The Diet on Wednesday voted into law a bill to promote the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan with majority support of the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito. The new temporary law, which expires in 10 years, is designed to help implement U.S. military realignment plans, such as the transfer of thousands of Marines and their families from Okinawa Prefecture to Guam and the relocation of the Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from Ginowan.
The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had been hustling to enact the legislation as part of its efforts to strengthen Japan's security alliance with the United States. But in its rush to push the bill through the Diet, the government failed to address some important questions raised about its provisions.
The government's estimates of the costs for moving U.S. troops and facilities have been criticized as unreliable due to slipshod calculations. Controversy erupted over a system of offering financial rewards in the form of state subsidies to municipalities that cooperate in the moves.
Continued on Page 49
#1
Well, of course, we're inflating the estimates and screwing you over. But, once you get the Americans off your territory at least we won't be screwing your daughters. Everything has a price. Besides, it really is going to cost us a bundle to transport a couple of million Mexicans over to Guam to do the work.
WASHINGTON - An aspect of the war on terrorism that gets too little attention, yet is as important as any other, is the media war. Whether they realize it, members of the mainstream media are participants in the war on terrorism, and nowhere is that more evident than in Iraq.
Blogger Bill Roggio, who has embedded as a journalist in Iraq and Afghanistan, says the enemys documents reveal that much of their strategy revolves around manipulation of the media. An enemy unable to beat us on the battlefield is employing a strategy of attacks planned specifically for maximum media coverage and effect.
Roggio recently told the Christian Science Monitor that most mainstream media reporters display a lack of knowledge of counterinsurgency and the role the media plays in an insurgencys information campaign. He says al Qaeda and insurgent groups frequently choose their targets to get specific media coverage they desire.
He cited the way a suicide attack in the Anbar province was reported as an example. U.S. success in Anbar was immediately negated when al Qaeda conducted a suicide attack in Ramadi in early May, and The Associated Press reported that the attack dealt a blow to recent U.S. success in reclaiming the Sunni city from insurgents. Al Qaeda conducted the attack to generate such an opening paragraph.
Journalist Michael Yon describes a similar attempt to manipulate the media. As the British increase their forces in Afghanistan, they are drawing down in Iraq. Although the drawdown in Iraq is based on pragmatism, the enemy apparently is attempting to create the perception of a military rout. So while the British reduce their forces in southern Iraq, they are coming under heavier fire and the enemy makes claims of driving the occupiers out.
He then describes how a ceremonial transfer of authority over the Maysan province from the British to the Iraqi government was used to counterpunch in the perception war, by focusing on the progress being made by the Iraqi security forces in the region. Yon says some of the biggest battles in Iraq today are being fought not with bombs and bullets, but with cameras and keyboards.
Gerd Schroeder, a major in the U.S. Army who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan, sees a big problem with the lack of context in reporting from Iraq. In an article at The American Thinker, he explains how he came to that conclusion after studying the Brookings Institution Report, IRAQ INDEX Tracking Reconstruction and Security in Post-Saddam Iraq.
In the report, which he says is updated frequently and provides information from the U.S. military and other governmental agencies, he found some examples of how a lack of context can create a misleading public impression. One example was in the coverage of ISF figures.
The Iraqi security forces (ISF) includes military, police, special police, Iraqi National Guard and border police. From early 2005 to mid-2006, the hot topic for marking progress in the war was how many ISF were being trained and employed. However, in mid-2006, this media reporting trend almost wholly dried up, he said.
In an attempt to understand why, he examined information from the report: In July-August 2006, the number of deployed ISF jumped from 269,600 up to 298,000. The previous months had experienced much smaller growth, but July/August 2006 experienced a 10.6 percent jump in ISF. The numbers jumped again in September by almost 10,000 to 307,800. October rose 4,000, and November rose almost 11,000.
Schroeder concluded that when ISF figures became a good news story of progress, they received less media attention. He says there is significant, unreported good news in Iraq. He acknowledges there is plenty of bad news there, but that the media has been doing a good job of reporting on those negative aspects.
Schroeder makes the argument for more complete context in reporting saying, Accurate, meaningful information that spans the full spectrum of subjects, including good news as well as bad, is critical to the American people getting a true picture of the war.
