Strategic Impact

Nir Rosen, The National, 24 April - The big sleep:

The occasional al Qa'eda suicide attack can still kill masses of innocent civilians, but it has no strategic impact; in fact it is difficult to understand what motivates such attacks today, since their effect is almost nil[*]. It would be naive to say that Iraq's future is certain, or even likely, to be a peaceful one, but the war between Sunnis and Shiites is now over.

April was the bloodiest month for violence in Baghdad in more than a year, another sign that Iraq's security gains are beginning to reverse.

President Barack Obama acknowledged Wednesday night that violence has risen in recent weeks, but he said the levels of violence were still below last year's.

Calling recent bombings "a legitimate cause for concern," Obama said "civilian deaths . . . remain very low compared to what was going on last year."

But statistics kept by McClatchy show that in Baghdad alone, more than 200 people have been killed in attacks so far this month, compared with 99 last month and 46 in February, according to a McClatchy count

But don't worry - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claims (same link) that "she and Army Gen. Raymond Odierno, the top U.S. commander [in Iraq], agree that the uptick in bombings shouldn't change American plans for withdrawal."

*Gosh - what a gutsy thing to say.

Tonight YouServed: At War with Scott Kesterson

Don't miss C.J. Grisham and Troy Steward's YouServed Radio show tonight. Troy says:

I just confirmed with Scott Kesterson that he will be our first guest on You Served Radio tonight, live from Afghanistan. He has been out on missions for the last 6 days and will be talking about that (what he can), and about the screening of At War last week at the conference and this weekend at the Buffalo-Niagara Film Festival.

Be sure to tune in at www.blogtalkradio.com/youserved to listen in. You can join us in the chat room and ask questions or call in to 347-202-0679 to listen or ask questions.

Scott will be coming on right about 1910

FOX, the only one of the Big Four networks that did not carry Pres. Obama's news conference last night, finished first in the 8pmET hour with a new episode of "Lie to Me." The drama averaged 7.9 million Total Viewers, according to Nielsen overnights.

NBC's coverage of the Obama newser came in second with 6.7 million Total Viewers. [Link]

Kudos for not preempting American Idol this time though. I'm betting the feedback on that one was fast and furious.

Downrange

Something I mentioned in passing at the milblogs conference: there are many fewer milbloggers downrange now then there were a few short years ago. That's unfortunate, but it also means that those few are all the more to be valued. I wasn't exaggerating when I called them a national treasure.

Even at the height of milblogging numbers Marines were a rare breed to find online; they are indeed the few, and most need (ahem) encouragement to take the time to share their stories with non-Marines. That said, it was a pleasure to meet Hope at the conference - she's a great lady and the driving force behind Castra Praetoria (in much the same way Mrs G is here). If you haven't yet found the online home of an Iraq-deployed Marine First Sergeant (and one of our newest downrange bloggers), get over there and check it out.

Piracy Problem Solved

"You cannot carry arms on ships carrying hazardous or dangerous cargo."

That's Cyrus Mody of the International Maritime Bureau explaining one of three reasons why armed guards on merchant ships aren't the answer.

But that reveals the perfect solution to the problem of piracy: put some hazardous or dangerous cargo on all ships transiting a high-threat area. Then, when armed pirates attempt to board, this rule will prevent them from doing so.

McQ fails to grasp the beautiful simplicity and instead argues that the rule itself - and several other points Mody makes in the above - are basically hogwash. Crazy, right? I met McQ last weekend and can state emphatically that there's nothing wrong with him that a good lobotomy wouldn't cure.

The Plan for a 'Stan (or two) Part Two

Part one was here.

If all of that left you wondering whether we have a strategy for Afghanistan - or if so, do we have a plan to implement that strategy (beyond sending in the troops) - or a capability to execute that plan then you aren't alone. Back in 2007 we sent additional troops into Iraq. As the focus on the raw numbers intensified Dave Kilcullen - one of the individuals responsible for the nuts and bolts of the development and implementation of that plan, composed a brief explanation of some of those key details and published it under the title Don't confuse the "Surge" with the Strategy. His chosen venue for that publication was the Small Wars Journal blog. Even that was an element of the strategy - the Iraq surge was explained through "new media" channels to folks who understood it best - an effort Kilcullen himself addressed here.

Fast forward to now. If there's a similar explanation available for utilization of an increased number of troops in Afghanistan I missed it. To me that seemed an obvious question for the New Media Agora panel at the Milblogs Conference last weekend.

So here are Bill Roggio, Bill Nagle, and Andrew Exum on that very topic. (The guy in the corner is me.)

Coincidentally, Exum (in his Abu M guise) just looked a bit further into some of those weeds here. As for the video above, it's the tip of an iceberg. More later.

The Plan for a 'Stan (or two)

From the White Paper:

By increasing civilian capacity we will strengthen the relationship between the Afghan people and their government. A dramatic increase in Afghan civilian expertise is needed to facilitate the development of systems and institutions particularly at the provincial and local levels, provide basic infrastructure, and create economic alternatives to the insurgency at all levels of Afghan society, particularly in agriculture.

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is having trouble finding the hundreds of civilians it wants to bolster its troop buildup in Afghanistan, so military reservists might be asked to do many of the jobs.

In announcing the new strategy for the war last month, the administration said it would send several hundred civilians -- such as agronomists, economists and legal experts -- to work on reconstruction and development issues as part of the military's counterinsurgency campaign.

Defense Department press secretary Geoff Morrell said Thursday that the military is trying to find ways to fill the gap. That would likely be with reservists, who often have the necessary skills because of the experience they have in their civilian lives, officials said.

If you're wondering why, the explanation offered is that Congress has somehow found a government expansion project they aren't willing to fund:

...the State Department in 2006 created a Civilian Response Corps with the aim of building a cadre of hundreds of civilian government workers with expertise in different areas of post-conflict reconstruction.

But funding for the project, led by veteran diplomat John Herbst, was slow to come from Congress. It currently has only 35 of its planned 250 active members from various government departments.

WASHINGTON -- In the largest call-up of U.S. diplomats since the Vietnam War, the State Department is planning to order some of its personnel to serve at the American Embassy in Iraq because of a lack of volunteers.

Those designated "prime candidates" _ from 200 to 300 diplomats _ will be notified Monday that they have been selected for one-year postings to fill the 40 to 50 vacancies expected next year.

They will have 10 days to accept or reject the position. If not enough say yes, some will be ordered to go to Iraq and face dismissal if they refuse, Harry Thomas, director general of the Foreign Service, said Friday.
<...>
The U.S. military has quietly but repeatedly complained that its forces and other Defense Department personnel have been pressed into service in jobs that should have been filled by State Department personnel.

In particular, Defense Department employees and service members were forced to fill spots on provincial reconstruction teams for months because the State Department could not get personnel there.

Military officials have complained that other federal agencies - including State, Commerce and Agriculture - aren't moving quickly enough to fill critical needs in Iraq. Those agencies, they argue, have the expertise to help Iraqi business people and farmers get back to their jobs and improve the economy.

And if you're wondering what's changed between then and now, it's that back in 2007 the proposed solution was to make them do it - this time it's send in the military instead.

Regardless of bandaid solution chosen, it's extremely frustrating to see the problem isn't solved. Over at VetVoice, Brandon Friedman weighs in on this latest debacle:

I'm just tired--after nearly eight years--of seeing members of the military asked to fill in for the State Department because State can't get it together. (Like the time my Army infantry battalion administered local elections in northern Iraq in 2003.) If we lose the insurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan, it won't be for lack of effort on the part of the military.

Game Over

A Raleigh video game company's plans for a video game featuring one of the bloodiest battles of the Iraq war have been blown up by a deluge of criticism.

Atomic Games' "Six Days in Fallujah," which was scheduled for release next year, has been canceled by its distributor, Japanese video-game publisher Konami. [Link]

Critics were unpersuaded by the fact that Marines who fought at Fallujah were working with the developer. All of which begs the question (in my mind) are these games okay? If so, why? And what about war movies?

How about books about the war?

And now that Barack Obama is President of the United States and the useful aspect of useful idiot has expired, will this sort of thing become the primary focus of the various "anti-war" groups formed during the Bush administration? (Assuming they can maintain funding or media interest, that is.) And how did they manage to forget to put anything on their web site about it? Waning, much?

Meanwhile, in case you missed it, Alex Horton (btw, great to spend some time with him in DC - the White House even) was inspired by this Fallujah effort to suggest some great game ideas of his own.

More MBC'09: "Best. Conference. Ever."

No additional words required:

But one picture is worth a thousand:

Too bad he riled up his potential defense lawyer (whose conference review is here) who likely won't even accept a slam-dunk torture case now.

Speaking of said review, a quote: "I didn't care for my additions, but am told I did just fine, so am content." Respectfully: Bullshit. When the videos are released you'll find TSO offered up the most memorable quotes of the conference. In fact, I'm certain it was something he said (as a last minute second addition to the veterans panel that prompted my "Best. Conference. Ever" note.

Repeat public service: we (Mrs G and I) have all the official Jail and Bail mug shots, but won't put them up for all the world (government officials being among the incarcerated). So snag yours via our (Jay Greyhawk) Facebook page (where they're restricted to friends but we'll be glad to add you) or send an email.

More to follow.

Guns and Hoses (II)

A member of the crew on the U.S.-flagged ship hijacked by African pirates sued the owner and another company Monday, accusing them of knowingly putting sailors in danger. Richard E. Hicks alleges in the suit that owner Maersk Line Limited and Waterman Steamship Corp., which provided the crew, ignored requests to improve safety measures for vessels sailing along the Somali coast.
<...>
Hicks asked that the two companies improve safety for ships by providing armed security or allowing crew members to carry weapons, sending ships through safer routes, and placing such safety measures on ships as barbed wire that would prevent pirates from being able to board vessels.

"We've had safety meetings every month for the last three years and made suggestions of what should be done and they have been ignored," Hicks said. "I'm just trying to make sure this is a lot better for other seamen." [Link]

Meanwhile, Captain Phillips will provide some details on his rescue tomorrow on the Today Show.

"I heard the shots," Phillips said, adding he remembers "just being very scared and diving for the bottom of the deck. And just getting as low as I could."

In fact, Phillips says he "didn't know what happened" that day, so NBC helpfully provides the official narrative, which Phillips (perhaps authentically impressed with the capabilities of US sharpshooters) describes as "impossible" (perhaps an unfortunate choice of word).

(Part one was here.)

More Major General Oates at the MilBlogs Conference

(Part one is here)

What keeps you awake at night?
"An accidental collision with the Iranians along our border"

Part two:

I was surprised to hear acknowledgment of a DoD system hack in this segment, too.

Other great questions (paraphrased):

I served in Iraq in 2004... My son recently came home from Iraq and told me the war in western Iraq is over... Marines will re-enlist to go to Afghanistan because they know there's a war going on. Marine's won't re-enlist to go to Iraq because they also think the war is over.

and

Are you ready for the release of two dozen graphic photos from Abu Ghraib?

Part three/conclusion:

Me: With the June first SOFA deadline looming will we get out of cities on time?
General Oates: The deadline is June 30th... (I love getting fact checked by Generals! - then he also answered the question.)

Actually, I suppose he answered the second half but didn't say whether Baghdad Airport is "in Baghdad" or not. I know where the airport is - on the edge of town. My question was in regards to the SOFA. I expect it is "outside" of Baghdad in that regard.

Other questions:

Gays in the military - per feedback via General Oates' blog?

Plus: Advice to bloggers, comments on the Army's handling of sexual assaults and suicide, and more.

Truly a great opportunity - thanks to Major General Oates for taking time to do this! Once again, his blog is here.

Update: More discussion here.

Jail and Bail

If you were one of the criminals booked for the Milblogs Jail and Bail fundraiser, we've got your mug shot:

I can't remember if this one is me or Hugh Laurie, but if there's one of you you can get it from our "Jay Greyhawk" Facebook Page (where we're restricting availability to friends, but will be glad to add you) or via email*.

*Since several government officials were among the incarcerated, we aren't sure they all want their photos released to the general public...

New York Buzzed

"The NYPD confirmed that it had been told of the Pentagon's "aerial photo mission" last Thursday but ordered to stay quiet about it."

Really? Who gave that order, and why did the New York City Police have to follow it? Unless they were federalized (and I don't even know if they can be) they are under control of the mayor of New York, not the DoD. But the New York Daily News doesn't say who issued the gag order.

While I'm at it, who told them about the mission? I can see why the Mayor is pissed - he's got a police department completely out of his control in a city where reporters aren't even sharp enough to ask the right questions, let alone find an answer.

Here's another question for the rogue cops of New York: "are you under any similar gag orders now?"

Update/More:

The New York Police Department said in a statement that the flight was authorized by the Federal Aviation Administration "for the vicinity of the Statue of Liberty." It added that "local authorities" had been told not to disclose information about it and to direct inquiries to the FAA.

Then there's this bit of confidence-building news: "The Air Force referred calls to the White House, but White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, when questioned about the matter at his daily briefing, said he was unaware of the photo mission."

But never fear, a fall guy has been stood up:

Louis Caldera, director of the White House Military Office, subsequently said in a statement that he approved the mission last week.

"I take responsibility for that decision," Caldera said. "While federal authorities took the proper steps to notify state and local authorities in New York and New Jersey, it's clear that the mission created confusion and disruption. I apologize and take responsibility for any distress that flight caused."

Admiral Thorp and the Milbloggers

Was it all that and more? Or is it that it wasn't all that? I was there (the Pentagon), but acknowledge that I may have heard things differently than others in the same room.

(Yes, this is another "more later" sort of post.)

Major General Oates at the MilBlogs Conference

Live via satellite from Baghdad:

A great range of questions, with candid answers. (Note that the audio/video lag referenced by the moderator is not evident in this version, though it was - unavoidably - at the event.) This is only the first half of the conversation, we'll post the remainder when it becomes available.

Major General Oates' blog is here.

Update: the rest of the video is here.

MilBlogs Conference '09

During the third panel at the Milblogs Conference I wrote a note on the back of a business card and passed it (like a kid in school) to conference organizer extraordinaire Andi. Here's what it said:

Best.
Conference.
Ever.

And it was. Unfortunately I didn't have the connectivity or time to keep folks updated here. I was every bit as busy as my first days in Iraq, with go go go go the motto I lived by.

But to start getting caught up, here's some great liveblogging from Homefront 6, who says - along with content-oriented commentary, "I swear, Greyhawk looks like Hugh Laurie from "House".

More to follow here. (Including video, so you can decide for yourselves if that's accurate.)

Here's The Sniper: Knee Deep in Grenade Pins and Empty Guinness Bottles.

Also, FBL did some great liveblogging here:
1st Panel: Back to Our Roots
Panel #2: Beyond Milblogging
BG Oates from Iraq
Panel #3: Taking Care of Our Veterans
Panel #4: New Media Agora

Instapinch live blogged here

2009 Milblog Conference Kicks Off With A Bang and continues on here from CJ @ You Served

CJ Grisham also has a Special Milblog Conference Show

Lindy Kyzer (Army's Public Affairs Specialist) posts this:
Army LIVE at the 2009 MilBlog Conference

Follow-up Coverage of Milbloggers Conference 2009 from US Army Combined Arms Center Blog

BlackFive has his recap here

A Few Photos From the 2009 Milblog Conference from Tankerbabe of From Cow Pastures to Kosovo

Lots of photos at You Served, here, here and here.

More Photos here from Another Voice

Bursting with Pride has some great response to each panels:
Panel 1 - "My story starts with a sailor..."
Panel 2 - Just because I'm friendly doesn't mean I'm weak
Panel 3 - MG Oates, LIVE from Baghdad
Panel 4 - We're better because of military bloggers

Those that follow Twitter you can find some on - the - spot coverage here and here

UPDATE:

Greta of Hooha Wife has her stuff up on the conference and the coinciding "Face of America" bike race,. That Cuck Z, Toby Nunn, and Laughing Wolf participated in.

Uncle Jimbo has a frisky video report on the conference.

UPDATE 11

TSO post The Milblog post wherein he think he talks too much but alot happen and he covered it well.

More to come...

Guns and Hoses

"It's tough to be on the end of a water hose if the other guy is on the end of an RPG"
- General David Petraeus to members of congress

Among other stories I missed while at the milblogs conference:

Gen. David Petraeus, who came to the Capitol to talk about a wide variety of issues, told a House committee Friday that just trying to outrun or block pirates from boarding cargo ships isn't enough to deter sea bandits off the Somali coast who are becoming more aggressive. The Pentagon is starting to study how to better protect merchant shipping, but hasn't yet come up with a formal plan.

The shipping industry has resisted arming their boats, which would deny them port in some nations.

In response to questions from a House Appropriations subcommittee, Petraeus said defensive preparations short of armed guards "can work. You can have water hoses and others that can make it more difficult."

But in a wry tone, he added: "It's tough to be on the end of a water hose if the other guy is on the end of an RPG. So you've got to think your way through that calculation as well."

Neither the White House or congress determines whether merchant ships will arm themselves or not, but the one word answer I got to the "why can't merchant ships be armed" question was insurance.

More on all that (and the conference) shortly.

Vision Problems

Hey kids - here's another U.S. Government comic:

I love it when threads come together...

The comic is about amblyopia, aka lazy eye. When I was a kid my friend next door had amblyopia and wore a patch to strengthen his eye. That made it fun to play pirate.

And pirate is the actual topic of this post - along with security and other vision problems that neither Charles Schulz or the US government in 1968 could foresee.

Foreseeable or not, you can't blame the administration for not developing a plan to deal with pirates in its first 100 days. That the ongoing issue is suddenly thrust into the public eye by a dramatic hostage stand-off doesn't change that fact. (The Wall Street Journal says a "14 page blueprint" for securing the Gulf of Aden shipping lanes was prepared by the NSC in the final days of the Bush administration. Its current status is uncertain at best.)

But moving forward, some of the ideas now proposed for dealing with the issue seem less than well thought out - perhaps that's forgivable under the rushed circumstances. If not forgivable, "can we get money from them?" is at least an understandable first response from a certain class of lawyer. But the "grabbing their assets" idea (ahh, maybe that what they mean by ordering attacks on pirates...) is one rather effectively disposed of here. (We can only hope it will be as quickly expired in Washington.)

But as also reported in the "grabbing assets" story, "NATO forces have helped fend off several [pirate] attacks in recent days, but have released the culprits because they had no jurisdiction to arrest them."

Fortunately, a milblogger recently got the opportunity to ask NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer (audio at the link) just why exactly that was happening.

Scheffer responded that "at the moment each nation uses its national law" in dealing with captured pirates. (Arrest is one thing, jurisdiction another. NATO, of course, is not a law making body, and there are no "NATO courts" where pirates could be tried.) Scheffer also dismissed a suggestion that more NATO warships would solve the problem. That's true - they'll help (as he noted) - but the threat area is large enough that all the navies of the world couldn't guarantee security therein. In fact, just about all the navies in the world are already there, including Russian and Chinese ships - and there's still plenty of wiggle room for pirates. But that's not the reason he feels additional ships aren't the answer.

Which brings us to the NATO Secretary General's recommendation for reigning in the pirates: capture them and try them in existing or newly created United Nations tribunals. This will work, he assures us, because while military presence fails to deter pirates, the knowledge that they could face arrest and trial will.

Put this in terms of your hometown and you could imagine the lack of deterrent effect of a police department with no court system other than one that would try them for harming suspected criminals.

But militaries are not police - which is why there are no existing courts for this situation. The problem isn't a lack of courts, the problem is that people didn't used to be as absolutely stupid as they are today. The first prison built to house the output of these proposed UN tribunals (or Guantanamo, maybe?) will be filled to capacity long before there is any decrease in piracy off the Somali shores. Yes - a lot of people will make a lot of money in the bargain, but the smilin' jolly Abduwalis will continue on their merry pirate way.

Too bad they can't put a couple machine guns on the merchant vessels that transit the area. I'm betting warning shots would save a lot of time, effort, cash, and lives. To bad we'll probably never know.

Unless... maybe if this were put in comic book form we could get the governments to understand?

There I was...

Hot on the heels of "the guy who talks to SEALs in Virginia" comes the "report I got from a guy who got it from the parent of someone who was there."

That qualifies the email floating around from a crew member of the Boxer as an urban legend. But there are reasons to believe the source is authentic - though details therein conflict with the official version of what happened and with other details in the same account.

An example of both sorts of inconsistencies: the author says he heard (from a location where he couldn't see anything) four shots fired. He says Captain Phillips jumped into the water and drew fire from the pirates, prompting two SEAL snipers on the fantail of the Bainbridge to each fire twice. Note the number of shots he heard doesn't equal the number he says were fired.

