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An Ethical Question:

I had a conversation with a colleague today on the prison situation in Iraq. There is an ethical question--or rather, a series of them--raised by the recent revelations, plus the claims by the ICRC that 70-90% of detainees are detained by "mistake."

I'd like to invite the board to comment.

The issue is this: what should we do with these detainees? My colleague asserts that they should simply all be released. Her reasoning is as follows:

1) It is wrong to hold potentially (to say nothing of probably) innocent people without trial, and,
2) We not only have not tried, but have no mechanism for trying, these potentially innocent people, therefore,
3) We should release them all.

The failure to do so, she asserts, is not only a PR disaster, but a moral failure.

I am reminded, however, that there was another PR disaster which preceded this one. In the first months after the fall of Baghdad, the US adopted a hands-off approach to security, attempting to avoid serving as policemen. The consequence was widespread chaos, especially in Baghdad itself: looting, roving gangs, armed robbery, rape, murder, and general brigandage. The roadblock system, out of which very many of these detentions arose, was a direct result of that chaos.

There is, in other words, another set of moral questions aside from the one she raises. We know Saddam released his prisoners and emptied his asylums. We have seen what happens when this particular group of people is loose. On the one hand, "this particular group" probably includes quite a few innocents, who could be released without harm. On the other hand, we have moral duties not only to the prisoners, but to all the Iraqi people--a moral duty not only to sort out innocence from guilt, but also to try to protect the free majority in the meanwhile.

That said, I don't believe a blanket release of the prisoners is a moral, or a feasible, option. The question is, what is the right--the moral--option? I have a few alternatives; I'd like to know what you think of them, and if you have others.

1) The current policy could be maintained. This policy holds that we should wait until Iraqi court systems are erected to adjudicate guilt. Positives: this system respects Iraqi sovereignty. Further, it aids legitimacy of the new government by giving them a task to perform that everyone wants done, such that people are apt to cooperate with it. Further, it aids stability in the long run by putting this government on a footing of independence from the US, as its first acts will include a popular overturn of unpopular American detentions. Negatives: this system requires a great deal of time, during which innocents will remain imprisoned. Not only the courts, but the laws will have to be decided upon before such a review process becomes feasible. This could take months, or potentially, years.

2) The military could begin an administrative process to review cases of detention. Persons held by the Coalition would be examined by a military officer, the report for the reason of their detention likewise examined, and a ruling made over whether or not they should continue to be detained. Due to sovereignty issues, such a review could release someone, but not convict them--those held over would be turned over to the Iraqi courts when they become available. Positives: this would probably be faster than waiting on the courts. It also respects Iraqi sovereignty. Negatives: an administrative process is less likely than the judicial one to arrive at the truth. Reports may be lost, for example, and witnesses (many of the arrests were made by the 3rd ID) rotated out of country. The military may err on the side of releasing people, in which criminals will get free; or they may err on the side of not doing so, such that people who go to trial under the Iraqi courts do so with the stigma of having been reviewed-but-held by the Americans. This could prejudice outcomes.

3) In many parts of the country, Sha'riah courts are operative--Moqtada al-Sadr has been running them, for example. While it would be politically impossible to allow Sha'riah judgments over persons not wishing them, detainees who request a judgment could be referred to a Sha'riah court for a quick ruling. Positives: these courts exist and are functional, and their authority is widely recognized. There could be some positive PR from the respect shown to Islam by the Coalition. Negatives: there is a chance that radical clerics might vote to release actual thugs in order to recruit them. There is a certainty that, once given legitimacy in this fashion, Sha'riah will everafter occupy a place as a parallel system of government in Iraq. Separation of church and state, and the long term stability of the government, would be made more difficult.

I am not including a UN tribunal as an option, largely because the UN has shown that it will cut and run in the face of terrorist bombings, and any such process will have to be made of stronger stuff. A multinational panel isn't impossible, but it would have to address that concern, without running afoul of the concerns mentioned in point (2) above.

Thoughts?

PH Kothegr

Ink for SOA:

A new blog has opened at this address, to discuss the idea of recycling used ink jet cartridges, the profits donated to Spirit of America. I myself have a nearly paperless office, and therefore generate few such used cartridges; but for those of you who work in paper-heavy offices, give it a look.

The Command Post - Iraq - Frisbees Over Fallujah

The Command Post:

Via The Command Post, we have a very cheerful image from Fallujah. I dropped by the Post to see what they'd dug up on last night's assassination-by-landmine in Chechnya. They have links to several Chechen news sources, which are worth looking over if you're interested in that theatre of the GWOT.

One of those had this interesting article on the importance of prostitution to Russia's economy:

Prostitution has been playing more and more important role in Russia's import of hard currency. In Istanbul, Turkey alone, let alone other profitable cities of Turkey such as Antalia, Marmaris, Adana, etc., several tens of thousands of Russian prostitutes are registered. And all across Turkey there are over 120 thousand prostitutes, who are only registered officially. With the average earnings of $ 100 a day they all earn at least $ 10 million dollars each day, which is about $ 300 million a month.

Three billion US dollars--this is the summary profit of Russian prostitutes in Turkey per year. And these are only the most conservative estimates! But if we add a number of other lucrative regions such as Europe (with about 200,000 Russian prostitutes), Indochina (40-50 thousand), etc., the annual Russian off-budget profits from prostitution will be no less than $ 10 billion US dollars.

The Islamic news service suggests that this is, of course, a sign of the moral worthlessness of the evil Russian republic. They report rumors that the government may be preparing to set up a cabinet-level ministry to legalize and encourage prostitution. Leaving those rumors aside, though, the sheer size of the industry is surprising. Ten billion US dollars is not small change for a cash-strapped nation, even if much of that money can't be getting out of the localities where it is earned.

Marine Corps News> 22d MEU (SOC) pushes deeper into Afghanistan

Marines Outside Iraq:

The 22d MEU (SOC) has opened a forward operating base--FOB Ripley--to perform security and stability operations in the Oruzgan province. There has been some factional fighting there recently. Oruzgan, one of the central provinces, is close enough to Kabul that instability there is of concern to the Afghan project as a whole, which is why the deployment of 22d MEU is justified.

Congratulations, meanwhile, to the 11th MEU, which won its SOC certification a month ahead of schedule. The 24th MEU is also going through its training cycle, preparing to deploy to Iraq.

Captain's Quarters

Marines in Fallujah:

Captain's Quarters has a piece on the Marines in Fallujah from the LA Times. Meanwhile, there's evidence in this USMC press release that the training at Parris Island doesn't prepare you for everything after all:

The bite of an Iraqi sand fly can debilitate a Marine, sailor or a whole unit, but with proper protection the parasitic infection it causes, leishmaniasis, can be prevented, according to Petty Officer 1st Class David A. Carroll, the preventive medicine chief with I Marine Expeditionary Force.

One bets they're not digging any graves for the little monsters.

Finally, the Chicago Tribune has an article (which I am quoting out of the Pioneer Press to avoid the Tribune's subscription walls--"The Internet treats censorship as damage, and routes around it") on the Iraqi brigade:

Last month, Yasser Harhoush said, he fought with the armed insurgents battling U.S. Marines.

A week ago, the wiry, clean-shaven 28-year-old dusted off his old olive-drab Iraqi military fatigues and joined Fallujah's new army brigade under the command of a former general who served under Saddam Hussein's regime.

Now he carries a shiny black assault rifle as he patrols Jolan, a neighborhood where some of the fiercest fighting took place. He mans military checkpoints. And he says he and his comrades in the 1st Fallujah Brigade are the solution to the monthlong fighting between the insurgents and the Marines.

"We are protecting the city so the coalition forces cannot come here again," Harhoush said.

A mixed result, then, so far. But considering that two weeks ago we were killing his comerades in arms by the hundreds, that's more than you might expect.

FM 34-52 Table of Contents

Reference Material:

US Army Field Manual 34-52, "Intelligence Interrogation," can be found here. It seems to be the governing publication for the operations in Abu Ghraib that led to the questionable practices, although it appears to be undergoing 'field modifications' under the strain of the new war. If you are following the story, you may wish to make reference to it now and again.

Instapundit, on holiday for health reasons (get well, sir), links to this article by the Belmont Club.

My first thoughts at the news of the Abu Ghraib abuses, the Taguba Report and the Presidential mea culpa which followed was whether posterity would recall the incident in the same way the Christmas Truce in the first year of the Great War is remembered today. The last grasp at enforcing civilized standards of conduct before the brutality of the trenches coarsened men completely....

And in a small late-night restaurant in a back street, a small man in steel rimmed glasses told me, over fifteen cent beer, how he had attended a party given by some academic types the night before. They turned the evening into Commie-fest and gathered round someone he knew slightly as a minor functionary in the Red guerilla army in the expectation of edifying stories from the dark years. He was an ex-seminarian, quiet and softly spoken, who told them about his first mission to eliminate a Marcos informer somewhere in a village in southern Luzon. They forced the informer down from his thatch hut one evening, and to save money and avoid the noise of gunfire, cut his throat at the doorstep of his own home. The seminarian was given the honors and he remembered sawing the knife against the informer's windpipe. What struck him most of all, was the rubbery resistance of the cartilage and cries of the informer's children. 'Papa! Papa!' It took a long time to cut though his throat. Before the story was over all the academic bravos had slunk off, retreating like Daisy Buchanan into the 'vast carelessness' of their fantasy world, leaving the man in steel rimmed glasses to drink with the ex-seminarian, ironically improving the company.

