On Syria...

Reader, friend, former colleague, and Idaho real estate mogul Doug S. sends along this tongue-in-cheek summary of all the reasons why we shouldn't intervene in Syria.  The Wall Street Journal today summarizes the reasons why we should.  Foreign Policy tells us what the big consequences of a Syria attack will be.  Michael Yon publishes the pithiest Obama criticism, a comment by Adam Holloway (member of the U.K. Parliament): “Outrage is not a strategy.  I thought military action always had to have a purpose behind it – so what is the endstate here?  Hit, and then hope?”

Me?  I'm with Sarah Palin: let's let Allah sort it out...

Derailing A Train...

...it's harder than you might think!

Taliban Body Desecration...

Reader Larry E. writes:

I don't think I've seen you comment on this yet.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/united-states-marine-corps-investigating-online-video-appears-show-marines-urinating-corpses-taliban-fighters-article-1.1004795

I realize the 24 hour news cycle likes to take things to extreme but I have a hard time worrying too much about the actions of these guys. While maybe unprofessional and stupid to video tape, this type of thing is hardly an unusual event. Anyone that has read the accounts of the war in the pacific, like "the old breed' will remember many similar accounts and really, much, much worse. De-humanizing the enemy is part of the process. Absolutely no one in the chain of command or those PR types commenting could possibly be surprised. They are just covering themselves and the foolishness of the situation.

These are not police officers. This is not your favorite city. You don't get a group of people to rush through a hail of bullets and mortar fire to kill a bunch of other people without a change in the normal thought processes. Most of their training is about effectively killing other people. Putting them into an environment where they are under constant threat from everyone around them and giving them a long list of rules before they can engage the enemy is asking for trouble and it is unfair to put our military in those positions. Does anyone seriously think they don't get some satisfaction when they do manage to kill some of the enemy?

CoyoteBlog has a recent post along very similar lines (so short I'm reposting the whole thing, hoping Warren won't mind):

There are a lot of ways to parse this story about the alleged video of soldiers urinating on corpses in Afghanistan. It seems ugly, but desecration of corpses has a long history in Afghan conflicts (often consisting of cutting off male-only body parts). And it’s bizarre to see people more upset about peeing on corpses than with corpsifying them in the first place.

But at the end of the day this is what I think is broken about the Afghan conflict. You don’t send warriors into a brutal guerrilla war with no rules and simultaneously expect them to be goodwill ambassadors as well. Given that these are two activities whose Venn diagrams of skills and mindsets have so little overlap, the military does a pretty good job trying to do what its being asked, but over the long run it’s a losing game (somewhere in here there is an Ender’s Game reference about trying to meld empathy with killer instincts).

By the way, exactly what is our goal in Afghanistan, will someone remind me? We have been successful when __________________ ?

I haven't commented before because I have such mixed and confused feelings about it, and I'm not at all sure we know what actually happened.  Warren nails it when he says there are a lot of ways to parse this story.  Things that occurred to me as I read it:

• Is it even a true story, portraying an actual event?  Or is this an amateur and fictional production?
• Where's the outrage about the enemy's behavior?  Remember Daniel Pearl, anyone?
• So the men we have trained to be the world's most effective killers have, in fact, killed some of the enemy – but then we don't want them to celebrate this?  (very close to one of  Larry's comments)
• I don't like the possible consequences of this video being publicized.  It is exactly the sort of fodder that helps the enemy recruit new suicide bombers and fighters, and incites the locals to resistance against our troops.

In the end, I realized that my only negative reaction to this event (assuming it really did happen) is that I regret the consequences of it being public.  I share Larry's assumption that this sort of thing happens all the time in war; even a brief reading of wartime history (take your pick of wars – it doesn't matter at all which one you look at) will convince you that this is an inevitable consquence of asking one group of people to kill another.

So I'm left unsurprised that this sort of thing happened, convinced that this is far from the only time it has happened in Afghanistan (on both sides), but wishing it hadn't become a public property.  I'm also feeling sad for the American soldiers involved, because it seems likely that their commanders will be required to make an example of them...

War Memorial...

