"Spring Offensive? Never heard of her...."

Yesterday, a Taliban "official" claimed that they have fired their first shots in a vaunted spring offensive:

Four U.S. soldiers were killed when their vehicle struck a land mine in central Afghanistan on Saturday, the military said. It was unclear whether the mine was freshly laid or a leftover from the country's long wars.

...Gov. Mohammed Aman Hamini said the incident occurred in a desert area crisscrossed by rough tracks.

"It's an old mine. There's no traffic on the route they took, but the Russians used to use it because they were afraid of the main road," Hamini said, referring to the Soviet troops that occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s.

However, Mullah Hakim Latifi, who claims to speak for the Taliban, said its fighters detonated the mine by remote control. "We've said again and again that we would resume our holy war in the spring," Latifi said from an undisclosed location.

Meanwhile, according to the March 26th entry at Strategypage, a significantly large number of Taliban have other ideas:

More Taliban are surrendering, and the government expects about a thousand to openly turn in their weapons and accept an amnesty. These surrenders also provide information on Taliban who are not surrendering. As a result of this, the government is turning more of its attention, and guns, to the drug gangs.

It looks as if Mullah Hakim Latifi was off playing "pin-the-burqa-on-the-jenny" when his compadres were passing out the memo to "end our misery of shivering in dank caves while getting plunked by the infidels like fat kids in dodgeball."

I guess anything could happend, but its highly likely that the Taliban's "spring offensive" will end up with all the other rhetorical Jihadi flourishes on the cutting room floor. See the other B-rate title that was all mouth and no action: "The Mother of All Battles."

UPDATE: For vested interests that will be revealed at a later date, Anthony Perez-Miller points me to a story that says that the four soldiers killed in the mine explosion were from the Indiana National Guard.

The investigation has found that the the mine that exploded was almost certainly left over during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Coalition patrols never used that road and would thus have never been mined.

Again, as with every soldier who is harmed in this fight, it is hard to find any words to convey the graditude that I have for their sacrifice, regardless of whether it happens because of an accident or by enemy fire.

Yet, the good news, as was the point of this post, shows that the Taliban are giving up and their Islamic jihad talk is just as hollow as it ever was.

Disease and the Army

Today Glenn Reynolds links and comments on an interesting article about Afhgan army recruits:

GOOD NEWS / BAD NEWS FOR THE AFGHAN ARMY:

The recruiting for the new Afghan army is going well, except for the fact that so many of the eager recruits have to be rejected for health reasons. Apparently no one realized how poor the health of the average Afghan is. Most recruits, and most young Afghans, are

- Slightly malnourished, often suffering from minor vitamin deficiencies

- Come from rural areas where they were not exposed to many communicable diseases, and have not had any immunizations.

- Have never had a physical, dental, or eye exam.

In other words, it's like the U.S. Army in 1898.

Actually, not to nitpick, but its a lot like the U.S. Army in 1861. During the Civil War, many recruits came from rural areas and were mixed up in divisions filled with other urban recruited regiments. Disease, not the bullet or cannon, was the number one killer in the Civil War. Both the Grey and Blue were so desperate for men, they often recruited those who were already in a "less-than-adequate" state, health-wise. Union recruits from the rurual, rough-and-tough West often frowned upon their urban bretheran that shed their bankers' suits for their Army blues. Yet, it was the urban soldiers who were immune to many of the diseases to which many of these rural roughnecks had never been exposed and were far less likely to contract many of the killer diseases that spread through the ranks.

The Civil War was fought at the end of the "Medical Middle Ages," and the main diseases contracted were dysentary, diarreha, typhoid fever, malaria, pneumonia and tuberculosis. In both the Union and Confederate armies, doctors were few and severly undertrained.

My family has the Civil War discharge papers for my great grandfather and a few years ago, my uncle came up with the idea to try and pull his military records from the National Archives in Washington D.C. Legend in the family understood that my great grandfather fought in a regiment from Minnesota that was part of the Mississipi campaign that attacked Vicksburg. There were over 10,000 Union causualties in that battle.

As we plowed through his records, we found that at somepoint in the campaign, my great grandfather contracted pneumonia and was rerouted from Vicksburg to an infirmary regiment in Washington D.C. Further records showed that he pulled a pension from the U.S. government for the rest of his life due to permanent respitory damage. He was just one of large-majority of Civil War soldiers that ended up with some kind of life-threatening bug. However, permanent damage not-withstanding, it looks as if he was one of the lucky ones.

CORRECTION: My counting and classification skills were severely negligent--in this post it wasn't my great grandfather, but my great-great grandfather who was the Civil War veteran. Also, in the comments, instead of my great uncle, it would be my great-great-great uncle.

Middle East - Short-Term Future

On March 15th, I wrote about the American-led execution of an "Endgame in Iraq". Further events in Iraq, and supplimenting events elsewhere in the Middle East, have demonstrated that once it was clear that democracy was actually strong enough to withstand the strongman, non-extremist Muslims would gain confidence and attempt to shake themselves free from their fundamentalist oppressors. Some, but not all, of these events listed from Iraq outward are:

• Iraqi rejection of al-Qaeda
• Iraqi insurgents (mostly ex-Saddamites) negotiating an end to their insurgency
• Highly publicized engagements of Iraqi Security forces defeating insurgents
• Angry Iraqis demonstrating against Jordan due to their refusal to reject a Jordanian newspapers positive spin on a Jordanian suicide bomber who killed 125 Iraqis
• Popular Lebanese movement gains strength in their effort to free themselves from Syrian occupation
• Pro-democracy demonstrations under the guise of a "soccer victory" against their theocratic oppressors in Iran
• Pro-democracy demonstrations in Bahrain
• Pro-democracy Yemini opposition leader freed from prison

Naturally, these events haven't gone unnoticed by pro-reform advocates. Both Anthony Perez-Miller and Marc Schulman posted analyses that prompted my thinking further about what the next stages in our battle against Islamic Fascism will look like. Anthony's post specificially dealt with the idea that, as moderate Muslims began to emerge from underneath their autocratic governments, the end of pan-Arabism, as the unifying glue holding Islamic Fascists together, will end. That is another discussion in-of-itself, and beyond the scope of this post, however the discussion around Middle Eastern geopolitics is clearly shifting towards, "What's going to happen next?"

Here is the comment that I posted to Anthony's site about the potential next phase in our fight against Islamic Fascism (I posted and abbreviated version at Marc's site as well):

...I may be taking a leap here, but my thoughts on this subject have been trying to anticipate what the next phase will look like. The scariest result of this crumbling is one where the Islamists and Fascists unite, like in Iraq, to wage a Middle East-wide, civil war against the pro-democracy, moderate Muslims. Let me just throw the following, mostly unsupported thoughts out there:

The likelihood of this scenario will mostly come down to logistics: the Islamists and Fascists will need a stronghold (ala Fallujah) from which they can supply, launch and coordinate their attacks. If this occurs on a regional scale, they will need a state, and not just a city, to do this. At this point, the [three] best candidates for a base of operations are Iran (most likely), Saudi Arabia (less likely) and Syria (even less likely). Syria is too weak at this point, and being surrounded by hostile countries, most notably one filled with some U.S.-supported, vengeful Iraqis, their regime would end rather quickly. The Saudi Arabian regime is too duplicitous—just as in Texas Hold’em, a civil war of this nature would force the supporting country to “go all in.” The Saudis don’t have that commitment even though they’ve been crapping on their front door step by supporting al-Qaeda for years.

Iran is a different story, especially if they obtain nuclear weapons. If Iran obtains nuclear weapons, Iran can seal its borders and threaten nuclear retaliation against any invasion. This would require the United States to put non-nuclear allies under its nuclear umbrella (Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Turkey and hopefully Lebanon). Being that the pro-democracy forces will be under-prepared during this stage, the main military lifting would have to be done by the United States, supported by Australia and probably Britain.

