Good, Bad, and Ugly on the Fourth of July

The ugliest image I'll remember from this Fourth of July is the broadcast footage of young Mister Bush playing Commander in Chief for the camera in front of the troops at Fort Bragg, home of the fabled 82nd Airborne Division.

The bad thing I'll remember is how many members of the 82nd Airborne were in harm's way in far flung corners of the world thanks to the delusional policies of Mister Bush and the rest of the neoconservative cabal that hijacked control of the mightiest nation in human history.

The good thing I'll remember is the launch of the space shuttle Discovery.

Not too many years ago, when I was the skipper of a Navy E-2C Hawkeye squadron, we took one of our planes down to Florida as part of a contingency shuttle launch rescue operation. There wasn't much to the operation. If the shuttle had gone down in the waters off of Florida, our job would have been to launch and coordinate recovery efforts.

We flew down to Patrick Air Force Base in Cocoa Beach, Florida the night before the lift off, had a halfway decent dinner at the officers' club, and spent the night in a pretty good motel. Come morning, we suited up, went to the flight line, powered up the airplane's radios with electricity from gas powered ground carts, and sat on the tarmac. We watched the spaceship launch from miles away, and followed its trajectory until it disappeared from view.

A call came from mission command at Cape Canaveral telling us we were released from duty. We climbed into our Hawkeye, turned the engines, taxied, took off, and flew home to Virginia.

There's no real describing what witnessing a daylight launch of an American spaceship in person evokes. Trust me, it's nothing like watching on television, and I'm told that eye-witnessing a night launch is even more awe inspiring.

It has something to do with the determination of the human spirit, and the realization that American determination is the leading edge of that spirit.

But that thought brings me back to the image of young Mister Bush playing Alexander the Great with the 82nd Airborne Division today, and it sucks all the spirit out of me.

Imagine, if rather that squandering untold billions of dollars on optional wars in a vain attempt to rule the world and procure fantastical weapons that contribute nothing to America's security, the Bush administration would have taken advantage of the peace dividend to pursue scientific manned and unmanned space exploration that would have discovered secrets of the universe that would have benefited all humanity.

Just think. If we'd worked things differently, we could have rounded up Osama bin Laden when we had him cornered and sent him to the moon, Alice!

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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.

Stand Up! Stand Down! Fight! Fight! Fight!

(The full article, cross posted from ePluribus Media.)

I distinctly remember, after the fall of Baghdad, all the self-congratulatory backslapping over the fact that we hadn't needed to conduct brutal house-to-house warfare in Iraq's capital city. Since then, we've been doing a lot of urban fighting. Right now, we're doing a whole bunch of it in Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's Anbar Province. We're been trying to tame Ramadi since Saddam's statue came tumbling down.

The latest operation to take control of what Dexter Filkins of the New York Times describes as "...the toughest city in the most violent of Iraqi regions" launched on June 18th. Filkins reports that "Whole city blocks here look like a scene from some post-apocalyptic world: row after row of buildings shot up, boarded up, caved in, tumbled down." Many parts of the city are out of control of either American or Iraqi forces.

After prior failed efforts to control the chaos in Ramadi, coalition forces are trying something new. Rather than making a full frontal assault on the entire city, they plan to take the city a neighborhood at a time, and they're using a prime tenet of the "stand up/stand down" strategy. U.S. forces seize territory and round up or kill whatever insurgents they find there. Then they establish a secure outpost and turn the area over to Iraqi troops.

But nobody, including the U.S. commander in Ramadi, expects the Iraqis to take charge any time soon. Col. Sean MacFarland says, "I don't think by this winter we'll be quite ready to turn over completely" to Iraqi forces.

The delay in turning the job over isn't so much a function of readiness of Iraqi troops, but of how many Iraqi troops want to do the job.

How Long Will This Be Going On?

Mister Bush has said that Iraq's future is in the hands of its new government. But it appears that the new government's army doesn't want to get its hands too dirty in the course of forging the country's future.

