Cleaning Up Mosul

The AP and Yahoo News report U.S., Iraqi Troops Launch Mosul Offensive.

Keep rolling up the bad guys and don't let them regroup!

Modern Marine Weapons

This site, Weapons and Equipment, has lots of info on what tools the modern Marine recon force is equipped with these days. The site is part of the United States Marine Corps Force Recon Association website. I hope that they don't mind me using one of their photos to call attention to this terrific group of extraordinary Marines.

The article may have even more info than some of you might want, but I like it.

Update: As long as you are reading about Force Recon, here's Part I and here's Part 2 of the article.


Update 2: added proper credits and link to Force Recon Association

Terrorist Nukes in Old Mexico?

Here's some cheerful thinking from the American Digest about terrorist nukesNukes South of the Border Will Do, Thank You.

Hey, Mexico how are your borders? Tijuana, Juarez and even Nuevo Laredo offer up some juicy targets. Where are you on the GWOT?

Long Range Advanced Scout Surveillance System (LRAS3)

Well, you've read about it, but you never met anyone who owned one - until now - the DRS Technologies Inc. - Long Range Advanced Scout Surveillance System (LRAS3) is a nice piece of hardware that is saving lives - American lives. Read all about it!

$21 Billon of Corruption and they still call it "Oil for Food"

Captain's Quarters reports the Senate Committee discovery that Saddam diverted over $21 billion dollars from the misnamed UN Oil for Food program.

$21 Billion! You know, you could buy a lot of "friends" for that kind of money. And he tried.
All right, Kofi, the ball is in your court to explain how this happened. Try to keep a straight face.

Here's some irony:

Senator Joe Lieberman concurred in Coleman's analysis, saying that Saddam corrupted UNSCAM in order to fund his military ambitions...But the committee's ranking Democrat, Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, said "for the most part the U.N. sanctions achieved their intended objective of preventing Saddam from rearming and developing weapons of mass destruction."

Levin must have missed the news about the 600,000 tons of ordnance and other explosives scattered around Iraq.
I have videos from post-Desert Storm taken by Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal teams blowing up tons of stuff in 1991. My guess is that Saddam did a whole lotta shopping to replenish those stocks. Levin must also be clueless about how easy it is to restart a biological WMD program is you've got the kind of shekels that Saddam had.

Update: More and a link to the testimony at Power Line.

"How was the world so blind to this massive amount of influence-peddling?" asked Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, head of the investigations subcommittee.

Sometimes, Senator, you only see what you choose to see.

"Aid convoy barred from 'starving' Falluja" (those are al Jazeera's scare quotes around starving)

Good old al Jazeera says "Aid convoy barred from 'starving' Falluja". But once again the article itself tells a different story:

The trucks laden with food, water and medical supplies will travel instead to villages around Falluja where tens of thousands of people have set up camp after fleeing the massive week-old offensive spearheaded by US marines, said Firdaus al-Ubadi.
Relief agencies are trying to get food, water and medicine to hundreds of families they say are trapped inside Falluja.
The military said it was announcing over loudspeakers in the city that civilians needing medical or other help should seek out US forces.

Looks to me like all the non-insurgents in Fallujah just have to raise their hands and the U.S. troops will double time some supplies to them. So, who would be unwilling to raise their hands? The guys with the AK-47s and RPGs?

Don't buy this fraud. It doesn't pass the smell test and looks like an effort to resupply the bad guys to me.

Kosovo a model for U.S. in Iraq World?

I understand the intent of this article, but I do not believe that Kosovo should be the model for Iraq.

As I have noted in previous postings, Kosovo is a mess and will continue to be a mess for the future. Find another model.

One more tool to deal with the North Korean Threat

There's a new tool in the box to deal with the threat of the North Korean half of the Korean peninsula:
U.S. Airborne Laser Advances to 'First Light'

Cool!

Humanitarian aid barred from Falluja?

Aljazeera asserts "Humanitarian aid barred from Falluja". Which is not what their own article says. The Red Crescent convoy was diverted to the hospital, but

"There is no need to bring [Red Crescent] supplies in because we have supplies of our own for the people," said US marine Colonel Mike Shupp.
"Now that the bridge (into Falluja) is open I will bring out casualties and all aid work can be done here (at Falluja's hospital)," he added.
He said he had not heard of any Iraqi civilians being trapped inside the city and did not think that was the case.
But aid workers say there are still hundreds of families left in the city, which has been pummelled by sustained aerial bombardment and artillery fire in recent days.
"We know of at least 157 families inside Falluja who need our help," said Firdus al-Ubadi of the Iraqi Red Crescent. Seems to me the Marines and the Iraqi forces had plan for this and do not presently need the "help" of the "aid workers."
Probably not the way it'll be reported in the papers, though.

Scott Ritter returns on al Jazeera, no less

Just when you thought he was long gone, Scott Ritter returns with a critique of the Fallujah assault. His piece appears on Aljazeera.Net as "Squeezing jello in Iraq". Ritter does not hold out much hope for the U.S. and Iraq:

It is a war the United States cannot win, and which the government of Iyad Allawi cannot survive.

The article is full of more positive "analysis" of this sort.

Update: Beth at My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy has some strong words regarding Mr. Ritter!

Piracy as Barrier to Asian Maritime Trade

This article "Piracy in Asia: A Growing Barrier to Maritime Trade" dates from 2000, but makes a number of good points.

Pirate Protection

Modern Day Pirates is an somewhat aged article but has some good info.

Great maps here show the number of pirate attacks up to the end of September 2004.

Larry O'Donnell's "Unproductive" Baloney

Power Line has an interesting analysis of "You're a Liar" Larry O'Donnell's contention that the more "productive" Blue states were somehow cheated of electoral victory by the Red states. Apparently using data like that developed by the Tax Foundation (available here), O'Donnell tries raise the ire of the Blue states. While there are an incredible number of flaws in Mr. O'Donnell's approach, let's just look at his underlying premise - that the "overpayer" states were taken advantage of.

According to the chart, 31 states and the District of Columbia receive more dollars from the federal government than they send to the federal coffers in taxes. Two states are revenue/tax even (Florida and Oregon- 1 Red, 1 Blue). The remaining 17 states pay more to the feds than they get back.

However, not every state that was Blue in this election falls under Mr. O'Donnell's broad "more productive" measure. In fact, of the 21 states and district voting for Kerry, 6 states were in the "less productive" group. These "less productive" entities include Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and the District of Columbia. The District, in fact, receives $60,109 for each man, woman and child living in it.

And, not every "overpayer" state was "Blue" - Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Nevada and Texas are all "Red" states.

So. assuming that Mr. O'Donnell is suggesting that the "overpayer" Blue states secede, he's talking about twelve states: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Washington and Wisconsin. Here's the percentage of votes President Bush got in each of those states:

California 44.29%
Connecticut 44.99%
Delaware 44.51%
Illinois 44.73%
Massachusetts 36.95%
Michigan 47.94%
Minnesota 47.62%
New Hampshire 48.98%
New Jersey 46.47%
New York 40.49%
Washington 48.72%
Wisconsin 49%
CNN election results

Mr. O'Donnell conveniently ignores these voters in broadly applying his biased brush to paint the election as unfair. There is little reason to believe the majority voters in these 12 states are the most productive residents. As Power Line notes,

Unfortunately for O'Donnell, however, there is no evidence that the most productive elements of our society favored Kerry over Bush. The president captured 51 percent of the vote. Does O'Donnell think Bush did that well among unemployed voters? Among the increasing number of voters who pay no federal income taxes? Among government workers? Among those earning below average incomes? Unless he is prepared to make these highly implausible claims, O'Donnell has no basis for implying that Bush's victory represents the triumph of the less productive elements of society, or that the voters who re-elected Bush, as a group, were voting against their economic interests.

In other words, in order for Mr. O'Donnell to make his case, we would have to examine the income status of both the majority and minority voters in each state to see which group actually pays the most in taxes to determine whether or not the majority of the money voted "Blue" or "Red." Given the Democrat's argument that the Bush tax cut favored the "rich" I think we can assume that the money vote did not go "blue."

More baloney from Mr. O'Donnell.

UAVs as Scouts

Read this Chester report and the links therein to see how a 21st Century force tackles a centuries old problem. Eyes in the sky indeed!

Win Fallujah at all costs

Ralph Peters tells why we must win the battle of Fallujah at all costs and offers these timely words:

The truth is that war is cruel. And difficult. And complex. It's never as smooth as it is in a film or a video game. In real life, heroes get killed, too — sometimes by friendly fire. Mistakes are made, despite rigorous planning. The enemy shoots back. And sometimes the enemy gets lucky. Tragedy is war's inseparable companion.

We cannot foresee all the details of the combat ahead. The fight for Fallujah may prove easier than we feared, or tougher than we hoped. Time will tell. Meanwhile, don't let your view be swayed by the crisis of the hour. Have faith in our troops and their leaders.

