Things continue to overwhelm in real-life here. I have a lot of big projects going on, along with general life stuff. I might not be back until after the weekend.

I promise that it will be filled with partying chicks with low-self esteem and whiskey.

Pictures available on request.

Your hero,
TF6S

Astonished Head -- In San Francisco

Firstly, though, I want to thank everyone for the kind words and encouragement in my Malaise post below. Your comments and emails have made be realize I'm very grateful to have you guys coming by and reading my b.s. pixels.

Anyway, enough of the crocidile tears and on to what I'd like to refer to as "cool blogging." For the first time, I've crossed the threshold and met a fellow blogger in real life.

This week, Ian Wood, the crazy bastard on the recumbent bike riding down the West Coast, has made it to San Francisco. If you've been up to date in following his adventures this summer, you'd know that he also picked up two Brits along the way. I've been hosting these lovely lads for the past two days and, hopefully, their days of tent squating, entertaining Humbolt County stoners and eating power bars have been vastly improved by my accommodations in Hotel de Shining, entertaining wine/beer boozing San Franciscans and partaking in some tasty grub.

Ian, as well as his new gang, are a class act, and I'm sure that we'll have some stories to tell by the end of the week.

Dude, we were soooooo wasted maaan...bwahahahaha....ah dude, man.

College Football Thread

College Football seasons is almost upon us. Because I'm such a loving guy who is an active promoter of "dialog" among diverse groups, I thought it would be great to get a thread going about predictions of the college football season.

Actually, I want to set up a brief war between rivals here on this site, and would like to encourage anyone else to jump in and flame away. I have my Michigan cousin representing the quietest 100k people on earth, my blog friend the Colossus representing Nothing But Catholics, and if I can adequately bait him, one time commenter and friend, "Stone Holmes" representing the Pre-season #1 all-booster team.

In the comments, please write your predictions, and talk about how much you hate your rivals. Any teasing of the putrid play of the Indiana Hoosiers, whom I represent, is strongly encouraged.

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Actually, specifically, I want your predictions on these games (Notre Dame/Michigan, Ohio State/Texas, Ohio State/Michigan, Notre Dame/Navy). Don't even waste your breath with Indiana predictions as you'll only be arguing about the spread.

Malaise

I've been engaged in this whole blogospheric mess for well over five years as a reader, and about year-and-a-half as a participant. I don't really consider myself a blogger, as I think that term has evolved into something that demands a little more commitment and a more defined roll than what I do.

When I used to skateboard as a kid, calling yourself a skater because you bought a skateboard and started sassing back to "the Man," without committing to the craft of trying to break every bone of your body, didn't really make you a skater. If you claimed to be one without demonstrating some true scrapes, bruises, castes, etc., you were just a poseur (to this day, I have yet to find a craft who's community is so intent on sniffing out poseurs than skateboarding).

I post in flurries, and all of my content is what I'm passionate about, something that amuses me, makes me think or helps me to think. In the time I've written, I've been quoted only a handful of times.

The purpose of this site was never to be a source for mass consumption, but lately I'm feeling as if I'm just writing into the ether.

So, here I stand/sit at blog burnout.

Part of the reason why is because I haven't been challenging myself to become a better writer. But also, it has been a bit of a bummer knowing that some of the bigger bloggers will never listen to what you have to say about anything, no matter how articulate. That's not their fault by any means, as just in real life outside the internet, finding common reference points that people can relate to are important in getting your point across. Quoting me at anything is like asking a hang-glider to be your wingman.

Anyway, this post is neither funny, nor interesting, but just an explanation as to the lack of output. I don't know if it will be a common trend, but my lack of enthusiasm about writing has been rather apparent.

Don't go away (all five of you), because I'll still be around, but I just need to find a way to get a little more inspired.

Apparently writing about crack-whores works, as I've gotten more comments on that than anything I've written in the past week.

Cheers,
TF6S

How many of you have been truly creeped out each time my site loads and Whitney's crack-induced photo pops up in your face?

Osama and Whitney, Sittin' in a Tree...

The inside scoop on Osama Bin Laden is that he prefers crack-whores:

That's what we're learning from Kola Boof, the Sudanese poet and novelist whose new book "Diary of a Lost Girl" draws on her experiences as one of bid Laden's girlfriends. Actually she says she was bin Laden's sex slave for a while.

Now she says bin Laden obsessed on Whitney Houston. Boof says: "He said he had a paramount desire for Houston and although he claimed music was evil, he spoke of someday spending vast amounts of money to go to America and try to arrange a meeting." Boof added he couldn't stop talking about Whitney.