Until the media start reporting the war in more complete context, it will be impossible for the public to accurately gauge the success or failure of the surge or any other aspect of the war in Iraq.
News of even significant progress in any region of Iraq can be silenced with one strategically placed bomb or beheading. Unfortunately, media manipulation is one aspect of the war the terrorists appear to have mastered.
Lorie Byrd is a member of The Examiners Blog Board of Contributors and blogs at wizbangblog.com. This article is on target except, imho, for attributing the ease with AQ can manipulate the media to naivete and ignorance. If there is anything major media beasts are not, it is naive and ignorant. Their reflexive and utterly predictable response to the terrorist media strategy is quite willful and deliberate. They are not dupes, they are collaborators.
The "System" is responsible for the catastrophe that is Iraq. But that included Kerry and Kennedy, who only listen to the big money. (What? Soros is broke?) Sad, yet somehow fitting on this Memorial Day weekend. Thank God for kids like his son, and Frank's, and mine, and my Dad, your Dad and the millions of others. May they all rest in His peace.
Parents who lose children, whether through accident or illness, inevitably wonder what they could have done to prevent their loss. When my son was killed in Iraq earlier this month at age 27, I found myself pondering my responsibility for his death.
Among the hundreds of messages that my wife and I have received, two bore directly on this question. Both held me personally culpable, insisting that my public opposition to the war had provided aid and comfort to the enemy. Each said that my son's death came as a direct result of my antiwar writings.
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/27/2007 07:45 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Andrew J. Bacevich teaches history and international relations at Boston University.
Number of courses taken in military history in during his studies? Betcha 0.
One of the aspects of the 'Great Captains of History' as the 19th Century author Theodore Dodge would dub them, was the concept of taking the fight to the enemies territory and force the enemy to fight the battle in terms moat advantageous to the means and abilities of the Great Captain's forces.
It would do certain intellectuals good to read about the period of our own history in the second half of the 19th century and the social, political, and military environment of 'closing the west'. It was messy, uncoordinated, costly in lives and material, and had its dark moments. Had near sighted individuals triumphed in halting that development, the manpower and vast resources of the region would never had been available to confront the powers of authoritarianism and totalitarianism in the 20th century. Yet, the parallels with our own times are ignored just because it would force the honest ones to acknowledge that as anyone in 1870 couldn't see the outcome of that mismanaged efforts, neither can they be oracles to the events happening now.
#2
Procopius2K, you are wrong. At least about this dad.
Professor Bacevich graduated from West Point, and retired from the Army as a Lieutenant Colonel. The arguments he has made against the war have been considered, principled, and I find myself agreeing with some of them. (I am running out the door now, maybe later I'll come back ond elaborate.)
And don't dismiss his 'deaf ears' argument, we're experiencing the exact same thing with this wretched immigration debacle.
Dr. Bacevich is no mouth breathing lefty, he is a warrior who has lost his son. This weekend let's honor his grief, and thank him for his own service.
#3
A lot of officers I know who served in Vietnam saw the Iraq war and continuing ops there through the eyes of an Army that was drained, broken and then underfunded as - in their view - a casualty of politics, just as with the Vietnam war.
Most aren't angry that we went, or even that the Iraqis aren't stepping up as much / fast / widespread as we'd like. But they are deeply angry when they feel that both (say) Rumsfeld as SECDEF and now Congress are using and discarding them without giving them full support.
Bacevich is very definitely among the Colin Powell, make it very hard for politicians to send us to war in that way again, camp. His books have had that them for a good while now.
#4
Pfeh. clicked before I had a chance to edit that.
Wanted to add that the anti-Iraq-war camp has begun a serious outreach to parts of the Army. Doonesbury's Gary Trudeau was invited to address the cadet corps at West Point this spring, and the invitation came from a military faculty leader. Bacevich isn't the only voice out there expressing this sort of opinion. We all had better make our support of them very vocal and clear -- the last election had a very corrosive impact on their trust of the American people and political and senior military leaders to value their sacrifice and use it wisely.