In return, I can promise you one thing: If we don't fail our troops, they won't fail us. (written on 11/9/04)

Veterans Day

Today we honor those who have served in the armed forces of this great country during times of war and peace and those times which were neither war nor peace. We salute equally the combat forces, the logistics movers, planners, administrators and the too often forgotten support forces.

Here's to the men who fought on the beaches in France, Italy and North Africa. And to the men who fought on the beaches of Tarawa, Guam, Palau and Iwo Jima. And to those who flew the heavy bombers over Europe (where the 8th Air Force sustained the highest casualty rate of any unit in WWII). To the Flying Tigers and the Tin Can sailors and the Jeep Carrier crews and to the battleship sailors and the submariners, too. Here's to the Coast Guardsmen who drove the landing craft and kept watch over our shores. Here's to the men who organized the convoys that got the cargo to our troops and our allies. Here's to the armed guards who served on the lumbering merchants. Here's to the Merchant Marine, too.

Here's to the men who held the line in Korea until help could arrive. Here's to that help. Here's to the advisors in Vietnam and to every soldier, Marine, airman, and sailor who served during that long struggle. Here's to the volunteers and the draftees.

Here's to the doctors and nurses. Here's to the corpsmen - often the bravest of the brave.

Here's to the cooks and the bakers and the guy who peeled potato after potato. Here's to the mess cooks who made coffee for the midwatch and brought doughnuts to the early morning dogs.

Here's to the truck drivers and the fuelers and the boiler tenders and the boatswain mates, quartermasters, the gunner's mates and the stewards and the laundrymen and the hundreds of thousands of men and women who served in jobs that do not make for exciting war stories, but which made - and still make - a huge difference.

Here's to the men who flew the B-36, B-47 and B-52 bombers during the Cold War. Here's to the interceptor pilots and crews. Here's to the men who scrambled to their aircraft and took off not knowing if this scramble was for real or not. Here's to the crew chief, mechanics and base engineers who had the planes and runways ready. Here's to the missileers, deep in their silos. To the Fleet Ballistic Missile submariners and to the DEW line crews. Here's to the forgotten men and women who stood on guard somewhere every day of every year.

Here's to the reservists, the National Guard - here's to "one weekend a month and two weeks a year" that has so often turned out to be much, much more.

Here's to the paratroopers, the cavalry, the Special Forces, the SEALS, the UDT, the EOD, the Delta Force, the Air Commandos, the Marine Recon, the Rangers - the "sharp end of the stick." Here's to the clerk-typists who complete the paperwork. Here's to the "boot pushers' - the DI's- who shape the raw material they are given into something useful.

Here's to the guards, the MPs, the Shore Patrol. Here's to every person who ever walked a post and recited the duties of a sentry ("to walk my post in a military manner..."). Here's to every quarterdeck watch who stood the mid and made sure the drunks got safely to bed.

And here's a salute to all these Veterans and to all the rest who served in the armed forces of this great country during times of war and peace and those times which were neither war nor peace.

Thank you. God bless you. Happy Veterans Day!

Update: Captain's Quarters has a nice way of saying thanks to vets. Make sure you listen to the music.

Update: Nice Veterans Day salute at Power Line, too.

Happy Birthday, Marines!

229 years and still at the cutting edge...it's an honor to have known so many of the few, the very proud, the Marines!

Happy day! Now go out and defend us some more.

Rumsfeld: What we've been up to

Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld Press Briefing lays out the changes made to the US military in the last 4 years and provides some insight into where it's all headed. (Hat tip: Chester)

Fallujah

Visit the Belmont Club and The Adventures of Chester for their excellent coverage of the unfolding events in Fallujah.

Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT) are among the most difficult things undertaken by armed forces and traditional techniques have often resulted in exceptionally messy situations such as Stalingrad. The problems being encountered by the defenders of Fallujah are those of a force ill-equipped to deal with the modern world represented by the Marine and Army forces they are opposing. It seems to me the communications systems being employed by the US military allows movement to contact with less risk of accidental blue on blue engagement than in any other urban battle. By using overwhelming force, there is little chance of the opposing force being able to concentrate sufficient personnel to drive any wedges into the advancing coalition forces.

One of the advantages of exposure to joint commands I got to visit over my Naval Reserve career was an increasing awareness of how well our Army and Marines do their jobs. These guys are really, really good. In addition, they are really, really smart and professional. God bless them all.

Men without chests meet the left wing paranoids

Jonah Goldberg has an interesting piece on the despairing Democrats whose belief in nothing is catching up with them.

When confronted with people who believe in transcendent values, the bleakness of their relativist world is portrayed in all it's emptiness. If everyone doesn't believe as they do, their world has no meaning.

Unable to accept rejection of their falseness, they rely instead on paranoid delusions of "trickery" by evil forces which deny them what they want. See Instapundit for some links to sites challenging Democrat assertions that the election was stolen from them. Unsupported, unsubstantiated, untrue...

Empty, empty,empty.

All We Are Saying Is Give Peace a Chance

Diplomad reports a huge anti-war protest mounted by the Marines and a few of their closest supporters. If you want a war ended, send in the Marines!

The Paranoid Style of the Left in American Politics

Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit has gathered some interesting posts concerning where the left is heading post-election. Some of these sounded a familiar chord with me. Then I remembered that some time ago I read "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" by Richard Hofstadter. In these blogosphere days, it's probably worth dusting off again. Of course, Hofstadter was attempting to describe the "right wing" kooks of 1964, but it interesting to see how his work can be applied to the left-wing today:

I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind. In using the expression “paranoid style” I am not speaking in a clinical sense, but borrowing a clinical term for other purposes. I have neither the competence nor the desire to classify any figures of the past or present as certifiable lunatics., In fact, the idea of the paranoid style as a force in politics would have little contemporary relevance or historical value if it were applied only to men with profoundly disturbed minds. It is the use of paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phenomenon significant.
    Of course this term is pejorative, and it is meant to be; the paranoid style has a greater affinity for bad causes than good. But nothing really prevents a sound program or demand from being advocated in the paranoid style. Style has more to do with the way in which ideas are believed than with the truth or falsity of their content. I am interested here in getting at our political psychology through our political rhetoric. The paranoid style is an old and recurrent phenomenon in our public life which has been frequently linked with movements of suspicious discontent.

Later he discusses the inflated self-esteem of the "paranoids:"

The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms—he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization. He constantly lives at a turning point. Like religious millenialists he expresses the anxiety of those who are living through the last days and he is sometimes disposed to set a date fort the apocalypse...
    As a member of the avant-garde who is capable of perceiving the conspiracy before it is fully obvious to an as yet unaroused public, the paranoid is a militant leader. He does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Since the enemy is thought of as being totally evil and totally unappeasable, he must be totally eliminated—if not from the world, at least from the theatre of operations to which the paranoid directs his attention. This demand for total triumph leads to the formulation of hopelessly unrealistic goals, and since these goals are not even remotely attainable, failure constantly heightens the paranoid’s sense of frustration. Even partial success leaves him with the same feeling of powerlessness with which he began, and this in turn only strengthens his awareness of the vast and terrifying quality of the enemy he opposes.
    The enemy is clearly delineated: he is a perfect model of malice, a kind of amoral superman—sinister, ubiquitous, powerful, cruel, sensual, luxury-loving. Unlike the rest of us, the enemy is not caught in the toils of the vast mechanism of history, himself a victim of his past, his desires, his limitations. He wills, indeed he manufactures, the mechanism of history, or tries to deflect the normal course of history in an evil way. He makes crises, starts runs on banks, causes depressions, manufactures disasters, and then enjoys and profits from the misery he has produced. The paranoid’s interpretation of history is distinctly personal: decisive events are not taken as part of the stream of history, but as the consequences of someone’s will. Very often the enemy is held to possess some especially effective source of power: he controls the press; he has unlimited funds; he has a new secret for influencing the mind (brainwashing); he has a special technique for seduction ...

And the style spans the ages:

The paranoid style is not confined to our own country and time; it is an international phenomenon. Studying the millennial sects of Europe from the eleventh to the sixteenth century, Norman Cohn believed he found a persistent psychic complex that corresponds broadly with what I have been considering—a style made up of certain preoccupations and fantasies: “the megalomaniac view of oneself as the Elect, wholly good, abominably persecuted, yet assured of ultimate triumph; the attribution of gigantic and demonic powers to the adversary; the refusal to accept the ineluctable limitations and imperfections of human existence, such as transience, dissention, conflict, fallibility whether intellectual or moral; the obsession with inerrable prophecies…systematized misinterpretations, always gross and often grotesque.”
    This glimpse across a long span of time emboldens me to make the conjecture—it is no more than that—that a mentality disposed to see the world in this way may be a persistent psychic phenomenon, more or less constantly affecting a modest minority of the population. But certain religious traditions, certain social structures and national inheritances, certain historical catastrophes or frustrations may be conducive to the release of such psychic energies, and to situations in which they can more readily be built into mass movements or political parties. In American experience ethnic and religious conflict have plainly been a major focus for militant and suspicious minds of this sort, but class conflicts also can mobilize such energies. Perhaps the central situation conducive to the diffusion of the paranoid tendency is a confrontation of opposed interests which are (or are felt to be) totally irreconcilable, and thus by nature not susceptible to the normal political processes of bargain and compromise. The situation becomes worse when the representatives of a particular social interest—perhaps because of the very unrealistic and unrealizable nature of its demands—are shut out of the political process. Having no access to political bargaining or the making of decisions, they find their original conception that the world of power is sinister and malicious fully confirmed. They see only the consequences of power—and this through distorting lenses—and have no chance to observe its actual machinery. A distinguished historian has said that one of the most valuable things about history is that it teaches us how things do not happen. It is precisely this kind of awareness that the paranoid fails to develop. He has a special resistance of his own, of course, to developing such awareness, but circumstances often deprive him of exposure to events that might enlighten him—and in any case he resists enlightenment.
    We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well.

