Thursday, August 31, 2006

On Rummy from the Road

A blast from last April on Rummy over at ePluribus. When I get home, I'll have a few choice things to say about the American Legion's new role as part of the Carl Rove election strategy team.

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Smoking Crack in Iraq (Still)

I had to say one last thing about the Iraq situation before leaving on a short vacation.

Saturday, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki again called for an end to sectarian violence in that country. The same day, police found 20 bodies in various districts of Baghdad. Sunday, Reuters reports, a car bomb killed nine people in central Baghdad. This was after a car bomb attack on the offices of the government owned newspaper al-Sabah that killed two people.

All this occurred in the middle of a major security operation being conducted in Baghdad by U.S. and Iraqi troops.

Bombs also exploded on Sunday in the Iraqi towns of Khalis and Kirkuk.

In late June, Malaki proposed a 24 point national reconciliation plan that included an amnesty offer to insurgents who had not been involved in terrorist attacks. This was interpreted by many to mean that insurgents who had only fought U.S. and other coalition occupying forces would not be considered criminals. As of late August, according to Reuters, no major Sunni rebel group has signed on to the reconciliation plan.

Earlier this week, young Mister Bush said, “We’re not leaving [Iraq] so long as I’m the president. That would be a huge mistake.”

"Not leaving" is the closest thing Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their yes sir generals have come to expressing a coherent strategy in Iraq. Don't be taken in by talk that the administration just isn't good at explaining the strategy to the American people. The administration is good at explaining everything from ignoring treaties to justifying torture to ignoring the constitution to exposing the identity of a CIA agent to…

They can't explain the strategy for "victory" in Iraq because there isn't one.

Last October, I identified the top Ten Bad Reasons to Stay in Iraq. You still hear some of these bromides bouncing around the echo chamber, and they sound every bit as ridiculous as they did ten months ago.

But what we're hearing more and more lately is something I call the "testosterone challenge." If we leave Iraq now, we'll show that Americans are weak, don't have the stomach to do what needs to be done, are lacking in resolve. Lacking in resolve… Brother. I've said it before: getting in a bar fight over a girl you just met shows resolve. Waking up in jail with two missing teeth and three broken ribs shows how stupid you are. Going back to the same bar and getting in the same fight over the same girl is utter insanity.

What we're doing in Iraq right now is even worse than that. We're standing in the middle of somebody else's bar fight, and our political leaders are trying to convince us we're all a bunch of sissies if we don't stay in the middle of it.

Staying in Iraq won't prevent the country from falling into a civil war. It's already fallen into a civil war, one that's spiraling into near-total Hobbesian conflict (which we can't prevent either.) The war hawks warn us that if we leave Iraqi the chaos may spill out into the rest of the Gulf region, but our presence there certainly isn't preventing that from happening. We can't contain the violence within Iraq itself--if it spreads across the borders, there's nothing we'll be able to do about it.

So if we can't stop the violence inside Iraq and can't keep it from spreading, what are we doing? There is no military solution, and no amount of American "political will" can change that reality. What we need is the kind of political will it takes to say, "enough is enough."

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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his commentaries at ePluribus Media and Pen and Sword.

Friday, August 25, 2006

Tourniquet Time for the Neocons

I'm leaving Monday for a week in the Carolinas, and reckon it's as good a time as any to summarize how I see the American situation at the end of August in the neoconservative year of our Lord 2006.

On the devastating morning of the Wednesday after the Tuesday after the first Monday of November 2004, a friend of mine said, "Well, maybe it's a good thing Bush won. At least this way, the neoconservatives can't blame the Democrats for not being able to clean up after their fiascos." Yeah, I thought at the time. Without a congressional majority, John Kerry would have had a tough road to travel as he tried to pick up the pieces of young Mister Bush's Humpty Dumpty policies.

As we approach the 2006 congressional elections, the Democratic Party faces the same sort of challenge, except now the Cheney Chain Gang has had two additional years to louse things up. In 2004, our ship of state was stuck on shoal waters in the Arabian Gulf, and taking on water. Now it's bow down in quicksand. Afghanistan and Iraq are irreversible failures, made even worse by the punt-play end zone fumble of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. China, Russia and Iran threaten to end the dominance of U.S. influence in Southwest Asia. The Euros are distancing themselves from us. Even with our British lapdog shies away from us.

The neoconservative dream of global domination through military force has burst like a confetti balloon. Despite its unmatched ability to prevail in symmetrical combat operations, America's "best trained, best equipped" military in history has been shown to be unable to defend the country against terrorist threats and ineffective at achieving America's strategic objectives overseas. Our growing national debt and trade deficit, along with the shrinking of the housing bubble, are driving us toward a potential Black Friday apocalypse. The American middle class is hanging on by virtue of credit cards and home equity, and the revered U.S. constitution is wrapped on a roll next to the commode in Dick Cheney's bathroom.

There is no such animal, vegetable or mineral as a quick solution to the burning bag of disasters the neoconservatives and their GOP liegemen have deposited on America's front porch. So don't get too excited or dismayed over the fact/perception that the Democrats don't have a coherent alternative vision to the Republicans' policies. America is in a decline. We're not ready to start building a new grand strategy, we're in a triage situation. To emerge as a credible power in the Next World Order, we need to stop as much of the bleeding as quickly and effectively as we can.

And the best way to do that is to clamp a tourniquet around the neck of the GOP come November.

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See you in a week. Don't let anything happen while I'm gone!

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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his commentaries at ePluribus Media and Pen and Sword.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Intelligence ala Cheney: Still Cooking and Back on the Front Burner

Once again, American intelligence is "darn good" unless it doesn’t tell the darn Bush administration what it wants to hear, darn it.

Mark Mazetti of the New York Times reported yesterday that the executive branch and its echo chambermaids in Congress are unhappy with U.S. intelligence on Iran.
Some senior Bush administration officials and top Republican lawmakers are voicing anger that American spy agencies have not issued more ominous warnings about the threats that they say Iran presents to the United States.

The neo-pols say those darn old intelligence agencies are playing down darn old Iran's role in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, and are overestimating the time it would take Iran to develop its darn old nuclear weapons--if, in fact, they're trying to develop any darn old nuclear weapons.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Pete Hoekstra (R-Michigan) has released a committee report that says in part: “Intelligence community managers and analysts must provide their best analytical judgments about Iranian W.M.D. programs and not shy away from provocative conclusions or bury disagreements in consensus assessments.”

There's no reason at all to think that America's intelligence professionals aren't providing their best analytical judgments about Iranian W.M.D., but that doesn't stop Hoekstra types from accusing them of being timid. Well, the argument goes, they're not telling us what we want to hear because they don't want to be wrong again like they were with Iraq.

That's both a silly and cynical argument--intelligence professionals don't want to be wrong period, and they don't want to be bullied into providing the politically expedient answers again. Unfortunately, what we're seeing in the struggle between the neoconservative ideologues and the intelligence communities looks very much like what happened in the run up to the Iraq invasion.

Remember the Office of Special Plans (OSP), the shadow right wing intelligence group set up by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and run under the patronage of Dick Cheney to second guess the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency intelligence on Iraq? Well--they're baaaaack…

Larisa Alexandrovna of Raw Story reported last week that the OSP has been reincarnated as the Iranian Directorate (ID), and Dick Cheney is getting private briefings on Iran intelligence from former OSP director Abram Shulsky. Shulsky is a leading neoconservative and a member of the Project for the New American Century, the think tank that formulated the policy for regime change in Iraq. Other past and present PNAC members include Cheney, Rumsfeld, John Bolton, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Bill Kristol, Jeb Bush and Charles Krauthammer.

Alexandrovna wrote "Several foreign policy experts who wish to remain anonymous have expressed serious concern that much like the OSP, the ID is manipulating, cherry picking, and perhaps even--as some suspect--cooking intelligence to lead the U.S. into another conflict, this time with Iran."

Double Negative Proof

A "negative proof" argument is a type of logical fallacy that says something exists because there is no proof that it does not exist. Cheney, Rice, Bolton and others who constantly remind us about Iran's nuclear weapons program offer us nothing by way of tangible evidence that such a program actually exists, and consistently bat away any and all requests that they provide such proof.

In the Iranian W.M.D. question, we have something of a "double negative proof" situation. Iran says it has no nuclear weapons ambitions, but balks at opening its nuclear development program to full inspection. They're asking us to believe that something doesn't exist because we can't produce proof that it does. The neocons, conversely, point to the negative proof that an Iranian nuclear weapons program doesn't exist as positive proof that it does, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So what are we to think? The two most likely conclusions are that a) Iran is developing nuclear weapons behind everybody's back, possibly with the tacit approval of Russian and China or b) they're playing a cat and mouse game designed to jerk Dick Cheney's chain. They could even be doing both.