But as with other aspects of his account, details beyond "heard four shots" would have to have come from other sources - fellow crew members or even the first news reports. (Which he in turn reports watching.) Such details fall into the category of "scuttlebutt" - which is another term for "urban legend".

But he later recounts seeing the lifeboat up close, including the four holes in the starboard side from the rounds fired by the snipers. Those were indeed tricky shots from the fantail.

Want a reason to believe? The earliest version I've seen of this was posted in a (very much non-military) chat room on April 15th - the day a communications ban on the ships involved was lifted by the Navy - and it includes the sailor's name and rank. I'm awaiting a response to an email I sent (two days ago) notifying the right folks that it was out there and requesting an official debunking of the story but as yet I've received no response. That implies "not important".

Add in that this story was forwarded a few times before it appeared on a message board (it's on several now - here's one from April 16th without "gruesome details", the description of four holes in the life boat, or the sailor's name) and you can't assume anything within it was actually written by the original author - or that said author was who he claims to be (a very junior enlisted sailor). Even if the original author was "real", that consideration along with his combination of first hand account (some of which may be embellished) and unsourced rumor presented as fact makes this a "war story" (yet another term for urban legend). Every Soldier, Sailor, Airman, or Marine has several. Buy 'em a drink some time and you'll hear as many as you want.

More things better left unsaid

(Or "Chapter Two - the Pentagon responds")

Key quote:

"As the picture got more clear and commanders' requests went back down the chain, the guidance was: 'We would like a peaceful resolution. However, if Captain Phillips' life is in danger you can take appropriate action.' "

By the way, "take appropriate action" is the all-time greatest leadership weasel phrase. Given before the fact it's a blank check - but whatever you do we'll decide afterwards whether it was appropriate.

Used in the past tense - as in this example (or this one from within hours of the rescue) - it might not be a direct quote. It could mean "I'm not going to tell you what was authorized and what wasn't" or even "I have no idea what was actually authorized and what wasn't."

What's confirmed is that no action could be taken until Captain Phillips life was in danger, his hostage status didn't satisfy that restriction, and this situation ended happily for everyone because appropriate action was taken.

It's not about President Obama - among other reasons there are layers upon layers of decision makers whose function is in part to keep the President above the fray, and they do a great job of it.

It's about we don't really have a plan for dealing with piracy (and that's not the fault of an administration in its first one hundred days) - which is why repeated "clarification" and multiple "authorizations" were required this time. But it's not about this time either - it's about next time. (For which there are already some cringe-inducing proposals being bandied about). More on that later.

Update from Snopes: "Undetermined". I sent them info days ago regarding the source of most of the quoted portion of the email. That level of sourcing neither proves or disproves anything, but it's worth acknowledging. As with all the truly great urban legends, most of this one will probably never be "proven" right or wrong.

By the way, there's another email floating around out there. I've contacted the appropriate agency regarding it but have had no response - which I guess is a response in its own right. More here.

Allegations (and things better left unsaid)

This is CNN: "The alleged pirate apprehended by the U.S. Navy after the hijacking of the Maersk Alabama is en route to New York, according to defense officials."

Was, rather, he's there now. But do note he's only an alleged pirate, although "official documents call him "pirate defendant". Won't this brought to justice thing be great fun?

Today's news:

The suspect's father in Somalia told defense attorneys that the suspect was born on November 20, 1993 -- making him 15, the defense attorneys told CNN.

The judge ordered reporters out of the courtroom while the suspect's possible juvenile status was discussed.

Late Monday, the suspect was all smiles on arriving in New York City, escorted by a phalanx of law enforcement officers.
<...>
Members of the media urged him to comment, but it was not clear whether he understood. He smiled broadly and laughed.

Back to yesterday's story:

"I'm mad because, you know, I could have been dead right now," Ken Quinn, the Maersk Alabama's navigation officer, told CNN Radio Monday. "But at the same time he's just a little skinny guy, you know, from Somalia where they're all starving and stuff."

Quinn said he wasn't angry at the single alleged pirate, noting piracy in the region is fueled by the desire to survive hardship and poverty. He said the suspect told him he wanted to go the United States, and asked whether Quinn could help him get there.

"I said, 'Yeah, you're probably going to go anyway -- I don't think you're going to need my help,' " Quinn said. "If he goes to jail here, it will be a whole lot better than living in Somalia."

During the conversation, the accused pirate's mother said he was just 16, and was lured into piracy by older men with the promise of money.

"I appeal to President Obama to pardon my teenager," the mother, Adar Abdirahman Hassan, said by telephone from her home in Galkayo, Somalia, The Associated Press reported. "I request him to release my son or at least allow me to see him and be with him during the trial."

And look, over there - an attorney:

"How did he come into American custody?" Mr. Kuby asked. "There are conflicting reports. Did he come on to the Bainbridge" -- the U.S. Navy destroyer on the scene during the standoff -- "to seek medical attention, or come under a flag of truce?" In either case, he said, holding the suspected pirate would be a violation of the principle of neutrality.

Perhaps pirate defense fundraisers will be the events of the New York social calendar this season.

Late update: The New York Times story linked above has been completely re-written (as has every story filed as a mainstream media account of this piracy episode). It no longer contains any of the quotes above, and in fact assures us that the dread pirate Wali is "between 18 and 19" and at least behaved like the ringleader of the pirate gang.

Poppies and Piracy: Scheffer meets the MilBloggers

Here's the audio:

Awesome job by Troy and Bill - two great questions on poppies and pirates. The answer to the second, frustration. To the first, an indication that NATO is a military organization and poppies aren't a military problem. The fundamental thinking - and the argument is correct to a point - apparently being militaries solve problems with guns, and you can't solve poppies with guns. That's my interpretation, and I've probably over-simplified. If it's accurate, the U.S. has certainly diverged from Europe in basic concepts (and even application) of military power and/or presumed capabilities of armed forces (and individual members thereof).

Not that we've solved the poppy issue, by any means. But add in the fact that NATO in Afghanistan is rather reluctant to use guns and you might wonder why exactly they exist. To train others to use guns is one answer. Is that good enough?

And if your first question was "what audio?" the answer to that is here.

We Can be Heroes

From the University of Nebraska - Lincoln Government Comics collection. This timeless example is from 1987, so some of the folks who read it when it was new could be General Conservo by now. (Via Instapundit.)

And here's one from 1951 that should (according to the DHS) also still appeal to veterans today:

MilBlogger on the Beeb

Bouhammer:

At 1PM EST today I will be a guest on the BBC show "World Have Your Say" as part of a round-table discussion with the NATO Secretary-General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. I am not sure who the other people on the show will be or what they will ask questions about, but I will be asking questions about Afghanistan and piracy off of Somalia.

In Other News

The White House is giving the full roll-out treatment for President Obama's signing today of a bill, named for Senator Edward M. Kennedy, that expands national service.

The bill would triple the number of slots for AmeriCorps from 75,000 now to 250,000, as well as create new groups to help the poor, veterans, and others.

What we're going to do about Pirates

We're going to grab their great big Pirate Assets:

Everyone wins!

In other pirate news:

Somali pirates in speedboats opened fire Monday on two cargo ships in the latest hijacking attempts in the notorious Gulf of Aden. Another band of brigands freed a food aid freighter but only after receiving a $100,000 "reward" from Somali businessmen.

I know - it takes a willing suspension of disbelief to accept it, but it's true.

"Subject: AH, now it comes out"

Update: mystery 90% solved, see below.

That headline above (another version "Subject: The Behind the Scenes News on the Gulf of Aden Pirate Take-Down") is the subject line from an email that's making the rounds. So yes - I've seen it. If you haven't seen a copy yet you probably will. There's a version on a blog from 18 April here, Jerry Pournelle linked it that day, Glenn Reynolds linked Pournelle the day after.

As of this writing, there are 39 Google hits for one of the key quotes. A quick glance at a random sample reveals no morphs at this point in time, they appear to be the same story. (Update: there are subtle differences, see below.) However, the line "read the following accurate account" about midway through indicates two sources.

For what it's worth, I get the impression that everything after "Three rounds downrange later, all three brigands became enemy KIA and Philips was safe." was written by someone other than the person who wrote the "accurate account" - perhaps the person who wrote the part before the "accurate account".

The earliest version I've found online is here - although depending on time-zone this version from a free republic chat dated April 16 ("Posted on Thursday, April 16, 2009 10:09:51 PM by mrmargaritaville" With the credit "Pulled from a boating message board ") might be the first. The earliest email I've seen this far has the same date.

Snopes has nothing as of now.

For what it's worth - this has all the classic elements of an urban legend. I'd like to see it happen, but I doubt you'll find anyone stepping forward and taking credit for being the initial author(s). Such things have a tendency to be dismissed - and usually that's good. The downside is - as I wrote on April 12th and 13th - this is a pretty accurate description of what happened, though I remain convinced that Barack Obama had next to nothing to do with it. ("White House" would be a better term.)

Still, there's no better way to ensure the truth is destroyed then to turn it into an urban legend.

Update: ahh... much of the email (everything after "read the following accurate account" - guess I googled the wrong quote) is taken directly from this unsourced story from Jeff Emanuel (not to be confused with Rahm). That also contains the line about Phillip's "second" dive into the water.

More: and that story first appeared on Red State. It too contained a reference to the "second jump" - a detail that (like many) was first erroneously reported to have happened in the MSM coverage (then subsequently scrubbed). Repeat after me: Initial reports are always wrong.

Still Jeff has much of the story right regarding restrictive ROE - although the desired outcome was not "a peaceful resolution" , it was more specifically captured pirates face trial in America. And President Obama played a bit less of a role than he wants you to believe.

As for whoever wrote the rest of the email and turned it into an urban legend: they weren't military - but they are the sort of person who thinks military people use terms like "raggies." ("Skinnies" has been used, you have to appreciate the humor behind that - being skinny is harder to shoot.)

Still more: this comment from NS Webster gets bumped, because there's a distinction that needs to be made:

This effort to find fault with the response is getting somewhat desperate and grasping.

There's dead pirates and a rescued hostage. Those are facts.

All the rest of this are theories turning more weird and strange. Not from here, but from these other urban legend sights.

The first time I posted about this I said it's not about Obama, and it isn't. We have dead pirates thanks to what I call the 21st Century Easter Miracle. I'm as glad as I am agnostic on this one.

I don't have a problem with Obama - he wasn't the player many (Right and Left, pro and con) think he was. Barack Obama is not that deep into military business. Even he hasn't claimed the honors or blame many want to bestow upon him for this.

The problem is next time, and restrictive ROE that can't be used successfully again and again just because this time an "on-scene commander" had the balls to act and an Admiral covered his back and presented the admin (meaning whatever legal counsel actually set this goatrope up) with "here's your story, heroes - whatcha gonna do now?"

There are similarities between this story and that of Captain Roger Hill - a man whose career ended as a result of Bush-era "ROE" in Afghanistan (ROE that continue). The main difference being that in Captain Hill's case no enemies were killed.

On Point with Cpt Hill

"If President Obama is serious about righting the wrongs of the Bush years and winning the war against terrorists, here is a good place to start."

That's a quote from a recent op/ed written by a USAF Colonel and General and an Army General. The specific wrong they'd like to see made right is prosecutorial overzealousness. That might be the first time the Bush administration has been accused of such, but as an example they cite the case of Captain Roger Hill - and it's a case well worth examining.

"Catch 22" is usually a reference made with some degree of humor (specifically dark humor) but Captain Hill was caught up in something of a modern-day Catch 22 in Afghanistan, and nothing about it provokes as much as a chuckle. Short version: he had captured enemy, but without evidence to hold them was required under NATO rules to release them within 96 hours. However, he had evidence - but the evidence was classified. He couldn't use the evidence, so he had to let them go (and they knew it). Eventually he did - unharmed - but he wanted information from them first. So he fired a weapon somewhere out of sight of a detainee who was being questioned. Said detainee was then asked if he wanted to die like his friend. That action ended Captain Hill's military career. Another soldier, who later heard rumors that prisoners had been abused, promptly reported that up the chain of command - and the Army responded.

Again - that's the short version. Details below.

Here's an earlier interview with Tim Sumner.

P.J. Tobia's on-scene account of the hearing appeared in the Washington Post. "I fear that this kind of story will repeat itself in other parts of Afghanistan again and again," Tobias concludes, "if only because U.S. forces know that their enemy's mission is clearer than their own."

And from last night's NiteCap on Freedom Radio interview, (the other voices you'll hear are program host Pat's and mine) here's Captain Hill's story - as told by Captain Hill:

One element of this story that stands out to me: two military professionals confronted with decisions of "the right thing to do". Such a situation isn't unusual, although the degree is extreme in this example, weighing right and wrong is universal among military and civilians alike. An example: one could argue that speeding is illegal, whether you are rushing a critically injured loved one to a hospital or not. We may sympathize with the speeder in that example, as we would with a witness who upon seeing a vehicle flying down the road potentially endangering others promptly phoned the police to make a report.

We would be outraged to discover that the driver had first called an ambulance, but had been told "no".

Captain Hill informs us that 1,200 - 1,500 soldiers will replace the 89 members of his unit in Wardak - a part of the "Afghanistan surge". If they're forced into a position to make the decisions he did that won't be enough. No number will.

Captain Hill's site - More Than Brothers - is here.

Speaking of the Dawn Patrol

...which was a major topic of conversation last night - today's episode is here.

Baghdad by Night

...it's a city of darkness, a city of sin, where man's eternal quest for carnal pleasures and chemical oblivion goes ever on...

Fortunately, crusading reporters from the New York Times are there.

"Everything is going back to its natural way," said Ahmed Assadee, a screenwriter who works on a soap opera.

Baghdad under Saddam Hussein was a pretty lively place, with street cafes open until 2 or 3 a.m., and prostitutes plying their trade even in the bowling alley of Al Rashid Hotel.

"A War's Impossible Mission"

If you listened in on our blogtalk radio interview last night, you may also have heard Captain Roger Hill call in.

Here's the Washington Post coverage of his story.

And here's a Washington Times op/ed - note the author's names at the link.

Update: On Point with Captain Hill (including the audio from above - Captain Hill's Story, as told by Captain Hill).

Chasing away a first boyfriend

The latest via email from Robert Stokely:

The brother was ten years older than his baby sister. He adored her, as did she him. While far apart in age and size, they were close at heart.

This brother said he would chase away her first boyfriend. She was always focused on life and her education, even in elementary and middle school. Soon to be 17 and finishing her junior year in high school, she has enough credits to skip the 12th grade and graduate. Instead, she will remain for her senior year and joint enroll to get a year of college credits out of the way in her drive to become a medical doctor.

This sister has not had an easy three plus years and it has taken all the will she could summon to stay focused and on track to graduate with honors and as high in her class ranking as she can. Not an easy task given the competition. But in her struggles of the last three years, especially the last eighteen months battling Lyme Disease, she met someone who became a very close friend. She and this young man understood each other's struggles, for he has his own and it is remarkable what he accomplishes when others would have faded and folded. This sister and her "friend" are, pound for pound, two of the toughest people and certainly the most determined that I have ever known. They each had reason to give up or to just get by. Both chose otherwise and have striven to be exceptional academic students with plans to go far in life. Both have been chosen as a Governor's Honors Student, placing them in the top 1/4 of 1% of students in the State of Georgia.

Tonight, the sister and her "friend" watched a movie at our home together. A gentleman with manners not often seen this day and time in teenagers, he was pleasant to talk with, being gentle and soft spoken. No doubt the older brother would have given this young man a good looking over, maybe even a stern eye. But I don't think he would have chased him away. In fact, I know his promise to do so would have melted away and he would have welcomed the young man in to stay awhile. He would have talked to him and they would have liked each other. And the younger sister would have liked that, even though she would probably be shooing her older brother away, for this was her date, not "their date."

And then, tomorrow, April 19, she would have hung on the older brother in celebration of his 27th birthday.

It is a Happy Day that was the Birthday of Mike Stokely. It is hard to "celebrate" with him not here for he is dearly missed. But, it is a special day in our home none the less and he is Lovingly Remembered with Honor.

DUTY HONOR COUNTRY

Robert Stokely
proud dad SGT Mike Stokely
KIA 16 AUG 05 near Yusufiyah Iraq
E 108 CAV 48th BCT GAARNG

On the radio

...live, talking milblogs in just a few minutes here.

Following up:

The latest from Robert Stokely - who called in during the program, here.

And here's Tim Sumner's interview with Captain Roger Hill.

Captain Hill's site - More Than Brothers - is here.

Many thanks to Pat and Tim for making it all possible!

"Veteran Organizers"

...has a different meaning outside the hard core Left: Sgt Mom's promised "next installment wherein she'll reveal "how a bunch of uninvolved, un-politically connected citizens managed to pull off a huge Tea Party rally in about ten days flat" is here.

The San Antonio tea party was one of the largest in the nation. That attendance figure probably wasn't hurt by Glenn Beck and Ted Nugent, but their presence doesn't change the fact that the event was what Sgt Mom called it - the result of efforts by inexperienced "organizers". Except that at least one of those organizers had military experience (military/media background, specifically) - experience that goes a long way in results-oriented planning and execution. It's not the combat training that makes veterans useful (critical, even) members in such groups (or major corporations or little league baseball) - it's the plan/act approach most bring to the table - if they see the purpose of "the table" as valid. San Antonio wasn't the only tea party whose organizers had a military background. None were chest-thumping or drawing attention to the fact, but that doesn't change the fact.

San Antonio is a big (make that BIG) military town - with fewer military installations now then a few years ago but a large military (and retired military and military family) population. These sort of folks aren't drawn to political events, but they were drawn to the tea parties. That might sound like fuel for the DHS fire, but for the most part I'm talking about vets of Korea/Vietnam/late cold war era, mostly a bit too mature (though mostly physically fit enough) for the Rambo option.

Here's my video of the Savannah event wherein you can see the response to a speaker's request for a show of hands by veterans or their relatives. It's easy enough for someone to make a false claim in such circumstances, but Savannah is a military town too - less so than San Antonio, but Hunter Army Airfield is in the city limits and Ft Stewart (home of the 3ID) is just up the road, and both installations have been around more than long enough for a significant retired population to build up in the area. The number of hands up in the crowd is proportionately large but not suspiciously so.

I can see where it behooves those who are made nervous by tea parties and their perceived threat to a desired future State to dismiss those involved as fringe elements of society. And given the hard-core Left's rather dismal results at attempts to "recruit" military supporters via the Cindy Sheehan/Appeal for Redress efforts I understand their frustration at the apparent ease with which the tea party movement has succeeded where they failed.

Hint: expensive and fake grass roots efforts aimed at the military are unnecessary and transparent. Send a message that resonates and you'll get a response. If you build it, they will come. If they come, the results will exceed expectations.

Related: What could you and 25 "friends" accomplish?

MilBlogs on the Radio

Andi, Mrs G and I will be on blogtalk radio tomorrow talking history of milblogs and the upcoming milblogs conference in DC. (Andi, of course, is the conference organizer - the brains and muscle behind the event.)

It's a live call-in show, meaning you can call in at (646) 478-5613 and join the conversation. "Air time" is eight PM eastern. Listen online here.

Patton 360

..on the History Channel. A new way of telling old stories better. Check it out. (And they aren't even an advertiser.)

I do know a relative of Patton, though.

Savannah Tea Party

The video:

This is a ten minute edit of an hour+ worth of event.

I did a brief write up with some pictures here. Local media coverage here.

As noted previously, it was hard to capture the size of the crowd - even by panning video. With trees lining the plaza on one side and a river on the other (and a long narrow space in between) there was no vantage point I could get to.

Some additional observations...

Size of crowd: I guessed 600 who could be described as "at the event" - the Savannah policeman on scene said 500; I yield to the expert. The local news said 1000+, I believe that's a generous estimate including casual passersby.

Age of crowd: I expected an older demographic than what appeared. Seemed to be plenty of non-retired on hand; maybe long lunch hours or lots of layoffs in the bad economy.

This was a real "grass roots" effort, done on a shoestring budget. (I know - you can't tell from the video, eh?) Bill Edwards, a popular AM talk radio guy apparently drummed up some support but was not an organizer. The organizer is a guy with a hella good story, but not a political activist.

And Savannah is not a protest town. But the tables you see in the video were for folks to sign on for more - and they were crowded.

Trivia: the movie clips in the video were from films shot in Savannah - though that scene from Glory was supposed to be set in Boston. Irony, eh? But the Union Army was here for a while - this was "the sea" Sherman marched to, but he spared the town from the torch. (A true film buff could reveal the connection between that film and one of the other two.)

