Counterpoint - Iraq

While the mainstream media focuses on the deadlock with the Iraqi constitution and Cindy Propaganda, there are some interesting developments happening that bely many of the opposition's memes. U.S. warplanes led by Sunni tribal militias, go on the offensive against al-Qaeda:

The clashes between Sunni Arab tribes and insurgents, coupled with growing vows from Iraq's Sunni minority to turn out in force for upcoming national elections, in a small and localized way meet one of the strongest U.S. hopes for defusing the insurgency. U.S. military leaders have repeatedly expressed the hope that public anger at insurgent violence would deprive insurgents of their Sunni base of support, and that the disaffected Sunni minority would look instead to the political process to defend their rights.

A tribal leader near the Syrian border, Sheikh Muhammed Mahallawi, said his Albu Mahal tribe opened the latest fighting against Zarqawi's insurgents after the foreign-led militants kidnapped and killed 31 members of his tribe to punish them for joining Iraqi security forces.

"We decided -- either we force them out of the city or we kill them," with the support of U.S. bombing, Mahallawi said by telephone.

Speaking of the political process, here is what a leading Sunni is saying about the new constitution:

In Baghdad, a Sunni Arab critic of the draft charter appeared alongside U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad to say Sunnis should resolve their objections to the charter peacefully. "We believe the best way to solve problems is through elections," Adnan Salman Dulaimy told reporters at a Green Zone news conference.

Dulaimy pledged to work on defeating the draft charter in the Oct. 15 vote.

"On federalism, we reject it because it will lead to tearing up the country," Dulaimy said. "We call on all Iraqis for unity, solidarity, closing of ranks to confront those who want to undermine the unity of Iraq. No to sectarianism, no to federalism."

Iraq, being an extremely complicated place, also has reports of this:

On Tuesday, hundreds of Sunnis rallied outside Ramadi to denounce the proposed constitution, The Associated Press reported. Protesters carried posters of Saddam Hussein, newly re-emerged in recent days as a public icon in the ferment over the constitution. "No to federalism, no to dividing Iraq," the slogan on one banner declared.

Political violence Tuesday included the fatal shootings of two police colonels in Baghdad and in Kirkuk, and a suicide car-bombing that killed two police officers in the northern city of Samarra.

In the Shiite holy city of Najaf, government security forces late Tuesday announced a closing off of entrances to the town, apparently to block a religious pilgrimage announced by a popular Shiite militia and political leader, Moqtada Sadr.

Again, the story I have been trying to present in Iraq is one of a battle between those who want freedom versus those that want to suppress it, whether they be Baathists, al-Qaeda or Iranian backed Shiite militias. But it is clear there is a tension within each of these subgroups about which direction the country is headed. Those that choose to remain violent still have the news cameras, while sharing a common taste for blood, but it seems as if the moderates are willing to stand up and make a fight of it. These people have always been fighting, its just that their fight doesn't materialize in the form of car bombs blowing up children in broad daylight. Their fight has mainly been one of organizing, and learning how to operate within a highly corrupt political process. Now, they are going to try and convince the majority of Iraqis (Kurds, Sunni and Shiites) that their vision for a unified and peaceful Iraq is the way to the best future. These groups may not be united on all fronts, but there does seem to be a significant movement of Iraqis that want to use the political process, and not the suicide bomber, to solve their differences.

The United States is not going anywhere and will try to help them get there. Sometimes it is going to come in the form of moral support, while other times it will come in the form of a couple of JDAMs coming through the roof of a jihadi stronghold. In either case, it is undeniable that there is a sizable portion of the country across each sub-ethnic/sub-religious group that is fighting for a peaceful Iraq.

Also, it looks like Al-Qaeda has overstayed their welcome.

Computer Failure

Had a hardware failure tonight. I'm back up, but probably won't post. It's really nice outside, so I'm going to get a "Pepsi" with some friends.

You know, enjoying life, instead of hypothetically developing thought models about all that is wrong with the world without any legitimate and actionable solutions.

Wouldn't want to get bitter and just "rant" about stuff.

Hope everyone had a nice weekend.

New Orleans

They say if you are a praying type, well, now's the time to pray.

I am the praying type, so my deepest prayers are with those in New Orleans who are in the way of this ferocious beast.

I just saw a working webcam that is streaming live video from the corner of St. Charles and Napoleon. There were a lot of heroic emergency workers still fantically driving around presumably attempting to find protection for those who refused, or couldn't make it out.

I pray for a miracle.

UPDATE: If you can, please call the American Red Cross and give blood at some point tomorrow. I just called them and they said they are short on blood supplies. The phone # to get info for blood donation is 1-800-448-3543, they are naturally quite busy, but I got through after about 15 minutes. Or go to their site (www.redcross.org) for more information.

UPDATE 2: Watching, via CNNonline, the long line out in front of the Superdome, I found it curious that they made everyone wait in line for hours so they could search bags and confiscate "alcohol and firearms." I hope that was just bad reporting instead of actual policy.

UPDATE 3: Its 2:45 am in N.O. and the webcam shows lots of rain with police cars driving through every few minutes.

Etc. - Baseball Lamentations

I love baseball. Baseball is in my blood. When I was a kid, I remember throwing the baseball back and forth with my dad. The first time we played with a hard ball, I took a ball to the chops, cried (as my dad laughed) and then continued to play catch without that fear of getting hit again.

My dad went to a hitting class when I was about 7 years old, and learned the modern baseball swing that wasn't exactly mainstream in the early 80's: a clean, short, level swing would get you more power than a sweeping, looping swing swung with all your might. He taught me this swing on a tee in the culdesac at the end of the street.

Next thing you know, this wirey little pip-squeek, who was half the size of his teammates was hitting the ball so hard, kids would cower in fear. I remember one time, I hit the ball so hard it hit the ground, bounced up and knocked some little girls teeth out.

Yeah, that's right, I said girl.

My friends and I played all kinds of baseball, wiffle-ball, and wiffleball hybrids. I played year-round baseball one year when I was living in Arizona. I used to pepper the back wall with a tennis ball at our backyard for hours during the summer--much the shagrin of my parents as I hit a few spot-lights (shattered) and windows (didn't break, but left a mark) back then.

Primarily due to a coach that was unable to control a bunch of snotty rich kids, I briefly gave up playing organized baseball during my high school days in Philly. Like I said, I love baseball, and I didn't need to prove it to anyone.

Ok, that was a lie. Obviously I did need to prove it to someone as I got the wild idea to walk on my college baseball team. After my sophmore year in college, I decided to work my ass off in the batting cages, while fielding grounders for hours and hours during the summer.

The results paid off, as I walked on to the Indiana baseball team. Carrying around my 145 lbs frame (that's measured soaking wet) didn't exactly intimidate or impress anyone. However after a few rounds of live batting practice where I showered the field with line drives, I made it to the next round, which was hitting against live pitching.

They threw everything at you--fastballs, breaking balls, split-fingers, etc. I hit them all, to all fields.

Then they put us in the field and I mopped everything up at shortstop and second-base. Clearly, things were going well and the decided to give my skinny-but a walk on spot. Unfortunately, two-months later, I became a Title IX casualty as the baseball team at to cut 4 roster spots for funding reasons. It was to my benefit, as two months of playing Division I baseball with no hope of seeing any real playing time was taxing.

Anyway, all this training prepared me for the moment that I had last night. I went to the Mets/Giants game and sat in front of the broadcasters booth behind home plate. During the sixth inning, the $14 hotdog I ate didn't really fill me up, so I decided to order a basket of fried chicken fingers with fries for $10. The lady delivered my order (we were sitting in the Club level where they actually deliver your food), and I opened my ranch dressing to eat these not-so-tasty, but adequate fuel providers.

Then Mets 1B, Mike Jacobs fouled a ball back.

It was coming...right....at....me.

I had chicken in my hands and my lap.

I just paid $10 for my chicken.

I compromised.