One day Ted Koppel will read, in addition to the names of American soldiers who died in Iraq, the names of friends who will have died in another attack on New York. One day Nicholas de Genovea, the Columbia professor who called for a "million Mogadishus" will understand that it means a billion dead Muslims. And then for the first time, perhaps, they will understand the horror of Abu Ghraib while we all raise our glasses, sardonically like Robert Graves, "with affection, to the men we used to be".

This thought crosses my mind from time to time. As much as I respect the Belmont Club, however, I must disagree with the conclusion here. The Geneva Conventions (Appendix J of the 34-52 lists the relevant ones) were written by men who were thinking of 'the men we used to be.' They were adopted in 1949. For the men who wrote them, the Second World War was their background and the Third World War seemed increasingly likely. It is no utopian text.

We'll do what we have to do in order to win, and I'll be right there with you doing it as long as I live and have strength. Yet, we ought not to throw away our heritage so freely. If we are indeed looking toward the horrors of war, let us heed the warning of our fathers. They knew of what they spoke. What is coming may be awful, but we have in their counsel a shield. When a shield breaks, you cast it away: but not before.

deuddersun says...

Best to a Brother in Arms:

Condolences and prayers for US Marine and blogger Deuddersun and his family, who have suffered a death this week. If you have time and are of a mind, send a kind word their way.

Noble Eagle

Welcome:

Welcome to Noble Eagle, a new Milblog.

CI

CI:

Counterintelligence inside the US is at an all time high. We don't see it on TV, or read about it in the paper, due to the secrecy involved. However, it can be roughly tracked by following the public statements of the Foreign Intelligence Survellience Court.

The FISC is the court that approves applications for CI activities. Details of its cases are not, obviously, available to citizens for review. However, it does make occasional statements to Congress, some of which are public, such as this one. It states that 1727 applications were made to the court in 2003 for search warrants related to CI activities, of which four (4) were denied. This is up from 1228 the previous year, meaning that CI requests for search warrants in 2003 were 140% of 2002.

You can make of these numbers what you will, but there they are.

My Way News

Contractors:

Grim's Hall is one of the prime defenders of the use of contractors in Iraq and elsewhere. This is probably due in part to a vested interest--being a contractor is the way I've found to contribute to the war, and I want to continue contributing. On the other hand, a lot of the defense of contractors comes from experience. I have seen a fair amount of contract work up front, and I know that it provides a real and indeed an indispensible service to our country. Contractors provide skills in numbers that the military needs.

Human nature being what it is, however, if a good thing is to remain a good thing, accountability is important:

In a sign of continued problems with the tracking of contracts, Pentagon officials on Thursday acknowledged they have yet to identify which Army entity manages the multimillion-dollar contract for interrogators like the one accused in the Iraq prisoner abuse probe.

Pardon me, but what? I mean, this is a Pentagon problem rather than a problem with the contractor, but it's a serious problem. The government ought not to be spending taxpayer dollars in any case without a clear chain of accountability. We need to be able to call people to account for how they've spent (or misspent) our money, regardless of the project.

I think contractors do a world of good for the military, and I believe I have good reasons for saying so. Still, clear rules and guidelines are a wise precaution in any undertaking. It ought also to be an obligation of the government to account for how it spends our coin. It appears there has been a failure in both regards, at least in some cases. I know exactly which department signs my contracts, so it's not true where I work. I know too that the government can get it right some of the time, so there's no excuse for getting it wrong here.

My Way - News

Defensive Lasers:

The Nautilus project knocks down its target. I still remain astonished at this--I understand we have lasers in development that can destroy a 2-foot long artillery shell in flight. It's amazing stuff.

G.K. CHESTERTON: THE EVERLASTING MAN

Chesterton:

From The Everlasting Man:

Now it is very right to rebuke our own race or religion for falling short of our own standards and ideals. But it is absurd to pretend that they fell lower than the other races and religions that professed the very opposite standards and ideals. There is a very real sense in which the Christian is worse than the heathen, the Spaniard worse than the Red Indian, or even the Roman potentially worse than the Carthaginian. But there is only one sense in which he is worse; and that is not in being positively worse. The Christian is only worse because it is his business to be better.

It is also our business to be better. I take exception to our Mr. Reynolds, who is writing tonight:

That's a lot less courage than was displayed by the U.S. soldier who complained to his superiors about abuses at Abu Ghraib, resulting in an investigation that got his commanding general relieved in January -- months before this issue went public.

And also...

He's right -- more coverage of prisoner abuse in a week than they gave Saddam's torture and mass murder in a decade.

As to the first point, we can see that the Pentagon was able to act so long before the issue went public because they illegally classified it. I don't disagree with their decision--the law should probably be changed to permit just this kind of thing. Nevertheless, when you stack the deck, you don't get credit for guessing where the aces are. They were on top of it before others because they knew it was coming and took steps to keep others from knowing.

As to the second point, Chesterton was right. It may be only one sense in which this is worse than what went on in Saddam's Iraq, and it is not that it is positively worse. It is still a very real sense. It is our business to be better. Those who have betrayed us and our faith in them, and who have soiled the uniform that represents us all, they should face the firing squads. I wrote elsewhere:

The firing squad is exactly the right punishment for those servicemen directly involved in sexual torture, as with forcible rape. I suppose that just why I think so needs explaining.

Human nature is immutable. We would like to argue that Americans "aren't the kind of people" who engage in torture. That isn't so. The fact is that Americans are every kind of people; and, furthermore, that all kinds of people learn to torture.

Consider that we make the opposite argument in the case of democracy. We argue boldly what is yet to be proven, which is that Iraqis are just like any other kind of people, and can learn to do democracy. Yet we turn aside from what is definitively proven, which is that no human culture has been able to forgo torture.

If America is morally better than Iraq, it is not because the kinds of people who live in America are better. It is because the system is better, and it is better in exactly this way: it subjects all men to consequences (rule of law), while protecting those who search out the truth of what Americans have done (the press, the courts, the police, "whistleblowers," citizens who report crimes, even criminals who turn State's evidence).

Now that we know the truth, we must have the consequences. And what consequence should it be? Grant that human nature includes a certain disposition to torture, as evidenced by its universal practice; and that we want to prevent the incidence of torture completely; and that we cannot drive humanity out of our military, which is made of nothing else.

The only answer is to put so great a weight of shame and fear on torture that men, given the opportunity, will not practice it. The firing squad has the correct mix of effect and symbol. The effect--a quick but painful death--is terrifying. The symbol, meanwhile, is the squad itself. A few moments before they were your unit mates. Now they reject you; strip your uniform of its insignia; and then, executing their military function of Rifleman, gun you down as an enemy.

The administrative punishments still include the stripping of insigina and the casting out. But--if the man is no longer a soldier, he is still an American. These acts are treason as much as they are rape, torture, sexual abuse. The practitioners should be both driven out, and killed as foes.

In that way, the regiment is purged. The propensity to torture may remain in every man still in the unit, because it remains in all men. But by the practice of torture, the regiment--the Republic--is unstained. No lesser punishment is complete.

The UCMJ almost certainly doesn't allow for it now, but execution is the traditional punishment for rape in wartime. We should push to restore it. These soldiers have done more damage to the war than if they'd taken Indymedia's advice and fragged their officers. All that we've seen so far--even for the deaths--has been discharge without prison. That serves no function. If this happens again six months on, the cost to the war will be impossible to calculate.

We must not allow the sacrifices of the brave to be so wasted.

Mudville Gazette

Timeline:

If any of you are interested in getting the order of events at Abu Ghraib straight, the Mudville Gazette has undertaken to construct a timeline.

The Cool Blue Blog

Killings:

Jason Steenwk at Iraq Now confirms that the US military has demonstrated two criminal homicides of Iraqi prisoners--but contented itself with "less-than-honorable" discharges instead of prison time.

It has been said that the only good thing that can possibly come out of this is for the world to learn that 'we don't tolerate this kind of thing, and punish our own.' If even that lesson is going to be learned, we need to get along with that punishment. If the military justice system is going to insist on administrative punishments for criminal homicides, the President needs to get involved personally.

Secrecy News 05/05/04

Torture & Secrecy:

The government has begun the process of shaking out the lawbreakers who were involved in the torture in Iraq. The general in charge was suspended in January; today it is reported that there have been a host of suspensions of soldiers who were not involved with torture, but who should have been involved in oversight. There are also legal charges being filed against the MPs who engaged in torture.

One set of people who may be facing charges probably did not expect to be: the people who classified the reports of torture, to give the government time to investigate before the story broke. That proves to be illegal:

But the classification may have been more than simply unnecessary. It might have been a violation of official policy, which forbids the use of secrecy to cover up crimes:

"In no case shall information be classified in order to ... conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error [or to] prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency...," according to Section 1.7 of Executive Order 12958, as amended by President Bush (EO 13292).

That section of the order states in full:

Sec. 1.7. Classification Prohibitions and Limitations. (a) In no case shall information be classified in order to:


(1) conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error;
(2) prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency;

(3) restrain competition; or

(4) prevent or delay the release of information that does not require protection in the interest of the national security.


