#1
But above all, I think, is a perilous shrinking of common ground, the shared values and knowledge and beliefs that have shaped the way Americans think about war.
that is utter nonsense. His fellow jouralistas may not have any clue about the war or the men and women who fight, but I'd say more Americans know someone who's did one one or more tours, and the support for troops certainly hasn't flagged outside the f*cking Democrats and Leftists currently preparing to get their asses thrown out of power
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/08/2010 13:39 Comments ||
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#2
Out in fly-over country and below the Mason-Dixon, yes Frank. The heavily peopled, multi-cult urgan elsewhere's, not so much.
'For insightful reading of events which have meaning today may I recommend, Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian 1866-1891 by Robert M. Utley. The perspective of a small and overtaxed military establishment conducting operations in a demanding environment, physically and politically, while bringing civilization to the vastness of the west can be related to the contemporary operations on the world stage today. Of particular note would be chapters three: The Problem of Doctrine, four: The Army, Congress, and the People, and eighteen: Mexican Border Conflicts 1870-81.
An excerpt:
Chapter 4. The Army, Congress, and the People. Shermans frontier regulars endured not only the physical isolation of service at remote border posts; increasingly in the postwar years they found themselves isolated in attitudes, interests, and spirit from other institutions of government and society and, indeed from the American people themselves...Reconstruction plunged the army into tempestuous partisan politics. The frontier service removed it largely from physical proximity to population and, except for an occasional Indian conflict, from public awareness and interest. Besides public and congressional indifference and even hostility, the army found its Indian attitudes and policies condemned and opposed by the civilian officials concerned with Indian affairs and by the nations humanitarian community.'
We're still suffering from the relatively small experience that bias our view of our history that was WWII and the immediate period following. In America's long history, the usual ruling and economically higher class never really participated in the military. It never had a sense of "noblesse oblige" of the old English stock, which is that ancestry and privilege entailed responsibility. That responsibility was usually borne by the lower middle class and straight up lower class. However, that played into a institution that, more than most other institutions in the society, which depended and should depend upon merit rather than connections to advance among the population.
#5
PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > HAQ'S MUSINGS: JIHADIS GROWING IN TENTH YEAR OF AFGHNA WAR. US-favored military or armed warfare no substitute for SOFT POWER "WINNING OF HEARTS-N-MINDS".
* DAILY TIMES.PK > TERROR THREAT IN EUROPE JUSTIFIED AFGHAN WAR: NATO, albeit NATO [ + EU?] is aware of the Afghan War's growing unpopularity among ordinary Euros + Euro Politicos.
#6
America might be distant from our military personnel, but the rub is we don't want to be.
I think the best solution would be to have large, privately sponsored military dress balls, featuring military personnel in their dress blues, and limited to civilians wearing formal dress.
It would feature unfamiliar things, such as some trained and practiced waltzers, likely officers and their spouses, performing a waltz to a band. But it would also have a stylish banquet.
Such seemingly anachronistic formality has a strange, but very desirable psychology. It is not just a welcome home party, but it is a heroic recognition, putting the military personnel on a pedestal, of sorts, as "the best of us".
It is a cut above a victory parade, and a throwback to 19th Century etiquette. It is far beyond the rather gruesome and tacky display that are modern "Dining-Outs". It is not hosted by the military, so is much more formal.
#7
..so they can be serenaded by Code Pink going in and Fred Phelps leaving. No thanks.
The people that count already make contact, from Soldiers Angels, Blue Star Mothers, and other civilian initiatives that result in incredible outpouring that troops ask 'no more Girl Scout' cookies. :) It's done in a thousand small ways that connect. Check the search at the Rant for a link to the appearance of George Bush welcoming home troops in the last couple of weeks. While he was the big presence, there were dozens of others there to greet the troops as there generally are from fly over country America. You won't find the 'ruling class' there. That was explained by Shakespeare -
"For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition: And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day."