All of this news comes via my friends at Page Six of the New York Post. And it gets better.

Bin laden thought about having Whitney's husband Bobby Brown, well, rubbed out.

Maybe we could send Whitney to Pakistan as bait? Then, we can lure him out of his cave, where he's been without a shower for 11 months and only able to pleasure himself with London-based madrass boys (who are looking for fun and terrorism abroad) and goats.

He'd dash out of the cave with haste, so he can embrace his love and enjoy a toothless kiss, while an opium filled Bobby lurks in the shadows.

Counter-terrorism boys--think outside of the box.

"Questions" and Moral Equivalence

During the Israeli invasion into Lebannon, several bloggers discovered that the news agency, Reuters, was photoshopping photos. Clearly, the intent with the photoshopped image was to convey more destruction (in this case, more burning fires as the result of Israeli airstrikes in a dense residential area), which has the effect of influencing opinion against the Israeli. Regardless politcal bent, I believe a fair assumption is that most rational, moral people don't like watching civilian buildings burning. The target audience for these photos are the people within a Democratic society that say, "I don't like Hezbollah, but indescriminate bombing against civilian targets isn't something I can support."

Photoshopped images might be the work of a Western backed news service who serves the interests of Islamists--most likely not in an active capacity--but the Islamists themselves also have tactics they've used to influence Western opinion. In Iraq, Powerline analyzes a situation where insurgents "allow" western photographers to take pictures of them in action. While this might on its face look as if an "objective" cameraman is just taking pictures of the "other side" during a conflict, the insurgents "allow" the cameramen to photograph them in order to project fear, resolve and ruthlessness to the intended audience.

World or domestic opinion isn't very important to the Islamists, because they do not operate within a democratic framework where opinion matters. What matters to them is who has the biggest gun and isn't afraid to use it. But they understand that the West does, and they work to manipulate the Western media with the hopes of changing the opinion of it citizens, who then put pressure on their leaders to pull back. The secondary effect that the Islamists want to cause is a portrait of inevitability to the subjects they eventually want to rule. Why should an average citizen in Iraq help the "occupiers" when as soon as they leave, the Islamists will wipeout the collaborators?

This is information war. Militarily the Islamists cannot even hope for a tactical stalemate against a force that is superior in everyway (training, equipment, tactics and even ideology), however they work very carefully to portray the face of the victim who is determined not to cower as the "big bully" attempts to pulverize them, regardless of the actual reality of who they are and what their situation is.

Unfortunately for the West, the Islamists have exposed a very weak point of moral equivalence within our society. It is absurd to to assume that many in the West actually agree with the ideology that the Islamists are fighting for, but many believe the equation has switched from "totalitarian, ideology bent on forced expansion through brutally, violent and suppressive means," to "underdog taking on the chin from Buddy Revell." The desired result of the West running in circles fighting against itself and not against the real enemy clearly serves the strategic goals of Islamists.

This lead-in brings me to the latest example of just how effectively moral equivalence has neutralized the West. As Reuters and the NY Times have be caught as pawns working both indirectly and directly for the cause of the Islamists, today the "question" has been raised about how American interests have been served through the manipulation of images as well:

Staged War Photos? Even 'Iwo Jima' Shot Faced Charges

The phenomenon of questioning war photos that seem too good to be true goes back long before the birth of blogs and the current controversy over pictures from Lebanon. It has even swirled around one of the most famous and honored war photos ever: the flag-raising at Iwo Jima during World War II captured by The Associated Press's Joe Rosenthal, who died yesterday.

Every few years, until recently, reports and rumors appeared that questioned the photo with some of the same charges heard today, concerning "staging." They were fueled by the fact that a smaller flag had been raised nearby earlier that day on Iwo Jima, captured by a different photographer but rarely seen.

But as with most of the allegations today, the theories about the Rosenthal photo were based on flimsy evidence or speculation.

The man most responsible for spreading the story that the picture was staged, the late Time-Life correspondent Robert Sherrod, long ago admitted he was wrong. Columnist Jack Anderson also raised questions, then retracted them. But the rumor persisted.

In 1991, a New York Times book reviewer, exploring a book on the flag-raising called "Iwo Jima: Monuments, Memories and the American Hero," went so far as to suggest that the Pulitzer Prize committee consider revoking Rosenthal's 1945 award for photography. That Harvard University book detailed the earlier flag-raising and the Marines' top brass desire to promote the second one. Debate raged about whether the Marines "staged" the second, more stirring, picture.

