Response

Unfortunately, the firewall has defeated my attempts to post a comment in Haloscan. Consequently, I will post my response to Grim’s Treason & Civility post here:


Grim,

First of all, I am not troubled by the increase in secrecy in our government at this time. Since we are engaged in a war against militant Islam with troops in the field in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places an increase in government secrecy is simply to be expected. Furthermore, I disagree with your claim that this increase somehow hampers national security by making the information harder to share. As someone who has held a Top Secret SCI clearance, I could share classified information with anyone who had the appropriate clearances and a need to know regardless of what agency they belonged to. I did this regularly with members of the DoD, DoJ, and Homeland Security. Consequently, I believe you are mistaken when you claim that the increase in classified information represents a threat to information sharing and national security.

Unfortunately, the rest of your post utilizes an unnecessary degree of overstatement and hyperbolic claims. Under no circumstances would I actively seek to incite rebellion in my country even if I thought a cabal of evil men had usurped power. Instead, I would actively seek to expose them and have them brought to justice. Violent insurrection means wide scale bloodshed and death. I think it is reckless and irresponsible for you to suggest that such a course of action is appropriate even in the case you offer up as requiring it.

However, such reckless talk leads to additional reckless talk. For instance, Jarheaddad makes the ridiculous claim that “we are nowhere close to being a democratic Republic any longer.” Oh really? Then I guess my entire 15 years of service in the Marine Corps has been based on a lie since it was entered into with my oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. Additionally, I would ask what JarheadDad thinks the service of his son is based on since he to took that same oath. If JarheadDad believes half of what he wrote, and agrees with your statement about when its is incumbent to rebel, he needs to convince his son to leave the Corps as soon as possible and join him in fomenting rebellion against our government. I will assure you that if I thought our republic as established by the Constitution no longer existed I would not spend one minuet more in the Corps than was absolutely necessary. However, since I believe our Constitution is still in effect I will gladly remain bound to my oath.

Words have meaning and ideas have consequences. That is why we need to reject such overblown rhetoric. It needlessly incites additional overblown rhetoric that in turn undermines confidence in our system of government that at best only creates disaffection and at worst inspires people like Timothy McVeigh.

Tragic Story

A Tragedy in Need:

The LA Times has the story of Colonel Ted Westhusing, suicide. The reporter cites a psychologist and some witnesses to suggest that the Colonel killed himself because he was troubled by the role of USIS contractors in Iraq.

About 1 p.m., a USIS manager went looking for Westhusing because he was scheduled for a ride back to the Green Zone. After getting no answer, the manager returned about 15 minutes later. Another USIS employee peeked through a window. He saw Westhusing lying on the floor in a pool of blood.

The manager rushed into the trailer and tried to revive Westhusing. The manager told investigators that he picked up the pistol at Westhusing's feet and tossed it onto the bed.

"I knew people would show up," that manager said later in attempting to explain why he had handled the weapon. "With 30 years from military and law enforcement training, I did not want the weapon to get bumped and go off."

After a three-month inquiry, investigators declared Westhusing's death a suicide. A test showed gunpowder residue on his hands. A shell casing in the room bore markings indicating it had been fired from his service revolver.

Then there was the note.

Investigators found it lying on Westhusing's bed. The handwriting matched his.

Or possibly, the reporter allows family members to suggest without rebuttal, he was murdered by the contractors:

Westhusing's family and friends are troubled that he died at Camp Dublin, where he was without a bodyguard, surrounded by the same contractors he suspected of wrongdoing. They wonder why the manager who discovered Westhusing's body and picked up his weapon was not tested for gunpowder residue.

Mostly, they wonder how Col. Ted Westhusing — father, husband, son and expert on doing right — could have found himself in a place so dark that he saw no light.

"He's the last person who would commit suicide," said Fichtelberg, his graduate school colleague. "He couldn't have done it. He's just too damn stubborn."

The Times piece is disturbing, and it is also sloppy. The two things together are dangerous. Consider:

A shell casing in the room bore markings indicating it had been fired from his service revolver.

Revolvers don't throw casings. Furthermore, the Army doesn't issue "service revolvers." That's two very obvious details that should have made the editor question just how certain the reporter was about the facts of the crime scene.

Apparently, the editor didn't notice.

How many more details are gotten wrong through simple sloppiness of reporting? That one is obvious; how many more mistakes did he make that aren't obvious? Enough to clear the suspicion the reporter allows bereaved family members to place on USIS contractors? Enough that the correct details would extend suspicion elsewhere?

Unfortunately, war is hard on men and suicides dog every military undertaking. War can seem like madness at times. Is this a tragedy of that sort? A three month investigation ruled that it was. The reporter appears to want to suggest otherwise. Before he's allowed to do so, he'd better get his facts straight.