Via my mom:

After more than 40 years, the Vietnam Veterans of the United States of America have raised a phenomenal amount of money to memorialize another one of Hollywood ’s loyal American citizens, who went out of her way to aid and abet the enemy and congratulate them on their treatment of U.S. POW's.

Be sure to stop in and pay your “respects!”

Strange Pairing...

This is something I would never have predicted: the Zetas (the notoriously violent Mexican drug cartel) and the hacker's group Anonymous are edging toward outright war.  A real war, in which people are likely to die...

No Words Needed...

Via my mom:

Libyan Rebels and Their Weapons...

The Libyan rebels aren't (at least to my knowledge) being supplied by anyone with a regular supply of weaponry and ammunition.  They're up against a relatively well-equipped regular Libyan Army and Air Force.  What do you do in such a situation?  You improvise, and improvise they have – like the homemade armored car at right...

What Were the Odds...

...of death for a soldier in any particular war?  Here's the answer, courtesy of Essential Militaria, via Gizmodo:

• War of Independence: 2 percent (1 in 50)
• War of 1812: 0.8 percent (1 in 127)
• Indian Wars: 0.9 percent (1 in 106)
• Mexican War: 2.2 percent (1 in 45)
• Civil War: 6.7 percent (1 in 15)
• Spanish-American War: 0.1 percent (1 in 798)
• World War I: 1.1 percent (1 in 89)
• World War II: 1.8 percent (1 in 56)
• Korean War: 0.6 percent (1 in 171)
• Vietnam War: 0.5 percent (1 in 185)
• Persian Gulf War: 0.03 percent (1 in 3,162)

You were about 200 times more likely to be killed in the Civil War than in the Persian Gulf War.  I know from other reading that the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars are slightly less risky for soldiers than even the Persian Gulf War.  I was a sailor at the end of the Vietnam War, never really at risk myself – but I certainly knew a lot of people who were at risk (and three who were killed there).   The Vietnam War, as recent as it was, was nearly 15 times riskier to the soldiers participating in it than the Persian Gulf War.  The difference in risk mainly has to do with technology (precision munitions, fantastically better sensors, communications) and medical care at the battlefront.  The ratio of combat troops to REMFs has actually gone up (meaning proportionally more soldiers in a war are actually in combat in recent wars than in past wars)...

Lawyers Cause Problems...

I can't believe we're even having a discussion about lawyers on the battlefield, much less actually giving them operational control over weaponry.  We're morphing into Euroweenies faster than I thought, I guess. 

But at least someone had the good sense to take the keys to the UAVs away from the lawyers...

North Korea...

The situation on the Korean peninsula looks very precarious to me (and to many other observers).  There's the classic, oft-repeated political tension caused by the provactive acts of one party – politicians are lining up either in the appeasement camp (though of course they describe it as “caution” or some other positive word) and the stomp 'em into the ground camp (couched of course as “consequences” or some such).  But however they word it, the choices are essentially between appeasement and attack. 

A middle ground seems impossible on this: if one country is blatantly attacked by another, causing deaths and the destruction of property, there really are only two choices: either one responds or one does not.  Both choices have consequences.

Personally, I lean toward “attack”, though not necessarily in the military sense.  I can see at least two different responses that might work: either economic sanctions of the effective variety (very difficult to achieve unless China reverses its policies toward North Korea), or an obvious retaliatory military action (say, sinking the entire North Korean fleet, which I think consists of about 12 vessels).  Both of these actions carry the possibility (perhaps even the probability) that North Korea will escalate the conflict by attacking South Korea.  We know that in the long run North Korea would lose such a conflict, but in the short run the damage to South Korea might be considerable. 

This is exactly the sort of threat that every penny-ante dictator uses as his real weapon, with the real objective of short-term benefit from his adversary's appeasement.  We're decades down that road with North Korea; none of our appeasing moves have brought tensions down one whit.  In fact, quite the opposite.  I think it's time for action.

Then there's the political reality of America's current administration.  It seems most unlikely that they could ever rouse themselves to effective retaliatory action, or even effective backing of our South Korean ally (other than through words).  If I were in the South Korean government, I'd be quite nervous about this...