At late as the mid-1990s, Jack Anderson promised readers "the real story" of the Iwo Jima photo: that Rosenthal had "accompanied a handpicked group of men for a staged flag raising hours after the original event." Anderson later retracted his story.

Read the whole article for the particulars, which although there are "charges" of manipulation, are far from conclusive, but for the sake of the rest of the post, let's assume are true. Let's assume that Rosenthal couldn't get a good image, and got a few Marines to simulate raising the American flag in victory. Why would this "staged" situation be completely different from the examples I listed above.

The United States had been at war for three years, and as they were mopping up a fierce campaign that had taken them through events such as D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge, they were still a few months away from Hitler's suicide and the collapse of the German Army. In context with this, the images coming from the Pacific of an even more determined enemy had to wear on the mind of a country trying to find a solution for victory. The Battle of Iwo Jima had 30,000 Marines surround and attack the Japanese position. Of the 22,000 Japanese on the island, only a thousand survived.

The image of the Americans planting a flag on the top of mountain of this island demonstrated something greater: American superiority of determination and strength over an enemy that was supposed to be of superior determination. We had demonstrated to our people at home and to the Japanese that if we had to kill every last one of them in order to plant our flag at the top of each hill they occupied, we would do so, regardless of the cost.

So, even if Rosenthal had lined up a bunch of Marines and asked them to plant the flag again, it still doesn't matter. Rosenthal did not deviate or spin the truth; he beautifully captured the reality at the conclusion of a pivotal point in war: victorious Americans taking an island against an entrenched and fiercely determined opponent.

Those who "question" the legitimacy of Rosenthal's photograph--versus what the Islamists and ideologically driven news agencies who are trying to manipulate the narrative of the current war for the greater good--have provided the world a textbook example of moral equivalence.

Tyson School of Management

Can someone tell me why this man is still the manager of the Toronto Blue Jays? He's thrown down with not one, but now, two of his own players this year. Word has it that John Gibbons attended the Mike Tyson School of Management in the off-season.

Rule #1. from the Tyson School of Management: if talking doesn't work, threaten to damange his family jewels:

"I want to throw down your kid and stomp on his testicles, and then you will know what it is like to experience waking up everyday as me. And only then will you feel my pain."

Rule #2. from the Tyson School of Management: if Rule #1 doesn't work, threaten his family:

"Lennox Lewis, I'm coming for you man. My style is impetuous. My defense is impregnable, and I'm just ferocious. I want your heart. I want to eat his children. Praise be to Allah!"

Rule #3. from the Tyson School of Management: if Rule #1 and #2 doen't work, puff up your chest and say something really, uh, confusing:

"My power is discombobulatingly devastating I could feel ihs muscle tissues collapse under my force. It's ludicrous these mortals even attempt to enter my realm."

Remember, mutter to yourself as you engage these simple rules, "Win their hearts and minds."

Information War Link

I've long been evangelizing the need for the Administration to put a heavier emphasis on countering and actively re-engaging in the information war (of which our enemies have been beating us at). Regardless of how well we do on the ground, the enemy has been able to turn defeats into victory by changing the standards by which we measure the war. Furthermore, they've been able to manipulate the Western media, along with certain self-loathing citizens of the free world, that the real bad guy isn't the head-lopping, woman-beating, child-killing Islamists. No, it's the big bullies who, uninvited, marched into a "kite flying" country with the stars and stripes on their shoulders, riding tanks and F-18s and used their superior firepower to stomp on the neck of a poor innocent victim.

How innocent are these people? R.A. Allen has collected a number, but clearly not exhaustive list, of incidents since we've been in Iraq, and put them into context with specific Geneva Convention Protocols on lawful warfare.

I only ask, where's the outrage? Where's the condemnation that isn't qualified with the word "but"? As Instapundit would say, it is a Dog Bites Man story. The sober reality is that these elements are ruthless, immoral savages who would take over to choke Iraq if we pulled out now. John Kerry, are you willing to turn the Iraqi people over to those that hole-up in schools, use hospitals as human shields and kill children so they'll show up as "proof" of American inability to protect the citizens of Iraq?