But at the end of the day, the weapons issue is really secondary to Iran's ambition to establish a homegrown nuclear power program, especially one developed in conjunction with Russia and China. Cheney's plan to control Middle East oil from a military base of operations in Iraq isn't working out so well. If a Russia, China and Iran cabal were to gain control of a significant portion of the world energy market, Dick and Dubya's big oil buddies will be selling solar panels door to door. But Dick and Dubya can't do anything mean to Iran based on its energy ambitions alone--or at least, they can't let the public know that's what they're up to.

Hence all the double-negative neo-mantras about Iran's weapons program that either does or doesn't exist. The Cheney-bots can't deny the legitimacy of Iran's nuclear energy ambitions, because the UN Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)--to which both the U.S. and Iran are signatories--guaranties that "Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes[.]"

Strictly speaking, Cheney can't even accuse Iran of having violated the NPT by hiding parts of its nuclear program from UN inspectors. The Additional Protocol to the treaty allows international inspectors unrestricted access to any nuclear site on short notice. But former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami never presented the Additional Protocol to his parliament for ratification, and in October 2005, top Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani rejected the Additional Protocol outright.

So the only argument Cheney can make for getting down and dirty on Iran with soft or hard punitive measures is the "mushroom cloud" meme, but don't get fooled for a nanosecond into thinking he's worried about protecting America's physical security.

He's worried about protecting his petro-pals' profits.

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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his commentaries at ePluribus Media and Pen and Sword.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

More Hezbollah in a Handbag

Diplomatically, the U.S. continues to dig itself into a deeper hole in the Middle East.

Helene Cooper of the New York Times writes today on aspects of the Iran situation I've been tracking at Pen and Sword.
It was always going to be tough for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to hold together her fragile coalition of world powers trying to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon has made that job harder.

Now that Iran has apparently refused to discontinue its uranium enrichment program, Rice's big challenge will come when a resolution on sanctions comes to a vote in the UN Security Council.
While only the permanent members can veto, the rising fear, particularly among European diplomats, is that smaller countries on the Council are so angry over how the United States, and now France, have handled the Lebanon crisis that they will give Russia and China political cover to balk against imposing tough sanctions.

And as Cooper reminds us, China and Russia have energy investments in Iran, and are unlikely agree to anything that limits their ability to buy Iranian oil or hinders foreign investment in Iran's petroleum industry.

But China and Russia have an even better reason to balk at imposing sanctions. They've arrived at a golden window of opportunity to stick it the good old U.S. of A. Thanks to its misadventures in Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon, America's stature in the world has suffered an enormous blow, and a lot of folks besides China and Russia--especially folks in the Muslim world--would like nothing better than to see the American Cyclops take a sharp stick in the eye.

Moreover, by backing Iran in any sanctions vote, China and Russia will make heroes of themselves on the Islamic street, and the world on that street will become, "Hey, maybe China and Russia and Iran together can shoulder the American bastards out of Southwest Asia."

Believe you me, I take no joy whatsoever in seeing the U.S. take a drubbing like this, but we absolutely, positively must wake up to the fact that the neoconservatives running our foreign policy have completely blown it, and with every step they take, they pull our country deeper into the quicksand.

Another story from today's Times illustrates just how hapless our diplomacy has become.
When Mercy Corps and other Western aid agencies reached this devastated village on the front line of the battle between Israel and Hezbollah with food and medicine, they quickly discovered they had a big problem: the United States.

Mercy Corps and the other agencies that receive financing from the U.S. are barred from giving out money or aid through Hezbollah, but it's next to impossible to give out money or aid without going through Hezbollah.

Iran, of course, has no problem whatsoever with distributing money through Hezbollah, so guess whose money is getting to the needy in southern Lebanon. How likely, then, are Russia and China to back sanctions against the country that's providing the bulk of the aid to southern Lebanon?

Not very likely at all.

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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his commentaries at ePluribus Media and Pen and Sword.

Monday, August 21, 2006

Negotiating into a Fan with Iran

Yesterday, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced that Iran will refuse demands that it give up its nuclear enrichment program. No one should be surprised at that--it was an entirely predictable reaction to the Bush administration's "make them an offer they can't accept" diplomacy.

Article IV of the UN Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty states that, "Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination…" As a party to the treaty, Iran has every justification to dig its heels in on the nuclear enrichment issue.

Pretzel Logic Diplomacy

The next step, according to most reports, will be a meeting of the UN Security Council to vote on sanctions against Iran. That will be a dicey proposition. The countries on the Security Council are also NPT signatories, and have in essence already granted Iran the right to develop peaceful nuclear technologies. What's more, imposing sanctions on Iran would be slapping the hand that's providing the packets of $100 bills Hezbollah is passing around to the homeless in southern Lebanon. That won't play well at all in the Muslim world, or in much of the rest of the world either.

Plus, two of the Security Council's members--Russia and China--are already predisposed to back Iran. Russia is making money by exporting nuclear technology to Iran, and China is fueling its industrial expansion with Iranian petroleum products. What's more, Russia and China have a window of opportunity now to use Iran as a lever to topple U.S. influence in South West Asia.

There's more. Arguments supporting sanctions say that Iran violated the NPT by hiding parts of its nuclear program from UN inspectors. But if anything, that was a violation of the Additional Protocol to the treaty that allowed "international nuclear inspectors to visit any nuclear site, installation or project at short notice and without any restrictions." And the Additional Protocol was a voluntary measure.

According to the Iran Press Service, Iran "accepted" the protocol in 2003, but never presented it to its parliament for ratification. In October 2005, Iran's Secretary of the Supreme Council on National Security Ali Larijani said, “If addressed with a language of menace and force, we shall continue with the NPT and talking, but will get out of the Additional Protocols.”

As shaky as that line of semantic maneuvering may sound, it gives China and Russian more than ample wiggle room to tell the rest of the Security Council, "Sorry, guys, but we just can't go along with sanctions. Rule of law, and so on. Isn't that what young Mister Bush talks about all the time?"

Unilateral U.S. sanctions against Iran would be about as effective as cutting off an allowance to a kid you weren't giving an allowance to in the first place. And if China and Russia continue doing business with Iran--which they will--Iran won't notice a spit's bit of difference in its economy.

If, by some chance China and Russia sign off on the sanctions, Iran may well simply drop out of the NPT, which the treaty itself allows them to do.

Send in the Neo-Clowns

A Security Council veto of UN sanctions or an Iranian withdrawal from the NPT will likely set off a string of Roman candles in Dick Cheney's head, and brother, watch out for what happens then. If Uncle Dick talks young Mister Bush into launching a major air operation on Iran, things will go to Hezbollah in a handbag.

I won't go into the tactical technical details here for reasons I hope are obvious, but Iran can shut down the Strait of Hormuz faster than you can say, well, "the Strait of Hormuz." Whatever portion of the mighty U.S. Navy that happens to be in the Arabian Gulf will be trapped there, and the rest of the U.S. Navy won't be able to get into the Gulf to rescue them. The 130 thousand something ground troops in Iraq will be stranded, and surrounded by a hostile (and armed) Shia population. What little the U.S. Air Force can do to alleviate the situation will be further constrained by that services' strict "crew rest" doctrine.

Yes, given an all out effort, the U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force could fight its way out of the Middle East, but how would that look? The best-trained, best-equipped, best financed military force in history, chased out of Southwest Asia by a country that couldn't beat Iraq in an eight year war?

Iran is scheduled to give its formal response to the "incentives" offer to the Security Council today. The U.S. will be represented on the Council by the Swiss ambassador because the U.S. doesn’t have diplomatic relations with Iran.

That's classic Bush II era American diplomacy. We set the precondition for negotiations with Iran, but refuse to talk to Iran about the precondition.

I'm telling you, folks, if we don't do something to check the bull goose loonies running our country come November, the rest of the New American Century is going to look like the beginning of the last American century.

Forget about investing in ethanol and fuel cells. Sink your money into oats and hay.

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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his commentaries at ePluribus Media and Pen and Sword.

Iran's Ambitions: It's Not the Nuclear Weapons, Stupid

Whether Iran does or doesn't actually seek to develop its own nuclear weapons--and I have yet to see any definitive proof or a convincing argument that it does--it has learned a valuable lesson from its Russian and Chinese allies. In the Next World Order, energy will be the form of power that drives international pecking orders. Military power will take a seat toward the rear of the bus.

As I've stated in the Next World Order series and Wars and Empires, empires rise and fall. Some fall gently; some fall into the footnotes of another empire's history books. Thanks to the neoconservative misadventures in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Lebanon, the day of American global hegemony is already in its twilight. The United States needs to craft a grand strategy that will achieve for it a lasting status as a "first among nations," but to do so successfully it must recognize that it needs to cede the rest of the world a larger piece of the power pie.

