War Commentary

National Palestinian Radio

I just heard an infuriating broadcast on Morning All Things Considered (a program that was particularly woefully mistitled this morning–it should have been One Side Considered) on the situation in Israel and the West Bank. It was shockingly blatant anti-Israeli propaganda, even for them.

First, they give a run down of the news–Israel is still ignoring the U.S. calls to withdraw, except for a couple villages (which are not really part of a withdrawal, but just going through the motions to try to assuage world opinion). They are still holding the major cities, and “claiming” to have found rockets close to Jerusalem.

But the worst part was when they reported that there was a firefight on the Church of the Nativity. The reportage is that the Israelis have fired on it. The Israeli’s “claimed” to have been fired on first (but who can believe those lying Jews, I suppose one is to infer from the way they say it). They report anger from the Holy See, with a quote from some representative, who describes the attack as “barbaric,” and there is “no excuse.”

Absolutely no mention is made of the fact that armed Palestinian terrorists have been holed up there for days, possibly with hostages. Not just no criticism–no mention. If one only heard the report, and had no other knowledge, one would assume that the Israelis simply attacked one of the holiest Christian sites, with no true provocation.

Where is the condemnation, where is the outrage, at the Palestinians for taking over the Church in the first place? I’ve heard absolutely none, including from the Holy See.

Then, after the “news,” they of course have the obligatory, unbalanced interview with Peter Jennings’ ex-girlfriend, Hanan Ashrawi. They pitch a bunch of softballs at her, asking how terrible it is, expressing sympathy, asking if it’s true that she’s depressed and without hope, as she goes through her litany about Israeli “terrorism” and “war crimes,” how the Palestinian Authority is being dismantled and how the world simply stands by while Israel is not held accountable.

They don’t, of course, sully the moment by asking any unpleasant questions concerning Palestinian, or Palestinian Authority accountability for murders of Israeli civilians, or about the weapons caches being found. Again, if one heard only this broadcast, one would never know that prior to the incursion, Israel had been plagued by waves of murder bombers. No, it’s just the innocent Palestinian people being oppressed by the Evil Jews.

Disgusting.

Uncategorized

Stonewall Saddam? I Don’t Think So

In a commentary on my post yesterday about the world war in which we find ourselves (if, unlike the dominant media, we’re sufficiently perspicacious), fellow blogger Rich Hailey points out that the technological asymmetry between the West (and particularly the U.S.) and the Arab powers may not be as advantageous to us as we hope, by comparing the situation to the War Between The States, in which the North, a burgeoning industrial power, had fits defeating the South, a confederacy of rural, agrarian states.

I find the analogy extremely strained.

He points out having Lincoln as the difference, but there are many differences. The South had technology available to them, and knew how to use it–they even ramped up their own industrial production. Their problem was that they didn’t have a navy with which to defeat the northern blockade, and after the Emancipation Proclamation, they could no longer hope for Britain as an ally.

But the main reason they put up such a good fight for so long was not because of fanatical bravery and devotion to their cause (though they had that in abundance)–it was vastly superior generalship, until Grant was put in charge. And while the South had some brilliant generals, this is more of a commentary on the poor quality of those of the Union, most notably McClellan, who threw away opportunity after opportunity to follow up a battlefield victory with the destruction of Lee’s army, instead always failing to follow through and pursue.

Somehow, at least based on what we’ve seen from Iraq in the Gulf War, and more recently in Afghanistan, I suspect that we’ll also have an asymmetry in military leadership, as well as in technological and industrial resources. Except, this time, unlike the Union, it will vastly favor the U.S. government.

The Arabs have shown themselves to occasionally be very good at tactics (e.g., hijacking airliners and crashing them into buildings), and blunderingly idiotic at strategy. It’s possible they’ll learn, but based on the rhetoric coming out of the region, it seems unlikely.