A-10

This decision by the Air Force brass demonstrates a bit of a conversion:

The U.S. Air Force wants to keep it's A-10 ground attack aircraft going at least another ten years. That means that over 300 of them have to be rebuilt and upgraded. That's because the A-10s were built three decades ago, with a service life of 4,000 hours in the air. Most have already got over 6,000 hours. So refurbishment will extend service life to 16,000 hours, and install an F-16 like cockpit, along with the ability to use a targeting pod and deliver GPS and laser guided bombs. This makes the A-10 the most versatile ground support aircraft in service. The A-10 still has its 30mm cannon, which, while designed to destroying armored vehicles, has proved useful against all manner of targets. The targeting pod also enables A-10 pilots to cruise around at night, and get a high-resolution view of what's going on down there. The infantry depend on the extra eye in the sky, and the ability to deliver anything from 30mm cannon fire, to Maverick missiles to 500 pound JDAM smart bombs.

The U.S. Air Force has long hated the A-10--Congress forced it on them, they tried to retire it, but didn't after Congress threatened to give it to the Army. The A-10 was the prefect target of Air Force brass's ire precisely because it is an unsexy, unsophisticated workhorse without much of the technological wizardry found in the far more attractive F-22s and B-2s.

But, in the era of assymetrical warfare, adding B-2 Stealth Bombers to the budget don't seem like the best use of resources. The A-10 is workhorse that can be run on the cheap, and is probably one of the best air assets we have in this type of combat where air superiority is already has been acheived. It's great at causing maximum damage to ground targets, because of it's design that allows it to make multiple passes at low-levels to ensure that more entrenched and fortified positions are taken out without needing multiple sorties that other fighters require (such as the F-16, F-15 & F-18). Adding proven, tested, and modernized technology to this beast will make it even more formidable.

I'm not sure what drove this decision, but if the Air Force brass is coming around after 30 years, it is a good thing.

UPDATE: Good timing! R.A. Allen writes about how they are using the A-10 over in Afghanistan. Plus, there is a great video on the A-10 using its 30 mm gun. One of the goals in my life will be to make sure I never find myself on its receiving end.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

When I started this post, I was sitting in an office that literally stands over the hole in the ground that used to be the site of two of the tallest buildings in the world. You know the story: they didn't come down because of a meteor, a natural disaster, or poor architecture/construction; they came down because a group of 19 radical Muslims, supported by a large network of like-minded individuals, organizations and failed nation-states, decided to bring them down by ramming planes full of civilians into towers full of civilians.

Overall, I think it is really hard for rational people to grasp the mind of a psychopath. Individuals like Ted Bundy and Jeffery Daihmer defy the normal mind that can't even imagine such cold, calculated barbarity. We are shocked when we hear of the horrors of what these men did, but even more horrible is the thought that human beings are actually possible of such atrocities. But, in the case of radical Muslims, how does a rational society get its mind around an entire culture that is completely psychotic?

With the campaign in Afghanistan, we brought the fight back to its origins. A group of non-state actors declared war against America over a decaded ago, but after September 11th, we would no longer wait to "defend" against attacks when and where they were attempted, but would turn and destroy the roots that fed and florished them.

How to fight the War on Terror has been as divisive as the agreement on the name. Some say we are inflaming the Muslims by fighting on their soil, and that we should turn back to more of legalistic, policing strategy in order to keep the fires from raging. Others see that strategy as fundamentally flawed--one that was pursued in the 1990's and failed as fundamentalists attacked American targets worldwide while we responded with limped wristed slaps at best.

Currently, Iran and Syria have demonstrated that they are formidable players on the geo-political scale. Iran has solidfied their influence in the Middle East with a slow build-up of a proxy organization to push their agenda as needed. They've been able to put U.S. policy in the Middle East on trial by initiating a war with a country that, rightfully, we must at least morally support when attacked. Iran has effectively done something that 30 years of American policy fought against--the legitimization of non-state terrorist organization. Syria has funneled weapons and terrorists into Iraq to kill Americans, and into Lebannon to kill Israelis, and they have yet to face a single consequence for it.

The situation on the ground in the Middle East was not something that was going to be solved by a three-week campaign in a push to Bagdad. It wasn't going to be solved by toppling the Taliban and removing al-Qaeda from their haven. While these are important tactical moves, the overall strategy of confronting and eliminating the threat from radical Islamists, and the tyrannical leaders that support them will be an ongoing process that demands patience, tenacity, vision, perserverance, and ultimately, sacrifice.

This is where the Administration has failed miserably. Most Americans do not know the strategic vision of how our two conflicts in the Middle East fit into a broader vision, and regardless of what how they felt about the decision to go there, just how important it is that we succeed now that we are there. Just like in WWII, there are multiple fronts that all converge in one vision: the destruction of the active forces threatening free societies throughout the world.