The Next World Order is Already the New World Order

The Next World Order model identifies five basic tiers of state, multi-state and non-state political entities: global powers, balance powers, regional powers, wild cards, and "others."

The top tier global powers are the world's three largest economies (as identified in purchasing power parity Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by the CIA World Factbook): the United States ($12.36 trillion), the European Union ($12.18 trillion) and China ($8.86 trillion). These CIA figures are 2005 estimates, but the economic dominance of these three powers is real, and likely to last for some time to come. Number four on the CIA's 2005 GDP list is Japan at $4.02 trillion. Next comes India at $3.6 trillion, then Germany at $2.5 trillion, and the numbers drop off sharply from there.

The balance powers--Britain, Japan, and Russia--are states that by virtue of their histories, cultures and geographic locations are able influence the world-wide balance of power by forming permanent or ad hoc alliances with one or more of the global powers.

Regional powers like India largely owe their status to the size of their economies relative to the GDPs of their regional neighbors. India may be on the verge of becoming a balance power thanks to its military (and particularly its naval force), stable institutions and rate of economic growth. But unlike the three current balance powers, it doesn't have experience as an empire in its own right. It has never shouldered the burden of managing or controlling a significant network of colonies, satellite states, protectorates and so forth.

Wild cards, as the name implies, are up for grabs. They could get completely out of hand or they could settle into one of the more rational political categories. Right now, Iran is one of the wild cards.

The "others?" Well, that's an admittedly over-simplistic way of labeling everybody else. Some "others" are jockeying to be something other than what they are. Other "others"--like Canada and Australia--are more or less content, willing to serve balance and regional power roles as required, but otherwise comfortable with their places in the world, and the security and prosperity that their long standing relationships with global and balance powers provide them.

Iran's Star Rising

Dick Cheney's echo chamberlains continue to insist that Iran is pursuing the capability to produce its own nuclear weapons. Iran continues to insist that it only wants to develop its own technology to produce nuclear energy, guaranteed by the Non-Proliferation Treaty as an "inalienable right." Cheney and his Iranian Directorate intelligence cherry pickers have yet to produce a shred of evidence to prove the Iranians are lying. Conversely, the Iranians have done little to convince the rest of the world that they're telling the truth.

Wherever the truth lies in this question, I'm convinced that Cheney's gong banging about Iranian nuclear weapons is a distraction stratagem. From the neoconservatives' perspective, the "threat" is not a nuclear weapons program that may or may not exist. It's Iran's nuclear energy program.

Whatever political clout nuclear weapons might give Iran, it's nothing compared to the kind of leverage, prestige and economic power a homegrown nuclear energy program would provide. Powering its industrial and expansion with nuclear energy will allow Iran to sell more of its oil to big clients like China (which in turn will help finance the industrial expansion.)

As time goes on, and the rest of the world edges away from dependence on petroleum based energy, an Iran with a mature nuclear energy program will be the entire Muslim world's gateway to the twenty first century, and its allies China and Russia will be the "larger power" beneficiaries. Iran will elevate itself from wild card status to that of both a regional power and, more importantly, a balance power. That, of course, means that the American neoconservative vision of a U.S. controlled Middle East from a compliant, centrally located Iraq will have been a total bust.

Therein lies the Cheney neo-cabal's real concern. Beating the war drum over Iran's real or imagined nuclear weapons ambitions is a smoke screen to justify taking out Iran's nuclear energy program--the program they're entitled to have under the Non-proliferation Treaty to which the U.S. is a signatory.

A saner, Cheney-free America would take a realistic approach to the Iran "problem." It would recognize that nations like Iran have legitimate ambitions, and support those ambitions. It would recognize that doing so would bring nations like Iran into the U.S. sphere of influence. Alas, the Cheney-centric foreign policy chooses instead to push emerging powers like Iran into the arms of America's major competitors.

That's a shame. America and Iran have an ideal opportunity to cozy up right now. After all, both countries presently have a lot in common, especially regarding their governmental structures. In Iran, the president doesn't really wield the power; Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei does. In America, the president doesn't really wield the power either; Dick Cheney does.

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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his commentaries at ePluribus Media and Pen and Sword.

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Iran: Cheney Chomping at the Bit

Pat Buchanan and that other guy were talking on MSNBC today about the Lebanon situation and how Iran plays into it. They touched on an issue I brought up last week in Lebanon Blowback.

Hezbollah is going around south Lebanon handing out Iranian supplied money to Lebanese displaced by the recent fighting, making Hezbollah and Iran even bigger heroes in that country and in the Muslim world.

As Hezbollah walked the neighborhoods spreading goodwill, Israeli commandos raided a Hezbollah stronghold deep inside Lebanon, creating more bad will for Israel and its American ally. Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr threatened to halt deployment of his troops to south Lebanon unless the UN takes up the issue of the Israeli raid. From cable news reports, it seems that everyone who volunteered to contribute to the UN peacekeeping force is now threatening to pull out of the commitment unless Israel backs off.

If the peace deal falls through, Dick Cheney and his chamberlains will try to blame Hezbollah, but only the true neo-conned believers will fall for that one.

Meanwhile, Iran marches closer to its self imposed August 22 deadline to accept incentives to halt its uranium enrichment program. Pat Buchanan doesn't think Iran will give up it's "inalienable right" to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, and I agree with him. They'll probably turn down the incentives.

If the UN Security Council then votes for sanctions against Iran, it will hinder in essence be cutting off Iran's aid to the victims of southern Lebanon, and that will make bad guys of the Security Council. For that reason, China and Russia--already favorably inclined toward Iran--may well vote against sanctions.

At that point, Cheney will have his "See, we tried diplomacy and it didn't work" ticket punched, and consider that he has a green light to bomb Iran. Never mind that Iran has claimed loudly and at length that it has no intention of developing a nuclear weapons program, and Cheney has no proof to the contrary.

Iran launched a major military exercise designed to test its new defense doctrine. Cheney's children will declare the exercise to be a belligerent act, but everyone else will see the exercise for what it really is: a prudent preparation for U.S. attacks on Iran.

If Mad Dog Dick convinces young Mister Bush to launch offensive military actions against Iran based on the basis of even less justification than the Iraq invasion, anything Iran does in retaliation will be entirely sanctioned under international law. And Iran can do some mighty embarrassing things to U.S. forces in the region, especially naval units currently patrolling the Arabian Gulf.

In that eventuality, Cheney would use Iran's justifiable reactions to justify any further military destruction of Iran he cares to conduct, and the United States will be alone in the world.

We can't say for sure if that's what Cheney has been driving America to all along, but given his track record as both Rasputin and Machiavelli of the Bush administration, it sure looks that way.

Larisa Alexandrovna of Raw Story reported yesterday that Cheney has once again formed his own private intelligence directorate to independently analyze (i.e., cherry pick/cook) the information on Iran's nuclear program.

Stand by for an encore performance.

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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his commentaries at ePluribus Media and Pen and Sword.

Friday, August 18, 2006

Bush Ain't Got No Stinking War Powers

Jammed off the radar yesterday by the Jon Benet Ramsey "killer" confession story was something of actual importance that genuinely affects all American citizens. If not for the print media and the blogosphere, I myself wouldn't have known about the ruling by U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor on the NSA domestic surveillance program.

But even some of the "deeper" print news outlets gave the story of the court ruling a surface treatment. The Washington Post headline read "Federal Judge Orders Halt to NSA Wiretapping." Nothing could be more misleading, or feed better into the agenda of the autistic right.

Judge Taylor didn't order a halt to NSA wiretapping. She ordered a halt to NSA wiretapping on certain American citizens without FISA court issued warrants. Under the congressionally passed FISA law, those warrants are about as hard to get from the court as a six-pack of Coca Cola from your corner 7-Eleven. As Josh Marshall noted last December, "FISA specifically empowers the Attorney General or his designee to start wiretapping on an emergency basis even without a warrant so long as a retroactive application is made for one 'as soon as practicable, but not more than 72 hours after the Attorney General authorizes such surveillance.'"

Rumble from the right

Predictably, according to the New York Times, "Administration officials made it clear that they would fight to have the [Taylor] ruling overturned because, they said, it would weaken the country’s defenses if allowed to stand."

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who was a primary architect of the warrantless wiretapping program when he served as White House Counsel said that administration officials “believe very strongly that the program is lawful.” Well of course they believe that. They believe that there are no limits to presidential powers, especially in time of "war."

Judge Taylor, however, concluded that warrantless wiretapping of partly domestic phone communications is “obviously in violation of the Fourth Amendment.”