Versions of it adorn conference rooms in military bases, ministry buildings and NGO headquarters. The first question it raises is: "Why does Afghanistan exist?" The country contains about a dozen ethnic groups, whose distribution is shown here in simplified form. There is no coast to attract people and trade. One should also bear in mind Afghanistan's tribal divisions, particularly within the Pashtun ethnic group, which is split into numerous clans and smaller descent groups. These are too complex for a cartographer to suggest.
And there's lot of mixing of different clans and tribes.
Then there are the affinities that the various groups feel to one or other of the country's neighbors. Concentrated in the south and east, the Pashtuns have an attachment to their fellow Pashtuns in Pakistan. The Uzbeks and Turkmens are adjuncts to bigger communities beyond the northern border, while the Baluches, down in the south-east, maintain ties with their (again, more numerous) kinsmen in Pakistan and Iran. The Tajiks, by contrast, are more local in their loyalties. These affinities scorn the country's frontiers as they were drawn by British and Russian officials around the turn of the 20th century, when Afghanistan was a buffer between the Tsar's dominions and British India.
Once again the Euros wreck part of the world with their colonial imperialism, and once again America gets blamed for it ...
Pashtun tribesmen don't recognize the Durand Line dividing Afghanistan and Pakistan. Nor do the Taliban and the US, fighting their mobile war. Baluch drug smugglers cross into Pakistan and Iran at will.
Afghanistan's Persian-speaking majority is culturally attuned to Persian-speaking Iran and Tajikistan, to which may be added the sectarian affiliation that the country's Shia minority (mostly Hazaras, concentrated in the central, most mountainous part of our map) feel towards Shia Iran.
The centrifugal forces hinted at in this ethnic cartography seem to militate against Afghanistan's survival, but maps can be misleading if they are not accompanied by other information. Afghanistan survived a savage civil war in the 1990s without coming apart. Today, the country's strongest political movement is the Taliban, which has partially reinvented itself as a nationalist movement--clearly, the idea of Afghanistan resonates strongly with many people.
That rather goes against the theme of this piece. The Taliban is a Pashtun-only (or mostly) movement, and of course they're 'nationalist' -- just as long as all the other ethnic and tribal groups submit to them.
Older impulses also favour unity. A highly revealing map in Thomas Barfield's new book, Afghanistan: a Cultural and Political History, shows that every spring up to a million nomadic shepherds, from many disparate Afghan tribes, drive their flocks hundreds of miles from the border areas towards the well-watered highlands of the Hindu Kush that bestride the center of the country.
If, as seems likely, President Obama's Afghanistan strategy comes unstuck over the coming months, more voices are likely to be raised in favour of partition.
As opposed to Iraq, where Joe Biden's (D-ufus) partition plan was idiotic, a partition of Afghanistan makes sense. It isn't a nation, despite what the Taliban would do, and likely never will be. Just wall off the Pashtun part ...
This is what Robert D. Blackwill, a deputy national security adviser during the presidency of George W. Bush, proposed this summer, and he repeated his message when he addressed the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London on September 13. Blackwill's idea is that an unruly south may be quarantined from the north, where, as he observes, "locals are largely sympathetic to US efforts," and that a deal needs to be made with the Taliban "in which neither side seeks to enlarge its territory."
Among other pitfalls, Blackwill anticipates "pockets" of "fifth column" Pashtuns in the north and west. In fact, as our map shows, Pashtuns are found in quite big swathes outside their southern heartland; to relocate them would require ethnic cleansing. Blackwill also assumes that resistance to the US is confined to Pashtuns, when all the evidence suggests that anti-Americanism is now widespread among all ethnic groups. The effect of partition would not be to isolate the most unstable parts of the country, but to unite Afghans of different backgrounds around the goal of re-unification.
Don't be too sure of that. A north liberation from the threat of the Taliban could do quite nicely. Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are working to become modern nation-states, and a northern Afghanistan would have a natural affinity to them.