Iraq is something that has demanded a lot of time, energy and focus, and the ultimate goal of establishing a independent, non-terrorist supporting state was a key step in combating Islamist ideology in the world. We're on our way to trying to make this a reality, but there is more work to do. Unfortunately, many believe that we should pull-out and allow the Iraqis handle their problems themselves. Bobby Bran, a West Point Graduate who went on to train the new Afghan Army, has this to say about the strategic implications of an immediate pull-out:

In the final address of the Combat Studies Institute Symposium (which I do promise to talk about in greater detail), Andrew Krepinevich noted that many Democrats (and even some Republicans) have actually convinced themselves that because Operation Iraqi Freedom began as a "war of choice," they don't understand that it has become a "war of necessity." They don't realize that while Iraq was not the central front in the Long War against jihadist extremism, it has become that central front today. And they truly believe that an immediate withdrawal of Coalition troops in Iraq would not have second- and third-order ramifications for American security-- potentially disastrous ones, such as: even greater Iranian influence over Iraqi Shi'ite political society; Saudi Arabia (which isn't going to allow Iran to de-stabilize their own regime from Iraq) joining with Egypt and Jordan to support the Iraqi Sunnis in order to bolster their own positions; Turkey de-stabilizing the Kurdish regions in order to ensure (militarily, if necessary) that an independent Kurdistan does not become a reality; ceding the information operations campaign to the jihadists, who would be able to claim (with some truth) that they had defeated the infidels and that the future lies not with the moderate Muslims like Al-Maliki and Allawi, but with the radical extremists (talk about a major recruiting boon for them...), and emboldening jihadist terrorists to commit future strikes against Western and American people. Mark my words, an immediate withdrawal-- indeed, any withdrawal before the conditions have been established for the enduring security of Iraq-- is to invite a future US catastrophe.

This war isn't about capturing a flag, taking territory, or even killing a few jihadists responsible for aiding in bringing down the towers that stood a few hundred feet from me in revenge. It is about collectively understanding that there are some people that are so broken, they can't be fixed. We must protect ourselves, and save those who are oppressed by these psychopaths, but it seems as if today, we lack the collective will to keep pushing on.

"Therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

"Donations, Donations...."

Over the year-plus I've had this site, I've only managed to make one enemy--not in the sense of mortal enemies (like two equal powers clashing in a battle of epic porportions), but in the sense of my contribution to the blogosphere being something you could fill a gnat's eye with clashing with the guy that named it.

Anyway, Bill Quick has come on hard financial times. If you are one of those people that gives to bloggers, I suggest you go over to his site, rub a couple of nickles together, see if they'll mate, and drop him a couple of bucks.

You never know what is happening in one's personal life, so I personally wish Bill the best.

(Apologies to Raymond Chandler for the Marlow-isms in this post)

UN -- In Full Force

Israel's lifeline in finally dealing with Hezbollah is getting longer. Just when you think they botched their initial campaign, the UN peacekeeping force coming in may sufficient blow the job so spectacularly, that they might get another crack at them:

Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia and Nepal were among nations that offered thousands of troops to a United Nations peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon as Israel's military transferred control of 50 percent of the region to the UN.

``I think we're in business,'' UN Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown said after envoys of almost 50 nations attended a closed meeting of potential troop contributors. The UN wants to deploy about 3,500 troops within two weeks and eventually increase to 15,000 the current force of 2,000.

So, the force standing in the way of a militant proxy army backed by Iran and Syria (who incidentally fired 4,000 rockets into Israel) is to be neutralized by three countries with their own militant Islamic terrorists and another dealing with a Communist insurrection? Isn't this kind of like hiring Michael Irvin and Robert Downey Jr to guard a crackhouse?

Who will be leading this motley crew of scavengers?

French President Jacques Chirac said his country will lead the expanded UN peacekeeping mission and would double its current deployment to 400 soldiers. Chirac said France is ready to assume command of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, a former French protectorate, after speaking with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan by telephone.

Well, being that Lebannon is a small country, this force won't have far to run.

I'm in NY for a few days, and things will continue to be crazy for a while. I'll poke in for a little bit later.

Iraq - In Focus

News and analysis about what is happening in Iraq right now is pretty thin as the media attention has shifted to Lebannon and London. Even my regular stops have shifted focus, as the news there is fresh, as opposed to the three plus years we've been slugging it out in Mesopotamia.

The support for general thesis that I've been arguing in this blog regarding Iraq has predominantly focused on analyzing what is happening there by adding some arm chair military analysis, and most importantly, putting it into some kind of current and historical context. Almost all of the reporting since the beginning of this war has lacked this crucial perspective, and I don't proport to be any alternative source of media other than just being a guy that's is trying to get his mind around a really complicated situation and is writing on a blog so others who are a hell of a lot smarter than me can interact and refine my thoughts.