The administration has consistently based its claims of "unitary" and "plenary" executive powers on Article II of the Constitution and the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed by Congress in 2001 days after the 9/11 attacks. Yet, Article II makes no mention of a president's war power authority other than making him commander in chief of the military. It makes no distinction of his powers in this role between wartime and peacetime, it makes no provision for his ability to suspend any other part of the constitution in wartime.

The AUMF states that, "Nothing in this resolution supercedes any requirement of the War Powers Resolution."

The "War Powers Resolution" referred to is the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which says, "Nothing in this joint resolution…is intended to alter the constitutional authority of the Congress or of the President, or the provision of existing treaties[.]"

Many assert that all the debate over presidential war powers would disappear if Congress formally declared a state of war so the "War Powers Act" could go into effect. But that too is a frivolous claim. The only "War Powers Act" currently in force is the aforementioned War Powers Resolution of 1973, which as we already noted, specifically denies any change to a president's constitutional authority in time of war.

And as Judge Taylor wrote in her decision, “There are no hereditary kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution.”

That won't stop the administration and its echo chamberlains from continuing to argue otherwise. But expect to wait a long, long time before you hear an explanation of why having to get a warrant to wiretap Americans three days after the fact will "weaken the country's defenses."

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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his commentaries at ePluribus Media and Pen and Sword.

Also see Jeff's Smoke, Mirrors and War Powers.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Lebanon Blowback: Heroes and Villains in the Next World Order

Israel has learned a lesson from its American sponsor: how to win the battle and lost the war. Despite the Israel Defense Force's tactical successes (albeit difficult and awkward successes) over Hezbollah militant forces, it looks more every day like the strategic winners of the conflict will be Hezbollah and Iran.

From John Kifner of The New York Times:
As stunned Lebanese returned Tuesday over broken roads to shattered apartments in the south, it increasingly seemed that the beneficiary of the destruction was most likely to be Hezbollah.

A major reason--in addition to its hard-won reputation as the only Arab force that fought Israel to a standstill--is that it is already dominating the efforts to rebuild with a torrent of money from oil-rich Iran.

Hezbollah has told the Lebanese Parliament that Iran will provide an "unlimited budget" for the rebuilding southern Lebanon. Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah has offered a year's rent to any Lebanese who lost their homes during the war.

Game, set, match in the war for hearts and minds.

Perceptions and Realities

All parties directly or indirectly involved in this war conducted robust propaganda, psychological, and deception operations. There's nothing unusual in that, or even immoral. Shaping perceptions has been an integral part of warfare since Sun Tzu was a second lieutenant, and for a long time before that.

The fallout of all this information warfare, though, is that it will be a long time before we know who really initiated the war, what was going on behind the scenes between Washington and Tel Aviv, between the French and the U.S., between Iran and Hezbollah. Many vital underlying critical aspects of the conflict may well remain unsolved mysteries forever.

The Bush administration and its echo chamberlains claimed from the outset that Iran and Syria urged Hezbollah to spark hostilities by snatching two IDF soldiers. Aljazeera claimed that the war was agreed upon by Benjamin Netanyahu and Dick Cheney at a June American Enterprise Institute conference in Colorado. Both stories have at least a shred of plausibility, but we'll likely never know if one, the other, or both are true, so it’s a wash.

It's widely accepted that Iran trained and armed the Hezbollah fighters, though whether they attempted or were able to re-supply Hezbollah during hostilities is as yet unknown. It's dead certain that the U.S. provided Israel with bombs and intelligence support in the middle of a shooting war, so the question of who supported who is a wash as well.

While we can't know what was said behind closed doors during the diplomatic negotiations, the basic timeline of Condi's can't-can dance is relatively transparent. The initial U.S. refusal to push for an immediate cease-fire gave Israel an opportunity to achieve its stated goal of removing armed Hezbollah from southern Lebanon, and even after Condi and her team reversed course and pushed for a cease-fire, the timing worked out such that Israel had time to at least pretend to have achieved its military aims.

The IDF managed to push the battle to the Litani River, but it doesn't look like they completely "disarmed" Hezbollah. While I don't agree that Hezbollah fought the Israelis "to a standstill," they put up a heck of a fight, one good enough to have earned a lot of respect in the Muslim world. The entire world, on the other hand, wonders if the IDF hasn’t revealed itself to be an overrated gang of paper tigers.

Whatever was or wasn't going on with the staged and altered photographs of destruction at Qana and elsewhere in Lebanon that ran in the big global media, its obvious to just about everybody that a lot of Lebanese civilians died, a whole lot more became homeless, and that Israel, with help from the U.S., busted up Lebanon pretty badly.

Who's stepping up to the plate and offering to put southern Lebanon back together again? Iran, the country that Israel and the United States continue to demonize and blame for all the damage. And Iran isn't asking for help from the U.N. or of non-government organizations or anybody else--especially not the U.S. or Israel.
I don't think that even the likes of Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman can look at a TV camera with a straight face and try to spin his way out of that. (Though he may surprise me. He has before.)

Despite what you often hear, perception is not reality. The two are closely related though. People tend to see and hear the parts of reality that reinforce their pre-conceived perceptions, and perceptions influence actions, which affects reality.

The problem with shaping perceptions in warfare is that they can only be manipulated a short distance from pre-conceptions and ground truth.

If you're a Lebanese family coming back to a bombed out home and your Hezbollah precinct captain says, "The Israelis and the Americans did this" you're going to believe it because it's true. Who did or didn't start the war and may or may not bear ultimate moral responsibility for your plight doesn't matter to you.

When Hezbollah and Iran tell you they'll provide you a years rent while they fix your house, there will be little perceived doubt in your mind as to who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. What's more, the sympathies of all of the Muslim world and much of the rest of the world will lie with the homeless Lebanese family, and there's very little the administration and Pentagon spin machines can do to change those perceptions.

This heroes-and-villains calculus will play big in the Lebanese Army/UN peacekeeping force occupation of south Lebanon, especially if words come to blows between the occupiers and Hezbollah. But it will play even larger in America's attempts to get the rest of the world on board with taking measures against Iran.

Though it's an "oil rich" nation, Iran is hardly an economic powerhouse--not yet, anyway. If the western world imposes strict sanctions on Iran, it will severely hamper the country's ability to help Hezbollah rebuild Lebanon, and who will come off as the bad guy in that equation? Iran will continue to insist it only wants to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes--a claim that despite the best efforts of the Bush administration have yet to be proven otherwise--and it will start advertising its intention to share the miracle of inexpensive nuclear energy with the rest of the Islamic world.

If the Cheney-centric U.S. policy team decides it's been maneuvered into a strategic/political corner (and I'll argue that it already has been), there's a real and present danger that it will lash out and launch an extensive air operation on Iran with no more evidence of an existing Iranian nuclear weapons program than it has now.

In that eventuality, Europe would disown us, Russia and China would align themselves permanently with Iran and the rest of the Islamic world, and "America" would become the new synonym for "monster" in every language of humanity.

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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his commentaries at ePluribus Media and Pen and Sword.

See the rest of Jeff's Next World Order series at ePluribus.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

And the Winner Is…Diplomacy!

Condi's can't-can dance with France may have been the last nail in the coffin for U.S. diplomacy under the Bush administration, but it's been sickly for years so that may not matter too much. We won't know the actual long-term consequences of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict--especially considering that we can't be sure it's really over--but it's not too soon to begin analyzing what may become causal factors for troubles down the road.

Who Started It?

Did, as the Bush administration maintained early in the conflict, Iran and Syria egg Hezbollah into kicking things off by capturing two Israeli soldiers? Or was there something to the Aljazeera report that the war plan was "approved" by Dick Cheney at a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu at a June American Enterprise Institute conference in Colorado? There's no way to tell for sure, and there may never be. We know Iran is a long time supporter of Hezbollah, but have yet to see any proof that it goaded the militant Shia organization into crossing the border to grab the two IDF members. What's more, that kind of back-and-forth body snatching has been going on for a long time.

Seymour Hersh's latest article in The New Yorker titled "Watching Lebanon" persuasively indicates that yes, White House and Pentagon fingerprints were all over the Israeli war plan, but I didn't anything in the Hersh piece that supported Aljazeera's claim that Cheney was the grand puppet master.

Nonetheless, Hersh's article makes it reasonably clear that if the Bush administration didn't push Israel into war, it sure didn't discourage them.

Who Didn't Stop It?

Before U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice began calling for an immediate cease-fire, she spent nearly three weeks rejecting the "false promise" of an immediate cease-fire. And even after she'd brokered an "immediate" ceasefire at the UN, it was another two days before Israel's cabinet voted to accept it and another day after that before they stopped fighting.

If that's Condi's idea of "immediate," I'd hate to see what she considers "when you can get around to it."

