I think the following photos are amazing...

Women Warriors

Captain Lou Albano Dies

R.I.P. Captain Lou...

Jim Jones now President Obama's insurance with military

Obama, McChrystal meet in Denmark

Hopefully, GEN McChrystal told the president that every day he spends making the "perfect" decision, more American servicemembers die. President Obama's decision amounts to are we all in or all out. In my mind it is that simple.

More scalps...

Another decent piece by Ralph Peters. I don't usually agree with him, but often times he makes some good (but often over the top) points. Here is an excerpt:

Yet, in Afghanistan, we've put the bulk of our efforts into turning a vast flophouse into the Four Seasons -- instead of focusing ruthlessly on our terrorist enemies. It's politically correct madness.

What we really need is just a compact, lethal force of special operators, intelligence resources and air assets, along with sufficient conventional forces for protection and punitive raids. More troops just mean more blood and frustration...

Our hunter-killer task forces should be deployed on a limited number of strategically positioned bases supported by air. Don't worry about the Afghan government -- Afghans don't.

The other alternative -- sending still more troops to die for Washington's fantasy of a Disney-World Afghanistan -- is disgraceful. Stop building sewage systems. Take scalps...

In Afghanistan, we're asking Hutus to fight for Tutsis and Hatfields to guard McCoys...

The Soviets and their Afghan cronies lost because their enemies were willing to sacrifice more -- to give their lives for their heritage, however backward and cruel.

Afghans are willing to fight. They're just not willing to fight for us.

How we all miss the Shah

Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi

This is not from the greatest, most reputable news source (except with regards to New York sports), but here is an interesting point of view from Empress Farah Pahlavi, the widow of the Shah of Iran, published in today's New York Post:

If Carter hadn't let the Shah be overthrown in 1979, "there wouldn't be this problem in Afghanistan, nor would there have been the Iran-Iraq war," Pahlavi tells Avenue magazine. "Iraq would never have dared to even send a plane over our country. The Gulf War wouldn't have happened, nor would any of the problems of the past 30 years, including the exporting of religious fanaticism..."
"The fact that the empress would invite Andy Warhol, fresh from Studio 54, to the Imperial Palace . . . showed just how open-minded, not to say hip, Her Imperial Highness was."

Borrow a flak vest, Mr. Secretary...

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (pbuh) will give a speech to the Air Force Association on Wednesday going into the "lion's den" as Paul Bedard states in the article linked above.

Kurdish, once banned, to be taught in Turkey

This is a huge step towards normalizing relations between the Turks and Kurds. If they come to a peace, it is good for us as well since we could then totally back the Kurds in Iraq without angering our NATO ally Turkey...

Speaking Kurdish was banned in Turkey until 1991.

Prodded by the European Union, which has been pressing Turkey to strengthen Kurdish rights, the country has allowed private language schools to teach Kurdish, and some Kurdish-language radio and TV to operate. In January, the government launched a 24-hour state-run Kurdish television station.

In a gesture to the minority Kurds, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan also uttered a few words in Kurdish on the day the station was launched.

Russian Laws on Use of Force Expanded

Murtha's Not Alone, Watchdog Group Says

Of course, he is not alone! Earmarks have skyrocketed in the past 20 years! One only needs to drive across the United States today to see how well their Congressman is at earmarking - road projects are everywhere, and happening at the same time, from Ohio to Maine, due to the ARRA. It is not just in the DoD budget that it is bad...

Using a computer analysis of public records, the Center for Public Integrity found that, including Murtha, 12 of the committee's 16 members have followed Murtha's earmarking pattern, providing targeted military funds to specific contractors represented by former staffers and friends. Numerous investigative stories have focused on Murtha and fellow Reps. Peter J. Visclosky (D-Ind.) and James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), but other committee members' earmark requests have not faced similar scrutiny.

The Limits Of Force: Iraq and Afghanistan Aren't Ours to Win or Lose

This is an excerpt from an op-ed "retired" Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) wrote for The Washington Post last week. It is spectacular:

The U.S. response, engaging in two wars, was a 20th-century reaction to 21st-century realities. These wars have cost more than 5,100 American lives; more than 35,000 have been wounded; a trillion dollars has been spent, with billions more departing our Treasury each month. We forgot all the lessons of Vietnam and the preceding history.