(b) Basic scientific research information not clearly related to the national security shall not be classified.
(c) Information may be reclassified after declassification and release to the public under proper authority only in accordance with the following conditions:


(1) the reclassification action is taken under the personal authority of the agency head or deputy agency head, who determines in writing that the reclassification of the information is necessary in the interest of the national security;
(2) the information may be reasonably recovered; and

(3) the reclassification action is reported promptly to the Director of the Information Security Oversight Office.


(d) Information that has not previously been disclosed to the public under proper authority may be classified or reclassified after an agency has received a request for it under the Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. 552) or the Privacy Act of 1974 (5 U.S.C. 552a), or the mandatory review provisions of section 3.5 of this order only if such classification meets the requirements of this order and is accomplished on a document-by-document basis with the personal participation or under the direction of the agency head, the deputy agency head, or the senior agency official designated under section 5.4 of this order.
(e) Compilations of items of information that are individually unclassified may be classified if the compiled information reveals an additional association or relationship that: (1) meets the standards for classification under this order; and (2) is not otherwise revealed in the individual items of information. As used in this order, "compilation" means an aggregation of pre-existing unclassified items of information.

Some rethinking of this law is probably in order due to the nature of the current war. This is a tricky situation. On the one hand, we need to be able to keep these kinds of problems "in-house" long enough to develop a response. The explosive nature of these charges would have been heightened if we could not point to the fact that we've been working since January to try to correct the problems. On the other, we need to prevent the government from covering up illegal activity by classifying it. It would probably be wise to alter the law to permit a short "waiting period" before an automatic declassification. That would not only prevent abuses of the secrecy system, but also light a fire under the people whose job it is to handle these investigations.

UPDATE: The ISOO has opened an investigation into this matter. Developing (slowly, as with any gov't bureaucracy).

Report (html format)

"Patterns of Global Terrorism 2003"

The annual report by the State Department is now available in HTML.

Marine Corps News> Gearing up isn't easy

Kitted Out, II:

If you thought poor Kaplan had it tough, take a look at what the Marines do. Thanks to JHD for the link.

DARPA TIDES Iraq Reconstruction Report No. 185

DARPA on Torture:

The DARPA TIDES project ("Translingual Information Detection, Extraction and Summarization" according to the homepage--I hate it when people go to that length to be clever with their acronymns) has assembled and posted comprehensive coverage of the torture allegations.

BLACKFIVE

No One Gets Left Behind:

No one:

Luci was left without a family when an Army unit departed Baghdad, said Maj. Gen. Amos. This presented the general with the perfect opportunity to assume responsibility for the courageous dog and her sole surviving puppy from a litter of five.

"Luci was working with Army Special Forces on the streets of Baghdad and over a period of time, she kept following them around whenever they went on patrols," the general said. "Luci was credited with saving their lives a couple of times because of her ability to sniff out an ambush and bark to alert them."

When 3rd MAW went into Baghdad about a month and a half ago to drop off some wounded Marines, Luci and the pup were brought out to the airplane and were taken back to Al Asad, the general said.

The Right Coast

USSC:

The Right Coast has correctly analyzed the current status of the Supreme Court:

it struck me once again that what the Supreme Court is doing is not really law, and that they are not really a court. They make policy decisions about what should be done. They are in truth a legislature composed of unelected worthies, a kind of house of lords. But if this is true, we should call them not "Justice," but something more indicative of their true function....

He has suggestions. Hat tip: Southern Appeal.

The Atlantic | May 2004 | How Do I Look? | Kaplan

Kitted Out:

Robert Kaplan has an article in the Atlantic on the subject:

I was attracted to one Web site, BotachTactical.com, which advertised "Clearance: Great Products at Blowout Prices." It offered machine-washable Point Blank Concealable Armor with removable panels. Another Web site, BulletProofME.com, offered similar vests to "put the odds back in YOUR favor."

But I didn't want concealable armor that fit under a shirt--I am not a Secret Service agent, a police detective, a convenience-store clerk in a high-crime area, a drug lord, or a Mafioso. I wanted tactical body armor that fits over a shirt or a jacket. And the array of tactical body armor offered on the Internet seemed endless.

Friends in the Marines and the Army Special Forces recommended that I buy a vest and plates that gave Level III or IV protection. With that in mind I found a Military Outer Tactical Vest (OTV) I liked for $790 at Bullet ProofME.com, and an even nicer Paraclete Modular Armor Vest--a "hybrid composite [of] Goldflex and Spectra-flex"--sold by Lightfighter.com for $1,990, with soft-armor panels and Velcro pockets for hard-armor trauma plates....

I also had to choose a color. The vests that interested me came in black, plain tan, smoke green, woodland camouflage, and desert or tricolor camouflage.... My decision was further complicated by the Marines. They wear digital cammies in a pattern different from the woodland and tricolor designs of the other services. Would they be offended if I wore woodland?

Offended? Probably not. It would only confirm what they already know, which is that you're not one of them. Go for the "smoke green."

GIs, Shiite militiamen in Najaf trade fire

AP: Iraqis Commit Suicide

In another lesson on press bias, if one were needed, we have this introductory sentence to an AP article on today's attacks:

U.S. forces in Najaf came under their most intense attack yet by Shiite militiamen in a clash Monday that may have killed up to 20 Iraqis.

You got that, right? Shi'ite militiamen led an intense attack that killed twenty of themselves.

I really miss the days of the old Army war correspondants, who would have written, "They attacked us heavily, but we killed about twenty of them." Failing that, could we at least have "In spite of their most intense effort yet to engage US forces directly, the Shi'ite militias were handily repulsed, with up to twenty fruitlessly throwing their lives away in a battle against US soldiers."

The Liberal Conspiracy - Satire, Informed Commentary and 9-11 Research

Prisoner Torture:

Sovay has a collection of headlines from the Arab and Iranian press on the torture story. There is, of course, no surprise that the headlines in the state-run papers are exceptionally outraged. It is indeed ironic to see Iranian papers trumpeting "Their True Face!", or Egyptian ones calling it "The Scandal!" Saudi papers likewise, right? These guys are among the worst torturers in the world. Their outrage must be wholly manufactured, musn't it?

Certainly the physical torture revealed is rather less strenuous than what is practiced by Arab states. If you'd like some details on what kind of tortures that would be, consider pages nine and ten of the Qaeda manual warning "brothers" what sort of tortures they should expect if captured. All of what was done and far worse is on offer, both physical, psychological and sexual.

All of it, that is, except one thing. The photos of the grinning servicewoman pointing to a masturbating man must be genuinely horrifying to Middle Eastern society. Out of all the rest of it, only two bad conclusions can come: first, that America is hypocritical, which most already believe; and second, that American democracy is no better than their own forms of government, which many already believe. Both points can be largely undone by a public and severe punishment of the offenders. I favor capital punishment, as I always do in cases of rape by uniformed servicemen overseas, which are treason as much as they are rapes. A swift and harsh punishment--even if it is "only" Leavenworth--will undo a great deal of the damage.

The reversal of sexual roles, though, can't be fixed. The damage done by that photograph will outstrip all the others, because in a very real way it points to a truth about America. It isn't true that we engage in routine torture, or that we tolerate it; it isn't true that our government is no better than Iran's or Egypt's. It is true, however, that we intend to totally destroy the sexual order of Islam in the Middle East. The servicewoman, dressed in a military uniform instead of a veil, placed in power over men, abusing them sexually--that violation will haunt our campaign forever.

International News Article | Reuters.com

German Leader Gives Finger to US, Kerry:

In a jab-cross combination, the German Defense Minister, Peter Struck, has managed to slug both American interests generally and John Kerry in particular. This combination was the result of German military plans for the future announced today:

German Defense Minister Peter Struck said Germany will stop protecting U.S. military bases in the country at the end of 2004 and would not send troops to help a NATO force police Iraq, a newspaper reported Sunday....

Some 2,500 German soldiers have protected U.S. barracks and other installations from attack since the start of 2003 because many U.S. troops stationed in Germany -- who would normally have performed the task themselves -- are now in Iraq.

Struck also said Germany would not take part in any prospective NATO security force in Iraq once the U.S.-led coalition transfers sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government at the end of June.

"It seems highly uncertain if and when NATO will be asked for support," said Struck. "Whatever the case, Germany will not take part in it. The army will only provide special aircraft to transport wounded if this proves necessary."

This announcement follows a week in which Kerry made NATO involvement the centerpiece of his speech on Iraq. Kerry said that "the President must also go to NATO members and others to contribute the additional military forces and to NATO to take on an organizing role." Germany's response is already on the table: "Don't bother."

May Day

May Day:

May and October are the finest of months.

One morning in May by chance I did rove,
I sat myself down by the side of a grove,
And there did I hear the sweet nightingale sing,
I never heard so sweet as the birds in the Spring.

All on the green grass I sat myself down
Where the voice of the nightingale echoed around;
Don't you hear how she quivers the notes? I declare
No music, no songster with her can compare.

Come all you young men, I'll have you draw near,
I pray you now heed me these words for to hear,
That when you're grown old you may have it to sing,
That you never heard so sweet as the birds in the Spring.