Big news in this area: another movie is scheduled. It will be huge. I want my daughter (although she's well past "tween" as you can see) to try out for a part. Since Georgia is already a girl's name I figure she can use "Georgia Georgia" as a screen name. Or maybe Sarah Mascara. She's agin' it - but I'll wear her down.

More trivia: Molly Ray Cyrus' father sings the "We the People" song you'll hear excerpts from in the video. I didn't know that. (But Google did).

Previous Tea Party Posts:

Pressing Issues

Abu M:

Check out the media embed information from CJTF 101. Download the "RC East Questionnaire." It's pretty standard stuff -- "Are you allergic to any medications?" -- until the end, where you fill out a "brief but detailed purpose of why you are requesting to embed, your story angle and the intent of your coverage ... THIS IS YOUR STORY PITCH TO THE REQUESTED UNIT."

I've actually been pondering such an endeavor. Now I'm not sure what I'd put for my "purpose" though. Perhaps "if I knew what I was going to write I wouldn't have to go" - but fear that might lead to rejection. What is the "right" answer?

In defense of whoever thought this one up, this might be the result of lessons learned in Iraq. Now if a journalist intends to "file stories that would undermine support on the homefront and trash unit morale" they will have to either lie on the form or risk being denied entry. (See update below...)

A sort-of related story at Government Executive:

While I was discussing the National Defense University's report on social media and national defense with former Defense new media chief Jack Holt, he mentioned that his title recently changed to senior strategist for emerging media. The reason for the new business card? Apparently, the White House has a job description out for his former position as chief of new media operations at Defense. More interesting, the position will be politically appointed.

So it looks like the Obama administration not only recognizes the strategic importance of social media at the Pentagon, but they view as politically sensitive enough to warrant having their own person in charge rather than a career official.

I met Jack at the milblogs conference in Vegas last year. A good guy, and he and his folks were doing a great job. Besides going to blog conferences, they arrange blogger's roundtables with some flag-rank types (and others) doing big things down range and elsewhere. When I was active duty I sat those out - although I'd be upfront as possible I would understand completely anyone questioning my credibility interviewing guys who outrank my bosses' boss. But I intend to engage now that I'm an old retired guy.

I recall talking to Jack about "left wing" blogs for the roundtables. I suggested a couple I thought might be approachable based on topics covered, but I don't know if anything came of that discussion or not. Maybe more will get on board now that there's a new transparency and we're doing stuff John Stewart approves of - snuffing pirates and such.

Update on story #1: a reliable source informs me this is "not new at all" and the purpose is to ensure "reporters are with the right units for the right stories. That is, not looking for artillery stories with an MP unit."

Makes sense. But the specific "story pitch" quote still seems poorly worded, at best - per Abu M's point.

MilBlogger Speaks at Tea Party

San Antonio, no less. Sgt Mom (who's been milblogging longer than I) emails that "Ted Nugent is a damn hard act to follow, so it was a good thing I went first!"

Read her speech at the link.

Update: "Sorry, all. I thought there was a tech". Heh - blame the organizers. You'd think these well-funded Fox News productions would cover that stuff...

Okay, just kidding. Sgt Mom promises a next installment wherein she'll reveal "how a bunch of uninvolved, un-politically connected citizens managed to pull off a huge Tea Party rally in about ten days flat." That's the San Antonio rally, mind you - where the Nuge and Glenn Back appeared, sparking cries of "astroturf" from non-Fox new outlets.

And at least one Speaker of the House:

I'm sure Sgt Mom will be thrilled to learn she's among the wealthiest of Americans. I know the Savannah organizers would be surprised, too.

Here's that link again.

Update: here's that "next installment"

More SEALS?

Have heard talk here and there of expanding the ranks - I'm all for it.

Also, I think the NFL should have more quarterbacks of Payton Manning caliber. And expand the league to more cities.

Pirate bound for New York Dock

As soon as they can get him on the docket, no doubt.

The captured Somali pirate who held a merchant ship captain hostage will be brought to New York to face trial, a U.S. official said Thursday.

The suspect, identified as Abduhl Wal-i-Musi, was taken aboard a U.S. Navy ship shortly before Navy SEAL snipers killed the three remaining pirates holding Capt. Richard Phillips hostage on a lifeboat launched from his cargo vessel, the Maersk Alabama.

The official said it was not immediately clear when Wal-i-Musi will be brought to New York. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose information about an ongoing investigation.

CBS News first reported the name of the suspect and the decision to prosecute him in New York.

Maybe juvenile court?

Initially, he was thought to be between 16 years and 20 years of age, but Defense Secretary Robert Gates later said all four of the pirates involved were between ages 17 and 19.

If he is under 18, federal prosecutors must take a number of additional steps to justify charging him in federal court.

I'm on record for saying the lad should be put ashore in Somalia after a tour of the Boxer, lunch with it's compliment of 2,000 Marines, a look at the various toys they have on board, and instructions to please describe same to his kith and kin. (Small fish, and all that.) But if he really is the 18-years or older "ringleader" (another made for TV moment - the 21st Century Easter miracles continue!) then perhaps he does deserve to be fed, clothed and sheltered in a federal prison at your expense for the rest of his life. (Update: only after a fair and lengthy trial, of course, with representation by one eager, hard-charging lawyer with a great team behind him who can really work the media as Abduhl tells his story to the world and a verdict is reached validating the rule of law, and likely resulting in - whether found guilty or innocent - lifetime care. I wouldn't want to imply I believe he's anything other than innocent until proven guilty.)

And did I mention medical care?

I'm also on record for saying that first reports - especially from anonymous sources - are always wrong. This feels like an exception. (And I suspect capture was the mission from day one - I'm on record there, too.)

Meanwhile, somewhere fairly far from France: "Eleven Somali pirates captured this week by a French warship are being taken to Kenya for trial, the French defence ministry has said."

The three pirates captured during the French raid in which one hostage was killed and four others rescued "are to be brought to France for criminal proceedings".

And "Somalia's prime minister warned in a BBC interview that pirates could only be defeated on land."

They can merely be shot at sea. But maybe eventually they'd stop coming?

"Reporters" -

...is there anything they don't know? CNN "personality" Anderson Cooper: "It's hard to talk when you're teabagging."

Nice of him to open his mouth and demonstrate exactly what I was talking about here.

(Note: this entry won't make sense unless you follow the links - it's what's known as a "teaser".)

Local Teas

Here in Georgia we like our tea sweet.

In Boston tea is... well, apparently two centuries ago - and not news.

I shouldn't have been surprised when I picked up the BG-D this morning--the day after thousands of BOSTON-are citizens gathered at BOSTON Harbor for a BOSTON Tea Party to protest (in part) the taxpayer abuse by our BOSTON-based state government...and found a single local story in the BOSTON paper. Buried on page A16 there was a small AP story with the dateline "Frankfort, KY."

I guess the Boston Globe-Democrat staff just couldn't resist a "KY" reference...

To add ignorance to incompetence, the AP story spreads the canard that our Tea Party was part of some national Republican effort. They link it to FreedomWorks and the GOP--neither of whom had anything to do whatsoever with our event...though I'd be happy to send them the invoice for our expenses.

In Boston, a few hundred protesters gathered on the Common - a short distance from the original Tea Party protest in 1773 - some dressed in Revolutionary garb and carrying signs that said "Barney Frank, Bernie Madoff: And the Difference Is?" and "D.C.: District of Communism."

No such failure at the Boston Herald, with at least two ("early morning crowd of about 100 on the Common... Several thousand people showed up for the noon rally on the Common and at Christopher Columbus Park at 4 p.m.") reports ("500 on Beacon Hill and perhaps as many as 1,500 at Christopher Columbus Park.").

Here in Savannah the local reporters were on hand. As with the local police I suspect that - given the lack of history of protest in this part of the world - they weren't quite sure what to expect. (Note: that's true of me, too.) While this count of 1,500 seems a bit generous (maybe with passersby included) the story, pictures and video capture the event quite well.

A new humility

Mike Totten and Tom Ricks talk Iraq over red wine and root beer.

Wish I'd have been there (a different third beverage would have appeared on the tab, though), but at least - thanks to Mike - I can read the AAR.

More on my headline choice later.

Pirates in the Agora

Andrew Exum talks piracy on the TeeVee with Charlie Rose. I suspect the skull and crossbones discussion may be raised during the New Media Agora panel at the milblogs conference, too. Bill Roggio and Dave Dilegge didn't just discover the topic last week either.

Speaking of Dave Dilegge, I just discovered this post at Small Wars pointing out a DHS report titled "Leftwing Extremists Likely to Increase Use of Cyber Attacks over the Coming Decade" that makes a nice companion piece to the Right Wing Rambo threat alert we've previously noted here.

And speaking of the milblogs conference, this week's big news is milblogger (and 10th Mountain Division commander) Major General Mike Oates will be participating via satellite from Iraq. Some of his peers may be there in person - stay tuned.

Oh by the way, Andi told me yesterday there are fewer than 20 seats left open for the conference, and no on-site registration. If you plan on going and haven't done so yet, now would be a good time to execute the highly essential "register" part of the plan.

Tea and Koolaid

Lots more nationwide Tea Party pictures here and here (with a focus on protest babes).

And if you haven't seen the CNN Tea Party coverage (openly contemptuous reporter harassed) yet, check it out. Really, if you're going to "report" on these sorts of events, you need to check your emotions (and political passions) at the door. One might expect "citizen journalists" could use that advice - but if this example represents the professional approach, never mind.

And if you wonder why so many television "news commentators" giggle and snicker when referencing tea parties and tea bags, (fair warning: you're probably better off not knowing, and even though there are no pictures at the following link the description is not "family friendly") here's what they know and you don't.

Update: here's an online video demonstration. (Of the snickering.)

Tea Time in the Garden of Good and Evil

Savannah, Georgia Tea Party:

I was talking to the organizer after the event when one of his partners approached. "Did you like the sign?" she asked him, "I mean, for 60 dollars..."

He liked it. He told me the entire event cost in the neighborhood of 300 dollars. A grass roots operation at it's finest.

Speaking of finest, the on-hand representative of Savannah's finest estimated the crowd as at least 500. "Is that about what was expected?" I asked. "We didn't know what to expect." He replied. We agreed this isn't a "protest" town, the event was unprecedented.

There was no good angle for a crowd shot, participants were stretched along a long narrow area. From this side the view was blocked by the pavilion, so the other side grew larger.

Lot's of revolutionary imagery and wording in the signs...

Much flag waving...

Boat people...

And some change, but no hope in sight.

Heh - at Democratic Underground: "These crazies made me very nervous." "the place was crazy with police" and "They were simulcasting the elrushbo show". One of those three statements might be true, since I don't know if he's lying about being nervous around grandmothers or not.

Guy would have made for a great interview. I wish he hadn't fled.

Here's the video - with links to more coverage.

Time for Tea

I'm off to the Savannah Tea Party in my capacity as Citizen Journalist, dressed in my pajamas (TV t-shirt). I'll be on the lookout for DHS agents and agents provocateur like Melvin. Don't worry - being a potentially angry and disgruntled veteran I've got mad skillz at identifying and dealing with such.

More later, in the meantime, Glenn Reynolds is tea party central, with live reports from around the country here.

The Sims (II)

(A possible series)

Fade in on cubicle worker in natural habitat. The boss walks by, glances in, stops, steps in. Man in cubicle is staring intently at his computer screen and doesn't respond.

Boss: Melvin...

Melvin: Shhhh. I'm reading Daily Kooze

Boss: It's pronounced "kose"...

Melvin: Whatever. (clicks to open comments) Go away. I'm Union.

Boss: Melvin, I expected the threat assessment at noon. Where is the threat assessment?

Melvin: (stares at computer screen, apparently ignoring question.)

Boss: You haven't even started yet, have you?

Melvin (angry): I told you I'm reading Daily Kooze. Leave me alone.

Boss: Melvin, this isn't your uncle's bank. You now work for the people of the United States of...

Melvin: My uncle was one of the largest donors to the Obama campaign, and at least two thousand of that was in my name, sweetie. There's the door. Shoo, shoo...

Boss: Melvin, this is a cubicle. There is no door. That is my office over there, behind that door. Have the threat assessment on the desk behind that door before you leave today, or else when you walk out that door over there tonight you can forget about walking back through it tomorrow. (Boss stomps away. Several other cubicle workers glance quickly back at their computer screens.)

Melvin (shouts at retreating boss): You can't fire me, I'm union. And tell 'em we want Huffington Post unblocked. It isn't right wing, morons!

Melvin (mumbling): "...have the report on my desk Melvin, get your feet off the desk Melvin, we have a dress code Melvin, the workday begins at 9 AM Melvin..." gawd this place sucks. (Posts BRB comment on web site, opens Microsoft Word, starts copying and pasting.)

Melvin (louder): Stupid affirmative action hire doesn't even know I can email her the damn report, but no, I have to print it out...

Cross fade slowly to clock reading 4PM, Melvin leaving the office. Cut to boss' desk, document in 'in' box.

Fade to black.

Kudos to the Obama Administration

...for knowing how to deal with hysterics:

Yet moments later, when a reporter asked Gibbs if Obama had any reaction to the conservative groups organizing "tea parties" of protest on tax day, he replied, "I've never monitored them nor spoken with the Spanish about them." People in the room laughed. And when the questioning in the room turned to the all-important subject of the Obama's new Portuguese water dog, Gibbs continued the joke.

This is funny too:

More anti-pirate options

From the depths of the Danger Room.

Elsewhere: "The very pirates who terrorized the crew of the Maersk Alabama may have been caught and released by the U.S. or navies in the past year."

I still say we release this one, too - done right that could help reduce piracy. And after that we just don't capture any more.

And Captain Phillips' son gets a few more chances at that Easter candy:

TV news is reporting that Capt. Phillips, aboard USS Bainbridge, is going to miss the flight home tomorrow because the ship was diverted to deal with this situation. Nice going, pirates.

Another hijack attempt on a US vessel

Fox:

An American ship was attacked Tuesday in yet another brush with pirates off the coast of Somalia, but despite damaging the vessel, the pirates' hijacking attempt failed.
<...>
On Tuesday, the Liberty Sun, with a crew of about 20 U.S. citizens, reported to the U.S. Coast Guard that they were being attacked by pirates. The Navy dispatched the USS Bainbridge, the same warship that came to the rescue of the Maersk Alabama last week.

But by the time the warship arrived several hours later at the scene of the attack on the Liberty Sun, the pirates were gone.

The pirates had fired rocket propelled grenades and automatic weapons at the ship, Liberty Maritime Corporation of Lake Success, N.Y., said in a written statement. The vessel sustained damage in the attack.

Reuters:

Somali pirates hijacked two more cargo vessels and opened fire on two others on Tuesday in attacks that showed a determination to go on striking at shipping on the region's strategic trade routes.

The capture of the Greek-owned MV Irene E.M. and Togo-flagged MV Sea Horse were a clear sign pirate gangs have not been deterred by two raids in recent days in which U.S. and French special forces have killed five pirates.

Andrew Exum posts a question from a long-time friend: "So what does your erudite and brilliant readership believe that actions against the pirates should look like, toward what ends, at what costs, and with what risks?"

Without claiming applicability of the adjectives, here's my answer:

The Sims

I don't have time or software to make a totally sweet simulation of the 21st Century Easter Miracle, but I think I can fairly quickly paint a word-picture that's at least equally accurate. Here goes:

Fade in - a mousy looking guy in a suit stands on the fantail of a guided missile destroyer, gazing through high-powered binoculars at a life raft 20 meters away. He's suddenly startled by an unexpected tap on his shoulder.

Whirling, startled, squinting: "Wh.. wh.. who are you?"

One of three big guys dripping wet standing in growing water puddles on the deck: "If we told you we'd have to kill you."

Mousy guy (as camera reveals but doesn't focus on a puddle forming under him, too): "Oh yeah, I heard you guys might show up. Well, here (hands over 200 page document) - these are the rules of engagement as developed by thirty of the finest lawyers Chicago ever produced, and this is a phone you can use to call me, I've got a hotline to a guy who has a hotline to the... be careful, you're getting them damp! Anyhow, the key point is you can't hurt these individuals at all, unless their guest's life seems to be in imminent danger, so..."

Wet guy: "Roger that." (Simultaneous sound effects: blam blam blam!).

Mousy guy: "Hey! You killed them! You.. you bastards..."

Wet guy: "They pointed a gun at the hostage. Gotta go - ten mile swim back to our plane." (sound effects splash splash splash).

Mousy guy: "Shit".

Fade to black.

Not Guilty!

Updated - see below...

Well, this will certainly further disgruntle those disgruntled vets*:

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that Rep. John Murtha cannot be sued for accusing U.S. Marines of murdering Iraqi civilians 'in cold blood,' remarks that sparked outrage among conservative commentators. The appeals court in Washington dismissed a defamation lawsuit brought by a Marine who led the squad in the attack. The judges agreed with Murtha that he was immune from the lawsuit because he was acting in his official role as a lawmaker when he made the comments to reporters.

Beyond the legal immunity of lawmakers from the result of their actions the issue in this case was one of pre-trial presumption of innocence and undue influence. Was the outrage (outside the military, where it was near universal) really limited to "conservatives"? If so, why?

Update: Okay, this story is pathetic. Public fellatio masquerading as news.

AP "reporter" Nedra Pickler: "At a Capitol Hill news conference in May 2006, Murtha predicted that a Pentagon war crimes investigation would show the Marines killed dozens of innocent Iraqi civilians in Haditha."

The actual quote didn't fit, I guess: "There was no firefight. There was no IED that killed those innocent people," Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said during a news conference on Iraq. "Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them. And they killed innocent civilians in cold blood."

Pickler: "Wuterich is charged with voluntary manslaughter and other allegations, the only person still facing charges in the attack."

What didn't fit: the others have all been cleared.

Pickler: Republicans and conservatives accused Murtha, a decorated Vietnam veteran and retired Marine Reserves colonel, of convicting the Marines before the investigation was concluded and fueling enemy attacks in retaliation.

He's guilty as hell of the first charge, the second can't be proved and isn't pertinent. As for the rest of it, if Nedra Pickler had the ex-Marine's face tattooed on her ass she'd be "decorated" too - and no one would give a damn about that, either.

Pickler: GOP challengers tried to use the comments against Murtha in the 2006 and 2008 campaigns, but his constituents overwhelmingly re-elected the congressman who has represented them since 1974.

What didn't fit: because Murtha's district was gerrymandered by Republicans to lock the sort of people who'd vote for him even after he called them all racist rednecks in one place.

Another lawsuit by one of the exonerated Marines is still pending.

And Murtha has other problems.

And more news coming on this, too.

Vote!

Here.. (Takes about a minute.)

Please?

Making Legends

Over in Hot Air's new Green Room, Jim treacher: Staged Military Photo Ops Suddenly Awesome

Funny stuff - on the unprovable Urban Legend level. The basis is an email from "a sergeant that was there" who says "Take a look at the picture at AP and notice all the cameras are the same models? Coincidence? I think not."

But it is a coincidence, because coincidentally in spite of what you might hear about "obscene amenities" the PX in Baghdad has a very limited selection of cameras, and this one is probably the cheapest (or only) model. If I was going to Victory Palace I'd take my camera - it's the sort of place you take a camera to. Mine was always in my pocket - digital cameras are about as common as combat patches among the troops in Iraq, the idea you'd have to distribute them for this or any event is a bit of a stretch.

By the way, here's a milblog report from SFC Burke - a guy in Baghdad with a name and a rank:

We all jumped at once. I grabbed my personal camera, my cover, and my weapon. "No weapons, leave them with me!" said 1SG.

But the anonymous story could have happened, too - and that's what makes urban legends popular. And that (I believe) is Jim Treacher's point. The Bush with plastic turkey story was embraced as fact by the New York Times (and other 'legitimate' news sources) and is repeated as fact to this day. This tale? Not so much.

But it has been embraced, linked, quoted, and endorsed throughout the blogosphere. And Treacher's post has unsurprisingly drawn ringing endorsement in its comment section. Like equally significant stories about whether troops cheered louder for Bush or Obama or whether the President broke sacred and irrevocable protocol by shaking hands with a Marine it reinforces a concept that appeals to a large segment of the population: Obama isn't liked by the troops. (Some among that same segment will likely be outraged by reports of government suspicion of disgruntled combat veterans - suspicion that would be somewhat validated if their concurrent beliefs were true - but that's another story...)

Last week on Hot Air, Ed Morrisey ran a Mudville story as "Obamateurism of the Day" Ed "gets" the story: "one might have expected Obama to have at least worked on memorizing the different units under his command in a war zone, especially since there were only four" - and even gets in a zinger: "In Obama's defense, I think he was hoping that they wouldn't be there at all when he took office."