So we see that the strident allegations of electoral fraud, the assertion of the evil genius of Karl Rove, the contempt for the electoral process ("it's was rigged by the conspiracy between Diebold and Bush"), Michael Moore's exceptionally paranoid conspiracy theory work... is just part of the "paranoid style," left wing version.

The worm has turned.

"Okay, You Won. Now Do What I Want Anyway."

You've got to hand it to the Democrats and their too willing accomplices at the major media. They are "cunning and sly and bear considerable watching" (as an old Navy Officer's guide used to say about enlisted men).

No sooner had they been forced to accept that President Bush had been re-elected (though they came kicking and grasping at every straw along the way), then they were off on the trail of "Bush must compromise and move to the middle for the good of the country." In this odd way of thinking, far from it being necessary for the left and middle to recognize that they lost this election in a BIG WAY and change their own approaches, the winner must immediately abandon his supporters and rush to adopt the loser's world view, which was just defeated. "Okay," they concede, "you won. Now do what I want anyway."

To make their case, they (at least CNN) trot out bunch of liberal talking heads and marginal (dubbed "moderate") Republicans (e.g. Sen. Specter from Pennsylvania). This morning I saw Senator Specter being more than happy to offer free advice about not sending any "really" conservative judges up for confirmation -moderation in all things being the ideal, I guess, from his perspective. I'm not sure Mr. Specter understands yet who won the election.

Look, let's be kind about this. The Republicans won. They won the Presidency, the Senate and the House. They are the majority party and they need to act like it. They were elected with an agenda approved by the majority of the American voters who want that agenda followed. The Republicans can and should exercise the rights of the majority and push their agenda forward. If the Democrats, who lost the election, want to play, they need to accept some reality. As the minority party, they do not get to set the agenda and they had better learn to compromise.

If, in a couple of years, the American public does not like what the majority party is doing, they get the chance to vote some changes. That's what our system is about and how it is supposed to work.

The Diplomad has a nice post on the "Myth of 'Divided America.'"

SwiftVets win trial

Two months ago in my posting The Swift Vet Case, I attempted to take on Newsweek's Eleanor Clift ugly assertion that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were just a Karl Rove "Sleeper Cell" making what Ms. Clift referred to as a "scurrilous attack on Kerry’s military service." She asserted that "The charges advanced by the so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth would never hold up in a court of law." I disagreed and sent her a letter to that effect - a letter which became my post. I concluded:

Contrary to your view, the “sleeping giant” awakened in this matter is not Mr. Kerry but rather thousands of Vietnam veterans who have spent much of their adult lives defending their honorable service from the unfair “hyperbole” of Mr. Kerry and the too willing assumptions of its truth by people like you.

Will they attempt to justify the war? No, and nor should they. They were not the policy-makers and bear no responsibility for the strategic decisions that placed them there. Neither is the war’s justification relevant to Mr. Kerry’s behavior during or after the war. No, the trial would be about his truthfulness, his wartime and post war behavior, the effects of that behavior and what they say about Mr. Kerry’s fitness to be commander in chief.

In short, it is exactly the case that the SwiftVets are bringing to help the American voters to decide.

Just a little short of two months later, the majority of American voters showed their agreement with the SwiftVets. Case closed.

Thank you, SwiftVets! May you have Fair Winds and Following Seas the rest of your days. Well done!

Things I won't miss after the election

These words:
"Selected not elected"
"Stole Florida"
"If every voted had been counted"
"When I served in Vietnam"
"AL Gore, the real president"
"He won the popular vote"
"outsourced Tora Bora"
"ABB" (Anybody But Bush)
"Discredited SwifVet Charges"
"Bribed and coerced"
"Unilateral"
"I have a plan"
"AWOL"


These people:
Any one who said they were emigrating if Bush got re-elected. Bon voyage!
"Lawrence "You're a Liar' O'Donnell
Tom Daschle
Terry McAwful
Bob Schrum
MoveOn
Ralph Nader
Wes Clark
Howard Dean
Al Gore
Mrs. Heinz-Kerry

You can add to the list in the comments section

Dear Osama

Dear Osama,

Hope you enjoy living in caves!

George says we'll be looking for you.

Four more years!

Take a Deep Breath

You voted. I voted. Lots of people are voting. It takes a while to sort their votes out.

Take a deep breath. Don't panic.

Wait for the real results...not the exit polls.

The sun (no matter the results) will rise in the morning.

VOTE

VOTE!

The Rest of the Tape

The New York Post has an article on what was left off the Osama bin Laden tape as shown, including this excerpt (hat tip to Roger L. Simon):

Officials said that in the 18-minute long tape - of which only six minutes were aired on the al-Jazeera Arab television network in the Middle East on Friday - bin Laden bemoans the recent democratic elections in Afghanistan and the lack of violence involved with it.

On the tape, bin Laden also says his terror organization has been hurt by the U.S. military's unrelenting manhunt for him and his cohorts on the Afghan-Pakistani border.

In my view this "missing" information explains a great deal about why OBL decided to attempt his gambit to see if he could affect the U.S. election - President Bush and the Global War on Terrorism is having a terrific effect on OBL and his bands of jihadists.

Beldar takes on Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell's idiotic "we're making new terrorists" comments, which I noted to him in a comment on one of his earlier posts. In view of the Post article, my view is that bin Laden is pushing hard for John Kerry because of the trouble he is having getting anything organized and because we are killing any new recruits almost as fast as they are sent out. Further, holding successful elections in Afghanistan means that OBl's plea for a super Islamic state is substantially lessened because people freed from the Taliban Sharia state have proven they do not want to repeat that horror. In short, Rendell's pitiful argument is totally negated by OBL's own words.

Let's keep it that way!

Update: Power Line has an interesting report on a translation of the OBL tape that includes threatening individual U.S. states that don't vote the "right" (anti-Bush) way. Hmmm.

More Reasons to Re-Elect the President

American Digest offers up 50 great reasons to re-elect the President. Hat tip: Power Line

Tarheels 31-Miami 28

WOW!

The Disloyal Oppostion

The Diplomad site makes some excellent points about what has happened to the Democrats and the exactly wrong message that is being sent abroad.

Update: Exactly on point is this Kerry Spot piece by Jim Geraghty:

Last night, I heard secondhand that a left-of-center friend said, during a discussion about the tape, “Well, now I actually agree with bin Laden, I mean, the stuff he said about Bush.”

It was probably meant as a joke, or as a statement of irony. I wasn’t there, so I don’t want to draw conclusions about the statement’s meaning, and apparently the topic of conversation shifted so that no one could really analyze what that speaker meant.

But I have little doubt that in some other corners of our country, a statement like that was probably said and wasn’t a joke, or wasn’t ironic.

There was an old saying about politics stopping at the water’s edge. There was a reason for this, and for the concept of the “loyal opposition.” Suppose the U.S. and another country were in a trade dispute. The other country would want different policies, and thus would want the incumbent party out of power. So they would seize on any criticism from the challenging party, and use it for rhetorical purposes to strengthen their case both with their own population and in other countries. “Even the American challenging party says the incumbent leader’s policies are unfair and a failure.” No party wants to be seen as putting foreign interests ahead of their own citizens’ interests, so they have to be on guard that their arguments aren’t providing fodder for foreign powers with different interests than America.

Over the last three years or so, we have seen that concept obliterated. We’ve seen a truly unparalleled deluge of criticism of the president that well beyond policy differences. He is tarred as a war criminal, a fool, an idiot, a warmonger, a man who trades blood for oil, a mass murderer of innocent civilians, a stooge of sinister corporate interests, a puppet of Cheney, a terrorist himself, the anti-Christ, the second coming of Hitler, a slave to Ariel Sharon, an anti-Muslim hatemonger… and I’m sure I’ve left out plenty.

This rhetoric has been picked up by the British left, the European left, the Arab press, and anti-American interests around the globe. And — to my knowledge — not one Democrat, not one voice on the left has said, “Hey, we know you hate Bush, but stay out of it. He’s our president, leave the criticism of him to us.”