Whatever was going on behind the scenes, U.S. diplomatic actions had the net effect of giving Israel enough time to accomplish what it wanted to accomplish militarily. And that we armed them with bombs and provided signals intelligence in the middle of a shooting conflict makes it clear that we supported Israel's war aims and were determined to ensure they achieved them.

Who Started and Stopped?

In retrospect, once Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert decided to go to war, and declare the intended purpose of removing armed Hezbollah from south Lebanon, he should have gone for it with every means of military power available to him. He shouldn't have listened when his Israeli Defense Force Chief of Staff Dan Halutz told him that air power could get most of the job done with little involvement of ground forces. Staying air-centric in the early going allowed too many unfortunate things like the Qana incident to happen and too little damage to Hezbollah. By the time IDF ground forces began to roll, Israel was already suffering a public relations nightmare. It was about then that Condi Rice's tune changed, and she started pushing, at least publicly, for a UN peace resolution. Olmert announce an "expansion" of the ground war several times, only to stay the offensive in order to allow time for another round of peace negotiations.

Tactically and operationally, this kind of stutter stepping almost always works to the advantage of the defender, giving him time to reinforce his physical position. Strategically, Olmert may have thought making at least the appearance of giving peace talks a chance to work would help Israel recover some of its standing in world opinion. But world opinion was already lost, and rather than create the perception that Israel was acting compassionately, Olmert merely added to the growing impression in the Arab world and elsewhere that the mighty IDF didn't have the stomach for a ground fight with Hezbollah. Olmert's constituency lost confidence in him, angry that four weeks into the war rockets were still raining down on Israeli soil. Ari Shavit of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz called for Olmert's resignation, saying…
There is no mistake Ehud Olmert did not make this past month. He went to war hastily, without properly gauging the outcome. He blindly followed the military without asking the necessary questions. He mistakenly gambled on air operations, was strangely late with the ground operation, and failed to implement the army's original plan, much more daring and sophisticated than that which was implemented. And after arrogantly and hastily bursting into war, Olmert managed it hesitantly, unfocused and limp. He neglected the home front and abandoned the residents of the north. He also failed shamefully on the diplomatic front.

End Game?
Just now, things don't seem to have worked out real well for either the U.S or Israel in this conflict. That could change if the cease-fire holds, south Lebanon stabilizes, and Hezbollah actually disarms.

If the cease-fire doesn't hold, or if things go up for grabs after the UN-Lebanese force takes over and Israel leaves--run for cover.

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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his commentaries at ePluribus Media and Pen and Sword.

Monday, August 14, 2006

Islamofabulism

The Virginian Pilot my local paper, ran a pair of pieces on Saturday that illustrate the fabulist conservative view of the "war" on terror.

The editorial page featured "highlights" of an interview the Pilot editorial board held with Drake earlier in the week.
U.S. Rep. Thelma Drake believes that perception is a big part of the reason some Americans have doubts about the wisdom of the war, she said.

Drake's perception is that perceptions are why Americans perceive the Iraq war was a bad idea and is going badly. Drake's perception is that Americans' perceptions are skewed because they don't see the reality she's seen. Drake's perception of the reality in Iraq is formed by the two trips she's taken to that country, the latest of which--made in April--lead her to perceive that "things are getting better."
In the spring, she didn't have to wear a flak jacket all the time; she could stay in Baghdad overnight.

Ah. She could take off her flack jacket while she had dinner and slept in the U.S. embassy. Yeah, that's a positive sign, all right.
The global battle against terrorism, at the moment, is quite simply a war for peace in Iraq, a war her constituents overwhelmingly support, Drake said. U.S. soldiers must continue to fight it, she said, to keep terrorists from attacking us in America.
"We're going to have to be there until we defeat this enemy," she said.

A war for peace? Land o' Goshen. How in the wide world of sports, arts and politics did Drake's GOP handlers come up with that piece of Orwellian absurdity?

Having followed Drake's short but colorful career in Congress, I have little doubt that she actually believes the "global battle on terrorism" is "quite simply" the war in Iraq, despite the fact that actual terrorism threats to America had, and still have, nothing to do with Iraq.

Yet, Drake insists that we're going to have to be in Iraq until we defeat "this enemy." The Pilot editorial staff apparently felt that pressing Drake to elaborate on whom exactly "this enemy" is would be a waste of time because she wouldn't have a clue how to answer.

Fortunately for the right, it has plenty of skilled spokespersons who can step right up and tell us exactly who the enemy is.

Islamofabulism

Columnist Cal Thomas is the right wing yahooligan who first used the phrase "Taliban Democrats" after Ted Lamont defeated Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut Democratic primary. And he was among the first conservative pundits to support young Mister Bush's use of the "Islamic fascist" line the day the British terrorist plot was revealed.

In his August 11 column "Time to go on offense," Thomas asks "…are we fighting the war aggressively on American and British soil, or are we merely playing defense? Defense, alone, does not win football games; neither can it win a war against islamofascism."

Thomas's idea of aggressively fighting the "war" is to call the "enemy" bad names, and he seems to think labeling people "Islamic Fascists" is the key to a winning strategy. The likes of Thomas have no patience for politically correct types who prefer not to assault the dignity of law-abiding citizens by grouping them in with violent criminals and insulting them with de-humanizing epithets. In other words, Thomas's idea of offensive counter-terror tactics is being, well, offensive.
Health officials respond to plagues by isolation and eradication. Their objective is not only to control the spread of a disease, but also to kill it so it won't infect others. If that is an effective method for combating a plague, why is it not also a good strategy for combating the islamofascist plague?

That's classic Thomas: stuffing an entire category of humanity into a convenient pigeonhole, reducing it to the status of a disease, and calling for its complete eradication. I don't know how that strikes you, but Thomas and his rhetoric remind me of the guy who called Jews a "cancer on the breast of Germany."

"Islamofascism" was a Rovewellian stroke designed to put a face on "terrorism," but all it really did was trade one ism for another. And the notion that the "war" on terror is taking place in Iraq right now is a fairy tale: believing it won't make it true.

What the struggle against terror needs is a lot less trash talk from fabulists like Thelma Drake and Cal Thomas and a lot more competent intelligence and police work like the Brits appear to have done.

Postscript
If you caught Imus this morning, you probably witnessed Don's pal Bo Dietl condemning the entire Muslim religion, calling it a cancer that needed to be eliminated with chemotherapy.

What a lovely human being, that Dietl.

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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his commentaries at ePluribus Media and Pen and Sword.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Slacker Sunday

What I got from this Morning's Meet the Press

Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff said he doesn't do domestic politics. (Uh, then why is he on Meet the Press?)

Former Governor Thomas Keane of the 9/11 Commission says fighting the war in Iraq is not protecting the American people. We needed a 9/11 commissioner to tell us that?

What's the best way to make Howard Dean look good? Follow him up with Ken Mehlman.

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If Iraq is the "central front" in the "war" on terror, why are the terrorists we're hearing about now come from Canada, Britain and the U.S.A.?

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From MSNBC: The Israeli cabinet has agreed to the "immediate" cease-fire, but the fighting won't stop until Monday morning. Israel says it won't withdraw from Lebanon until the UN "peacekeepers" are in place. Hezbollah says it will keep fighting as long as Israeli forces remain in Lebanon.

Now that's what I call immediacy!

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Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) on Face the Nation said that we need to take politics out of the war on terror and then squeezed in four or five GOP political talking points.

Ned Lamont sounded pretty good. Fighting them over there isn't keeping us from having to fight them over here. Lamont sounds smart without sounding like a politician. (Uh, did I just make a funny?)

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I still hope against hope that the fighting in Lebanon stops soon, but the peace deal still shows all the earmarks of diplomacy that's designed not to work.

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Chertoff again, on Late Edition this time, talking about how U.S. telephone monitoring helped catch the British terror plotters. If the NYT story on NSA domestic surveillance did so much damage to the program, why is it still working so well?

And how come it's okay for Chertoff to talk about it--as it figured in a specific case no less--but not the NYT and other news outlets?

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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his commentaries at ePluribus Media and Pen and Sword.

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Incredible Condi's "Immediate" Cease-Fire

The United Nations adopted a resolution on an "immediate" cessation of hostilities in Lebanon on Friday night. "Since the conflict began, we have sought an immediate end to the fighting," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice announced.

Hours after announcement of the UN resolution passage, Israeli forces advanced deeper into Lebanon against fierce Hezbollah resistance.

The UN and Condi must be taking their definition of "immediate" from Karl Rove's Brave New World Dictionary.

On July 22, only three weeks ago, Rice was rejecting the "false promise" of an immediate cease-fire.

Lebanon's cabinet is expected to accept the UN resolution later today. Israel won't vote on it until Sunday. Word on the street is that the resolution will pass in Israel as well, but that probably depends on how well the IDF's offensive progresses between now and then.