So, what have we seen in Iraq so far, and where are we going? The war sits in three phases: 1. Invasion, 2. Sunni Insurgency, 3. Civil War.

The first two phases have been won. The American-led Coalition toppled Saddam in three weeks, but then shifted to fighting a long, slogging Sunni insurgency that was dominated by al-Qaeda. The Anbar Campaign in Western Iraq demonstrated just how quickly the U.S. Military can solve problems when they are given operational and political control, as they choked the supply-lines, retook towns and cities along the Euphrates by striking the insurgents and replacing them with newly trained Iraqi Security forces. Additionally, they built relationships with Sunni-tribal leaders and encouraged them to join the elected government--which they did.

As the insurgents lost their grip, and came to realize that striking U.S. troops and the trained Iraqi forces amounted to suicide, they refocused on hitting the hated Shia-Muslim majority.

To say that American intervention caused the civil war is false. Iraq has been in a civil war for much longer than the current American involvement. What American involvement has done, is reveal to the world that there is no such thing as Arab unity. Arab unity only occurs when one Islamic sect has enough control over the other to force them into a unified voice. This isn't quite the hearts and minds campaign we've attempted, and rightfully so.

Al-Qaeda hit the Shias hard, and the now stronger and more numerous Shia have hit back. The revenge killings and death squads have been in Iraq since the beginning, but it has been escalating at an enormous rate with each bomb that strikes a holy shrine. The Sunnis who have finally realized that there is no way for them to win, due to their numerical and resource disadvantage, are fleeing the country. Those who cannot leave, are now caught in the middle of what is shaping up to be the most crucial point in the war.

The lesson in Anbar demonstrated that above all, security needs are tantamount to calming the violence. You win hearts and minds by ensuring that citizens are not getting blown up when they go to the market, or the mosque. Al-Qaeda and the remaining Iraqi insurgents don't stick around very long when American troops are actively engaging them in force. So far, with all the violence in Bagdad, we've been content to let the vastly improved, Iraqi Army handle the problem, and they've failed.

It is time for the Americans to reassert control in Bagdad, by engaging elements (Shia and Sunni), who refuse to lay down their weapons and join the government. After areas are cleared, the Iraqi Army can hold territory won, and keep the peace by not discriminating between ethnic lawlessness. So far, the IA has demonstrated the ability to do this, unlike the police force.

The American effort to rebuild the country is going to hinge on getting Bagdad under control. Do our political leaders have the guts to let the Military follow the formula that defeated a viscious enemy earlier? If we don't win back Bagdad, we lose. Support at home is waning everyday, and it may get to the point that our leaders won't have the political capital to do what is necessary to win (directly engage the lawless elements).

We aren't looking at an irredeemable situation yet, but we better start moving fast before it gets to that point.

Terror Plot Foiled

Major terrorist attacks were twarted today by British and American-led intelligence agencies:

British authorities said Thursday they thwarted a terrorist plot to simultaneously blow up several aircraft heading to the United States using explosives smuggled in carry-on luggage. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the terrorists planned to use liquid explosives disguised as beverages and other common products and detonators disguised as electronic devices.

Police arrested 21 people, saying they were confident they captured the main suspects in what U.S. officials said had the earmarks of an al-Qaida plot.

Evan Kohlmann at Counterterrorismblog points out that this idea is not exactly a new one:

In 1995, when U.S. and Philippine security services uncovered a plot by 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and his uncle 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to bomb over a dozen U.S. airliners simultaneously over the Pacific Ocean [Operation Bojinka], they quickly moved in and arrested their co-conspirators. One of the detained men, trained commercial pilot Abdel Hakim Murad, described Ramzi Yousef's plans in detail -- including his intention to travel to "France, Egypt, and Algeria after the activities here in the Philippines. The purpose was to train those Muslim brothers thereat, on using a Casio watch as a timing device, chemical mixtures to compound bombs, and to share his expertise in eluding detection on an airport's x-ray machine, and eventually smuggling [onboard] this liquid chemical bombs. Furthermore, France has a lot of Algerians staying and that these Egyptians and Algerians ha[ve] no experience on making these bombs and [do] not know the basics of smuggling liquid bombs through the airport."

Three cheers for our intelligence agencies for picking up on this one. While we are still on high alert, it looks like they may have halted an attack that could have seen a higher death toll than 9/11.