No country today has the power to impose its will and values on other nations. As the new world order takes shape, America must lead by building coalitions of common interests, as we did after World War II...

Are our policies worthy of these Americans' great sacrifices? That question must always be at the fore of our leaders' decisions. Threats to America come from more than Afghanistan. Consider Yemen and Somalia. Are we prepared to put U.S. ground troops there? I doubt we would seriously consider putting forces in Pakistan, yet its vast Federally Administered Tribal Areas and mountainous western border harbor our most dangerous enemies today. We must shift our thinking, now, to pursue wiser courses of action and sharper, more relevant policies.

The president and his national security team should listen to recordings of conversations that President Lyndon B. Johnson had with Sen. Richard Russell about Vietnam, especially those in which LBJ told Russell that we could not win in Vietnam but that he did not want to pull out and be the first American president to lose a war. Difficult decisions with historic consequences are coming soon for President Obama.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Britain's Defense Industrial Complex

Prince William (left) and Prince Harry are feeling the effects of Great Britain's defense industrial complex... Harry Wales can't even afford to get his haircut!

Good news! We aren't the only country with a "broken" defense industrial complex... or does "broken" (in a good government sense) mean that the defense industrial complex is actually healthy (in a "business of America is business" sense)?!

Anyhow, Great Britain's defense procurement process is broken too! The "United" Kingdom, who only spends about 2.4 percent of their GDP on their war machine, has new equipment arriving five years late and 40 percent overbudget and "the incompetence is helping enemies who "are unlikely to wait for our sclerotic acquisition systems to catch up."

"How can it be that it takes 20 years to buy a ship, or aircraft, or tank?" Gray wrote. "Why does it always seem to cost at least twice what was thought? Even worse, at the end of the wait, why does it never quite seem to do what it was supposed to? The issue is a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, shrouded in an acronym."

The report warned of "too many types of equipment being ordered for too large a range of tasks at too high a specification". It said delays in the shipbuilding programme meant Britain could not have fought a Falklands-style campaign in the last 20 years. "We would have risked significant casualties, the very significant costs of acquiring adequate equipment at short notice (if available) or the embarrassment of not fighting at all."

Mental Stress Training Is Planned for Soldiers

I served under COL Williams and he is the perfect person to be charged with implementing this program. COL Williams is one of the few field grade officers that "got it." He cared about the development of his junior officers and genuinely cared about Soldiers' problems and the welfare of their families. He encouraged single junior officers to coach high school football, be involved with the community, and to have fun. He tried to show Soldiers that the Army can be fun when you are in garrison and not being shot at... the Army truly is a family. The former West Point football player moonlighted as a dance instructor and taught Justin Timberlake and hundreds of Army Officers how to dance. In sum, he built a spectacular team and it was an honor to serve under his command. Hopefully, he will be promoted after implementing this program. Soldiers will open up to him because of his personality and he will listen to their suggestions. There is hope for the Army afterall...

India

For a great post on the geography of India, check out the piece entitled "The Mystery That is India" from August 29, 2009, on The Scholar's Stage.

Star Wars on a Saturday night...

This sounds like a good plan to me, despite the complaints from the developing countries of Eastern Europe. We can do much more for those nations through microfinance, NATO training missions, strengthening nation-state partnership programs with National Guard units, and educating their populace in our universities...

Among the alternatives are dropping either the Polish or Czech site, or both sites, and instead building launching pads or radar installations in Turkey or the Balkans, while developing land-based versions of the Aegis SM-3, a ship-based anti-missile system, officials said. The changes, they said, would be intended not to mollify Russia, but to adjust to what they see as an accelerating threat from shorter-range Iranian missiles.

ROTC Ban

This is a good piece regarding the ban of ROTC at seven elite universities - Brown, Columbia, Harvard, Stanford, Tufts, UChicago, and Yale. Harbaugh quotes Thucydides saying, "The nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."

I've written about this issue before on this blog. Undoubtedly, it plays a role in the detachment of society from the current wars (see Bob Herbert = The Man)... especially when most of our country's policy-makers come from the schools listed above. Perhaps President Obama, a product of two of the schools that ban ROTC on campus (Columbia, Harvard), can act on his campaign promises in bringing ROTC back to the Ivies? Here is an idea - end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and then ask the Ivies what the problem is...

