Archive for March, 2004
The motorcyclist who posted pictures from the Chernobyl area has her site back online. There are many more pictures than before. If you haven’t checked this out, you must do so right now. If you have checked this out, you probably ought to go do so again. (via Politburo Diktat and WoC)
Today on my little page-a-day Worst Case Scenario calendar has these tips:
- Try to make yourself appear bigger by opening your coat.
The lion is less likely to attack a larger animal. - If the lion still behaves aggressively, throw stones.
Convince the lion you are not prey. - If you are attacked, fight back.
Most mountain lions are small enough that an average-size human can ward off an attack. Do not curl up and play dead.
It seems to me that this advice could apply to many other situations, and I notice that nowhere does it mention negotiating with the mountain lion. The lion has no interest in diplomacy. It doesn’t want to just get along. It simply wants to kill you. Maybe to eat. Maybe to defend its territory. It feels totally justified, and nothing you say or do will convince it otherwise.
As I wrote earlier, do not ever play fair with animals which are attacking you or the ones you love. Even if it is only their instinct to do so. Even if something you’ve done has triggered the attack. Throwing stones is nice. Gunfire or more advanced weaponry may be more appropriate, depending on the sort of animal you are confronted with.
My letter to the editor of my local newspaper (remember those?) was printed this morning.
A March 22 letter (“Rice is wrong, plays politics,” Pulse) claimed that Condoleezza Rice was wrong when she said Iraq was “the most dangerous regime in the most dangerous region.” I believe she said exactly what she meant.Part of Iraq’s threat to the world is its location. A beautiful 10-bedroom mansion isn’t the beat-all if it’s sitting in the middle of a cornfield in Nebraska. A modest four-bedroom rancher is worth millions if it’s sitting in downtown Chicago or overlooking the ocean. Iraq isn’t in some rural backwater. It’s a hornets’ nest in the middle of many hornets’ nests. Location is everything.
By working to stabilize and install a democracy in the heart of the Middle East, the Bush administration is directly attacking the root causes of international terrorism: poverty and oppressive, medieval governments that breed fear and hatred.
Critics are right when they say we can never kill all the terrorists. What we need to do is make the terrorists believe that there’s a better way to live life. With a decent life and hope for the future, suicide-bombing or fighting U.S. Marines doesn’t seem like such a good alternative. In the meantime, of course, we need to continue to kill terrorists, but Iraq is part of the bigger picture and al Qaida is only a symptom.
If North Korea were in the Middle East and Iraq were on a peninsula on the Pacific edge of Asia, we would have troops in North Korea today, not Iraq. Iraq was a threat to stability in the Middle East (and therefore the world), and its flaunting of the 1991 cease-fire agreements and U.N. resolutions made it a legitimate target.
Rice made it clear that Iraq’s location, geographically and politically, made it more of a threat than North Korea. I think history will prove her correct.
MURDOC JERN
Wyoming[, MI]
The letter that I was responding to stated that North Korea presents a far greater threat to the US than Iraq because the former may possess nuclear weapons and the missiles to hit the continental US with them. I must point out that capability doesn’t equal threat. If it did, Russia, Ukraine, Great Britain, France, and others would all be on our list, as well.
Also, everyone seems to accept as fact that DPRK has nukes today. I personally agree that they probably do. But when I’ve pointed out that we don’t really KNOW that they’ve got them, I get pooh-poohed as naive. Of course they’ve got them, I’m told. It’s obvious.
It also seemed obvious (no matter what Hans Blix and others tell us today) that Iraq had WMDs in March of 2003. I’m just pointing out that there are known unknowns.
What if we invade, for one reason or another, North Korea? And it turns out that they don’t actually have nukes and their program isn’t nearly as far along as we think or they claim? Would the same people who today deride Bush for invading Iraq (which obviously doesn’t have WMDs) and not invading the DPRK (which obviously does) ridicule Bush for invading on false pretenses? I imagine we all know the answer to that question.
Jeff Gordon was answering questions during the pre-race show for today’s Nextel Cup Food City 500 NASCAR race. They were shooting him a series of either/or choices.
Pamela Anderson or Jennifer Lopez? Neither.
John Elway or Joe Montana? Joe Montana.
There are so many funny things that could be said about this that I’m not even going to bother.
MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Insurgents have fired two rocket-propelled grenades at a U.S. military vehicle in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, setting it on fire, witnesses have said.More blasts shook the wheeled Stryker armoured vehicle, apparently as its ammunition exploded. There was no immediate word on casualties in the attack in the west of the city.
A passer-by, Mahmoud Ibrahim, 40, said he had seen three attackers in a car fire an RPG at the Stryker as it went down a side street in a western district of Mosul on Sunday. Another RPG was fired at the U.S. vehicle moments later.
“I saw the Stryker burning,” he said. “I saw nobody getting out of the vehicle.”
U.S. troops in other Strykers sealed off the area.
In another attack, insurgents fired two rocket-propelled grenades at a U.S. Stryker military vehicle on patrol in a western district, setting it on fire, witnesses said.More blasts shook the Stryker, as its fuel tanks and ammunition exploded, but a U.S. military spokesman said there were no casualties. Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Piek of Task Force Olympia said the commander and driver of the vehicle had jumped out. Other soldiers in the unit were patrolling on foot.
UPDATE: Pics of the burning Stryker are up on Yahoo!:
(via Stryker Brigade News)
It was an RPG hit from close range. We’ll have to see if it went through the slat armor cage or not.
UPDATE 2: The pic makes it look like the RPG must have been fired from the direct front or back of the Stryker. Unless maybe it was hit in the side as it went through that intersection (if that is one – it’s hard to tell from these pics) behind it and rolled through to a stop beside that building.
Also, those appear to be fire extinguishers in sitting on the ground in front of it. They must have tried to fight the fire at first.
Richard Clarke said on Meet the Press that he thinks his emails would have been protected under some privacy law. He’s such a victim.
Did he really think that, though? Has he been paying attention to anything? He’s not a dumb person, despite some appearances to the contrary, so I guess this statement will just have to be chalked up to more grandstanding on his part.
Now he’s showing copies of a report he wrote. I’m sorry. He really looks like he’s on QVC selling, well, books or something.
Now Russert is holding up Clarke’s book and tossing Clarke softballs. The little logo in the corner says Meet the Press. Watching this show makes me wonder why anyone complains about FoxNews’ supposed “bias.”
He’s playing the martyr part to the hilt. He claims he’s the target of character assassination. I believe that he’s the target of credibility assassination, and from what I’ve seen the charges hold at least some water.
He mentions the contents of his book several times. He quotes a few snippets of his writing. He says “As I described in the book…” several times. This looks more like an appearance on Letterman to promote a book than an appearance on a weekly news show to discuss matters of national security.
And NBC is playing along. I guess it’s more like Leno than Letterman.
I started watching Meet the Press to have a counterpunch to FoxNews Sunday. Given other experiences over the past couple of months, I think it’s time to deep six Meet the Press and try another network. Suggestions?
UPDATE: This post isn’t addressing the questions raised either by or about Clarke. I’m only commenting on Meet the Press forum.
Sorry. It won’t work. Sure, we’re currently using divisions of mechanized infantry, Marines, Rangers, Special Forces, submarine-launched cruise missiles, and Airborne forces. The strength of this combined force seems appropriate. But to throw professional ice hockey players into the mix would smack of overkill, no?
Why don’t we just carpet bomb central Iraq instead? I mean, dropping Todd Bertuzzi, Claude Lemieux, and Willie Plett into Iraq would completely upset the fragile balance currently being established. Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and even Iran would all be overwhelmed by millions of refugees within days. US military forces would be called on to provide protection, but we’re already stretched so thin.
And then in two years we’ll all be hearing about how the Bush administration ignored the high-sticking threat and Richard Clarke’s dire warnings of international cross-checking. Spare us, please!
Soldiers in Iraq Buy Their Own Body Armor
Yahoo! News has an AP story about families of deployed or deploying soldiers continuing to buy body armor.
First off, I’m still pissed about the whole body armor SNAFU. There is no excuse for a shortage of body armor. None. Whatsoever.
Second off, why haven’t heads rolled over this one? Well, besides the troops that died but might have lived if they had been issued armor, I mean. (In all fairness, does anyone really have any numbers on that? I mean, are there fifty deaths that can be attributed to the lack of armor? A hundred? Ten? Does anyone know?)
But the headline is a little misleading, at the same time. If you will read the article, the soldiers and families are buying armor despite assurances from the Army that all troops will be issued proper armor upon arrival. Now, of course that’s what the Army is going to say. But are there still servicemen in Iraq without it? Is there really still a shortage? The story doesn’t even address that issue.