#5
To whom do Kennedy, Kerry and Lynch listen? We know the answer: to the same people who have the ear of George W. Bush and Karl Rove -- namely, wealthy individuals and institutions.Money buys access and influence. Money greases the process that will yield us a new president in 2008. When it comes to Iraq, money ensures that the concerns of big business, big oil, bellicose evangelicals and Middle East allies gain a hearing. By comparison, the lives of U.S. soldiers figure as an afterthought.
that paragraph of drivel alone would make me turn him off. He's writing emotionally here
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/27/2007 10:57 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Yup. But he's not alone in that last sentiment you boldfaced, Frank.
The people I know who could get out at this point aren't doings so in numbers, yet. And we have lots of young people joining.
But many O3s-O6s are looking at the Congressional debate on funding for them and adding in all the dances like withdrawing from Fallujah the first time and handing it back to the jihadis and Ba'athists. They are becoming convinced that no one is effectively taking Iran on at a time when the Iranians really are waging war on us in Iraq. And they are, in many cases, staying in uniform primarily out of loyalty to their troops and their peers, for a while longer.
I worry a lot about that erosion of spirit and trust. It's not a blazing public fire, but it's smoldering in a lot of places. We've asked a lot of our men and women in uniform, especially the Army over the last 6 years. They need funding, new equipment, and above all a very public commitment from the people and leaders of this country to support and honor them.
#7
The focus of West Point and the Army has been the WWII legacy. It is not the full legacy of the American Army or its experience. It ignores its own history of its first hundred years. The political issues, the funding issues, the strategy and tactical issues are nothing new. We experienced it before in the 19th century and the record is there if anyone wants to read. Excepts from Frontier Regulars by Robert Utley -
Chapter 3: The Problem of Doctrine. Three special conditions set this mission apart from more orthodox military assignments. First, it pitted the army against an enemy who usually could not be clearly identified and differentiated from kinsmen not disposed at the moment to be enemies. Indians could change with bewildering rapidity from friend to foe to neutral, and rarely could one be confidently distinguished from another...Second, Indian service placed the army in opposition to a people that aroused conflicting emotions... And third, the Indians mission gave the army a foe unconventional both in the techniques and aims of warfare... He fought on his own terms and, except when cornered or when his family was endangered, declined to fight at all unless he enjoyed overwhelming odds...These special conditions of the Indian mission made the U.S. Army not so much a little army as a big police force...for a century the army tried to perform its unconventional mission with conventional organization and methods. The result was an Indian record that contained more failures than successes and a lack of preparedness for conventional war that became painfully evident in 1812, 1846, 1861, and 1898.
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.
Does that sound familiar? The corrupt Indian Bureau, inept policies, local political interference, equipment deficiencies, rules of engagement that yo-yo depending who's in Washington this year, etc, etc, etc.
Memorial Day weekend is upon us. I am out here in Anbar Province with Task Force 2-7 Infantry. The area around Hit (pronounced heat) is so quiet previous units likely would not recognize the still. There was a small IED incident this morning, and the explosion was a direct hit, but the bomb was so small that mechanics had the vehicle back in shape by late afternoon. Calm truly has fallen on this city.
Dishes are appearing on rooftops and people are communicating more freely. During todays prayers, one mosque announced that divorce is bad and that parents should take care of their children. One mosque cried about Christians and Jews, while yet another announced that Al-Jazeera is lying and people should not watch it. . . .
Although there is sharp fighting in Diyala Province, and Baghdad remains a battleground, and the enemy is trying to undermine security in areas theyd lost interest in, the fact is that the security plan, or so-called surge, is showing clear signs of progress. The city of Hit, for instance. Only about a hundred days ago, Hit was a city at war. Today, the buildings are still riddled with bullet holes, but the Iraqi people are opening shops and painting over the scars. They are waving and smiling while hundreds of men are volunteering to join the police. I saw a policeman on duty today whose weapon was a plastic pistol. I photographed the toy. And so this man was on duty with a toy pistol, though he has not yet attended the police academy and is not even being paid. A writer could probably squeeze bad news from that story, but I wont try. In fact, Hit is a place where writers who wish to escape combat and bad news should visit. . . .
Go read it all, of course.
Posted by: Mike ||
05/27/2007 10:04 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Who ya gonna believe? MSM press sitting in the hotel bar in the green zone, sending native stringers out for stories, or Michael Yon, Michael Totten, et al, who're out in the sticks doing REAL reporting/journalism?