Osama's Back

Note to all of you who have tried to claim that the attacks on the September 11, 2001 were some sort of plot by the President or some vast right wing conspiracy - this ought to put your fevered imaginations to rest: Bin Laden Claims Responsibility for 9/11.

In the video, bin Laden accused Bush of misleading Americans by saying the attack was carried out because Al Qaeda "hates freedom." The terrorist leader said his followers have left alone countries that do not threaten Muslims.

Let's see, countries that threaten Muslims include: the U.S., the U.K., Russia, China. Pakistan, Australia, the Philippines, Spain, France, Italy, Turkey, Tunisia, Belgium, Germany, Indonesia, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Kenya, Saudi Arabia and, of course, Israel. I may have missed a couple. Apparently Sweden is safe.

"We fought you because we are free ... and want to regain freedom for our nation. As you undermine our security we undermine yours," bin Laden said.

"Our nation?"

The principal stated aims of al-Qaeda are to drive Americans and American influence out of all Muslim nations, especially Saudi Arabia; destroy Israel; and topple pro-Western dictatorships around the Middle East. Bin Laden has also said that he wishes to unite all Muslims and establish, by force if necessary, an Islamic nation adhering to the rule of the first Caliphs.

According to bin Laden's 1998 fatwa (religious decree), it is the duty of Muslims around the world to wage holy war on the U.S., American citizens, and Jews. Muslims who do not heed this call are declared apostates (people who have forsaken their faith).

Al-Qaeda's ideology, often referred to as "jihadism," is marked by a willingness to kill "apostate" -and Shiite-Muslims and an emphasis on jihad. Although "jihadism" is at odds with nearly all Islamic religious thought, it has its roots in the work of two modern Sunni Islamic thinkers: Mohammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and Sayyid Qutb.

Al-Wahhab was an 18th-century reformer who claimed that Islam had been corrupted a generation or so after the death of Mohammed. He denounced any theology or customs developed after that as non-Islamic, including more than 1,000 years of religious scholarship. He and his supporters took over what is now Saudi Arabia, where Wahhabism remains the dominant school of religious thought.

Sayyid Qutb, a radical Egyptian scholar of the mid-20th century, declared Western civilization the enemy of Islam, denounced leaders of Muslim nations for not following Islam closely enough, and taught that jihad should be undertaken not just to defend Islam, but to purify it.

So, his "freedom" for his nation means a holy war, the creation of a Islamic super nation (but only for Muslims who believe exactly as he does- the rest can be killed or converted). His "freedom" means the freedom to believe exactly as he does and follow the rules of Sharia as he would have them interpreted.

[C]alling the Sharia 'law' can be misleading, as Sharia extends beyond law. Sharia is the totality of religious, political, social, domestic and private life. Sharia is primarily meant for all Muslims, but applies to a certain extent also for people living inside a Muslim society...

Bin Laden suggested Bush was slow to react to the Sept. 11 attacks, giving the hijackers more time than they expected. At the time of the attacks, the president was listening to schoolchildren in Florida reading a book.
"It never occurred to us that the commander in chief of the American armed forces would leave 50,000 of his citizens in the two towers to face these horrors alone," he said, referring to the number of people who worked at the World Trade Center.
"It appeared to him [Bush] that a little girl's talk about her goat and its butting was more important than the planes and their butting of the skyscrapers. That gave us three times the required time to carry out the operations, thank God," he said.

This last stuff is just pure baloney and a blatant play to the Michael Moore "makeitupumentary" fan base who believe that 5 or 7 minutes might have made some difference in what happened on 9/11. Actually, at the time of the book reading the second tower had already been hit. Apparently, OBL is of the school of thought that the President should have jumped up and perfotmed the classic "When in danger, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout" routine intead of calmly letting his subordinates get a handle on what was happening before deciding on a response (if I'd been in the Natonal Command Center, I would have appreciated that- it's hard enough trying to sort through first reports - which are almost always wrong- without any "prompting' by the higher levels of the food chain).

Osama has obviously been following the election process and is trying to get President Bush out of the way. He apparently (and to my mind correctly) reads Kerry as a "negotiator and not a fighter" whose election might provide time for the OBL movement to recover from the damage being wrought on it by the US and our allies. Now is not the time to give him what he wants.

Update: Beldar has a good piece on OBL's gambit.
Update: A good analysis at Captain's Quarters
Update: While I like his analysis, I disagree slightly with Wretchard at Belmont Club about the significance of what OBL did not directly say in the tape.

It is important to notice what he has stopped saying in this speech. He has stopped talking about the restoration of the Global Caliphate. There is no more mention of the return of Andalusia. There is no more anticipation that Islam will sweep the world. He is no longer boasting that Americans run at the slightest wounds; that they are more cowardly than the Russians. He is not talking about future operations to swathe the world in fire but dwelling on past glories. He is basically saying if you leave us alone we will leave you alone. Though it is couched in his customary orbicular phraseology he is basically asking for time out.

Instead, I think he certainly implies in his use of the phrase "our nation" that he is still tracking towards the unification of Muslims into a single Islamic nation. I think that the Captain has it right in his analysis that OBL has toned down his language to attempt to appear "reasonable":

Far from signaling a surrender, I believe that OBL wants to influence the American elections as another demonstration of his power. He wants to depose George Bush, but he's smart enough to understand that a fire-breathing performance only helps Bush by scaring/insulting the voters. His moderate performance was designed to appeal to the reasonable leftists and centrists who tend to believe that America brought Islamist terror onto itself. His "offer" amounts to a lever with which to promote anti-Israel sentiment to undercut support for Bush, as well as give people the impression that the war is Bush's fault, despite the years of Al Qaeda attacks on American assets.

Update: Donald Sensing has an excellent post about the effect of the "Chicago Way" on OBL's motivation for the newest tape.
Update: Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette offers up some good stuff including this pithy bit on Osama's reappearance: " Just in time for Halloween he's come out swinging, one would assume with his best stuff, and lo and behold it's Michael Moore quotes"
Update: Roger L. Simon says only 6 minutes of the OBL tape was shown and some of parts left out talk about the damage the U.S. has done to the OBL network.

Pirates! Terrorists! Oh, My!

For those of you who never, ever go to sea, you might find it surprising that pirates still cause problems for the world shipping. While piracy problems exist in many parts of the world, the Straits of Malaaca are particularly dangerous especially along the Indonesian coast. Large oil tankers, carrying oil to the world from the Middle East pass regularly through these straits...The International Chamber of Commerce provides a weekly piracy report that is always interesting to read (if you are a old sea dog like me)

The Asia Times has an interesting series of articles here, here and here on piracy and maritime terrorism. The author, Eric Koo, reaches this conclusion:

Piracy and maritime terrorism are forms of asymmetrical warfare that non-state actors use as instruments in disrupting the peace and security of states. It is therefore necessary for navies to revamp and find new definitions for their role in the modern security context.

The U.S. Navy is paying attention, as noted in this article from Military.com:

“The seas are unpoliced and unregulated and, therefore, attractive to those who want to exploit or abuse them,” said U.S. Navy Secretary Gordon R. England. Speaking in July at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., England said, “On average, more than one ship each day is attacked, robbed, hijacked or sunk.”

The situation grows worse each year, according to the London-based International Maritime Bureau (IMB), part of the Commercial Crime Services division of the International Chamber of Commerce. Recorded pirate attacks increased by 20 percent in 2003 alone, rising to a total of 445 incidents compared with 370 in 2002, according to IMB statistics. In these incidents, 21 seafarers are known to have been killed -- compared with 10 the previous year -- and 71 crew and passengers were listed as missing, IMB reported.

For as long as mankind has used the sea to transport valuable, there have been people willing to attempt to hijack the goods. Armed merchants, convoys and Navy escorts were used to help stem the problem in years past. Looks like we might have to return to those techniques again.

Piracy and maritime terrorism are linked. Here's an interesting warning article that starts out, "Singapore is trying to blow the whistle on the global threat posed by jihadists taking their terror tactics to the sea.

In his new book Shadow War, Richard Miniter devotes an entire chapter to "Terror at Sea" including a chilling portion about the odd assault on chemical tanker Dewi Madrim in March 2003 by a group of armed men. Instead of partaking of the usual cargo jacking or kidnapping, the attackers made only token effort at robbery, but devoted their time to disabling the ship's radios, switching on their own radios and "...practiced steering the vessel."

Noel Choong, who runs the International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting Center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, was concerned about "three things - the automatic weapons, the fact that chemical tankers were targeted, and finally, the fact that they know how to operate the tankers..."
Pirates in the South Pacific rarely use automatic weapons. They usually target oil and diesel tanker - which have cargos that are easily sold in black markets - not chemical tankers..."

Hmmm...

Miniter also notes that Osama bin Laden once had a fleet of 15 ships...

