to www.google.com
2. click on "maps"
3. click on "get directions"
4. type "New York" in the first box (the "from" box)
5. type "London" in the second box (the "to" box)
6. click on "get directions"
7. scroll down to step #23

Watch the Bridges

It is now clear that AQ in Iraq can strike anywhere in Baghdad in spite of the Kagan/Keene "quadrillage" plan.

The attack against the parliament building in the Green Zone is probably indicative of previous activity in caching explosive inside the zone in preparation for a bombing campaign there.  Following such a method it is not necessary to carry the explosives into the zone under heightened security conditions such as the ones imposed after the parliamentary attack.  Vest explosive "packs" have been found in the past weeks.  There must be more.

So far this week there have been two attacks on bridges across the Tigris within the city.  Such operations require a lot of planning and access to the bridge for an extended period of time. The story that a truck bomb knocked that great big bridge down lacks credibility for me.  I know how to knock down bridges and an un-tamped surface blast is unlikely to do it on a bridge that size.  The idea seems to be to separate Shia pockets in the city preventing them from building a Shia "cordon" across the town.

The article linked to below continues the story.  pl

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070415/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

Wolfiegate

"It is important to understand what is not at issue here. It is not Mr Wolfowitz’s unpopularity, even though his role as an architect of the Iraq war made him disliked from the start. It is not failures of management, even though his reliance on a group of outside appointees made him mistrusted by many inside and outside the Bank. It is not disagreements over development doctrine, where some convergence of views has occurred. It is not a romantic relationship with a subordinate, itself hardly a rarity in today’s world.

The issue is whether the failures of corporate governance are serious enough to damage the Bank’s moral authority. In a world where curtailing corruption and improving governance have become central to the practice of development, the world’s premier development institution must, like Caesar’s wife, stand above suspicion."  FT

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IMO, he is a war criminal.  Men were hanged after WW2 for "planning and waging aggressive war."  What did he (PW) do?  IMO, he was at the heart of the conspiracy to persuade GWB to invade Iraq (for whatever set of reasons that you prefer), depose its ruler, destroy its government and substitute another more to our liking.  Is this not "planning and waging aggressive war?"

And now this over educated and deceptively mild mannered nitwit has literally and figuratively screwed himself out of a job.  His penchant for such behavior has long been known among the cognoscenti in Washington.  Under most circumstances I would not take notice of such personal details in his mis-spent life, but in this case I can hardly wait for the denouement.

Of course, the MSM is much more interested in the moral drama of Imusgate, but, what can one say about that?  pl

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/18b3bad0-e914-11db-a162-000b5df10621.html

Jeanne Kirkpatrick - "We wuz wrong?"

"Iraq presented a very different set of circumstances from Afghanistan, however. These are things we ought to have known and taken into account when weighing our decision to invade in 2003.

Iraq lacked practically all the requirements for a democratic government: rule of law, an elite with a shared commitment to democratic procedures, a sense of citizenship, and habits of trust and cooperation. The administration's failure involved several issues, but the core concern is that they did not seem to have methodically completed the due diligence required for reasoned policy-making because they failed to address the aftermath of the invasion. This, of course, is reflected by the violence, sectarian unrest, ethnic vengeance and bloodshed we see in Iraq today."  Jeanne Kirkpatrick

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Jeanne Kirkpatrick was the aunt by marriage of an old Army friend of mine.  He used to talk about her a bit.  An interesting woman.  I had the "pleasure" of briefing her several times.  I would not have descrbed her as a warm person, but maybe under other circumstances...

In any case, she is one more of those who have discovered that their "invincible ignorance" of; human nature, the Middle East, Arabs, Iraqis and Muslims have brought us to the "jaws of..."

This is becoming a veritable rogues gallery and I am collecting names.  Any nominations?  They must be based on actual confession.  pl

http://www.davidcorn.com/archives/2007/04/neocon_godmothe.php

Allawi Tells All

"First came the "monumental ignorance" of those in Washington pushing for war in 2002 without "the faintest idea" of Iraq's realities. "More perceptive people knew instinctively that the invasion of Iraq would open up the great fissures in Iraqi society," he writes.

What followed was the "rank amateurism and swaggering arrogance" of the occupation, under L. Paul Bremer III's Coalition Provisional Authority, which took big steps with little consultation with Iraqis, steps Allawi and many others see as blunders:

• The Americans disbanded Iraq's army, which Allawi said could have helped quell a rising insurgency in 2003. Instead, hundreds of thousands of demobilized, angry men became a recruiting pool for the resistance.

• Purging tens of thousands of members of toppled President Saddam Hussein's Baath party - from government, school faculties and elsewhere - left Iraq short on experienced hands at a crucial time.

• An order consolidating decentralized bank accounts at the Finance Ministry bogged down operations of Iraq's many state-owned enterprises.

• The CPA's focus on private enterprise enabled the "commercial gangs" of Hussein's day to monopolize business.

• Its free-trade policy allowed looted Iraqi capital equipment to be spirited away across borders.

• The CPA perpetuated Hussein's fuel subsidies, selling gasoline at giveaway prices and draining the budget."  Baltimore Sun

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One of the favored bits of mythology around Washington now is the notion, repeated often for effect, that "no one could have known."  That was said to me last week by one of the famous.  "But, really, nobody could have known."  This is all self serving rubbish, of course.  Lots of people knew.  Some were not asked and some did not wish to speak up, knowing that disfavor would follow.  Disvavor would follow along with an absence of the consulting work that so many in the community of the knowing still need in retirement.  Allawi is right of course.  Most of the people in charge of the war still know nothing.  They are, as the Jesuits say, invincibly ignorant.  pl

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-te.iraqbook09apr09,1,2919558.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

"I'll FEDEX my passport back..."

Interesting comment from a Briritsh expat down in Dallas.  pl

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1626726.ece

Propaganda of the Deed

The Iranians have now achieved a major victory in the "information operation" war that they are waging to reach an acknowledged position as "standard bearers" of Islam.

Their propaganda line maintains that the West is degenerate and morally weak, that Western soldiers are cowards and not to be feared, that Westerners fear death above all else.

Every takfiri and jihadi in the world, whether actual or potential will take note and his or her behavior will be influenced by this message.

The poorly conceived campaign in Iraq is, nevertheless, quite real.  It is being fought by soldiers whom we Americans value highly.  Their safety will be directly affected by what has happened in this incident.

One of the outraged Brits who has written to me over this described the actions of these servicepeople as unimportant because they are "lowly marines."  We do not think of our soldiers as "lowly."  pl

http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__international_news/&articleid=303974

Hearts of Oak...

This picture speaks for itself.  A "class trip" to the "big city?"  Frightened children now allowed to go home by the "bad people?"

Sad.  So sad.  The "HMS Cornwall Affair" speaks volumes about the present state of the Royal Navy and Marines.  The professional incompetence of the ship's officers was matched by the craven behavior of the captives.

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"Tis to glory we steer?"

I wonder what they are saying about this in the wardrooms of the de Gaulle carrier battle group out in the Arabian Sea?  pl

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070404/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_britain_syria