See also:

ROTC and the Ivies

R.I.P. Liberal Lion

Here is an exchange between Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Tim Russert from the February 6, 2005, edition of NBC News' Meet the Press:

MR. RUSSERT: Some observers, Senator, have said that you simply opposed the war from day one and that's your agenda. They point to a comment you made back in September of 2003. "This was made up in Texas, announced in January to the Republican leadership that war was going to take place and was going to be good politically. This whole thing was a fraud." Fourteen hundred and forty-five Americans dead, 10,770 injured or wounded. All that blood for a political fraud? Is that your view?

SEN. KENNEDY: Listen, my view is that we honor. We honor, deeply, deeply honor every one of the servicemen and women who have lost their lives. We've lost 32 in Massachusetts. I've talked to the parents and have attended a number of the funerals out at Arlington. They are heroes. And you know something, Mr. Russert? Our responsibility to those fighting men and women is to get it right, to get the right policy. That is the best way to honor them. And when I hear the secretary of defense say this morning that he was somewhat puzzled by the level of the insurgency, the rise of the insurgency, I remember being on the Armed Services Committee when we listened to the generals that testified before that Armed Services Committee and they all predicted an insurgency.

General Hoar, a former Marine, said, "If we get into Iraq, we fight the Iraq, we will win and you will have an insurgency that'll make the last five, seven minutes of `Private Ryan' look like a church picnic." They were absolutely correct. This is what the problem is. We're making it up as we go along. We heard it this morning. We've got to establish a policy. We have to establish a plan in order to get the Americans out with honor. And that plan that I put forward, I think, can achieve it.

MR. RUSSERT: But do you still believe that the war is a fraud and was begun for political reasons?

SEN. KENNEDY: What I believe is that this administration took their eye off the ball in fighting against terror. It was al-Qaeda that saw the loss of American lives. It was Osama bin Laden that we had on the run in Afghanistan. We had him on the run, and we took our eye off that and we went to war that we never should have fought in Iraq. And I don't think--and the reasons that we fought the war were weapons of mass destruction and because the tie with al-Qaeda.

Now, we found there's no weapons of mass destruction. The 9-11 Commission said there's no tie-in with al-Qaeda. Now, we're talking about we're leaving Americans in there till we democratize the country. You talk about mission creep. When did that ever get--do you possibly think that the Senate of the United States would have ratified going to war because we just want a democracy? We have stood for democracy and we haven't gone to war. We saw the restoration of democracy in Chile when Pinochet collapsed. We saw it in Argentina. We saw it in Paraguay. We saw it come in South Africa and we didn't go to war.

A porta inferi.

Erue, Domine, animam ejus.

Requiescat in pace.

New Shiite Alliance Excludes Iraqi Prime Minister

The Iraqi Shiite link to Iran has been overblown and is an example of how ignorant we are in the West. Iranians, of which 89 percent are Shiite, are very proud of Persian history and our simplistic view of their influence on Iraqi Shiites (60-65 percent of the Iraqi population is Shiite versus 32-27 percent Sunni) should outrage them - it dismisses the cultural differences between Arabs and Persians.

Most Westerners know of the Roman Empires, but know little of the great Persian Empires. If Westerners used the simple outlook they use in examining Shiite Islam in Iraq and Iran to examine Western Christianity, they would overlook the cultural differences that broke Western Christianity apart (Roman Catholicism versus the Anglican communion, differences within the Anglican communion across the globe, differences between the Anglican communion and other Protestants, the development of the Lutheran and Presbyterian Churches in Northern Europe, etc.). Just as German Roman Catholics are much different than American ones, Arab Shiites (Iraq) are much different than Persian Shiites (Iran).

What I am getting at is that there is more to culture than religion. Language, for one, plays a huge role. To use the Western European example again, Latin morphed into the modern day romance languages and Roman Catholicism lost its total grip on Western Europe. Although I am no expert, as an ignorant Westerner myself, the Persian Empire morphed over time too; the linguistic differences between modern Iraq (Arabic) and Iran (Farsi) are hard to overlook. Only 1 percent of Iranians speak Arabic, and Farsi is rarely heard in Iraq. Scholars in Iran, like Ahmad Kasravi, spent years trying to "cleanse" the Farsi language of Arabic words and influence.