I believe the pro-democracy, moderate Muslims, with support from the U.S. led-Coalition, would ultimately prevail, however, will a few cities in the region go up in a fireball before it’s over (most likely ones holding a large number of U.S. troops)?

Just like Michael Leeden, I am convinced that ultimate nightmare situation will come to fruition if Iran obtains nukes. Is there any scenario where the U.S. could actually pre-empt with nukes? If this happens, just imagine the screaming that would ensue from the American and Euro leftists. Do we allow millions to die to avoid a political collapse at home? (Stike in passage as I do not believe their is any scenario under which the United States would pre-empt with nukes)

Anyway, these are just some random, disjointed thoughts. I’d like to develop this further and wonder where your thinking is taking you.

My thoughts on the next stage of war is essentially broken into three subsets: (1) the possibility of Iran as an Islamic Fundamentalist stronghold, (2) future actions based on lessons learned in the Iraqi theatre, and (3) the effect of an Iranian wildcard (nuclear weapons).

The possibility of an Islamic Fascist redoubt to Iran is very much real. Since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Iran has proudly positioned itself as an enemy of the Great Satan, the United States, and has pursued political policies to protect themselves against American threats to its rule. Iran has boldly supported armed insurrections against American interests, most notably the 1983 Hezbollah attacks that killed 241 Marines in Beirut and their support for the insurgency against the Coalition's efforts in Iraq. Additionally, many al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders fled to safety in Iran as Afghanistan was overrun by the American-led Coalition. If the Islamic Fascists need to flee Iraq and/or Syria, Iran provides the best protection against American intervention, and is also incentivized to do so. I will discuss these incentives only after I provide the necessary context provided by the war in Iraq.

The Iraqi theatre has provided a long, hard lesson into the nature of the relationship between operational warfare and the political mechanisms needed for success against Islamic Fascism. The American-led Coalition through, in my opinion, a brilliantly devised and executed invasion plan, stormed into Iraq and were tactically in control of Iraq within three weeks. In what the Belmont Club titled, War Plan Orange, the remaining Baathist holdouts (tens of thousands of them) retreated, regrouped and, using their cached resources, began their insurrection with the hopes of politically defeating the occupying forces in their home country. The Baathists allied themselves with foreign Islamic Fascists, using them to do the dirty work of suicide bombing, engaging Coalition troops and terrorizing Iraqis sympathetic to building democratic government. This was a natural alliance as the Baathists, out of self-survival, wanted control of Iraq back, while the foreign jihadis got the opportunity to battle the infidels of Fundamentalist Islam.

Looking back since the beginning of the occupation, the insurgency never deeply threatened the the Coalition's hold on Iraq. Coalition forces did pay a price with over 1,500 soldiers losing their lives, however from a tactical standpoint, the insurgency never gained any ground. Once the most tenuous issue was settled, the re-election of George W. Bush, the Coalition resumed offensive operations by routing the insurgent stronghold in Fallujah. Each strategic time table that was set in Iraq was acheived--the initial handover to the Iraqi Interim Government and the Iraqi elections. The strategic plan of empowering Iraqis to take control of their country through taking control of their security by rebuilding and creating an American trained Iraqi security force, and by taking political control through a democratically elected government, has gained momentum that the insurgents have not been able to reverse. Although many difficulties can emerge, the insurgents are extremely limited in their ability to seize the initiative back from the United States. They cannot do this, because they would first have to seize the initiative back from the Iraqi people. They have tried this by bombing and killing these Iraqis, but instead of seizing the initiative, it has further insensed Iraqis and made them more determined to see democracy succeed.

In the links listed above, the insurgency is showing signs of a strategic defeat. Insurgent groups recognized their defeat with the Iraqi election and are negotiating a settlement that would allow them to disarm and enter the political process. However, in same situation where the Islamic Fascists went underground as the Coalition took control in Iraq, the large number of very powerful, bloodthirsty terrorist leaders will again need to find a way to escape and fight for their survival. Just like cockroaches scurrying for cover when the light is turned on, these murderous thugs are going to look for a place that will shelter them from extinction. Who would allow these cockroaches to seek refuge?

Iran could be the place to provide the shadows. Regional hatreds of Persian versus Arab do not exactly mend themselves overnight, however, the Iranian mullahs have been hiring Arabs as thugs to suppress their opposition's demonstrations for years. Back in the early-to-mid 90's, there were a number of Iranian professors that tried to argue that Islam and democracy could be a perfect complement. Schrewdly, instead of an all out suppression by the police, the mullahs hired a contigency of largely Arab Hezbollah to sit in on the lectures and cause disturbances. Usually these lectures would end in violence.

Iran's population is growing hostile to the government. Over 65% of their population is under the age of 25; too young to have experience the Islamic revolution in 1979. For years, the younger populace has thristed for an end to theocratic rule in Iran. In 1997, Iran held their most open and free elections since 1979, and the world caught wind of their desire for change as a reformist-minded cleric, Mohammed Khatami, was elected president in a landslide. His rule has been quite dissappointing for reformers, due partly to the fact that the president really has no power over the ruling mullahs, however, it gave the first widespread indication that the majority of Iranians long for a moderate, more secular government.

In seeking to avoid the embarrassment they experience in 1997, the mullahs ordered crackdowns on demonstrations against the government. A great deal of the secret police orchestrating the crackdown were Arabs hired by the government. The mullah's desire to supress reform culminated last year when Iran banned over 1000 reformist candidates from election ballots. A large part of the electorate protested this decision by boycotting the elections. Even though Iran has been very successful in suppressing demonstrations or resistance movements, their government isn't exactly standing on firm ground.

Iran needs to find a way to control its restless population. Will the Iranians make the same mistake the Baathists in Iraq made? Will they call on the Islamofascists to terrorize and kill their opposition? Will they engage in a Saddam-style rule by terror to keep its population in check?

Well, it may happen if they can successfully build a fully functioning nuclear bomb. In Iraq, the Iraqi people were protected by predominantly American forces who repeatedly fought back, and won, against these terrorist. America was willing to put the full weight of their military behind the electoral process, thus allowing the elections to succeed. I'm not advocating the invasion of Iran, but that option becomes very limited if they obtain nuclear weapons. Not only are nuclear weapons a nightmare scenario for our allies in the region, not to mention our 150,000 troops in theatre, but it is also an umbrella that can shield any outsiders from interfering with the suppression of their people.

There is good news in this. If Iran was to gain nukes, they would, for the most part, be diplomatically isolated. The only countries that Iran could count on in this situation would be Syria, Russia and China. Syria is neutralized in dealing with their own survival, so Russia and China are their only real options.

In short, it seems as if the entire region's hopes may rest squarely on the shoulders of the resistance movement. So far they have been very passionate and ideologically driven, but they have been far from organized and beaten into submission rather easily.

Happy Easter

Back when I was in college, I had swallowed a strong dose of Christian Fundamentalism that left me with the metaphysical equivalent an upset stomach. I wrestled over-and-over with the grand question of God and how to apply the supposed "truth" that I was hearing from evangelicals and the pulpit day-in and day-out. Like a samurai's sword, the constant obsession with saving the infidel's soul from hell cleanly divided the world into two parts--the saved and the unsaved. I felt confident that the Bible, instead of being an extremely powerful and mysterious book of history, was theologically reduced to the equivalent of a 10-step, one-page pamphlet starting with saving your soul all the way down to living a harmonious and successful life with Jesus.