A recent workshop on Maritime Security, Maritime Terrorism and Piracy in Asia had some interesting topics, e.g "  Piracy, Armed Robbery and Terrorism at Sea in Southeast Asia:A Global and Regional Outlook." Wish I could have gone.

Keep an eye on the sea.

 

North Korea Justs Keeps Hanging On

Nicholas Eberstadt has an interesting piece in Policy Review looking at how North Korea continues to exist as a state. Some good tidbits:

But how was this reported trade deficit financed? After all, North Korea is a state with a commercial creditworthiness rating of approximately zero, having maintained for a generation its posture of defiant de facto default on the Western loans it contracted in the 1970s.
Historically, the dprk relied upon aid from its communist allies — principally, the Soviet Union and China — to augment its imports. After the collapse of the ussr, China perforce emerged as North Korea’s principal foreign patron, and Beijing’s largesse extended beyond its officially announced subventions for Pyongyang. The dprk’s seemingly permanent merchandise trade deficit with China constitutes a broader and perhaps more accurate measure of Beijing’s true aid levels for Pyongyang (insofar as neither party seems to think the sums accumulated in that imbalance will ever be corrected or repaid).
Implicit Chinese aid, however, cannot account for North Korea’s import upsurge of 1998-2003. To the contrary: China’s implicit aid to North Korea — i.e., its reported balance of trade deficit — fell during these years, dropping from about $340 million to about $270 million. (The total was back up to $340 million in 2003 — meaning that China’s implicit aid to Pyongyang was no higher than it had been five years earlier.) North Korea’s non-Chinese balance of trade deficit, by contrast, apparently soared upward (see Figure 4). Whereas in 1997 the dprk reportedly only managed to obtain a net of $50 million more merchandise from abroad than its commercial exports would have paid for — after factoring out China — by 2002 the corresponding total was well over $900 million.
Indeed, if we remove China from the picture, the line describing North Korea’s net imports of supplies from abroad rises steadily upward between 1997 and 2003. It is this graphic that captures the economic essence of North Korea’s shift from its “Arduous March” period to its Kangsong Taeguk epoch.
And how was this jump in non-Chinese net imports financed? Unfortunately, we cannot be precise about this, since many of the sources of funds involve illicit transactions. North Korea’s international counterfeiting, drug trafficking, weapons, and weapon technology sales all figure here, although the sums raised from those activities are a matter of some dispute.
Nor do we yet know exactly how much of the South Korean taxpayers’ money was furtively channeled from Seoul to Pyongyang during this period. One set of prosecutorial investigations has convicted former President Kim Dae Jung’s national security adviser and several other aides of illegally transferring up to $500 million to Kim Jong Il’s “Bureau 39” (a unit of the ruling party specially charged with funding Kim’s royal court) on the eve of the historic June 2000 Pyongyang summit. The possibility of other unreported official Seoul-to-Pyongyang payoffs during the 1998-2003 period cannot be ruled out — nor, of course, can the potential volume of any such attendant funds be determined.

How about this:

It may be perplexing and counterintuitive to see the United States — the dprk’s longtime principal opponent and antagonist in the international arena — described as a major backer of the North Korean state. Yet this is now in fact the case. Figures compiled by Mark Manyin of the Congressional Research Service provide the details (see Table 1). In the 1996-2002 period, Washington awarded Pyongyang just over $1 billion in food aid, concessional fuel oil, and medical supplies. (Interestingly enough, nearly $350 million of these resources was transferred in the years 2001 and 2002 — under the purportedly hostile aegis of the George W. Bush administration.)

Hmmm...drugs, weapons, under the table payments from South Korea and US aid - what a way to keep your country afloat. But it gets better. North Korea believes in a "self-sustaining national defense industry!"

This is a fascinating and revealing formulation. In most of the world today, a country’s defense outlays are regarded as a weight that must be shouldered by the value-adding sectors of the national economy (hence the phrase “military burden”). North Korea’s leadership, however, evidently entertains the concept of a “self-sustaining” defense sector — implying that Pyongyang views its military activities as generating resources rather than absorbing them. In the enunciated view of Pyongyang’s leadership, the dprk’s military sector is the key to financing the recovery of the national economy.
It does not require a great deal of imagination to spell out the operational details of this approach. While forswearing any appreciable export revenues from legitimate commerce with advanced market economies, North Korean policy today seems to be banking on the possibility of financing state survival by exporting strategic insecurity to the rest of the world. In part, such dividends are derived from exports of merchandise (e.g., missile sales, international transfer of wmd technology). But these revenues also depend heavily on what might be described as an export of services: in this case, military extortion services (or, perhaps better yet, “revenue-sensitive threat reduction services”) based upon Pyongyang’s nuclear development and ballistic missile programs.

Simply amazing. Read the whole thing. Great work Professor Eberstadt!

Hat tip: NRO's the corner

Cheney Gets It Right

The Kerry Spot on National Review Online

CHENEY RESPONDS TO KERRY/TIMES/BARADEI OCTOBER SURPRISE
This is more like it. From the AP:
"If our troops had not gone into Iraq as John Kerry apparently thinks they should not have, that is 400,000 tons of weapons and explosives that would be in the hands of Saddam Hussein, who would still be sitting in his palace instead of jail," the vice president told supporters in his first comment on the controversy that erupted Monday.

Cheney, the most senior administration official to comment on the latest development in Iraq, complained that Kerry does not mention the "400,000 tons of weapons and explosives that our troops have captured."

Nearly 400 tons of explosives have disappeared from a former Iraqi military installation. The International Atomic Energy Agency had warned the U.S.-led coalition that invaded Iraq to secure the explosives, fearing they could fall into the wrong hands. The materials are key components of plastic explosives like those insurgents have used in car bomb attacks.
Speaking to a crowd in an area of Florida with several military bases, Cheney also said, "It is not at all clear that those explosives" that were lost "were even at the weapons facility when our troops arrived in the area of Baghdad." ...

Cheney also invoked the name of retired Gen. Tommy Franks, who led the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, to rebut another of Kerry's criticisms - that the Bush administration wasted a chance to catch terrorist leader Osama bin Laden when the United States had al-Qaida fighters surrounded in Tora Bora in Afghanistan.

Franks "stated repeatedly it was not at all certain that bin Laden was in Tora Bora," said Cheney. "He might have been there or in Pakistan or even Kashmir."

"Now John Kerry sitting 6,000 miles away, he is trying to cast doubt on these amazing performances" by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, Cheney said.

Kerry frequently asserts that the administration "outsourced" the job of hunting down bin Laden to Afghan warlords.
"U.S. Special Forces were on the ground, and in charge of the operation around Tora Bora," Cheney said. "They relied on Afghan fighters to help them kill and capture Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in Tora Bora. They knew the landscape."

(my apologies for lifting the entire quote from the KerrySpot, but it was darn well worth it...)

Go get 'em Mr. Vice-president!

Absolutely Brilliant

If you haven't read Wretchard's War Plan Orange then you have missed a great piece of analysis.

UN Official Attempts to Influence US Election

Did Mohammed El Baradei leak documents regarding the "missing" explosives? If he did, then here's the question posed byRoger L. Simon: Is this beyond Oil-for-Food?

Consider this: That means a high official of the United Nations... and not just an ordinary high official but one empowered with preventing nuclear weapons proliferation... is trying to influence a US election. And we thought we had seen everything with the Oil-for-Food scandal!

My, oh, my! I feel myself getting seriously vexed...

Update: Might as well poach my comment to Mr. Simon's question:

Is this the new UN theme song? (To the tune of "Bad to the Bone")

I cheated a hundred times, that's nothing new
I'll cheat a thousand more baby, before I am through
I wanna change your president, yours and yours alone
I'm here to tell ya honey, that I'm corrupt to the bone
Corrupt to the bone
C-C-C-Corrupt
C-C-C-Corrupt
C-C-C-Corrupt
Corrupt to the bone"

(with apologies to George Thorogood)

Mohammed El Barade must go. It seems he's...corrupt to the bone!

Update: Was the IAEA asked to destroy the bad stuff? A former inspector says so...
here Hat tip to Instapundit!

"I want my son to serve..."

Steve Dunleavy in the New York Post says "I want my GI son to serve under Bush". His son, an Army reserve captain is on his way to Iraq.

I know just how he feels. My older son, a Navy helicopter pilot, just deployed to the Sand Box environs, too. As Mr. Dunleavy says, there is nothing different about my son than any of the thousands of men and women who are out there doing their jobs, or any of the thousands who are just back or who are gearing up to go. They all deserve to serve under the best leader we can give them. It's not John Kerry.

In 1971, when Mr. Kerry gave his infamous Senate testimony attacking his fellow veterans of Vietnam, I was finishing my senior year in college. After four years of ROTC, I was getting ready to be commissioned. Within a year I was deployed off Vietnam when the North Vietnamese rolled across the DMZ in the Easter Offensive of 1972.

His comments on that war had an impact then, and his comments on the current war are having an impact now. In both cases I believe those comments provided aid and comfort to enemies who where engaged in combat with soldiers, Marines and sailors of the United States. Aid to an enemy engaged in trying to kill Americans.

