Dynamist Blog: We Need More Feature Reporting from Iraq

A Suggestion for West Point:

This is a great article on honor and hospitality in Iraq, and how a US Army officer made use of them to achieve his goals. After having two vehicles looted, his training said that he should tear the village apart with search teams:

Instead, Capt. Ayers, 29 years old, took a risk. He went to the village sheik's house. As a sign of respect, he said, he wouldn't search the village. But he gave the local leader 48 hours to find and return the equipment. "If we don't get the equipment back, I am going to come back with my men and tear apart every house in this village," he recalls saying. If the gear was returned, he promised to reduce patrols in the area.

The gamble ran counter to Capt. Ayers's training, which states that the longer troops wait to search an area, the less chance they'll find what they are looking for. His bosses told him he had made a huge blunder. Two days later, though, the sheik returned every scrap of looted equipment to the Army....

Earlier this summer, the same team, led by retired Lt. Col. Leonard Wong, concluded: "Junior officers have become the experts on the situation in Iraq, not higher headquarters." The fast-moving insurgency is forcing lower-ranking officers, who spend more time in the field, to take a more prominent role.

It turns out that the Army knows a good thing when it sees it, even if it takes a few days to sort it out. They've appointed our Captain to West Point:

Capt. Ayers, who was recently selected by the Army to teach at West Point, has begun to think about how a young soldier could prepare for what he's been through. Before deploying to Iraq, he and his soldiers fought a giant mock tank battle at the National Training Center. It wasn't helpful.

Instead, he says, "I guess I'd drop soldiers in a foreign high school and give them two days to figure out all the cliques. Who are the cool kids? Who are the geeks?" he says. That would be pretty close to what he has been doing in Iraq, he says, with one big exception: There would also have to be people in the high school trying to kill the soldiers.

One of the best ways to teach these kinds of skills is to introduce young American soldiers to the heroic literature of the West. An eighteen year old arriving at West Point already knows nothing but High School. What he needs to learn is how to be a hero.

If you want to know how to deal with an Iraqi sheikh, you need to learn to think of yourself as Menelaeus, Lord of the Warcry: a study of the Iliad (and I do recommend the Fitzgerald translation) will teach you a great deal about honor, shame, the great violence they can spawn, and how to make amends.

Or read the Saga of Burnt Njal. It has a great deal to teach about vengeance and violence, and the way that friendships can stand the tests of both. It teaches, also, quite a bit about wisdom amid violence, as it shows both how to make things worse, and how to make them better.

Read the Beowulf, where the horrors of war and the need for strong kings and gift-giving are explored. Being aware of our own heritage makes us able to speak the same language that the Iraqis speak -- the heroic language.

Read the Havamal, and it will teach you everything a hero needs to know, from how to enter a room to how to behave in company, from how to make and keep friends to how to be respected among great men. It is in its way a complete education.

This will teach our soldiers what they need to know to relate to the sheikhs, and indeed many other cultures abroad. But it also does the soldier a great kindness, as it makes him an educated man. These are exactly the things you need to know to comprehend the Western tradition. With these as your base, nothing in America's history is forbidding. Both Plato and Aristotle are far simpler if you know Homer first. Should you choose to become a lawyer, the writings of the Norse and Anglo-Saxons are a window into the origins of our laws. Should you choose to study literature, the great works all reference these. Should you choose to study business, the same lessons about honor and shame, how to enter a room and look like a hero, these lessons will stand you well.

American - Beer for Soldiers - Thanks

Beer for Soldiers!

Via BlackFive, I found this excellent idea. I'm sure we've all said that we wished we could buy a drink for the Marines and soldiers in Iraq.

Well, now you can. They've made donations easy -- so go send 'em a brew.

Mudville Gazette

"On Leaving"

You should not miss Greyhawk's farwell to his children, as he departs for Iraq.

Swimming through the Spin: These aren't the Droids I'm voting for

C-3P0:

Here is a delightful piece, entitled "These aren't the Droids I'm voting for." I have to admit that I was laughing pretty hard by the end of it.

Microsoft software caused air traffic shutdown - silicon.com

Now Here's A Comforting Thought:

From Silicon.com:

Nearly all of Southern California's airports were shut down and five incidents where aircraft broke separation guidelines were reported. In one case, a pilot had to take evasive action.