This focus alienated me as I had difficulty in recognizing the enigma of man and his role in the universe. How man being such a nobel and special creature capable of such greatness, is also so utterly cruel and ruthless. When I went looking for answers to these questions, bumpersticker, knee-jerk responses like, "You just need to have faith," "God told me that it was true," "The Devil is trying to influence you" and "I didn't have any meaning in my life until I met Jesus," would often be repeated. The trivality of such complex questions were repeated with the frequency and deepness of thought of an explitive laden sailor trying to find a suitable adjective. Needless to say, once I was able to overcome the guilt involved, it didn't take long for me to walk out on this world.

My search did not end there. Through a long and horribly drawn out process, I continued to pursue these questions and come to an understanding of Orthodox Christianity that was much different from the simplistic, watered down, thoughtless, yet zealous and forceful Fundamentalist view. If you want to know what this looks like, read today's post by Wretchard at "The Belmont Club". I would like to emphasize when he says:

Both Alyosha, Sensing and Tillich assert that only solution to this conundrum is a meta-answer: guilt will be met with forgiveness; the universe is broken, but it will be swept away. We shall die but we will be raised up again. The lion will lie down beside the Lamb, and a little Child will lead them.

...Many think this is dysfunctional fantasy, but in practice it is not. Live and be not afraid.

At my moment of epiphany, like the character Lt. Ronald Spiers in "Band of Brothers," who said, "We're all scared. You hid in that ditch because you think there's still hope. But Blithe, the only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead. And the sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to function as a soldier is supposed to function," I realized that I was already dead. This life will never deliver me, or anyone else, appropriate justice other than to perish. My hope lies in the faith that I will be resurrected by the One who lived in time, space and history and promised my redemption by acknowledging the need to be rescued from my inevitable condition.

This is what I celebrate today and everyday in the hopes that I will be able to, as Wretchard says, "Live and be not afraid."

Good Stuff Coming

No really, I mean it. It has nothing to do with Andrew Sullivan or hitting on movie people. I actually have an essay on Iran's potential role in the next phase of the war against Islamic Fundamentalism. This post was inspired by Anthony Perez-Miller and Marc Schulman earlier this week. Please bare with me as I wrestle through this post. Hopefully I can post something tonight or, at the latest, tomorrow night.

In the meantime, Happy Easter to everyone. Don't get sick on any Peeps.

Sullivan's Back

Andrew Sullivan is at it again. I can hardly contain my laughter when one of the most mild-mannered bloggers takes him down a notch or two for quoting him out of context.

I've mentioned this before, but the reason I can't stand Sullivan is because he offers absolutely nothing to any argument beyond pure knee-jerk, reactionary hyperbole. Hyperbole never takes the complexities of a well-reasoned argument into account, and chooses instead to distill details through a myopic filter to fit a simple minded narrative. Sullivan is irrate with the religous right over gay marriage and has been dangerously close on a few occassions to comparing evangelical Christians to Islamic fundamentalists. I'm not exactly sympathetic to the evangelical community, however in my mind, evangelical Christians are to Islamic fundamentalists as puppies are to ravenous, rabid pit-bulls that have been teased with a stick. Regardless of my differences with evangelical theology, I, like Glenn, believe they are generally well-intentioned people who generally love this country and won't reduce themselves, as a movement, to the mass murder of innocent Americans if they don't get their way.

Sullivan schtick is getting so freaking old and he's getting moonbat, Oliver Willis crazy. Everytime I see him quoted somewhere, the same thought crosses my mind when I flip past Gallagher on TV, "Is there anyone out there that genuinely finds this guy intesting?"

UPDATE: In typical fashion, Ace has much funnier and biting thoughts on Andy "the Sky is Falling and the Religous Zealots Are Going to Sew My Ass Closed" Sullivan.

Good (Morning) Friday

I've lived in California for five years and, strangely, it has been the longest that I have stayed in one place. Yet sometimes, I have to be reminded that California isn't, well, normal. This morning I strolled into work (a quantitative, financial modeling, software company) and entered into a thunderstorm of activity. It seems as if the founder's son is shooting a film in our building. There are cameras, monitors, clothes, cables, old hipsters with earrings and cell-phones stuck in their ears, young fluff, demanding actors, a hyperactive director and a too-busy-for-anyone-else-but-those-with-the-cash producer. An interesting morning indeed.

Well, instead of working this morning, I'm going to try and seduce this hot, little make-up artist into going to Starbucks for a Cup O' Joe. Maybe I can turn her attention from these slackster misanthropes by dazzling her with a Hemmingway-esque wit and an Anthony Perez-Millerian intellect.

UPDATE: Seems like the only ones interested are Fernando the "wardrobe guy" and Sid "the donut guy."

MAYDAY, MAYDAY!

"Hey sailor, you lookin' for a good time?"

During the Aceh relief operations in January and February, the American aircraft carrier hosted many civilian aid workers on board. Most of the flight operations were with helicopters, leaving a lot of the flight deck free for other activities, like sunbathing for the civilian aid workers and off-duty sailors. But the captain soon had to ban such activities on the flight deck, as the nearly naked female sunbathers were providing a dangerous distraction to incoming pilots, and the ground crews moving around on deck. The sunbathers were banished to other parts of the ship that were less visible to incoming aircraft.

Places less visable...like the Captain's Quarters. Good thing this didn't occur on the CVN Charles De Gaulle, as I assume bunch of hairy guys in speedos wouldn't have the same effect on the ground crew.

"Today Was a Good Day, Because I Had to Use My AK"

Ten Fingers, 6 Strings would like to announce that in spite of the severity of last night's beatings seriousness of our staff meeting, we all collectively rejoice in this news:

U.S. and Iraqi forces raided a suspected guerrilla training camp and killed 85 fighters, the single biggest one-day death toll for militants in months and the latest in a series of blows to the insurgency, Iraqi officials said Wednesday.

Politicians helping shape a postelection government expected within days said negotiators are considering a Sunni Arab as defense minister in a move aimed at bringing them into the political process — and perhaps deflate the insurgency they lead.

The U.S. military announced late Tuesday that its air and ground forces backed Iraqi commandos during a noontime raid on the suspected training camp near Lake Tharthar in central Iraq. Seven commandos died in fighting, the U.S. military said. It did not give a death toll for the militants.

Iraqi officials said Wednesday 85 insurgents died in the clash — the largest number killed in a single battle since the U.S. Marine-led November attack on the former militant stronghold of Fallujah left more than 1,000 dead. On Sunday, U.S. forces killed 26 attackers after an ambush south of Baghdad.

One staffer was quoted as saying, "With all do respect to the pitiful reporting of the San Francisco Chronicle, the only thing that seems to be going to hell in a handbasket is an 85-man contingent of malnourished, ass-shaven knuckleheads. Good thing I told my broker to short Jihadi stock last month."

Yes, but don't tell "intellectual" Noam Chomsky, as he is riding this stock into the ground. I guess his perplexing investment strategy is understandable since he has no understanding of how capitalism works.

Slammin' at Work

Sorry for the lack of output the last few days. My staff at Ten Fingers 6 Strings has been producing more like Six Fingers, 10 Strings due to the demands of higher paying, regular jobs. We are having a beating session meeting tonight to discuss their recent slacking; so expect the remaining posts this week to contain a vitriolic tint.

In the meantime, if you see one of my staffers walking around, kick them really hard with your shoes on. They are supposed to be on their computers refreshing my site constantly to inflate my hit count.

Damn The Truth Laid Bear and my #9255 ranking...

"History's End"

Dear Ten Fingers, 6 Strings readers:

Via Winds of Change, I found a great new blog called History's End. Throwing caution to the wind, I will risk melting his server by linking to three great posts on the Three Phases of the War on Terror:

McCain Going After MLB

Not content with just limiting free speech in this country, John McCain is now on the rampage again. This time he wants Congress to step in and regulate drug testing in baseball, and sports in particular:

"It just seems to me they can't be trusted," McCain told ABC's "This Week."