Lieutenant Colonel Raad Niaf Haroosh, commander of the Iraqi battalion in Ramidi, only has 145 of his troops committed to the operation. He left 500 of them back in Mosul. Why? According to Colonel Raad, it's because they fear that they'll create tribal vendettas if they kill fellow Iraqis. "They said, 'We don't want fight our own people.'"

Isn't that dandy? NPR reports that recruits have to pay a $600 bribe to get into Colonel Raad's battalion. If I could serve in a battalion where I didn't have to fight if I didn't want to, I'd pay money to get into it too. Staying back at the base and peeling potatoes beats the heck out of getting shot at.

My time at the U.S. Naval War College and subsequent study of military art tells me there are no absolutes in armed conflict. All wars are the same, and they're all different. But a fairly reliable rule of thumb says that if you're going to conduct a counterinsurgency operation in your own country, your own soldiers are going to have to kill some of their countrymen, including some who are related to those soldiers through blood, marriage, and extended tribal ties. If you can't get your soldiers to do that, you're not going to conduct much of a counterinsurgency. Moreover, if you can only employ a fraction of any given unit to an operation, none of your units will ever be at full combat effectiveness no matter how well equipped or trained the individuals may be.

And as the Times' Filkins points out, this situation is not unique to the present operation in Ramadi. It has been endemic throughout the stand up/stand down process. If this optional participation policy is anybody's idea of "standing up," I'd hate to see what they consider "sitting down on the job." This critical vulnerability in the stand up/stand down strategy won't go away. We can't wave a magic wand and un-relate people.

We've arrived at a point where we're fighting Iraqis because the Iraqis don't want to fight among themselves. How many American troops are in harm's way in Ramadi right now because 500 Iraqi soldiers got to sit this dance out and wax the floors in the barracks instead?

Are we showing resolve in Iraq, or are we being played for chumps? Getting into a bar fight over a girl you just met shows resolve. Waking up in jail the next morning with a black eye and two missing teeth shows how stupid you are.

Iraq has turned into a goat rope tied in a Gordian knot wrapped around a Mobius strip. How did the mightiest nation in human history let itself get into such a bind?

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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.

Rumble in Ramadi

From "Stand Up! Stand Down! Fight! Fight! Fight!"

Lieutenant Colonel Raad Niaf Haroosh, commander of the Iraqi battalion in Ramidi, only has 145 of his troops committed to the operation. He left 500 of them back in Mosul. Why? According to Colonel Raad, it's because they fear that they'll create tribal vendettas if they kill fellow Iraqis. "They said, 'We don't want fight our own people.'"

Isn't that dandy? NPR reports that recruits have to pay a $600 bribe to get into Colonel Raad's battalion. If I could serve in a battalion where I didn't have to fight if I didn't want to, I'd pay money to get into it too. Staying back at the base and peeling potatoes beats the heck out of getting shot at.

See the entire commentary at ePluribus Media.

Coming Attraction...

Around noon east coast time I'll be posting a commentary on the operation in Ramadi that analyzes the critical flaws in the "stand up/stand down" strategy.

Check back here for the link.

Jeff

Bush and Cheney Assault the Gray Lady

As of late Monday, young Mister Bush, Dick Cheney and White House Press Secretary Tony Snow had pilloried the "liberal media" for revealing the existence of the Treasury Department/CIA covert monitoring of the SWIFT monetary transfer system.

The administration's anointed echo chamberlains were swift to pick their drumsticks. This from a National Review Online editorial titled "Stop the Leaks."

Every passing week, it becomes more apparent that disgruntled leftists in the intelligence community and antiwar crusaders in the mainstream media, annealed in their disdain for the Bush administration, are undermining our ability to win the War on Terror. Their latest body blow to the war effort is the exposure, principally by the New York Times, of the Treasury Department’s top-secret program to monitor terror funding.

It's pretty funny how anybody who objects to government intrusion on privacy is a disgruntled leftist or an antiwar crusader, and how any effort to check the power rapacious Bush administration is a "body blow to the war effort."