I sat up and spilled my chicken, but held on the piece of chicken in my left hand. The ball came in. I caught it, but three other people were reaching for it and it was swatted out of my hand.

I lost the ball and the rest of my chicken, along with a gallon of ranch dressing ended up all over me and the ground.

Wrong compromise.

All that training came down that moment, and I chose to hold onto the @#&^$# chicken!

I heard my dad yelling, "Two hands! Two hands!" I guess my dad's lessons of money management collided with his baseball instruction.

Oh well, I'm going back to the game today for another shot. Maybe this time I'll learn, but there is no way I'm spilling a beer for it.

Mountain Fever

My boy Kyle has caught the fever as he and group of his friends got together to climb 14,000 ft, Handies Peak. Go check out his photo log for some amazing shots of the Rockies from top.

Congrats on making it to the top, buddy. We'll do one of these bad boys together some day.

I'm hoping there won't be any bear attacks this time.

Islamic Reformation - Part II

Yesterday, I got the ball rolling on an idea that the new Iraqi constitution, if adopted, could pave the way to a better Iraq, and further, into a possible Islamic Reformation. This may become a feature, not a bug, of putting Islam into a public forum, where its application to law and society is debated amongst a diverse group of men and women (mainly Shias, Sunnis and Kurds). There is great potential within Iraq that has the ability to set an example for the rest of the Islamic world.

Now, I'm not trying to make everyone look at the situation in Iraq through rose colored glasses. I wrote yesterday's essay during my lunch "break", and didn't really get the chance to develop it thoroughly enough to include the fact that this way of thinking allows for the many vissitudes that will inevitably occur. Let me be clear in stating that I believe that this path is still frought with peril. There can still be many, many bad things that happen in Iraq, but, if the Iraqi government can hold together through the many hard times they will surely endure without a strongman rising up, it is highly likely that Islam will reform.

This is the axiom that this new possibility has been based upon:

The power to drive Muslim culture has been stripped from the clerics and given to the people.

The fundamental issue in the Middle East actually isn't Islam, it is human nature. Since the dawn of humanity, man has looked for ways to control his follow man and, being the clever one he is, has come up with a myriad of ways to do this. For instance, Nazism didn't make people crazy, people made people crazy; they just used Nazism as their ideological tool to get there.

Such is the case with Fundamentalist Islam, or Islamic Fascism. The term Islamic Fascism is almost a perfect title, as Islam's authority, which has always been at the very least austere, resides within an "elite" ruling class who, in order to keep their control over their subjects, has continually become more brutal and oppressive. In most historical examples where an ideology is so closely guarded by an "elite," it's oppressive potential increases exponentially.

So you cut off the head. In Iraq's case, cutting off the head didn't just mean taking out Saddam--he just had to go first. After the fall of Saddam began the longer, but more neccessary process of solving the real problem: wrestling control of Islam away from those that currently have it. This will be extremely difficult, as Islam has turned into such a murderous and oppressive monster, and change cannot ultimately be something driven by the West. But, we provided the opening, and the Fascists have viciously and shrewdly resisted. They've read, copied and distributed the manual, "How to Get America to Lose a War -- a Study of Leftisms Roll in Garnering Popular Support for Disengagement from Vietnam."

Think of it as Frodo heading into Mordor; the enemy gets a say in determining events as well. They may throw everything they can at us, but time is on our side--we have already changed the calculus in the Middle East by moving towards the empowerment of the individual over the state, or elite. This idea is what our civilization is built upon, and it will take time for the Arabs to embrace it, but now these ideas are taking root. Why do you think al-Qaeda is killing so many Iraqis? Target practice?

Once the Iraqi constitution is signed, my worries of an impending disaster that could lead us to losing the war will greatly shrink. Again, many bad things can still happen, but this is best path to lasting change, and it is gaining momentum.

Granted, there is a huge nuclear mess next door in Iran that needs attention, but that post is for another day.

Islamic Reformation

I had a big elaborate post analyzing the minutia of the Iraqi constitution in the incubator when I read this editorial in the WSJ. They better said in two paragraphs what I was trying to say in thirty.

Here is it:

Iraq's first freely elected government continues to vindicate the belief that the Mideast can be transformed, starting with Saddam Hussein's former tyranny. Its draft constitution, which appears headed for parliamentary approval tonight, reflects a remarkable spirit of compromise--and even enlightenment--among the country's political, ethnic and religious factions.

The word "compromise" is key here. If we were drafting the document, there are many things we might have done differently. But the point of democracy is that countries have to find their own way on difficult issues. Americans also shouldn't be too quick to conclude that anything that sounds odd or unfamiliar to liberal ears is evidence of failure. While this constitution does indeed contain general appeals to religion, it is fundamentally a document that empowers legislators, not clerics.

The Iraqi constitution empowers a parliamentary form of government. When their parliament meets to determine and debate laws, they must operate under the first two constraints dictated by their constituion: (1) No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam, and (2) No law can be passed that contradicts the principles of democracy.

Assuming no changes to these principles, I am starting to think that we could actually be seeing the beginnings of an Islamic Reformation, which would be the ultimate vindication of our decision to go to war in Iraq.

In the build-up to the Protestant Reformation, the "clerical class", the Catholic Church, had a monopoly on discussion and debate related to theology in the lands of Christendom. The people were powerless, due to the Church keeping this ironclad lock, with one of the main methods being the prohibition of translating the Bible from Latin into the various vernacular languages. Being that the printing press had yet to be invted, the Catholic church held on to this power for hundreds of years, but as with any major historical shift, many events led the way to revolution (I don't want to get into too much detail, but a short list of these events can be found at wikipedia).

The underlying current with building as people were starting to debate and talk amongst themselves over what was or wasn't Biblical. The Islamic Invasions kept the German princes busy, so religous discussion flowed a little more freely. This popular current rose up and exploded due the invention of the printing press and a meek little monk by the name of Martin Luther. The rest is history that would shape Western Civilization for the next 500 years.

The result of this "Reformation" was an empowerment of the individual. No longer was truth to be found through an elite ruling class, but each man could now access God for himself. Naturally, there were many, many variations of opinion on how each man viewed what God wanted; some resulted in clashes that were bloody, but most were peaceful. Since people were now free to debate the truth about God, it was natural that they then felt compelled to debate anything else. The return of democratic rule to Western Civilization can find its roots in the empowerment of the Individual.

On the other hand, the Islamic world remained sheltered; the power to interpret Islam stayed with the clerics. Granted, there have been many major clashes among groups of Muslims (e.g. Shias and Sunnis), but the individual Muslim has not yet experienced any significant ability to freely debate amongst his bretheren about the Koran and Allah's will.

How can the Iraqis lead the way to an Islamic Reformation? Clearly the new Iraqi constitution empowers the legislature, and the legislature will not be made up of a ruling "cleric" class. It will be representative--made up of some conservative, some moderate, meeting together in a public forum. Laws will be presented in parliament, then there will be open debate about what is Islamic or not. The representatives will not be the only ones debating, as the people of Iraq will start to debate amongst themselves about what is Islamic and what isn't.

The power to drive Muslim culture has been stripped from the clerics and given to the people.

Ultimately, this path is what is going to give moderate, ie non-terrorist supporting, Wahhabist Islam, the best chance to permeate through the Muslim world. We (the West led by the United States) could only provide the push, or the de-stabilization if you will. But Muslims themselves will have to drive the actual permanent change from Islam being driven by nihlistic fascists, to more humanistic moderates.

The ripple effect here could be huge. As Al-Jazeera tapes and broacasts debates within Iraqi parliament, Muslims everywhere will start to debate amongst themselves about what laws are compatible with Islam or not. Imagine the day where Saudi Arabia bans Al-Jazeera. I'm clearly getting ahead of myself.

In reality, I think it is very possible that Muslims will be able to take their religion back, and that is why we went into Iraq.