"What do we need to do? It seems to me that we ought to seriously consider ... a law that says all professional sports have a minimum level of performance-enhancing drug testing," McCain said.

My opposition to the legislation of the "minimum standard" drug policy doesn't make me an opponent of drug testing. Let me frankly say that the lack of a clear, standard drug policy in Major League Baseball is abominable and more indicative of the dysfunctional relationship between the greedy owners and the even greedier players union.

However, why does Congress suddenly have a stake in how MLB conducts its business? What is stopping McCain and his ilk from legislating drug testing among investment bankers or lawyers? If the answer is merely political feasibility, then our Constitution is weakening before our eyes. From my days working in the banking industry I would say that drugs are more rampant there than in MLB. My opposition to McCain's attempts has to do with Congress's relationship to its people, not to how I feel about drug policy.

This is just another attempt at Congress to legislate against injustice. Here in the dawn of our new millennium we have seen Congress pass two of the worst pieces of legislation to "confront" injustice: Sarbanes-Oxley and McCain-Feingold. The good intentions of these bills belie the reality; the Federal Government is attempting to control political speech along with how a business conducts its own operations.

Demanding drug testing in Major League Baseball will hardly bring down our civilization, however, John McCain and many other members of Congress, regardless of party, seem awfully trigger happy when it comes to controlling the behavior of the citizens they are supposed to serve.

Also, aren't we still at war? Doesn't this discussion seem a bit untimely? In earlier, more noble times, our baseball players were trading their baseball uniforms for army fatigues to fight for their country. Now we are watching Congress grill a man that was most known for his attempts to catch a fly ball, only to have it hit him the head and bounce over the fence for a home run.

"Insurgency Is Fading Fast, Top Marine in Iraq Says"

Both Gregory Djerejian and Ed Morrisey link to a story in the New York Times that describes a waning Iraqi insurgency:

The top Marine officer in Iraq said Friday that the number of attacks against American troops in Sunni-dominated western Iraq and death tolls had dropped sharply over the last four months, a development that he called evidence that the insurgency was weakening in one of the most violent areas of the country...

...The officer, Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, head of the First Marine Expeditionary Force, said that insurgents were averaging about 10 attacks a day, and that fewer than two of those attacks killed or wounded American forces or damaged equipment. That compared with 25 attacks a day, five of them with casualties or damage, in the weeks leading up to the pivotal battle of Falluja in November, he said.
"We still have a lot of work to do," acknowledged General Sattler, who will wrap up a seven-month command tour on March 27 and hand off to Maj. Gen. Stephen T. Johnson of the Second Marine Expeditionary Force.

General Sattler, who said on Nov. 18 that the offensive in Falluja had "broken the back of the insurgency" there, said Friday that the remaining insurgents in Anbar Province, a region the size of Rhode Island, numbered in the hundreds and were rapidly losing public support. He said about one-third of Falluja's 250,000 residents, most of whom had fled the violence, had returned.

Last week I discussed, in detail, our endgame in Iraq:

...The endgame in Iraq is becoming clear; perception has shifted as the terrorists are rapidly losing money, manpower and, most importantly, the support of the Iraqi majority. They may grab news headlines with a horrific bombing causing hundreds of civilian deaths, but it just results in the cementing of Iraqi perceptions that the insurgency is nothing but a band of anti-democratic, ruthless murders.

The decrease in the level and lethality of insurgent attacks are not due in part to any ebb and flow; the insurgency is slowly being mopped up as the majority of Iraqis have turned against them. The Coalition is winning hearts and minds as Iraqis, who have been given a choice between joining the Islamic Fascists and cooperating with the Coalition, have chosen the latter. As the Marine commander emphasized (and as I explained here) we have a lot of work to do to finish this thing, but the endgame is now greatly in our favor.

Iraqis Overwhelmingly Reject al-Qaeda

There is even more evidence coming out of Iraq to solidify the decision to go to war against Saddam. Those that argued for necessity of war hoped that an Iraq, run by its own people, would reject Islamic Fascism and set an example of moderation for other oppressed Muslims in the Middle East. This would be the first step in helping achieve the end goal of the inappropriately named "War on Terror" to end the threat of Islamic Fundamentalist attacks, big and small, against non-Fundamentalist Muslims throughout the world. I'll discuss the current events below, but it is necessary to take a step back and look at some of the arguments and attitudes that existed prior and during the war to provide proper context.

The possibility of links between Saddam and al-Qaeda continues to be a contentious issue in the argument over going to war. Those opposing invasion saw this argument as largely legal in nature--where is the evidence that such a link exists, and if we can't find one, can we justify going to war against Iraq (most argued no)? The other side of that argument found support among those who favored the pre-emption doctrine--the existence of solid evidence didn't matter, they saw the need to either eliminate any existing relationships between the two, or to confront and eliminate even the potential of any future relationship.

During the run-up, I was disturbed by the terrorist group Ansar Islam, who was operating in Northern Iraq, and also by the reported sightings of Abu Musab al Zarqawi in Bagdad. Links to the al-Qaeda leadership that authorized and planned September 11th was dubious at best, but with al-Qaeda on the run in Afghanistan and in desperate need of help, Saddam Hussein had the potential to be a natural ally.

Did Saddam, or any other Baathists, develop a relationship with al-Qaeda thus necessitating an attack by the United States and a willing coalition? Looked at in its legal context, history hasn't been able to answer this question yet. However, as I listed above, for those who saw Middle East transformation as the key to eliminating Islamic Fascism, Saddam Hussein was the natural target: he governed one of the largest and militarily potent Middle Eastern countries, had a history of brutally oppressing his own people (including a WMD attack on Kurds in Halabja--7,000 dead), attacked his neighbors (Iran & Kuwait), repeatedly violated the Gulf War cease fire by firing missiles at coalition planes over the no-fly zones, continually ran interference with UN inspectors over the search for WMDs and allowed terrorist and paramilitary groups (al-Qaeda linked or not) to operated within its borders.

Just to be clear, I hold this to be axiomatic--I support the best methods and efforts that will convince Muslims that bombing and killing non-fundamentalist Muslims is unacceptable. Many that opposed the war did so on the grounds that going to war against Saddam will cause moderate Muslims to side with Saddam, or al-Qaeda, to repel the more horrible infidel invaders (i.e. inflame the "Arab Street"). This argument fell apart in both Afghanistan and Iraq as our respective invasions failed to inflame opposition on a broad scale. Afghanis, from all tribes, rejoiced as we defeated the Taliban in Afghanistan, while in Iraq, even though the reception was much cooler, the resistance movement has been limited to a much stronger Baathist operated guerrilla movement in conjunction with al-Qaeda.

Well, current events being reported at Strategypage are throwing buckets of water over any flames kindling within the Arab Street:

Iraqi popular opinion has turned against terrorism in a big way. Apparently the key event was the revelation that Osama bin Laden had appointed Abu Musab al Zarqawi as "Emir" (leader) of al Qaeda efforts in Iraq and commanded him to go forth and kill big-time. But as suicide bombing attacks increasingly failed to reach American targets, and killed Iraqis instead, it appeared that a Saudi (bin Laden) was telling a Jordanian (Zarqawi) to kill Iraqis. This attitude never made headlines, but it slowly spread among Sunni Arab Iraqis over the last year. Sunni Arab areas where were most of the violence was, particularly after Shia Arab demagogue Moqtada Sadr stopped instigating violence (because he found that he had much less popular support than he believed). Once the Sunni Arabs turned against terrorism, the terrorists found themselves operating in an increasingly hostile environment.

A big story that the media missed was that American troops operating outside the fortified camps (like the Green Zone) were a lot closer to what was going on than your average reporter (who doesn't get out much because of the danger). The combat troops, and many of the non-combat troops, deal with the danger, and Iraqis, on a daily basis. The troops saw the change in attitude among Iraqis. They also saw, in neighborhood after neighborhood, the sharp decline in attacks on coalition and Iraqi forces. They knew the reason for this was the ongoing reconstruction work (mainly supervised by coalition troops) and terror attacks that killed mostly Iraqis. The foreign media appeared to be describing a place that sort of looked like Iraq, but wasn't. Because of the growing availability of email in Iraq, for Iraqis and foreign troops, more people around the world are able to get unfiltered (by journalists) reports from inside Iraq. This has left recipients of these emails wondering what's going on with the reporters. It's simple; fiction always outsells non-fiction.

Conclusion: the war that removed Saddam Hussein in Iraq not only ended a brutally oppressive and hostile regime, and replaced it with a government on its way to being a government of the people (they're still working on this one), but it has driven a wedge between the Islamic Fascists, of al-Qaeda’s ilk, and the more moderate Muslims in Iraq. This war has shown that al-Qaeda's bloodthirstiness doesn't distinguish between "Muslim Brother" and western infidel. It is with great sorrow that it has taken thousands of dead Iraqis for them to realize how dangerous al-Qaeda is, but we should be forgiving; it took 3,000 deaths on American soil for us to realize how dangerous these murderous nihilists were. Many good men and women have lost their lives as a result of these murders, but we are not only defeating this enemy, but building free nations in the process. Win-Win.

Wangari Maathai

At the risk of overloading Jeff's site with a furious assault of Ten Fingers, 6 Strings traffic, please click over to his recent piece on 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Wangari Maathai. Prior to reading Jeff's post, I had little insight into this courageous woman, who is struggling through a grassroots effort, to empower Kenyan's against their latest Kleptocrat, Daniel Arap Moi. In a world, and especially a continent, where few people are able to influence and combat ruthless men through the strength of their character, she is a cold cup of water to a weary traveler in a desolate dessert.

I'm not much for posts with links only, but in this case, go over to Jeff's site and read the whole thing.

Endgame in Iraq

In Iraq, the past two months have shifted the continuum of popular opinion from skeptical-disaster to mild-stunning success. Some, but certainly not all of us who had been proponents of the war also believed that the administration's end game was basically* headed in the right direction. Coinciding with the demonstrations in Lebanon that have been grabbing the recent headlines, the project of defeating the insurgency in Iraq is gathering steam. I believe it is appropriate to now ask the question, "How is our endgame going in Iraq?"

After the invasion, Saddam Loyalists regrouped and began executing their guerrilla war. Their goal was to fight coalition forces through unconventional means--suicide bombers, IEDs (improvised explosive devices), bombing high profile "political" targets and shooting at U.S. troops disguised as civilians. Through these means, their hopes were twofold: (1) to get the Coalition to respond to their attacks in such a horrible way that the Iraqi people would unify with them in demanding an immediate exit, and (2) through a world-wide media generally hostile to American interests, the display of the savage results of war back home in order to influence its citizens to replace their "war hungry" leadership with ones more "peace minded."

Steven den Beste articulated the goals of those engaging in unconventional warfare back in July of 2004. I highly recommend that you read the entire thing as den Beste has been one of the best analysts on the subject, but I want to highlight the importance of the delicate balance of public opinion (Iraqi and American) in this war:

Terrorists make their attacks and then fade away into the population. They tailor their attacks to inspire the maximum horror and anger from the enemy's people, bringing irresistible pressure to bear on the enemy's leadership to do something, while depriving the enemy leadership of any obvious target to do something against. If the enemy leadership does nothing or does something token and useless, it will look weak to our people and make us look like winners, increasing support. It can decrease support from its own people.

But if the enemy leadership does respond strongly, we hope it will target our people (as distinct from our forces, which the enemy can't actually locate). That will anger our people, again increasing support for us. In many cases it will also help discredit the enemy leadership, making them look brutal rather than weak. (That depends enormously on who the enemy people are and how they view themselves.)

We also hope that our allies will become more committed, and their allies will become less so. We hope that the world's uncommitted may come to support us.

Which is why propaganda is an essential part of both doctrines. It is not enough to organize, to plan, and to carry out acts of war. It is vital to try to control perception of events. Both sides are fighting a dirty war, but it is vital that they be portrayed as dirtier than we are.

Guerrilla war and terrorist war, when fought according to classic doctrine, are long slow wars. These are marathons, not sprints.

But terrorists and guerrillas can be defeated, in the sense that they can be weakened and marginalized enough so that they have no hope of victory. Usually defeated guerillas and terrorists fade away slowly, caught in a downward spiral of decreasing support, decreasing resources, and decreasing ability to operate offensively.

With this in mind, Strategypage has been keeping up to date how the tactical situation in Iraq. The endgame in Iraq is becoming clear; perception has shifted as the terrorists are rapidly losing money, manpower and, most importantly, the support of the Iraqi majority. They may grab news headlines with a horrific bombing causing hundreds of civilian deaths, but it just results in the cementing of Iraqi perceptions that the insurgency is nothing but a band of anti-democratic, ruthless murders.

The March 15th entry identifies a shift in the insurgents' spending priorities:

In the past week, former Saddam bodyguard Marwan Taher Abdul Rashid and his cousin, Abdullah Maher Abdul Rashid (also the brother-in-law of Saddam's son, Qusai), were captured because a family tree was illuminated and shaken. Many members of the extended Saddam clan have been found involved in funding and leading the attacks on the government and coalition troops. Money has been used as a weapon, and the Baath Party/pro-Saddam groups spend over $100,000 for each coalition soldier they kill. Thus the policy against paying ransoms. It's literally blood money. This is especially true because indications are that the terrorists are running into cash flow problems. As the tide turns, many of the terrorist paymasters are shifting their spending to themselves and their families. With war crimes trials now under way, and more Iraqi police out there knocking on doors, paying for dead cops and American soldiers is becoming a dangerous proposition. Too dangerous for a man of means.

The March 13th entry just below it is the money shot. This displays the reality that the radical Islamists have effectively lost the "hearts and minds" campaign. This is translating to not just a loss of support, but a inability recruit enough jihadis to sustain their fight:

Al Qaeda is trying to deal with a public relations disaster. First, al Qaeda publicly announced, before the January 30th elections, that democracy was un-Islamic. When most Iraqis energetically turned out to vote, the damage to al Qaeda's prestige was considerable. Then there are the suicide bombs that miss their targets. Most of them kill Iraqi civilians, instead of Americans (the preferred target) or Iraqi police, troops or government officials (an acceptable substitute). This has gotten so bad that al Qaeda has tried to deny responsibility for some of the suicide bomb attacks that go spectacularly wrong. The most spectacular recent example was the February 28 attack that killed over 130 people, including children. It had all the signs of a typical al Qaeda bombing, but the explosion, as was often the case, caught a lot of civilians, in addition to police recruits that were the primary target. Al Qaeda attempts to deny responsibility, usually via web sites, are openly mocked by Iraqis.

This is making al Qaeda public enemy number one in Iraq, and making it harder to recruit Iraqis to help out, or foreigners to carry out most of the suicide attacks. Part of the al Qaeda problem is a decline in the quality of their personnel. Key technical and supervisory personnel have been killed or captured, and not replaced. Thus the quality of the bombs, and the preparations for the attacks, has declined, causing more deaths to civilians, and fewer to Iraqi police and foreign troops. Better training of Iraqi police and soldiers has improved the quality of defenses around police stations and army bases, which has made it harder for the attackers to reach their targets. These are all trends that have been building for over a year, and now are pretty obvious.