But this NRO vituperative gets even funnier.

President Bush…must demand that the New York Times pay a price for its costly, arrogant defiance. The administration should withdraw the newspaper’s White House press credentials because this privilege has been so egregiously abused, and an aggressive investigation should be undertaken to identify and prosecute, at a minimum, the government officials who have leaked national-defense information.

I'll let the Ann Coulter-like style of this passage go for the time being and jump to its core absurdity. If the administration yanks the NYT's White House press credentials, how will it leak classified disinformation through the Gray Lady via the next Judith Miller?

Speaking absurdity and Ann Coulter, on Joe Scarborough's program last night she compared the Times to Jane Fonda sitting on a North Vietnamese tank. I love how these far right types use their freedom of speech to attack freedom of speech.

Here's where it all stops being funny.

House Homeland Security Chairman Pete King (R New York) wants Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to prosecute the New York Times for running the SWIFT story.

This is scary stuff, kids, because we're talking about a potential major league legal battle, and as deep as the Times' pockets may be, they're nowhere near as deep as the pockets of the United States Treasury.

Here's something else I don't find terribly funny. Cheney tells us that all the administration's secret monitoring programs are consistent with Mister Bush's constitutional authority. And a lot of people are willing to take his word for it.

I am not a scholar of constitutional law, but I've spent quite a bit of time studying the document. I know precisely where it guarantees freedom of speech and personal privacy (Amendments I and IV), but I have yet to find a single passage in the Constitution that discusses the government's right to keep secrets.

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

Also see Smoke, Mirrors and War Powers.

The Fog and Friction of War and Politics

In politics, as in war, the Clausewitzean concepts of fog and friction apply. We can't always see ground truth, and things seldom work out the way they're supposed to.

The similarity between war and politics is a natural occurrence. War is, after all, a political act. But wars don't get much more political than the one we're currently conducting in Iraq, and we've seldom seen this amount of fog and friction in U.S. and global politics.

Two weeks ago, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a GOP backed "non-binding" bill that rejected any withdrawal timeline. Last week, the Senate overwhelmingly rejected two amendments to the defense bill proposed by Democrats that called for things that were described by Republicans as "timelines."

And then…

The Iraqi government announced its plan that calls for, among other things, a timeline for withdrawal of foreign troops.

And shortly after that…

General George Casey, U.S. commander of coalition forces in Iraq, announced his plan for sharp U.S. troop level reductions by the end of 2007.

And Sunday morning on Meet the Press, Senator Russ Feingold (D Wisconsin) said that Casey's plan sounds almost exactly like the amendment he proposed that the Senate defeated.

Are we staying and playing or cutting and running?

The Best of Both Buzz Phrases

In December 2005, Congressman Jack Murtha (D Pennsylvania) said "It is time for Iraqi leaders to take control of the future of their country."

During his surprise visit to Iraq two weeks ago, Mister Bush told Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Maliki that, "Iraq's future is in your hands."

Does anyone else suspect that for all their animosity over the Iraq issue, the Dems and the GOPers are actually pretty much on the same page?

Hopefully, everyone understands by now that there will not be an "end" to our military presence in Iraq for a very long time--probably decades. Most likely, we'll wind up with a posture that looks like a combination of Jack Murtha's redeployment plan and young Mister Bush's "stay the course." We'll keep an over the horizon Marine force embarked on amphibious ships in the Gulf, Army forces in peripheral countries like Kuwait, and some amount of ground presence in Iraq itself.

As for "permanent" or "enduring" bases in Iraq, well, yeah, we'll pretty much have to do that; partly because whatever number of troops we keep in Iraq will need a safe place to stay and partly because if the redeployed troops on the periphery need to un-redeploy, they'll need a place to stage out of.

In that light, despite the pre-election political posturing going on in the U.S., I think the roadmap is already drawn.