Uncategorized

Stonewall Saddam? I Don’t Think So

In a commentary on my post yesterday about the world war in which we find ourselves (if, unlike the dominant media, we’re sufficiently perspicacious), fellow blogger Rich Hailey points out that the technological asymmetry between the West (and particularly the U.S.) and the Arab powers may not be as advantageous to us as we hope, by comparing the situation to the War Between The States, in which the North, a burgeoning industrial power, had fits defeating the South, a confederacy of rural, agrarian states.

I find the analogy extremely strained.

He points out having Lincoln as the difference, but there are many differences. The South had technology available to them, and knew how to use it–they even ramped up their own industrial production. Their problem was that they didn’t have a navy with which to defeat the northern blockade, and after the Emancipation Proclamation, they could no longer hope for Britain as an ally.

But the main reason they put up such a good fight for so long was not because of fanatical bravery and devotion to their cause (though they had that in abundance)–it was vastly superior generalship, until Grant was put in charge. And while the South had some brilliant generals, this is more of a commentary on the poor quality of those of the Union, most notably McClellan, who threw away opportunity after opportunity to follow up a battlefield victory with the destruction of Lee’s army, instead always failing to follow through and pursue.

Somehow, at least based on what we’ve seen from Iraq in the Gulf War, and more recently in Afghanistan, I suspect that we’ll also have an asymmetry in military leadership, as well as in technological and industrial resources. Except, this time, unlike the Union, it will vastly favor the U.S. government.

The Arabs have shown themselves to occasionally be very good at tactics (e.g., hijacking airliners and crashing them into buildings), and blunderingly idiotic at strategy. It’s possible they’ll learn, but based on the rhetoric coming out of the region, it seems unlikely.

Uncategorized

Stonewall Saddam? I Don’t Think So

In a commentary on my post yesterday about the world war in which we find ourselves (if, unlike the dominant media, we’re sufficiently perspicacious), fellow blogger Rich Hailey points out that the technological asymmetry between the West (and particularly the U.S.) and the Arab powers may not be as advantageous to us as we hope, by comparing the situation to the War Between The States, in which the North, a burgeoning industrial power, had fits defeating the South, a confederacy of rural, agrarian states.

I find the analogy extremely strained.

He points out having Lincoln as the difference, but there are many differences. The South had technology available to them, and knew how to use it–they even ramped up their own industrial production. Their problem was that they didn’t have a navy with which to defeat the northern blockade, and after the Emancipation Proclamation, they could no longer hope for Britain as an ally.

But the main reason they put up such a good fight for so long was not because of fanatical bravery and devotion to their cause (though they had that in abundance)–it was vastly superior generalship, until Grant was put in charge. And while the South had some brilliant generals, this is more of a commentary on the poor quality of those of the Union, most notably McClellan, who threw away opportunity after opportunity to follow up a battlefield victory with the destruction of Lee’s army, instead always failing to follow through and pursue.

Somehow, at least based on what we’ve seen from Iraq in the Gulf War, and more recently in Afghanistan, I suspect that we’ll also have an asymmetry in military leadership, as well as in technological and industrial resources. Except, this time, unlike the Union, it will vastly favor the U.S. government.

The Arabs have shown themselves to occasionally be very good at tactics (e.g., hijacking airliners and crashing them into buildings), and blunderingly idiotic at strategy. It’s possible they’ll learn, but based on the rhetoric coming out of the region, it seems unlikely.

War Commentary

Like It Will Make A Difference?

In an article in the Journal today, Fred Kagan warns that the U.S. military lacks resources for the war.

Without passing comment on his general thesis, I have to take exception to this comment:

“…the importance of our missions in Bosnia and Kosovo should be allowed to slip from view, either. One of the purposes our forces serve there is to protect Muslims from Serbian attack. A pullout would mean that Slavs would again begin harming Muslims. Considering the precipitous rise in tensions between the U.S. and the Muslim world, is this the time to run that particular risk?

What risk? They’ve shown no gratitude, or even recognition of what we’ve done for Muslims in the Balkans. If we need the troops to fight where there’s actually a threat to us, pull ’em out of there. Let the Europeans spend some of that money they’ve had to build welfare states because we’ve been defending them for sixty years, to clean up the mess in their own back yard.