The Arab tendency to believe outrageous rumors, which worked against the coalition initially, is now being turned on al Qaeda and the Baath Party terrorists. The killing goes on, but the killers get less and less respect. Even al Jazeera, long a major booster of the terrorists, has noticed their problems. In similar situations in other Arab countries, particularly Egypt in the early 1990s, this led to terrorist groups having to flee the country. Without public support, or at least public indifference, terrorists cannot survive long.

Three month after the fall of Bagdad, the insurgency regrouped and began its war against the "occupiers". President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and General Abizaid were confronted with the decision to either increase troop levels in order to go all out in fighting the insurgency, or they would keep coalition troop levels static, while heavily investing in a highly trained, home grown Iraqi security force. Their risky bet was long-term in nature, and as the death toll rose in the short-term, many questioned the wisdom of their leadership. However, in looking back, the decision not to "Americanize" the fight against the insurgents led to a more rapid transition from the Americans to the Iraqi people. With the occurence of the January 30th elections, the Iraqi people not only exercised their God given right for the first time, they outright rejected Islamic Fascism. Concurrently, Iraqi security forces are now regularly engaging and defeating insurgents on the battlefield.

It's not over yet, but as a result of exceptional strategic thinking, fierce momentum has been building in the Coalition's favor--it is getting so strong that even Atlas and Hercules would have a hard time stopping it.

* As the coalition moved from Stage III--Full Scale Hostilities, to Stage IV--Nation (Re)Building, I didn't believe that any plan could possibly deliver a zero defects result. Firstly, war never exists with a zero defects tolerance and secondly, the Coalition was entering a situation that had didn't have any historical precedent. My biggest argument against the administration's actions at that time was its poor communication to the public about WHY we were still there and WHY we needed to remain until the Iraqi people could build a reasonably solid, free government. Ian articulated this frustration extremely well back in March of 2004. Recent events have been a vindication of the decision to go to war in Iraq not only because of the January 30th elections, but that George Bush has boldly been communicating the strategic necessity of democracy (the State of the Union). The belief that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal," doesn't just apply to Americans and those of Western decent, but indeed to ALL Men.

UPDATE: Penraker comments.

Emergency

Quick, someone get Ian this guava shooter! This way he can deliver a guava barrage, at his unknown-to-me foe, from behind a corner.

But please, for God sakes, do NOT send him explosives--we don't want him to hurt himself. You could probably shoot both your eyes out with this thing.

Part II: Whiskies of the World

My review of the "Whiskies of the World" expo earlier this week attracted a special visitor: Dean Phillips, the head distiller for Phillips Union Whiskey, was kind of enough to respond to my unfavorable review of their whiskey. His comment definitely deserves to be posted here on the main page:

Dear Ten Fingers 6 Strings:

Just read your glowing review of my new whiskey, Phillips Union.

I was hoping to find some salvation in "shit sandwich", but am still looking for the positive spin. Alas, I appreciate the fact that you took the time to taste our products.

I'm actually quite proud of our whiskies, and hope your legions of followers will, at the very least, give them a try at some point in their drinking lives.

In a whiskey world increasingly dominated by large, faceless conglomerates, I hope there's a bit of room left for the little innovative guys like us.

And, if you're ever in the mood for a Manhattan, try some chilled Union Cherry Whiskey with a dash of Peychaud bitters. You may be surprised!

Best wishes,
Dean Phillips

Dean, I do hope that you got the Spinal Tap reference in my two-word review. I am unapologetic about the review, but I'm sure you understand that we bourbon drinkers tend to be a rather intolerant bunch.

I am just one schmuck with an opinion, just like everyone else, and the beautiful thing about blogs is that it is an avenue to form and express our own opinions as others interact with us from their perspective. I'm glad that you came here to present your side of things and I hope that I can provide our readers here (all four of them) with a little follow-up to your credit.

Admirably, Dean sounds like a really innovative thinker and businessperson. Here is the write-up on the Phillips Union website about him:

Dean Phillips is the first generation of a spirits-producing family that, for over 90 years, has stood for qality and innovation. From introducing America to the delights of flavored schnapps in the 1930's, to creating the first flavored vodka in the 1950's, to launching the world's first luxury vodka in the mid-1990's, the Phillips family has been a longtime industry pioneer.

The revolutionary legacy continues into the 21st century with Phillips Union, a whisky with exceptional flavor and unprecedented smoothness.

That's an impressive pedigree and one that doesn't come easily. Peppermint Schnapps gave me a few headaches in my early drinking years. Alas, the one thing that we have in common is a passion for booze--Dean has a lot of it and it says a lot about him to take the time to address this stodgy bourbon fanatic.

Longtime blog readers are well aware of the term, "Read the whole thing." In this case, "drink the whole thing." Get a bottle of Dean's hootch, or order a drink next time you are out, and make up your own mind. That's how we do it around here.

Cheers.

IU - Bleeech

* Warning! Pissy basketball rant to follow:

Blast! I'm never making basketball predictions ever again. In a pivotal do or die game against Minnesota, who would have thought that Indiana would opt for the latter? I can't pick which is worse, the first Northwestern game or this one. Considering a win over Minnesota would put them into the NCAAs, I'd have to say this one.

The play of young teams is as schizophrenic as Andrew Sullivan. They have a lot of growing up to do. Here's the next year and hoping that Marco Killingsworth is the real deal.

West Coast is the Best Coast

Barring an incredibly dull and uninspiring post that could possibly pop up here tomorrow afternoon, I am off for the weekend. Here in San Francisco the weather is calmly sitting the high 70's and if I don't get out climbing this weekend, I'll be forced to hold a 500,000 person rally in downtown San Francisco supporting fascism. Men only!

In the meantime, here is a picture of last year's bouldering trip to Bishop, CA:

Indiana Predictions

Ok, I am the basketball swami and all shall worship at my Chuck T's. Back on New Years Eve I wrote this regarding Indiana's floundering basketball season:

This may be one of the most intesting seasons as an IU basketball fan. Indiana sits at a pitiful 4-6, however, they are playing much better with each game. Indiana starts three freshman on any given night, so some growing pains are expected (especially when three of those six losses came against teams ranked in the top ten).

My prediction: Indiana will fight it out with Michigan for fourth place in the Big 10. If they can do this, they'll sneak into the tournament as a bubble team and Davis will keep his job.

So what happened? Indiana went on a pretty good run and finished 10-6 in the Big 10 good for........4th place! I didn't expect Michigan to fall apart like they did (Indiana beat them twice), but they ended up in a tie with Minnesota for 4th place. They are now an NCAA bubble team who was helped out by a bad loss by Notre Dame tonight.

In the first game in the Big 10 tournament, Indiana plays Minnesota. If Indiana wins that game, they are in (prediction: Indiana wins this game by 10). I've been a bit bombastic about my predictions lately, but I love this Indiana team. They fight, they scrap and they improve with each game and it stems from great leadership and solid coaching. After Indiana beat Northwestern 73-52, NU coach Bill Carmody said that other than Illinois, IU was playing the best basketball in the Big 10. Unlike Bobby's later teams, this teams is finishing strong and improving with each game.

Congrats Coach Davis--you just got yourself another year at IU and you earned it.

Revising Russia's History

Penraker links to an article where Stephen A. Cohen analyzes the precarious conundrum that is Russia:

The most important event of the late twentieth century began twenty years ago this month. On March 11, 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union, and within a few weeks the full-scale reformation he attempted to carry out both inside his country and in its cold war relations with the West, particularly the United States, began to unfold. Perestroika, as Gorbachev called his reforms, officially ended with the Soviet Union and his leadership in December 1991. The historic opportunities for a better future it offered Russia and the world have been steadily undermined ever since.