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/27/2007 17:59 Comments ||
Top||
by Andrew Gimson, London Telegraph H/t Anchoress. Actually a few months old, but perfect for memorial Day.
. . . American Airlines had provided a screen on the back of the seat in front of one's own, on which one could watch old movies. There was also a map showing how far we had gone, on which places of interest were marked. It began by showing only two places: London and Chartwell.
The Americans are more old-fashioned than us, and what is equally admirable, they are not ashamed of being old-fashioned. They know Churchill was a great man, so they put his house on the map. There is a kind of Englishman to whom this sort of behaviour seems painfully unsophisticated.
We are inclined, in our snobbish way, to dismiss the Americans as a new and vulgar people, whose civilisation has hardly risen above the level of cowboys and Indians. Yet the United States of America is actually the oldest republic in the world, with a constitution that is one of the noblest works of man. When one strips away the distracting symbols of modernity - motor cars, skyscrapers, space rockets, microchips, junk food - one finds an essentially 18th-century country. While Europe has engaged in the headlong and frankly rather immature pursuit of novelty - how many constitutions have the nations of Europe been through in this time? - the Americans have held to the ideals enunciated more than 200 years ago by their founding fathers. . . .
The quiet solicitude that Americans show for the comfort of their visitors, and the tact with which they make one feel at home, can only be described as gentlemanly. These graceful manners, so often overlooked by brash European tourists, whisper the last enchantments of an earlier and more dignified age, when liberty was not confused with licence.
But lest these impressions of the United States seem unduly favourable, it should be added that the Americans have not remained in happy possession of their free constitution without cost. Thomas Jefferson warned that the tree of liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots. To the Americans, the idea that freedom and democracy exact a cost in blood is second nature. . ..
Posted by: Mike ||
05/27/2007 11:12 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Thomas Jefferson warned that the tree of liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots. To the Americans, the idea that freedom and democracy exact a cost in blood is second nature. . ..
#2
It is far more important that the English re-evaluate where they are going.
More than anything else, they seem diseased with timidity.
For example, were you to discreetly inquire among the man on the street if he thinks that vicious murderers should be hung, I suspect that he would strongly say "Yes!" But he is far too timid to ever suggest such a thing without being solicited first.
That is, is there not a single Englishman who will stand up and say that they, as a nation, should have and use a death penalty? I doubt it.
But Americans are continually voicing their opinions, unsolicited, on every subject, and are not shy in voicing our disagreements. This is not uncivil, it is honest. And by doing so, we as a people discover what we really want.
We question everything we think of. Issues that are never discussed in England because they think they are decided. They humbly do what they are told.
"Abolish gun control!" "To HELL with CCTV cameras everywhere!" "Enough of this nanny state nonsense!" "Kick out these illegal aliens!"
Civility is not the absence of argument. For without argument, civility withers before the petty onslaughts of tyrants unopposed.
#3
Distinguish between the British and English when making such comments, moose. If only the English had a Parliament, a majority would be saying those things and, more importantly, acting upon them. Also note how many of the policies you condemn over there are advanced by our Democrats over here.
#4
Uh. The GPS screen on the back of the seat has an algorithm for displaying nearby cities, based on zoom level and not cluttering the display up too much with noise. This author is simply ignorant of how computers work.
There is a kind of American to whom this behavior seems painfully unsophisticated.
Before I entered the U.S. Naval Academy as a young man, I'd read "For Whom the Bell Tolls," a book that helped bring home to me one of the fundamentals of military experience: what it is that moves soldiers in battle. Clashing ideologies and interests might be the genesis of war, but for the soldier any conflict comes down to fighting for his brothers. In Ernest Hemingway's novel, the main character, Robert Jordan, is an American teacher who has joined the International Brigades; he is an idealist battling against fascism in the Spanish Civil War. But he becomes disenchanted--not necessarily with his cause but with its leaders and with their foreign allies. Still, in the end, Jordan voluntarily sacrifices his life for the sake of the people he fought alongside, the people he had come to love. Hemingway himself was not a veteran, but he saw war close up in the ambulance corps in World War I--a perspective that gave him a profound grasp of the instinct that binds warriors together.