[Monday 1:25PM PDT update]

Reader “Pouncer” suggests:

If, in fact, the US is short resources to fight a major war, the “first domino” to kick over among Axis of Evil adversaries should be–North Korea.

We keep some 30,000 troops tied up there enforcing a cease fire at the DMZ. We’ve done so for 50 years. A very strong ally with major strategic interest in keeping the North Koreans under control is trained, rested, and ready to act under U.S. guidance. (That would be, unlike Northern Alliance or Kurdis irregulars, the actual ARMY of the nation of South Korea.)

The army is often charged with making plans “to fight the last war.” To the extent that’s true, there must be libraries full of plans to topple North Korea–hundreds of scenarios already wargamed out. Picking one may be a challenge, but any of the best ten of a hundred is likely to be okay.

Kick over North Korea, free up 29,700 U.S. fighting men (assuming about 1% casuality rates). Demonstrate resolve. Take the spotlight off the Middle East. Show Mainland China that we can be serious when the mood strikes us…

Then move the focus back on Iraq. If, that is, such a place still exists by the time the Israelis get through.

That’s not a bad idea, except that they’re probably worried about China’s reaction. The last time we tried that, we ended up facing Chinese troops, and it’s not unthinkable that the same could happen again. Of course, the difference is that China is not as enamored with NK as it used to be, and Russia has very little love for it, so we might be able to pull it off.

It’s too bad that we’ve kept Japan toothless for so long–it would be a lot easier to let them do the job, as their contribution to the war. But I suspect that would reopen too many old wounds from the last time they invaded Korea, with less benign intent.

Media Criticism

Pundit Cluelessness And The War

Well, Professor Reynolds beat me to the punch line, but here’s the post I promised last night.

The conventional “wisdom” of the media and punditocracy seems to be the following:

The Middle East is a region of states hostile to us (Iraq and Iran), states indifferent to us (Syria), and states friendly to us (Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the other Gulf States, and Egypt). In order to deal with the hostile states (primarily Iraq) we have to get support of the “friendly states,” particularly Saudi Arabia. This is the famous “coalition” that we had put together in the Gulf War.

But the Saudis are nervous about us being on their territory at all, because this is one of the things that upset Osama, and their own people might not stand for it. In addition, though they’d like to help, they and the other “friendly” states (like Egypt) are upset with us about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (which has nothing to do with the War on Terrorism). So, at a minimum, in order to have them as part of the necessary coalition, we must first resolve the Palestinian problem, or at least reign in our ally, Israel, who is mostly to blame for all the problems over there, and (remember again) this has nothing to do with the War on Terrorism–it’s just a distraction from it.

The War on Terror (you know, the one that has nothing to do with Israel or Palestine) is being waged against us by a (relatively) few fanatics, and they are supported by renegades in those “friendly” countries, and there’s little their governments can do about it, because the people are so righteously angry at us for the Palestinian problem that any attempt to crack down on terror in those nations might result in instability in the region, causing those “friendly” governments to fall, with much worse replacements.

This is the standard template for almost all discussion of the subject, at least in most mainstream news sources.

Now here’s the reality:

The Arab world is at war with us (us being western civilization), and has been since at least the end of World War II. For most of the world, and for most of that time, it has been a low-grade war, with the only active battlefront in Israel, because the Arab states lacked the resources to take it to their real enemy, in Europe and America, other than with pinpricks like the Lockerbie bombing, and the embassy and Marine barracks attacks.

Because they couldn’t successfully wage a conventional war against us, they’ve instead been waging an unconventional one. They have colonized large parts of the world with their ideology, by funding mosques and religious schools (including North America), and taken over the governments of the countries themselves when they could get away with it (e.g., Afghanistan). They have funded terrorists both directly and indirectly, and they have filled their own people with a rage against us, while at the same time oppressing them. Part of this unconventional war was to pretend that it wasn’t happening, with diplomacy and propaganda, paid for by their oil millions. Unfortunately, we’ve been merely swatting them away like mosquitos, instead of recognizing them for the threat they were.