Having trouble with the idea that we had people in action in 1972? I suggest you read the Bridge at Don Ha by John Grider Miller or go to the USS Mullinnix site to see the shell splash photo or visit the USS Sterrett site to learn about the battle off Dong Hoi where the USS Higbee took a bomb in her after gun mount and the Sterett fought off a Styx missile attack. The North Vietnamese had plenty of fight left, helped in no small part by the words and actions of the anti-war crowd, including John Kerry.

Now he is at it again. As Matt Heidt at Froggyruminations says so well:

Kerry, true to form, has denigrated the actions of the US Military even though he knows the Tora Bora operation successfully killed Usama bin Laden. Kerry’s persistent disparagement of the US Military in a futile effort to achieve his life’s ambition is further evidence for his unfitness to serve as CINC...

Now he putting at risk more troops. Now he is putting at risk Steve Dunleavy's son and my son and the daughter of ...

Do not elect this dangerous, lying man.

Update: The Kerry Spot has the proper response to Kerry and his willing accomplices

Come on, guys. The New York Times, international bureaucrats like Mohamed ElBaradei and the Kerry campaign are coordinating October-surprise hit pieces on President Bush. This is screaming for a tougher response. Something like an attack ad stating, “Kerry is playing Monday Morning Quarterback with the 101st Airborne’s performance in Iraq. In 1971, John Kerry smeared our troops as rapists and butchers then... He’s smearing them as incompetent now. This Nov. 2, show John Kerry what you think of his attacks on our troops."

Amen!

Kosovo vote reveals failure of UN rule

The Telegraph of London has another sad report on Kosovo: Kosovo vote reveals failure of UN rule(Hat tip: Instapundit)

Barely more than half of Kosovo's 1.4 million voters went to the ballot box. While the province's majority ethnic Albanians were struck by apathy, its 130,000-strong Serb minority was seized by anger and completely boycotted the poll.
Only a handful of Serbs voted, following calls from Vojislav Kostunica, the Serbian Prime Minister, and the Serbian Orthodox Church to stay away. Mr Kostunica described the election as a "failure".
The level of absenteeism prompted Soren Jessen-Petersen, the UN governor in Kosovo, to protest that some Serbs had been intimidated into observing the boycott and had "had their democratic right to vote hijacked".
In one success however, the 20,000 Nato soldiers who maintain the peace in Kosovo were not called into action on election day, as the province remained calm.

Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.

20,000 NATO troops to maintain "peace." It's just a ticking time bomb. The Kosovar Albanians do not want to be part of Serbia...the status quo cannot be maintained except at great expense.

See my earlier blog on Kosovo to get a flavor of how failed this state is..

My Simple Guide to international Law

Over the years of my law practice and service in the reserves (as a non-lawyer), I have reached a conclusion about "international law." That conclusion is that such a thing barely exists. I am not alone in this view. See this:

International law is stuck in a morass of contested doctrinal description. Its content, effect, and very existence are grist for incessant academic debate and political wrangling.(Warning note by Eagle1: The cited article is written in what I assume to be some sort of "intellectual" languange that smacks of the sociology "we are really a science" stuff I read as an undergraduate. The concept of a simple declarative sentence using simple but appropriate words seems to have been lost somewhere in the groves of academe.)

Not surprising, really, nation states, like the human beings that comprise them, tend to cooperate when it's in their interest to cooperate and not otherwise. Thus, some international things are easy - passports, visas, certain aspects of maritime merchantile and shipping law, trade agreements, etc. Some things are hard- weapons control, international criminal courts, etc. Easy or hard seems to my jaundiced eye to depend on how much control (freedom to act) of its national interests any nation is being asked to cede to some alleged "higher" authority.
So, it is relatively easy for a nation like "Grand Fenwick" to agree to eliminate nuclear weapons, as they never had them and never will. However, to demand that the U.S. eliminate nuclear weapons during the height of the Cold War was to ask the U.S. to abandon a major part of its defense strategy. It wasn't going to happen.

Which gets me to my main point: no "law" - international or not - is effective unless it can be enforced.

There are plenty of articles, books and internet sites devoted to pointing out laws that forbid or require some activity that to our modern minds seem silly but that are still on the books but either are not enforced or cannot be enforced.

In the Admiralty law context, there are many forms of generally accepted terms for inclusion into a contract to engage the use of a ship (a "charter party"). These terms include the duration of the charter and penalties for its breach. They also include, usually, a specification of where a suit can be brought to enforce the agreement. Why be specific? It is hard won wisdom that the legal system of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick may not be as fair and just in handling cases brought for or against its own subjects as might some neutral court or arbitrators. Commerce abhors such inconsistency and the resultant uncertainty. It avoids it by sticking with known forums.

In matters of war and peace, enforcement of treaties, sanctions and other results of diplomacy depend on two factors:
(1)The consent of the party in violation to concede any violation and the willingness of that party to take corrective action as required, or
(2) In the absence of such consent the willingness and ability of the other parties to the treaties, etc, to take necessary actions to force the violator to consent or to remove the violator's government and replace it with a government willing to cease the violation(s).

When President Bush went to the UN regarding Iraq, he first sought the UN's help in getting Iraq to comply with existing agreements and sanctions. He asserted that failure to act would put into question the rationale for the continued existence of the UN. When the UN proved unable or unwilling to act to enforce it own resolutions, he and a group of other nations undertook the enforcement themselves, not in derogation of the UN, it seems to me, but in its defense.

Senator Kerry wants to reverse that process and adopt the idea that even a completely toothless UN is better than one that has member states willing to enforce its resolutions.

Sometimes in looking at the U.S. role with the UN, I am reminded of the movie High Noon. It becomes well-known in a community that a collection of "bad guys" is getting ready to roll into town and cause trouble. The sheriff learns of the plot and seeks the assistance of the town people. Despite their occasional muted indications of support eventually they all fail the sheriff - they all feel they "have too much to lose" or perhaps it's "the wrong fight at the wrong time." The sheriff is conflicted but chooses his "duty" over other considerations. When he has vanquished the evil-doers and the town people belatedly offer their congratulations, he throws his badge in the dirt and rides off. His honor is intact.

Update: Fixed some typos...

N.Korea: Let's Talk-- Powell Let's Not

N.Korea Sets 3 Conditions for 6-Way Talks to Resume

A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman told the official KCNA news agency that the United States must drop its hostile policy and be prepared to join a compensation package in return for the North freezing its nuclear programs.

Good things come to those who wait...

Update:On the other hand, Powell:

Secretary of State Colin Powell rejected on Saturday a North Korean demand that the United States meet certain conditions before the communist country would agree to take part in a new round of six-country discussions on its nuclear weapons program. "My view is that all of the issues that they laid out as conditions are subject to discussions at the six-party talks," Powell said.

"This is a six-party discussion, not a U.S.-North Korea discussion or an exchange of U.S. and North Korean talking points," Powell told reporters while traveling to Japan for talks with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and other officials. Powell also plans stops in China and South Korea.

Summary: NK tries another "we're just peace-loving harmless simple folk" shot and the SecState blocks it.

Note to NK: Do you own a map? Have you noticed your geographical location? Here's some help: you've got water on two sides and states you don't want to irritate on your north and a strong country to your south that has all sorts of alliances to help come to its defense. You produce exactly nothing that the civilized world would miss (no oil, no gas, no gold, no food). Do you think making friends with Iran will help you? They've got their own problems...You may need to re-think your strategy soon...

Carter's Goofy Numbers

Former President Carter made some goofy comment the other day while speaking to Chris Matthews:

MATTHEWS: [A]s an historian now and studying the Revolutionary War as it was fought out in the South in those last years of the War, insurgency against a powerful British force. Do you see any parallels between the fighting that we did on our side and the fighting that is going on in Iraq today?
CARTER: Well, one parallel is that the Revolutionary War more than any other war until recently has been the most bloody war we’ve fought.
I think another parallel is that in some ways the Revolutionary War could have been avoided. It was an unnecessary war. Had the British Parliament been a little more sensitive to the colonial’s really legitimate complaints and requests the war could have been avoided completely and of course now we would have been a free country now as is Canada and India and Australia, having gotten our independence in a non-violent way...

Many people have already pointed out that in raw numbers, it just isn't true that the Revolutionary War was "the most bloody."

But were there more deaths per total US population? Here are the numbers:

Revolutionary War: Battle deaths as percentage of population= .18%
Civil War: Battle deaths as percentage of population: .68%
WWI: Battle deaths as percentage of population: .054%
WWII: Battle deaths as percentage of population: .21%

By this measure, the US Civil War was the "most bloody," followed by WWII and then the Revolutionary War.

