Fighting the Information War?

This is one way to do it, I suppose...

Key figures in Iraq’s Sadrist movement said on Friday that US forces had detained one of its top members, the latest in a series of signs that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had authorised a crackdown on the radical Shia movement whose militias are blamed for a large share of the country’s sectarian violence.
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The Sadrists identified the detainee as Abd al-Hadi al-Darraji, the movement’s media director in Baghdad.

Update (20 Jan): Turns out there's a bit more to the story. It's Sadr's organization that claims Daraji is simply a " media director" - others say he's much more. The story is still developing. Here's General Casey responding to early questions from reporters:

And here's today's news on the story:

News of Afghanistan ٤٢

"We highly recommend reading the News."

It's Time

Time Magazine

If you want to know whether a surge of U.S. troops in Baghdad will make a difference, listen to Iraqis like taxi driver Ali Mansoor, 38. Last fall Mansoor's neighborhood in central Baghdad, a mixed Shi'ite-Sunni area known as al-Sadoon, became a sectarian killing zone. The streets around his house were the scene of scores of murders and abductions every day. And then, for one week last October, the violence stopped. "There was a big change in the security situation. Everybody noticed," says Mansoor, who asked not to be identified by his real name. "In my area, there was not a single kidnapping or killing."

So what happened? For the first time since the war began, U.S. forces had locked down the Baghdad slum known as Sadr City, haven to the militias and death squads loyal to rebel Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Looking for a missing U.S. soldier, the Americans cordoned off much of Sadr City, preventing hundreds of killers from slipping out. On Oct. 24, the daily murder rate fell roughly 50%. It stayed down for more than a week, until Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki demanded that the U.S. end the blockade around Sadr City. After the U.S. pulled out, the body count in Baghdad returned to its previous levels, and life for Iraqis like Mansoor became hell again. "I think most of the bad guys came from Sadr City," says Mansoor. "The Americans should attack that place today, not tomorrow."

Re: Oh Noes

Please tell me it wasn't "Keep on lovin' you".

Meanwhile, John J. Miller says "the blame-America-first crowd is wasting no time in blaming America first":

Michael Krepon, president emeritus of the Henry L. Stimson Center, another non-profit involved with security issues in Washington, called the Chinese test a likely — and unfortunate — response to American space policies.

"The Chinese are telling the Pentagon that they don't own space," he said. "We can play this game, too, and we can play it dirtier than you."

Krepon said the Chinese test "blows a hole through the Bush administration reasoning behind not talking to anybody about space arms control — that there is no space arms race. It looks like there is one at this point."

Bet he's not an REO Speedwagon fan either.

STUDYING IRAQ FOR DHIMMIS

Holy prolificacy, Batman! Buck has not only posted more than once this month already, but twice this week?! Alert Glenn Reynolds! Someone text Drudge! Quick, somebody update his Wikipedia profile! Belay that -- quick, somebody create his Wikipedia profile! D'oh! Stupid pseudonymity...

Seeing as how Buck is soon to be a master's candidate in Military Studies with a concentration in Strategic Leadership (granted, a stretch for a lowly noncom), expect all future posts to get brainier, more pompous, and even more compellingly unreadable than ever before. All telling, more of all the wonderful qualities that routinely awarded him B minuses at his beloved alma mater Liberal Groupthink University.

But until he becomes a regular on Fox News -- to the point where Roger Ailes begins seriously pondering how well "Hannity & Buck" would roll off the tongue -- keep enjoying him for free here.

"The situation in Baghdad and several provinces is dire... The level of violence is high and growing. There is great suffering, and the daily lives of many Iraqis show little or no improvement. Pessimism is pervasive."

Indeed it is. Especially in this report!

Oh Noes!

China Space Attack: Unstoppable

China has shown it can destroy a satellite in orbit. What could the U.S. do to stop Beijing, if it decided to attack an American orbiter next? Short answer: nothing.

It takes about 20 minutes to fire a ballistic missile into space, and have its "kill vehicle" strike a satellite at hypersonic speed -- over 15,000 miles per hour -- in low-earth orbit. That's far too quick for anything in the American arsenal to respond, in time. There's "no possibility of shielding" a relatively-fragile satellite against such a strike. "And it is impractical [for a satellite] to carry enough fuel to maneuver away even if you had specific and timely warning of an attack," Center for Defense Information analyst Theresea Hitchens notes.