Up until September 11, the main front was in Israel, using hapless maleducated Palestinians as their pawns and proxies. We have to recognize that, as PM Netanyahu says, we and Israel are fighting the same war, against the same nihilistic enemy, and have been for decades. The Intifada is not a separate problem from the War on Terrorism–it is an integral part of it, and always has been, even when we (the U.S.) didn’t realize that we were at war.

But last September, they figured out how to take the war more directly to the enemy, or at least they thought they did. They played, and in fact overplayed their hand, and they can now be recognized for what they are–open enemies of our country. At a minimum, their near-term goal is to prevent us from inhibiting the spreading of their vile beliefs further into lands they consider naturally Wahhabi Islamic. Ultimately, they would like for the entire world to believe as they do, which is why they take the millions we provide them for oil, and fund mosques and madrassas with it, even in the US.

People who say that we have to wait until we straighten out the mess in Israel before we can take on Iraq have it exactly backwards. Taking out Saddam will eliminate the most immediate threat of being attacked with WMD, and it will provide an object lesson to the remaining regimes of what happens when you wage war against civilization. And it will make it much easier to put someone in
charge of the Palestinians who is reasonable and can actually be negotiated with in trust.

But the road to Baghdad may lie through Riyadh. And in fact, though the Administration has been loathe to admit it, they may not be able to ignore the elephant in the living room for much longer–even Cokie Roberts pointed out this morning that the Saudis are rewarding Palestinian Islamakazis, just as Saddam is, though neither she, nor anyone else in the roundtable, discussed the true implications of this.

The current Saudi regime has to go eventually–they are the source, the wellspring, of the Arab war against us. Most of the Al Qaeda’s money came from there, most of the 911 attackers were from there, all of the hatred being preached in the mosques is funded from there. But I suspect that the Administration has been hoping that they can instill a change in Saudi behavior by making an example of Saddam, who has much less support (though still too much) from our European “allies,” and against whom a clear-cut case can be made of being in more-or-less continuous breach of the surrender agreement he signed in 1991.

I think that this is a naive view. Saddam must go, but so must the House of Saud, at least in its current form. If they won’t grant us permission to use their bases for our mission in Iraq, and we require them to save lives, money and time, then we should use them without their permission. They must recognize that we finally recognize that they have been warring with us since at least 1948, and that we are no longer going to tolerate it, and there’s little they can do to prevent it.

If their regime falls as a result, c’est la guerre. It will be a necessary beginning to liberating the people of all of the Arab states from their oppressors. And for those who value “regional stability” over freedom and security, I say, when the status quo is so odious, instability is our friend. We are at war.

[Update at 2:49 PM PDT]

Glenn notes this post, and says that I say “that now they’re ready to take it to a higher level.”

Actually, just to clarify, I don’t think that they were really ready to take it to a higher level–they just accidentally did. Osama got ahead of them, and I don’t think that they realized exactly how ambitious he was.

So now it’s at a higher level, we’ve been tipped off, and they’re not ready for it, so they’re continuing to pretend that it didn’t really happen–it was just that terrorist over there (averting eyes to the ground, whistling, making circles in dirt with toe…).

[Update at 3:01 PM PDT]

I should also add, that I’m not actually proposing going to war with the entire Arab world. We need to use a little jujitsu, and actually work with the few friends that we have there to really splinter it (not a difficult task at all, since they’re always on the verge of doing it to themselves). Probably the best hope is Jordan. We need to cut a deal with King Abdullah that he gets back the Saudi Peninsula, in exchange for use of his territory for strikes on Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Put the Hashemite Kingdom in charge of the holy places, and cut out some territory for a Palestinian state in present-day Jordan (after doing another Black September on the current Palestinian leadership, which Israel has already made a start at). Egypt, hopefully, could be left on the sidelines.

This would be a major step toward an Arab world with which we, and the Israelis, could live.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!