Choices

This morning I had to choose between French Roast and Costa Rica Arabica at the coffee stand.

Jingoist man with horns on my shoulder says, "Screw the French!"

Lounging man with a silk robe and a pipe on the other shoulder says, "Cute Latins, or hairy legs?"

Costa Rica Arabica it was...

Tim Padgett and Pat Robertson

Yesterday, Pat Robertson caused an August-slow-news-month (Its not like the Iraqis are drafting a constitution of anything) storm with his comments about calling for the assassination Venezuelan Dictator, Hugo Chavez. For the record, Pat Robertson is complete tool; a guy, who I am utterly amazed, has anyone that ever listens to him. Yet, his comments about Chavez were about on par for his normal level of understanding of geo-politics. So, big-friggin' woop--its news that Pat Robertson says idiotic things?

Anyway, I found the article describing the event through Google News, not Instapundit or anyone else. So, instead of being led to a Yahoo! or BBC article, my source was TIME magazine. Hold on to your hats as I post what Tim Padgett opined:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has a new best friend this morning: television evangelist Pat Robertson. With his astonishing call for the left-wing leader's assassination last night—"I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it...We have the ability to take him out"—Robertson will have surely made Chavez an even more popular anti-yanqui icon in Venezuela, Latin America and around the world. Like his mentor Fidel Castro, Chavez thrives on threats from the U.S., real or perceived. He has long insisted that his foes are plotting to kill him, and this summer had armed civilians training with the Venezuelan military to prepare for what he says is an imminent U.S. invasion. A public effort to whack him, offered from the right-wing Christian establishment so closely aligned with President Bush, is just what Chavez needs to keep his approval ratings soaring as high as the price of the Venezuelan oil he controls, the largest crude reserves in the hemisphere.

This is a pretty typical Leftist proxy attack against the President. Some right-wing dork says something stupid and, lo-and-behold, Bush is dragged into the fray. Not only that, he managed to drag the whole "Right-wing Christian establishment" into the picture.

Padgett has now set the stage--the actors, or villians if you will, have been identified. Next, he'll lead us into the mess the "villians" have led us to:

But Chavez holds cards that make remarks like Robertson's all the more incendiary on the Latin American street, where language like "U.S. imperialism" suddenly has currency again. One is the past: Latin Americans have too many vivid and bitter memories of U.S. intervention in their countries—operations that sometimes included brazen assassinations —which is why the Bush Administration got burned by accusations it backed a failed coup against Chavez in 2002 (the White House denies the charge). Another is democratic legitimacy: Chavez, for all his authoritarian tendencies, is a democratically elected head of state who last year won a national recall referendum approved by international observers.

Perhaps an even more important factor is populist backing: leftism is on the rise again in Latin America for a reason, namely the burgeoning feeling around the region that a decade of U.S.-backed capitalist reforms has simply widened an already epic gap between rich and poor—and that the Bush Administration is indifferent to it. As Chavez uses his multi-billion-dollar oil revenues to fund the kind of social projects that Venezuela's legions of impoverished never saw from his kleptocratic predecessors—and to subsidize cheaper oil for his cash-strapped Latin neighbors—more people are willing to defend him, as most Latin leaders did last spring when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice toured South America.

Padgett tries to set the trap, but instead has cornered himself. In a typical hyperbolic set-up, he has pulled off the Leftist trifecta: he defended a dictator as legitimate, blamed the U.S. for another country's poverty, and linked it to oil.

Padgett has a long past sympathizing for Leftist causes. I'm not talking about Howard Dean Left, I'm talking about Fidel Castro Left. Here is what Mediaresearch caught Padgett saying about the Cuban-American community during the Elian Gonzalez fiasco:

"ABC at first avoided showing the six-year-old saying he didn't want to go back to his father in Cuba -- a statement that could have been coached. But Armando Gutierrez, the family spokesman and a veteran political operator with a heavy touch of Joe McCarthy in him, angrily accused ABC of reneging on a promise to broadcast that very statement. The next morning, the network aired it. And by week's end another family spokesman said Elian ‘expresses fear about being with his father. He's afraid he will be punished.’ Now, who could have put that idea in his head?"

Padgett added: "It isn't hard to understand the visceral emotions Elian stirs up among many Cuban exiles, especially those who were imprisoned by Castro or had a close relative who, like Elisabeth, drowned in the Florida Straits while rafting toward freedom. ‘We're Elian's true peers,’ says militant exile leader Jose Basulto. ‘We want to save him from the life we had to live in Cuba.’ But the hard-line Cuban-American leadership also wants to preserve the political clout it enjoyed during the cold war."

Padgett "feels the pain" of the Cuban Americans in that it must have been hard on their psyche to be imprisoned or killed while trying to find political freedom. However, his backhanded sympathies are turned into all-out aggression by brazenly calling them "militant" and "hard-line." He even managed to label the family spokesman a McCarthyist, which was probably done to deflect any criticsm of his hit-piece. In all this, not one criticism was directed towards the bearded, cigar-smoking tyrant that caused all this mess in the first place. But I'm sure, as Padget aludes to, calling a spade a spade, or a communist a communist, is pure McCarthyism.

So, in light of his dubious past, I'm not at all shocked to read his editorial denouncing the U.S. in dealing with a man who could very well become the Latin American Saddam Hussein--a meglomaniacal tyrant who uses a convenient, populist ideology (in the Middle East it is Islam, in South America, it is Socialism/Communism) to rally hard-core supporters who will enforce his rule through ruthless force.

Secondly, Padgett, who if you Google him is actually the Miami and Latin American bureau chief for TIME, repeats another falsehood in the TIME article above. Being that I speak a little Spanish, I found this comment to be odd:

Chavez's erratic and often bellicose anti-U.S. rhetoric—he publicly called Bush an "ass____" in Spanish last year—as well as his desire to sell less oil to the U.S. and more to ideological allies like China, are hardly comforting as gas nears $3 per gallon.

I'm not exactly writing novels in Spanish, but its not very common for someone in Spanish to call someone an a-hole. So, what did Chavez really say? Charlie Hardy at Venezuela Analysis did the fact checking for me:

At the end of February 2004, Chávez told thousands of people that President Bush was a “pendejo” if he believed what others were telling him about Venezuela. The word “pendejo” in Venezuela means “a person of whom others are taking advantage.” It is not a compliment, but it is nowhere as insulting as “asshole.” “Asshole” is very strong and Chávez did not use the word.

Charlie writes a long, detailed description about how he found out what "pendejo" meant, but I'll save you the story as I know what it means. "Pendejo" means "stupid idiot" not asshole. Granted, if someone calls you a "pendejo," well, them's fightin' words. But it is much less harsh, and completely false to say that he called Bush an "ass____".

So, in the end, it is really hard to take an opinion piece from a guy who is supposed to be a Latin American expert seriously when he is incapable of translating, or attempting to deliberately mislead, something as simple as an epithet. But this is just another example in a long list of sins the media establishment has committed by trying to find ways to weaken American interests abroad and at home. And more times than not, they have to lie to do so.

In the Fog

Long time TF6S reader, frequent commenter, good friend and long time Bay Area resident "Penelope Pitstop" fished out a great article in the SF "Comical" about the worst summer weather San Francisco has seen in a long time. I've been waxing restless about the grey skies, cold wind and overall depressing fog that has enveloped the city since May. It makes a man want to get up and move to Cabo...or Fiji.

For those who have never been to the City by the Bay, first-of-all shame on you, and second, you'll have a hard time wrapping your mind around the microclimates here. For instance, this morning in San Francisco, the fog is pretty thick and keeps the city at a cool 58 degrees. However, if you drive across the Golden Gate Bridge for about 10 minutes, you'll see clear skies and weather well into the 70's. During the day it'll reach the high 80's or low 90's.