Meh. Welcome to 1985, Chicoms. The year when --presumably with REO Speedwagon cranked-- we sent an F-15 soaring to the edge of space to kill a target sat.

While I'm sure this will get the gears turning at places like the Space Warfare Center and RAND, there's simple solutions here, methinks. I'm not sure how long it takes to plug a burn into one of our keyholes to dodge one of these red rockets, but surely we could do it in under 20 minutes? Hitchens says we don't have the fuel for such a move, maybe she's right. But seeing that hitting an orbital vehicle from the ground is the rough equivalent of tossing a pebble into a coke bottle from end zone to endzone in the Superdome, I'm not so sure that this isn't something a simple delta-v maneuver couldn't cure. Suppose the simplest solution would be to spend a little extra on rocket fuel and send our new birds into orbits with perigees that are out of range of the Chinese arsenal.

Oh and if this piece of junk ever works, I guess we could work it into the calculus of defensive counterspace as well.

Cross-Posted at OPFOR

Re: I...

...like the sound of that too. Let's just hope it isn't the sound of one hand clapping ourselves on the back.

If this story turns out to be true, then all I can say is:

It's about damn time.

Failing to target the Mahd Squads is the key to everything that has been going wrong the past year in Baghdad. They outnumber the Sunni insurgents there by at least a 10-1 margin and their intentions are just as nefarious. They are the very reason the civilian bodycount is so high still on a day-to-day basis.

The Iraqi government must take JAM on directly before the people will ever take their elected officials seriously, much less the ISF.

Disasters

I got a letter my my bank today offering every assistance in recovering from the Disaster that apparently occurred where I live. I don't watch television news and don't get the local newspaper...I was completely unaware that a disaster had occurred.

I've done some research - From FEMA

“The recovery process for survivors of the November floods begins by calling FEMA’s registration number, 5 a.m. to 5 p.m., seven days a week

I...

...like the sound of this, too.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Mahdi Army fighters said Thursday they were under siege in their Sadr City stronghold as U.S. and Iraqi troops killed or seized key commanders in pinpoint nighttime raids. Two commanders of the Shiite militia said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has stopped protecting the group under pressure from Washington and threats from Sunni Muslim Arab governments.

Update: Here's a slightly different version by the same AP reporter in the Prescott, Arizona Herald (a great town, from what I hear...)

Re: Fifth Column

Another tidbit from that Fox poll: "By 59 percent to 36 percent, Americans oppose sending more U.S. troops to Iraq."

That's right in line with other polls on the topic - so much so that it's hard to refute the results. USA Today/Gallup Poll: "those surveyed oppose the idea of increased troop levels by 61%-36%." Times/Bloomberg found 36% approve, 60% disapprove of the plan. CBS reported 33% favor sending more troops and 59% oppose.

That, my friends, is consistency. And it's also the peg upon which many politicians are hanging their political hopes. (I'd say "betting their political futures" but I suspect that given American media it's a safe bet - they'll get "cover" regardless of what transpires.)

Now let's revisit that other question from Fox: Do you personally want the Iraq plan President Bush announced last week to succeed?

Via Insta, a State lawyer blogging on subjects we've been talking about.

Pentagon Issues Manual for Military Commissions

WaPo

In a Pentagon news conference today, Daniel J. Dell'Orto, the Defense Department's principal deputy general counsel, said the new procedures faithfully follow the Military Commissions Act and ensure that "alien unlawful enemy combatants" who are suspected of war crimes receive "all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized people."

Dell'Orto also announced that Susan J. Crawford, the former chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals of the Armed Forces, will serve as "the convening authority for military commissions." Crawford formerly worked in the Pentagon, serving for a time under then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney during the administration of President George H.W. Bush.

Air Force Gen. Thomas L. Hemingway, legal adviser to the Pentagon's Office of Military Commissions, said detainee trials at Guantanamo that had been suspended will now go forward before the special military tribunals. He said 10 cases had been underway when the process was halted by a challenge in federal court and that a total of 14 cases had been "in various preparatory stages."

Here's a link to the Manual for Military Commissions (PDF--238 pages)

Much has been made of the rules of evidence present in the commissions and the extent to which "coerced" and hearsay statements are admissible. From the Manual's Preamble: