Archive for December, 2004

Last Saturday on the way to do some book shopping, I observed aloud to my wife that the biggest problem with media coverage of the war is the fact that most people in the media don’t seem to really understand the first thing about the military or military history.

And for those that do know anything about military history, either first-hand or through classroom instruction, 95% of that knowledge is based upon the Vietnam war.

Which is why everything looks the Tet Offensive all over again.

(To be fair, there ARE some similarities. I’m not dismissing them. But it’s not the tactics and the military significance of the Tet Offensive that enthralls most reporters. It’s the effect upon the American public and world opinion. That’s what I’m talking about here.)

I’ll dismiss for the moment those reporters and editors that are truly un-American. They cannot be saved. But I really do expect more from the majority of journalists, even those that personally oppose the war or distrust the military.

This is from April. Early April. Of 2003.

And it’s just been getting worse.

Just like every journalism student is raised on a steady diet of ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN, nearly everyone who covers the military has probably been educated with a stream of Pentagon Papers, My Lai, and Iran Contra. That’s what so many in the media seem to be on the hunt for. Those are all important stories, and they all deserve to be covered.

But there’s more to it than that. That’s a tiny slice of what the military is all about.

Today on Hugh Hewitt:

…journalists, far more than generals, fight the last war. Actually, American journalists seem only to fight Vietnam over and over again –perhaps because it was in Vietnam that journalists first became part of the story as opposed to mere sideline scribblers. The effort to turn Iraq into Vietnam has been underway on the left side of MSM (which is 90%+ of MSM) for some time, and isn’t going to end soon.

If someone on FoxNews jumped up, and began a non-stop recital of all things good in Iraq with the Star Spangled Banner playing in the background, you’d dismiss it. So would I. Every single item on the list might be completely true, but you and I would see it for what it is: propaganda. The fact of the matter wouldn’t change the method of its use or the end being pursued. For what it’s worth, I think that too many reports on FoxNews or in the Washington Times are like this already. And I factor that in when digesting them.

But why is it that doom and gloom reports on CNN or in the New York Times aren’t treated with the same skepticism?

As I wrote last week (the post is actually what started that particular conversation with my wife, in fact), can you imagine what the media would have had to say about the beginning of the Ardennes Counter-offensive in 1944 if coverage then was like coverage now?

As someone with more than a passing knowledge about the military and military history, I see a constant stream of errors and bad reporting. Even from those who support the troops and what they’re doing. Sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees. And sometimes you don’t even understand what trees are. I also see a lot of breathless reporting of rumor, misinformation, and speculation, which is even more rampant in military affairs than it is in the rest of the world. I imagine that you do, too.

It’s what we’re stuck with, so we need to be on guard against it. The first step is recognizing the problem.

UPDATE: And another thing! 2Slick covers AP’s coverage of the Mosul attacks. Worth a look.

TWO DIFFERENT DECEMBER 21STS/22NDS

Usually I leave the WW1 and WW2 analogies to me. But Expat Yank has a good one, too. Check it out if you haven’t already.

And if you’re REALLY in the holiday spirit, why not watch episode 6 of BAND OF BROTHERS? Outside. Without a jacket. Or boots.

You know, to get “into” it. (Works especially well in the northern states.)

UN plan for Darfur ‘not working’

BBC:

The UN Security Council warned on Tuesday that it would consider a “full range of options” if the deteriorating security situation continues.

There are two existing UN resolutions threatening possible sanctions against the Sudanese authorities.

A “full range of options”. Hmm. Probably something along the lines of “Straighten up or we’ll draft a THIRD resolution that threatens possible sanctions”.

The old “three strikes and we’ll threaten to call you very close to ‘out’” strategy. Kofi’s a clever old devil, isn’t he. Don’t mess with him. He’s all over this.

“A real reassessment” needs to be carried out by the UN and the Security Council “because quite frankly our approach is not working,” said Mr Annan.

But he rejected US representative Steve Holliday’s suggestion that he make another trip to the region.

“These kinds of decisions and actions have to be decided here and taken here, and so, whilst a trip to the region may some time be necessary, the reassessment is urgent,” he said.

Decisions decided in New York? Yes. Actions taken, though? What is Kofi going to do in New York that helps one single person in the Sudan?

I am basically begging the UN to prove its critics wrong. Again. Still.

Via Instapundit.

At least all the Sudan-realted announcements out of Sudan aren’t doom and gloom: Annan: Sudan Still Free of U.S. Imperialism.

Democrats: Gregoire wins by 8 votes

The Dems in the state of Washington announced that Christine Gregoire won the second recont by 8 votes. And that’s without even bothering to include the 700+ “found” ballots in King County.

As I wrote earlier, things weren’t looking good for Dino Rossi according to our spreadsheet. The sheet, which still doesn’t include the King County results as they’re not yet official, projects Gregoire to win by 83:

(Click for better look)

As you can see, if the extra ballots were included, she’s projected to win by even more.

The fact(?) that she won by 8 instead of 83 means that Dino Rossi actually did better in King County than the previous manchine re-count said.

Of course, as I noted, the Democrats will now think the re-counting needs to stop.

It now appears that it may very well have been a suicide bomber, not a rocket or mortar attack, that did the most damage during the recent mess-tent assault in Mosul.

Regardless of that, mortars were definitely used to shell the hospital where wounded were taken immediately after the attack.

These are Michael Moore’s Minutemen.

Also, much is being made of a WaPo article entitled Precision of Base Attack Worries Military Experts. This is the quote everyone’s running:

The major difference between the latest attack and the earlier incidents is that it was an attack on a U.S. base, rather than on troops in transit in vulnerable aircraft. That difference appears to reflect both the persistence of the insurgency and its growing sophistication, as experts noted that it seemed to be based on precise intelligence.

This would give one the impression that an attack on a US base is something new. It isn’t. Of course, most Americans will not remember the long list of rocket and mortar attacks on US bases over the past year and half, but they’ve been there. I’m not saying that anyone is wrong to be troubled by this attack, but it isn’t really anything new. It’s just the level of success the attackers achieved that’s different than any of the hundreds or thousands of similar attacks since the insurgency began hitting its stride in late 2003.

As for the “precise intelligence”, that is indeed a problem. But again, it’s nothing new. We know that there are traitors among the Iraqi military, police, and especially among the Iraqis that work for our military. This spectacular success probably won’t be the last of its type, but also keep in mind that after that CH-47 Chinook was shot down in late 2003 we heard all about how the hundreds of unaccounted-for man-portable surface to air missiles were going to wreck havoc with our operations.

Though there have been few attempts to bring down US planes and helicopters, not all of them unsuccessful, nothing approaching the predicted damage has occurred to date.

Also:

A private-sector security expert who recently left Baghdad after more than a year there agreed, noting that the United States originally put an entire division in the Mosul area, the 101st Airborne, but replaced it earlier this year with a force about half that size, only to see insurgent attacks increase. “We have replaced a division with a brigade and think we can offer the same amount of security,” he said, insisting on anonymity because his opinions are so at odds with the official U.S. government view.

The brigade which replaced the 101st Division, as MO readers will already know, was the first Stryker Brigade. In addition to the brigade, whose wheeled Stryker vehicles and advanced comm gear allowed a brigade of Strykers to cover more ground effectively than a brigade of footsore air assault soldiers, significant Iraqi forces were added to the mix.

And I’m a little confused. Whenever anyone criticizes the Strykers, they like to point out that Mosul is a relatively calm area and that’s why the Strykers were sent there. But now we’re hearing that it’s been pretty bad because there aren’t enough troops.

Which is it?

The article also notes that the month leading up to the Iraqi elections at the end of January is likely to be bad. This I happen to agree with 100%. I wrote two and a half weeks ago (in an article about fighting in Mosul, incidentally):

I expect that December will be a slightly quieter month, casualty-wise, as the insurgents marshal their forces, regroup after what had to be a significant setback at Fallujah, and finalize their plans to turn January into month of hell. The insurgents will focus on hitting softer targets like police stations and daycare centers for a few weeks, then make a major push in the weeks leading up the elections at the end of next month.

We need to weather the storm. Iraqis need to hunker down and demonstrate that they are determined to forge ahead with democracy despite violent opposition. To back down now would signal that violence is indeed the answer to the nagging problem of 21st-Century reality versus 11th-Century thinking. To delay the elections, even for six months, would set back the bigger picture at least a year or two.

The month preceding the elections are going to be filled with bloody carnage, whether it’s next month, next summer, or next year.

I could have added mess tents and hospitals to “police stations and daycare centers”, I guess.

In that post, I noted that our forces were noticing a change in their attackers. More of them seemed to be from outside the Mosul region or not from Iraq at all, and they seemed better-trained. I supposed that maybe the cream of the insurgent crop had escaped Fallujah before we attacked it in mid-November, and my supposition still stands.

(Expect to hear soon that the Tet Offensive has begun again, by the way. Remember that it just might be the Ardennes Offensive instead, though.)

Minutemen, indeed.

HAITI: Not Enough Peacekeepers (12/22/04 entry)

Strategy Page:

UN peacekeepers have control of most of the capital, but still have to contend with groups of armed Aristide supporters. In most of the rest of the country, it’s groups of armed former soldiers that are the major problem. The Haitian police are outnumbered and intimidated by the Aristide and former soldier gangs. The 6,000 UN peacekeepers are not sufficient to be everywhere they are needed.

Although not directly related to this issue, I think the US military needs to be increased in size by at least a couple of combat divisions. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.

We cut the size of military drastically in the 1990s to help reach balanced budgets and enjoy the “Peace Dividend”. Since the illusions of peace in the decade were shattered, why hasn’t the illusion of the current military being the right size also been cast aside?

For all the scare talk about the return of the military draft and criticizing Bush for not having enough troops in Iraq, has any lawmaker put forward a serious proposal to increase the size of the US military?

Remember: You go to war with the Army the Congress lets you have, not the Army you want.

Block I Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC): How to build one in your basement

This would apparently allow you to navigate your basement to the moon and back if you were able to get your basement up to escape velocity.

I wish I was skilled enough to do something like this. Why?

Who knows? But I’ve got a basement, so I’m half-way there. Right?

The site consists of some very large .pdf files. It appears that we’ll have to wait until the Instalanche settles at bit before we can take a look. (via Instapundit)

I’ll post more later if I can get through.

Army looks to give Stryker a facelift

Although short on details, this Stars & Stripes article notes that the Army is working to make improvements to the Stryker LAV based upon the experience gained in Iraq over the past year.

Soldiers have suggested small improvements that have already been made, such as new seat belts and interior hand-holds.

But there are larger issues still at stake, such as shaving the vehicle’s weight, its potential to rollover and trap soldiers, and whether the current “cage” armor is effective, critics say.

Also, as noted on MO recently, lessons in tactics have already been worked into the training of the 172nd Brigade in Alaska, which will deploy to Iraq next August.

Between improved training that more accurately reflects the real operating environment and the small, easy fixes and improvements, the 172nd should have a leg up by the time it arrives in the Sandbox.

Commanders in Iraq also realized that the original seat belts were not long enough to accommodate a soldier wearing the new individual body armor and other bulky items on his person.

With the seat belts uncomfortably tight, soldiers simply were not strapping in while the vehicle was moving, commanders said, increasing the danger during collisions, explosions or rollovers.

With new seat belts, the problem has been solved, Fuller said.

As far as larger issues like vehicle weight and the like, however, fixes may be much harder to implement, if they’re even possible.

The biggest valid criticism of the Stryker has long been the weight of the vehicle. The Stryker simply is too heavy to meet the C-130 deployment specification spelled out in the original requirements. Although this doesn’t really affect the current use of the vehicle and more often than not won’t be an issue since they will be deployed via sealift, if the time comes that we need them deployed immediately we might not be able to. This is a long-term problem and needs to be addressed, either with a vastly improved version of the vehicle or with a new vehicle.

As for the “cage” slat armor, despite the added weight, it has been an unqualified success.

Lt. Col. Gordie Flowers, commander of 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, said during his year in Iraq, more than 50 percent of his Strykers were hit with rocket propelled grenades and IEDs, “the No. 1 and No. 2 weapons used against us,” with no resulting fatalities.

I’m not sure that this is correct, as Michael Burbank was killed while standing in a hatch when his vehicle was hit by a bomb-loaded pick-up truck kamikaze. I guess it depends upon how you define “IED”. As for RPG attacks, the Stryker has taken dozens (hundreds? thousands?) and shrugged them off except for one in March and another during the August 4th battle in Mosul. In both cases the vehicle was lost but the crew survived.

I think the Stryker program is coming along rather nicely.

Also: I received a comment about the Stryker that was flipped by an IED in October claiming that it wasn’t flipped and that a soldier died in the attack. I’m looking into this, though it’s taking longer to sift through all the internet stuff out there than I really have time for. If anyone has any good info that would help straighten this out THAT’S OKAY TO RELEASE, pass it on.

I haven’t had a lot of time to post, and a lot of good stuff has been piling up. So here’s a shortest-day-of-the-year catch-up effort:

Clever ad placement on the part of MS:

(Click for better look)

FN SCAR-L/SOFCAR-L Assault Rifle Update Pic: Large Image
MO readers have wondered what this beast looks like. Defense Review (via ACE) bring it on.

Anthrax Vaccine
Troubling if true, though I don’t claim to really understand it all that well. Not sure what to think.

The how and why of action during war
Patton notes a good post at Anticipatory Retaliation on what’s going on when men and armies clash. I think a great deal of the bad coverage of the war we see is the direct result of most journalists and editors not “getting” the military. (I’m not saying this post is the last word. I’m saying it discusses the issues in a rational manner.)

The Heart of America
A while back my family sent some notebooks, pencils, toothbrushes, toys, and stuffed animals to Toys for Iraq. Although I know that the bear we sent probably wasn’t the bear in this story, it MIGHT HAVE been. I’ve been meaning to send more. It will now happen sooner rather than later. You must go read this if you haven’t already.

Street Fighting in Baghdad Suburbs
The title says it all.

We Are The ’80′s!: Live Aid then, and now
I just recently made the point (for about the hundredth time) that Live Aid was nice and all, but the problem wasn’t a famine. It was a tyranny. Why not a concert to raise money to fight tyranny? (via Instapundit)

There are a few more, but I seem to have misplaced the links. Since I can’t find them I’ll just post this now and add the others later if I can.

I noticed this in a story about why someone walked out of ALEXANDER:

Maybe my first clue that it wasn’t meant to be came when, though my husband had clearly specified “two for ‘Alexander,’ ” the ticket-seller sold us two tickets for “Blade: Trinity.” (We only noticed when we were wandering aimlessly around the multiplex, wondering why the theater number on our ticket didn’t match up with any of the theaters marked “Alexander.”)

This may have been a simple mistake or database error on the part of the movie theater. Or it may have been an intentional conspiracy.

There are two things that immediately jumped to mind when I read this:

1. Someone wants to raise numbers for BLADE: TRINITY, or
2. The theater’s cost per ticket for BLADE: TRINITY is less than that for ALEXANDER

If other people bought tickets for something besides ALEXANDER and received tickets for BLADE, the first option is in play. Someone somewhere is trying to manipulate the gross for BLADE upward in order to sell more tickets in the future by giving the impression that everyone is going to see it.

If, on the other hand, other people bought tickets for ALEXANDER and received tickets for something other than ALEXANDER (but also for something other than BLADE in some cases) we can figure the second option might be it. The studio/distributor of ALEXANDER may be charging a higher royalty (not sure what the correct term is) on each ticket sold, giving theater owners a reason to sell tickets to something else instead. This was reportedly a problem during the release of STAR WARS: EPISODE I, when George Lucas charged the rate he would have charged for the original films if the technology just would have been available back then.

A problem is that there can’t be too many people out there who actually intended to buy tickets for ALEXANDER, meaning that proving theory number two might be difficult.

Thoughts?