There are, however, two major bumps in the road that political types in both America and Iraq will need to navigate around. Malaki's proposed 28 point deal with Iraq's internal insurgent groups seeks to embrace them and isolate the relatively small al Qaeda affiliated terrorist forces located in that country. But a couple of those points are sticking in the craw of American politicians from both sides of the aisle.

The point everyone is talking about is the offer of amnesty to insurgents who attacked occupying coalition forces. I'm not entirely wild about the idea, but think that from an Iraqi perspective, it makes a lot of sense. If they're going to form a true unity government, they're going to have to make some concessions to factions that acted, at least from their perspectives, as "freedom fighters."

The other contentious point that's still flying under the radar is the one that promises an end to coalition anti-terrorist operations in insurgency strongholds. That essentially puts the U.S. military commander under control of the Iraqi government, limiting his freedom of action. He can only conduct offensive operations sanctioned by the Iraqis or purely defensive operations in defense of his own troops. When our force's primary mission is to defend itself we're back in a Beirut situation. The troops are in harm's way with no objective, and shouldn't be there.

The Moral of the Story

Senator Chuck Hagel (R Nebraska) is talking to Wolf Blitzer, saying that the future of Iraq is up to the Iraqi people, and that his party's "cut and run" rhetoric is self defeating palaver. Good for him.

I'm of the camp that says whatever moral obligation we had to the Iraqi's for breaking their flowerpot has been met. If they want to descend into an internal Hobbesian war, that's on their moral scorecard.

Protecting Iraq from an external invasion is another matter. Having taken their country down to parade rest, we certainly owe them protection a coordinated attack by, say, Syria and Iran . But such an attack is highly unlikely. Having observed the mightiest nation with the mightiest military in human history bog down into a quagmire in Iraq, why would any third-rate country care to repeat the experience? If Iraq comes under the influence of neighboring countries like Iran, that influence will more likely be of a diplomatic and economic nature.

Even if Iraq's neighbors turn irrational--which I don't believe they will, however often the war hawk right may describe them as psychopaths--and consider bringing military force to bear against it, the kinds of peripheral troop redeployment that Murtha describes will be more than enough to deter such an action. (Keep in mind that over the last few decades the Middle Eastern nations have decisively illustrated that when it comes to conducting combat operations, their militaries suck.)

Expect to see a lot more political vitriol on what to do about the Iraq situation. But don't expect to see anything done about it that looks a whole lot different from what Jack Murtha proposed in December of 2005.

It's just a matter of how much more political fog and friction the American public is willing to put up with before the inevitable happens.

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

Iraq and Roll

Have we really recognized Iraqi sovereignty? The coming months should tell, because as the UK Times reports, that country's government wants to set its own timeline for foreign troop withdrawal, and a few other things besides that the Bush administration isn't likely to be all peace, love and understanding about. (Thanks to beachmom at Kos for the steer to the Times story.)

According to the Times, highlights of the 28-point plan the Iraqi government is offering to resistance groups include:

--A schedule for coalition forces to withdraw

-- General amnesty for prisoners “who have not shed innocent Iraqis’ blood”

-- A halt to “anti-terrorist operations” by coalition forces in insurgent areas

Young Mister Bush may well be reluctant to swallow this horse pill.

Iraq intends to work with the UN on the withdrawal timeline. So the international body that didn't throw in with us on the invasion will be part of the plan to throw us out.

The amnesty offer, in essence, forgives any insurgents who attacked U.S. troops. As the Times states, "[O]ne big potential obstacle is whether the US would be willing to grant an amnesty to insurgents who have killed US soldiers but who are not members of extreme groups such as al-Qaeda. The Bush Administration is thought to be split on the issue." The Bush administration may be split on the issue, but they don't have spit to say about it--unless, of course, they want to come right out and admit that the new Iraqi government they've been crowing about is nothing more than a U.S. puppet.

By halting coalition anti-terrorist operations, the Iraq government will be telling U.S. forces what they can and cannot do. Talk about putting a burr in our commander in chief's saddle.

