December 31, 2004
Remembering 2004
Memorable images: the U.S. Army Serving a Nation at War - The Year in Photos 2004.
December 30, 2004
Tsunami video links & more
Bloggers are quickly assembling and organizing information about the tragic tsunami that has devastated many Indian Ocean countries. Jordan Golson at Cheese and Crackers seems to have the most links, including numerous videos (tip via Wizbang). Check it out if you're concerned, curious or just voyeuristic (you know which you are).
In any case, contemplate the fact that you're sitting at a computer right now, not scrounging for food, trying to find your missing family, and attempting to avoid a virulent contagion... then go to Amazon.com to make a donation to the American Red Cross. Millions of fellow human beings suddenly need all the help they can get.
After that, go read Peggy Noonan on what this means.
The other night at dinner a friend wondered aloud if this almost-world-wide tragedy would have an impact on peace. Would it remind us of all we have in common, and how precious life is? This reminded me of something Ronald Reagan used to say of all the conflicts in the world. He'd say that if the world were attacked by Martians tomorrow, we'd all come together, and it's too bad we couldn't manage to cut to the chase. This used to be taken as an example of his idiocy, but of course it's true. We would all drop our local and ancestral hatreds to fight shoulder to shoulder against the common foe. Years later, in true Reaganesque style, Hollywood produced the blockbuster "Independence Day," in which extraterrestrials attacked the earth and the world united in resistance.The biggest story of 2004 has come, has not yet gone, and will be with us for some time. Two thousand five begins on Saturday. For the new year, two thoughts. Remember it can all be swept away in a moment, so hold it close and love it while you've got it. And may we begin 2005 pondering how much we have in common, how down-to-the-bone the same we are, and how the enemy is not the guy across the fence but the tragedy of life. We should try to make it better. We should cut to the chase.
UPDATE:
• Much more information can be found at The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami blog.
• Belmont Club examines the blogosphere's instantaneous response to the crisis and its significance for the mainstream media.
UPDATE: Children and tsunamis.
December 28, 2004
Every soldier a wolf
The 3rd Infantry Division is preparing for a second tour in Iraq and they have been busy re-organizing and re-training.
The division's brigades are the first to be "transformed" into what the military calls "units of action." During the past year, the brigades have been reorganized to expand their capabilities and make them more flexible. "We had an awesome task," says Col. Robert Grymes, a division officer. "Reset the division, reorganize, and then train to go back. The dust is still settling."The division's transformation has added a new brigade, the 4th, virtually started from scratch. After the reorganization, no longer are engineers, tanks, and infantry in separate battalions. Instead, they have been integrated and trained to work as a group. And the new structure puts a greater emphasis on military tasks other than combat--such as psychological operations, information campaigns, and civil affairs work.
Both the division's reorganization and the new threat in Iraq required intensive training for new tasks. Much of the 4th Brigade's artillery battalion will be used to escort State Department officials, so artillerymen have been taught to use machine guns and run convoys. The armor companies have been trained on small arms, since patrol missions will require the use of armored humvees, not tanks. The division has tried to make sure that the soldiers in support jobs--mechanics, supply clerks, truck drivers--all have improved their rifle skills. "We have changed the way we train," says Grymes. "Every soldier is a rifleman, and he will be a wolf, not a sheep."
Commanders hope the reorganization will help the brigades better counter the new threats in Iraq. Battling a guerrilla insurgency, 3rd Infantry officers say, requires close interaction between combat maneuvers, reconstruction projects, and public outreach efforts. As part of the reorganization, each brigade commander now has officers assigned to work civil affairs and psychological and information operations. And the division has also created an "Effects Coordination Cell" to better integrate combat maneuvers and information campaigns.
Go on the offensive
Anthony Cordesman provides a useful reminder following the mess tent bombing in Mosul: beware of political and media opportunists who will howl for more "protection" of the troops.
Americans cannot see a tragedy like last week's attack on a military mess tent in Mosul, Iraq, without wondering how it could ever have occurred — and how it can be prevented from ever happening again. Like the furor over improved armor for trucks and Humvees, the attack rouses the instinct to make force protection the immediate priority for U.S. forces in Iraq. No American wants American soldiers to be vulnerable.These instincts, however, are wrong. The United States can win in Iraq only through offensive action. It cannot afford to make every American base a fortress, or to disperse scarce manpower and other military resources in force-protection missions. U.S. forces have to be mobile and able to redeploy where the threat is — even though such redeployments often mean moving forces to vulnerable areas. If the Pentagon concentrates on protecting troops in the short run, the war will last longer and total casualties will be greater. Worse, the United States will simply never win.