...The opportunities that Gorbachev created for international relations have also been missed, perhaps even lost--here, however, primarily because of the United States. Instead of embracing post-Soviet Russia as an equal partner in ending the cold war and the arms race, both the Clinton and the George W. Bush administrations undertook a triumphalist winner-take-all policy of extracting unilateral concessions first from Yeltsin and then from Putin. They have included the eastward expansion of NATO (thereby breaking a promise the first President Bush made to Gorbachev); the withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which had discouraged a new nuclear arms race; the bogus nuclear weapons reduction treaty of 2002; and the ongoing military encirclement of Russia with US and NATO bases in former Soviet territories.

Within the first paragraph, Cohen is already engaging in utopian fantasy. Here he speaks of perestroika as if it was an enduring truth such as "liberty" or "freedom," instead of a utilitarian term to describe what it really was: "reform." Perestroika has become one of those connotation words that has lost its orginal meaning over the years--it was a reform movement that sought to liberalize, or de-centralize, the central Soviet economy. It was very important in that it provided a vehicle for the Soviet people to see their first glimmer of freedom, but the ball was already rolling. The Soviet economy had been in complete shambles for years; they couldn't keep up in the arms race and while Americans were taking their families to Disneyland, the Soviet people were standing in breadlines--the contrast between the two superpowers was night and day. By 1985, the Soviet Union, regardless of perestroika, was doomed.

The centralized system in the Soviet Union actually produced results. If you read my analysis on Stalin and the industrialization of the Soviet Union, you'll find a leader who was successful in industrializing a previously aggrarian based economy in a very short period of time. However, like all totalitarian regimes, it came at a huge price with millions of Soviets being purged as enemies of the state, but the Soviet Union was industrialized and, with the defeat of Germany in WWII and their aquisition of the atom bomb, also a military superpower.

After Stalin's death, the Soviet Union was reeling from the Reign of Terror. Nikita Kruschev tried to heal this wound by rehabilitating jailed "dissidents," but the Soviet economy was built with Stalin's iron fist. His ruthlessness drove Soviet production through fear, but subsequent leaders eased their reigns (comparative to Stalin) and the centralized Soviet economy slowly began to unravel as corruption and inefficiency snowballed. By the time Gorbachev became Premier, the Soviet Union's economy was run by criminal gangs under the title of "Communist Officials." When the Soviet Union fell, these criminal cartels joined ex-KGB officials to form the main structure of the corruption-based, Russian economy. Their corruption wasn't caused by Clinton or Bush triuphalism, it had always been there.

Historical events, such as a collapsing empire, don't happen in a vacuum. Cohen's desire to take pot shots at America's policies cause him to glance over a hundred years of Soviet/Russian history. The real tragedy is the 100-years of oppression and horror that the Russian people have had to endure; the sad tragedy is the fact that many Western elites won't even acknowledge it.

Ho's for Hire?

Glenn Reynolds posted this picture of the Hizbollah-backed, pro-Syrian demonstrations in Beruit today:

Glenn, like me, has been rather partial to the more attractive demonstrators in the pro-democracy crowd. However, he says this about the above picture:

Meanwhile, is Hizbollah desperate, and afraid of democracy? But they're certainly trying to hold their own in the "hot protest babe" category. And as means of political competition in the Mideast go, this is one that I hope we see more of. It's better than truck bombs.

Well, zoom in on that picture very closely. I'll be damned if I can find another female in that sea of demonstrators. That and the fact that she seems to be displaying the passion of a woman trying to stand up in defense of an adulterous ex-husband. Something tells me that she is either a) someone's relative, b) someone's wife/girlfriend or c) some whore they picked up on the street on the way over. Regardless, I fully support her liberation.

Oh yeah, that and the guys around her seem to have their eyes and minds on the "demonstrative" task at hand. Some of these guys look as if they haven't seen a woman since that bootleg copy of "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" made its rounds through the Middle East.

Whiskies of the World

Alright all, I'm back. Another typical weekend here in zany California, which involved various elements of snow, whiskey, and cruising through 80-degree wine country in a BMW. Not bad for three days work.

But, you didn't come here to read about all that crap. This post is dedicated to the hootch. Saturday night was the Whiskies of the World Expo held at the San Francisco Hilton in Union Square. People traveled from all over the world for this event (for some strange reason there were a lot of Scots)--I traveled 14-blocks...downhill.

My good friend Kyle over at "From the Still", being the smarty pants that he is, assumed that I would call him up the next day and have the following conversation with him:

Time: 3:30 AM MST. Sunday, March 6th

TF6S: Maybe now you'll agree, drinking has it's benefits.
FTS: Perhaps.
TF6S: Maybe now you'll agree, drinking has it's benefits.
FTS: You just said that.
TF6S: Now it's time for the alcohol to take affect. BBBBBBBBBBBBLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Whaaaa...? Do you think that we San Franciscans have no bourbon-drinking etiquette? Are we nothing to you but a bunch of lushes who fulfill every decadent desire that stirs in our loins? Do we not have the proper sophistication that is demanded from an elite society within the fabric that is America? Phooey! I befoul myself in the grain of your Single-Barrel Jack Daniels.

Let me throw my biases onto the table for all to see: I drink and enjoy Scotch, but I much prefer bourbon. Rye Whiskey is for good for nothing other than keeping Canadians warm during the winter. God Bless you guys, but we prefer the hootch that is made from grain that is fertilized by pig feces in the Kentucky and Tennessee hills.

Here is my top 3 of the night:

Old Rip Van Winkle 12-Year: I just bought a bottle of this stuff before I posted this. This may be one of the smootest and most flavorful whiskeys I have ever had. It's only 90-proof, so it's not the firewater of Bookers, however what it "lacks" in punch, it more than makes up for with it's vanilla and caramelish finish.

George T. Stagg: This was the American Whiskey of the Year in 2003. Distilled by Buffalo Trace, this rare beauty weights in at a powerful 131-proof, however, it pulls its punch with a spicier and creamier taste that calms its obsenely high alcohol content. It actually tastes great with a drop or two of water, as the oxygen brings out a lot of it's flavor.

Eagle Rare 17-Year Single Barrel: Buffalo Trace has the honor of donning two of the top three spots. This bourbon is relatively straight foward. Again, with my theme of the evening, very smooth vanilla taste. A few of the "sophisticated" tasters around me were dogging it, but I will enjoy this lovely, simple bourbon-next-door.

Lowlights:

The Jefferson Reserve clowns: Listen, I'm for having a good time just like the rest of everyone, but I paid $95 to drink what I wanted to drink and with about an hour left in the trade show, the goons behind the Jefferson counter were all out of booze and completely trashed. The main guy behind the table had served himself a triple while we stood looking at all the empty bottles laying across their table. It was more indicative of my apartment after a night of boozin', but I usually don't charge people $95 to drink with me.

Lastly, I can't remember the name of this Whiskey, and I tried Googling it without any luck, but it was a whiskey that was a mixture of bourbon and rye. Their "premium" Whiskies were "vanilla" and "cherry" flavoring. My trusty companion commented that if there is a Zima of bourbon than this is it. They do get extra points for the smokin' hot chica behind the table. That's the only thing that could sell that bourbonic, Boone's Farm catastrophe.

All in all a great night. We rounded out the evening by getting a couple of cigars with some Bookers at "Occidental" in the Financial District. I introduced my friends to Bookers that night, and all were pleased as their hair folicles returned to their resting position.

UPDATE:

Ok, I found the name of that aweful "bourbon" listed above: Phillips Union. The domain name of their website is revolutionsmooth.com; it displays a communist era first poking into the sky. ::cough::: lame :::cough::: In their brochure they describe this "revolution":

The flavor of Kentucky Bourbon is a national treasure. The smoothness of Canadian Whiskey is legendary. Now, for the first time, they share the same bottle. This luxurious blend gives Philip Union Whiskey its distinctive, exceptional flavor and unprecedented velvety glide across the palate.

Two word review from Whiskey Magazine: Shit Sandwich.