To this day, I still giggle at the tourists standing in line wating for the cable-car in shorts and t-shirts freezing their arses off. There is a reason why there are about 400 sweatshirt vendors down at Fishermans Warf. If you have a friend that has a "San Francisco" sweatshirt, chances are they didn't read their Lonely Planet Guide and weren't prepared for their "summer" vacation here.

So, why does this happen? Why is San Francisco so bloody foggy when everyone else is basking in the sun? Here's the explanation:

How fog is formed and why it moves from the coast toward inland valleys:

1 Winds around the Pacific High (a semi-permanent area of high pressure), circling clockwise due to the Earth's rotation, push ocean surface waters south and away from the coast.

2 The resulting current causes an upwelling of cold water from ocean depths.

3 The cold surface water cools the air above it, causing its moisture to condense into fog.

4 Warm air in the sun-heated Central Valley rises and is gradually replaced by cool ocean air, which draws the fog across the bay and toward the valley.

Even within the city, which is a surprising small little 7x7 mile block on the tip of the penninsula, there are many microclimates. For instance, I live on the East side of Russian Hill. By the time the fog gets to me, it has to cross three major hills. Other neighborhoods in the western part of the city that are unobstructed to the ocean sit in a dense fog for most of the summer. Usually, the fog "burns" out by the time it hits my house. This year, no dice. The fog has invaded and occupied the entire city.

Anyway, we'll get our summer next month. I need to wear this banana hammock speedo at somepoint this summer.

On second thought, I'm not European, so I'll leave the speedo at home.

Loosely Knit Group, That Blogosphere Is

Yesterday, in implicitly discussing the teleological nature of the blogosphere, Colossus wrote:.

But it isn't about size, after all -- frankly I think her argument is nonsense. I'd hate to become a blog that can't discuss anything under the Sun. Consider these ten fine blogs which discuss everything under the sun, and tell me -- are they successful because they've specialized?

...Jane, I'm not pushing a product here. I'm not trying to differentiate myself so I can sell more godd*mn widgets. It ain't about the widgets. It ain't about the almighty traffic, it ain't about the godd*mn dollar. It's about doing something I enjoy and sharing it with others.

Maybe lightning will strike for me like it did for John Scalzi, and I'll sell a few books. But if it doesn't, that's OK, too.

So keep the marketing pitch.

Or, better yet, go write me something interesting and maybe I'll link to you.

I'm with Colossus on this one. I find the argument about creating a more "successful blog" to be a bit moot as it is a poor assumption to generalize "blogging" and what it's nature is based on the relationship of upper-tier bloggers to everyone else. I think this is where Colossus is heading with his thoughts.

Granted, this particular discussion is an argument focused on how lower-tier bloggers can increase their exposure to upper-tier, or mainstream bloggers, but I think the argument misses out on a whole facet that makes the blogosphere unique: namely that its diversity and bandwidth has the capability to really affect and drive dialog on issues of great importance. It's importance shouldn't be measured on how each blog individually influences debate, but about how it acts as an aggregate force. And what about bloggers like Colossus and me that don't care about traffic or breaking through into the mainstream clique? Do we have a place in this mess? I'm going to argue that we have a tremendous role to play, but by it's very nature, will remain under-the-radar.

When it comes to particular topics, there is a wide market for bloggers that specialize in that particular topic. There will always be a need for "expert opinion" from people that live and breathe the material they are writing about. For instance, if I want to understand something about the way the latest piece of the war is fitting into the global war on terrorism, I click over to the Belmont Club; for science, I don't think there is anyone more articulate than Anthony Perez-Miller over at Andúnië (full disclosure, I go to Andúnië for everything as Anthony is not only an exceptional writer, but also a close friend). These are just a handful of examples, however the point being that there are some exceptionally talented people that are putting free content out on the Web that helps us see through the lines in ways that those who are not trained in one particular topic cannot.

But most people fall into the catagory that Colossus, me and most other bloggers fall into: "Miscellaneous." That really doesn't make for a good buzz word, but it does contains a truth: blogging isn't about providing a service, it is more self-serving; a medium through which we better or sharpen our thinking on issues that we care about. Also, being unconstrained to a particular specialization, we are free to expand our writings by bringing a variety of different topics and opinions into context with others. Sometimes I tire of reading minutia and only care about how it relates to something bigger.

In my opinion, the perfect example of a blog of this nature is the highly underrated Astonished Head, authored and run by the eminently talented, but positively insane Ian Wood (Being that Ian graciously hits this site every now and again, I feel that I owe him a little bit of ass-kissing here). As a matter of fact, his style has heavily influenced my own in that Ian clearly thinks through multifacited issues, while writing in his own unique voice.

So, springboarding off that, Ian wrote a post a little while ago about the neccesity of the practice of rhetoric through the means of dialog:

One of the key components of a classical education in 5th-century Athens was rhetoric. The study of the verbal bow, the accompanying shield and quiver of arrows, and the techniques of their proper use allowed an educated person to spot the aforementioned bovine fecal matter when it issued forth from the mouth of a politician, an orator, a philosopher, or the local loudmouth at the baths. Such study served as a defense against infection by bad ideas and allowed for escape from poorly-constructed logical traps. In short, it equipped the student with much of the intellectual arsenal that he required to think for himself.

Those who argue today for a reduction or elimination of media bias, to be somehow carried out by the media itself so as to maintain its illusory independence, are the equivalent of a 5th-century Athenian arguing that anyone who made a speech had a duty to present only the undisguised truth and make no attempt to sway his audience with any rhetorical tricks.

I've written before about Plato's depiction of Socrates' mistrust of the written word. Part of this mistrust, I believe, stems from his belief that the written word deprived the reader of the use of a very powerful arrow in the rhetorical quiver: dialogue. Interlocution was a vital part of Plato's entire philosophical process and, thus, absolutely vital for the pursuit and discernment of truth.

He lived in an age when the almost all libraries were small collections of manuscripts privately held by wealthy patricians. The single public library at Alexandria held 750,000 scrolls at its height, a significant portion of which must have been duplicates because there weren't that many written works in the known world. The primary mode of information exchange--and thus, the primary method of intellectual influence--was verbal.

This is ultimately the roll that we peons at the bottom of pile provide. We are the ones that validate all the ideas and arguments thrown around by the bigwigs at the top. For example, if Glenn at Instapundit makes a lazy argument, he is going to have thousands of bloggers down below pounding him for it. Glenn may be a bad example in that he usually, whether you agree with him or not, presents a solid and concise argument. However, no one has felt this ripple effect harder than the once esteemed Andrew Sullivan. When Andrew, who was once a cheerleader for Bush and the War in Iraq, turned the other way faster than a Frenchmen during an invasion, the blogosphere lit him up. Sullivan's shift wasn't the result of gaining a better argument based on the solid reasoning of an opposing viewpoint. Instead, the ideas he once owned and argued for reversed for no logical reason apart from a personal vendetta towards the President. This was the sin he paid for.

Ideas and arguments trickle down; they are sliced, diced and then put through the fire and by the end, a solid argument will withstand the heat of the kiln. This is why assinine statements like "Its All About Oil" and "The Jews Were Behind 9/11" melt through the onslaught that goes beyond what the "experts" think. This is invaluable in democracy where what the "elites" or "experts" think is less relevant than what the entire constituency wants.

For me personally, I don't care to write about what I specialize in. I work all day long thinking about business and finance and, while I like what I do very much, it is not something I find interesting extensively writing about in my spare time (for now). I'm no "expert" at a lot of the things I write about; I know just enough to be dangerous. When I named this site TenFingers6Strings, and assumed its pseudonym, I thought I would be writing more about playing guitar and someday will get to it. But for now, the understanding of the war that we are currently waging is something that should be of the utmost importance--for everyone. I'm just doing my little bit to try and think my way through this damn thing. I don't post often enough to have any individual influence, but I just hope that a few people stop by and get challenged every now and again.

Anyway, this is a long way around saying, dammit, I'll write about whatever I bloody-hell want to....

...wearing a pink bandana.