Support:
US Census Press Releases Back in July 1776, there were about 2.5 million people living in the colonies. In the Revolutionary War there were 4435 battle deaths. Battle deaths per capita %=.18% (.001774) (4435/2,500,000)

Civil War 1860 population 31,443,321 (27,489,561 free, 3,953,760 slave). Total battle deaths Union and Confederate: 214,938. Battle deaths per capita %=.68% (.0068357) (214,938/31,443,321)

WWI population
Population: 99,111,000 Battle deaths: 53,402. Battle deaths per capita %=.054% (.00053881) (53,402/99,111,000)

WWII population
Population: 133,402,470 Battle deaths: 291,557 Battle deaths per capita %=.21% (.0021855) (291,557/133,402,470)

Battle Deaths US in America's Wars: U.S. Casualties and Veterans>

American Revolution (1775–1783)
Total servicemembers
217,000
Battle deaths
4,435

Civil War (1861–1865) 
Total servicemembers (Union)
2,213,363
Battle deaths (Union)
140,414
Total servicemembers (Conf.)
1,050,000
Battle deaths (Conf.)
74,524

World War I (1917–1918)
Total servicemembers
4,734,991
Battle deaths
53,402

World War II (1940–1945)
Total servicemembers
16,112,566
Battle deaths
291,557

Korean War (1950–1953)
Total servicemembers
5,720,000
Battle deaths
33,741

Vietnam War (1964–1975)
Total servicemembers
8,744,000
Serving in-theater
3,403,000
Battle deaths
47,410
Other deaths in service (theater)
10,789
Other deaths in service (nontheater)
32,000
Nonmortal woundings
153,303
Living veterans
8,295,0001

Gulf War (1990–1991)
Total servicemembers
2,183,000
Serving in-theater
665,476
Battle deaths
147

America's Wars Total
Military service during war
42,348,460
Battle deaths
651,008

Update: Cleaned it up a little.

Force Protection

The trouble with base camps is that they provide tempting targets for enemy forces. To protect the base camp requires tying up a substantial number of troops to keep an eye on the perimeter. Now the Army is exploring the use of technology to move the detection range farther away from the fence line. This article describes some of the tools that might be used.

The capability of the raised sensors to view terrain a good distance away from fixed Army locations for long periods of time has been proven successful as a force protection measure both in Afghanistan and Iraq recently, said Col. Kurt Heine, JLENS program manager. Due to security concerns, Heine said he could not give specific examples of the RAID system in combat, but reported that commanders really liked its capabilities.

“Imagine, if you will, that you can see people (and) cars from afar in the dark when you couldn’t before,” Heine said in reference to RAID combat successes.

The RAID system has been in use in several locations in Afghanistan since spring 2003 and in Iraq for about nine months. Two systems have also been used to support Navy force protection in the Central Command area under “Operation Code Blue.”

The key component of the system is the sensor -- basically a television camera with zoom lens, infrared for viewing at night and a laser range finder, Heine said.

The area the system can cover is dependent on terrain and height -- the higher, the better, Heine said.

Most of the systems currently being used are on towers. The Army has 19 RAID towers. They are a mix of 84-foot quick-erect and 30-foot and 60-foot telescope mast towers.

The Army is also using three15-meter aerostats -- large blimp-shaped, helium-filled balloons -- which are tethered to its truck transports to get the RAID sensor above the battlefield. Some of the aerostats have taken enemy fire without any major mishap, Heine said. “We just patched it up, topped it off with helium and sent it back up,” he said.

However raised, the sensor is networked to a Base Defense Operations Cell. The cell has monitors that show what the camera sensor is looking at and a digitized map with overlays with an icon depicting the map location of what the sensor is focused on.

Using aerostats to raise the sensors increases the area that can be effectively surveilled. Use of all weather sensors increases the possiblity of detection of hostile forces before they can get into position to do harm to our troops.

The approach sounds pretty similar to the Navy's Mobile Inshore Undersea Warfare Radar Sonar Surveillance Center (RSSC) AN/TSQ-108(V4) vans, used for port security and other operations. Heres' the Navy set up:

It adds up to a great new force protection tool.

Update: Corrected posting date

Mullah Mischief?

Captain Ed at Captain's Quarters has a piece on the sudden surge of al-Qaeda interest in going after US GWOT partner Pakistan:

In a sign that the Pakistanis have done significant damage to its network, al-Qaeda operations now primarily target the Pervez Musharraf regime, seen as a cornerstone to the American-led war on terror. The kidnapping of two Chinese industrial experts aims to drive a wedge between Musharraf and his oldest ally...

I am not surprised, but have a nagging suspicion that the Mullahs in Iran are lurking in the background in this. Fomenting trouble for US allies and working to destablilize US interests in the region make sense if you are one of the identified members of the "axis of evil" and are worried about your future. Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq have only one country in common on their borders - Iran. It isn't rocket science to think that the Iranian "leaders" may be feeling a little surrounded and are working to slip the noose.

In fact, speaking of rocket science, I see the recent announcements about the range improvements on their missile system to be in line with their effort to scare both close neighbors and the US (missile range would include Turkey and Israel) into backing off. This map shows approximate missile range.

I note that Turkey is a member of NATO and that any attack on Turkey should invoke NATO involvement in their defense.

This is dangerous mischief, indeed.

Update: Replaced missile map. Added explanation.

Update: While visiting the American Digest blog found this very interesting analysis of the importance of Iraq in the future direction of the Middle East.

The Logical End of Campaign Ads

Frank J at IMAO has taken up a new job and carried it to its -uh-logical extreme.

Kids Pick Kerry to Be the Next President?

Yahoo! News reports that the Nickelodeon network on-line polls says Kids Pick Kerry to Be the Next President.

Regardless of their alleged track record, such polls should be taken with a grain of salt. Apparently LInda Ellerbee, the host of this exercise, does not remember the famous Collier's (correction: Literary Digest) poll that wrongly predicted Dewey (correction: Landon) would beat Truman (correction: Roosevelt (he would have, if Collier (Literary Digest) readers were the only voters, but they weren't). In any event, all the on-line instant polls have shown that they are exceptionally easy to manipulate, especially since there is no effective way to screen out multiple votes and to determine who it is who is doing the voting.

More bothersome to me is the quote from Ellerbee (who I used to admire) concerning the the last presidential election:

Kids aren't dumb, they're just younger and shorter," she said. "In fact, last election, a boy came up to me and said, `We picked George Bush to win, and he didn't really win. Al Gore won the popular vote, so we were kinda wrong.' Quite an observation.

Looks like she missed her chance to explain the workings of the Electoral College to this misguided youth. What a shame to miss such a "teachable moment."

Update: Well, my memory was off. It was a Literary Digest poll in the 1936 election. See this. Ooops.

Update: Scholastic which also claims a pretty good track record in predicting presidential elections says that Bush will win 52% to 47% for Kerry:

Since 1940, Scholastic Classroom Magazines have given students the opportunity to cast their vote for president in the Scholastic Election Poll (online voting was added in 2000). In every election, but two, the outcome of the Scholastic Election Poll mirrored the outcome of the general election. The exceptions were in 1948 when students chose Thomas E. Dewey over Harry S. Truman and in 1960 when more students voted for Richard M. Nixon than John F. Kennedy. In 2000, student voters chose George W. Bush, mirroring the Electoral College result but not the result of the popular vote.

Hat tip: Best of the Web

Read LancelotFinn's "Robert Kaplan's World"

One of the great benefits of Hugh Hewitt's Symposia is reading blogger you'd never otherwise know of. This piece, Robert Kaplan's World, is one site I never would have found on my own, but I am very pleased it was posted in response to Hewitt's 4th. Here's a nice bit relating to a discussion of Kerry and the Vietnam War:

Pilate, confronted with a condemned but innocent man whom he dared not take the political risk of freeing, said first, "What is truth?"--moral relativism--and then "I wash my hands of this case"--abdication of responsibility. Kerry took the same two steps, moral relativism and abdication of responsibility, and they define him as a man and as a statesman to this day.

John Kerry told the Senate that "We found most people didn't even know the difference between communism and democracy."  He called Ho Chi Minh "the George Washington of Vietnam."  Yet George Washington was fighting to establish a free republic, Ho Chi Minh to establish a communist dictatorship.  Maybe John Kerry, who also opined in 1971 that Ho Chi Minh understood the principles of the US Constitution and was trying "to install the same provisions into the government of Vietnam," was deceived about Ho's ideology.  If so, though, it is odd that Kerry did not recant, reverse himself or apologize when the nature of the Vietcong regime became clear, or rather, clearer, since its oppressive and bloody character was evident enough by 1971.  This suggests that the "most people" who didn't know the difference between communism and democracy included John Kerry--or rather, he knew, but he didn't care...

I've read it and commend it to you. I'll be reading it again. It's that good.

Fun During Elections: Seeking the Gullible Vote

Yahoo! News - Bush, Kerry Use Draft to Target Youth Vote


This so just so much fun! The Dems have a couple of idiot Congressmen submit draft legislation. Then they float a rumor that the President may have a draft in mind; a rumor spread mostly on college campuses and other places young people loiter. The President denies he will implement a draft. The goofball legislation gets hammered down with even one of its sponsors voting against it. But:

The day the poll was released, Bush said in his second debate with Kerry, "We're not going to have a draft, period."