The 40 second long video isn't an urban legend, it isn't "an email from a guy at microsoft" or "a sergeant that was there". But what I suppose both Ed and I failed to make clear is that it is, in fact, a de-bunking of a media-fueled urban legend - Obama as military commander, making decisions on strategy, and literally calling the shots (See this week's iteration, examined here). The guy in this video is, in fact, a guy who needs a note card to recite the names of the military commands in Iraq. Multi-National Force-Iraq is not a bit player. It's the top level of command in the theater. It was recently commanded by a guy named Petraeus and is now commanded by this Odierno dude - both of whom have had their name in the papers a few times. If details like the full names of MNF-I or MNSTC-I (you know, the non-combat dudes who are working with and training our Iraqi partners to turn things over to them?) are hard to pronounce tongue twisters unfamiliar to the average American that's okay. The average American isn't nominally in charge of the operation. Whoever is in charge of developing their strategy and issuing their orders (aka "a plan for Iraq") knows who they are. The President of the United States (until he gets to his well-rehearsed and headline making talking points) needs a notecard.

I say Ed and I failed to make that clear because commenters on his post quickly took Ed to task: "Give him a pass on this one. He obviously didn't want to screw up. This is minor." "To me he was being respectful to the troops. We have plenty to criticise him on. This was not it." "Ease up on the guy." "This is nothing to ping him on, imho." The best: "There is indeed lots to criticize Obama on. To jump on him for minutiae like this is to behave in EXACTLY THE SAME WAY as liberals we used to refer to as "deranged" and "unhinged"."

To be fair, many disagreed - though most did so because "what if Bush had done something like this?" - the answer being that it would have been front page news (and it would). And you'd have read about it here, too. But I suspect that the folks quoted above want to give Obama a break on this so that next time he shakes hands with a Marine they can rip him a new one and still be seen as "fair".

The entire point of the "Obamateurism of the Day" series, of course, is a response to Slate's long running "Bushism of the Day" series. It's serious to a point, but it was probably a mistake to include something in it that actually isn't remotely funny. (Last week's reader-voted Obamateurism of the week, Austrian is a language? - is funny.)

Funny has its place. Laughs - or even chuckles - are great. But until a significant number of folks start paying attention to things that are serious, too, no one's really going to take them seriously.

Beware the grunt

For the record, I remain gruntled. But this is disturbing:

The Department of Homeland Security is warning law enforcement officials about a rise in "rightwing extremist activity," saying the economic recession, the election of America's first black president and the return of a few disgruntled war veterans could swell the ranks of white-power militias.
<...>
The DHS/Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) has no specific information that domestic rightwing* terrorists are currently planning acts of violence, but rightwing extremists may be gaining new recruits by playing on their fears about several emergent issues.

DHS/I&A assesses that rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to exploit their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat. These skills and knowledge have the potential to boost the capabilities of extremists--including lone wolves or small terrorist cells--to carry out violence. The willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join extremist groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned, or suffering from the psychological effects of war is being replicated today.

The Vet Threat, from the mind of Janet Napolitano:

By the way, I'll be going to the tea party protest in Savannah tomorrow. If you're in the area, please don't stay away out of fear - the only thing I'll have to shoot people with is my camera.

More - let's get the 'enemies list' started:

Afghan vet Bouhammer: The government says I am domestic terrorist threat?

Iraq vet Lt Nixon: Dept of Homeland Security Sez To Be on the Lookout For "Disgruntled Military Veterans"

The American Legion (thanks john): American Legion to Napolitano: Apologize

More Imminent Danger

I actually wrote the Imminent Danger post last night, finished it rather late and decided to post it this AM. I tweaked it a bit on waking and published, but have since found two additional bits of data that add much to the discussion.

To those in a moment, first, when I watched the press conference, what stood out in my mind were the repeated references to these three points:

1. The hostage was in imminent danger with an AK47 pointed at him

2. The hostage was in imminent danger with an AK47 pointed at him, and

3. The hostage was in imminent danger with an AK47 pointed at him.

Add to that the number of times Admiral Gortney mentioned that Captain Phillips was in imminent danger with an AK47 pointed at him and I couldn't help but notice that it was awfully important to him to make sure that we knew that Captain Phillips was in imminent danger with an AK47 pointed at him in case somehow someone overlooked the fact that Captain Phillips was in imminent danger with an AK47 pointed at him. (At his back even, where he himself couldn't even see it!)

As noted in the post I wrote about Captain Phillips in imminent danger with an AK47 pointed at him, it seems to me Captain Phillips was in imminent danger from the moment armed pirates boarded his ship - but I'm no expert on the fine points of law of the sea.

Which brings us to the two additional items found today.

Item one: the first official DoD story on the rescue of Captain Phillips:

Hostage Captain Was in 'Imminent Danger' at Time of Rescue
By John J. Kruzel
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, April 12, 2009 - The captain of the Maersk-Alabama cargo ship held hostage by pirates off the coast of Somalia was in "imminent danger" when U.S. military snipers shot and killed his three pirate captors, a U.S. Navy commander said today.

Item two is in this NY Times story (hat tip Tom Maguire):

The Defense Department twice sought Mr. Obama's permission to use force to rescue Captain Phillips, most recently on Friday night, senior defense officials said. On Saturday morning, the president agreed, they said, if it appeared that the captain's life was in imminent danger.

Back to the conclusion I drew from the repeated repetitious repetition of the presser:

I think my interpretation is that there's a legal counsel somewhere just outside the picture who placed an awfully restrictive ROE on the folks involved in this effort. Into exactly what ear he whispered this advice I have no idea. But even with highly skilled operators at the ready, the odds of having all three pirates on a covered lifeboat available for a ranged headshot from one pitching deck to another in less than optimum light made by passive snipers at the exact moment an AK47 is pointed at Captain Phillip's back must have seemed remote even to the most optimistic on-scene commander coordinating the delicate negotiations and hoping that a resort to violent gunplay wouldn't become necessary.

Fortunately, Made For TV Easter Miracle!

But the trio of Navy Seals who had been secretly dropped into the sea over the weekend and taken aboard the destroyer U.S.S. Bainbridge, were steely. They strapped on night vision goggles and zeroed in their targets, three pirates on a red lifeboat floating on the rough seas, including one pirate who was pointing an AK-47at the back of Capt. Richard Phillips.

When the command to fire was given, three shots rang out and the five-day long standoff was over. Vice Adm. Bill Gortney said today that each sniper, who he described as "extremely, extremely well-trained," fired only one shot.

Praise Jesus.

Again - this is not about President Obama. It's about Rules of Engagement, and future consideration of similar events that might not occur during major religious holidays when miraculous (whether SEALs are involved or not) outcomes are expected and (wink) accepted.

I'd now like to expand what I think my interpretation is: someone wanted pirates "arrested", not killed. The desired outcome was apparently a demonstration that a guided missile destroyer and an amphibious assault ship with 2000 Marines and an FBI hostage negotiation team can do a lot more than a guided missile destroyer and an amphibious assault ship with 2000 Marines and no FBI hostage negotiation team. They got at least 1/4 of their wish (though the status of the hostage negotiations and location of the team at time of termination is uncertain) - I hope that works out for them (or is it us?).

And I'll close for now by repeating myself again:

...give him a tour of the Boxer, have him meet the Marines and see their toys, ask him where his home is and put him ashore. Tell him to pass along to his elders that next time anything like this happens nearby those Marines will be downtown within a couple of hours.
<...>
Four pirates can overwhelm a ship crewed by 20+, grab a hostage, and keep the US Navy and two thousand Marines tied up for days? How many such victories can we expect in the future?

*Update/footnote: A senior administration official "clarifies" the claims of Pentagon officials: "A senior administration official told FOX News that Obama granted the authority on Friday and Saturday to use appropriate force to rescue Capt. Richard Phillips from a lifeboat off the Somali coast. The Pentagon believed Phillips' life was at risk both times, officials said."

Back to the NY Times story linked above for a memory jogger:

By Friday, with several warships within easy reach of the lifeboat, the negotiations had gone nowhere. Captain Phillips jumped into the sea, but was quickly recaptured. On Saturday, the pirates fired several shots at a small boat that had approached from the Bainbridge.

As fellow Iraq vet Dave Thul asks in comments, "The ROE in Iraq gives every young private the authority to use deadly force to prevent death or serious bodily harm to civilians. Why did the President need to give specific authority to the CO of the Bainbridge to do the very same thing?"

Because he (or an underling) wasn't authorizing - he was restricting. Thank God they had an Easter miracle and were smart enough not to call again. This situation was a classic goatf$%k. Kudos to everyone on the scene who made it turn out right. And kudos to the Admiral for ensuring no one on high could second guess the decision made on the other side of the world. At least it worked this time.

Area 51

Declassified, a bit.

A specialist in advance radar and Soviet MiG fighter aircraft, Barnes said he was tapped by the CIA to join a "cadre" of experts that could handle any kind of military project.

As an electronics engineer for NASA, he worked on the country's first rocket plane, the X-15, the Apollo space capsule and lunar lander research vehicles.

At Area 51, he helped develop the A-12 OXCART, a super-secret spy plane built by the Lockheed Corporation.

All done!

Star Trek in Theater

The CENTCOM theater of operations, that is:

Pretty cool - much credit to the cast and crew for doing this. The film doesn't open stateside until next month.

Here's the film's official site.

As usual,
via the DP
cause I'll never be
as fast as Mizz G
(though she can't rhymz like me)

Don't Hit the Snooze Button

I've said before and will again - visit Navy Captain (ret) and attorney Eagle1 for insight on all things pirate, including this: "Defense officials said the U.S. military is considering attacks on Somali pirate bases on land and aid for the people there to help stop the hijacking of ships off Africa's coast".

"Imminent Danger"

That phrase sounds familiar... I've heard it somewhere before. Maybe it'll come to me later. For now, onward.

It's not about Obama.

By "it's" I mean this post, and the story behind it. But the story is that there are those who want to make the story about Obama. Some - from about 15 minutes after it began - wanted to blame him for piracy and compare the situation to Jimmy Carter and the Iranian Hostage crisis. Now that it's over, many seek to credit him for its conclusion. Some are in the AP:

The operation, personally approved by President Barack Obama, quashed fears the saga could drag on for months and marked a victory for the U.S., which for days seemed powerless to resolve the crisis despite massing helicopter-equipped warships at the scene.

Let's roll video...

Q Admiral, Justine again from FOX, it's been reported that the order to take action came from President Obama. Is that accurate, did the order come from the top, and would you say that action was needed because the ship was getting closer to shore? Was that also another reason that the timing was now for this rescue effort?

ADM GORTNEY: Our authority came, you're correct, our authorities came directly from the president. And the number one authority for incidents if we were going to respond was if the captain's life was in immediate danger. And that is the situation in which our sailors acted.

Q A couple questions, first of all, a question follow-up on that one. But that was a standing authority from the president. He wasn't on the phone with the skipper of the Bainbridge saying, oh, yeah, go ahead and at that time shoot.

ADM GORTNEY: Correct. That's correct. Yes.

ADM GORTNEY: I want to make one thing perfectly clear, that the on-scene commander determined that the captain was in imminent danger. If he was not in imminent danger, they were not to take this sort of action they were supposed to let the negotiation process work it out.

The on-scene commander took it as the captain was in this imminent danger and then made that decision and he had the authority to make that decision and he had seconds to make that decision.

Seems to me Captain Phillips was in imminent danger from the moment armed pirates boarded his ship - but I'm no expert on the fine points of law of the sea. But the following point was stressed repeatedly throughout that press conference, too:

Q One more brief follow-up. And that imminent danger as you seemed to say earlier was that the captain, in fact, had an ak-47 aimed at him when this went down.

ADM GORTNEY: I would have to say yes, that he had a weapon aimed at him and the on-scene commander saw that the weapon was aimed at him and took it that that pirate was getting ready to use that weapon. That would be my interpretation of imminent danger and I think that's exactly what happened.

Fortunately, Made For TV Easter Miracle!

But the trio of Navy Seals who had been secretly dropped into the sea over the weekend and taken aboard the destroyer U.S.S. Bainbridge, were steely. They strapped on night vision goggles and zeroed in their targets, three pirates on a red lifeboat floating on the rough seas, including one pirate who was pointing an AK-47at the back of Capt. Richard Phillips.

When the command to fire was given, three shots rang out and the five-day long standoff was over. Vice Adm. Bill Gortney said today that each sniper, who he described as "extremely, extremely well-trained," fired only one shot.

Again - this is not about President Obama. It's about Rules of Engagement, and future consideration of similar events that might not occur during major religious holidays when miraculous (whether SEALs are involved or not) outcomes are expected and (wink) accepted.

Update: ""The on-scene commander" - an ingeniously ambiguous construct" - heh , I noticed that too, and took it to mean the same thing that Lex did - and that the reporters didn't. A minor point, perhaps - but everything about the presser was ingeniously ambiguous to my aged-in-service ears.

But great minds, and all that:"Piracy ought not become a political issue, because it's not going away anytime soon..." Exactly right - though I suspect we share an understanding of "ought not" also.

Update: More Imminent Danger

Ooops

"Background information provided by the White House provides an intriguing clue as to the identity of the Navy SEAL team that rescued Capt. Richard Phillips from Somali pirates." Wow - way to violate COMSEC, guys. That's exactly the sort of thing that the military feared low-ranking milbloggers would do on a daily basis.

Maybe the White House public affairs folks could get the same training they sit through.

(Via comments here.)

Pirate Rescue

The latest: Pentagon briefing from Navy Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, 4 p.m. EDT Sunday 12 April 2009:

Having seen this - more updates below.

Original story:

Breaking:

American sea Captain Richard Phillips was safely rescued Sunday from four Somali pirates, who had been holding him for days in a lifeboat off the coast of Africa, a U.S. intelligence official said.

Three of the pirates were killed and one was in custody after what appeared to be a swift firefight off the Somali coast, the official said.

Initial reports indicate Phillips jumped overboard for a second time and the military was able to take advantage of the situation.

Heh: "Captain jumps overboard, SEALs shoot pirates, official says". "Heh" because if the shooters were SEALs, there were probably four shots fired, and the guy who only wounded his target will never hear the end of it.

Unless there were only three shots fired. That's respectable.

Update - Cap'n Phillips of Underhill looks good:

And here's the brief press release from CENTCOM

MANAMA, Bahrain - At approximately 7:19 p.m (12:19 p.m. EDT) U.S. naval forces rescued Capt. Richard Phillips, the master of Motor Vessel Maersk-Alabama.

"This was an incredible team effort, and I am extremely proud of the tireless efforts of all the men and women who made this rescue possible" said Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, commander, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command. "The actions of Capt. Phillips and the civilian mariners of Maersk-Alabama were heroic. They fought back to regain control of their ship, and Capt. Phillips selflessly put his life in the hands of these armed criminals in order to protect his crew."

Following the rescue, Phillips was initially taken aboard the Norfolk, Va. based guided missile destroyer USS Bainbridge (DDG 96). Phillips was subsequently flown to the San Diego based amphibious assault ship USS Boxer (LHD 4), where he contacted his family, received a routine medical evaluation, and is resting comfortably.

U.S. military forces have one pirate in custody, three were killed in the rescue.

Apparently the fourth pirate wasn't wounded in the shootout (I wasn't joking when I said I was surprised a SEAL had failed on a kill shot) - and had apparently "jumped ship", abandoning his three companions and "joining" the US Navy. That might not be accurate either, but what seems certain is that he was in Navy custody when the shooting started. That begs the question, is this the same pirate who was 'captured' by the crew of the Maersk? Which in turn leads to a question regarding his voluntary status as pirate in the first place. Thus far no one has asked any question along these lines whatsoever, even though other reports I've seen indicate this pirate is 16 years old.

The first thought I had on his disposition: give him a tour of the Boxer, have him meet the Marines and see their toys, ask him where his home is and put him ashore. Tell him to pass along to his elders that next time anything like this happens nearby those Marines will be downtown within a couple of hours.

All the talk among the talking heads on TV after the briefing: Hooray, we're going to bring this pirate to America, try him in court in New York where he faces up to a life sentence.

Again, we're far from the full story here. But there might be much more to this pirate's story than we now know.

And Glenn Reynolds is right: the underlying problem remains unsolved.

For my part, I wonder if they'll consider arming crews now? Four pirates can overwhelm a ship crewed by 20+, grab a hostage, and keep the US Navy and two thousand Marines tied up for days? How many such victories can we expect in the future?

Not to discount the very real heroics involved here, and I love this story as much as anyone - but how about we don't hit the snooze button now?

More - Fox News now reporting breaking news: "three simultaneous kill shots to the head!!!". Amazed, they are.

By the way - SEALs aren't the only human beings capable of such shootin' - just sayin'.

Final thought (for now): Bad timing, and all that - how many times do you think we'll see this event referenced in the upcoming defense budget debates as justification for this or that project whose importance is obvious only now? And who will win the prize for stretching that point the farthest?

Easter '06

Don't let the title fool you, this is an entry from Easter, 2009 - it's a slice of life from three years before that, now (unbelievable...) five years ago. Without getting into the 'why' of it - no matter how you slice it, 2006 was a low point in the war in Iraq. Without getting into the 'how' of it - by 2009 things were much improved. In fact, by 2009 we were beginning to focus more on Afghanistan; when I first wrote this post I linked it to two others that addressed one of the ways I thought that would be a very different war. Prior to 2009 it was going downhill fast, I'd heard. Could we turn it around, too?

Two years later - and no matter how you slice it, due to time differences between here and there, by the time you've read these words (in America in 2011) the same number of troops - or more - will have eaten another Easter dinner at Landstuhl.

Previously: Ancient History

He was one of forty or so who had helped consume the largest Easter dinner Mrs G has ever made. The daughters had helped in preparation but wouldn't be involved in delivery. That's where I came in - helping transport every serving container we owned from our kitchen into the car, down the autobahn and to the facility where the spillover troops - those whose wounds were minor enough not to require in-patient care at Landstuhl but significant enough to merit evac from Iraq or Afghanistan waited in limbo. Their next destination might be the States, or back to their units "on the front".

The majority wanted option two. In the meantime they waited, housed in a dorm in the middle of Germany, visiting the docs but mostly doing very little and probably dwelling much on where they'd been a few days earlier and where they might be tomorrow. For breakfast, lunch, and dinner, the DFAC - a fine facility to be sure. But that particular Sunday Mrs G burst into the dayroom, her husband in tow (in civilian clothes) and a home-made dinner for forty in hand.

Most were surprised. Few were there long enough to experience multiple visits from MaryAnn or her partner in crime. And this was just a waypoint, after all - a place where they expected to be forgotten. Instead they were being thanked, but their universal question was inevitably why? Few Soldiers (or Sailors or Airmen or Marines) - surrounded most of the time by thousands who are doing exactly what they are doing - are aware they are doing something that sets them apart. Something worthy of thanks in word or deed.

Having done my bit for them that day I took repayment - intel on how things were going over there. In getting honest answers it helped that I was between tours myself, had been there before and already knew I was heading back. And these guys could be counted on for the worst possible view - they were, after all, the walking wounded from America's war. Many were relatively undamaged but had been in vehicles with others less fortunate, their seat on the right rather than the left making the difference between home cooked Easter meal and dinner from a tube - or even a last supper. So there they were in limbo with little to do but ponder their existence after dealing with the frustration of administrative details and the limits of medical science and families on the homefront convinced they must be far worse off then their brief communications would claim.

And it was 2006. Success in Tal Afar was in the past, unknown to most, and declared unrepeatable by most others. The Samarra mosque bombing was headline material for stories that couldn't fail to mention "civil war" and the American victims caught in the middle. The Anbar Awakening was a few months away, the surge a year out. The war in Iraq was lost. A mistake from the start. The war in Afghanistan was forgotten.

Who could possibly paint a grimmer picture than the individuals in the middle of all that? (American "journalists" and their readers or viewers who'd never been in country, of course - but this is a rhetorical question.) And it wasn't a pretty picture - but the worst I heard was the quote that prefaces this account. "All we do is drive up and down the highways, waiting to be attacked." A situation can be bad, but that assessment was grim because it indicated that as bad as it was we weren't really going to be doing anything about it.

That was one guy, and I didn't drill for details. I don't doubt for a minute that driving up and down the highway was all he did in Iraq - waiting to be attacked was his choice of additional detail. That was his perception, and it mattered. Whether that was his platoon's mission or his company's or his brigade's I didn't bother asking. And I didn't need to ask why that's what he did - they were keeping the roads open for convoys. Why? So the FOB could be supplied. Why? Because there were soldiers there. What were they doing there? They were keeping the road open...