JL

A Hawk Among Democrats:

Joe Lieberman, who should have been forwarded as last year's candidate for President from the Democratic primaries, has a piece in Opinion Journal. The occasion is his return from his fourth trip to Iraq. He reports military and economic progress in extraordinary quantities, and praises our soldiers and Marines.

And then, he gets around to the question that has been baffling me these last several weeks:

Here is an ironic finding I brought back from Iraq. While U.S. public opinion polls show serious declines in support for the war and increasing pessimism about how it will end, polls conducted by Iraqis for Iraqi universities show increasing optimism. Two-thirds say they are better off than they were under Saddam, and a resounding 82% are confident their lives in Iraq will be better a year from now than they are today. What a colossal mistake it would be for America's bipartisan political leadership to choose this moment in history to lose its will and, in the famous phrase, to seize defeat from the jaws of the coming victory.

I still don't understand where the sudden calls for withdrawal are coming from. Now, of any point since the fall of Baghdad to the Coalition, is surely the time for robust confidence. What is the cause for the decline of confidence? It doesn't make any sense.

On Civility

Treason & Civility:

Civility is getting harder to find, as Eric pointed out in the comments to the post two down from here. Consider this post from Balloon Juice, which asserts that a certain blogger who shall not be named here is a traitor to his country.

The discussion in the comments, while it is no more productive that you'd expect given such a hearty starting point for the debate, is nevertheless marked by points of civility. In particular, John Cole and Kimmitt discuss the issue well, though they don't achieve any sort of resolution. Still, it's a remarkably civilized debate given that it begins with accusations of treason.

The question is whether it is proper to have a civilized debate that begins with accusations of treason. Treason is, after all, a capital crime: if you declare in seriousness that you believe another man to be a traitor, you are calling for his death. That is not something to do lightly. In fact, it ought only to be done in deadly earnest: that is, you should really intend to see the man dead, to further his prosecution to the very point of the gallows. If you do not feel that way, you ought not to raise the charge.

And if you do, what is left to discuss?

We are coming to that binary breaking point on a number of questions. The President is accused by some of such things that, if the charges are believed, demand more than rhetoric or the organizing of a better electoral strategy for next year or three years on. The administration has occasionally been accused of fixing votes, including the 2000 election by which it came to power. The US military is accused -- here by Kimmitt, who is trying to be rational, and who is not defending the fellow accused of treason -- of operating "a network of illegal torture facilities scattered around the world!" "Our Administration kidnaps, tortures, and kills people without oversight," he continues.

If you believe that, and especially if you believe all of it, are you not called to more than blogging? To more than political donations, or organizing? To more than another empty protest march, so common and toothless that they may as well not happen at all? I don't see how anyone could believe those charges, watch the ineffectiveness of the protest movements and political opposition, and not plot insurrection. It would seem both logical and reasonable.

I support Congressional investigations when they come up, if only because that kind of oversight is the only hope we have of avoiding what otherwise appears to be a civil war in the making. Yet even that requires some faith in the institutions, which is increasingly absent and may be deservedly absent. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, for example, issued its report on prewar intelligence which all but cleared the administration. The Committee is then accused of rolling over to protect them. Is the accusation fair? Well, to be honest, none of us know: but the Senate's behavior on other occasions hardly inspires confidence. I can't think of a single time in the last year or so that I've looked upon the Senate, or most any Senator, and been proud of them or moved to confidence in their honesty and probity. Not since Zell Miller retired -- whether you liked or hated him, at least you knew he gave it to you as he saw it. Is there even one Senator you trust like that now? I can't think of one.

If the Senate Select Committee issues another report, as they are said to be preparing to do, and it also appears to give the administration a pass -- will that be enough? Why should it be? What has the Senate done to show us that its judgment is worth heeding? I believe that the Administration is not guilty of secret plots to manipulate intelligence, but I wouldn't trust the Senate if they said it even though I believed it already.

Who will we trust, then? And when we get to the point that the answer is "No one," what are we to do with a government that increasingly operates in secret? Classification activity increased 25% in 2003 alone. These increases come in the very sectors where the nation's interests are most closely touched, and where conspiracy theories are most likely to arise. If the Senate isn't trusted to perform its oversight role -- and I think it is only an honest opinion that they ought to do a whole lot more to prove they are worthy of trust -- what then?

What then, as far as I can tell, is this: those who believe that the government has been overrun by conspirators will be forced to more serious action than organization. I think they will be morally forced to it; if they really believe the charges they raise and further, they ought to be engaged in it. If I believed in those charges, I would be myself. A patriot ought to be ready to reject, by the faith of his body, the rise of tyranny in the heart of the Republic.

Insofar as that happens, those of us who do not believe the charges will be forced to defend the government. The fact that the Senate is filled with faithless politicians does not change the fact that they were duly elected. Many of us have taken oaths, and others who have not formally sworn the oaths believe in them anyway. We will do what our oaths require.

The only hope for avoiding that, I honestly believe, lies in peeling back the secrecy at least enough that we can regain confidence in the oversight. We need to be able to verify enough of the details that the Senate's pronouncements are able to be confirmed. National security still requires some secrets, but we must make sure that declassification of secrets that are no longer critical becomes a national priority. It would help, too, if we started electing leaders whose character we admired rather than whose connections to political machines were overwhelming. Perhaps blogs can help with that, by getting the word out for smaller candidates who aren't as tied-in to the machines.

Civility is more necessary than ever, if we are to have that kind of achievement. We need to be able to talk across the aisle, so that we can work together to demand of our politicians the things they don't apparently feel obligated to provide on their own: an accounting of their behavior. If at last we can no longer trust them to watch one another, we must be united in demanding that they present themselves to us. I will gladly support forcing "my" politicians to present such an accounting, if the folks on the other side will do the same for theirs.

SNSL II

Snake Slayer Update:

I enjoyed my outing with the little Snake Slayer so much that I took some time today to go back to the range. I bought a box of Winchester cartridges and worked my way through about half of it, amid some other shooting. After about a dozen rounds, I found I was starting to be able to cluster my shots in the five-six ring, down and right of center. That normally means you are tightening your grip during the discharge. Perfectly understandable, when firing a beast like this little thing!

I concentrated on not doing that, and blew out the center of the target with the last two shots. Can I do that every time? I'm looking forward to finding out. Still, I think with practice that it's possible to achieve real marksmanship with these derringers.

RR: Libs

Reader Request: Liberal Blogs

It would appear that all of my favorite liberal bloggers have gone inactive. Sovay keeps intending to get back to it, but hasn't time. Lizard Queen has vanished; I hope she is doing well. KGC abandoned his blog about a year ago. Deuddersun hasn't been heard from in months.

With that in mind, I'd like to ask readers to suggest new liberal blogs, both for the links but also just to read on occasion. I know who the top liberal bloggers are, but I'm no more interested in the top liberal blogs than I am in the top conservative ones. This is for the reasons we discussed a few days ago: what I want are people who are comfortable with disagreement, who enjoy exploring ideas, and who will be happy to entertain polite challenges, and issue the same.

Because such places tend to be smaller, they're harder to find. If you know of any, please leave a comment.

RR: SNSL

Range Report: "Snake Slayer"

I finally got that derringer I ordered... er, six months ago? Nine months ago? Something like that.

I'd ordered a Bond Arms Texas Defender, but what I actually got was their upgrade model, which for some reason they decided to call the Snake Slayer. All Bond Arms guns are essentially the same, with one variation off the standard double-barrel derringer:

Texas Defender: 3" barrel, short grip.
Cowboy Defender: 3" barrel, short grip, no trigger guard (so it looks like an old Remington derringer for Cowboy Action shooters).
Century 2000: 3.5" barrel, short grip.
Snake Slayer: 3.5" barrel, long grip.

All of which means nothing, since you can buy the extra sized grip as an aftermarket, plus the barrels are interchangable. So what you're really buying is the one you want out of the box, but you can make it into any of them (including the Cowboy, as the trigger guard is removable). Plus, you can buy a barrel for your same derringer that can shoot pretty much any major cartridge made, from .22 LR to .44 Special or .45 Long Colt. All you need is an allen wrench, included, and you can swap out barrels as easy as easy can be.

This one is chambered for .45 Long Colt, but will also take .410 shotgun shells. In fact, Bond Arms will happily sell you .410 shotgun shells loaded with 00 buckshot. I was shooting Hornady .45 Long Colt "Cowboy" loads, which are cast lead without jackets.

There are four things which are notable.

1) This is an extremely challenging weapon. Recoil is stiff, the stiffest I've ever encountered in a handgun. It's got almost no barrel anyway, so accuracy is quite poor. Out of twenty rounds, I kept all of them on paper, but I only had one in the X ring; two in the eight ring; five in the six-seven ring; and the rest were just somewhere on the paper. Not good. Still, for defense at extremely close ranges (FBI crime reports suggest that most gunfights take place at less than ten feet) it would be adequate.
2) The barrel is so short that, even at fifteen feet, the bullet is "tumbling" rather than traveling straight. That could create a nasty wound cavity. This is a good thing for everyone except, of course, the fellow on the business end.
3) It has a crossbar safety, as well as being single-action. As long as you exercise the usual precautions that you should always exercise when handling a firearm, the risk of accidental discharge is as close to zero as an engineer could desire.
4) The report and the cloud of smoke are worthy of comment.

So here's the comment: I arrived at the range on a cold, grey day. There was a small crowd of young people there with a couple of experienced instructors. I assume they were taking a course on firearms safety or something similar. They occupied most of the lanes, so I had to wait a bit. It was not unpleasant, though, watching them shoot: young men and women learning the ropes, and accepting the challenges and responsibilities that come with handling a dangerous weapon.