What else brought about this cultural divide? Although Iran has been officially Shiite since the Safavid dynasty in the 16th Century and Iraq has been a part of Iranzamin ("Greater Iran") for centuries, colonial rule and the subsequent modern nation-states of Iraq and Iran have helped to magnify the cultural differences between Iraq and Iran. The "little" mountain range, known as the Zagros (see map below), separating Iraq and Iran has become a geological Berlin Wall between the Arab Shiite and Persian Shiite areas of Iranzamin and allowed for more Arab influence on Iraq.

Also, the two countries fought an eight year war not too long ago. Obviously I have left things out, but the main point is Iraqi Shiites are different from Iranian Shiites!

Anyhow, back to article that brought about this tirade...

With regards to the new Shiite political alliance in Iraq, it appears that proportional representation parliamentary democracy really is taking shape in Iraq. Here is an excerpt from the article linked above:

The new bloc, called the Iraqi National Alliance, will include the largest Shiite party, the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, or SIIC, and al-Sadr's bloc, which both have close ties to Tehran.

Although some small Sunni and secular parties are joining the alliance, many Sunnis consider the Supreme Council as little more than an instrument of Shiite Iran.

If the alliance does well in the Jan. 16 vote, Tehran could gain deeper influence in Iraq as U.S. forces pull back, with a full American withdrawal planned by the end of 2011.

Al-Maliki's Dawa Party also has close ties to Iran, but the prime minister has tried in recent years to persuade Tehran to stop interfering in Iraq. Iran is accused of supporting Shiite militias, despite its denials of the allegations.

The Wrong Man for the Job

Scary observations:

Maybe at some level the Obama Administration feels that if Iraq descends again into chaos it can always blame the Bush Administration for having invaded in the first place. But such a view, while arguably historically accurate, would be supremely cynical.

When McChrystal was selected as commanding general, the media took note of his extraordinary talents, and observed that the new Administration had now taken complete charge of the war in Afghanistan, making it truly its own. One could say that the appointment of Hill likewise signals a wresting of Iraq policy away from the previous administration, but not for the better. At this point, we can only hope that Hill rises to the occasion.

Bob Herbert = The Man

I am reproducing today's Bob Herbert op-ed from The New York Times in its entirety below. Herbert has been producing spectacular pieces like this for years and I couldn't agree with him more.

"The Ultimate Burden"
By BOB HERBERT

If you want to get a little bit of a sense of what the wars are like in Afghanistan and Iraq — a small, distant sense of the on-the-ground horror — pick up a book of color photos called, “2nd Tour, Hope I Don’t Die.” It’s chilling.

Most Americans have conveniently put these two absurd, obscene conflicts out of their minds. There’s an economy to worry about and snappy little messages to tweet. Nobody wants to think about young people getting their faces or their limbs blown off. Or the parents, loaded with antidepressants, giving their children and spouses a final hug before heading off in a haze of anxiety to their third or fourth tour in the war zones.

The book is the work of the photographer Peter van Agtmael, who has spent a great deal of time following American combat troops in both countries. One of the photos in the book shows an Army captain standing exhausted and seemingly forlorn on the blood-slicked floor of a combat support hospital in Baghdad. Mr. van Agtmael was sensitive to the heavy psychological load borne by the medical personnel, writing in the caption:

“Their humor was dark and their expressions often flat and distant when they treated patients. The worst casualties were given nicknames. One soldier melted by the fire caused by an I.E.D. blast was called ‘goo man.’ But certain casualties would hit home, especially injured children. Some staff resorted to painkillers and other drugs.”

The war in Afghanistan made sense once but it doesn’t any longer. The war in Iraq never did. And yet, with most of the country tuned out entirely, we’re still suiting up the soldiers and the Marines, putting them on planes and sending them off with a high stakes (life or death) roll of the dice.

“2nd Tour, Hope I Don’t Die.”

Or maybe it’s the third tour, or fourth, or fifth. The book’s title came from graffiti scrawled on a wall at an Air Force base in Kuwait that was one of the transit points for troops heading to Iraq. America’s young fighting men and women have to make these multiple tours because the overwhelming majority of the American people want no part of the nation’s wars. They don’t want to serve, they don’t want to make any sacrifices here on the home front — they don’t even want to pay the taxes that would be needed to raise the money to pay for the wars. We just add the trillions to deficits that stretch as far as the eye can see.