Kerry wouldn't let it go. A week later, the Democrat told The Des Moines Register "With George Bush, the plan for Iraq is more of the same and the great potential of a draft."

So, in the political world you can make up "scary" rumors that might possibly affect any segment of the voter population and, no matter what reality is, go after that segment by playing on the fear you just created. You know, like telling people living on Social Security that if your opponent is elected and if the moon aligns with Scorpio while Aries is ascending then if they live past 85 they will lose 10% of their benefits per year until they die. (Hint to the clueless -It's not true! I just made it up. And, no, I don't know anything about astrology, which is to say I know as much about it as I want to)

Hooboy! What a way to get votes! Can you think of other groups (other than gullible young people) we can play this game with--how about gullible sports fans? We can start a rumor that says that if Kerry is elected then, because of the threat of terrorism, mass gatherings of Americans will not be allowed, so all football, baseball and basketball games will be played in empty stadiums or arenas and fans will only be able to watch them on TV. If Kerry denies this, simply say that it "could happen" because of his "soft on terror" stance while looking serious, like you have gravitas or something.

On further reflection, this isn't a new game. It the same old politics of fright that has been going on too long. Politicians have certain topics they know with certainty will get some group of voters on their side. Threatening social security, the draft, medical care, jobs, security, the environment, gun ownership, racial groups ("if X is elected, he'll hurt all people of some color or another"), is an old political game. Maybe the oldest. Why the media reports these stories as if they were "news" is beyond me. It's just politics as usual.

All the more reason, if you've decided who you are going to vote for, to go do "early voting." Then you won't have to pay attention to this last minute nonsense anymore.

Update: Fixed a silly but embarrassing typo.
Update: Froggy paints a more vivid picture of the sad "scare" game.
Update: Instapundit cites a NYT column by William Safire and a NYT Op-Ed piece by David Brooks that deal with "scare tactics."

EagleSpeak Endorses President Bush

Hugh Hewitt has started a new symposium on the question "Why vote for Bush and what's wrong with Kerry?"

Simply put, President Bush has earned my support because he has proven since he has been in office that he is the right man, at the right time, in the right place. Under almost unimaginably difficult circumstances, he has sailed the ship of state on a true course. In the process he has avenged the deaths of innocent Americans, lead the fight to free millions from tyrants, sent a clear message to the world that the United States will not sit idle while evil men plot evil deeds against us.

That my assessment is validated by people that I respect and admire, such as John McCain, Tommy Franks, Rudy Guiliani and many others gives me comfort, but that validation is an independent reason, not the moving force.

I do not agree with every single action taken by the President during his tenure in office. In retrospect, however, I find I don't agree with every action I've taken in the last four years, either. Sometimes the best you can do is the best you can do.

There is much wrong with Mr. Kerry and it has been well covered by the SwiftVets and many others. Perhaps the most damning thing you can say about him is that the vast majority of the people who say they will vote for him do not, apparently, care about his policies or history but support him because he is "not Bush."

I'm certain that these same people would not buy a particular car because it is not a "Ford" - they choose a car because of the features it has and which they like. But here they are willing to waste their most precious and important choice on a man who they only know is "not Bush." How sad.

"I saw today what freedom looks like."

As we near our own elections, if there was ever a column that you should read, it is this one by Arthur Chrenkoff. (Hat tip: Instapundit).

We tend to take for granted freedom's blessings but every now and then something reminds us of how precious they are. Mr. Chrenkoff caught one of those moments for an embassy staffer. The quote is from Jeff Raleigh in Kabul:

Three years and two days ago, American troops came to Afghanistan to free a people who had been subjugated by a cruel and vicious oppressor. Today, I witnessed what their sacrifices and efforts, and those of other coalition troops, the international community and my colleagues at the U.S. Embassy had helped to win.

Freedom.

I visited three polling places in Kabul today and saw Afghan men and women lining up to exercise, for the first time in this nation's tortured history, the freedom to select their leader.

I watched as men and women, who been warned by the violent remnants of a defeated oppressor that exercising their freedom to vote would result in death, defiantly come to polling places to cast their votes.

I saw women, who had been not allowed out of their own homes under the old regime, walk freely into the voting booths and cast their ballot for their choice for President.

I saw today what freedom looks like.

I'm a cynical old guy, but it brought tears to my eyes.

Kerry's Words Cause Problems for Peacekeepers

Captain's Quarters has a great piece on Senator Kerry's irresponsible yapping causing problems for those who are in the front lines. In this instance he is providing aid and comfort to supporters of ousted Aristide in Haiti. Here's a quote from the BBC report CQ cites: "The commander of the UN peacekeepers in Haiti has linked a recent upsurge in violence there to comments made by the US presidential candidate, John Kerry."

I do not think this is the first instance in which Kerry's words have caused problems for forces in the field.

I am certain if you visit SwiftVets you will learn of other people whose lives were affected by comments he made in the early 1970's.

Update: Corrected Swiftvet link

Lambs

You've got to love Mudville Gazette for offering up photos of these clueless innocents who have voluntarily put themselves in satire's way by succumbing to the Fellowship of Reconciliation "we feel guilty for being Americans" campaign.

Greyhawk invites you to join the fun!

Update: The Fellowhip of Reconciliation has these history highlights:

1916-1917: Helps organize the National Civil Liberties Bureau, now the ACLU. Supports World War I conscientious objectors and contributes to legal recognition of CO rights...

1940s: Encourages nonviolent resistance to World War II. ...Organizes extensive campaign to prevent the Pentagon from extending wartime conscription into universal military training.

"Encourages nonviolent resistance to World War II?" Well, they should be happy someone was/is willing to step up and defend them when violence prevails.

It's all about oil? I'm shocked

Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit cites a story on the Chinese trying to stop the UN from imposing sanctions on Sudan to keep oil flowing out of the Sudan to China.

So, once again, It's all about oil? Just like it was in Iraq for the French, Russians, Chinese and other countries who are alleged to have been targets of the Saddamite "Axis of the Bribed?"

This Foxnews piece has information on allegations about the son of the UN secretary general as well as links to the Duelfer Report (downloadable in pdf format). This is from the "key findings" section:

One aspect of Saddam’s strategy of unhinging the UN’s sanctions against Iraq, centered on Saddam’s efforts
to influence certain UN SC permanent members, such as Russia, France, and China and some nonpermanent
(Syria, Ukraine) members to end UN sanctions. Under Saddam’s orders, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
(MFA) formulated and implemented a strategy aimed at these UNSC members and international public
opinion with the purpose of ending UN sanctions and undermining its subsequent OFF program by diplomatic
and economic means. At a minimum, Saddam wanted to divide the fi ve permanent members and foment
international public support of Iraq at the UN and throughout the world by a savvy public relations campaign
and an extensive diplomatic effort.

As Gomer Pyle used to say, "Su-prise! Su-prise!"

The world-wide demand for oil is on the rise. And, while I'm cetainly no economist, I do grasp the concept that increasing demand should cause an increase in prices until either supply is increased or demand lowered.

For years, the end-user of crude oil (the public) has been getting bargin prices for gasoline in that the price of gasoline (and crude oil) has not been rising at a rate to keep pace with inflation (yes, even in Europe, where much of the price at the pump is tax related and not cost of crude connected). This April 2004 article from the SF Chronicle points out that gasoline pump prices in the U.S. adjusted for inflation, are not at historic highs. See also the nice chart posted at The Big Picture.

What that also means is that there has been little incentive to exlore for and exploit "hard to get" oil reservoirs. I remember working at a major oil company in the early 1980's, just before the big oil "bust" that dropped crude prices down to the low teens. There were exploration and deveolpment projects on the table that could have been justified if oil prices had gone up - but which were quicly abandoned when prices dropped. Why add to an apparent glut and lose money doing it? If "real" prices rise, then these projects can be economically justified, perhaps including the massively expensive "oil shale" projects...

I guess in fairness I should also point out that when gas prices are relatively low, consumers are willing to buy larger (possible safer) vehicles. If gasoline prices go up high enough, we may see a glut of the big Ford "Ex" SUVs at the used car lots (along with their GM and Chrysler counterparts) and an increase in econo-boxes on the streets.

I should also point out that one of the drawbacks in developing alternative fueled vehicles (AFVs) has been the high cost. If gasoline prices rise to some level where AFVs are price competitive then there should be an significant increase in them.

More globally, we see nations like China and France doing what nations do - they are trying to protect their own economies. All the fine "we are one world" language aside, national interests are the trump card, especially for countries which lack their own natural resources. China, in this case, seems to have locked up a substantial amount of Sudan's oil exports and I would really and truly be shocked to learn they were willing to abandon that supply for some "humanitarian" concern. Especially given their own track record in that area.

Update: Fixed links.