I'm not sure we'll understand how our intelligence agencies sniffed this one out for a long time, but I wonder what the Andrew Sullivans of the world would think if the intelligence leading to this planned attack came through interrogation, wiretapping and/or the monitoring of financial transactions?

I'm dubious that they figured this out excluding any of the above intelligence gathering options.

Just checking in.

I've been in all over Southern Florida during the last four days, soaking in all the humidity and West Indian food (bones provided) that I could get my hands on.

This blog has been pretty Euro this August, and it looks like it'll probably continue as I'll be in Philly/NYC next week.

However, I have some stuff in my noodle that is aching to get out.

Of course, that is only because my noodle has a smaller capacity than other, more robust noodles. So, consider the source.

UPDATE: Driving on the freeway around Ft Lauderdale/Miami yesterday, a truck had this written on the back window of his truck:

Muerte al Tirano Castro

Unfortunately, it looks like this Raspuntin-esque cigar smoker still has a few ticks left in him.

I'm heading out of town tomorrow and I'll be away until next Wednesday. I might pop in with a quip here and there, but that's more dependent on me actually thinking of a quip versus finding access to the Internet.

Earthquake

Any one in here from the Bay Area feel that? Everything in my house kind of swayed for a couple of seconds. Felt like an earthquake, but the USGA site doesn't have anything up yet.

Developing....

UPDATE: Looks like a 4.7 hit right at 8:08 pm in Santa Rosa (about 67 miles from here). Strange I felt such a little one out this way.

Go back to your regular programming.

The Information War Continues

The current war in Lebannon is just another example of the necessity of understanding not only how to fight the militarily, but also the proceeding information war.

Strategypage reports a chilling "almost," demonstrating yet again how strongly the Hezbollah Islamists grasp this concept:

Israeli troops operating in south Lebanon captured a Hezbollah safe house, and found the usual weapons and other equipment, as well as a supply of Israeli Defense Force uniforms. This indicated plans to stage a major "atrocity." Committed, as the evidence would clearly show, by Israeli troops. But perhaps this will never happen, for Israeli raids into southern Lebanon have captured many Hizbollah documents, as well as some live Hizbollah members. These, combined with Israeli electronic eavesdropping, reports from agents inside Lebanon, give the Israelis a pretty good idea of what Hizbollah is up to. Without much fanfare, Israeli commandos and aircraft will respond to Hizbollah plans.

This is the kind of information war that American troops faced when they were conducting the first battle of Fallujah. During the battle, al-Jazeera broadcasted the massive "atrocities" that American troops were committing against the "civilians" of Fallujah. While our troops on the ground were defeating the armed insurgents, the provisional government almost came apart based on the images and stories that al-Jazeera was reporting. The American halted their offensive and then pulled out. The battle was a strategic, but temporary, loss for the Americans, and we'd spend many more lives to retake the infamous city for good months later.

The Islamists focus directly on the soft underbelly of Western and Israeli hesitation towards the use of force. Regardless of its virtue, it is what the Islamists target in the information war. The world doesn't get outraged when an entire country is held hostage by a proxy army of radicals supported by Iran and Syria. They don't even blink when al-Qaeda marches into Iraqi cities and diliberately starts slaughtering men, women and children in their efforts to turn the town into an Islamic stronghold.

Ralph Peters discusses how this double-standard is playing out with Israel's ability to effectively wage war:

THE airstrike on the Lebanese village of Qana has been a tragedy for Israel. A publicity debacle, the deaths of 57 civilians united Israel's enemies, complicated American support - and may lead to a cease-fire that rewards Hezbollah. The Qana attack can't be excused. But it can be explained.

The images of children's bodies dug out of an apartment building's rubble were a gift to Hezbollah, Syria and Iran - and a direct result of the Olmert government's attempt to wage an "easy" war.

All efforts to make war easy, cheap or bloodless fail. If Israel's government - or our own - goes to war, our leaders must accept the price of winning. You can't measure out military force by teaspoons. Such naive efforts led to the morass in Iraq - and to the corpses of Qana.

Despite one failure after another, the myth of antiseptic techno-war, of immaculate victories through airpower, persists. The defense industry fosters it for profit, and the notion is seductive to politicians: a quick win without friendly casualties.

The problem is that it never works. Never.

Peters ends up being more pessimistic about Israel's situation in this article than I am at this point, but he's dead right here. There is a major fallacy in the Western world that needs to be put to death: the idea that we can wage a clean, neat war--preferrably from the air.