The Israel-Hezbollah situation has been handled badly and cynically by all parties involved. America, masquerading in the role of "honest broker," plainly entered the faux peace process with the goal of blocking a cease-fire until Israel had achieved its stated war aim of eliminating Hezbollah militants from southern Lebanon. After the Qana incident, somebody in the Rovewellian cadre figured "oops, we're going to look bad in this," and that's about the time Condi got the call to change her tune--publicly, at least.

At the end of the day, Israel will agree to a cease-fire when it achieves what it set out to achieve, which is perfectly understandable from their perspective. When a country launches a war with a specific purpose, it's likely to want to keep going until the job is finished. (As opposed to countries that launch wars with vague purposes in mind and never get the job finished.)

But no matter how the Israel-Hezbollah conflict turns out now, America's diplomatic credibility has been damaged even further. The U.S. false about face on the cease-fire isn't going to fool anybody--except maybe Americans who still think young Mister Bush is keeping them safe.

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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his commentaries at ePluribus Media and Pen and Sword.

Friday, August 11, 2006

Israel: More Expansion Interruptus

So now the Israelis are holding off on their new offensive till they review the new and improved UN proposal?

The more Olmert tries to wiggle his way out of the crack he's in, the deeper he gets stuck in it.

Israel: Here They Go Again

Just breaking: Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert apparently doesn’t like the latest peace deal Condi Rice and John Bolton were working on, so he's announced--again--an expansion of Israeli operations in Lebanon.

The sticking point seems to be over whether the proposed UN peacekeeping force will have an ROE that will allow it to conduct offensive operations. Olmert insists they must have that authority and the other guys aren't buying that condition.

Here's the problem: if a peacekeeping force conducts offensive operations, it isn't a peacekeeping force, it's a peace enforcement force, which is another way of saying it's a proxy for one side or the other of the conflict.

The Hezbollah members of Lebanon's parliament aren't going to go along with a set up like that, and there is not, nor was there ever, any reason to expect them to.

This still looks like a set up for the "See, we tried diplomacy and it didn't work" punch line.

Absolute Executive Powers Forever

By now, plenty of voices in the info-sphere have picked up on the remarkable timing of yesterday's announcement of the foiled terrorist plot originating in Britain. It gave Dick Cheney, Tony Snow and other Bush echo chamberlains just enough time to condemn Joe Lieberman's defeat in Connecticut as a blow to the "war on terror" so they could turn around and say "See?"

But the latest administration stratagem is about a lot more than just defeating Ned Lamont in November. The right wing feeding frenzy between Pat Buchanan and Michael Smerconish on MSNBC yesterday was a first volley in the GOP message we'll be hearing until Election Day. Torture is necessary. Unwarranted domestic electronic surveillance is necessary. Profiling is necessary. Extraordinary rendition is necessary. Big honking walls at the border are necessary. Guantanamo Bay is necessary. Unlimited executive powers are necessary for Mister Bush to protect America.

And if you vote the Democrats into power come fall, they're going to take away Mister Bush's unlimited powers, and he won't be able to protect you.

See, we're in a war. You don't believe it, just try and get onboard a commercial flight with a bottle of spring water. That's how you know you're in a war, when you have to drink the airlines' water.

And you know those terrorists Bush's pal Tony Blair had arrested in Britain? They were Pakistani. That tells you just how big of a war we're in. It isn't just Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Lebanon, or Palestine. It's all over the darn place. Initial punditry has pointed at al Qaeda as being behind the British plot with little evidence to support the claim. (Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff said it "could" be al Qaeda.) But just wait and see: it shouldn't be long before we start hearing "mumble-mumble-Syria" and "Hamina-hamin-Iran."

We're hearing now that the two young Muslim men arrested in Ohio for buying too many cell phones (also conveniently announced yesterday) are part of a larger network within the United States. Shudder!

I'm not sure how the Rovewellians will keep this scary campfire story on the radar for the next two and a half months, but I'm confident they'll find a way. I can't wait to hear the next installment.

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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his commentaries at ePluribus Media and Pen and Sword.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Warning Red, Will Robinson

Yesterday, responding to Joe Lieberman's loss in the Connecticut Democratic primary, Dick Cheney said the victory of anti-war candidate Ned Lamont will encourage al Qaeda and other enemies of America. "The thing that's partly disturbing about it is the fact that, [from] the standpoint of our adversaries, if you will, in this conflict, and the Al Qaeda types, they clearly are betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people," Cheney said.

White House press secretary Tony Snow talking yesterday about Lamont's win, invoked the phrase "a white flag in the war on terror."

Then lo and behold, we wake up this morning to find our country has gone to security alert Code Red in response to a terrorist plot discovered in Britain. MSNBC reports that Bush has known about it for "several days," and British security has been tracking the situation for several months.

Timing is everything, eh?

"This is a nation at war"

Young Mister Bush gave a quick speech at noon eastern time.

"We're at war with Islamic fascists." Kudos to embattled British Prime Minister Tony Blair. U.K./U.S cooperation was excellent. Cooperation within America's agencies was excellent. "It is a mistake to believe there is no threat to America." "We will take steps necessary to protect the American people."

After making his remarks, Bush took off to attend a GOP fundraiser.

Please note: I am not suggesting that this foiled terrorist plot was a hoax. But it certainly was a grand opportunity for Rovewellian manipulation, and this administration has taken and will take full advantage of it.

Not until after the arrests were made--21 Brits of Pakistani origin, from the latest reports--did the administration decide to announce knowledge of the plot and set alert condition Code Red for "flights originating in the United Kingdom bound for the United States" and Code Orange for "all commercial aviation operating in or destined for the United States." All this, of course, after the immediate danger has passed.

Which means that for all the months leading up to the arrests, as the danger was mounting, crummy old Code Yellow was security enough?

GOP luminary Pat Buchanan and MSNBC's new anchor Michael Smerconish, a former Philadelphia right wing radio host, are talking right now about how, hey, we need to be able to torture these guys we arrested so we can find out what else they know. They're all het up about immigration and border security. Michael asks if the American people will finally have the stomach to profile suspected terrorists.

Stand by for the right wing noise machine to attempt use this latest exposed terror plot as a panacea to deflect any and all criticism of the Bush administration. NSA domestic spying? Hey, this proves we need it. Same thing with torture. Same thing with Iraq. Same thing with Afghanistan. Same thing with Iran. Same thing with Israel. Same thing with everything. The same old thing, only more of it.

Son of a gun, Smerconish just reported a story about two kids in Ohio with Islamic sounding names getting busted on terrorism charges. Funny how that story's just now bubbling to the surface, isn't it?

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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his commentaries at ePluribus Media and Pen and Sword.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Moe, Larry and Condi

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki have a lot in common. They're both stuck in wars that have no favorable military solution and a common ally--the United States--that's doing them more harm than good. Add U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to the mix and you have a recipe for oblivion a la boy king.

The Apocalypse of the Stooges

Olmert's conduct of the Israeli-Hezbollah has put his country in a strategic cul-de-sac from which it has no good exit route. On one hand, Israel is under considerable heat from the international community for having inflicted considerable damage on Lebanon's civilian infrastructure and creating roughly a million Lebanese refugees. On the other hand, Olmert is under fire at home for mismanaging the war so badly that Israel may actually "lose" it militarily, an outcome that would be a literal death knell for the independent Jewish state.

At this point, a near term cease-fire leading to a lasting peace is not in the cards. The Hezbollah influenced Lebanese parliament will not accept any third-party brokered truce that favors Israel. And if Israel agrees to a truce that doesn't favor it, it will be perceived as having been bailed out of a military defeat by its American nanny.

Israel appears to have kicked off its "expanded" ground offensive into southern Lebanon, and having started down that path, there's no turning back. Anything less than complete eradication of the Hezbollah militia will be read as a resounding drubbing of the Israeli Defense Force. If the IDF takes too long or absorbs too many casualties in achieving that objective, the strategic impact will be almost as bad. And no matter how long or how many own force casualties it takes to wipe out Hezbollah forces, the IDF will wreak an inestimable amount of collateral damage to the Lebanese civilian infrastructure and population, which will create even worse strategic blowback.

Malaki's Maladies

As tough as things may be for Olmert right now, they're even tougher for Iraq's al Malaki. For all of Olmert's woes, he doesn't have an internal insurgency/civil war/apocalyptic pie fight on his hands (not yet anyway). He's got more cats loose from the corral than 130,000 American cowboys could round up in a decade. He needs U.S. troops to fight his insurgents because his own Iraqi forces don't want to fight other Iraqis, yet the longer he keeps U.S. forces around, the more he motivates his insurgents, and the less his Iraqi forces want to fight them.