-Traditional English ballad

Robin Hood is said to have died on May Day. That is a tragedy considering how much all the old tales suggest he enjoyed the month.

But how many months be in the year?
There are thirteen, I say;
The midsummer moon is the merryest of all
Next to the merry month of May.

IN summer time, when leaves grow green,
And flowers are fresh and gay,
Robin Hood and his merry men
Were [all] disposed to play.

Then some would leap, and some would run,
And some use artillery:
'Which of you can a good bow draw,
A good archer to be?

'Which of you can kill a buck?
Or who can kill a doe?
Or who can kill a hart of grease,
Five hundred foot him fro?

In honor of the old greenwood, and the beginning of summer, let me encourage you all to follow a piece of advice. Get some good beer or some sweet wine. Get away to the forest as much as you can before the heat of summer.

The birds still sing for us, after all. Grim's Hall is devoted, in part, to the heroic life. It used to be that learning to understand the speech of birds was the mark of a hero. Sigurd gained the ability after tasting the blood of a dragon slain. Fionn Mac Cumhaill had the same ability from tasting a magic fish. Rigsthula tells us that the Norse god Heimdall fathered a son destined to give rise to the lords of the North, who had this ability from youth. J.R.R. Tolkien invoked these old legends in The Hobbit, where Bard the Bowman, unknowingly the son of kings, finds a thrush whispering in his ear.

Many believe that these old stories arise from a woods-lore that was taught among the Northmen, which allowed them to anticipate ambushes. It may also be related to the interpretation of bird-flight that plays so strong a role in the other Indo-European epics, especially the Odyssey.

In any event, it is a skill that is worth cultivating. It is no small thing, these days, to be able to identify a bird by her song. There is a great deal to learn, and we have in May a few fine days to spend. Such days are too rare, and such joys, too few.

Belmont Club

Belmont Club:

Once again, the Belmont Club has a strong analysis of the situation in Fallujah. (Hat tip: Black Five). Of particular importance is this CENTCOM statement on the new Fallujah brigades.

The creation of native forces, and their integration into operations, is characteristic of Marine counterinsurgency. I would like to believe that is what is happening here. However, as yet I am not certain where the orders for this "Fallujah brigade" arose. If it's a component part of Marine strategy, it will probably work out well. If it's an imposition from civilian authorities, it will almost certainly work out badly.

Still, there is reason to hope. The presence of a popular local commander can be a solvent to dissolve the existing opposition groups. They will then reform under him. If he is indeed allied to the Coalition, this could be just the trick. If he is not, however, you will have a unified enemy force with better leadership and popular legitimacy. When the time comes to break it, breaking it will be that much harder. For better or for worse, the general of this force is now a popular hero in Fallujah, and a man we'll be dealing with at high levels from now on.

NATO may not have enough troops for Iraq: Powell

Powell, CFR: NATO Doesn't Have the Troops

Also from Secretary of State Powell, we have a statement on NATO involvement in Iraq:

US Secretary of State Colin Powell called Thursday for increased NATO involvement in Iraq but said he doubted that the Atlantic alliance had many troops available to contribute.

"Some 16 of the 26 nations of NATO are in Iraq in some capacity and I'm not sure there is a great reservoir of troops left in NATO," Powell said during a visit to Denmark where he met with Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller.

Powell suggested however that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which currently has only a small logistical support operation in Iraq to back Polish-led multinational coalition forces, could contribute by increasing its logistical support.

The ones not in Iraq are, as mentioned below, involved in operations elsewhere. NATO is tapped out. This is not only my reading, but that of the Council on Foreign Relations:

Does NATO have enough resources to take on all these new missions [in Afghanistan]?

Not without difficulty, many experts say. Most NATO nations have small military budgets--and in many cases military spending is declining, says Michael Peters, an expert on NATO affairs and executive vice president of the Council on Foreign Relations. Only a handful of NATO nations--France, Germany, Britain, Turkey, and Poland--have the capacity to field significant numbers of troops, and cash-strapped Poland and Turkey require financial assistance to do so, Peters says. Ongoing Balkans deployments involving some 40,000 personnel already strain the capacity of some NATO members. NATO's focus for now is getting Afghanistan "absolutely right... because it's somewhere we cannot possibly fail before we start looking at other elements," Robertson said October 9.

There are the bald facts.

Asia Times - Asia's most trusted news source for the Middle East

SPENGLER:

This piece on PSYOPS by the man known only as "SPENGLER" was suggested to me. It's from the Asia Times. I'm not sure what I think of it yet, but it's an interesting argument.

U.S. Newswire - Remarks of Senator John Kerry at Westminster College

John Kerry: The Problem of Platitudes:

Today the Honorable Senator Kerry spoke at Westminster, giving a policy address on Iraq. It was rich in political platitudes, almost religious in its veneration for international institutions, but demonstrated a failure of understanding.

Earlier this month the Hall held discussions on the options in Iraq. Essentially, I suggested, there were three--"big war," "small war," or failure. Senator Kerry has three options as well:

One, we can continue to do this largely by ourselves and hope more of the same works; Two, we can conclude it's not doable, pull out and hope against hope that the worst doesn't happen in Iraq; Or three, we can get the Iraqi people and the world's major powers invested with us in building Iraq's future.

The Senator's preference is rhetorically obvious. He therefore suggests we proceed:

[W]e must do the hard work to get the world's major political powers to join in this mission. To do so, the President must lead. He must build a political coalition of key countries, including the UK, France, Russia and China, the other permanent members of the UN Security Council, to share the political and military responsibilities and burdens of Iraq with the United States.

Does he really mean that he wants to invite China to share the military responsibilities in Iraq? No, of course not. Neither China nor Russia will be invited to do any such thing. Both of them are involved in their own counterinsurgency fighting against Muslim guerrillas, Russia in Chechnya and China in Xinjiang province (also known as East Turkmenistan). Their counterinsurgency doctrines are brutal on an order that no Western government could support, nor would we.

They are also wasteful of lives. In the campaign for the city of Grozny, the Russians lost thousands of soldiers. This demonstrates a second problem with this line of thought: the degree to which "internationalizing" the military problems in Iraq is possible is limited by technology and training. Neither Russia nor China is capable of joint force operations with the United States. Their training is not compatible with ours; their technology is not either. None of the MOUT techniques that the US Marines use is available to them. Indeed, their communications systems are so incompatible with our own that we would have a serious technical problem communicating at all.

The Coalition has been dealing with lesser versions of this problem all along. The reason that the Latin American armies have been combined into a single unit under Spanish command is not that they all speak Spanish. It is that the units from Latin America are largely unequipped for joint operations. As such, they have been stationed to do peacekeeping in the most secure parts of Iraq. Even Polish forces, after a decade of American efforts to bring them up to NATO standards, have had to operate largely separate from the joint command. When al-Sadr's armies attacked in several cities at once, the Poles were caught by surprise because their communications infrastructure is still not able to be completely tied in to our own. They don't get the full benefits of American C4I (command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence) techniques. This makes them vunerable, and unsuitable to support US units directly.

Inviting the Security Council to "share the military burden" is not an option. France, alone on the security council, both could send useful forces and has not already done so.

Senator Kerry:

The coalition should endorse the Brahimi plan for an interim Iraqi government, it should propose an international High Commissioner to work with the Iraqi authorities on the political transition, and it should organize an expanded international security force, preferably with NATO, but clearly under US command.

Once these elements are in place, the coalition would then go to the UN for a resolution to ratify the agreement. The UN would provide the necessary legitimacy. The UN is not the total solution but it is a key that opens the door to participation by others.

In parallel, the President must also go to NATO members and others to contribute the additional military forces and to NATO to take on an organizing role. NATO is now a global security organization and Iraq must be one of its global missions.

To bring NATO members and others in, the President must immediately and personally reach out and convince them that Iraqi security and stability is a global interest that all must contribute to. He must also convince NATO as an organization that Iraq should be a NATO mission-a mission consistent with the principles of collective security that have formed the basis of the alliance's remarkable history in the pursuit of peace and security.

NATO is indeed a global security organization. The only problem with this suggestion is that NATO is stretched far thinner than US forces. NATO is already leading the International Security force in Kabul (ISAF), and devoting large numbers of forces--both land and naval--to the combined antiterror task forces operating around the Horn of Africa. The German government has taken the lead in both matters, but the French are also involved, particularly in Africa. It is not clear that NATO can devote units of the size necessary to take over combat operations in even a small part of Iraq without devolving their commitment elsewhere. That is to say, "internationalizing" Iraq by bringing in NATO means nationalizing efforts in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Of course, that could be worthwhile, if we need them more in Iraq. But again, almost all the countries in NATO have already sent forces to Iraq. You can compare NATO membership with Combined Joint Task Force 7, which handles joint operations in Iraq. You will quickly realize two things: first, Kerry is simply mistaken to assert that we are acting 'largely by ourselves,' or that NATO members aren't already involved. Second, the number of countries in NATO which haven't sent forces to Iraq is very small--and they have sent forces, instead, to Afghanistan and elsewhere.