They kindly made room for me at the next ceasefire, and so I set up on the lane furthest to the left (which is desirable, as it keeps hot brass from being pitched on you by the semiautomatics). I was of course wearing earplugs, as hearing protection is (and ought to be) mandatory. Even so, I could hear the buzz of conversation from these young folks. They were wondering just what it was I was going to shoot, as I wasn't obviously in possession of a firearm.

I took out the derringer, laid it on the mat, and carefully loaded the first two rounds. I could hear the two young ladies tittering. "It's so tiny!" one of them said to the other. I smiled, because I understood. They'd been firing .45 ACPs and Sig Sauer 9mms, which are much more impressive to look at even though they fire a round that is substantially weaker than the old Long Colt. They didn't have enough experience to notice how big the bore of the barrels were.

The thing about the .45 LC is this: in 1873, the US Army had to ask Colt to go back to the drawing board and produce a less-powerful version of the cartridge for Army use. It was too hard-hitting for professional soldiers, even firing it out of 7-1/2" barrels from a full-sized Colt Single Action Army revolver. This thing has almost no barrel at all, and none of the mass of the Colt to absorb the recoil.

I discharged the tiny thing. For about half a minute, there was utter silence on the range.

It takes about five seconds for even a reasonable breeze, such as we had, to clear the smoke well enough that you could see the result of the shot. The report is a shockwave, for a handgun -- obviously any serious rifle will put it to shame. Still, between the report and the cloud of smoke, it's a fairly serious psychological weapon. If you should discharge it in a street while defending yourself from the average armed robber, I would think he would be halfway to the nearest train station before the smoke cleared even if you missed him. If you hit him, I'm fairly sure that tumbling .45 would put him down.

I cocked it again, fired again, and then reloaded and worked through the box. Afterwards, at the next ceasefire, one of the instructors came over to me.

"What on earth is that thing you're firing?" he asked. I told him.

"What does it shoot?" he wondered. I took a spare cartridge out of my pocket and handed it to him.

His eyes got big. "My God," he said. "Hey, Bob, come here and look at this."

So, here's my verdict: if you're up to a real challenge, you might like a Bond Arms derringer in one of the heavy calibers. As a "toss it in your pants pocket on your way to town" gun, it's perfect. I have no doubt that it would be effective as a defensive firearm, at the sort of close ranges where crime is apt to take place. The psychological effect of it is apt to stop fights and disperse crowds, as it was shocking even to experienced firearm instructors.

However, it's not for beginners, and it's not for the weak. You'd better have the wrists to back it up.

Attention

Attention The Hall:

You are all familiar with JHD. It is with sympathy and honor we remark the passage of his father. I will leave it to the man himself to speak to the gentleman's history, though the eulogy he sent me was most impressive. I hope he will repeat it to you, though it is not mine to do so.

The next world, however we find it, will be better that men such as this have gone there before us. Raise your glasses, brothers and sisters.

Cgrats

Congratulations:

...to The Major.

RumsfMoon

Breathless Anticipation:

I absolutely cannot wait for the next Rumsfeld press conference. I would give anything to hear his answer if a reporter asked him, "Sir, is it true that the US military plans a forward base on the Moon for the purpose of shooting at UFOs?"

I hope there's a cameraman handy, too. I'd love to see the look on Rumsfeld's face.

SpcVT

Core Competency: Adding Context

Specialist Van Treuren adds context from an AP report to an NY Times report about the bombing at an Iraqi hospital this week. Then, Major K. adds still more context absent from both reports. Readers who follow the MilBlogs are thus much better informed than readers of AP wire reports, and at least twice as well informed as those who are still getting their news from the NY Times.

Katrina-Iraq-MOE

Measures of Effectiveness:

"MOE" is military-speak for anything you can use to measure and track progress toward a given goal. Here are two, for the success of the mission in Iraq.

I. A Gift

Iraq's Red Crescent Donates $1 million to Katrina victims. (H/t Greyhawk).

"I wish we could have a billion dollars to give," Said Hakki, the organization's president, said by telephone from Baghdad. "Even then, it is not enough to show our appreciation for what the U.S. has done for Iraq and is still doing."

In the early days after Katrina, Bangladesh donated $1 million as well. It was a great shock, as the government of Bangladesh is run by a coalition of three parties, two of which are Islamist in outlook. They remembered what we had done during the tsunami, though, and wanted to do right by us in turn.

How much does that mean in the 'hearts and minds' war? Bangladesh's Islamist movement has what Daniel was calling 'shame cultures,' so it is possible to read the generosity in the wrong way. The motive in Bangladesh is less likely to be a sense of love, than the desire to avoid the shame of being seen less generous than the American. So, a generous gift from Bangladesh does not prove that we have won hearts or minds.

On the other hand, it doesn't have to: establishing reciprocal bonds of honor and duty works almost as well. Love is better, because it will drive actions taken in secret as well as those taken in public. But if you can't have love, honor and duty is the next best thing.