To the extent that we think about the wars at all, it’s just long enough to point our fingers at the volunteers and say: “Oh yeah, great. You go. And if you come back maimed or dead we’ll salute you as a hero.”

And what are we sending them off to? There’s a photo of Nick Sprovtsoff, a sergeant from Flint, Mich., lying awake in his bunk at a patrol outpost in Afghanistan. He looks like a tough guy in the picture, but he also looks worried. The caption says:

“On his third tour, he was there to advise a local platoon of the Afghan army. The Afghan soldiers rarely wanted to patrol, preferring to watch DVDs and smoke hash. Their favorite movie was ‘Titanic.’ ”

(A Page 1 headline in Sunday’s New York Times read, “Marines Fight With Little Aid From Afghans.”)

A clear idea of the pathetic unwillingness of the American people to share in the sacrifices of these wars can be gleaned from a comment that President Obama made in his address last week to the Veterans of Foreign Wars. “We are a country of more than 300 million Americans,” he said. “Less than 1 percent wears the uniform.”

The president was not chiding those who are not serving, he was only intending to praise those who are. But the idea that so few are willing to serve at a time when the nation is fighting two long wars is a profound indictment on the society.

If we had a draft — or merely the threat of a draft — we would not be in Iraq or Afghanistan. But we don’t have a draft so it’s safe for most of the nation to be mindless about waging war. Other people’s children are going to the slaughter.

Instead of winding down our involvement in Afghanistan, we’re ratcheting it up. President Obama told the V.F.W. that fighting the war there is absolutely essential. “This is fundamental to the defense of our people,” he said.

Well, if this war, now approaching its ninth year, is so fundamental, we should all be pitching in. We shouldn’t be leaving the entire monumental burden to a tiny portion of the population, sending them into combat again, and again, and again, and again ...

How serious is the president about nuclear disarmament?

Call me crazy, but I don't think the president is really considering getting rid of all of our nuclear weapons. Anyhow, here is an excerpt from the article:

Most troubling is Obama's failure to take up this challenge from his top generals: He's sending a message that he's not serious on the issue, that he can be rolled. If Obama wants to demonstrate his commitment to Zero, he should call Gen. Chilton into the White House and make sure they are on the same page when it comes to what our launch status is. And what he wants it to be. And if he thinks it's—in effect—on hair-trigger, he should promptly take it off.

Meanwhile, there are further indications that the nuclear-industrial complex is dragging its feet on implementing the new commander in chief's nuclear policies. There is the matter of the Nuclear Posture Review, which is due in December 2009. The NPR is a periodic review that got under way before Obama became president, and the big question is how seriously it will take Obama's dream of Zero.

India Befriends Afghanistan, Irking Pakistan

This is exactly what we, the U.S., need to happen in Afghanistan! India and Pakistan fighting over who is the better friend of Afghanistan! Perhaps now Pakistan will focus harder on their border with Afghanistan rather than fighting the Indians in Kashmir?! Perhaps India and Pakistan will become friends like Sean Thornton and Will Danaher did in The Quiet Man? Doubtful...

Anyhow here is an excerpt from the article:

The two countries have sparred repeatedly about each other's activities in Afghanistan. Indian officials say their Pakistani counterparts have claimed that there are more than the official four Indian consulates in Afghanistan, and that they support an extensive Indian spy network. For years, Pakistan refused to allow overland shipment of fortified wheat biscuits from India to feed two million Afghan schoolchildren. India instead had to ship the biscuits through Iran, driving up costs for the program.

The World Food Program, which administers the shipments, said the Pakistan government gave its approval for overland shipment in 2008 -- six years after the first delivery from India. "Why did it take six years ... is something that WFP cannot answer," a spokesman for the aid organization said. "However, we are indeed thankful to the government of Pakistan for allowing transit for the fortified biscuits."

Also, here are some old posts on the India-Pakistan-Afghanistan relationship that help explain my opinions regarding the region:

A Man, A Plan, Afghanistan - September 12, 2008

Afghanistan Is in Its Worst Shape since 2001 - September 16, 2008

Pakistan Picks New Chief for Intelligence Agency - September 30, 2008

Confronting Taliban, Pakistan Finds Itself at War - October 3, 2008

Pakistan's Military - May 15, 2009

Pakistan Objects to U.S. Plan for Afghan War - July 22, 2009