I said earlier this month that Kerry seems to have no strategy for Iraq beyond "Call for Reinforcements!" That is, sadly, confirmed by today's policy address. There is a lot about the need for foreign troops (which, as I noted above, demonstrates a lack of understanding about the problems of using foreign troops). There is nothing at all about what would be done with those troops when they got to Iraq. Nothing. Would we adopt a policy of seeking terrorist havens abroad? Would we try to control the Iraqi cities, leaving the deserts to the enemy? Would we try to seal the borders? Kerry has nothing to say about it at all. He scorns the idea that we should trust in "more of the same," but he has no alternative.

This same failure of thought infects his speech on the topic of Iraqi forces:

We need a massive training effort to build Iraqi security forces that can actually provide security for the Iraqi people. We must accept that the effort to date has failed: it must be rethought and reformed. Training cannot be hurried. It must be done in the field and on the job as well as in the classroom. Units cannot be put on the street without backup from international security forces. They cannot be rushed into battle before they are ready.

"It must be rethought and reformed," he says. Well, sir, are you not the opposition candidate? What have you been doing these last nine months? We know, if I may be excused the jab, that you have not been taken up with your sworn duties in the Senate.

Does Kerry wish to adopt re-Ba'athification? Does he wish to turn the process of training over from the current trainers to someone else? If so, who? Other than taking his time--a commodity not readily available--and having "international security" to stand over their shoulders, what exactly would he do differently? He does not say.

He has many generous things to say about the United Nations, and although I see little reason to share his high opinion of the organization, I'll assume he believes it all. I will let the Senator pass on his jab at the lack of armed hummers without bothering to look up whether or not he voted against funding them. I will give him credit for having grown in his office, for he now asserts his strong preference for Democracy, when once he seemed rather unsure that it was preferable.

Even granting that, this speech was sad. One is left to assume that Kerry believes that Bush's arrogance is solely responsible for the share of the burden American forces carry. One is left to assume he knows nothing whatever about the challenges of joint operations with international forces. One must assume that he does not have an opinion on what strategy we ought to adopt, or what the relative benefits and hazards of each might be.

A man who thinks in platitudes does not think. If the Senator wishes to be taken seriously on these great questions, he must take the questions seriously. Now the sole voice of the opposition, he has the obligation to offer a fully formed alternative. He has not yet begun.

IIS

A New Iraqi National Intelligence Service:

The Coalition Provisional Authority has issued permission to the Iraqi Governing Council for the formation of a new intelligence service. If you are curious, the INIS charter is available online. Certain items of interest:

* The INIS is empowered to collect intelligence "and conduct related intelligence activities" in cases of "threats to the national security," terrorism, insurgency, WMD, narcotics, organized crime, or counterintelligence. That is a much broader scope of power than is granted US intelligence agencies.
* Curiously, the charter states that any dissemination of intelligence outside of the Iraqi government will be "strictly limited to what is essential to the national security of Iraq." I suppose that means that we will not be seeing any INIS data unless we can convince the future government that their national security requires ponying up.
* In theory, the INIS will be banned from acting against established political parties, and will be required to observe human rights.
* The INIS will be subject to oversight by the legislature. (Chp. 7, passim).
* INIS members cannot hold legislative or other political office in the new Iraq. (Chp. 11, Ar. 39)
* Chp. 3, Art. 13 states plainly that there will be no "wall" between intelligence and law enforcement, but instead requires immediate notification of probable criminal offenses to the law enforcement branches for prosecution.

Taken together, this looks like the foundation for a very powerful secret police and intelligence service. Such is doubtless required by the circumstances in Iraq, but it will bear watching.

Senator Zell Miller - Printer Friendly Document

Repeal the 17th?

Senator Zell Miller has introduced legislation to the Senate that would fundamentally alter the way Senators are elected. It would, that is, restore the fashion in which they were chosen under the original Constitution:

[N]o matter who you send to Washington -- for the most part smart and decent people -- it is not going to change much.

The individuals are not so much at fault as the rotten and decaying foundation of what is no longer a republic.

It is the system that stinks. And it's only going to get worse because that perfect balance our brilliant Founding Fathers put in place in 1787 no longer exists.

Perhaps then the answer is a return to the original thinking of those wisest of all men, and how they intended for this government to function.

Federalism, for all practical purposes, has become to this generation of leaders some vague philosophy of the past that is dead, dead, dead. It isn't even on life support. That line on the monitor went flat sometime ago.

You see, the reformers of the early 1900's killed it dead and cremated the body when they allowed for the direct election of U.S. senators.

Up until then, U.S. senators were chosen by state legislatures, as Madison and Hamilton had so carefully crafted.

Direct elections of senators, as good as that sounds, allowed Washington's special interests to call the shots, whether it's filling judicial vacancies or issuing regulations.

The state governments aided in their own collective suicide by going along with the popular fad of the time.... As designed by that brilliant and very practical group of Founding Fathers, the two governments would be in competition with each other and neither could abuse or threaten the other.

The election of U.S. senators by the state legislatures was the linchpin that guaranteed the interests of the states would be protected.

Today, state governments have to stand in line. They are just another one of many, many special interests that try to get senators to listen to them. And they are at an extreme disadvantage because they have no PAC.

Miller is under no illusions about this bill's chances:

So, having now jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge of political reality, before I hit the water and go 'splat,' I have introduced a bill that would repeal the 17th Amendment. I use the word 'would,' not 'will,' because I know it doesn't stand a chance of getting even a single co-sponsor, much less a single vote beyond my own.

Abraham Lincoln, as a young man, made a speech in Springfield, Illinois, in which he called our founding principles 'a fortress of strength,' but warned that they 'would grow more and more dim by the silent artillery of time.'

A wise man, that Lincoln, who understood and predicted all too well the fate of our republic and our form of government.

It is true, of course, that the bill will not even get a co-sponsor. It seems a bit odd, and a little sad, that there should be that little support for the founding principles of the Republic. You'd like to see at least a few Senators ready to stand up and fight for them, even if they're doomed to lose.

Maybe the plan even deserves to lose--this is the first time I've heard the suggestion, and would want time to consider it before choosing a side. Still, it's not a bad idea to formally reconsider the major changes to our Republic once in a while, and whether or not they've had effects baleful or healthful. There is no interest in doing so, not even in the Senate--that glorious debating society we learned about in school has no time for this debate, nor any similar one.

IRAQ NOW ...... Media Analysis With A Sense of Insurgency

SOA:

Congratulations to everyone involved with the Spirit of America blog war! As you have probably seen elsewhere, the combined efforts of the blogs raised more than $50,000 for the Marines. Outstanding work, all.

Philadelphia Inquirer | 04/29/2004 | No guns for contractors in Iraq, Pentagon is proposing

Morons:

Lest anyone think that I am an unmitigated defender of the Pentagon, allow me to point out that occasionally the brass suggests something really dumb. Today's entry: Contractors in Iraq Should be Unarmed.

As the insurgency in Iraq remains strong, the Department of Defense has proposed a new rule for most of the estimated 70,000 civilian contractors working in the region: They cannot carry guns.

Deidre Lee, the Pentagon's director of procurement and acquisition policy, whose office proposed the rule, said it was designed to settle one of the biggest questions facing contractors: "to arm or not to arm."

It is a life-or-death issue because "we don't have the military providing security for our contractors," Lee said.

This is the same logic at work in gun control proposals everywhere:

1) There is too much crime.
2) Guns cause crime.
3) Therefore, we should reduce the number of guns.

The problem, in Iraq as everywhere else, is that the only people whose guns the government can readily reduce are the people who respect the government's authority. This is true even in American cities, where there are not and can't be enough police to be everywhere and search every home; it is far more true in an unstable foreign nation, where a large number of persons are actively warring against the government. All that can be accomplished by this is to disarm the people on our side, leaving them prey to all our enemies.

Imagine trying to drive a supply convoy across a hostile foreign wilderness. You know that there are raiders who want to destroy your convoy, and kill you personally, in order to hurt the war effort that your convoy is supplying. Your employers say, "Oh, one more thing--you can't carry guns, and there will be no military security." What do you suppose you're apt to do?

[T]op department official acknowledged that the war effort was suffering a "brain drain" of civilian workers who were fleeing Iraq because they did not feel safe.

Truck convoys in Iraq are "more like a journey through the wild, wild west," Gen. Darryl A. Scott, director of the Defense Contract Management Agency, told a conference of government and corporate contracting officials in Orlando.

"That's a reality there," he said this week. "People leave every day... . It does make operating in that environment more difficult."

Really. Imagine that. What could they be thinking?

Many workers in the region are former military personnel and prefer to be armed, said Cathy Etheredge, a manager for BAE Systems, which provides information technology in Afghanistan.

The problem with the proposed rule is that it tells contractors that they are responsible for their security, but then says they cannot be armed, said Nick Sanders, who leads the contract finance committee for the National Defense Industrial Association, a trade group for traditional defense contractors.

"It doesn't appear to be a well-thought-out, coherent policy," Sanders said. "It appears to be a one-way door where contractors will have all the responsibility and cost."

There you go. Supporters of the plan offered three reasons in favor of banning weapons:

Armed contractors would be more likely to be shot at or kidnapped. Second, as civilians, they do not follow the same strict rules of force as the military. And by picking up weapons, contractors could lose any death- and accident-insurance coverage they may have.

The first suggestion is astonishing. Armed persons are more likely to be kidnapped? Armed convoys are more likely to be attacked? If there is any lesson that should have been learned in fighting the mufsidoon, it is that they prefer unarmed targets. They prefer them very much.