How does the Iraq gift appear in that light? Iraqi Muslims also participate in a shame culture. The gift in this case, however, appears to be given not out of a sense of duty, but out of a sense of love. The Red Crescent is a self-selecting group, made up of people who are likely to express fellow-feeling through charitable giving. It can't be read as revealing for all of Iraqi society. Nevertheless, with those caveats said, we have to read this as a strongly positive MOE.

II. Iraqi Operations

Iraq's vice president reports that Iraqi forces now implement 70% of security operations. Mackubin Thomas Owens notes that, if the standard is "US-Iraqi or independent Iraqi operations," the figure is 80%.

Bill Roggio noted in an email yesterday traveling on a certain highway in Iraq, the name of which I will leave out for OPSEC reasons. It was, as he reminded us, a highway that had always been extremely dangerous -- until Iraqi forces were able to take it over. They are more effective at many kinds of security operations because (a) they speak the language, and (b) they all naturally understand the culture, and (c) they can more easily spot someone who doesn't belong. That leaves them especially capable of handling the "hold" part of "clear and hold" operations, and other similar security ops.

But wait, that's not all. As the COUNTERCOLUMN points out, the Iraqi Army is now conducting air assault missions.

Air assaults are very challenging, involving a great deal of staff work and specialized troop training. They can stretch officers and NCOs to the limit. The fact that Iraqi troops are now capable of conducting air assaults alongside the 101st, the masters of the art, is very encouraging. Will any national news outlets grasp the significance of this development? Nope.

Again, the MOE here is strongly positive. Far from depressed, we ought to be most encouraged by the recent progress.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving:

We gather today to feast with some of our friends and family, and to miss the ones who are not there with us. It can be hard to be as thankful as the holiday calls for when those you care about are far away. My respects to all of you who must endure that, and manage still to remember the purpose in your hearts.

I see that InstaPundit is recipe-blogging in preparation for the holiday. We've been known to do that here, though mostly with recipes for cooking over open fires (see also the comments). I've encountered a couple of good cookbooks lately, by the way. The first one is mostly for people who, like me, prefer to cook over an open fire: Barbecue, Biscuits and Beans by the founders of the Western Chuck Wagon Assoc.

There's also The All American Cowboy Cookbook. What's interesting about this one is that it's got recipes from rodeo riders, cowboy poets, owners of ranches, and also actors who have famously played cowboys. As a result, the type of food on offer is widely varied and will suit any taste or skill level.

For example, Baxter Black and his wife submitted a great recipe for cooking barbecue ribs in a fire pit that requires you to hose the sand and dirt off them the next day before you chow down on them. This is real cowboy cooking. Some of the ranch recipes are very simple ("Cowboy Beans: 1 pound dry beans, 1 tsp garlic powder, 1 tsp onion powder, 1 tsp salt"). On the other hand, Clint Eastwood entered a recipe he calls "Spaghetti Western," which features shrimp and sea scallops... so if you like to eat fancy food, there are several recipes from Hollywood gourmets and the fancier dude ranches.

Also, though it's the wrong time of year, I remember I offered my recipe for PETA Pie, in honor of Eat An Animal For PETA Day. It's pretty good if you like meat pies, which I learned to do because of a fondness for medieval history. You don't encounter pies in America much that aren't sweet -- chicken pot pie is the only one that comes to mind. Still, give it a try sometime.

Enjoy the feast.

CENTCOM Cares

CENTCOM Cares:

A few weeks ago, we had a soldier from CENTCOM PA drop by and spam our comments section. Eric remarked, as I recall, "We just got spammed by CENTCOM! CENTCOM cares what we think! Cool!"

Well, they do indeed care. They sent me an email this morning asking me to link to them, and they sent along an appropriate image as well. I'm only too happy to add the link: just click on the CENTCOM badge, on the sidebar.

Wrong Way

An Insult to a Worthy Gentleman:

I've been speaking to points of etiquette lately. Here is a point at which the traditions of etiquette have reached their limits. It comes in a letter directed at Captain Jason von Steenwyck:

I'm not ignorant. I don't like bigots or liars. Moore included. You included.

Don't bother to respond.

The Army forbids its officers from fighting duels, which was the traditional response to such a challenge. The Captain responds gallantly, according to the forms which are still allowed:

I hold that neither has been established.... So let the evidence be brought forth! It will either be an opportunity for self-examination and growth, or it will be an opportunity for much laughter, mirth and merriment at the expense of some frothy-mouthed morons.

That is too much. The honor of an officer of the United States military should not be a light matter, against which the word of any fool can stand. It is not right that a man of his proven valor should have to invite "evidence" of his bigotry and deceitfulness. The challenge has no right to be entertained.

In the days before the duel, the ancient Germanic code held that oath-swearing could take the place of trials by combat. It was a complicated process, but in short, the oaths of the honorable could outweigh any charge, so long as enough such men were willing to swear by their fellow. In a time before forensics, that could be a useful way of asserting the confidence of a close community in a man known by all to be of good heart. In a time after dueling, perhaps it can again serve as a way of asserting the confidence of a community of fighting men in the honor of one of their own.