Publicly, he has to slap the hand that feeds him when American troops do something the Iraqi people don't like. Foreign policy wise, he has to make nice with his neighbor Iran, and he has to make coo noise with the Arab League by making boo noise about America's support of the Israelis because Iraq's Ayatollah Ali Sistani has issued a fatwah to that effect.

Poor Maliki has a tall order to fill. In order to pull off the miracle needed to establish a unified, stable Iraq, he needs to fabricate himself into a "father of his country." It appeared briefly, when he unveiled his 24-point reconciliation plan, that he may well have pulled an 800 pound rabbit out of his hat. But the subsequent chaos in Iraq has left Maliki looking more like Humpty Dumpty than George Washington.

Cotton Candy Condi

Condoleezza Rice's hapless attempts at diplomacy over Lebanon and Iran have made her a worldwide knock-knock joke.

"Who's there?"

"Condi Rice."

"None for us, thanks. We already have all the abysmal failures we need."

Every time Condi steps one of her Italian pumps into a situation, she comes up with negotiating conditions that any freshman political science major could predict would be unacceptable to most parties in the equation. It may be that this former Stanford professor of international affairs is an overeducated doofus with a penchant for expensive shoes and bad hairdos. But it may also be that the core neoconservative cabal has set her up to be the foreign policy fall girl, the one they can point their fingers at when they say, "See? We tried diplomacy and it didn't work."

It's an open secret that the real driver of U.S. foreign policy is Dick Cheney, and his open disdain for diplomacy is no secret at all. In the book of the man who had "better things to do" than fight in his countries war when he was chronologically eligible for military service, any approach to foreign relationships short of armed belligerence is sissified. And despite Condi's much publicized "office wife" relationship with young Mister Bush, Cheney is both the Machiavelli and Zvengali of the Bush II administration, the chief courtier who owns both ears of the monarch.

Between Cheney and his neo-cronies--the likes of Bill Kristol, Richard Perle, and John Bolton--Condi's getting simultaneously knee-capped, chop blocked, bent over the kitchen table and shot in the face. It's little wonder she has a thousand-yard stare every time she appears on television. She probably feels she's being gang-banged like an actress in a low budget porn video, but she has to pretend like she's the one who's running the show.

And I sense that Olmert and Maliki feel like stooges bent over the table as well.

Update:

Cheney's Amazing Timing

Yesterday, responding to Joe Lieberman's loss in the Connecticut Democratic primary, Dick Cheney said the victory of anti-war candidate Ned Lamont will encourage al Qaeda and other enemies of America. "The thing that's partly disturbing about it is the fact that, [from] the standpoint of our adversaries, if you will, in this conflict, and the Al Qaeda types, they clearly are betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people," Cheney said.

White House press secretary Tony Snow Tony Snow, talking yesterday about Lamont's win, invoked the phrase "a white flag in the war on terror."

Then lo and behold, we wake up this morning to find our country has gone to security alert Code Red in response to a terrorist plot discovered in Britain.

Talk about transparency.

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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his commentaries at ePluribus Media and Pen and Sword.

Israel Can't Afford to "Lose" Now

The Israelis are now facing a lot more than censure for "overreacting" to Hezbollah. They're looking down the barrel of an opponent that's more capable than they expected it to be.

As Steven Erlanger of the New York Times reports today, Israelis are not happy. "The criticism is not that the war is going on, but that it is going poorly. The public wants the army to hit Hezbollah harder, so it will not threaten Israel again."

Four weeks into this war, Israel is playing for stakes higher than the immediate threat from Hezbollah. The Lebanese militant group appears to have fought the Israeli Defense Force to a standstill. Much of Hezbollah's "success" may no doubt be thanks to the IDF's desire to minimize further collateral damage--a daunting task given the nature of the battle space. Whatever the case, the perception that Hezbollah is "hanging tough" against the mighty Israelis has been established, and the Jewish state needs to terminate the current conflict in a manner that regains some of its former aura of invincibility.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's political clout may be permanently damaged. Gerald M. Steinberg of Bar-Ilan University says, "There is a strong sense of hesitation, of the lack of military leadership needed in times like this.”

Yuval Steinitz of Israel's Likud party frames the issue in stronger language. “Doubts? That’s an understatement. People are talking of failure. The bombardment of Israeli cities was supposed to be over after 48 hours. The fact that only now the government is ready to even start the real ground campaign is overwhelming.” Steinitz is further concerned that his country's lack of decisive military success has come against Hezbollah, "…which is the size of a Syrian division without any air defense. So what would we do against Syria?”

All this bodes ill for any hopes of peace in the near term. Israel cannot afford to be perceived as having been bailed out by a cease-fire brokered by its American protectors. It must now press for a clear victory in combat and an end state in which it appears to have dictated the terms of peace.

Cable news networks are reporting that the IDF has commenced its "expansion" of offensive operations in Lebanon. Stand by: this isn't likely to end soon, or without considerably more bloodshed.

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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his commentaries at ePluribus Media and Pen and Sword.

Israel Can't Afford to "Lose" Now

Israel is now facing a lot more than censure for "overreacting" to Hezbollah. It's looking down the barrel of an opponent that's more capable than they expected it to be.

As Steven Erlanger of the New York Times reports today, Israelis are not happy. "The criticism is not that the war is going on, but that it is going poorly. The public wants the army to hit Hezbollah harder, so it will not threaten Israel again."

Four weeks into this war, Israel is playing for stakes higher than the immediate threat from Hezbollah. The Lebanese militant group appears to have fought the Israeli Defense Force to a standstill. Much of Hezbollah's "success" may no doubt be thanks to the IDF's desire to minimize further collateral damage--a daunting task given the nature of the battle space. Whatever the case, the perception that Hezbollah is "hanging tough" against the mighty Israelis has been established, and the Jewish state needs to terminate the current conflict in a manner that regains some of its former aura of invincibility.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's political clout may be permanently damaged. Gerald M. Steinberg of Bar-Ilan University says, "There is a strong sense of hesitation, of the lack of military leadership needed in times like this.”

Yuval Steinitz of Israel's Likud party frames the issue in stronger language. “Doubts? That’s an understatement. People are talking of failure. The bombardment of Israeli cities was supposed to be over after 48 hours. The fact that only now the government is ready to even start the real ground campaign is overwhelming.” Steinitz is further concerned that his country's lack of decisive military success has come against Hezbollah, "…which is the size of a Syrian division without any air defense. So what would we do against Syria?”

All this bodes ill for any hopes of peace in the near term. Israel cannot afford to be perceived as having been bailed out by a cease-fire brokered by its American protectors. It must now press for a clear victory in combat and an end state in which it appears to have dictated the terms of peace.

Cable news networks are reporting that the IDF has commenced its "expansion" of offensive operations in Lebanon. Stand by: this isn't likely to end soon, or without considerably more bloodshed.

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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his commentaries at ePluribus Media and Pen and Sword.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Iraq: More al Malaki Malarky

It looks like Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki doesn't like the way U.S. troops are helping him get control of Baghdad.

Last week, Malaki came to Washington and begged the U.S. Congress to stay the course in Iraq. He and young Mister Bush agreed to send more American troops to Baghdad to restore order there.

Now Malaki is unhappy with the way U.S. troops are restoring order.

Theater of War and Theater of the Absurd

From Qassim Abdul-Zahra of AP:
Iraq 's prime minister sharply criticized a U.S.-Iraqi attack Monday on a Shiite militia stronghold in Baghdad, breaking with his American partners on security tactics as the United States launches a major operation to secure the capital…

…Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's criticism followed a pre-dawn air and ground attack on an area of Sadr City, stronghold of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia.

Police said three people, including a woman and a child, were killed in the raid, which the U.S. command said was aimed at "individuals involved in punishment and torture cell activities"…

…"Reconciliation cannot go hand in hand with operations that violate the rights of citizens this way," al-Maliki said in a statement on government television…

…[Malaki] apologized to the Iraqi people for the operation and said "this won't happen again."

The situation in Iraq has gone from ridiculous to sublimely absurd. First, Malaki established his reconciliation plan that offers amnesty to insurgents whose only "crime" has been to fight U.S. and other coalition occupation forces. Then he came to the U.S. and begged Congress to keep American occupation forces in his country, and asked Mister Bush to move more of them into Baghdad, where they would help fight insurgent forces who, theoretically, will be eligible for pardons afterward.

Now he's telling U.S. troops how he does and doesn't want them to conduct operations aimed at bringing Baghdad under control.

Th-Th-Th That's Not All, Folks!