The Obama administration persists with its own plan, which is to beat the Taliban using increased numbers of troops and then hand the country over to the Afghan authorities. The administration wants to do this as quickly as possible, but a precipitate US withdrawal would lead to an intense civil war, with the Afghan National Army likely to dissolve under ethnic pressures. (It is currently dominated by the Pashtuns and the Tajiks.)
You listening, Bambi? One of your natural allies is warning you not to withdraw too quickly.
The prize would be Kabul, but such a war would be driven less by advancing armies than by strife between existing communities, for the capital is as cantonized as the country as a whole, and its communities have access to a huge quantity of arms.
That, of course, would need another map.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/08/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
USA might as well spend its time/money/men mucking around in the Congo. Natural resources galore and they would be guided by the ghost of Kurtz...
__________________________
Afghanistan and Pakistan are both fools' errands. Sign on with India as a solid partner for peace, arm them, and leave the scene....with warnings to the Chinese Commies stay out of the area.
#2
Expecting the Taliban not to seek to expand their territory is like expecting water not to flow downhill. What, after all, were they engaged in on 9/11?
Isn't there a rule in journalism that goes something like "Don't start a story with a question that makes the rest of your article moot"? If not, there should be.
#5
with warnings to the Chinese Commies stay out of the area. We'd need lots of luck to enforce that, seeing as the 'Stan borders on China, has no coastline, and is otherwise surrounded by countries not all that friendly to us. Perhaps a better policy would be to train all Afghan women in the use of single-shot handguns, and issue a few million of them.
#1
I've been reading Lloyd over at American Thinker for quite a while now - always impressed with his writings: clear-headed and well-stated but passionate.
I have been trying of late to come to grips with why I find the ideologist/conspiracist understandings of President Obama unsatisfying: Many thinkers are writing books saying the problem with Obama is hes anti-colonialist, socialist, or what have you. My concern is not that these analyses are necessarily false ... as that even if some of them happen to be true, they dont really explain the observed problem of Obamas presidency, which is, not to put too fine a point on it, that he is a clueless bungler. Look at the utter gormlessness with which he has been able, over the past two years, to alienate virtually all groups of Americans, left, right, and center; to squander the massive good will of the people who elected him. Whats more likely that hes a hardened ideological Manchurian president deliberately laying the seeds of our future enslavement? or that hes just a lucky working politician-magician who amazed us with a few magic tricks in 2008 but who long, long ago ran out of new ones? I mean, put yourself in Obamas place. In 2008, the American people approached this young chap and said, We find your set speeches very charming, and even though you have next to zero experience with national challenges and have accomplished nothing besides authoring a couple of books talking about what an impressive person you are, it would make us feel ever so good about ourselves if you consented to be President. What was he supposed to say? What would you have said? No ?
And so, like the dog who chased the car and has for once, per impossibile caught it, he is flummoxed, completely overpowered by the situation in which he finds himself. His policies dont work, and he has no others....
Posted by: Mike ||
10/08/2010 07:24 ||
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#2
There has been a "Knave or Fool?" debate ever since the Zero was elected. I have come to the Knave position. He intends to do exactly what he is doing. The fact that his policies leave a trail of destruction in their wakes is a feature, not a bug. I recall how survivors of Stalin's gulags said, "If only Stalin had known."
These are not mutually exclusive. I feel that he is knave through & through but thank the lord that he is also a fool so that we may survive the knavishness.
A smart knave would not have brought forth in less than two years an opponent as robust and distributed as the tea party. He would have done the soft sell successfully and co-opted the Rinos to such a degree that the opposition was muted at worst.
Posted by: Alan Cramer ||
10/08/2010 20:32 Comments ||
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#4
Knave or fool? Yes!