And the circle goes on and on, and I knew it and didn't have to ask. The answer was in his eyes and tone of voice when he replied. And he was tired (though not hungry) and didn't know where he would be in a week - home in the States or running route clearance in Iraq, waiting for another flash boom that would mean he wouldn't make it to the DFAC that night, would miss out on enjoying the food that couldn't have been delivered without him...

And after a while the crowd dwindled and the wife and I cleaned up the dishes and packed them away and went home to an Easter dinner of our own.

And that was Easter, 2006.

Things are better over there now, of course. Which means that the guys who went back and made that happen are less on the minds of their countrymen than ever before. Funny how that happens.

"Dinner's ready", the wife just called from our kitchen in America on Easter in 2009.

So Happy Easter from our house to yours.

More to follow...

The Bunny Came!

...or else Mrs G got up early.

A New Way to Nowhere

Glenn Reynolds notes anemic turnout for anti-bank "New Way Forward" rallies: "They could only get a hundred to turn out in San Francisco?

In this case, the question was pre-answered:

When the banks told the White House they wouldn't cooperate with the PPIP plan unless they got their bonuses, and the administration made the decision to "ratchet down their rhetoric," the call went out to the liberal interest groups to stay silent too...and silent they remain.
<...>
There's a big problem right now with the traditional liberal interest groups sitting on the sidelines around major issues because they don't want to buck the White House for fear of getting cut out of the dialogue, or having their funding slashed. Someone picks up a phone, calls a big donor, and the next thing you know...the money is gone. It's already happened. Because that's the way Rahm plays.

Baghdad Sunrise

USA Today:

Easter services are planned at one of Baghdad's biggest churches for the first time in two years as Iraqi Christians return to homes they had deserted because of violence.

Saints Peter and Paul Church had been closed since mid-2007 as insurgents and sectarian militias targeted Iraq's 800,000-strong Christian community.
<...>
Thanks to improving security, as many as 800 Christian families have returned to Dora in the past six months, says Col. Samir al-Timimi, the Iraqi police commander for the district.

Iraqi Christians packed the Virgin Mary Church in Baghdad's Karradah district on Sunday to attend Easter mass.

The service was attended by about 200 people who expressed their happiness at being able to perform their own rituals freely again.

Since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Christians have frequently been the target of attacks by Islamic extremists, forcing tens of thousands to flee.

Fewer than three percent of Iraq's 26 million people are Christians, the majority of them Chaldean-Assyrians and Armenians, with a small number of Roman Catholics.

The exact number of Christians left in Iraq is unclear but they are thought to number several hundred thousand.

Mike Yon, 2007:

(Used by permission)

The Iraqis asked me to convey a message of thanks to the American people. "Thank you, thank you," the people were saying. One man said, "Thank you for peace." Another man, a Muslim, said "All the people, all the people in Iraq, Muslim and Christian, is brother." The men and women were holding bells, and for the first time in memory freedom rang over the ravaged land between two rivers.

The Power

Sunday morning at the Hanoi Hilton was church time. To gather our "congregation," the Senior Ranking Officer (SRO) tapped "cc," quietly on his wall. Each cell in turn tapped "cc," and soon all have been alerted to Church Call. The service was a prayer and a reciting of Bible verses. If I was lucky, I was in a cell with one or two other POWs, and we could pool our knowledge of the Bible.

A failed rescue attempt led to the most memorable of our church experiences. It happened on November 20, 1970, when U.S. Special Forces staged a mission to rescue the POWs believed to be at Son Tay, one of the small prisons the North Vietnamese maintained outside Hanoi. The raid was brilliantly planned and executed perfectly. Our men landed at the prison in helicopters and came home without the loss of a single American. There was only one problem: All the POWs had been moved out of Son Tay about four months before the rescue effort so none of us went back with our rescuers. The mission still turned out to be a huge success for us, however.

Realizing that such rescue attempts could happen again, the North Vietnamese brought us in from outlying prison camps into the main Hoa Lo prison in Hanoi: the Hanoi Hilton. Within hours of the raid, we were moved into large cells -- 43 of us in my cell. It was the greatest day of our prison life. For the first time, we were meeting POWs whose names we had memorized years earlier. Many of us had formed intense friendships through the tap code with men we'd never seen. As we met that night, "So this is what you look like" was heard over and over throughout the cell.

Flying Pie

Pizza!

The launch of Pyongyang's first Italian restaurant meanwhile brings to fruition a ten-year effort by Kim Jong-il - a renowned gourmand and lover of western food - to create the perfect pizza and pasta in his homeland.

Last year a delegation of local chefs was sent by Kim to Naples and Rome to learn the proper Italian techniques after their homegrown efforts to mimic Italian cuisine were found by Kim to contain "errors".

When you're the president of the United States, only the best pizza will do - even if that means flying a chef 860 miles.

Chris Sommers, 33, jetted into Washington from St Louis, Missouri, on Thursday with a suitcase of dough, cheese and pans to to prepare food for the Obamas and their staff.

He had apparently been handpicked after the President had tasted his pizzas on the campaign trail last autumn.

"Go F$%k Yourselves"

- Maersk Alabama crewman to reporters as his ship docks.

More great press for the VA

On the heels of "making vets pay for healthcare" - wow:

What makes this story truly unbelievable - and very scary - is the fact that the mastermind of this attack is a federal employee, Gloria Hairston, an internal communications specialist with the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. She was aided by at least two other employees of the V.A. and four armed security guards.

But the smartest thing you can possibly steal is the evidence of your crime. Their desperation, it should be noted, lends credence to the original charges, too. No doubt there's a "rest of the story" to follow. This one should come from somewhere very near the Shinseki-level, and very soon.

There will be a "Taking Care of Our Veterans" panel at the milblogs conference. Paul Reickhoff of IAVA and Pete Hegseth of VFF are confirmed.

Update: in an earlier version I said the VA had declined to send a representative - that's incorrect. There might be a VA rep there after all - stay tuned...

Weather, Risk, and Mitigation

Another excellent point from Eagle1: "You may note that part about "currents, prevailing winds, sea state." As I have noted, when the winds in the Gulf of Aden or off the eastern seaboard of Somalia are 10 knots or below, the pirates are more active and more successful in their attacks."

He addresses other known factors that indicate increased risk (see here too). Apparently pirates take advantage of conditions that reduce their risk (and increase their chances of success).

Therein lies frustration: these factors aren't entirely capricious or unpredictable. While imperfect, weather forecasting and more immediate threat detection - along with the ability to communicate same - has certainly reached a point where aircraft without de-icing capability can compensate with planning and successfully avoid flying into areas of extreme threat. On a larger scale, cities in coastal areas with well-laid plans for hurricane response can execute those plans based on reasonably accurate predictions of track when one develops. Obviously there are degrees of uncertainty involved, but preparation and response must be adequate for the risk. Still, planes crash killing dozens and cities flood stranding thousands at a frequency that (while low) is still excessive given our knowledge of threat and ability to mitigate risk. (And don't get me started on tornadoes...)

But from shipping to city planning to airline schedules to personal security the common factor in reluctance to respond appropriately to threat is cost - not capability.

Lets assume then that frequency of occurrence of "pirate-favorable" weather is high enough (at least seasonally if not year round) that avoiding transit altogether (or even delaying) in those periods is cost-prohibitive, both to the shipper and the recipient of goods. Further, that military naval presence is insufficient (again due to cost) to permit escort or ensure timely response. These assumptions establish a level of risk, for which it's incumbent on those who then accept said risk to take steps to mitigate if not eliminate entirely. The question then again returns to cost.

"Every shipping company so far has paid the ransom, and every victim has been released unharmed up until this point".

...the pirates were armed with AK-47 assault rifles, while the freighter's crew carried no weapons...

John Reinhart, CEO and president of Norfolk, Virginia-based Maersk Line Ltd., said the crew can try to outrun the pirate boats or turn fire hoses on anyone trying to board the ship, "but we do not carry arms"

Next: "Go F$%k Yourselves"

From the halls to the shores

Headlines best viewed together - US Navy misses chance to rescue American captain held hostage by pirates and Hostage killed as French storm yacht held by Somali pirates.

"The unsuccessful escape attempt and the captain's uncertain fate threaten to embarrass the Obama Administration," the Times of London explains, while the Guardian describes the French rescue effort as "highlighting the perils facing US forces trying to free an American seaman being held captive in a parallel pirate standoff."

From comments - placed before I'd expanded this entry: "It's hard to understand why France can conduct commando raids on two of it's hijacked ships, yet we're sitting there four days into this thing doing nothing." That raises a fair question, and no doubt reflects frustration shared by many.

I'm certain the Navy would have acted if possible. I wasn't there and won't second-guess. I'd like to see the video (apparently a UAV was overhead) - I expect it would reveal there were few options. Hopefully the DoD will make it available soon.

Meanwhile, the Maersk Alabama reaches port. Speaking of video - now would be a good time to flood the airwaves with video of the offloading and distribution of its humanitarian aid cargo.

Or not:

"For security reasons, the vessel will berth in a restricted area of the port and will not be accessible to the media. FBI officers will debrief members of the crew on board the vessel before they disembark. The crew will not be available to the media in Mombasa," Maersk Ltd. said.

The Wall Street Journal:

WASHINGTON -- In the waning days of the Bush administration, the National Security Council issued a detailed yet little-noticed plan for combating piracy off the coast of Somalia.

The 14-page blueprint, issued in December, committed the U.S. government and its military to securing the sea lanes of the Gulf of Aden -- through which, the plan noted, nearly 12% of the world's oil is transported -- and laid out more than a dozen specific policy initiatives that the White House would take to make sure Somali pirates did not choke off the world's commercial shipping.
<...>
It was nearly silent, however, on what to do if a ship is taken by pirates and crew members are held captive. And what little guidance it provided was vague. U.S. naval forces were given authority to "terminate the act of piracy and any included hostage situation." Just how they were to do that was left unsaid.

The reason for the plan's lack of guidance has now been made clear over the last two days off the coast of the Horn of Africa: The choices facing a hulking navy destroyer as it confronts a ragtag group of Somali pirates holding an American seaman hostage in a small, propulsion-free boat are extremely limited.

The waters are getting crowded around that pirate standoff: "A third ship, the amphibious assault ship USS Boxer, which has a large medical facility on board, will be there within a day." Good - a very humanitarian image.

Dan Riehl notes what CNN failed to - the Boxer isn't a floating hospital ship. That large medical facility is a necessity since there are (in addition to the crew) two thousand Marines on board, who of late have been practicing amphibious "landings" "to refresh skills that could be used in a major combat operation."

The Boxer is described as the "flagship of Combined Task Force-151, a multi-national task force conducting anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden."

That's a very big hammer. The question is "what size is the nail?" There are, after all, smaller though less impressive hammers in the tool bag. But that first question can't be isolated from another: "how does the public view the nail?"

I see some developing parallels here (which is one reason why I revisit events here as often as I do). More on that later.

Meanwhile: continue to check the expert.

Next: Weather, Risk, and Mitigation

Tracking

Hey rube:

The United States will stick to its timetable for pulling troops out of Iraq despite the recent rise violence, US Vice President Joe Biden said as Obama visited Baghdad.

"I'm not worried about that at all. We will draw down along the timeline we suggested," Biden said in an interview with CNN, asked if an upsurge in attacks blamed on Al-Qaeda might derail the US timetable.

General Ray Odierno: we may miss Iraq deadline to halt al-Qaeda terror

The activities of al-Qaeda in two of Iraq's most troubled cities could keep US combat troops engaged beyond the June 30 deadline for their withdrawal, the top US commander in the country has warned.

US troop numbers in Mosul and Baqubah, in the north of the country, could rise rather than fall over the next year if necessary,

Obama in Baghdad: One Milblogger's View

PAO/Milblogger account from Baghdad:

Something pretty cool happened yesterday. I heard that the President was coming to this area and was glad that we didn't have that type of PAO mission (media facilitation) because when a VIP of that stature comes here, things get asinine. Anyways, I thought it was going to be a presidential meeting...like with the Prime Minister of Iraq or something. Nope.

Our First Sergeant comes into our office, "OK! The man is here, who wants to go see him?" We all stared at him; silence engulfed the room.

Mania

It's not intended as a joke, but this AP story has a great punch line.

First, the set up:

Tens of thousands of supporters of an anti-American cleric burned an effigy of ex-President George W. Bush on Thursday and demanded that U.S. troops leave Iraq in a rally marking the sixth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad to U.S. forces.

Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose Shiite militia fought U.S. troops intermittently until a cease-fire last May, had called on Iraqis to turn out for the protest at Firdous Square _ where Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled on April 9, 2003.

Protesters set fire to American flags and to Bush's effigy as it hung from the pillar where Saddam's statue once stood.

All Better Now

Yahoo:

The top U.S. general in Afghanistan reached out to influential Afghan tribesmen in regions where U.S. troops will soon deploy, apologizing for past mistakes and saying he is now studying the Quran, the Muslim holy book.

Ancient History

Previously: al Iskandar to Kandahar

So having finished a novel about his campaigns (and revisiting some other sources along the way) I decided to re-watch Oliver Stone's version of the story of Alexander. I remembered it as awful, but wanted to give it a second chance, partly because historical details were fresh in my mind, and partly in response to an urge to see some of those details brought to life.

The movie was every bit as bad as I remembered. And that's a shame - with one of the greatest known stories in the history of civilization as foundation, Stone failed utterly to to craft a film version worthy of even faint praise. It's not in historical accuracy that the movie disappoints - at least for a viewer who doesn't expect Hollywood versions to sacrifice entertainment value for documentary credibility. It's not the actors - they're first rate - and certainly not the budget, the locations, the costumes, or the musical score where the film falls short. It's the script and the direction that prevent this movie from ever making a top ten list (or top one hundred, for that matter), be it of war movies, historical dramas, biographies, epics, or what have you. And when the credits role, Stone's name is listed for both.

Alexander is one of those films that as you watch you can almost hear the director calling the shots in every scene; "stand this way, look that way, tilt your head, assume this expression... pan left, zoom, bring up the violins..." It's pervasive, and the recognition of technique destroys any hope of being absorbed into the story.

As for the story, it fails utterly to explain how its star could possibly have conquered the world. This fault lies not with Colin Farrell in the title role but has everything to do with a script whose author lacks familiarity with the fundamental qualities of a charismatic leader - one who could inspire tens of thousands to advance across a continent, soldiering on even after their earlier successes brought them riches beyond dream, and with visions of comrades maimed and killed along the way still fresh in their minds. Inspirational leadership is but one element of Alexander the mytho-historical figure, but it's key. It's certainly fodder for one element of an epic film (to say the least) but it's one Stone fails utterly to deliver. "His" Alexander is a character upon whose death the rare viewer who somehow managed to press on to the final frame thinks only "good, this is almost done".

Perhaps it's a masochistic streak, but I can't stop wondering why, or in this case, "what the hell was he thinking? So I turned on the director's commentary and started watching it again. I didn't get far. I didn't need to.

After a quick clip of Alexander on his death bed we cut to Egypt, the city of Alexandria, a few decades after that brief first scene. We are in the Great Library listening to a distinguished elderly gentleman relate his experiences with Alexander. This, Stone informs us in his voiceover, is someone called "Pahtallemy". (Throughout the film the actors repeatedly do pronounce his name correctly.) Stone's mangling is a minor irritant, except that within moments "Pahtallemy" is depicted standing before a map of the known world with place names in English in a "Greek" font (all good, it's a movie) as Stone informs us that modern audiences have difficulty with Greek names. They are "tough for a lot of people."

Within moments we cut to flashback. Stone tells us that originally the captions for these scene changes gave the dates based on our modern system, but he changed them to read "30 years earlier" because American audiences (and he singles out Americans for this distinction) weren't astute enough to understand that a jump from 320 BC to 350 BC was a move back in time. (Stone fails to mention it, but the fact that the younger actor playing "Pahtallemy" looks nothing whatsoever like the older version doesn't help.)

So that's one question partially answered - much of what is wrong with this movie can be traced to Stone's perception of what's wrong with Americans. In short: they are stupid - he reinforces the point repeatedly in the early part of his commentary. (I've never seen the later part, my questions were answered well enough early on and I'm not that much of a masochist.)

Oliver Stone does not like George Bush. He does not support the war in Iraq. This I know and don't care. His politics (unless one argues that a professed belief in the ignorance of one's fellow American's is political) aren't obvious in the film. But I expected him to reference modern events in his commentary, so it didn't surprise me when he did. If anything, the only reference I heard to George Bush and the War on Terror was a bit more circumspect than I anticipated - albeit in a context that was entirely wrong.

Alexander was a superior leader to George Bush, Stone very briefly explains, because he pressed on with just one war rather than starting another while it was in progress. Hell, he could have called George Bush Chimpy McHitlerBurton and I'd have ignored it considering the source - but coming from the guy who wrote and directed a big-budget picture on the life of Alexander the Great this statement was the last I needed to hear to close the book on why the result falls so short of anything approaching justice to the name (and why "the Great" was wisely left off the final title of the film).

Ignoring President Bush, there are compelling reasons why the comparison fails, why Stone is wrong. Alexander split his forces as required to accomplish his goals, fighting "insurgents" in one direction while expanding territory in another. He re-formed for major pushes eastward - each of which could be considered launching a new war without completing another. If that's an inaccurate description of his earliest conquests it's certainly true of everything beyond Ecbatana. Alexander's campaign across Persia into south Asia is the classic example of overreach. It was little more than a raid across a massive amount of territory. His "empire" as we see it on maps today never truly existed, and whatever nascent identification with or loyalty to king or country he left in place faded almost as swiftly as the sound of Bucephalus' hoofbeats in the East.

Even his home nation of Macedon faded almost immediately into historical obscurity (even Stone repeatedly refers to Alexander as "Greek") and any semblance of unity or Empire that existed beyond its borders certainly didn't last beyond his final heart beat. And while his successors carved manageable chunks of personal empire from their previously raided territories they expedited their downfall by promptly declaring war on one another, and their nations vanished from east to west.

This is not to deny the greatness of Alexander or dismiss the lasting influence of Greek culture on much of the conquered regions. But imagine for a moment the resulting history of the world had he stopped at Ecbatana - with the western Persian Empire in hand, Darius dead, and a raiding party dispatched to finish Bessus. What if, at that point, he had been content to abandon his (unobtainable) goal of reaching an Eastern sea that was far beyond the point he believed it to be - both in terms of geography and capability of men to alternately march and make war? Certainly the maps of his "empire" we see today might seem less impressive - but arguably he'd have carved one that could potentially be sustained beyond his brief life (which might not have been so brief were that the case).

That's one of history's great what ifs. Would that empire have weakened enough for Rome to rise to challenge two centuries later? Or might Alexander or a successor turned his eyes westward after consolidating his eastern gains, making Rome another outpost along the way...

And what other great moments in history might we imagine would have been different under the more tolerant rule of the Greeks? Certainly our calendars might reflect a year other than 2009 - perhaps that same date would appear on calendars in Baghdad and Tehran (or Babylon and Susa, or whatever cities may have risen in the intervening centuries) too.

Perhaps those calendars wouldn't have a day designated "Easter"...

Next: Easter, '06

Trace Adkins and the USMA Glee Club

Don't forget to go to iTunes and download this live performance to support the wounded warrior project.

Las Vegas, 5 April 2009. Trace Adkins sings "Till the Last Shot's Fired" with the West Point Cadet Glee Club.

The Ninth of April

Previously: Photographic Memories

April 9th, 2003: The U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division is fighting a battle of rapidly diminishing ferocity in the streets of Baghdad. A few blocks away from where the final shots echo a made-for-TV moment unfolds - United States Marines pull up in front of the hotel where reporters have gathered in hopes of a CNN in '91-style view of the war and topple a statue of Saddam Hussein while a small knot of Baghdad dwellers looks on...

One year later to the day, an event of far greater significance to the war occurred, of which few will ever know anything but the results.

"The Army had the opportunity for this not to come out, not to be on 60 Minutes," he said. "But the Army decided to prosecute those six G.I.'s because they thought me and my family were a bunch of poor, dirt people who could not do anything about it. But unfortunately, that was not the case."

And that evidence was damning. "I got about a dozen photos on Friday, April 9. In Dana's tiny office in New York, we sat grimly and looked at picture after picture," CBS producer Mary Mapes would later recount.

Dan [Rather] came rushing in from across the street and the three of us looked huddled around the desk, flipping through the photographs silently. Jeff Fager and Patti Hassler came to Dana's office to see the pictures and had the same reaction we did. They just stared.