As to the second reason, it is wise to have clear guidelines, and to enforce them. If such guidelines don't exist, they should be created and enforced. Making the contractors into hostages to the goodwill of guerrillas and terrorists is not the answer.

The third reason is the kind of thing that ought to be addressed through legislation or contract bargaining. Here's a proposed negotiating point: an insurance company is much less likely to have to pay out a death benefit for these contractors if the contractors aren't asked to walk unarmed through a war zone filled with people who consider kidnapping and killing American citizens to be a prime tactic.

There is hope:

Lee said the proposed rule could change, depending on contractor reaction. The official comment period ends in late May, but there is no timetable for a final regulation. In the meantime, some contractors are carrying guns.

The rule can be read here. Comments may be directed via the DPAP website. The proposal in question is "Contractors Accompanying a Force Deployed." The rule does create an exception whereby combatant commanders may, on their personal authority, issue government-owned arms to contractors if they feel it is absolutely necessary. As with all such bureaucratic "exceptions," of course, the tendency will be not to make the exception--if you follow the rule you are protected by the institution if there is a tragedy, but anyone who breaks the rule is personally responsible. Bureaucracies (of which the military is certainly one) tend to be risk averse for that reason.

This risk aversion puts brave men at terrible risk, and will make it harder to find such contractors in the first place. Please do what you can to help protect these men, and the interests of the Republic.

UPDATE: IraqNow has a post up on this topic. He suggests some additional measures that might be mentioned in the public comments:

The measure is supported by Kellogg, Brown and Root officials, who argue that they'll lose insurance coverage on employees when they pick up weapons.... The insurance for the workers is a nonissue. They can be adopted into the same risk pool as American servicemen, and pay SGLI premiums--probably elevated premiums, to reflect the brief time of their service in Iraq (military personnel pay premiums during peacetime and wartime as well, spreading the risk out over many years), but that can be figured out by actuaries, and the cost passed on to the US government.

The liability factor for Halliburton is a slightly more difficult issue. If they allow their contractors to carry firearms, over the objections of retarded bean counters in air conditioned offices who have no conception what the risk tradeoffs are in Iraq, then they potentially expose themselves directly to bank-breaking lawsuits on the part of aggrieved families.

Hey--ever hear of purchasing a rider?

Ever heard of reinsurance?

And if the insurance industry gives them a hard time, Insurance regulators could weigh in and force the issue.

It wouldn't be that hard, since supporters of the bill are proposing that we create an additional layer of expense to hire private security firms to protect KBR convoys. And presumeably someone insures them.

Fusileer Pundit also has a post, as does A Collection of Thoughts.

Spirit of America

SOA Challenge:

Just to remind everyone, the Spirit of America challenge is winding up. We of the Fighting Fusileers have been ahead, but that's no reason to stop. Remember the Tortoise and the Hare! It's not over until it's over, &c., &c. Give today!

Grim's Hall

Tip for Bloggers:

A contact of mine suggests that the correct word for referring to Islamist terrorists is "mufsidoon." This is the Arabic for "evildoer," and can be prefixed by "Saddam's" or "Osama's" as appropriate.

The idea is that Mujahedeen and Mahdi Army (Army of the Messiah) cast the enemy as soldiers of God. That makes Coalition forces the opponents of God, soldiers of the devil. Mufsidoon more correctly identifies them, and therefore, our forces likewise.

Mehr News Agency English

Helping Out:

We can thank the Honorable Clinton for giving an interview to the Arab press--Asharq al-Awsat, out of London. One of the challenges in a counterinsurgency is convincing people that yours is the winning side. Senator Clinton was helpful indeed:

The democrat Senator stressed that the U.S. is trapped in the quagmire of Iraq. It can not free itself from the country.

Referring to the Bush Administration policies as arrogant and insolent, the wife of the former U.S. president further added that Bush is not willing to admit his mistakes in Iraq, the grave mistakes that have endangered the lives of both the Iraqi people and the U.S. servicemen alike.

The mistakes have also threatened peace and stability in the region, she further explained.

Clinton said the Bush Administration did not have a plan for Iraq and did not have a full understanding of the situation there.

She said the United States was in trouble because it could not abandon Iraq, nor provide enough manpower to run the country, nor gather world allies willing to provide the necessary assistance for the gigantic task.

Thanks, doll. It'll be a lot easier now.

North County Times - North San Diego and Southwest Riverside County columnists

Echo Company:

There's a good writeup on the battle in Fallujah by reporters with the North County Times, embedded with Echo Company, 2nd Bn, 1st Marine Regiment, I MEF.

[Navy Corpsman] Duty and [1st Sgt.] Skiles said the Marine killed and most of the wounded Monday were hit with shrapnel from grenades tossed by rebels into open windows. At least two of the Marines were also shot, said Duty, whose boots were black with the blood of his comrades as he recounted the fight.

Duty said he had to fire his pistol at gunmen just to get into the building where Marines lay bleeding, still fighting off insurgents, some of whom were only 10 yards away.

"I walk into a place like that -- everyone's down -- and you just don't know where to start," he said. "You just have to calm down and think, and then it all comes to you."

Skiles said Duty saved several of the Marines, and worked to save a fatally wounded Marine by continuing CPR in the back of a humvee as it sped through enemy fire over a jarring ride to a field hospital.

Marines cited the bravery of a lance corporal who was wounded in a rebel mortar attack nearly two weeks ago in which two other Echo Company Marines were killed, and was wounded again by shrapnel in Monday's fighting.

In both incidents, they said, he ignored his own wounds to help other wounded Marines. In Monday's battle, he fought off insurgents and ran back to the Marines' lines even while wounded in three places.

Happy Birthday Sgt. Hook!!!

Belated:

Happy Birthday, Sgt. Hook. It appears I missed the big day while I was away, but now that I have returned, please accept the congratulations of the Hall.

DefendAmerica News - Profile Article

Travels:

First, a small update: I'm going to be out of pocket until Tuesday. Should be back by then.

Before I go, I would like to draw your attention to this story from the Defense Department. It is the tale of a Marine pilot who was POW in Iraq for 37 days. He's currently assigned to one of the most underreported, but highly important, units in operation: Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa.

CRS

CRS:

The Congressional Research Service has a new report out on the role of security forces in peacekeeping operations, including Iraq. It can be found here (.pdf warning). If the topic interests you, you'll find this to be a brief (58 pages is brief for the government) history lesson, coupled with lessons learned.

One of the most interesting sections is the "problem areas," which identifies gaps that show up regularly in operations of this type:

The second problem area is the presence of three security gaps in the ability of the international community to establish law and order in peacekeeping and other
post-conflict situations. (Deficiencies in recruitment and training systems can contribute to the first two of these gaps.) These gaps can be particularly troublesome in situations where not all parties to the conflict are dedicated to peace or where criminal networks have taken root, and where local authority has been removed or
replaced by an international intervention.

*The first of these security gaps is the deployment gap, or the failure or inability to deploy police forces as quickly as needed, or in adequate numbers to perform the mission assigned to them. This was noted in the U.S. unilateral intervention in Panama in 1989, and subsequently in some of the earliest international missions of the 1990s, for example in Cambodia. There, the UNCIVPOL mission could not perform some of its mandated tasks because it took several months to deploy CivPol components and some 10 months for the mission to reach its authorized size. In Somalia, it took nearly a full year to deploy the first dozen UNCIVPOL. In other cases, such as Bosnia in the mid-1990s, the United Nations was able to recruit only about half of the number authorized for the mission. Although deployment time apparently has been somewhat reduced as missions have become more complex, it still is not considered optimal. In addition, a gap remains in the U.N.'s ability to deploy a sufficient number of people with specialized skills.

* The second is the enforcement gap, or the inability of deployed police forces to assure the level of security needed to provide the necessary climate to conduct normal policing operations. In these cases, the police deployed often lack the necessary skills to handle the situation, in particular the military skills needed to carry out constabulary functions in hostile situations, and investigative and intelligence-gathering skills to deal with organized crime. When military forces have not been available to assist police in handling hostile situations, either because they were in short supply (as occurred in Somalia in 1993-1995) or because their mandate did not include law enforcement functions (as in Bosnia in 1996), peacekeeping operations have been compromised.

* The third is the institution gap, where the indigenous law enforcement system lacks adequate numbers of honest and efficient judicial and penal personnel, as well as sound judicial and penal institutions, and thus are unable to effectively follow-up to police work with prosecution and punishment necessary for sustainable security. In many post-conflict situations, understaffed (if not partially intimidated or corrupted) judiciaries and penal systems, lacking even basic resources, have not been able to handle effectively the increased workload that results from more efficient policing.

We have, of course, seen all of these kinds of problems again in Iraq, though one or two of the specific examples has been avoided. Unfortunately, as often is the case with government--and especially Congressional--bureaucracies, the paper is much better at identifying problems than positing workable solutions. Indeed, predictably, the suggested reforms generally involve the creation of large, new bureaucracies.

The State Department comes in for some criticism in having attempted a market-based solution:

In what was intended as a major innovation in the U.S. CivPol system... the Department of State has issued contracts (as mentioned above) for the establishment and maintenance of a reserve cadre of up to 2,000 U.S. law enforcement personnel, who would be available for international police service on short notice....