Bye, Bye, Missile...

The Air Force's Airborn Laser Testbed (ALT) took out a missile in a successful test.  Think about how much technology has changed warfare between Vietnam and Afghanistan – then try to imagine what things like energy weapons, unmanned aircraft, and pervasive networking are going to do in the next few decades...

The Jewish Service Heard Round the World...

Sixty four years ago, the first Jewish service was broadcast from Germany since Hitler's ascent.  I first came across this event (which happened before I was born) referred to in one of Stephen Ambrose's books.  Since then I've read about it elsewhere as well.  All sources agree: at the time it was a famous, widely-known event that moved a great many people.  Sixty-four years later, very few people seem to know it ever happened.  There's relatively little material about it on the Internet, even.

To place this in just a bit of context: this service took place less than a week after the bitter, bloody Battle of Aachen.  Watch the video:

Wealth of Nations...

Megan McArdle posted the map at right (along with two other related and equally interesting maps) a couple days ago. Her post is mainly concerned with the indisputable fact that the wealthiest countries are all either part of the English-speaking world (the “Anglosphere”) or are near them.

First a word about this map (which you can click to enlarge): the darker the shade on the map, the more GDP per capita. The latter is a simple calculation: take the total value of all goods and services produced in a country (the Gross Domestic Product, or GDP) and divide it by the number of people who live in that country. The scale is not linear – look carefully at the numbers on the legend.

Something else jumped out at me from this map: many of the “high-tension” parts of the world are around places where there are large disparities in GDP per capita: U.S. and Mexico, Israel and its neighbors, Europe and the Balkans, Nepal and China, etc. Is all conflict essentially economic? Or is economic disparity a prerequisite for violent conflict? Or is it just coincidence?

Misreporting...

Several of my readers have recently sent me a link to a very interesting report (American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and Statistics) by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). These CRS reports are not usually available to the public (that's a whole 'nother story!), but the Federation of American Scientists makes a large number of them available on a section of its web site, without permission (and hurrah for them!).

The chart at above right is drawn from the report; it compares casualties from various conflicts the U.S. has fought in since 1900. This chart shows clearly just how low the casualties from the war on terror have been, as compared to every other previous conflict – something you never would have guessed if you are too young to have lived through any of them, hadn't read much history, and believed what the lamestream media told you over the past four years.

Table after table in this report put the lie to many of the allegations and insinuations of the lamestream media's reporting on the war on terror – the idea that minorities are disproportionately represented in the casualties, the notion that casualty rates were unreasonably high, the smear that our volunteer forces are stupid and uneducated, and the lie that America's poor are bearing the brunt of the war's casualties. Read the report. Think about what the lamestream media has been feeding you. Then cancel your newspaper subscriptions, your magazine subscriptions, and stop watching the boob tube – for they are lying to you every single day, by commission or omission…

Honor A Soldier...

Upate:

Reader Mike W. reports that this is a fake, and passes along the Snopes page to prove it. Looks like I was fooled too – I found the reference on several news sites, and therefore thought it was real. Note to self: always check the indispensable Snopes!

Read the Snopes article to see how you really can send a small gift to an anonymous soldier – but you can't send cards, and the reason is related to security.


Original Post:

My mother found this somewhere, and I verified it. What a great idea!

When you are making out your Christmas card list this year, please
include the following:

A Recovering American soldier
c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center
6900 Georgia Avenue,NW
Washington,D.C. 20307-5001

This is going on our Christmas card list – and we're going to send several cards. I hope it will go on yours, too.

Thanks, mom...

Rescued!

This sounds like a corny Hollywood stunt, but it really happened -- yesterday, in Iraq. Chief Warrant Officers Mark Burrows and Steven Cianfrini were flying their OH-58 Kiowa reconnaissance helicopter in Iraq when they came under heavy ground fire. Their helicopter was shot down, but they survived with only minor injuries. They were attacked on the ground as well, so they crawled out of the helicopter and into a nearby canal full of reeds, and immediately got stuck in the mud on the bottom of the canal. They thought they were done for -- and then:

After five to 10 minutes, the machine gun fire slowly started to dissipate. An unmanned U.S. drone aircraft circled above them. Help was not far behind.