Obama is a socialist (or at least socialist-inclined) and he does want to turn this country into some sort of quasi-European social democracy (heavy on the social, light on the democracy). He is also profoundly inexperienced and shockingly unwise in the ways of the world. He's spent his entire life inside a liberal elite bubble. He's never worked in a profit-making enterprise, never had to live day to day around people who don't agree with him 98% or more on the issues, never before been responsible for the success or failure of a project. He's intelligent, but he's so overconfident that he doesn't know what he doesn't know.
Posted by: Mike ||
10/08/2010 20:36 Comments ||
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[Dawn] American drones rain down missiles in record numbers in North Wazoo Agency, the stamping ground of the Haqqani network, Al Qaeda and sundry foreign snuffys. The US issues a travel advisory to its citizens travelling to Europe, urging them to be cautious in public places because of the possibility of an attack by Al Qaeda.
On Monday, eight snuffys, including several 'Germans', are allegedly killed in a drone strike in Mirali, North Wazoo Agency. Do the dots connect cleanly or is this just another series of data points that can be connected in myriad ways? To be sure, a US travel advisory concerning Europe is rather unusual. Europe is not Pakistain or some place the average American travels to infrequently. Then again, The Wall Street Journal had this to offer on Monday: "Several intelligence officials have privately challenged the quality of the US information, describing the US alert as an overreaction. One intelligence official said the decisions to issue the alerts were based in part on the bureaucratic need to 'be on record with an alert to the threat' rather than a belief that a threat is imminent."
What is clear is that Fata generally and North Wazoo in particular continue to play host to foreign snuffys. The most well-known and numerous group consists of the Uzbeks, who attracted the ire of the Pak state because of their desire to attack it. Other, western and European, nationalities are also believed to be operating here from Turks to Germans. They do not consist just of men of Pak or Arab or other Mohammedan origin, but also of converts to Islam. The German Eric Breininger, who died earlier this year, and the American Adam Gadahn, Al Qaeda's 'spokesperson' and media manager, are two of the most famous converts believed to have made their way to Fata. Al Qaeda, which fights against both the Pak state and western nations, is also believed to be active in the agency. Here foreign cut-throats are not limited to a few areas or the Haqqani network-controlled swathes of territory, they are believed to have fanned out across the agency, including Mirali, where the Germans were alleged to have been killed.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Pak state appears to have few ideas about how to tackle the menace of foreign snuffys. Enforcing a uniform, zero-tolerance policy towards foreign cut-throats in Fata is difficult because local commanders and groups often make use of the services of foreigners and offer them protection in return. But doing nothing is not an option: a strike in the West traced back to Pak territory could have devastating consequences for us.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/08/2010 00:00 ||
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#2
"Tobacco like other crops absorbs minerals and other things from the soil, so if the soil has cadium, lead or arsenic, they will be absorbed into the tobacco," Fong said.
So it isn't just tobacco. It's all the other crops too.
#3
So it isn't just tobacco. It's all the other crops too. Tobacco is one of the very few crops which is burned and its smoke inhaled. Inhalation of things like polonium, cadmium, lead & arsenic has a very different effect from the swallowing of the same materials unburned. Tobacco & its typical use puts this situation in a class by itself. Perhaps Chinese smoking habits will result in a decrease in old-age benefits paid out in that country.
#1
I was told by an Orthodox Jewish friend who loved to start arguments at the coffee klatch after synagogue services, that his favorite topic to start fights was whether Israel should stop taking US loans because there were too many strings attached. And, once started, he would walk away, leaving the argument to blossom.
I bet he would enjoy the idea of starting fights by suggesting that there is a growing schism between religious and secular Jews, and eventually the secular Jews would stop being Jewish altogether. And maybe become Judaisms greatest enemy.
#2
That argument has been tried for over a century, Anonymoose. It hadn't gained any traction, then suddenly J Street appeared, powered by the Soros purse. On the other side, some ultra-orthodox Jews have been actively anti-Israel since 1948.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
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Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