I'll take my oath by the Captain. I defy anyone to say he is either a liar or a bigot.

SoA

Spirit of America:

Another fellow I met on that evening was "Sandy" Shapero, CEO of Spirit of America. They're doing some work in Iraq, and are raising funds for:

- Helping Iraqi and American school children build crucial bonds of
trust and understanding.
- Helping the Marines set up women's centers in both countries that
can provide job training, Internet access, day care services, and a
place where women can meet to exchange ideas and form mutual support
networks.
- Working with the Army in Najaf to improve health care services by
setting up a central cardiac monitoring system at a key teaching
hospital.
- Improving relations between Iraqis and Marines in Al Anbar Province
by donating school supplies, shoes, sports equipment, watches, and
other gifts to Iraqi children.
- Assisting the Marines as they help local farmers rejuvenate their
land.

It's good work they do, and they don't get any government money. If you're thinking of giving to charity this holiday season, or wanting to help the mission in Iraq, Spirit of America is a good way to go about it.

SF Democ

"The Mayor of Ar Rutbah"

Don't miss this piece from Foreign Policy by Green Beret James A. Gavrilis. It describes how he and his company set up a functioning democracy in the early days of the Iraq war.

The story reminded me of the evening I spent listening to LtCol Couvillon, USMC, describing his stint as "military governor" of Wasit. Obvioiusly these good ideas aren't limited to the Special Forces. (I also met Omar and Mohammed on the same evening, though they don't know they met me -- I only shook their hands, thanked them, and left them to talk to more important people than me.)

As we have apparently decided to take stock of Iraq right now, we can usefully remember how far it has come in those two years. A tyranny that had known no self-government for decades now has flourishing small communities like this. They exist in spite of the violence, which seeks to blot out these small acts of freedom and return a new tyranny to the land. It will not be.

Ralph Peters

Ralph Peters Is Mad:

He writes mad better than most, but this time, he's really mad.

I am absolutely astonished by the calls for withdrawal, coming as they do at this time. Of course, they've been coming all along from certain parties, but I can't see any reason why now would be the time you decided to believe that it wasn't going to work. As I wrote in an email to certain parties (with certain details redacted):

In April '04, we had insurgents holding eleven cities across Iraq openly against the US Army. In September '04, the Army had shut all that down, but there were still strongholds in Anbar. In November '04, after Fallujah, those strongholds started to fall one by one. By this summer, we're seeing Sunni tribes who had been somewhat loyal to the insurgents breaking off and supporting the government. Now, we're seeing even some of the more serious tribes negotiating with the government, and we've got clear-and-hold operations throughout Anbar.

Last winter, we were having insurgent attacks in force against American military posts -- remember when the general officers had to take up arms in Ramadi? When was the last time they tried to overrun a US firebase? January? I know the *** is demoralizing, but they do *** because they can't do assaults.

All the evidence is that our boys are rolling them up, and the new Iraqi government is starting to get its feet under it. I don't see why anyone has any doubt that we're winning, and winning big. Meanwhile, al Qaeda's use of murder squads aimed at civilians is cutting the heart out of their support among Muslims. Zarqawi was disowned by his tribe today; last week, we had the largest Muslim organization in the world condemn suicide bombing. If we get to the point that Muslims in general are opposed to groups that carry out suicide attacks, we've won the GWOT for all intents and purposes. After that, we just need to focus on penetrating and capturing the cells in the West, while encouraging democracy and openness abroad.

That's not to say that it isn't still a long road with some dark places along it. But it is to say -- what are people thinking? How can anyone stand up and say that the war isn't winnable, when we are so clearly winning it?

That's the question that baffles me. I realize those who know nothing at all about military science get their opinion of the progress from the media, which apparently also knows nothing about military science. Their reports mention every explosion, but contain no context of increasing stability. Even the Jordan bomb, so clearly a disaster for al Qaeda, was reported as proof of their influence. The image you might take away is of an insurgency that's no less powerful today than it was last year, or a year and a half ago: an enemy that makes no mistakes, whose every attack is an unqualified success.

Still, why have these calls suddenly jumped to the front page and the top of the agenda? Why now? There have been no events on the ground in Iraq to explain a sudden sense of failure. There has been no Tet offensive to misread as an enemy victory. Even if you judge only from the media, without any context to explain the progress being made, surely things don't appear to be getting sharply worse. They just don't explain how it's getting better.

Is it just because Bush's poll numbers are bad, and so the political opposition -- as Peters suggests -- is piling on for that reason? Can it really be that the opposition is so uninterested in national security and the success of America's military and her foreign policy? Can it really be that the only thing driving this is domestic politics -- that the leadership of one of our two policital parties is willing to lose a war purely in pursuit of domestic politics? Whether or not that is so, it's certainly driven the leadership of both parties into playing high-profile games with what ought to be an issue of serious thought.