A pair of Apache helicopters from the 1st Calvary Division pushed back the insurgents. Burrows was able to climb out of the mud and up an embankment, signaling the Apache for help. Using his M4 rifle, he pulled Cianfrini out of the mud.

Because the Apache has just two seats, one of the Apache pilots and Burrows had to strap themselves to the outside of the aircraft, braving 120 mph winds on the ride back to base. Cianfrini rode inside in the Apache.

Burrows, who without a helmet gripped the outside of the Apache, called the 10-minute flight back to the base in Baghdad “a pretty wild ride.” “I could endure anything at that point after what we had just gone through,” Burrows said in the department of Defense interview.

That's two very happy guys and their families on this Independence Day! Read all about it here and here.

Good News, Horrible News

Michael Yon has filed a new dispatch from Iraq on Operation Arrowhead Ripper, and it has both good news and horrifying news.

The good news is of the continued progress of the operation, and in particular of the outstanding fighting ability of one Iraqi unit (the commander of which is in Yon's photo at right). The details in that portion clearly articulate the qualitative difference between this Iraqi unit and the Iraqi army in general a year or more ago. Much progress has been made, contrary to the blatherings and posturings of Reid, Pelosi, Murtha, and the like. This is very encouraging, as the ability of the Iraqi Army to fight is critical to stability in Iraq as the American forces withdraw.

The horrible news is graphic evidence of yet another of Al Qaeda's atrocities. Of all the failings of our lamestream media in Iraq, none offends me quite so much as their refusal to report Al Qaeda's bloodthirsty and cowardly style of fighting, their endless outrages to innocents. Here Yon meticulously documents another of these. In this case, a small village on the outskirts of Baquba had the misfortune to be close to a point on the road that Al Qaeda thought was a desirable place to plant IEDs. So the Al Qaeda forces took over the village -- and killed every man, woman, and child in it. They beheaded the children -- and Michael, like any sane human, can't help but wonder if the children were killed in front of the parents, or vice versa. In either case, a routine horror perpetrated by Al Qaeda that makes the worst incidents by rogue American forces seem tame by comparison.

Not that you'd ever see that in our press...

War in Israel

Through my slide rule collecting, I know several Israelis living in Israel. Through my reading, I've heard that ordinary Israeli citizens are resigned to the notion of an impending war, with your choice of enemies: Hamas, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, or any combination of the above. So I asked the folks I know whether they heard the war drums, and one of them sent this answer:

Do not be concern about a new War here Israel. We are in a War zone since 1948 and we are accustom to the War drums music....and thanks to our good friends in the USA, we are still here.

Good News from Iraq

Omar, at Iraq the Model, has posted some very positive and optimistic news about the results of the recent operations in Baquba, and the changes he's seeing in Iraqis. An excerpt:

The results so far have been astounding, and please allow me to say that I'm proud of the change in attitude many of my fellow Iraqis are showing. Even if numbers don't suggest so because the change is happening but it will take time-perhaps beyond September-before this change will show in numbers.
A nation is not a corporation and when we deal with a nation we are dealing with a society; a mass of people with ever changing hearts and minds and that's why numbers alone can't be enough to assess the situation—thoughtful insight and looking at the bigger image are also required.

This is more optimistic than Omar has sounded in months, which I'll take as very good news indeed. The details in the rest of his post are fascinating -- don't miss it!

War

An interesting and sobering report from Michael Totten, in which this quote from a returning visitor (for five months) to Israel appears:

Everyone knows there is a war coming.

As Michael elaborates, "the street" in Israel sees five enemies, each of which seems likely to attack Israel sometime soon -- perhaps even next month.

Michael Totten is a consistently reliable voice from Lebanon, Iraq, and Israel; his site is worth visiting frequently for straight-up, level-headed reporting from the region. I'm assuming that's what you're interested in, of course.

Update:

Much more from Spook86 at In From The Cold, including more links and some quotes from John Bolton.