I’m very skeptical that the big hand-off from returning soldiers to arriving soldiers is going to work as advertised, but at the same time I wish we wouldn’t see headlines like this without any indication of the actual situation.
The type of headlines I’d like to see all involve the heads rolling. Multiple heads. Rolling down the steps from the Pentagon’s front door. (via Across the River)
On Misrepresenting the Role of Iraq in Bush’s War on Terror Strategy
Darren Kaplan has an excellent post on how so many people are missing the point of the Iraq campaign in the Global War on Terror, referred to on MO as the Fourth World War.
Of course, Bush didn’t attack Iraq merely because it was a rogue and failed state which may have been cooperating with al Qaeda (though that was a legitimate fear). Rather, Bush attacked Iraq in order to attempt to bring a functioning democracy to the Arab world. It is precisely because of the fact that the global jihadist movement (which includes al Qaeda) is a “transnational network of terrorists . . . with multiple independent franchises” which “thrives on an Islamist ideology” that you have to offer up an alternative ideology that will empower the Arab world and point the way to forming a successful Arab society.
I’ve actually got a letter to the editor of my local newspaper on this exact subject, and I received a call to verify that I sent it. If it sees print, I’ll post it here. In the meantime, go check Kaplan’s post.
For the record, I DO think that the Iraqi campaign drew forces from the al Qaeda hunt. Remember when, after Saddam was bagged, Task Force 121 moved from Iraq to Afghanistan? That means that resources that might have been used against Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were instead used in Iraq. Fair enough.
However, I believe that it was worth it. Establishing a democracy-based government in Iraq is a direct attack on the root causes of international terrorism. Of course we cannot stamp out every single last terrorist, and of course our actions will drive some to hate or even attack the United States. But in the long run, if the masses of Islam see that they can live better lives peacefully than they can at war, they will choose to do so, and they will stop supporting the fringe groups that promote hatred and violence. The attack on al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan was a short-term fix to an immediate threat. The attack on Baathist Iraq was a medium-term fix to a potential threat. The reconstruction of Iraq is the first step of a long-term fix to the frame of mind that makes the threats likely.
And, while everyone’s attention was on Iraq and everyone was screaming about how we weren’t focusing on the real problem, a lot of folks missed a lot of what’s been going on across the globe. In places like Indonesia and Africa. So the attention pulled from the al Qaeda front by the Iraq campaign may have some payoffs anyway.
I expect, though, that if/when a lot of what’s been going on outside of Iraq begins to come to light, the same people crying that we’re to obsessed with Iraq to fight al Qaeda are going to be crying that we doing too much in Africa.
There’s no pleasing some people. You know who they are.
The US Marines took over the city of Fallujah from the 82nd Airborne this week. Despite immense respect for the Army soldiers doing their duty in Iraq and across the globe, I’ve got to think that the USMC’s training, mind-set, and less-restrictive red tape has got to give them an advantage, even over the Airborne. These Marines took part in the drive on Baghdad last year, have been home to rest and refit, have undergone training incorporating lessons from last spring’s invasion and the months of occupation, and are now back.
The 1st Marine Expeditionary Force issued a statement saying it was “conducting offensive operations … to foster a secure and stable environment for the people.” It went on to say that “some have chosen to fight. Having elected their fate, they are being engaged and destroyed.”
Fallujah has been a thorn in our side, and a hotbed of anti-freedom activity. I expect that the citizens of the area will remain radical for years to come, and that there will be danger there long after the rest of Iraq has settled down.
I also expect that the Marines are going to be killing a fair number of insurgents and terrorists.
UPDATE: Intel Dump has a great post on the Fallujah situation, especially how the “kinder, gentler” approach doesn’t work so well when they’re shooting at you. Go read.
Also, ACE, thinks I’m out of line when I think the Marines might be better than the 82nd. Man for man, I doubt there’s a whole lot of difference. The reason I tend to think the Marines might have an edge is due to force size and structure. The Airborne is based upon the same expeditionary mind-set, and it receives more training than typical Army infantry. But it’s still tied to the same Army bureaucracy. Plus, these Marines are Iraq veterans back after a break, so once they get back in the groove I expect to see a lot of good things. As I will when this brigade of the 82nd returns to Iraq, which they certainly will at some point if the insurgency doesn’t let up.