As envisioned by the bidding proposal, the new cadre of U.S. civilian police would "eliminate the requirement to conduct from scratch, recruitment, selection, and training activities each time the U.S. contributes police to an international CivPol operation." The RFP also called for the contractor to identify technical advisors, who are not police officers, who could be called upon to assist with establishing institutional capabilities in police, judicial, and corrections systems.

The State Department's decision to award contracts for the new CivPol cadre program to multiple companies, rather than one as originally envisioned, has raised some questions about whether the process will be as expeditious as originally planned. While there may be some advantages to be gained by continued competition for CivPol deployments, and the greater number of applicants from which to choose, which some may judge necessary because of the Iraq and Afghanistan missions, some analysts fear that these advantages will be offset by additional costs and delays.

It sounds to me like State's on to something, for a change.

SOAII

Spirit of America:

The contest has begun! You'll find the donate button to the right, just below my shield, or you can follow this link.

The Fighting Fusileers, HQ company, is the place to report for updates.

ROE

ROE:

I've had an email question I can't answer on the Rules of Engagement in Iraq's Marine area of control. If any of you feel competent to shed some light on it, drop me an email and I'll pass along the query.

Belmont Club

Belmont Club:

The Belmont Club today offers a couple of useful pieces of analysis on the current state of Iraq.

Welcome to Castle Argghhh! The Home Of One Of Jonah's Military Guys.

Spirit of America:

A reminder: today begins the Spirit of America campaign among bloggers. I'll update through the day, but be sure to check out The Fighting Fusileers for Freedom, HQ Company.

UPDATE: Hmm. At the last minute and without warning, the kickoff has been postponed to tomorrow. This really does remind me of the military.

New War

Big and Small Wars:

It appears that the war has entered a new phase. My conclusions are that things are about to escalate sharply; that the Bush administration is aware of it, and has decided to support escalation; and that we should expect to see, in the near future, much higher rates of casualties and an enlarged scale of warfare. There are two roads for such warfare, which I will outline below. I will conclude with some remarks on the upcoming election, and how we need to change the debate.

I. Drums at Night

The story on the Syrian firefight appears to be wrong on a critical point. The news media is claiming that the attackers were breakouts from Ramadi and Fallujah. That is highly unlikely, for two reason:

1: The numbers involved in the attack on the border were as large, or larger, than the total forces we've seen committed to battle anywhere else. With a cordon around Fallujah and Marine Recon in Ramadi, it is highly unlikely that this number of forces escaped without our notice, assembled unwatched with their mortars and equipment, and attacked in surprise. It is much more likely that these are infiltrators rather than exfiltrators, from Syria rather than from deeper in Iraq.

2: The attack was majestically coordinated, with three waves of surprise attacks carried out almost flawlessly. This is not the work of a cobbled-together force of breakouts, but of a unit that has trained together for some time.

This should not be surprising. Enemy statements and recovered evidence have suggested increased collusion between the non-state actors in the region: consider the statements, cited below, by Hezbollah's leadership and al-Sadr which are mutually reinforcing; consider also the extended tribal ties that bind so many in this region, but particularly al-Sadr and the leadership of Hezbollah; and consider the expansion of coordinated bombing of bridges on caravan routes. According to a letter published in National Review Online, 82 truck convoys have been hit in the last ten days.

The stakes in the region likewise suggest collusion, both between state and non-state actors: al-Sadr, as mentioned frequently on this page, has to win or die. The stakes are also very high for Iran, which is on the list of "Axis of Evil" nations, suffering domestic unrest against the mullahs, and which has standing border issues with Iraq and will continue to under any new government. The stakes for Syria are also high, and the reverence with which Assad regards Hezbollah suggests that he would be amenable to joining an expanded war on their side. There is every reason to believe that the war in Iraq has unified certain domestic militants with foreign opposition, which is providing (Iran, Lebanon) or at least not restricting (Syria?) overland routes, training bases, and havens for guerrillas.

II: Small Wars

If the analysis is correct--and I have seen no reason to doubt it, but could spend three days pulling up more OSINT to reinforce it--we should expect to see a wider, and harder, guerrilla war. When considering how to respond, it is not enough to look at the static situation. We have to consider not just how to respond to the threats faced today in Iraq, but to the threats likely to be faced in the future. Steps taken to address the current attacks will be met with responses from the enemy. That said, we need a strategy that isn't based on reaction to threats as they occur, but rather an overarching strategy to win this kind of war, regardless of the particular new threats which arise. "Action beats reaction" is a standing piece of military wisdom. What actions are possible? How do you beat a guerrilla war? There are two answers available, the first of which needs little argument, and the second a great deal.

The first--the standard--answer is to engage in "clear and hold" tactics. In American military history, the USMC pioneered this technique, and used it with great success in Vietnam, in contrast to the Army and air campaigns:

In Vietnam, the strategic concept of the Marine Corps emphasizes small wars. As the legendary Marine general, Victor H. Krulak, noted in his book, First to Fight, the Marines employed an approach in Vietnam -- the Combined Action Program -- that the Marines had first used in Haiti (1915-34), Nicaragua (1926-33), and Santo Domingo (1916-22). "Marine Corps experience in stabilizing governments and combating guerrilla forces was distilled in lecture form at the Marine Corps Schools...beginning in 1920," Krulak wrote. The lectures appeared in Small Wars Manual in 1940 and later adopted as an official publication.

The Marine Corps approach in Vietnam had three elements, according to Krulak: emphasis on pacification of the coastal areas in which 80 percent of the people lived; degradation of the ability of the North Vietnamese to fight by cutting off supplies before they left Northern ports of entry; and engagement of PAVN and VC main-force units on terms favorable to American forces.

The basic approach is sound, but the particulars--especially the definition of "terms favorable to American forces"--need to be updated for the war in the Middle East. Such warfighting is done with an eye toward the medium and long term, and can result in heavy casualties at times. Nevertheless, there is a century of success behind the policy.

The key features of USMC "Small Wars" as it would apply to Iraq are: keeping the regular military confined to Iraq; using special operations and air forces to eliminate training camps and supply depots inside Syria, Iran, or elsewhere; trying to maintain control of major population centers rather than trying to engage the enemy; and patrolling the regions we need to protect to secure supply lines, but leaving the areas we do not need to control to the enemy. Control the towns, let him have the deserts. In this way, you reduce the amount of damage that the enemy can do to small-scale bombings and sabotage, which kills some but leaves the majority of the population and economy untouched. Protecting the population, over time, denies the guerrillas the 'sea in which they swim,' to paraphrase Mao Tse-Tung. It also gives you time to train local forces that will be loyal to the new government, who can prosecute the war after your withdrawal.

III: Big Wars

This does not appear to be the route the Bush administration has chosen. In accord with the "Bush doctrine," they appear to have decided to fight not a small war but a big one. The underlying philosophy for such a war is sound, but it is a risk. It is genuinely dangerous, though "dangerous" does not mean "bad." Sometimes great danger is worth daring if there are great rewards. As Tolkien reminds, in the voice of Gandalf the White Wizard, "Dangerous? And so am I." So is the US military.

The Bush administration has a different answer to the question, "How do you fight a guerrilla war?" They appear to be drawing, not on the American model, but the Israeli one. Negotiation fails: guerrillas who are fighting a successful campaign use negotiation only to extort concessions while they rearm and strengthen. In addition, the guerrillas and terrorists opposed to the U.S., like those opposed to Israel, have very large goals. A negotiated settlement with someone whose goal is to see the last Western soldier (or the last Jew) out of the Middle East is unlikely to prove fruitful: withdrawing half the soldiers just means they feel they can fight harder; withdrawing from half the territory just gives them more havens from which to fight.

The West has an option that Israel does not have, which is to withdraw. The unity of our enemies would collapse if we did not provide them with a common enemy. Once that collapse occurs, much or all of their strength is wasted on infighting. After the groups have wrecked each other and the last one standing rules, in a decade or in fifty years, the West can return and fight only the straggler--you return, ally with a few of the survivors from among the opposition, and make them kings. Consider Afghanistan, where the Taliban were the strongest remnant of a shattered Mujahedeen, which once destroyed the Russian army. By allying with the Northern Alliance, tenuously holding a fraction of Afghanistan, we quickly eliminated the government and have been able to move to antiinsurgency operations with less than a tenth of the forces used in Iraq.

The problem with this approach in Iraq is that it is the approach. We could withdraw, but we just did. Fifty years back the place was under British rule. We've let the opposition sort itself out, allied with the exile and Kurdish groups, and are now making them the kings. Withdrawing again doesn't fix the problem, it just puts it off. There is a second problem, which may be called the China problem, again after Mao--once a guerrilla army has beaten its opposition, it is ripe for overthrow only until it develops nuclear weapons. Recent events have shown how close we are to seeing that even in Iran.

If negotiation and withdrawal are not options, what remains in this Israeli model is escalation. Guerrilla fighters must be forced off their game by creating situations in which time is not on their side. Instead of letting them "strike and fade," you have to force them either to attempt to hold ground, or to engage in conventional fighting. The usual two methods for this are assassination of leadership agents, which reliably causes reprisals; and an assault on a region that they feel bound, out of honor or religion or for pure practicality, to defend. By forcing the guerrillas to take the field in a conventional war, you eliminate their advantages and make them fight on the terms least advantageous: a stand up fight against a regular army. You dare them to do their worst--indeed, you force them to do it--and then you fight them down.