The newspaper said that a Microsoft-based replacement for an older Unix system needed to be reset every thirty days 'to prevent data overload', as a result of problems found when the system was first rolled out. However, a technician failed to perform the reset at the right time and an internal clock within the system subsequently shut it down. A back-up system also failed.

And this is without hackers going after the thing. This is just the way it usually works.

Inaugural Address of John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Burdens and JFK:

John Fitzgerald Kennedy:

We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans -- born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage -- and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this Nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

This much we pledge -- and more.

John Forbes Kerry:

We should also intensify the training of Iraqis to manage and guard the polling places that need to be opened. Otherwise, U.S. forces will end up bearing that burden alone.

If the president would move in this direction, if he would bring in more help from other countries to provide resources and to train the Iraqis to provide their own security and to develop a reconstruction plan that brings real benefits to the Iraqi people, and take the steps necessary to hold elections next year, if all of that happened, we could begin to withdraw U.S. forces starting next summer and realistically aim to bring our troops home within the next four years....

The principles that should guide American policy in Iraq now and in the future are clear. We must make Iraq the world's responsibility, because the world has a stake in the outcome and others should have always been bearing the burden.

We shall bear no more price; we shall shirk any burden.

The Command Post - 2004 Presidential Election

This is the plan?!?

In the name of...

John Kerry's campaign has warned Australians that the Howard Government's support for the US in Iraq has made them a bigger target for international terrorists.

THIS is how Jean Kerry plans to get more support for the Coalition? THIS?

Grim's Hall

Comments Policy:

A repost, with a couple of additions due to the increased number of trolls. The comments policy at Grim's Hall has always been this, adopted from the (currently in suspension) Texas Mercury:

As we see it, modern society has all the important ideas of life exactly backwards: we are completely against the belief in sensitivity and tolerance in politics and raffish disregard in private life. The Texas Mercury is founded on the opposite principles- our idea is of tolerance and polite sensitivity in private life and ruthless truth in politics. Be nice to your neighbor. Be hell to his ideas.

That stands, but I would like to clarify: hit & run attacks, whether they are on ideas or people, will be deleted.

If you're a regular, you can say anything you want and expect to be treated kindly, personally, even if we beat your ideas to death. Cowards do not drink in this Hall. If you haven't got the guts to stick around and defend your ideas, but just want to launch attacks and then run, you go on elsewhere. We neither need nor want your kind.

BLACKFIVE

Kerry Was Right!

The US military is reminiscient of Genghis Khan! Well, at least, the CO of the 1/6 Marines is.

Captain's Quarters

In Denial:

Maybe Sovay is right, and I'm wrong, and so is The Belmont Club, the President, and LTCOL Kyeser, CO of the 2/2 "Warlords." It could be we are all in denial about the impending military defeat if we don't rush out to elect President Jean Kerry.

But it's refreshing to know that, if I'm in denial, this Major of Marines is right there with me. Except her part of "Denial" is in the sandbox, where she commands a unit of Multinational Corps Iraq.

Sneaky

Evil Jeff:

Here find "The Guide to Concealable Weapons," published by the FBI. It turns out that Evil Jeff Gordon is involved. I always knew a man who'd paint his car like that couldn't be trusted.

Channelnewsasia.com

France: We Should All Pay "International Taxes"

Another great idea from the cosmopolitan set.

French President Jacques Chirac will put forward ideas for an international tax scheme that would help build a 50-billion-dollar war chest to fight poverty during a 55-nation conference on economic development opening Monday in New York.... Their document suggests that a tax could be imposed on greenhouse gas emissions as well as certain financial transactions, arms sales or multinational corporations.

Other proposed approaches raise the possibility of taxes levied on ships transiting key maritime straits, airline tickets, credit card purchases as well as an international lottery.

For "greenhouse gas emissions," read, "Kyoto 2." Since the whole point is to find a way for the international community to lay claim to part of your paycheck, this plan would need the same unfair standards that characterized Kyoto, designed to punish the United States for every bit of economic activity while giving credit for not one of our greenhouse-gas sinks.

The rest of these would hamper economic activity worldwide, except perhaps for the lottery. The lottery is the only one of the lot that would have a decent chance of passage, probably raise enough to achieve its goals without crushing economic activity, and not be unfairly aimed at the US. Sounds good, right?