Qana revealed how technology can be turned around and used against a superior force, not by matching it with something more sophisticated, but by changing its calculus. Hezbollah initiated the current conflict, but world opinion, for the most part, was allowing Israel to defend itself in against an act of aggression. After Qana, Israel again became the agressor--they halted bombing for 48-hours.

Israel is on the offensive again, but Olmert must realize that he cannot defeat Hezbollah by hitting their missiles from the sky. Like every war since the inception of air power, it will take an aggresive and unapologetic application of boots on the ground to finish and secure victory.

How Do We Win? -- An Introduction

Technological advances made in firearms during the Civil War made direct assaults against defesnsive enemy positions suicidal. Tactics previously known during the Napoleonic era, where manouevre proved decisive, were easily defended against, and men began to fortify their positions by digging into the earth. Trench warfare, most notably in the Battle of Petersburg, was born.

Trench warfare was absolutely horrific. The trenches themselves became cesspools of rats, lice and disease--and that was before it rained. Tactically, the defender gained even more of an advantage with the adoption of fixed machine guns firing in concert with riflemen at advancing enemy lines who had to cross open ground covered in mines, barbed-wire and other obstacles. If that wasn't enough, advances in artillery (exploding steel shells, hydrolic recoil, fire control and sighting devices) made attacking practically suicidal.

Progress in this type of war became a measurement of feet and inches. Human wave assaults produced casualty rates almost double of WWII, and because medical advances hadn't yet caught up, most wounds led to death. Technology and tactics hadn't yet caught up for the attackers, but the remainder of WWI would be spent trying to figure out just how the stalemate could be broken.

Infantry was re-organized from 150 men (Company) down the squad level (squad). Infantry became harder to hit as it was faster, more mobile, and spreadout.

But, a new technology founds its way into the war which would ultimately make trench warfare obsolete: the tank. The actual impact of the introduction of tanks WWI was mixed, as their maintenance was pretty unreliable and no one yet knew how to use them. But, by the end of the war, tanks improved and made enourmous contributions by being able to cross no-man's land impervious to enemy fire, through obstacles and over the trenches (side note: in typical fashion, the first German name for tank was translated as "the machine-for-getting-the-men-out-of-the-trenches" before it was rename "Panzer" - this had to make the teletype men go insane).

This illustration is point out in "no-shit" fashion that warfare is never a static problem. A dynamic battlefield requires new solutions to new problems, even ones that may take many years to solve.

Today, we face a battlefield tactical used by our ragtag, unsophisticated enemies, which has found a way neutralize armies vastly superior in training, equipment and firepower. Here is the image below:

These are Hezbollah fighters who have parked a mobile heavy gun in a residential neighborhood. These soldiers are not wearing uniforms, but civilian clothes, which allow them to blend into the general population once they've moved their hardware into civilian building after they've done their job.

These might be the tactics of a coward, but they are tactics that have to a lesser extent plagued the United States's effort in Iraq and are now leading to the possibility of a strategic victory of Hezbollah over Israel in this latest Battle in Lebannon.

This will not be a problem solved overnight, but the War against Islamic Facism will be a long one. Our war colleges have been crunching and developing methods to fight irregular wars since Vietnam. But the assumption they've always had to use as constant for actual doctrine, relies on the make-up of our modern military that is mostly designed to combat large Cold War-era, sophisticated armies, run by a reasonably rational actor (i.e. one that generally wouldn't use civilians and unlawful methods to defeat an opponent).

Our intelligence methods and abilities have been shown to be behind the game at this point as the United States and Israel found their intelligence prior to engagement to be woefully inadequate--to the point of aiding our enemies in the critical information war. Improvements and gains in this area will be necessary to defeat and enemy that shape-shifts, has no honor, and will, without hesitation, use woman and children as human shields. The war on terrorism is shaping up to be one that will be decided on who can better use intelligence to defeat his enemy, while also controlling the information war so that political victory will be seized with battlefield victories (see Stephen Green fantastic essay "The Arm of Decision").

This post is just a contextual introduction, pointing the future efforts of this blog towards seeing just how this will be playing out in our current engagments. I'm not a military expert, just a regular citizen, who in his spare time, likes to think these questions through. Now we are finally getting a fair amount of public information on what our political and military leaders are doing to combat this nefarious foe, and as I've read through them, the picture is mixed, yet hopeful. Just as with the tank and our reorganization of infantry in WWI, we'll figure out a way to ultimately beat these guys. But it may take some time--in combination with ingenuity, resourcefulness and new thinking--to get there.