Not only does Malaki plan to give amnesty to the insurgents he wants U.S. troops to fight, he wants the power to prosecute U.S. troops under Iraqi law. When four American soldiers were charged in July with the raping a young Iraqi woman and murdering her and her family, Malaki called for a review of the regulation that grants American troops immunity from trial by Iraqi courts.

Malaki wants to be his own man in the international arena as well. Malaki publicly denounced the "Israeli aggression" against Lebanon, a direct criticism of America's backing of Israel in its present conflict, and ignored demands from some members of the U.S. Congress to apologize for those remarks. In May, Malaki's Foreign Minister Hoshya Zebari announced Iraq's support of Iran's right to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes despite Bush administration insistence that Iran suspend all uranium enrichment activities.

The best-trained, best-equipped land power force in the history of humanity is trapped in the middle of a Hobbesian conflict it cannot win or resolve. American troops in Iraq have become, in essence, a private mercenary force of Malaki's government, fighting Malaki's fights for him because his own troops don't want to fight his fights for him.

I've said this before, but it's worth repeating: Iraq is a goat rope tied in Gordian knots and wrapped around a Mobius strip. The Israel-Lebanon situation is going to Hebollah in a handbag, and is exacerbating the fiasco in Iraq. America's military has become a half-trillion dollar per year pawn in an international game of hocus-pocus politics, but I don't blame Malaki for this pathetic state of affairs.

The American neoconservative cabal--which includes Dick Cheney, Bill Kristol, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Charles Krauthammer, Scooter Libby, Bill Bennett, John Bolton, Jeb Bush and other luminaries of the war hawk right--are the Bozos who've driven this bus over the cliff. But there's one guy at the top of this unholy pyramid, and to date he's virtually managed to escape blame for America's fall from grace.

It's high time for young Mister Bush to take a trip to the woodshed. He's 60 now, and regardless of anything his mom might say to the contrary, he's old enough to be held responsible for his own actions.

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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his commentaries at ePluribus Media and Pen and Sword.

Monday, August 07, 2006

Day Late, Dollar Short, Brain Cell Shy Diplomacy

"Victory" is in the air in the Lebanon-Hezbollah crisis, and everybody is claiming it.

On Saturday, the U.S. and France agreed on a draft peace proposal that multiple media sources described as a victory for the Israel and the U.S. Among other things, the draft proposal calls for Hezbollah to unconditionally return the two Israeli soldiers it captured in the pre-hostilities stage of the war and allows Israel to maintain its troop presence in south Lebanon.

On Sunday, not surprisingly, the draft proposal was rejected by Lebanese parliament speaker and de facto Hezbollah negotiator Nahib Berry, and Syria's Foreign Minister Walid Moallem described it as "a recipe for the continuation of the war."

Little wonder Moallem would say that, because it's true. Moallem was in Damascus for a meeting of the Arab League foreign ministers. After a meeting with Berry, he said, "whoever believes they can liquidate Hezbollah with their huge military...is under an illusion." From all indications, Hezbollah has fought the Israeli Defense Force to a stalemate, and is playing from a hand strong enough that it can insist no cease-fire will take place until Israel withdraws its forces from Lebanon. There is no reason for Hezbollah to squander its military "success" by ceding victory to Israel in a peace agreement.

Once again, the U.S. has proposed a diplomatic solution designed to fail. You can make the case that the key Bush administration players are incompetent at diplomacy because they've practiced so little of it. But they've practiced a lot of application of armed force, and as Afghanistan and Iraq clearly demonstrate, they're incompetent at that too.

But what would you expect of an organization headed by a man whose cognitive shortcomings at times seem to border on autism? At a White House press conference Monday morning, young Mister Bush said, "We don't impose liberty." If invading another country half way across the world on false premises isn't an "imposition" in his mind, I'd hate to see what is.

Bush also said at the press conference that, "The Iraqi people decided against civil war when they went to the ballot box." If that's the case, it looks like they changed their minds since the last election.

Mister Bush also stated that he remains optimistic about Iraq.

And I’m optimistic they'll soon discover that bourbon is a cure for liver damage.

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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his commentaries at ePluribus Media and Pen and Sword.

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Ricks Talks Turkey on Israel and Hezbollah

Thomas E. Ricks, Pulitzer Prize winning pentagon correspondent with the Washington Post and author of the recently released book FIASCO, offered this perspective of the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict on Howard Kurtz's Reliable Sources today:
KURTZ: Tom Ricks, you've covered a number of military conflicts, including Iraq, as I just mentioned. Is civilian casualties increasingly going to be a major media issue? In conflicts where you don't have two standing armies shooting at each other?

RICKS: I think it will be. But I think civilian casualties are also part of the battlefield play for both sides here. One of the things that is going on, according to some U.S. military analysts, is that Israel purposely has left pockets of Hezbollah rockets in Lebanon, because as long as they're being rocketed, they can continue to have a sort of moral equivalency in their operations in Lebanon. __

KURTZ: Hold on, you're suggesting that Israel has deliberately allowed Hezbollah to retain some of it's fire power, essentially for PR purposes, because having Israeli civilians killed helps them in the public relations war here?

RICKS: Yes, that's what military analysts have told me.

KURTZ: That's an extraordinary testament to the notion that having people on your own side killed actually works to your benefit in that nobody wants to see your own citizens killed but it works to your benefit in terms of the battle of perceptions here.

RICKS: Exactly. It helps you with the moral high ground problem, because you know your operations in Lebanon are going to be killing civilians as well.

Yes, boys and girls. That's how these things work.

Hezbollah in a Handbag

Several key pieces of the Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire puzzle need more ink and air play than they're receiving.

First among them is the somewhat blurry line between the Lebanese government and Hezbollah. Thanks to the spread of democracy, Hezbollah has a healthy share of Lebanon's parliament, including two seats in the cabinet. The forces presently fighting the Israelis are often referred to as the "militant arm" of the organization, but don't kid yourself into thinking that the guys with guns and the guys in parliament are two completely different outfits that just happen to have the same name.

So when we talk about removing Hezbollah from southern Lebanon and establishing government control of the entire country, what are we really talking about? And was it any real surprise that parliament speaker Nabih Berri, Hezbollah's de facto negotiator, rejected the U.S.-French cease-fire resolution on Sunday? And is there any reason to think he'll accept a resolution that doesn't favor Hezbollah?

War is Peace is War is Peace…

General John Abizaid, head of U.S. Central Command, outlined another odd shaped piece of the puzzle in his testimony before Congress on Thursday. (Abizaid's area of responsibility encompasses Israel and Lebanon as well as Iraq and Afghanistan.)

Abizaid told Congress he believes the Lebanese government can extend control over the entire country with, among other things, the help of an international peacekeeping force operating under "robust rules of engagement," which he described as the force commander's ability to have "capabilities that are just not minor, small arms, but would include all arms."

"Rules of engagement" is a somewhat murky concept, but it isn't really so much about what kinds of arms a force can use. It's about what the force can use those arms to accomplish. And "robust" rules of engagement don't generally apply to self-defense. They apply to offensive operations. If Abizaid's proposed international peacekeeping force has authority to conduct offensive operations, against whom will they conduct them? Hezbollah? If that's the case, the international force will be taking a side, and that sort of thing isn't a peacekeeping operation. It's a "peace enforcement" operation, which is a military art euphemism for "fighting a war."

Under whose authority would Abizaid's force operate? The Lebanese government, whose parliament speaker is a member of Hezbollah? It's not unreasonable to expect that the Lebanese government would be more inclined to sic the international force on the Israelis than on Hezbollah.

If the international force doesn't operate under authority of the Lebanese government, to whom will it answer? Most likely, it will operate one of those convoluted UN sanctioned multi-national command and control maze-like wire diagrams that lead to the ultimate authority of a U.S. four-star in charge of a unified command, which in this case would be Abizaid himself. How would that play with the Hezbollah influenced Lebanese parliament and the rest of the Muslim world? Abizaid led military operations in the Middle East aren't exactly the toast of the Islamic town as things stand already.

Stand Up Stand Down II

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have reportedly agreed on a program to help equip and train the Lebanese army. State has asked Congress to add $10 million to the $1.5 million in annual military aid it already gives to Lebanon.

In other words, Condi and Uncle Don want to beef up a military that's already, in theory, under control of the Hezbollah-centric Lebanese government. And the guy ultimately in charge of the project--Abizaid--is the same guy who presided over the "stand up, stand down" debacle in Iraq.

As a career naval officer, I had a fair amount of damage control training. I'm no expert at fire fighting, but I know that you don't try to put out a conflagration by smothering it with dry wood, or cooling it off with kerosene, or blowing it out with a fan.

And yet, those are precisely the kinds of measures the Bush administration is applying to the Israel-Hezbollah crisis, and to the Middle East situation in general.

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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his commentaries at ePluribus Media and Pen and Sword.