We Can, and Must Win in Iraq

Riding on the coattails of Saint Cindy and a dubious Gallup Poll showing support for the war in Iraq at 38%, the anti-war crowd has turned up the heat on those that supported the intervention. Like always, their timing is impeccable, and there is a possibility that their miscalculation could be as bad as the time when Al Gore endorsed Howard Dean before the Iowa Caucus.

While the Left continues to peddle canards about what is really happening on the ground, our military, along with Iraqi Security forces, are really taking it to insurgency. Strategypage reports that their efforts are starting to produce some measureable results:

Suicide bombings have become less common, and arrests of terrorists have risen sharply in the past month. Actually, incarcerations have been climbing since last Fall, as more terrorists and gangsters are caught red-handed. Before that, many of the 50,000 arrests resulted in a brief interrogation, and release of the suspect. But now more bad people are being identified and kept incarcerated. Many of these are career criminals who had been freed by Saddam in 2002, or escaped in the confusion of the 2003 invasion. But the crime wave these thugs have generated in the past two years is coming to an end. The rampant criminality is the one thing all Iraqis are united in opposition to. More tribal vigilantes are being formed, and either killing gangsters, or pointing them out to police or coalition troops.

...Many potential prisoners, being hunted in their own towns and neighborhoods, have become more vicious in their attempts to terrorize their neighbors into supporting the cause. Sunni Arab leaders are increasingly subject to threats, and attacks. The long feared civil war within the Sunni Arab community is under way. It's actually been going on, and growing, for over a year. But now there are towns in western Iraq where armed factions regularly battle each other. Al Qaeda gangs are increasingly seen as "foreign occupiers", and attacked by nearly all factions in the Sunni Arab community.

I guess if one read the New York Times everyday, they would see nothing but a quagmiric mess with no hope in sight. Of course, all signs pointing to the source of this catestrophe lead to George Bush. For them, tt has always has been, not about terrorism, fanatical Islam, the Middle East, suppression of moderate Arabs or freedom, it's about Bush.

This is the fallacy in their thinking: when one man (or Bush and his "cabal" acting together as a singul unit) is charged with being directly responsible for so much, one is forced to simplify and round out the edges of the complexity on the ground in Iraq.

But Iraq cannot be cut and sliced cleanly (and this goes for those who supported the war and only see nothing but good). There are thousands of variables involved; some working dependently, others working independently from each other, but all panning out to an ultimate "reality." Bush is obviously a major player in this roll, but he is far from the only one who can effect the outcome there.

As the defeatists constantly refrain about an insurgency that "shows no sign of letting up," the U.S. military remains on the offensive. They have engaged in many battalion sized operations, while supporting Iraqi security forces in hundreds of smaller engagements. With each arrest they make, there is more intellegence gained, leading to even further arrests; car bomb factories and arms caches are discovered and put out of business. Al-Qaeda, who had been operating hand-and-hand with the Baathist resistence, are now starting to fight each other in Western Iraq. The Baathists have been trying to reestablish the minority Sunni domination, while Al-Qaeda longs for an Iraq that is run by strict fundamentalist, Islamic law. It was a marriage of convenience and neccessity, and now that the honeymoon is over, they are turning on each other.

By all measures, the insurgency is losing. They have not been able to effect or determine the outcome of any strategic goals and their unpopularity with ordinary Iraqis, due to the oh-so-popular bombing of innocent civilians, is rapidly increasing. If you are willing to bet on that hand, please join me for my weekly poker game so I can empty your bank account. Clearly you have no idea "when to fold 'em."

Now, as I said, this is a extremely complex situation. There is still a lot of potential for bad things to happen. Iran has put forth a large effort toward empowering fundamentalist Shiite Iraqis with money and arms. Many of the Shiite militias are made up of a minority of Islamic conservatives who are trying to eliminate and silence the majority of moderates. Also, there is rampant corruption that has exsisted in Arab society for a long time, however there are some signs that the population at large has a desire to see this change.

So, the Iraqi constitution is close to being finalized and unveiled. The Kurdish leaders want their own country and the Shiites seem willing to break Iraq into three countries. There is a chance this could happen, however I speculate that each side is just using this as a negotiating tactic to ensure their pull in a future Federal Iraq. Iraq is surrounded by enemies, and a breakup would not only weaken them further, it would leave them exposed. Most Iraqis are very clear about who has been supporting the insurgency in Iraq for the past 2 years.

The constitution is also in danger of giving fundamentalist Islam too much influence. This worries me greatly, however once the constitution is unveiled, it won't be official until the Iraqi people vote on it. I've been arguing on this blog that I think average Iraqis are much more moderate than their more organized conservative-leaning leadership, so I would still feel reasonably confident that a constitution that gives Islam too much influence will be voted down.

Truthfully, this scenario will cause me some serious anxiety in the near-term.

Anyway, back to my Lefty friends. I'll let former Democrat Scott Randolph more eloquently express where I am going with this:

The good little democrat in me tied the little noose around his neck and jumped off the stool. He just couldn’t take it anymore.

Take what? The whining. The constant whining by the extreme left about the reasons for war, the incompetence of this administration, and how we’ve all been lied to, and how we should pull out of Iraq immediately, because, *gulp* our soldiers were in danger.

...Here’s a breakdown of the way I see things:

-right or wrong, we’re at war. no amount of yelling will fix that now.
-we have to finish the job. HAVE TO. it may take another 1800 soldiers, but it has to be done
-whether or not we’re there for the right reason, we’ve done something great for that country

I never was a big fan of Bush. But, one thing I do believe….he honestly wants to make this country, and this world a better place. Think about it…the war almost cost him the election. If we hadn’t invaded Iraq, he’d have won in a landslide.

I think it’s just my personality that lead me to this decision. I think the left is too concerned with everyone’s immediate rights and needs, and refuses to sacrifice a bit of comfort and happiness in the present, for something that will make life better for everyone in the future. You can take the environmental stance on that, and I’d have no argument…but I think there enough conservatives concerned with that to make it a moot point.

Mostly, I’m just really pissed off. We’re in a crappy situation, and it’s time for all of America to stand together, put on the big boy pants, and get through the next few years.

Above I listed why I think we can still pull this thing off. If it does happen, there will be a lot of people sitting around with egg on their faces. Unfortunately, just as in the past, they will see no shame in it; they will wear it like a badge of honor.

Nanny McCain

Oh man, this post by The Colussus is tremendous! The picture caused me to spit hot coffee out of my nose and onto my monitor.

FYI, Projectile shooting steaming, hot coffee out of one's nose is only slightly less painful than having one's toenails peeled off slowly in a pool of rubbing alcohol.

Here is the analysis that pretty much nails it:

I love it when Senators pose as experts on a fact-finding mission. Whether or not there are any merits to the issue they're trying to highlight, it does mean that they've found an issue that can be successfully demagogued.

And when you see a demagogue, you need to look for one of the two baser human emotions, fear or greed. In this case, Nanny's peddling fear.

When Senator McCain isn't out "fact finding" for Global Warming, he spends his time trying to rally support for Federal laws demanding drug testing for professional sports.

I'm not sure which name I like best: "Senator Nanny" or "Senator Righteous Indignation."

For now they will be used interchangably.

Friday Stuff

Thanks for coming by. I've been crazy busy at work, and I've also been struggling to salvage my fledgling superhero gig on the side. It is really hard to find work when your only weapon for fighting crime is filthy language. While it is useful for Leftist anti-war/objectively pro-fascist rallies the Reality Based Community/Support the Troops/Bring 'Em Home rallies, it doesn't actually stop anyone from doing what they want to do.

Remember that. Knowing is half the battle.

Anyway, here's another climbing picture from Mt. Langley. Here I am demonstrating the use of my ice ax to climb down a 9 ft vertical snow wall. No filthy language was used in filming this shot.

TF6S on the Summit of Mt. Langley - 14,086 ft

That huge peak on the right is Mt. Whitney.

