New of Afghanistan - 53rd Edition

Cell phones, Dutch "restraint", microfinance, floods, earthquakes and super bazaar! All here.

Re: CNO has spoken

Among all the other issues, it seems there might be a little difference in UK tactics:

There was criticism, too, that the Cornwall's boats were sent close to the Iranian border without enough firepower or support. American boarding parties usually have four patrol boats with at least two standing off to provide covering fire.

H/t: NOSI

The CNO has spoken

To build off some of the questions Grayhawk and SMASH have brought up - the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Mullen (a Surface Warrior Officer) had a one-on-one interview earlier today with CNN. I cannot find it on their site, but that is OK - I remember what the CNO said.

The question was asked, twice, something to the effect, "What would our Sailors and Marines have done in a similar situation the British servicemembers found themselves?"

The CNO was very short and to the point. I paraphrase, but not too far from his actual words,

My Sailors would not have been taken prisoner.

Carry on.

A New Pragmatism

The New York Times published an OP Ed today, written by a couple of academics, extolling the virtues of resolving any and all differences with Iran by acquiescence, concession, willful ignorance, or submission to Iran.

Yes, I’m quite sure that would make Iran less belligerent. As a model for negotiation, however, Nasr and Takeyh provide a breath-taking example of “winning consensus” by surrendering every objective in contention. Iran clearly subscribes to the North Korean school of conflict resolution, and in this Op Ed, the Times suggests that we would benefit playing the same game with Iran.

Only a career diplomat or foreign relations academic could so thoroughly hold to artifice as reality and ignore inconvenient truths. Missing in this OP Ed is any mention of two facts very inconvenient for the authors’ hypothesis.

One is that Britain benefited in any way from the “successful resolution” of this crisis, other than the minor achievement of (possibly) saving the lives of 15 British Marines. (Possibly, as we cannot know for certain to what ends Iran might have put the captives, beyond the obvious PR benefit they well and fully derived.) Rather, Britain was humiliated, and completely exposed as one of the Paper Lions her very real non-state and state enemies consider her to be.

The other is that, rather than the benign “status-quo power” the authors portray, Iran has been an active participant in directing, fomenting, and supporting armed violence and terror attacks against US and coalition forces, Iraqi Security Forces, and Iraqi civilians of all ethnic groups and allegiances. More to the point, for the authors to contend that Iran “abandoned the goal of exporting its revolution to its Persian Gulf neighbors at the end of 1980s” reveals them as willfully ignorant, or propagandists.

This is the New York Times, so one might be tempted to presume that anyone invited to write an Op ED for the Times on matters of Iran might, by design intent, be a propagandist. That makes them perhaps of the same stripe as the Editorial Board.

I am sure Nasr and Takeyh are very well versed in the Persian object of their admiration. But either they advocate for a committed cause, are not as well schooled as they think, or are genuinely dishonest. There is that much disconnect between the diplomatic situation they describe, and the gritty self-interested aggression of the Iranians, that clearly refutes the basis of their proposition.

(Futher commentary over at Dadmanly.)

It all worked out in the end for Vietnam didn't it??

via Retuers

(Washington, DC, April 6, 2007) On the eve of Bloc 8406's first anniversary, members of the group, which calls for greater political freedom in Vietnam, still face harassment and abuse, including imprisonment, Human Rights Watch said today. The Vietnamese government should end its persecution of citizens trying to exercise their rights to free expression and assembly, Human Rights Watch said.

Re: Experts

James Baker, co-chair of the Iraq Study Group:

Unfortunately, more than 100 days after the Iraq Study Group released its report, we are further than ever from a consensus. Recent narrow votes in the House and Senate, largely along partisan lines, illustrate our country's continuing division on this critical issue.

The best, and perhaps only, way to build national agreement on the path forward is for the president and Congress to embrace the only set of recommendations that has generated bipartisan support: the Iraq Study Group report. The Iraq Study Group was composed of five Democrats and five Republicans. Each of us has strong wills and views. But we managed to find consensus for 79 recommendations that we suggested be carried out in concert. Our leaders could still use this report to unite the country behind a common approach to our most difficult foreign policy problem.

The report does not set timetables or deadlines for the removal of troops, as contemplated by the supplemental spending bills the House and Senate passed. In fact, the report specifically opposes that approach. As many military and political leaders told us, an arbitrary deadline would allow the enemy to wait us out and would strengthen the positions of extremists over moderates. A premature American departure from Iraq, we unanimously concluded, would almost certainly produce greater sectarian violence and further deterioration of conditions in Iraq and possibly other countries.

Democratic policymakers searching for a winning argument for why it's time to get out of Iraq have ditched expert advisers - and appealed to the public for help.