Well... one problem. Lotteries tend to be patronized by the poor. My old economics professor said that lotteries were "a voluntary tax on stupidity." Georgia has one, which it uses to pay for college education for citizens who can maintain a 3.0 or better GPA. Thus, take from the dumb and give to the relatively smart or hard-working: a good plan overall.

But the whole point of Chirac's plan is to give to the poor, who are the very ones most likely to be buying these tickets. Ban their sale in poor nations? Hello, black-market: the poor still buy the things, desperate for the dream a winning ticket represents, but at inflated prices due to the costs of smugglers-as-middle-men.

Helping the poor is a worthy goal, one that we should all work toward. But it has to be done voluntarily, or the problems it creates are greater than the effect of the solution.

The Command Post - 2004 US Presidential Election - Election Observers Arrive in U.S.

We Will Rue This Day:

From The Command Post:

A team of 20 independent democracy experts from 15 countries and five continents has arrived in the United States in order to observe this year's presidential election campaign.

The election monitors, who have been brought here by the San Francisco activist group "Global Exchange"...

Nothing says 'Communist Sympathizer' like "San Francisco activist group."

In addition to [Marxist organization] Code Pink, Benjamin’s San Francisco-based human rights organization Global Exchange was the founding force for United for Peace and Justice coalition, the nexus of the anti-war protests.

The United for Peace coalition, which includes Socialist Action and the Socialist Party USA, is also led by Leslie Cagan, who has a long history of activism with the American Communist Party. If you want to know what anti-war activities United for Peace and its more radical partner, Act Now To Stop War & End Racism (ANSWER) have planned for the near future or contact information for how you can join in, you can click on the Communist World Workers Party website, one of the central grassroots clearing houses for communist organizers in the United States and around the world.

A Google search on "international answer stalinist" returns "about 30,500" results. A Google search on "'global exchange' communist" returns "about 4,180" results -- but only 417 if you include "Kerry" in the search. Many of these arise from his wife's financial dealings, which include funding several of these groups, including Global Exchange, to the tune of $4 million through the TIDES foundation.

These are the folks who are going to be observing our elections. They'll be the ones telling the world whether or not the elections were fair and honest. Their verdict will be blared from every wire service from the AFP to Interfax, and from every newspaper from the International Herald Tribune to the Bangkok Post.

And just what do you suppose they will say? Reckon they've written the press release yet? "Just hand out file 'Alpha' if Kerry wins; but otherwise, the 'Omega File' will do."

UPDATE: The Global Exchange page on this is here. Just to make sure you understand what the challenges to Democracy in America are, it lists some: "This is the place to find articles about Attorney General Ashcroft's attacks on the constitution, the Guantanamo Bay detainees, Diebold's suspect electronic voting machines and all the other threats to democracy that are multiplying in this day and age."

The links section for the Global Exchange project is here. Their partners include the Alliance for Democracy, whose mission is "to free all people from corporate domination..."; IndyMedia, which recently published the names and addresses for Republican delegates to the RNC, along with their hotel information; and United for a Fair Economy, which states that "[i]ts goal is to revitalize America through a more fair distribution of wealth."

Doubtless we shall see complete evenhandedness from this project, then. It's not at all an attempt to bludgeon their political opponents with charges of election stealing or corruption, backed by the expert opinions of biased "international observers."

Yahoo! Mail - grimbeornr@yahoo.com

From Email:

JHD sends:

Col John Coleman, USMC, Chief of Staff, I MEF in Fallujah, Iraq as
quoted in the Boston Globe 16 Sep:

'I'll be damned if when I'm 65 I'm going to be sitting on the redwood
deck of my double-wide and read some snot-nosed grad school thesis about
another failed US foreign policy example in the early part of the
century,' he said. 'I'll die staying here so I don't have to read that.'"

Of all the reasons I've heard for staying the course, that one is probably the most prophetic. I'm afraid that, no matter what we do, snot-nosed grad students will write that line.

Home

Word from Home:

I talked to my mother last night. I don't do that often. Normally when she calls the wife talks to her about artwork, which is their shared tie, or the little boy.

Still, Ivan blew through the mountains and I wanted to make sure the house was still standing, and that there was nothing she needed. My father is out of town, as he often must be, and she was alone. Everything was fine on that score.