I want to hear a convincing argument that this is not the case. I will be happy to embrace it, if someone can make it to me. So far, I'm not seeing it. What I'm seeing is a political class that needs an education. It's not just senior officials saying that the dispute is hurting morale -- I've been hearing it from fighters in the field and from their families. The New York Times decided to ask some soldiers, and reports that the dispute between Congress and the President has little effect on morale. Maybe that's true, and I've just heard from people who feel differently than most.

Still, in the last line of the article, they mention this: "Many in uniform say it is the job of the nation's political leaders to communicate the importance of the mission and the need for national sacrifice to a new generation of soldiers." I agree -- the leaders do need to communicate that. They need to show that they understand how important it is to succeed in the mission. These political games need to end. You can't play at standing behind the soldiers and their mission. You have to really be behind them.

Boys

Boys Will Be...

I'm not sure exactly why, but my son has recently developed an interest in guns. Both my wife and I carry concealed sometimes (with legal permits, of course), my wife in particular, but we have always taken pains not to have him aware of it (if only so he won't pipe up in public and say, "Mommy, will you take your gun out?"). The guns are locked out of sight and unloaded, separate from their ammo, except the firearms for night defense -- which are also locked out of sight in a safe, and in a condition where they can't be used without some knowledge of how they operate. The safe is sealed and locked every morning before he gets up, so I'm pretty sure that it's not my behavior that has caused this interest. He doesn't see me carrying a gun, in other words, or handling them, or whatever.

I'm not opposed to teaching him about them, just the opposite -- but he's only three. I thought swords would be enough for a while yet. And indeed, the other day we took a long walk, and he carried his wooden sword along. Every few feet, he'd stop and pretend to fight "another monster!" It's very endearing.

However, he has for some time also been picking up sticks that are kind of gun-shaped, and carrying them around. He makes a gun noise: "jugga-jugga!" I guess he got the idea from Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, or Raiders of the Lost Ark, or The Lone Ranger, or one of the other adventure movies he likes to watch when he isn't watching Kipper the Dog.

He has also been begging me to buy him a toy gun. I resisted for a long while. Guns are not toys, I keep telling him; they are a serious business. Still, he's playing "guns" anyway with the sticks; and, I reflected, with a toy that had some semblance to how a real firearm operates, I could start teaching him firearms safety in an enviornment with no consequences if he screws up (e.g., "Don't point that at me!" won't cause anyone to get shot if he does anyway). By the time he's old enough, if I'm dilligent about it, he should know the rules of firearms safety as second nature. I hope, in other words, that I'm doing the right thing by encouraging his interest rather than creating a forbidden object to desire; and by taking the opportunity to teach him how to behave safely and with responsibility. Besides, I had toy guns as a kid.

I weighed and considered this for a long time. I finally made up my mind to go ahead with it, if he continued to show interest, yesterday afternoon. He was playing with his stick gun again. "I've got a gun, daddy!" he said.

I sighed, and pointed to his sword. "You've also got a sword," I replied. "What do you need a gun for anyway?"

He looked at me seriously, and said, "For shooting bad guys."

Well, I couldn't argue with that. It's the very reason I own guns.

So, since he was pleasant and good today, I offered to buy him a toy; and he insisted that he wanted a gun. So we went to WalMart, and he picked out a toy shotgun (the "Montana," of a line of toys that replicate old cowboy guns -- he passed up Star Wars stuff for this). I gave him the initial lecture about gun saftey (which I'm sure went right over his head, but by the time he's ten he'll be able to recite it backwards in his sleep). Then I gave him the thing, and took him home.

A few hours later, I'm up in my office working, and I can hear him operating the thing down below. He's in the bedroom, watching a movie. His mother's voice drifts up.

"Beowulf! Are you shooting Bambi?"

A pause while he answers.

"You're shooting Bambi's Mom?!?!?"

Well, uh, boys will be boys, you know.

Iraq

"No End But Victory"

You've probably all seen the new group blog, No End But Victory. I entirely support the concept behind it.

I have not written about Iraq in a little while, but only because I haven't seen anything to change my opinion of the place. The September before last I wrote "Clausewitz and the Triangle" while guest-blogging at the Mudville Gazette, which laid out the forces at work in Iraq from the perspective of military science. I think, a year and more on, that it still is the correct understanding.

Events have played out as the analysis suggested they should. The insurgent attacks have undermined their cause more than they've helped it, with the result that talk of "inkblots" or "oil spots" is now on our side instead of theirs. The tribes who had been in support of the insurgency have increasingly been splitting off and supporting US military efforts, as Bill Roggio has been reporting all summer and fall. The January elections enjoyed a large turnout and little violence, and the more recent elections enjoyed both a wider turnout and even less violence than the January elections.