No one said a word. We were speechless.

In his spare time (not that he had any), Roger worked with Col. David Hackworth on his advocacy Web site, Soldiers for the Truth...

I wondered aloud if we might use the web site in a slightly different way. Why not use the information we had to put out an internet alert on the Abu Ghraib case?
<...>
Within hours of our posting our alert on March 23, Roger got an e-mail from a man named Bill Lawson. He was the uncle of one of the men being held in preparation for a court martial.

...Lawson left a phone number where he could be reached. Roger called Lawson back so fast his fingers nearly burst into flames.

Roger listened to details of Chip Fredericks case and then asked the big questions: Had Lawson heard anything about the photographs? Lawson said that Frederick had acknowledged that pictures were part of the evidence against him. "Chip says that he is in only one of the pictures," Lawson told Roger. "I just hope he's not smiling"

Q. Describe the incident with the detainee with the wires on his hands?
A. He is nicknamed Gilligan , he is currently on tier 3. He was just standing on the MRE box with the sandbag over his head for about an hour. I put the wires on his hands. I do not recall how. I was joking with him and told him if he fell off he would get electrocuted.
Q. Who took the pictures of this?
A. I took one and Frederick took one.
Q. Why did you do this to the detainee "Gilligan"?
A. Just playing with him.
Q. Do you feel it was allowable to do this to the detainee?
A. We were not hurting him.
Q. Was this your idea?
A. Just the wires part.
Q. Why did you have the detainee standing on the box?
A. Just to keep him awake.
Q. Did MI ask you to do this?
A. Not me personally...
- Testimony of Sabrina Harmon collected during the Abu Ghraib investigation, 15 January 2004

Incident #10. Six Photographs of DETAINEE-15, depict him standing on a box with simulated electrical wires attached to his fingers and a hood over his head. These photographs were taken between 2145 and 2315 on 4 November 2003. DETAINEE-15 described a female making him stand on the box, telling him if he fell off he would be electrocuted, and a "tall black man" as putting the wires on his fingers and penis. From the CID investigation into abuse at Abu Ghraib it was determined SGT J. Davis, SPC Harman, CPL Graner, and SSG Frederick, 372 MP CO, were present during this abuse. DETAINEE-15 was not an MI Hold and it is unlikely MI had knowledge of this abuse (Reference Annex B, Appendix 3, DETAINEE-15; Annex I, Appendix 1, Photographs C1-2, D19-21, M64).
- AR 15-6 Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Detention Facility and 205th Military Intelligence Brigade
MG George R. Fay, 2004

Staff Sergeant Chip Frederick later told Army investigators that he asked the C.I.D. man--whom he identified as Agent Romero--about Gilligan, and that Romero said, "I don't give a fuck what you do to him, just don't kill them."

Frederick said that he took Romero's words "like an order, but not a specific order"...

Harman had even acquired a Gilligan tattoo on one arm, but she considered that a private souvenir. It was the public's fascination with the photograph of Gilligan--of all the images from Abu Ghraib--that she couldn't fathom. "There's so many worse photos out there. I mean, nothing negative happened to him, really," she said. "I think they thought he was being tortured, which he wasn't."

- Sabrina Harmon, 2008

But Chip wasn't in the photo that appeared on 60 Minutes and became the most enduring image of the Iraq war.

Mary Mapes explains the techniques used to get the photos ready for prime-time T.V.: "We tried pixelating them, fuzzing them, blacking them out, finally settling on a combination of blurring and smearing."

*****

More to follow...

All done!

Bainbridge's Revenge?

Maybe:

A standoff in the Indian Ocean is continuing after an attack by Somali pirates on a U.S.-flagged container ship. Pirates fled the ship after they were overpowered by the vessel's crew, but the ship's captain, Richard Phillips, is being held hostage in a lifeboat. The destroyer USS Bainbridge is tracking the lifeboat; the Navy has now summoned the FBI's hostage rescue experts.

More from Eagle1.

And more from MikeD, in comments:

"I don't think Capt. Bainbridge is really the best example for the eventual resolution of the current situation. After all, the Captain, and remaining crew of the Philadelphia, were only freed on payment of a $60,000 US ransom.

"That'd be what in 2008 $$'s, several million?"

Next: From the halls to the shores

One step forward...

Well phooey:

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan rejected on Tuesday a US proposal for joint operations in the tribal areas against terrorism and militancy, as differences of opinion between the two countries over various aspects of the war on terror came out into the open for the first time.

Highly-informed sources said the move followed a collective decision reached between the government and security establishment to adopt a tough posture against a barrage of attacks and criticism emanating in recent weeks from Washington, directly targeting the Pakistan army and the ISI and creating doubts about their sincerity in the war on terror and the fight against Al Qaeda and Taliban.

Was it something the boss said? ("The era of the blank check is over," Mr. Obama told Congressional leaders at the White House...)

In a word, yes:

Mr Qureshi's message perhaps could not have been more unequivocal; he stated that cooperation could continue only if balance and respect were restored to the relationship.

'We can only work together if we respect each other and trust each other. There is no other way and nothing else will work,' he said rather bluntly.

Reacting to President Barack Obama's assertion that there would be 'no blank cheques for Pakistan", the foreign minister said: "We neither accept nor give one.'

Mr Qureshi also said that Pakistan's expectations from its friends were not just monetary. 'We have certain expectations from the Friends of Democratic Pakistan. Most importantly, these expectations are not cents and dollars; rather it is the political support that Pakistan expects from them.'

According to a source in the US delegation, the stance taken by the Pakistani side came as a rude shock to the Americans, who had so far been taking the civilian and military leadership for granted.

This sort of thing probably isn't helpful either.

Next step: explain to the Pakistani government that all the Obama admin "tough talk" about "blank checks" and "exit strategies" is really just a regurgitation of key Party talking points from 2006/2007 and intended solely for the placation of the rubes back in the States, and we're actually a reliable partner. (No, this will not make the papers.)

But if we have to yield on the drones for our part of the bargain we're screwed. They're central to our plan, which acknowledges Pakistan is more important than Afghanistan but is no place for soldiers:

Schieffer: Are you giving our commanders now in Afghanistan a green light to go after these people even if they're in what used to be safe havens in Pakistan?

President Obama: Well, I haven't changed my approach. If we have a high-value target within our sights, after consulting with Pakistan, we're going after them. But our main thrust has to be to help Pakistan defeat these extremists.

Now, one of the concerns that we've had building up over the last several years is a notion I think among the average Pakistani that this is somehow America's war and that they are not invested. And that attitude I think has led to a steady creep of extremism in Pakistan that is the greatest threat to the stability of the Pakistan government - and ultimately the greatest threat to the Pakistani people.

What we want do is say to the Pakistani people, you are our friends, you are our allies. We are going to give you the tools to defeat al Qaeda and to root out these safe havens. But we also expect some accountability. And we expect that you understand the severity and the nature of the threat.

In addition, what we want do is to help Pakistan grow its economy, to be able to provide basic services to its people, and that I think will help strengthen those efforts. If the Pakistan government doesn't have credibility, if they are weakened, then it's gonna be much more difficult for them to deal with the extremism within their borders.

Schieffer: But you're talking about going after them. Are you talking about with American boots on the ground -

President Obama: No.

Schieffer: - pursuing these people into these so-called safe havens?

President Obama: No. Our plan does not change the recognition of Pakistan as a sovereign government. We need to work with them and through them to deal with al Qaeda. But we have to hold them much more accountable.

The "recognize as sovereign government" can get a headline in the U.S. as a change from Bush policy, but it won't work over there where we always have done just that - so from the Pak POV you can file that under thanks for nothing, Mr President. (And oh by the way, give us control of the drones in our sovereign air space.) And while the "accountable" part may be yet another talking point intended to placate the rubes on the home front - it's also a very public accusation for a global audience that thus far they haven't been. Such a non-subtle bitch-slap can hardly be welcomed by Pakistan as positive encouragement from a helpful ally. It's undiplomatic at the least, and a ham-fisted monumental blunder whether a rookie mistake or not.

It's simply that the tactic of saying one thing to one group and the opposite to another might get you elected President of the United States (with the proper media coverage), but won't get you far in the cold cruel world out there.

Add to that the fact that the government of Pakistan understands its issues, challenges, threats and failures better than the Obama administration ever could, but will never be able to convince the Obama administration of that - and you're headed for disaster.

They will, however, do what they must to survive, and Obama is not the only thing standing between them and the pitchforks.

Done wrong, diplomacy can lose wars, too.

MilBlogs Conference

The full schedule for the milblogs conference is now posted.

Register soon if you haven't already.

al Iskandar to Kandahar

Preparing for Afghanistan, 330 B.C., from Steven Pressfield's The Virtues of War: A Novel of Alexander the Great

Examine the daybooks for this period. You will see that the corps fought for almost three years across Areia, Parthia, Drangiana, Bactria, Arachosia, and Sogdiana and could not force a single pitched battle. It was all sieges and unconventional warfare, against native fighters the troops called "wolf warriors." ...These were steppe raiders and hill tribesmen, the former mounting at one time as many as thirty thousand, the latter thrice that number, who fought both as armies and as clans. Their commander, when they had one, was the last Persian lord, Spitamenes, whom our men came to call the Grey Wolf, for the streak in his beard and his elusiveness over that stony and barren ground.

One cannot engage guerrilla forces with conventional ones. A new order must be evolved. Anticipating this after Guagamela, I reorganized the army, making it lighter and more mobile. I chopped four feet off the sarissas. Each man dumped twenty pounds of kit. Helmets became light caps; armor we dispensed with entirely. Of cavalry, I doubled the number of Companions, integrating the Lancers and Paeonians and the best of the Persian and foreign horse. I wanted units that were fast and flexible, that could live off the land and operate independently in hostile country.

No primary sources exist, but drawing upon them Plutarch described the approach to the mountains, where Alexander "saw that his army was by this time cumbered with much booty and hard to move..."

At break of day, after the baggage-wagons had been loaded, he burned first those which belonged to himself and his companions, and then gave orders to set fire to those of the Macedonians. And the planning of the thing turned out to be a larger and more formidable matter than its execution. For it gave annoyance to a few only of the soldiers, while the most of them, with rapturous shouts and war-cries, shared their necessaries with those who were in need of them, and what was superfluous they burned and destroyed with their own hands, thus filling Alexander with zeal and eagerness."

Still, he was eager to overcome fortune by boldness and force by valour, and thought nothing invincible for the courageous, and nothing secure for the cowardly.

The Day a Statue Fell

Elsewhere in Baghdad:

Pasto began doing his job, which was to fire up his speakers to blare "INTEBAH, INTEBAH" at an earsplitting level, with messages to the Iraqis to get off the streets because there was a firefight going on. The Iraqis, who already knew that, didn't give a damn because they were busy emptying out an appliance store somewhere. Up the street, I could see looters trundling refrigerators and washing machines and air conditioners and other big box items out of an alley. They would stop and look both ways as though watching for a break in fire, then trundle their stuff across the street.
<...>
Down by the river, Blue Platoon leader Lt. Laughlin reported that the militants using the mosque as cover were dressed for martyrdom, with Islamic headbands. Capt. Chris Carter said the locals had reported that these were jihadi fanatics who had crossed into Iraq from Syria. Other units had encountered them. Large numbers reportedly entered Iraq in recent weeks to fight the American invasion.
<...>
Late in the afternoon, I called up the Boston Herald to dictate the day's story. Deputy Managing Editor James MacLaughlin told me there was big news on CNN. The Marines had just liberated Baghdad. They were in front of the Palestine Hotel, where they pulled down a statue of Saddam. Did I know anything about that?

No, I didn't, but that was great news. Nothing against the Marines, but the Army had been here for two days before they showed up, fighting a series of pitched battles that precluded statue toppling, and we were two miles north of Firdas Square dealing with some troublesome Syrians and an idiot gunman. Who does history record as liberating Baghdad? The ones who pulled up in front of the international media's digs at the Palestine. Some jarheads in an M88 tank hauler with a length of chain and a press gaggle.

Another RPG came screaming up obligingly up the street as I dictated my story and exploded high over the square, to make the point.

Looking a bit too hard for the Union label

This is a bit over the top:

Now that the American crew members of the Maersk Alabama have retaken the ship from four Somali pirates (USA! USA! USA!), it's important to note that like all the people involved with the safe landing of US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in January, the crew members of the Maersk Alabama are union members.
<...>
I just heard on Fox News (and confirmed with the SIU), crew members of the Maersk Alabama received anti-piracy training from (where else?) their union. You can see an SIU member at small arms training at the union's Paul Hall Center for Maritime Training and Education in the photo to the right (more photos here). In addition to small arms training, the Hall Center offers anti-terror, basic safety, first aid, and other security-related courses.

Quinn said the pirates were armed with AK-47 assault rifles, while the freighter's crew carried no weapons. The crew -- apparently minus the captain -- locked themselves in the compartment that contains the ship's steering gear, where they remained for about 12 hours with their captive, whom Quinn said they had tied up. The three other pirates "got frustrated because they couldn't find us," he said.

The pirates had scuttled the small boat they used once they climbed aboard the freighter, Quinn said, so Phillips offered them the Alabama's 28-foot lifeboat and some money.
<...>
Phillips was being held in the Alabama's 28-foot lifeboat after the pirates reneged on an agreement to exchange him for a captured pirate, Quinn said.

"We returned him, but they didn't return the captain," he said.

"Every shipping company so far has paid the ransom, and every victim has been released unharmed up until this point".

As previously noted, first reports are always wrong. When you read something that "a U.S. official said at midday, speaking on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak on the record" (a quote that has already disappeared from 90% of the posted versions of this story) understand that the reason they aren't authorized to speak on the record is because the people above them know that initial reports are always wrong.

I would have liked to have seen a "flight 93 moment" here as much as anyone. That's not quite what happened.

More (via IP):

According to the Navy, it would take 61 ships to control the shipping route in the Gulf of Aden, which is just a fraction of the 1.1 million square miles where the pirates have operated. A U.S.-backed international anti-piracy coalition currently has 12 to 16 ships patrolling the region at any one time.

Next: Bainbridge's Revenge?

Noted

Jane Hamsher, Firedoglake:

Ben Smith has an article on Common Purpose, one of the many groups Rahm Emanuel has set up to coordinate messaging among liberal interest groups.

There are a variety of vehicles through which this is done -- the 8:45 am call, Unity 09, Campaign to Rebuild and Renew America -- and they've been extremely successful. When the banks told the White House they wouldn't cooperate with the PPIP plan unless they got their bonuses, and the administration made the decision to "ratchet down their rhetoric," the call went out to the liberal interest groups to stay silent too...and silent they remain.
<...>
There's a big problem right now with the traditional liberal interest groups sitting on the sidelines around major issues because they don't want to buck the White House for fear of getting cut out of the dialogue, or having their funding slashed. Someone picks up a phone, calls a big donor, and the next thing you know...the money is gone. It's already happened. Because that's the way Rahm plays.

Just in case you were worried, that's not a problem for us.

Elsewhere:

A number of these top bloggers agreed to come on record with me after privately arguing to these groups that they deserved a share in the ad wealth and couldn't be taken for granted any longer.

"They come to us, expecting us to give them free publicity, and we do, but it's not a two way street," Jane Hamsher, the founder of FiredogLake, said in an interview. "They won't do anything in return. They're not advertising with us. They're not offering fellowships. They're not doing anything to help financially, and people are growing increasingly resentful."

Hamsher singled out Americans United for Change, which raises and spends big money on TV ad campaigns driving Obama's agenda, as well as the constellation of groups associated with it, and the American Association of Retired Persons, also a big TV advertiser.

"Most want the easy way -- having a big blogger promote their agenda," adds Markos Moulitsas, the founder of DailyKos. "Then they turn around and spend $50K for a one-page ad in the New York Times or whatever."

Over to you, Ben:

I'm all for bloggers on both sides getting paid, the unspoken flipside of the story is that the writers are intensely aware of who is and isn't buying ads.

Just in case you're worried - that's not a problem for us.

Related: 200 Headlines.

Late update - the AARP responds:

AARP would never allow advertisers to dictate our editorial content based on the amount of ad space purchased, and we would be hesitant to buy ads with any media that suggested it might act otherwise.

Cartoon Saddamy

The Telegraph: "South Park creators given signed photo of Saddam Hussein"

During his captivity, US marines forced Saddam, who was executed in 2006, to repeatedly watch the move South Park: Bigger, Longer And Uncut, which shows him as gay, as well as the boyfriend of Satan.
<...>
Stone, 37, said both he and Parker, 39, were most proud of the signed Saddam photo, given to them by the US Army's 4th Infantry Division.

He said: "We're very proud of our signed Saddam picture and what it means. Its one of our biggest highlights.

"I have it on pretty good information from the marines on detail in Iraq that they showed Saddam the movie.

"Over and over again - which is a pretty funny thought.

"That's really adding insult to injury."

By the way, there are no Marines in the 4ID.

Update: great minds, etc. - "And then he begged to be killed."

Sadr City Symphony

My friend Michael Totten in Sadr City and other Baghdad neighborhoods. Mostly harmonious, but some unsettling chords mixed in. (Damn those half diminished sevenths...)

Initial reports

...are always wrong:

The AP called the ship's satellite phone. The man who answered it said the 20-member crew had been taken hostage but managed to seize one pirate and then successfully negotiate their own release.

He says the crew has retaken control of the ship and the pirates are now in a lifeboat. But the man also says that they are holding the ship's captain hostage in the vessel.

The man did not identify himself in the brief phone conversation.

Government officials said details were murky and declined to confirm the report.

Update: More details emerge:

(CNN) -- The destroyer USS Bainbridge has arrived off the Horn of Africa, where the captain of a U.S. freighter is reportedly being held by pirates, a senior defense official said.
<...>
[Ship's Captain Richard] Phillips was being held in the Alabama's 28-foot lifeboat after the pirates reneged on an agreement to exchange him for a captured pirate, Quinn said.

"We returned him, but they didn't return the captain," he said.
<...>
Joe Murphy, whose son Shane is the ship's first officer, said the hijacking is "a wake-up call for America."

Some of the information in this AP video may be outdated:

Next: Looking a bit too hard for the Union label

And so the Journey ends...

I briefly mentioned baton-wielding London Bobbies dealing with G20 protesters in an earlier post. Turns out that one of them had the apparent misfortune of shoving an innocent bystander to the ground mere moments before the man died of a heart attack.

Meanwhile, how to you stop a gaggle of reporters from whining? By wining them:

Normally grumpy, reporters at first moaned at the thought of spending the night without a hotel room and without their luggage, already checked hours before and loaded aboard the disabled plane. But that eased with news of extra wine being brought in.

Soldiers' Angels needs help

Via Email - FBL:

This is the text (with links spelled out) from Patti's weekly newsletter she sent out to registered Angels. Cash flow is very, very tight--this is the slow time for charities anyway, and the economic worries are compounding things. Any assistance you can offer in getting out the word would be greatly appreciated (as of this morning we still have 700+ unadopted soldiers, too):

This last week a letter from one of our deployed heroes landed in my email box and grabbed my heart. It came from a commanding officer of a unit conducting convoy security missions in Iraq. He wrote:

We have been here for several months and the quantity and quality of support we have received from you and you volunteers is truly humbling.

We receive mail each day, and there has yet to be a single day pass that someone in the company does not eceive a letter or package from a Soldiers' Angels volunteer. Most days it is multiple letters and packages. I can assure you, the Soldiers' Angels charter "May No Soldier Go Unloved" is alive, well, and flourishing...

I became familiar with the Soldiers' Angels organization during my last deployment when I was wounded and evacuated to Germany. I received countless emails, letters, and visits during my hospitalization which I will remember for the rest of my life. Soldiers' Angels has been there for my men (and for me) during our
darkest hours and in our moments of triumph. You are all Angels in the truest sense.

Thank you for all that you do, have done, and will continue to do in the future, for all of us; you will always have my gratitude, respect, and appreciation.

Sincerely and Respectfully,

Captain O.

This letter is an example of how much knowing they are loved and supported means to our heroes, how much the work we do matters . Shipping a care package to a soldier who doesn't get a lot of support, backpacks for the wounded, vet packs, support on the homefront and so much more... Soldiers' Angels changes lives.

Please help us continue this work! Afghanistan is heating up, and more units are being deployed to help out. Conditions there are so much rougher than Iraq, and daily life is hard. Please help us make sure that these heroes have some pieces of home to show them how much they are loved and appreciated!

Somali Pirates

Navy milbloggers Eagle 1 and Neptunus Lex weigh in.

More to follow, I'm sure.