The Iraqi government's intent is to isolate Iraq's native insurgent forces from the external al Qaeda terrorist fighters. The proposed deal also promises to crack down on Shiite militias and death squads and to review the "de-Baathification" process by which thousands of Sunni government workers lost their jobs after the fall of Baghdad.

This is a brilliant piece of statesmanship. Stand by to watch Condi Rice step in and put the kibosh on it.

Heck, we can't have the Iraqis making their own domestic policies, can we? The next thing you know, they'll want to sell their oil for cheap to somebody other than us.

We're Still Being Had

The paper trail of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) makes it abundantly clear that key members Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Lewis Libby and others planned to make an invasion of Iraq the cornerstone of American foreign policy years before George W. Bush became the GOP presidential nominee. They did, in fact, intend to take control of the Middle East by military force even if Saddam Hussein was no longer in power. It's little wonder that the administration and its GOP lapdogs in Congress have time after time rejected any call for a coherent exit strategy or any resolution that the U.S. will not seek to establish permanent military bases in Iraq.

I don't think we'll be leaving Iraq while the neoconservative cabal remains in power, and the way things are going, that might well be a long, long time. The Democratic Party, always a somewhat disorganized political entity, is unlikely to defeat the well-oiled GOP machine until the majority of the electorate decides it's had enough.

That sort of shift in public opinion may be far off. Increasingly, the major information media outlets have knuckled under pressure to pander to the right. Conservative pundit Monica Crowley is now a "news anchor" on MSNBC. Dick Cheney continues to castigate the press for disclosing "vital national security programs, thereby making it more difficult for us to prevent future attacks against the American people." That sort of stuff "offends" him, and thereby offends his loyal followers as well.

The very existence of "loyal Dick Cheney followers" should give you an idea of just how bizarre the America political environment has become. Cheney epitomizes the Orwellian, neoconservative "fear and loathing" strategy that put and kept the present administration in power. Yes, recent polls indicate that a minority of Americans buy into the Bush bilge water anymore, but enough of the majority of voters may well remain frightened enough of the Rovewellian boo noise to keep this totalitarian regime in power come November.

If that happens, stand by for continued imperial shenanigans. And stand by for America to dig an even bigger foxhole in Iraq.

When the Iraqi government objects to that, will we hear about it in the U.S. press?

Not from the likes of Monica Crowley we won't.

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

Monica Crowley on MSNBC

I'm beyond shocked. Monica "Bush Girl" Crowley is on MSNBC right now, masquerading as an honest to goodness "news anchor."

And what did I just say about the information environment becoming more and more bizarre as the November elections approach?

Fox's Fighting Father Jon

Father Jonathan Morris of Fox News gives another lecture on the "moral justification" for staying the course in Iraq.

"Beware of sweeping moral judgments on the Iraq war — pro or con —," he says, "based solely on new findings of weapons of mass destruction. It's not so simple."

In "WMD Found in Iraq," Father John gives us snippets of the announcements by Senators Rich Santorum (R Pennsylvania) and Pete Hoekstra (R Michigan) that yes, we have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He then adds the disclaimer by the senior Defense Department official that "These are not the WMDs for which this country went to war."

Father John neglects to mention that we've known about the presence of old WMD left over from the Iran-Iraq war for years. The September 2004 Director of Central Intelligence report on Iraq's WMD program stated "While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991."

But that makes no never mind, according to Father Jon, because "Whether the decision to enter Iraq in March of 2003 was a good one has little to do with the good work our soldiers are doing right now."

Well now, that's just not true. Whatever the reasons were for invading Iraq--and for me the overwhelming burden of evidence says the motivation was oil, bases, and Israel--we did not go there so our troops could paint schoolhouses and play soccer with Iraqi kids.

"Those who say we should leave now because we should never have entered in the first place are acting out of emotion or for political gain, but certainly not based on sound principle. Packing up and leaving from one day to the next, as some are requesting, would be an irresponsible and selfish act of cowardice on the part of the allied forces," the good Father says.