Anthony's on Mars!

This is waaaay cool.

More Work Left

Here is a follow up to yesterday's "we're not done yet" post on the war.

Via Instapundit, Ralph Peters is singing the same tune. He specifically mentions the areas where we have a lot of work left to do:

Iran: We're in a race against time with Tehran. Will the Iranian people rid themselves of their oppressors before the ruling mullahs gain nuclear weapons? Would those "men of God" use nukes against Israel as their regime crumbled?

Iraq: Every current indicator is positive. But a unified, democratic Iraq isn't yet a reality. Old rivalries and the cancer of corruption could still undo much of what's been achieved. If the Kurds are cheated, the country will disintegrate.

Syria: The clumsy Baathist regime could topple with surprising swiftness or it could turn even more oppressive and provide even greater support to the terrorists it harbors. Cornered by history, Syria's rulers could lash out or divide against themselves in civil strife. We still may need to conduct military operations against yesterday's men in Damascus.

Saudi Arabia: Our continued indulgence of the "royal" mafia that runs this country is an ugly blot on America's refurbished record of fighting for freedom, human rights and democracy. We can't change everything at once, but our pressure on the Saudis to reform should be relentless even if we don't like all the choices the population makes in future elections. This perverted state could implode if it clings to the past and yes, the oil matters. We may need to intervene to keep it flowing.

Egypt: President Hosni Mubarak is trying to stave off serious change with a promise of "free" elections his government intends to manipulate. We need to cut off the annual billions in aid we send to Egypt until the regime frees legitimate dissidents from its jails and allows truly free, multi-party elections. Half-measures play into the hands of Islamic extremists.

Terror: Al Qaeda and its affiliates have suffered one catastrophic defeat after another since 9/11. Our efforts have cut deep into their base and reduced their freedom of action. But the hard-core terrorists will continue to use slaughter as a tool to advance their agenda until the last man among them is killed or captured. Progress in the Middle East will cut the ranks of future terrorists, but for now we must fight those already converted to fanaticism. This war is far from over.

I would also specifically add "Islamic Extremism in Europe" to this list. When I say, "we aren't done yet," "we" includes our European bretheran. We may have substantial disagreements over what methods to pursue in defeating Islamofascism (where I argue they are wrong), but the terrorists see us as one in the same. I think the probability of another big terrorist attack is more likely to occur in Europe as a result of their increasing unassimilated, Islamic immigrants living off of a comfortable welfare system along with how easily certain European countries have submitted to previous threats and acts from terrorists. Also, Europe is geographically closer and less of a logistical problem than is the United States. I hope that our intellegence agencies are dutifuly putting politics on the backburner and working closely together in tracking these cells down.

Regardless, remember the "Tortoise and the Hare." We've sprinted out into the lead, but the slower and extremely determined (and psychotic) Islamofacists are still moving behind us.

The Summit Is Only Halfway Home

I received a few emails (actual reader email!) that took me to task over the supposed negative tone in the previous post. I clearly didn't want to imply that I was in any way losing heart; in fact I specifically said that I was convinced that we will eventually win this war against Islamic extremism. However, we are not there yet--not by a long shot.

Mountaineering expeditions require intense preparations, which have a strategic goal that is gained by achieving defined objectives. The summit is not the strategic goal of a mountaineering trip; getting to the summit and getting back to car alive is. This is elementary and it may seem like I am pointing out the obvious, however after reading a copy of the annually published "Accidents in North American Mountaineering" you'll see that the majority of accidents occur not on the way up, but on descent.

On busy mountains, such as Mount Shasta, I've witnessed climbers collapsing in exhaustion on the summit. I don't mean to minimize their achievement, but it is extremely dangerous to let your guard down when your trip is only halfway complete. If you don't keep mentally aware on the way down, the likelihood of a careless step on a loose rock or a traverse over an icy patch increases exponentially. This loss of focus has the potential to really ruin your day. When our team reaches the summit, the first words out of my mouth are usually, "Ok, nice work everyone, let's keep focus...Oh look, a blue car!" Blue cars aside, it is imperative to chatter to each other constantly about keeping focused on the way down.

That is precisely my point in regards to the war. We have so much left to do and must be able to endure the second half of this fight. Yesterday Wretchard pointed out the reality of WMDs being built and used by non-state actors:

Recent -- and very real -- successes at spreading democracy in the Middle East, even coupled with impressive technological advances will not change the fact that widely available commercial technology has put enormous destructive potential in the hands of private groups. Nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, once the sole province of states, may become available to powerful nonstate organization or even individuals and we will always have to guard against them.

I agree. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were offensive wars intended to take the initiative away from the Islamic extremists. This was the proper first step, however some further forward thinking is required to deal with the "descent" stage of our strategic goal of ending Islamic extremism. If we relax and lose our focus, we may end up being another statistic in civilization's historical version of "Accidents in North American Mounteering."

Just Thinking About Stuff

* The following is just emotive writing. Skip past it if you want real analysis or substantive dialog.

This weeks events in Lebanon coupled with the semi-democratic events in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Palestine and Lybia have reaffirmed the gamble that America took going into Iraq. I'm am glad that our brave men and women haven't died in vain.

I don't exactly share the degree of recent triumphalism that has been displayed by my fellow supporters of the war. This is for no other reason than personal. Part of me has an overwhelming sense of guilt that I have been able to go about my daily life with ease as 120,000 of my countrymen have been sweating it out in the desert, dodging car bombs, IEDs and mortars only to have our press beaming those images around the world to further their agenda. On January 30th, I was beaming when 8 million Iraqis demonstrated that we really were doing a good thing there and that all the preparatory work that our troops had done for that moment was vindicated.

However, I guess that is what this is all about: being able to go about our civilized lives with relative ease. Ian reminded me yesterday that thousands of people were doing just that before 9:00 on September 11th. A few hours later, the world would never be the same. At the time I remember wondering if we would have the guts to pull it off; the recent election made me quite nervous, however Bush won big and our mission was reaffirmed.

I'm also hesitant to wax victorious as I know that there is a lot of work left to do. I'm confident that we will ultimately win the war, but not entirely sure it is going to come without another bloody lip or two. I'm not afraid of it, I just want to make sure I keep my perspective and acknowledge the reality that another 9/11 is still very real. I guess as our fearless leader says, "Stay the course...Stay the course."

I'll resume my attempts at substantive posting with haste..

(Ian, sorry for linking so much to you lately, but you've been en fuego)

"Embrace the Orange"

Others are starting to notice what is happening in Lebanon:

But Dawood al-Shirian, a Saudi talk show host on Dubai TV, had a warning for Arab governments, pointing to Ukraine's Orange Revolution: "Either they embrace the orange, or they will find themselves slipping on the peels of bananas."

Orange, purple; I'm agnostic about color in of itself. Make it magenta for all I care.

I would much prefer that any Middle East revolutions follow the Ukrainian model (no shots fired), instead of the Iraq model (invasion and years of guerrilla warfare against murderous thugs). I do know that the paradigm is not that clean--Yuschenko's face bares the scares of that not-so-peaceful Ukrainian struggle.

The decision to overthrow with violence is not in the hands of the opposition. There are still a lot of shrewd and murderous thugs left in power in the Middle East, so although we are seeing some very good things lately, do not forget that some of these dominoes will try and cement themselves into the ground before they are blown apart by their topplers. The remaining dictatorships in the Middle East have all shown that they will not hesitate to spill the blood of their own to protect their hold on power. In the Lebanon and the Ukraine we all smiled joyously as the thugs stepped aside, however we all held our breaths trying to cover the unspoken fear in knowing it easily could have been another Tiananmen Square. Regardless, the line in the sand has been drawn and, just as in Iraq, those on the side of freedom must be willing to pay any price to see it to fruition.