Update: Initial Reports

Another change in Party Affiliation

Via email we discover we're Republicans this week, and not just average Republicans either:

Subject: Them troops sure hate them some Obama

Hi! See the footage of the President's reception by the troops in Iraq today? How's that "The troops hate Obama" meme working for you?

Oh my...it must be a sad, sad thing to be a Republican fuckwit these days.

But I had time for a quick response:

Tell me about it. Ignorant fuckwits are a blight on the world

Last week we were Democrats, I believe. (At least the Republicans are polite.)

Obama Wins Again

In Unexpected Visit, Obama Wins Cheers of Troops

...The headline could have made the troops the active-verb heroes...

Troops Greet Obama with Military Cheer

... but the NYT does not identify with the troops. The troops are not heroes in the NYT's narrative, making their own decisions based on their own psychologies and agendas and drives and wants. No, in the NYT's narrative, the troops are objects of the hero Obama's actions, chips for him to win in a high-stakes game of geopolitical poker. And in their headline, he wins them.

The Emperor's New Clothes

The Live Leak version of our Baghdad video:

President Obama in Iraq - April 2009

When you can't bring your teleprompter, the old-school note card will have to do.

Of course, if you knew the names of the major war-zone military units you commanded, you wouldn't need it.

Which is that as Commander in Chief if you want to portray yourself as involved in strategic decision making you had better at least learn the names of the top military commands executing that strategy. Multi-National Force-Iraq, Multi-National-Corps Iraq, Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq... these are not minor players. It's understandable if the names and functions of each may be unfamiliar or confusing to the average American civilian, but not to their Commander in Chief.

But that's a point probably lost on those same average American civilians if they're obsessed with handshake protocol (a non-issue) or cheer volume (a manufactured one - as these videos reveal). And while the teleprompter issue is great for a chuckle, anyone who's ever given formal remarks in a public setting uses some sort of notes for those remarks. In fact, President Obama doesn't rely on them here - watch the video again and you'll see him put his card away in his coat pocket after he clears the hurdle of reciting the unfamiliar names of his major units in Iraq and moves on to the memorized talking points from which headlines are made.

But it's that great and revealing moment of unfamiliarity that precedes those quotes (and that won't fit into the news coverage) that tells the story. You can call it "his strategy" if you wish (and he certainly owns it now), but the genius of the man was in keeping his predecessor's DoD intact to continue the trajectory established over the last two years, leaving him free to memorize the names of his key donors and the number of billions they need.

Ooops...

Yes, Mudville has agents everywhere, but in spite of the fact we beat the networks in showing the Obama in Baghdad footage we had nothing to do with this:

When President Obama made his surprise visit to Iraq, a CBS News crew acting as the pool for the networks shot footage of him meeting with U.S. troops. A CBS executive said Pentagon officials required the network to hand the tape to a military courier, who was to ferry it to a CBS representative outside the secure military zone so it could be transmitted to all the networks.

Hours went by; no tape. No one seems to know what happened. There was talk of sandstorms and a bungled handoff. The networks had to make do with Defense Department footage of less-than-top quality.

And all's well that ends well: "The tape was finally located and belatedly handed off to CBS -- minutes before the 6:30 newscasts."

How to shoot down a plan to shoot down missiles

Popular Mechanics (via Instapundit): How to shoot down a North Korean ballistic missile.

...the U.S. is developing a layered system that can shoot down ballistic missiles in each stage of their flight. Here is how to shoot down a rogue ballistic missile.

1. Airborne Laser
The Missile Defense Agency is outfitting a Boeing 747-400F with infrared sensors and a high-energy laser in the nose that destroys missiles within the first minutes of a launch. The first test against a flying target is planned for 2009.

We will cancel the second airborne laser (ABL) prototype aircraft. We will keep the existing aircraft and shift the program to an R&D effort. The ABL program has significant affordability and technology problems and the program's proposed operational role is highly questionable.

Overall, the Missile Defense Agency program will be reduced by $1.4 billion

To better protect our forces and those of our allies in theater from ballistic missile attack, we will add $700 million to field more of our most capable theater missile defense systems, specifically the terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) System and Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) programs.

We will also add $200 million to fund conversion of six additional Aegis ships to provide ballistic missile defense capabilities.

We will not increase the number of current ground-based interceptors in Alaska as had been planned. But we will continue to robustly fund continued research and development to improve the capability we already have to defend against long-range rogue missile threats - a threat North Korea's missile launch this past weekend reminds us is real.

Afghanistan: Attack Misses Merkel ?

I mean, she's German - so shouldn't it say "attack Frau Merkel"?

At War at the MilBlogs Conference

We're pleased to announce that on Friday, April 24, we will screen Scott Kesterson's film, At War. Troy from Bouhammer will be hosting the screening.

Additional details at Bouhammer's.

President Obama in Baghdad (Part two)

Here's the unedited video coverage of the President in Baghdad.

"Under enormous strain and under enormous sacrifice, through controversy and difficulty and politics, you've kept your eyes focused on just doing your job. And because of that, every mission that's been assigned -- from getting rid of Saddam, to reducing violence, to stabilizing the country, to facilitating elections -- you have given Iraq the opportunity to stand on its own as a democratic country. That is an extraordinary achievement, and for that you have the thanks of the American people."

He came close to saying "Every mission that's been assigned - you've accomplished." That would have been an extraordinary achievement.

On with the show:

Part one:

Part two:

Part three:

At least this should stop all talk of comparative cheer enthusiasm.

Update: Okay - as consolation for those who expected boos to greet the CinC - from the opening of video part one, guess what's on that card (I guess the teleprompter doesn't work on 220 circuits) he's reading?

That would be the names of the commands in Baghdad - "Multi-National Force-Iraq, Multi-National Corps-Iraq..." Seriously, those shouldn't be that unfamiliar to their commander.

Meanwhile, here's a caption contest.

President Obama in Baghdad

Headline: "Obama makes surprise visit to Iraq".

Some are more surprised than others.

The President in Turkey (just a hop, skip and jump from Iraq and Afghanistan)...

One wonders where he and his "500 people, including senior officials, staff, support personnel, news reporters and some 200 Secret Service agents" will go next.

This is unfortunate:

He will talk by phone with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al- Maliki and President Jalal Talabani, spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters traveling with Obama. Low clouds and dust prevented him from taking a helicopter into the city for face-to-face meetings, Gibbs said.

Obama rode in an armored black SUV today in a convoy that included armored personnel carriers and helicopters circling overhead

*****

No worries, sir. That's an AH64 Apache - the most lethal helicopter in our inventory - providing top cover up there. I mean, you can't see it for all this dust, but it's there.

What's that? I couldn't hear you over the rotors... uhh, no sir, we didn't check his voter registration...

Go ahead, add your own caption in comments.

All done!

"Cover Me"

Coming home is not so easy. "It's okay to not be okay"

Learn more about "combat operational stress" in this must see video.

The Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund was established in May 2004

A nurse at the Camp Pendleton Naval Hospital, whose husband was deployed to Iraq, saw first hand the needs of those returning from battle. She brought together a group of Marine Corps spouses with diverse backgrounds to implement a plan to provide financial grants to OEF/OIF injured Marines, Sailors, and service members injured while assigned to Marine forces, and their families during their difficult road to recovery. A Governing Board of retired Generals and Officers, Senior Enlisted Marines, and others with professional backgrounds was added to help the Fund develop into a nationwide program. The Fund works closely with the Marine Corps, the Navy, and military hospitals nationwide to identify and assess the needs of OEF/OIF specific families. And, we need your help to keep this noble mission moving forward. The Fund depends on the generosity and compassion of people from all walks of life to join our quest of "serving those who preserve our freedom."
<...>
When an OEF/OIF Marine or Sailor, or other OEF/OIF service member assigned to Marine forces is injured, their entire family shares the pain and the burden of recovery. Normal life is put on hold as loved ones travel great distances, at a moment's notice, to be at the bedside, often for weeks or months. Recovery from major catastrophic injuries may take our service members several years to recover. The family members take leave from their jobs, often without pay, and incur additional expenses for child-care, lodging, travel, and other necessities. Few families are prepared for the expenses they face. They need help, and they need it quickly. The Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund was created to meet this need.

General James N. Mattis:
"It's critical if you, your shipmate, your buddie, is having a tough time, you gotta have the guts to come in and ask for support, just like I ask for air support when I go into a fight, you need to be able to ask for the same kind of counseling support, or take care of your buddy if you see he's having a tough time, and you can't turn the other way and ignore it"

Wise words from a wise man.

If you are a veteran or know a veteran who is having a difficult time transitioning home there's a list of resources here Please do not ignore it.

"Marines are not victims", veterans are not victims, it's okay to not be okay.

Defense Budget Released

And Abu M liveblogs the announcement. "Okay, we'll buy the Navy two destroyers." Shokka!

Bill Robert Gates' (Bill has more money to play with) prepared remarks here.

On the Air

Via Tim Sumner, the audio from last night's NiteCap on Freedom Radio interview with Bill Roggio - part one and part two.

About half way through part two some guy named Greyhawk phones in and starts pushing the MilBlogs Conference and claiming Bill Gates is the Secretary of Defense. He and Bill Roggio - along with host Pat and engineer Tim - then reminisce briefly about their time in Baghdad, the history of milblogs, and current goings-on in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Consequences

Headline (via the Mrs) from Delaware: Arrival of fallen troops at Dover no longer secret:

The service of Air Force Staff Sgt. Phillip A. Myers, 30, of Hopewell, Va., was not finished when he died Saturday in Afghanistan of injuries suffered from an improvised explosive device.
<..>
His return also marked an early watershed in the administration of President Barack Obama, a nod in favor of transparency and away from secrecy favored by prior administrations.

Late Sunday night, the arrival of Myers' body at Dover Air Force Base in a flag-draped transfer case became a powerful reminder to his nation and the world of the sacrifices made by members of the armed forces and the high cost of war.
<...>
On Sunday, a few more than two dozen media members quietly snapped pictures, scribbled notes or trained video cameras at the procession shortly after the plane landed at 10:30 p.m.

An argument that brings to mind another anniversary:

While showing the images could erode support for the war, not showing them could have an opposite effect.

Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Washington-based Project for Excellence in Journalism, said that networks' "sanitization of war may have helped the administration prosecute the war" a year ago.

During the height of the war, few pictures of slain American soldiers were shown and news photographers were not allowed at places where they could shoot images of coffins being shipped home.

The pictures from Wednesday's attack, Rosenstiel said, could anger viewers or "engender disenchantment about the war."

It's been five years since news organizations "debated" whether or not to show Americans video and still images of contractor's bodies, mangled in Fallujah. In case you don't recall their agonized decision - they did.

What they wanted was this:

"These are the kinds of pictures that will linger," said John Schulz, dean of Boston University's College of Communications and a former faculty member at the National War College.

"They'll be there in November when people go to vote."

What they got was the bloodiest battle of the war:

From the division's point of view, the lynching was a tragedy, not least because it could have been avoided. The four Americans lost were added to the list of dozens killed in the past year in the Fallujah area. Conway, Mattis, Dunford - all had seen the maimed and the burned. They focused on the issues, not the emotions...

The Marines had a plan they wanted to stick with... Seeing no reason to alter that plan, Dunford sat down and and wrote an email to be used on the evening news in the States. "We are not going to overreact to today's violence," he wrote. "We have a methodology of patient, persistent presence. We will identify who was responsible, and in cooperation with Iraqi security forces, we will kill them."

However, "Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Gen Abizaid decided that the Marine plan to respond in measured steps ignored the international impact of the event" - impact generated by the immediately widely viewed video from the scene.

President George W. Bush was reported to be furious... Rumsfeld and Abizaid, with Ambassador Bremer in strong support, had recommended to President Bush that Fallujah be seized immediately. The president ordered the Marines "to go get those responsible," with no waiting, no delay. The president was not told that the Marines disagreed with his order to rush in.
<...>
Seeing the pictures on television, Bremer called Sanchez into his office.

"I encourage a vigorous attack," Bremer said. Sanchez agreed. He too was dissatisfied with the tempered Marine approach.
<...>
BrigGen Kimmitt, the deputy director of operations for the JTF and the spokesman for the Coalition's military, spoke to the press on April 1. "U.S. troops will go in," he promised. "It's going to be deliberate; it will be precise; it will be overwhelming."

...and it wouldn't be finished until long after those November elections, when people went to vote.

The grisly pictures that started it, however, were forgotten within a few days.

All done!

What's the Korean word for "shoot"?

In our last episode:

...the UN Security Council approved an emergency session to deal with the launch at a formal request submitted by the Japanese government, which claimed the DPRK's rocket launch violated UN Security Council resolutions whether it was a satellite or a missile.

Expect a strongly worded statement any moment.

It turns out even my cynicism was overly optimistic

...the U.N. Security Council met in an emergency session. Despite the urging of the United States and Japan, the 15-member council could not agree on a statement criticizing North Korea's rocket launch. China and Russia said they were not yet convinced that Pyongyang had violated any U.N. rules, according to council officials.

North Korean Missile Launch Was A Failure, Experts Say

North Korea failed in its highly vaunted effort to fire a satellite into orbit, military and private experts said Sunday after reviewing detailed tracking data that showed the missile and payload fell into the sea. Some said the failure undercut the North Korean campaign to come across as a fearsome adversary able to hurl deadly warheads halfway around the globe.

North Korea shows progress in mastering missile technology

Although a crucial third stage of a North Korean rocket apparently failed in a launch Sunday, U.S. military and intelligence officials and weapons experts said the test raises new concerns about advancements in Pyongyang's mastery of missile technology.
<...>
Unlike North Korea's 2006 test in which a Taepodong 2 rocket failed 40 seconds after launch, the rocket this time successfully went through the first two stages.

Obama Seizes on Missile Launch in Seeking Nuclear Cuts

Hours after North Korea's missile test, President Obama on Sunday called for new United Nations sanctions and laid out a new approach to American nuclear disarmament policy -- one intended to strengthen the United States and its allies in halting proliferation.

Walking the Walk

Something to do while in DC for the MilBlogs Conference.

You'll have to do it on your own time though - the conference agenda is packed.

And Onward Rode the 500

The President in Turkey (just a hop, skip and jump from Iraq and Afghanistan): "Let me say this as clearly as I can: the United States is not and will never be at war and with Islam. In fact, our partnership with the Muslim world is critical in rolling back a fringe ideology that people of all faiths reject."

I should clarify - since that's a point President Bush made repeatedly throughout his tenure - that this is President Obama speaking, on "his first trip to a predominantly Muslim country as president". But according to this report from Reuters, "Turkey will not be the venue for Obama's promised major speech in a Muslim capital but his stop will still be a way to emphasize his message of goodwill to Muslims."

One wonders where he and his "500 people, including senior officials, staff, support personnel, news reporters and some 200 Secret Service agents" will go next.

Meanwhile, Politico notes other similarities between Obama and his immediate predecessor:

Still, the all-work, no-play itinerary - more reminiscent of George W. Bush than Bill Clinton - comes at a time when Obama is cognizant of the economic problems facing many Americans, and the political threat they pose. It's one thing to be discussing international finance and Afghanistan with allies, but it may not go over well if he's seen as checking out castles and nibbling fine food while gallivanting across the continent.

Related: "Demonstrators shout slogans against U.S. President Barack Obama during a protest in Istanbul April 5, 2009."

And here are pictures and videos from protests in London. Hopefully the police in Istanbul and Strasbourg had time to learn from the baton-use tutorial included therein.

Speaking of Missiles...

This story...

The Obama administration has signaled it wants to scale back the deployment of a missile defense system that was initiated by former President George W. Bush. The White House is also talking about dropping plans for missile defense facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Barack Obama today won agreement for substantial Nato troop reinforcements in Afghanistan, when nine European nations, including Britain, said they would send up to 5,000 troops and logistical help ahead of the presidential elections there in August.
<...>
The countries agreeing to contribute further help, according to European diplomats, include Poland - which is to send as many as 600 troops - Spain, Croatia, Greece and the Netherlands.

RUSSIAN President Dmitry Medvedev last night ordered a large-scale Russian rearmament - including its nuclear arsenal...

The primary task is to increase the combat readiness of our forces, first of all our strategic nuclear forces. They "must be able to fulfil all tasks necessary to ensure Russia's security."
<...>
A bipartisan US commission recommended in a report yesterday that ...the administration to "take a new look at missile-defence deployments in Poland and the Czech Republic".

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama will sign a declaration next week committing them to talks on reducing their countries' nuclear arsenals, a Kremlin aide said on Saturday.
<...>
Russian officials have said that finding agreement on a successor to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START 1), which is due to expire in December 2009, is a priority in relations with the new U.S. administration.
<...>
The Obama administration has pledged to "reset" ties with Russia after they reached post-Cold War lows under former President George W. Bush.

"A shared understanding is now taking shape that bilateral relations are getting a second chance that must not be missed. We are confident that London will be an important milestone along that path," Prikhodko said.

He added, however, that Russia had a sober view of the issues dividing the two countries, especially U.S. plans to install a missile defence system in Eastern Europe.
<...>
Diplomatic relations between Moscow and Washington have fallen to their lowest since the Cold War in the past 12 months over Russia's war with Georgia and the planned U.S. anti-missile system.

Another sticking point has been Russian military sales and nuclear cooperation with U.S. foe Iran.

President Obama and Russian President Dimitry Medvedev launched negotiations on a new nuclear arms treaty today, even as they agreed to pursue new and broader cooperation across a wide range of policy areas.
<...>
"The presidents decided to begin bilateral intergovernmental negotiations to work out a new, comprehensive, legally binding agreement on reducing and limiting strategic offensive arms," a statement says. Obama told reporters that he will travel to Moscow in July, the date by which the two leaders said their negotiators should report progress on the new arms reduction treaty.

I wonder how President Obama will thank the Poles for their contribution to the Afghanistan effort. iPods? DVDs?

Okay - but what military?

I mean, just curious:

Fifty-seven percent (57%) of U.S. voters nationwide favor a military response to eliminate North Korea’s missile launching capability. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just 15% of voters oppose a military response while 28% are not sure.

North Korea defied international pressure and launched a missile last night.

Update - good news for Hawaiians - if a missile heads your way someday, we might consider shooting it down, maybe:

"I think if we had an aberrant missile, one that was headed for Hawaii, that looked like it was headed for Hawaii or something like that, we might consider it," Gates said. "But I don't think we have any plans to do anything like that at this point."

The United States can do nothing to stop North Korea from breaking international law in the next 10 days by firing a missile that is unlikely to be shot down by the U.S. or its allies, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday.

Appearing on "FOX News Sunday," Gates said North Korea "probably will" fire the missile, prompting host Chris Wallace to ask: "And there's nothing we can do about it?"

"No," Gates answered, adding, "I would say we're not prepared to do anything about it."

Last week, Admiral Timothy Keating, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, said the U.S. is "fully prepared" to shoot down the missile. But Gates said such a response is unlikely.

But that was all pre-launch talk. This is post-launch:

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton on Sunday discussed over the phone the situation concerning the rocket launch by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.

"The parties favored joint actions in order to prevent the destabilization of the situation in North Eastern Asia, as well as maintaining the six-party process on the Korean peninsula problem," the Interfax news agency cited the statement.

Meanwhile,

the UN Security Council approved an emergency session to deal with the launch at a formal request submitted by the Japanese government, which claimed the DPRK's rocket launch violated UN Security Council resolutions whether it was a satellite or a missile.

Smoke on the Water

We all came out to Strasbourg
On the shores of the River Rhine
To get some troops for Afghanistan
We didn't have much time...
- - Barack Obama, Smoke on the Water

At least, not enough time to visit wounded troops from Iraq and Afghanistan (wow - deja vu). Here's an email exchange with an unnamed Mudville informant near Landstuhl Army Medical Center in Germany:

Hey - Barack Obama was here

Well, Air Force One was at Ramstein, which is only 5 minutes away.

That counts, right?

Landstuhl seemed all spruced up this weekend, as if prepared for a surprise visit. The ashtray in the smoking section by the ER wasn't totally overflowing with cigarette butts like it usually is.

Re: Hey - Barack Obama was here

Were there cigarette butts in the ashtray after Air Force one left? That would be evidence.

Mrs G

Re: Hey - Barack Obama was here

Good one, Mrs. G. No, seriously. He didn't come by.

I assume they flew into Ramstein on AF1 and then by helo to the NATO conf. If they weren't going to come to LRMC I'm not sure why they didn't land at Spang instead, which would have been closer to Strasbourg.

Something like 4 hotels were set ablaze by protesters in Strasbourg.

Everything's so much better now that they like us!

Update: Oh wait - the New York Times covered the story under this headline: "Riots Erupt Near Bridge That Links 2 Countries". It's almost as if they don't want people to read it...