She knows in a vague way what I do, and wanted to talk about politics and world events. My mother is not a very political person -- she gets interested once every four years, for the two months or so before the election. She is a self-described feminist, and as liberal as you're likely to find in the mountains of North Georgia -- that is, not too liberal to love Zell Miller in spite of his recent speech.

Like most sons, I long ago accepted that my mother would broadly disapprove of everything I do. It is therefore always a shock, though a pleasant one, to find that she doesn't: that she approves of my wife, loves her grandson, and is pleased with what I'm doing and why. It was also interesting to realize that she is supporting Bush this year.

She told me that she was ready for peace; that she's always wanted nothing but peace, even before 9/11, and even after. She was not in support of military action even in Afghanistan -- she felt that we ought not to have attacked anyone in the wake of 9/11.

But she knows we did, and that we are now engaged with the enemy. Whether or not we should be where we are, we are there.

And she knows she can't trust John Kerry in that situation.

She worries about his multiple statements on every issue; on his apparent dishonesty in everything he says. She doesn't agree with or approve of Bush, she says, but she knows he's telling the truth when he lays out his positions. She knows he means what he says, and she can rely on at least that much.

That's the real question this year, she says, and so she'll vote Bush. She wishes there were a third choice -- not Nader, but someone. This is not new; she was a Perot supporter in '92.

If you've lost my mother, you've lost a lot of liberal, feminist women. I agree with what is now common wisdom: the polls are wrong. But I think they're wrong in the other direction -- I think things are much worse for Kerry than they show.

BeldarBlog: Judicial Watch strikes out with demand for Navy Dep't investigation

Navy Investigation into Kerry's Medals Concludes:

The Navy has made an interesting finding in its investigation. It has refused Judicial Watch's FOIA request for Kerry's unreleased records, which amount (it says) to at least 31 pages.

It has also found that Kerry's medals were issued by officers with "proplerly delegated" authority -- which apparently means that the regulations requiring SECNAV approval for Silver Stars do not apply. That resolves the prima facie appearance of wrongdoing that Judicial Watch had noted; therefore, the Navy will not after all conduct a full investigation into Kerry's medals. There will be no resolution to the questions about Kerry's medals after all -- the Navy is the only group that could provide such resolution unless Kerry releases his military records, since currently the Navy is the only one with the secret records.

You can read the story in full here.

Secrecy News 09/17/04

Secrecy News

This week's edition of Secrecy News, a publication of the Federation of American Scientists, is unusually good reading. I sometimes post a story or two out of it, but this week almost everything in it is highly interesting (well, except for the Waxman rant). Topics include: defending against clandestine nuclear attacks, the development of small-scale nukes for nonstrategic use, "Red team" tactics for espionage against US military forces, a reprint of the new DOD framework for transformation, and other things as well.

JustOneMinute: At The National Guard

Citizen Soldiers:

It's interesting that the National Guard Assoc. gave Bush seven standing ovations, to none for John Kerry. But it's even more interesting that one of those standing ovations came when Bush attacked Kerry for planning to cut National Guard forces in Iraq.

That would appear to suggest strongly that these men would rather finish the fight in Iraq than not, even though it means possibly being deployed under fire for an extended period. One expects that of the regulars -- Live to Fight, Love to Fight -- but it's reassuring to see it from the "citizen soldiers" as well. These men tend to be older, with wives and children and careers outside the military. One could understand if they felt sympathy for (one of) John Kerry's position(s), which is that the National Guard should stay at home (where they are betraying their country by not fighting in Viet... er, that is, nobly serving the cause of freedom).

That isn't what they think at all. They want to be defending the walls too. I understand that entirely. We win, or lose, the GWOT in Iraq. Whether it had to be part of the war on terror, it is now the front line. It is natural to want to do your part.

Kerry's left turn scares Democrats

At Least He Was Honest:

Completely, for a change:

Last Friday, Sen. Kerry abruptly returned to the safely buried gun control issue by decrying President Bush for permitting the assault weapons ban to end. On Saturday, he addressed the Congressional Black Caucus with a liberal harangue. On Sunday, Kerry rested.

Allah Is In The House:

Teddy Bears:

Allah solves a mystery.