I must say, cameras don't even come close to capturing the immensity and majesty of myself the view from the summit. This is something that can only truly be experienced in person, so if you have the means, I highly recommend you make the trip. It's sooo choice.

A Poetic Expression of Fog

With apologies to Ian, I present to you a poem about the weather forecast for today:

fog
froggy fog
foggy fog-fog
dammit, its foggy fog-fog again

foggy fog-fog?

froggy fog

Stop mocking me

Doh!

I'm not much of a tech geek, so I could really give a whip about who comes out on top of the Microsoft versus Apple battle. However, despite the fact that my iPod is still one of the coolest things that I own, I hold with utter conviction that Apple rides the short bus to business school.

Don't believe me? Here is how they've handled their flagship product:

There are likely some red faces at Apple Computer.

Apple took too long to file a patent on part of its blockbuster I-Pod music players, so Microsoft jumped in and beat Apple to it.

Tech pundits are snickering at the prospect of Apple having to pay Bill Gates big royalties on the hugely popular I-Pods, which account for more than a-third of Apple's revenue.

Of course, in actuality, Apple will gain the patent that they rightfully deserve, but this does reenforce the stereotype, to some extent, of their image as a business lightweight compared to Microsoft.

This is the business equivalent of getting depantsed in front the entire school; no long-term damage, but everyone got to see your Aquaman underoos.

Yeah For Cindy

Penraker watches Chris Matthews so that I don't have to. Thankfully, he did, or I would have missed this jem, along with a quote from ABC's Nightline, with "HERO!" Cindy Sheehan last night.

I don't want to spoil what he wrote here, so click through and read it yourself.

So, this is the person the Left is making a symbol of their opposition?

Ride her coattails boys...ride 'em right off the cliff.

Personal Stuff

While I read the news and listen to different friends, family, acquaintences, creditors and 1-900 operators around the country talk about the sweltering heat they've experienced in their various this summer, I have come to realize that San Francisco is truly on another planet. I live in one of the sunniest neighborhoods in the city and I have yet to see the sun creep out for longer than 24 hours since May.

Don't get me wrong, I still found time to join in the Indonesian Independence festivities by modeling a Sarong with no shirt in the "Color Me Ethnic" fashion show in Union Square Saturday. In this weather, being shirtless on stage for 45 minutes requires some serious fortitude, along with an internal battery that can last long enough to keep my "high beams" on.

Yes, you read that right: TF6S was "coloring people ethnic" yesterday--with hard nipples.

I digress. I've been spending less and less weekends in the city because of then inclimate weather and am going back to Mexico at the end of the month. So, those of you who can't image someone sitting in California freezing their ass off in August need to know that I'm having a hard time relating to the hot temperatures that I continue to hear about everyday. Especially those of you in Seattle...

I'm kinda cold that way.

Anyway, after the fashion show, we threw a nasty little party that didn't show any signs of slowing down until 6 am. If anyone is interested, there will be another one next month at an undisclosed location. It may be an even bigger rager as all the Burning Man patrons will be looking for another place to crash after a week in the desert. Contrary to most of my compatriots on the right-of-center side, these people are a lot of fun to hang out with when they let down their political hair; I'd party with them any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Maybe its all the glow sticks and free booze?

Back to recovering. Hope your weekend treated you well.

What the...?

Via Penraker, I was directed to Andrew Sullivan's site for the first time in several months. Apparently he has some guest blogger named "Dan" whose last post was a profanity laced snit about the war that was more suitable for a drag queen's reaction after someone wrinkled his/her dress before the erotic ball than a policy discussion.

The profanity definitely doesn't offend me, it is the emotional outbursts that makes Terrell Owens look like a Guard at Buckingham Palace. Its funny how "Dan" (whom I have no desire to do further research on to figure out who he really is, as this post is already exceeding my limits of time spent on worthless dreck) sobs and moans like a little school girl who didn't get her way in labeling the administration "incompetent." Sure, "Dan," from your post I gather we just need to put a little more emotion (along with some more troops) into it.

Bottom-line, we can gain a little insight into Sullivan's judgement with his choice of guest bloggers. Remember that the next time Sullivan complains and whines about the administration's lack of judgement.

Blogroll Update

Life in the Atomic Age shares a common bond with TenFingers6strings: we are both getting no love from the blogosphere.

Well, I think your site is groovy and I'll link you. Plus, primarily being a bourbon drinker, I have a soft spot for scotch as well. Hootch is what binds us together.

Maybe the reason I'm getting no love is because I continue to used words like "groovy."

Iran Gives UN the Finger

The IAEA just gave Iran the diplomatic equivalent of, "If you don't stop I promise I'm going to count!"

The UN nuclear watchdog agency's 35-nation board adopted a resolution Thursday expressing "serious concern" over Iran's resumption of uranium conversion - a process that some fear could be used to help build a bomb - and asked it to stop.

The resolution said "outstanding issues relating to Iran's nuclear program have yet to be resolved, and that the agency is not yet in a position to conclude that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran."

It expressed "serious concern" over the regime's resumption of uranium conversion at its nuclear facility at Isfahan, saying the move "underlines the importance of rectifying the situation ... and of allowing for the possibility of further discussions in relation to that situation."

Oh no! Now that their concern meter has gone from "kinda" to "serious," they are ready to "underline." I'll bet it doesn't come in the form of insensitive "red" ink either. In any case, it looks like they are trying to bore the Iranians into submission by attempting to bring them back into more "discussions."

Even the Iranian's see this as assinine:

"This resolution is political," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said in response, according to the state-run news agency. "It comes from American pressure ... It lacks any legal or logical basis and is unacceptable."

I'm sure most would agree with the Foreign Minister that it is a rare occassion when something logical is produced by the U.N. Now that the Iranians are defiant, and the IAEA has "serious concerns" that they want to "underline," what will be their course of action?

"I can only see one best way to move forward, and that is through negotiations," he (IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei) said. "At the end of the day, I need to see defusion of the situation ... that we are moving on a path of accommodation and not confrontation."

The situation will certainly be "defused" when Iran produces their first nuke. At that point, we'll be doing a whole lot of accommodating, and ElBaradei will be happy with that, as his goal "at the end of the day" isn't to keep Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, it is to see "defusion of the situation."

I propose a solution: we should require that ElBaradei move his headquarters to Tel Aviv. Maybe then he'll see some value in getting a bit more confrontational?

Iraq Update

Wretchard has a must read post at the Belmont Club on the military and strategic effectiveness of the assymetric IED (Improvised Explosive Device). Read his post for the specifics, but the overall aim of the post is to show that during this war, the United States has been able to build very effective counter-measures against this symbolic device. The natural tendency of some in the face of weapons of such nuasance has been to back down, but thankfully our military has, with tenacity and patience, come up with solutions to regain the upper hand:

Just as the enemy has resorted to bigger bombs to defeat better armor, so too will they seek ways to defeat the new American countermeasures. Yet it seems clear that the IED, like the submarine and bombing airplane before it, is not some mystically invincible device, but simply a weapon like any other caught up in a technological race with countermeasures arrayed against it. One consequence of this development is that while the enemy may employ larger numbers of IEDs against Americans, the number of effective IEDs -- the bigger and better ones -- available to them may actually have declined. The penalty for raising weaponry to a higher standard is making existing stock somewhat obsolete.

Yet a more fundamental problem may be in store for the enemy. By engaging America in a technological arms race of sorts they are playing to its strengths. The relative decline in IED effectivity suggests the enemy, while improving, has not kept up. The move to bigger bombs may temporarily restore his lost combat power, but the advent of new American countermeasures plus increasing pressure on the bombmakers, means he must improve yet again. It is far from clear whether the insurgents can stay in the battle for innovation indefinitely. The logic of asymmetric warfare suggests the enemy will at some point abandon the direct technological weapons race and find a new paradigm of attack entirely. That is essentially what they did when they abandoned the Republican Guard tank formation in favor of the roadside bomb in the first place.