Still more:: "Demonstrators shout slogans against U.S. President Barack Obama during a protest in Istanbul April 5, 2009."

And here are pictures and videos from protests in London. Hopefully the police in Istanbul and Strasbourg had time to learn from the baton-use tutorial included therein.

Ol' Nicky P. Sarkozy
Had the best place around
But some stupid f$%^&*g anarchists
Burned the place to the ground
Smoke on the water
the fire in the sky...

We ended up at the grand hotel
It was empty cold and bare
But with the rolling truck stones thing just outside
Making our music there
With a few red lights and a few old beds
We make a place to sweat
No matter what we get out of this
I know well never forget
Smoke on the water, fire in the sky...

Bellavia and Roggio on the "radio" tonight

Via email from a friend

Tonight at 8 PM Eastern, Pat (Honest Conservative) will interview both David Bellavia and Bill Roggio on her Blog Talk Radio show. Full disclosure: I produce it (meaning I do the grunt work for free ;-)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2221837/posts

David will discuss the 2nd battle of Fallujah, 'House to House,' and what he is up to now. Bill will discuss the hot spots in the Global War on Terror (I'm missing a memo I think on that name) plus talk about the Long War Journal and his experiences as an embedded journalist.

If you could point the show out to your readers, I'd appreciate it. The links to get to the show are within the Free Republic post.

Best regards,

Tim

P.S. On Pat's show site you'll see she has done some great interviews since recently starting her Sunday night show.

The show can be heard online here. There's a call in number, too.

Torpedo Defense

Mudville, yesterday: "the real fun with the defense budget begins when Jack Murtha and company get their hands on it. If they can resist adding pork projects - and whether the administration responds forcefully if (okay, when) they do - that will be the actual proof of change I'm looking for."

And Jack Murtha is ready: "I am requesting $8,000,000 for AN/SLQ-25D Integration. The funding would be used to upgrade the current Naval torpedo defense capabilities, which will enhance ship survivability against modern threat torpedo attack." (Maybe that's the sort of service that gets you the Department of the Navy's Distinguished Public Service Award?)

But that's just the start. Murtha has about $80 million in home district pork projects ready for inclusion in our new lean, mean, defense budget: $5,000,000 for Submarine Navigation Decision Aids, $3,500,000 for the Hand-held Apparatus for Mobile Mapping and Expedited Reporting, $800,000 for Exceptional Family Transitional Training Program for U.S. Military Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, and Airmen, $2,300,000 for the Joint Precision AirDrop Systems-Wind Profiling Portable Radar - the list goes on and on.

And that's just in the defense budget. Add in other bills and the total comes to $134 million in earmarks, including $20 million for clients of a firm under investigation for donations to Murtha and other Democratic members of the House.

"As a member of the House Appropriations Committee, and as Chairman of its Defense Subcommittee, I receive thousands of earmark requests each year." Murtha claims on his web site. "Every request is properly reviewed and vetted through a lengthy and thorough process. In the end, we only recommend funding those that are cost-effective and provide a worthy service or product to the taxpayer."

But none were requested by the DoD.

This week in the (mainstream media) History of the Iraq War

A blast from the past about the past - this Mudville entry is originally from April 5th, 2008...

As the Mrs reminded us, April 4th marked the 5th anniversary of the day SFC Paul Ray Smith earned the Medal of Honor during the battle for what was then known as Saddam Hussein International Airport...

...when morning broke and B Company of the 11th Engineers arrived unscathed at Saddam Airport - some even snapping photos along the way - Sergeant Smith was still uneasy. Things were too quiet, and the airport's high walls obscured the battlefield around him.

Like almost every choice he made, Smith's next decision was straight from the military textbook - punching through a wall with a bulldozer to look around. Yet it set in motion events that would eventually claim his life as he stood in the turret of a crippled vehicle, holding at bay almost single-handedly an advancing force of as many as 100 Iraqis.

So what did make news from Iraq on 4 April, 2003?

Yesterday's Mudville

...is today's New York Times.

Actually, it was in Mudville two days ago:

Time to Change Shirts, guys

What do you think: will the guys from Blackwater Xe see a pay raise or cut when they start getting the checks from Triple Canopy instead?

BAGHDAD -- Late last month Blackwater Worldwide lost its billion-dollar contract to protect American diplomats here, but by next month many if not most of its private security guards will be back on the job in Iraq.

The same individuals will just be wearing new uniforms, working for Triple Canopy, the firm that won the State Department's contract after Iraqi officials refused to renew Blackwater's operating license, according to American diplomats, private security industry officials and Iraqi officials. Blackwater -- viewed in Iraq as a symbol of American violence and impunity -- lost the contract after being accused of excessive force in several instances, particularly an apparently unprovoked shooting in downtown Baghdad in 2007 in which 17 civilians were killed.

Despite the torrent of public criticism against Blackwater, American officials say they are relieved that the old guards will stay on. Otherwise, Triple Canopy, they say, would not be able to field enough qualified guards, with the proper security clearances, before the new contract goes into effect in May.

Meanwhile, in other State Department news, an Iraqi car thief was recently denied a visa to the United States:

The State Department has made a decision to make an Iraqi translator, Jasim, wait another three years for a visa. One of the reasons that the denial was issued was that, Jasim, as part of the Kurdish Peshmerga, infiltrated Uday Hussein's organization to steal data and then stole Uday's car to escape. He was captured, tortured, and then released six years later when Saddam let all the prisoners go on the eve of the Invasion in 2003.

Vice Consul David Jendrisak, the Baghdad-based consular officer who denied Jasim's visa, said in a phone interview that the decision to deny Jasim a visa was made in consultation with the legal office of Consular Affairs in Washington, D.C., something that isn't done for most visas. He acknowledged that the decision was based on Jasim's theft of Uday Hussein's car, which he said was not deemed a "political" act for purposes of the visa denial.

Still, Mercedes-owning sons of ruthless dictators in America can all rest a bit easier tonight. But read the whole (outrageous) thing.

Looking for NATO Troops?

There are over 14,000 of them here. (And we just passed the tenth anniversary of the beginning of that adventure.)

But if you think getting them would be easy - if you think a NATO summit is all sunshine and roses and mutual affection, think again:

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's acceptance of a set of Islamic laws, which critics say will limit the rights of minority Shiite women and authorize rape within marriage, threatened to add new barriers, said the outgoing NATO secretary-general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

"We are there to defend universal values and when I see, at the moment, a law threatening to come into effect which fundamentally violates women's rights and human rights, that worries me," Mr. Scheffer told the BBC. "I have a problem to explain, and President Karzai knows this."

The Pakistani government has ordered an inquiry into the flogging of a 17-year-old woman by Taliban militants in the troubled Swat valley, after public outrage triggered by shocking video footage of the punishment.

The images, played yesterday on private television channels, show a burka-clad woman being pinned to the ground by two men while a third whips her backside 34 times. The woman is seen screaming and begging for mercy as a crowd of largely silent men look on. She is accused of having had an illegal sexual relationship, according to local law. Her brother is among those restraining her.

President Asif Ali Zardari led a wave of public condemnation, and ordered the arrest of the perpetrators. Prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani termed it "shocking" and called for an immediate inquiry. At the supreme court, the newly reinstated chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, summoned officials to a hearing scheduled for Monday to investigate the incident.

"Our constitution allows no space for such public brutality, and our civilisation and culture have no tolerance for it either," said Sherry Rehman, a former information minister.

But the talk of arrests and inquiries are unlikely to amount to much. The Pakistan government's writ has all but collapsed in Swat, where armed militants loyal to a hardline preacher named Maulana Fazlullah have taken control. The teenage woman was flogged in Kabbal, a remote district where Taliban rule is the law. An order by the chief justice to produce the woman in Islamabad next Monday is unlikely to be heeded.

Muslim Khan, a Taliban spokesman, defended the punishment as appropriate under Islamic law, but said it should have been applied by a pre-pubescent boy in a private setting.

Okay, now that we've chased those folks away (they'll be back, disappointed) let's return to our NATO news:

A flap over choosing Mr. Scheffer's successor also posed a distraction from U.S. priorities, and tension for the alliance. Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters he opposed the nomination of Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as the next NATO secretary-general. Mr. Rasmussen infuriated many Muslims when he defended the right to free speech of a Danish cartoonist, who published images of the prophet Muhammad, including one with a bomb in his turban.

Mr. Erdogan is alone in opposing the nomination. But as the leader of NATO's only predominantly Muslim member, Mr. Erdogan argues Mr. Rasmussen's appointment would make the alliance's task in Afghanistan harder.

The day's talks started with a symbolic gesture of unity, as leaders crossed the bridge over the Rhine from Germany to France, but were later marred by violent protests throughout the city.

News from Europe

The London Times, April 4th:

Barack Obama fails to win Nato troops he wants for Afghanistan

Barack Obama made an impassioned plea to America's allies to send more troops to Afghanistan, warning that failure to do so would leave Europe vulnerable to more terrorist atrocities.

But though he continued to dazzle Europeans on his debut international tour, the Continent's leaders turned their backs on the US President.

Gordon Brown was the only one to offer substantial help. He offered to send several hundred extra British soldiers to provide security during the August election, but even that fell short of the thousands of combat troops that the US was hoping to prise from the Prime Minister.

Barack Obama today won agreement for substantial Nato troop reinforcements in Afghanistan, when nine European nations, including Britain, said they would send up to 5,000 troops and logistical help ahead of the presidential elections there in August. Britain is to send 900 extra troops almost immediately, who will remain until October.

The decision, made at a Nato summit in Strasbourg, will be a profound political relief for the US president, who badly needed to be able to show his domestic audience that his offer of a new style of partnership with Europe could reap tangible results.

One for the true Believers

Fox News:

A Pakistani Taliban militant leader has claimed responsibility for the attack on a U.S. immigration center in New York state in which 13 people were killed, Reuters reported.

"I accept responsibility. They were my men. I gave them orders in reaction to U.S. drone attacks," Baituallah Mehsud told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location on Saturday.

Anti-Iraq veteran discrimination on campus?

There is in at least one institution of higher learning, according to this court case filed in Washington State:

An Army reservist employed at the University of Washington has filed suit against the institution, asserting in court papers that he has been harassed and discriminated against for serving in Iraq.

Employed by UW as an electrician since 1992, Army Reserve Lt. Col. James Lukehart had risen in the ranks of the university's facilities department and was working as a maintenance manager when he was ordered to deploy to Iraq in June 2006.

Before he went overseas, a group of his coworkers had told him he would be "engaging in immoral, if not illegal, action" if he went to Iraq as ordered, Lukehart asserts in court documents.

This New Kind of War

Tom Ricks says T.R. Fehrenbach's This Kind of War is "The book to read about the Korean War"...

...if only for one passage: "You may fly over a land forever, you may bomb it, atomize it, pulverize it and wipe it clean of life -- but if you desire to defend it, protect it and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground, the way the Roman legions did, by putting your young men into the mud." This should hang on a wall somewhere in Washington.

Perhaps it should. I read this book while I was in Korea, sometime around 1991. From then until 2003 the US strove mightily to ignore that axiom with regards to Iraq. One can argue the motives, but it's undeniable that a (rarely noticed) twelve-year standoff war followed our removal of troops from Iraqi soil after Operation Desert Storm. Likewise, that the war intensified from primarily diplomatic to increasingly military throughout that period, achieving maximum lethality during the final years of the Clinton administration - all with no indication that its stated goal of "regime change in Iraq" (downgraded to "containment" for 1999 even as near-daily kinetic strikes continued) was achievable. Lest anyone mistake this for Clinton bashing it's worthwhile to recall that this long-distance war began with a deliberate choice by the first Bush administration not to march on Baghdad at the head of a very large coalition of the willing.

After more than a decade his son would decide that Fehrenbach had it right. As a result of acting on that decision, one could draw a conclusion that the only answer to the question "how long does it take to achieve goals in a standoff war?" currently available is "unknown - but twelve years is not enough".

But Fehrenbach was right on other related points, too - as other results of acting on that same decision would reveal.

Military Budget

No, everybody doesn't get a bailout:

Among the programs expected to be heavily cut is the Army's Future Combat Systems, a network of vehicles linked by high-tech communications that has been plagued by technical troubles and delays; with a price tag exceeding $150 billion, it is now one of the most costly military efforts.

Gates also is considering cutting a new $20 billion communications satellite program and reducing the number of aircraft carriers from 11 to 10, and he plans to eliminate elements of the decades-old missile defense effort that are over budget or considered ineffective, according to industry and administration sources.
<...>
Since his reappointment, Gates -- who has demonstrated an uncanny ability to work with different presidents -- has explained that he supports more belt-tightening because the economy is now much worse. "Everybody must recognize, and frankly all the service chiefs do, the economic climate we find ourselves in," Morrell said in February. "These guys don't live, you know, in a cave somewhere or in a vacuum."

And I can't help but notice no one threatening to cut off funding for "Obama's Afghanistan surge".

But the real fun with the defense budget begins when Jack Murtha and company get their hands on it. If they can resist adding pork projects - and whether the administration responds forcefully if (okay, when) they do - that will be the actual proof of change I'm looking for.

One Confirmed, One Unconfirmed

The AP: The Senate has confirmed Karl Eikenberry as ambassador to Afghanistan.

But,

...confirmation of another top-level official was held up by Republican opposition. As a result, the Senate will take a test vote later this month on Christopher Hill's appointment as the Obama administration's ambassador to Iraq.

Photographic Memories

So many Iraq war anniversaries, I can't keep up with them all...

Among others recently missed, this report from CNN on March 20th, 2004:

Six U.S. soldiers have been charged with offenses related to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at an Iraqi prison, the U.S. Army said Saturday.

The soldiers are charged with assault, dereliction of duty, cruelty and maltreatment, conspiracy and indecent acts with another, U.S. Army spokesman Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said.

Multiple sources said the allegations involve soldiers who took photographs of Iraqi prisoners in late 2003, including pictures that show the prisoners partially clothed or physical contact between soldiers and detainees.
<...>
CNN has previously reported that 17 personnel at the prison were relieved of their duties, including a battalion commander, a company commander, three noncommissioned officers, and 12 military police directly involved in guard duties.

Prisoners held by the United States in Iraq are accorded rights of dignity and may not be held up to public ridicule under the Geneva Conventions.
<...>
The Pentagon official said some computer drives were seized by the CID in the search for the photographs and additional evidence of abuse.

So, Army busts soldiers for abusing Iraqi prisoners, investigates, yadda, yadda, yadda... no one was very excited about the story - it went virtually unnoticed.

Dogs Love Trucks

And everybody loves dogs.

The Dawn Patrol

...not usually a feature on Thursdays, but this week is an exception. So here it is.

The Accidental Guerrilla

David Kilcullen's The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One is now available at Amazon, for those who are into the whole "books by brilliant Petraeus advisers" genre.

And if you're not, why?

Time to Change Shirts, guys

Meanwhile, in our nation's capitol

The State Department said Wednesday it has signed the Virginia-based private security firm Triple Canopy to take over protecting U.S. diplomats on the ground in Iraq from Blackwater Worldwide, now known as Xe.

Blackwater, which earlier this year changed its name to Xe (pronounced "Zee"), had come under heavy criticism for its alleged role in a fatal gun battle in Iraq. The Iraqi government refused to renew the firm's license to operate in the country.

Timely Update: "FBI scientists were unable to match bullets from a deadly 2007 Baghdad shooting to guns carried by Blackwater Worldwide security guards, according to laboratory reports that leave open the possibility that insurgents also fired in the crowded intersection."

No To NATO?

Andrew Bacevich, in the LA Times:

When he visits Strasbourg, France, this week to participate in festivities marking NATO's 60th anniversary, President Obama should deliver a valedictory address, announcing his intention to withdraw the United States from the alliance. The U.S. has done its job. It's time for Europe to assume full responsibility for its own security, freeing the U.S. to attend to more urgent priorities.

Meanwhile, in the London Times:

Nato leaders meeting at the 60th anniversary summit of the alliance face humiliation unless they can persuade members to send 4,000 extra troops to southern Afghanistan for the four-month period of the elections due on August 20.

An urgent military request for two more infantry battalions and the logistic support units to go with them was made months ago but so far no Nato government has come forward with offers.

Priority Air

Or: your National Lampoon's government's European vacation?

Onward rode the 500:

President Obama's European visit this week has strained Air Force heavy-airlift capabilities and obliged the military to hire more foreign contractors to help resupply U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, according to military sources.

The large delegation traveling with the president in Europe required moving several transports, including jumbo C-5s and C-17s, from sorties ferrying supplies to Afghanistan to European bases for the presidential visit, said two military officials familiar with the issue. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid any misunderstanding with White House officials.

The Air Mobility Command, part of the U.S. Transportation Command, was ordered to provide airlift for the president's entourage of nearly 500 people, including senior officials, staff, support personnel, news reporters and some 200 Secret Service agents for the European visit, which began Tuesday in London.

To make up for the shortfall, the Air Force had to increase the number of Eastern European air transport contractors hired to fly Il-76 and An-124 transport jets into Afghanistan loaded with troop supplies, the two officials said.

The airlift crunch comes at a particularly difficult time, as the military is stepping up deliveries of supplies in advance of a surge of 21,000 U.S. troops.

Mike Yon in the Washington Times

"Obama plan for Afghanistan, Pakistan short on bold"

There is little wisdom or boldness in the new strategy. It's more like a 50/50 mix of hot coffee and cold cream, a compromise between national interests and domestic politics that makes the strategy neither one nor the other.

The President's Date with the Queen

By date, I mean April first:

Barack Obama met the Queen at Buckingham Palace today and gave her a gift of an iPod loaded with video footage and photographs of her 2007 United States visit to Richmond, Jamestown and Williamsburg in Virginia. In return, the Queen gave the President a silver framed signed photograph of herself and the Duke of Edinburgh - apparently a standard present for visiting dignitaries.

I heard the soundtrack for the photo slide show was Elton John's "Candle in the Wind" remix for Princess Di.

Update: Show tunes - who doesn't love show tunes?

But nothing from Into the Woods?

Update two: More than showtunes - audio of then-state senator Obama's speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and of President Obama's 2009 Inauguration Address were right there with the best of Rogers and Hammerstein.

I thought - hoped, even - that this was an April fools joke launched by a British newspaper columnist. So much for hope.

Because her mother said to

I mean, in case you're wondering why this is here.

This was a lot of fun, really. The original is here.

Sons and Guns and Money

The New York Times, March 31:

BAGHDAD -- Iraqi and American soldiers have completely disarmed a rebellious Awakening Council that staged a brief uprising after its leader was arrested in a Baghdad neighborhood, and they are not going to allow it to re-form, both Iraqi and United States officials confirmed Monday.
<...>
Only a week ago, Mr. Mashhadani had complained publicly about late pay and a lack of jobs, warning that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia might well return to the community. After his arrest, many of his followers began shooting at American and Iraqi forces, and briefly took five Iraqi Army soldiers prisoner, releasing them unharmed.

A Father's Journey

...in the footsteps of his son:

What were you doing on April 6, 2004? While most of us went about our daily lives, members of 2/4 Marines Echo Company were fighting and dying in Ar-Ramadi, Iraq, and twelve families' lives were forever changed. On a day that few of us remember, 11 Marines and a Navy Corpsman were killed during a daylight ambush in a narrow, concrete block-lined alley 8000 miles from home. I know the father of one of these men, and this is the tale of the two long journeys that we made in an attempt to visit the site where his son fell in battle that terrible day in 2004. If successful, this trip would be the first time that any Gold Star parent had visited the actual site where their son or daughter was killed while in Iraq.

John Wroblewski, father of Marine 2nd Lt. J.T. Wroblewski, and I first met on January 12, 2007, as we set off with journalist Martha Zoller on our first trip to Iraq. Martha's plan was to get John to the site in Ramadi where J.T. was mortally wounded. We arrived in Baghdad on January 14, but despite numerous attempts to get to Ramadi, we were unsuccessful due to sniper activity there. Having spent seven days by John's side during which we heard more about J.T. and the Wroblewski family, I felt John's anguish as we risked so much in our unfulfilled attempt to honor his son's sacrifice. On the solemn flight home, I promised John that I would bring him back to Iraq to fulfill his dream.

Busy Weekend

With this (among other things):

We're theatre people, don't you know. This one was triumphant.

Busy Monday, too. The father of the girl in the video is retiring from 24 years of active duty. Small, intimate ceremony, but much effort involved (mostly last minute).

(Bumped, because today the retirement becomes official. And that's not an April Fools joke.)

2009-03-29 20:15:28