2. "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" by Edward Gibbon
Edward Gibbon's six-volume classic is rightly considered the greatest historical narrative ever written. It chronicles Roman rule from the second century to the empire's collapse in the west in the fourth century and in the east in the 15th, with the fall of Constantinople. Gibbon famously portrayed the "vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave." But his eloquent, sweeping exposition showed that this peerless imperial power had a hand in its own decay, done in by decadence, corruption and war. The soldiers of Rome's legions could not make up for the negligence of their leaders.
3. "This Kind of War" by T.R. Fehrenbach
T.R. Fehrenbach's "This Kind of War: A Study in Unpreparedness" is perhaps the best book ever written on the Korean War. Fehrenbach, who saw the conflict firsthand as an Army officer, offers a sobering, comprehensive look at a war that the U.S. military was ill prepared to fight. He relates in detail how American soldiers--many of whom were poorly trained and equipped--bore the burden of bad planning and the bad decisions of their senior commanders. The soldiers endured many setbacks and the most awful conditions, yet still overcame their enemy. The Korean War, sandwiched between World War II and the Vietnam War, is often overlooked, but it occasioned no smaller measure of heroism--or suffering--from the Americans who fought it.
4. "Hell in a Very Small Place" by Bernard B. Fall
"Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu," another classic of its kind, is a fascinating look at the decisions in the French Indo-China war that led to the decisive battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, when a communist guerrilla force overwhelmed a French military base. The book also explores how the battle influenced America's involvement in Vietnam and how it helped the enemy learn a strategy and gain the confidence to fight us. Journalist Bernard Fall--who was killed in Vietnam in 1967, a year after the book's publication--merited all the acclaim he received for "Hell in a Very Small Place." It stands as a brilliant work of enduring historical importance. American leaders should ponder the lessons of Dien Bien Phu today just as they should have pondered them before following the French into Vietnam.
5. "All Quiet on the Western Front" by Erich Maria Remarque
In Erich Maria Remarque's extraordinary novel, based on his experience fighting for Germany in World War I, a young man and his classmates march off to the trenches full of bravado--but in their first encounter with battle, they fall apart. All his vanity gone, the young man learns to hate the thing he thought would be an adventure. "All Quiet on the Western Front" is an indelible depiction of World War I, but it is also a timeless reminder that whether a conflict is necessary or not, whether it is ably commanded or mishandled, whether its outcome is just or unjust, war is a deadly enterprise. We should all shed a tear when war claims its wages.
Personally, I would recommend the book "The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme" by John Keegan. It really makes you feel like you have some grasp on what it might have been like to be in those battles and is a great read.
#2
Just as important as reading about war, is reading about what happens after war is over. Though it is hard to find, I recommend Erich Maria Remarque's lesser known book, "The Road Back".
It continues the story of the German soldiers back from the war, to be greeted by a cold, indifferent, and even cruel civilian world that looks on them with contempt and even hatred.
And much like the American veterans of WWI, who were denied support when ruined in the great depression, then driven out of Washington, D.C. at the point of bayonets, the Germans veterans, when they protested a lack of pensions, were greeted with machine gun fire.
And those are the stories that should also be remembered on Memorial Day.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/27/2007 19:12 Comments ||
Top||
#7
I found this to be a fascinating and revealing list. Every one of the books is about defeat, none about victory. None is inspirational. I wonder what his list would have been before his stay at the Hanoi Hilton. That is why McCain, combat hero that he is notwithstanding, still will not win the Presidency.
#8
Frank, you might want to take a look at this. Naturally the libs fall all over themselves about it, but it was not one of the brighter points in any of the careers discussed.
#9
it certainly sounded like a no-win situation, for ALL involved
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/27/2007 19:36 Comments ||
Top||
#10
The Commander of the troops in charge of driving out the Bonus Army was? 100 points for the answer. AW, I'll tell ya anyway. Douglas McArthur
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
05/27/2007 19:48 Comments ||
Top||
#11
I saw Patton and Eisenhower (begrudginly) too. Sounds like the vets wanted early distribution of funds the gov't didn't have. No good answer, but bayonets seems a little extreme
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/27/2007 20:00 Comments ||
Top||
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
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
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.
WASHINGTON - An aspect of the war on terrorism that gets too little attention, yet is as important as any other, is the media war. Whether they realize it, members of the mainstream media are participants in the war on terrorism, and nowhere is that more evident than in Iraq.