I am only speculating, but this, in combination with the chokehold that the U.S. and Iraqi Security Forces are applying along the Euphrates, suggest that militarily we not only have the initiative, but may also be heading towards a major strategic victory. I'm not implying an "end" to the Baathist/al-Qaeda insurgency, but I am implying a severely diminished ability these terror-makers will have within the creation of this new democracy.

Then we can move to fry another fish after this--like Iran's proxy war. There are those who believe we are "ignoring" the Iranian infiltration, but the United States and Iraqi Security Forces have been currently dealing with this more through information warfare than direct hostilities. This is not the type of stuff that makes the news, and there is an ebb and flow to it, but it will eventually pay off in the long run. Then, and I am only speculating, the military may shift and take a more direct approach after mopping up in Western Iraq. The key is to focus and to remember that even though many our people back home have taken their eye of the ball, the military has yet to do so. The day-to-day situation is very fluid, but all accounts show that we are still in a very good, but not inevitable, position to pull this off.

The new Iraqi democracy is but a mere infant, and I am unconvinced that the United States has made any strategic policy moves that would allow her enemies to commit infanticide. Our military has proven time and time again that they are able to make rapid adjustments in the face of a bright spotlight shone by those that fervently hope they will fail. My worry isn't whether our people over there will be successful, its whether our people here at home will allow them to be.

To the Moon!

Now I have another adventure I must do before I die:

The Virginia company that pioneered commercial space travel by sending "tourists" up to the International Space Station is planning a new mission: rocketing people around the far side of the moon.

The price of a round-trip ticket: $100 million.

The first mission by Space Adventures could happen in 2008 or 2009 and is planned as a stepping stone to an eventual lunar landing by private citizens.

...(CEO Eric) Anderson said he already has prospective "private explorers" who are interested in the trip and could afford the ticket.

The last time I blew $100 million was when I tried to organize an expedition to find the Titanic, and that rat bastard Robert Ballard (D-o-c-t-o-r Robert Ballard) beat me to it. I'll chalk it up to inexperience given that in 1985 I was only eight, but what I lacked in experience, I made up for in enthusiasm (looking back, I now see it was only a 7-day sugar high I experienced after eating too many Skittles).

I imagine my lamentation after coming in second in a two man race. I foolishly tried to get a leg up on Dr. Ballard by purchasing, for $1 million, a secret map from a Navajo-Indian man with an eye-patch who called himself "Runs With Boats." Little did I know at the time that his natural habitat was mostly arid desert, and that the closest thing to a naval vessel he had ever seen was the yellow submarine in the Beatles' aptly titled movie. That should explain why our expedition ended up scouring Lake Huron instead of the Atlantic Ocean.

I won't be making that mistake again.

Needless to say, I've been safeguarding my remaining stash since that ill-fated expedition and am ecstatic that I now have another potential adventure to dump my cash into.

However, there is something very frightening about being strapped to 12-million pounds of thrust by something made in Russia. Its not the engineering I'm worried about as much as Vladimir-the-vodka-soaked-quality-control-guy. Then again, he's probably been drinking so long he would function better with it than without.

Still, its a little much for me to digest at the moment, so bear with me.

Back Later

Work is insane this week. Thankfully, I was able to get to Napa this weekend and actually see the sun, versus the damn soup I'm sitting in now. Who knew San Francisco was so foggy?

I'll probably push out a few little ditties for everyone this week. Don't stray too far.

Also, while you're here, my good friend Anthony is a few weeks away from heading to boot camp. I think he's scared that the mean guys will yell at him, so go on over and wish him a little luck. I'd ask you to give him a hug, but I don't think they have adequate technology for that...yet.

Responsibility

Over at Daily Pundit, co-blogger Lastango writes a well thought out attack on the current administration's policies regarding winning the global war on terror. I'm not going to make much of an argument point by point here, but I do have some thoughts on a significant part that was left out--our responsibility.

When it comes to the GWOT, the left is hitting the administration from one side trying to "remove" them from power by a hoped-for embarrassment. Our forces in the field lose, Bush looks bad, the American people turn on him and no more Bush. This is their hope.

The right is hitting Bush on the other side in thinking that we haven't gone far enough yet. Iran is going nuclear, Assad continues to fuel the insurgency in Syria and the U.S. is planning to downscale their involvement in region within the next year (i.e. pulling out of Iraq). To some, Lastango included, this is unacceptable. We should, in their view, be operating and using Iraq as a forward "base" of operations against the other axis of evil. No one yet mentions exactly how we would do this against a more populous, better funded, and possibly nuclear Iran. It is just easier to point fingers.

My point in all this is that WE share responsibility for what is or isn't happening in this war. In the last election, we sent the administration some pretty mixed messages. While polling showed that American's overwhelmingly wanted to fight Islamic terror, many who supported this war went out and put their support behind a candidate that said Iraq was the biggest mistake since Vietnam. This wasn't a shot taken after the fact, our troops were still in the field and the Iraqi elections hadn't taken place yet. The support that Kerry had received in the election was not irrelevant. We told the world, and our own leaders, that we weren't exactly sure what we thought about the whole war thing.

During WWII, we mobilized our entire population to pursue victory. Our leadership does share some of the responsibility in this, but just as in WWII, the government didn't lead the charge on everything. People volunteered not just on the battlefield, but at home. Industry remained strong and the troops received support in material and in morale. Our entire population was willing to do whatever it took to make sure the United States defeated the Germa-Japanese-Italian axis.

So, I don't disagree with Lastango's post in it's detail, however I do believe that we will never follow through with this fight if a majority of our population remains content to ignore any responsibility in this fight at all.

Choking the Insurgency

In response to my post below, Jayne sent me to the indefatigable and invaluable Michael Yon.

I hadn't caught up with him in a few weeks and it was definitely my loss. The unit that Michael was covering, along with Iraqi security forces, captured a rather large arms cache. This is what he found regarding armor penetrating munitions:

Shaped Charges: Over the past few months, the enemy has been experimenting with new ways to penetrate our armor with smaller but mathematically enhanced shaped explosives.

Go read the whole thing and take a look at the pictures of said munitions (I'll save his bandwidth from a 6 strings-alanche).

Recent the news of Marine combat fatalities in Western Iraq make this even more disturbing. Is our enemy getting more lethal? Are they gaining, rather than losing support? Are they gaining the ability to inflict more damage on us than imaginable a year ago?

If I was a member of the press, and thus incapable of rational, analytical thought, I might make this conclusion. Thankfully, however, we have another invaluable source. Here is Wretchard commenting on the "River War" taking place in Western Iraq:

There are probably many similar operations that are taking place along the river and to its north, as per the Di Rita briefing. One of them may have been undertaken by the US Marines at Haditha, during which 21 Marines were killed. One possible reason why this operation has been kept low key, despite its size, is that it may be literally ripping up the insurgent base of support along the upper Euphrates. If the LA Times article is accurate, the insurgents essentially took the whole population of Rawah with them; if the phenomenon is being repeated elsewhere, the displacement of the Sunni population must be huge. To the north there is the unsustaining desert; to the south across the river there is the sweep of the Marines; for the insurgents to leave the population in place would risk leaving intelligence in the hands of the Americans. This has got to hurt and it is only the beginning. The LA Times notes the abandonment of RPGs, sniper rifles, mortars -- stuff you wouldn't leave behind -- not willingly. The whole point of strangling the enemy lines of communication while building support bases is to set up the stage for pursuit. And they will be pursued. The focus of newspaper coverage in the coming days may abruptly shift from 'poor helpless Marines from Ohio' to 'we're slaughtering them! We're killers!' These are the hard choices of war, and as Hemingway once wrote "all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you."