Over the summer I posted two pieces to Bill's site that were the same sort of large-scale analysis. "In Response to a Question" was the first. It looked at the insurgents' problem again, and found it to be the same problem but at a later stage of development. Whereas in the September 2004 piece, the insurgents were creating no-go areas and holding towns against the United States for certain periods, the Fallujah campaign marked the start of a grinding away of any insurgent strongpoint. By the summer, the only places the insurgents could "hold" were the places no one was bothering to attack yet -- fewer and fewer as time went along. By this point, we are managing successful "clear and hold" operations throughout the Sunni Triangle, with the aid of increasingly capable Iraqi military units. Even tribes who are genuine allies of the insurgency must now reconsider their long-term future. That process is ongoing, with more and more even of the hardcore tribal insurgents shifting their stance to one amenable to the government's existence.

The other piece was "A Question of Victory," which proposed a test for victory not merely in Iraq, but in the larger GWOT. It predicted that al Qaeda's victory -- in Iraq, and elsewhere -- required that they create and maintain a sense of family bond with their various supporters in Iraq and elsewhere:

Victory is possible when and if al Qaeda's claim to a family bond fails. At that point, the tribal component will not be honor-bound to support the insurgency. If they are not family, they are enemy.

What kind of activity can break that bond? There are only two types.

1) Activity on the Coalition's part that makes the tribes feel a stronger family bond to us than to al Qaeda.

2) Activity on al Qaeda's part that will be interpreted as kinslaying.

Activity type one is something the military is working on, building relationships among Iraqi army units and American ones. Reconstruction projects, always under-reported but always ongoing, are another. But activity type two is of increasing importance, as demonstrated by the recent attacks in Jordan. The attacks were an attempt to strike at forces beyond Iraq, for the small reason of disrupting broader Coalition activity, and the large reason of appearing more powerful than the insurgency really is. The effect was to create a vision of kinslaying:

Zarqawi in particular and Al-Qaeda in general have attracted a measure of support from the Jordanian underclasses, creating a dilemma for the Government of King Abdullah II as he attempts to build on the softly-softly work of his late father, King Hussein, in simultaneously forging ties with the Jewish state, appeasing Jordan's chief foreign aid donor, the US, with limited democratic reform, lifting living standards for its have-nots while retaining credibility on the Arab street. Yet in the battle for hearts and minds which runs parallel to the hot war on terror, Zarqawi might have over-reached himself with the Amman attacks.

But these are the only kinds of attacks the insurgency can manage. They have no alternative strategy, because they have no capacity for an alternative strategy. They cannot concentrate on holding territory because they can hold none. They cannot negotiate because their ideology forbids it. They cannot defeat the American military, so no strategy based on that is available. They can use IEDs to bomb American and Iraqi military targets, but as those targets become hardened each successful attack requires more planning and expertise -- which means that a strategy based on that kind of attack means fewer successsful attacks over time, which the insurgency cannot afford. They must appear to be growing in power, not diminishing.

They cannot stop bombing civilian targets because they would fade out of the public mind, which for an insurgency is exactly equivalent to military defeat. They must continue bombing civilian targets, in more and more horrific fashion, if they are to continue the illusion of being a powerful, undefeatable foe. That this illusion might lead to a political decision by US politicians to withdraw is their only hope.

Yet the very means by which the illusion is maintained are the very means by which they are achieving our major condition of victory in the GWOT -- not just in Iraq, but worldwide. As they carry on in this fashion, they convince the Muslim world that they are not defenders of Muslims and Islam, but evil men. More protests against al Qaeda will result. More Islamic clerics will come out against suicide bombings, as Hasyim Muzadi did last week. Who is he, you ask? He is the leader of Nahdlatul Ulama, which with forty million members is the largest Muslim religious organization in the world.

I haven't written about Iraq much lately, because all there is to say is the same things again. These forces were and are the crucial forces at work in this war. All that is required is time and leverage, and al Qaeda must provide us with ever-increasing leverage in order to fight us at all. Victory is certain.

What I cannot predict is when al Qaeda's capability in Iraq will collapse, but there is no doubt at all that it will. They are exhausting their one critical store, the sense among Muslims that they represent defenders of Muslims and Islam. Their resiliance to date has come only from that store, as it has so far allowed them to replenish their ranks with new volunteers. When it is gone, al Qaeda in Iraq will be no more dangerous than Jemaah Islamiyah is in Southeast Asia. They may be able to carry out the occasional bombing, but they won't represent a danger to the stability of even weak, third-world nations.

The project of democracy in Iraq will then be like the project in Indonesia or Malaysia -- a project with a long way to go, that is to say, but one in which there is nevertheless notable progress.

All that the American people need to do is be patient and have faith. All that the American military needs to do is allow its men to carry on as they are doing, kicking the insurgents down every time they stand up, holding territory, building the Iraqi army and infrastructure, and building "family" ties through honorable action. That was my analysis in September 2004, and it remains my analysis today.

No End But Victory, indeed.