Morris has mastered the Rovewellian art of the straw man attack. Why we went there and why we should leave, though both important issues, are separate ones. No one in the political arena, including John Murtha, is suggesting that we "pack up and leave from one day to the next." They're suggesting that we formulate an exit strategy based on "sound principle." Judge for yourself on the morality of Father Jon labeling Murtha, Kerry, Reid, and those who support them as "selfish cowards."

And it's interesting that while Father Jon accuses those proposing a sane plan for withdrawal of seeking "political gain," he has nothing to say about the political timing of the WMD announcements by Santorum and Hoekstra.

But he does use the "new findings" of WMD to conclude that "We now know more about Saddam's diabolic regime" (we didn't already know Saddam used chemical weapons on Iran?) and that "We question again the efficiency of the many years of United Nations' weapon inspections" (Father Jon doesn't bother to mention that UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix raised concerns over the whereabouts of the Iran-Iraq War chemical weapons prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq).

Oh, There's an Election Coming Up?

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is about to give a press conference on the "home grown" terrorist cell indicted in Miami.

Ah, here's 'Berto, talking about "a new brand of terrorism" and referring to the cell taken down earlier this month in Toronto.

Does anybody else wonder why these cells are just now being discovered?

In another timely story, General George Casey says that Iran's central government is aiding Shiite terrorists in Iraq.

Look for the fear factor to grow as November approaches, and don't be surprised when the tallest Arab ever wanted "dead or alive" by a United States President turns up sometime in August or September.

I'll leave it to God to make the ultimate moral judgment of Father Jonathan Morris, but my worldly assessment is that this self-styled "ethicist" is a right wing political hack trying to hide his agenda behind a clerical collar.

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

Iraq, Raptors, and Congressional Rapture

Watching the Senate and House debates on Iraq and the defense budget over the past two weeks, I've asked myself time after time Is this really happening?

You probably know by now that the debates on Iraq in both chambers were bald-faced media events designed by the GOP as an opportunity to re-echo the top ten Karl Rove talking points.

Jon Kyl (R Arizona) was in my opinion one of the most blatant and artless offenders, especially in his address on the Senate floor today. The specious references to the Gettysburg Address that infer a comparison between Lincoln and young Mister Bush. Bogus comparisons or Iraq to World War II. Victory. Victory. Victorious. Evil doers. Evil doers. Evil doers.

We owe it to the troops to stay in Iraq.

Yeah. We owe it to the troops to keep them in Iraq forever with no clear plan so George W. Bush can save face.

The terrorists can't beat us militarily.

So? We can't beat them militarily either, so why keep fighting?

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John Warner (R Virginia) said that we must honor our commitments.

Our commitments to whom, Senator? Iraq? The troops? Or to George W. Bush and the neoconservative cabal that took over your political party?

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Both Kerry's and Reid's amendments just got defeated. No surprise there.

The Defense bill, by the way, calls for $518 billion, a four percent increase from last year.

For all the good our military spending is doing in the war on terror, we might as well be shoveling it in the furnace.

Heck, for all we're spending to try to get control of Middle East oil, we may as well have Detroit develop cars that run on dollar bills.

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Saxby Chambliss (R Georgia) is on the Senate floor now, pushing for an amendment to further fund the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter. "It's not about spending money," he says, "it's about saving money."

No, Saxby. It's about spending money onto a flat rock.

The Raptor is an albatross. Chambliss says something about an F-22 probably protecting the skies over D.C. right now. There's a compelling argument. Just what we need in our war on terror is a $361 million per copy air-to-air fighter to protect our capital from hijacked airliners.

What's really happening is that our GOP controlled Congress is so willing to make political hay out of untold amounts of tax dollars on defense initiatives--be they wars or star wars weapons systems--that contribute little if anything to countering the real threats to our national security.

How much longer will we let them get away with it?

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

For more of Jeff's views on the military industrial complex and its influence of foreign and domestic policy, see In an Arms Race with Ourselves.