The insurgents are trying to hit hard with, yes, more lethal weapons than before. But, the reason they are hitting hard now is because they might very well be trapped. The insurgency is at its most powerful when it is able to hit soft targets and run on their own terms. This is sustainable. What isn't sustainable is direct contact with U.S. Marines--this isn't mere hyperbole either. Western Iraq is crawling with U.S. and Iraqi security forces and if the insugency is no longer able to run, they have to turn and fight. Expect the "news" to get worse before it gets better, but if Wretchard is right, we could be watching a major victory for the Coalition in Iraq.

(Jayne, thanks for the link)

Help

I'm probably pissing into the wind, as no one really reads this blog, but can anyone substantiate this statement made by Reuters:

Roadside bombs, concealed in everything from soda cans to dead animals, are the single biggest killers of U.S. forces in Iraq, penetrating even the heavy armor of tanks.

Many improvised explosive devices, as the troops call them, are spotted and defused. But dozens go off every day.

U.S. generals have voiced concern in recent months that insurgents have been making deadlier bombs, including, they say, "shaped charges" -- explosives which direct the force of their blast in a concentrated direction to penetrate armor.

On several occasions this year, entire crews of armored vehicles have been killed by makeshift bombs on the road.

Thanks.

Obstacles to Democracy in Iraq

On this site, most of the Iraq related posts have been arguments countering the politically opportune and defeatest memes belying the actual reality. Despite the numerous components to the war that are in our favor, I am seeing that there are several items that could still impede democracy from flourishing in Iraq: general corruption, fundamentalist backed gangs and foreign "influence."

Corruption is one of the most difficult and entrenched aspects of Iraqi life. There is nothing that isn't for sale. For example, Iraqi Security forces will raid a terrorist hideout and make several arrests, and later, the terrorist groups will send someone with cash in hopes of securing the release of the detainees. The detainees, the one who earlier were shooting at their captors, are "freed" to fight again. This reality has driven American commanders crazy, and may be one of the driving forces behind the Defense Department's announcement that there will be a significant reduction in American troop levels by the end of the year. Iraqi security forces are the key component to holding security long-term and they are going to have to learn to stand on the rule of law, or they will be the primary targets of those who continue in their attempts to destabilize the new government.

Next, there are armed gangs, or militias, backed by ruthless fundamentalists that continue to roam the country. Strategypage reports that this just isn't a Sunni driven issue, but a Shiite one:

Not all the terrorists in Iraq are Sunni Arabs belonging to al Qaeda. In southern Iraq, Shia Islamic conservatives use death squads and street gangs to enforce their version of the Islamic life style. This means women dressing very modestly, and staying out of sight, no alcohol, even for non-Moslems, no music and movies, no mixing of men and women outside of family or marriage, and no complaining about all this. The police won't act against the religious gangs, out of fear, or because they are bribed. This allows the gangs to get away with murder. The religious gangs are largely composed of Iraqi religious conservatives who fled to Iran years ago, and returned from exile influenced by the ideas of religious extremists in Iran. No one will admit it, but the religious gangs are believed to be supported (with money and advisors) by Iran (which denies all.)

I've been reading Strategypage regularly for several months, and Jim Dunnigan seems to believe that majority of Iraqis are very fond of democracy and fear Islamic fundamentalism. The problem is that the fundamentalists are well organized and can be extremely ruthless and brutal to those they want to subject. The reports coming out of Basra describing British troops standing around as fundamentalist gangs roam with impunity enforcing sharia is disturbing. Right now, for the Iraqi democrat, fear is a stronger motivator than fondness.

This isn't about Islam as much as it is about Lord Acton's axiom: "power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely." For centuries now, Arabs have been using Islam as tool to subject and control their people. Its no test of faith of their submission to Allah when they are the ones holding the wip in their hand. Many centuries of this brutal oppression has led to a beaten population which has been manipulated and physically beaten into "submission."

Those who long for a better life see freedom and moderate Islam as a pipe dream since the fundamentalists have all the power and organization. If one walks through a bad neighborhood where the bad guys carry all the guns, it is far easier, and in the best interest of self-preservation, to keep your head down and your mouth shut versus doing something to clean the trash off the street.

This is where, in my opinion, the State Department has failed. All the foreign policy realists at foggy bottom have been far too willing to compromise here. The military has done a good job of going in and hunting down terrorists, while in the meantime training the Iraqi security forces to fight terrorists themselves. They have also initiated and run most of the rebuilding efforts (through contractors). The State Department could have provided a lot of leadership in helping local bodies to organize, while cheerleading democracy throughout the country, but as a whole, they were never committed to the democracy thing.

It is hard for the moderate Iraqis to feel confident in standing up for democracy when you have fundamentalists standing on your head, and the United States, who is supposed to be the embodiment of democracy, is sending mixed messages. We abandoned the Iraqis in 1991, and after Saddam slaughtered them, you can bet they are extremely cautious in believing that we'll follow through on promises again.

The responsibility of this major failure also lies with President Bush. While the State Department is unwilling to fully commit, Bush should be actively countering this message. In general, he has been very poor at communicating directly to the Iraqi people that, as long as he is in charge, he will commit the United States to making sure that we won't abandon them. Secondly, he has poorly communicated his vision to the American people. The American people don't like fighting for something they don't understand, and combined with the leftist onslaughts against the war, have become weary. Again, if you are an average Iraqi getting threatened by the gangs and thugs ruling your neighborhood in the name of "Islam," are you really willing to rely on an uncommunicative and unreliable United States to have your back when you stand up to them?

Lastly, foreign influences are hindering efforts by extending the life of the primarily Baathist insurgnecy. Support is seeping through the borders in the form of men, weapons and money. Syria and Iran are state sponsers of these efforts, while the Saudis, even though an accurate picture is muddy at best, seem have no control over their fanatics.

Many critics of the execution of the war on the right have said that the porous borders are a direct result of not sending enough troops to seal the borders. Now, there are other arguments for the use of more troops other than border patrol (I still don't agree with them), but I have yet to see a military tactic that is capable of "sealing" an ambiguous border into a country. Coalition forces and Iraqi security forces are having a hard enough time sealing much geographically smaller areas like cities.

The way to begin dealing with foreign fighters is to start attacking the hornets in their nest. Syria has become a base for foreign fighters, and the United States should be willing to cross the border to go after them. Syria is reeling diplomatically right now, so the United States may be able to do so without too much griping from the Europeans.

Iran is a different story. The Europeans are still trying to "work" through diplomacy and Iran is entrenching. Iran is internally cracking down on dissident, democratic supporters while al-Qaeda and the mullahs are increasing their cooperation. There are no easy solutions regarding Iran and, at this point, are the biggest conundrum in the region.

Overall, the situation remains extremely fluid, but there are some immediate remedies (discussed above) that United States can pursue to help the process along. The constant in this whole equation has been the stratospheric level at which our military has performed. Without the efforts of these men and women, Iraq wouldn't have a chance.

Bye-Bye Drudge

This post is going to seem a little arcane to non-web news readers, however I'll make it brief.

Those who have been using the web as a primary internet source are aware of the institution called The Drudge Report. Matt Drudge broke the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal and has been considered a "right of center" media outlet ever since then.

His site has basically turned into a top-tier tabloid filled with "SHOCKING" headlines. If I only read Drudge's site, I would assume there was an underground conspiracy by sharks and hurricanes to take over the United States. The last few years I've hit Drudge's site out of habit more than anything.

No longer. He's been filling his site with these damn pop-ups for a few years, which has barely been tolerable, and today an ad popped up for "Adult Friend Finder." You, the reader, are capable of filling in the blanks (my readers have a very high IQ--averaging at least 10 points higher than me at any given time), but for those dummies strolling by who are not regulars, Adult Friend Finder is not a site where kids with no adult supervision find a father figure.

Well, at least if they are under 18.

Drudge, today we officially break-up. If I want to find someone looking for three-way action dressed in a monkey suit with their twin sister I'll find it myself.

Matt Drudge and Andrew Sullivan--into the dustbin of the net.