Does this sound familiar? It is exactly what the Marines have been doing to Saddamite elements in Fallujah. It is what Israel is doing by assassinating Hamas leadership targets with a new prejudice. Bush has changed two major policies this week as regards Israel, both of which move the US out of the "honest broker" role, and into a partisan role: the tacit endorsement of Israel holdings in the West Bank, and the rejection of "right of return." Now project forward: the Coalition has surrounded Najaf and Karbala with thousands of troops. Both Iranian and Iraqi insurgents--as well, it might be noted, as more responsible voices in Iraq--are warning that an assault on those cities would be intolerable. It is territory that the enemy has to defend.

Conclusion

As this is an election year, there is an opportunity to have this debate among the citizenry and force the politicians to adhere to what we decide. Currently no such debate is engaged. The Bush administration is not forthcoming as to their intentions, and the Kerry campaign appears to lack serious military thinkers necessary to address the question. Kerry's recent "plan" for Iraq addresses exactly none of these points, nor outlines which strategy he might use in the war. Calling for reinforcements--which is essentially what he does by asking for UN guidance and NATO forces--is not a strategy. I have seen nothing to suggest that his campaign contains anyone who understands the issue, which is exactly what is to be expected from a man whose career, inspired by his antiwar protests, has been run for two decades against "the military-industrial complex" and the intelligence community. Nevertheless, there are strategists on the Left, both inside and outside of the Democratic party. The party needs to engage them.

I said at the beginning that there are two options in Iraq, but in fact there are three. The first is the American model, "Small Wars" campaign. The second is a broader, Bush-doctrine campaign that will aim to widen the war and eliminate terrorist havens--first Fallujah, then perhaps Najaf or Karbala, Iran, Syria. The third is to fail to adopt an overall antiguerrilla strategy, attempting to bring stability through the use of military forces in a police action, or engaging in a withdrawal. Any such non-strategy will result in defeat in the medium to long term.

As it stands now, I believe a vote for Bush is a vote for option two, and a vote for Kerry is a vote for option three. We need a candidate for option one. If enough people understand the issue and can bring it forward in the campaign season, we may get one--either Bush or Kerry may move to that position if pressure is brought to bear. Ideally the election should be a referrendum on whether the Global War on Terror is fought as a series of small wars, or one big war.

What we don't need is to have a choice made by default. This is a free Republic, and we are here considering the largest of questions. It is proper to consult the citizenry, and I see no evidence that anyone in the government wishes to do so.

Firefight on the border

Firefight on the Syrian Border:

Big news from the Syria-Iraq border. As usual, the Marines killed--either five or six, depending on the source--were slain in the surprise attacks that opened the battle. There's an hour-by-hour account of the battle through the link.

The attack was well designed, with a decoy bombing followed by small-arms and machine-gun fire to pin responding forces. When they called for reinforcments, those were met with a coordinated mortar assault from two dozen positions. It sounds as if the number of enemy KIA and captured will provide some good intel. Once they'd worked through their surprises, they were steadily eaten up by the Marines, with the final kill ratio being somewhere in the neighborhood of ten or twelve to one, again depending on the source. The captures, at least as important, were over twenty.

Just in case anybody reading this thinks the Marine are being heavyhanded, do take special note of these two paragraphs in the story:

At one point, many of the insurgents reportedly had gathered in a local mosque, and Marines were preparing to bomb the building. They pulled back the attack, however, when they couldn't not get positive identification of the occupants of the mosque....

"We're trying to get the snipers in position for a shot," Major George Schreffler told the other commanders through tactical radio communications. "They're looking at guys in blue uniforms and others with black clothes and black masks. Some are using children to shield themselves. We will not take shots in which we could possibly hit children."

With one hand tied... It continues to astonish me what these young men can do.

The Onion | New Negative Campaign Ads Blast Voters Directly

Negative Ads:

Honestly, we're not far from this:

The Bush people initiated this volley of negative ads, but we won't be lured into a reactive campaign against the Republicans," Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill said Monday. "It's time to redirect the cheap name-calling away from Bush and toward those Americans who might be idiotic enough to vote for him...."

Over a series of images of America's senior citizens, the narrator of another 30-second spot says, "The Medicare drug bill is a triumph of right-wing ideology masquerading as moderate reform. The pharmaceutical-drug and insurance industries are tickled pink. Guess who's paying for it? You. Congratulations, moron. I'm John Kerry and I approved this message."

The New York Review of Books: In Search of Hezbollah

Hezbollah:

It is, I fear, time to start talking seriously about the probability of Hezbollah activity in Iraq, and what that means for the campaign in the Middle East. I'm going to try something I've seen on other blogs, and have an "open thread" on the topic--well, open as long as you're talking about Hezbollah. Thoughts welcome, posting encouraged.

The Command Post - Iraq - Marines "Dirty Deeds" in Fallujah

PSYOPS in Fallujah:

Thanks to The Command Post, we have this story:

In Fallujah's darkened, empty streets, US troops blast AC/DC's "Hell's Bells" and other rock music full volume from a huge speaker, hoping to grate on the nerves of the city's gunmen and give a laugh to Marines along the front line.

Unable to advance farther into the city [...because of orders, not enemy action... -G], an Army psychological operations team hopes a mix of heavy metal and insults shouted in Arabic--including, "You shoot like a goat-herder"--will draw gunmen to step forward and attack. But no luck this night.

Not all the operations affecting the enemy's psyche are done by soldiers attached to the Marines. Some of the most effective are these:

Laying on his stomach on a rooftop and wearing goggles and earplugs, a Marine sniper keeps an eye to his rifle site.... In his position--reachable only by scaling the outside ledge of a building--he sits for hours with his finger poised on the trigger of a rifle that fires .50-caliber armor piercing bullets with such force that the muzzle flash and exiting gasses from the weapon have blackened the bricks around the gun.

Now that's intimidation.

FreeSpeech.com

A Piper, Piping Away:

Del ovear at FreeSpeech has an article on the USMC's use of bagpipes in Fallujah. It's from CNN, which means that there has to be a bit of foolishness:

When he is not on the front-line, Farr wears a kilt when playing, and some Marines have been skeptical about a member of one of the toughest fighting forces in the world donning what looks like a skirt.

Nonsense. But if a heavy-weight wool kilt in the Leatherneck tartan isn't right for Fallujah, try the Survival Kilt.

DefenseLINK News: General: Marines Not Hampered by Rules of Engagement

Marines Cut the Rat Line:

Major General of Marines John Sattler, USCENTCOM, spoke about I MEF operations:

The general also said that coalition forces in the area are comfortable with the level of intelligence information they're getting in the area and are content to let the Iraqi Governing Council work to negotiate an end to the tense situation in Fallujah.

He noted that he feels it's important to give the negotiations a chance to succeed. "Keep in mind, our goal is not to capture the town of Fallujah," Sattler said. "Our goal is to go and free the town of Fallujah, to go in and eliminate those fighters, foreign fighters, those extremists that are in the town that have taken it away from those who reside there."

Garnering far less publicity than operations around Fallujah, Marines have stepped up efforts to shut down Iraq's border region with Syria as a throughway for foreign fighters and smugglers.

Sattler said efforts are particularly focused in an area known as "the rat line," where foreign fighters were traveling through the countryside around Qaim, near where the Euphrates River passes from Syria into Iraq.

"We had an extreme amount of success on the front side, meaning that we did find, fix, and ultimately finish a number of cells that were out there, that were facilitating this type of movement," he said.

This seems to be the result, in part, of good recon and planning:

Part of the Marines' success in tightening the border region can be attributed to their forethought in upping the number of troops they brought when they replaced the Army's 82nd Airborne Division in the region.

"When (the Marines) went out and did their reconnaissance (before assuming control of the region), they made a conscious decision to bring more so they could, in fact, work that border region very hard," Sattler said.

Ooh-rah.

Guardian Unlimited Books | Extracts | First, skin your squirrel...

Squirrel Problems?

The historian Roger Scruton explains a simple solution to the plague of squirrels troubling many places. I have to attest that his solution works perfectly--I myself had an infestation at my cabin two years back, when I was still resident in Georgia. We resolved it entirely using the method he recommends.

Personal Data Feed:

Regular readers probably know more about me than they want to know already. Still, I thought I'd mention for the interested that there's a picture of my son Beowulf in Sovay's "cat blogging," today. The caption mentions my wife, who can be seen (and read about) on her own website. She doesn't do politics or milblogging, though--just painting, sculpture, and other artwork. The photo there is a good picture of her, but be warned: like Doc Russia's wife, she is a dangerous woman.

Wouldn't have it any other way.

Spirit of America

Spirit of America:

By now probably all of you know of the Spirit of America campaign, whereby the US Marines are raising money to spend in Iraq, most especially on television stations. The idea is to help the Iraqi people get the truth, and to help the Marines make allies among the populace. Grim's Hall will, of course, participate.

Since this is taking the form of a competition, we'll be assuming a role in the Milblog brigade. Donate early and often--the competition starts Monday.