December 27, 2004
Quid pro quo
It's been a puzzlement as to why the State Dept. and President Bush made supportive statements about U.N. chief Kofi Annan in the midst of Annan's dirty Oil for Food scandal. A deal had been made, but what exactly? Robert Novak knows:
Sen. Norm Coleman bit his lip and kept silent when the State Department expressed confidence in United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The Bush administration seemed to be repudiating the freshman Republican senator from Minnesota, who had called for Annan's resignation. But Coleman was well aware that his investigation of UN corruption is trumped for now by a transcendent issue.When Annan made a hurried trip to Washington Dec. 16, his non-cooperation with the Jan. 30 election in Iraq was manifest. His attitude changed markedly after Secretary of State Colin Powell declared: "We have confidence in the secretary-general." With that, Annan began to provide the UN's desperately needed help on the elections.
That looks like a big-time deal in the best interests of the United States. Nothing is more important to President Bush than the Iraqi election, dwarfing even full exposure of the UN's oil-for-food scandal in Iraq, including the secretary-general's complicity.
December 26, 2004
Terror threats in Great Britain
It's back to business on the day after Christmas: Happy New Year from British intelligence agencies, via The Telegraph in London.
A secret intelligence report has revealed that security chiefs believe al-Qaeda may target New Year celebrations across Britain, The Telegraph has learned.The document, which has been distributed to every military base in Britain warns that "crowded places or events" are under "a severe threat" of attack from terrorist bombers. The report, which is marked "restricted", is understood to have been compiled by military intelligence specialists, MI5 and Special Branch officers.
While the threat level for a general al-Qaeda attack has been assessed as severe since Novermber 2003, it is understood this is the first time that such a report has mentioned the potential risk to large gatherings of civilians.
Most of Britain's large cities have unofficial New Year's Eve celebrations, including London where members of the public gather in their thousands around Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square and Parliament Square.
It is estimated that more than 150,000 people will be in the centre of London on New Year's Eve to witness a £1.2 million firework display which next to the London Eye on the River Thames.
The report - dated December 3 - has been revealed just two months after The Telegraph learned that defence officials feared that military bases in southern England were being targeted by al-Qaeda terrorist cells. A military document referred to a series of incidents, which took place last August and September, inside the Dover Garrison area and close to a military base on Thorney Island in Sussex, when "males of Middle Eastern appearance" were seen photographing the barracks.
December 25, 2004
Merry Christmas
The Christ-child lay on Mary's lap,
His hair was like a light.
(O weary, weary were the world,
But here is all aright.)
The Christ-child lay on Mary's breast
His hair was like a star.
(O stern and cunning are the kings,
But here the true hearts are.)
The Christ-child lay on Mary's heart,
His hair was like a fire.
(O weary, weary is the world,
But here the world's desire.)
The Christ-child stood on Mary's knee,
His hair was like a crown,
And all the flowers looked up at Him,
And all the stars looked down
- G.K. Chesterton
Feliz Navidad
Not everyone has forgotten Cuba's independent librarians. Fidel Castro continues to grind his heel into their backs, and a few friends around the world still notice, including the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal.
It wasn't the Santa Clauses and candy canes decking the halls of the U.S. diplomatic office in Havana that prompted Fidel Castro to order the Christmas decorations dismantled there. It was the light display forming the number 75.That's how many political dissidents Castro rounded up in March 2003 and threw into Cuban jails. At their trials, these librarians, journalists and peaceful political activists received sentences of up to 28 years. Now a loosely connected international movement of librarians is refusing to forget their Cuban colleagues.
One inspiring example comes from the town of Vermillion, South Dakota, whose public library is sponsoring the independent--that is, not government-run--Dulce Maria Loynaz Library in Havana. The Loynaz Library was one of the institutions singled out during the 2003 crackdown. The director's husband, Hector Palacios, was arrested and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Most of the library's books were confiscated by the police.
The French cities of Paris and Strasbourg also support independent libraries in Cuba. In once-Communist Poland, the Librarians Association has issued an eloquent statement calling for an end to the repression: "The actions of the Cuban authorities relate to the worst traditions of repressing the freedom of thought, expression and information exchange, exercised by all regimes throughout the history," the statement reads. Meanwhile, in Havana, Castro insists there is no censorship.
He, too, has the support of some of the world's librarians. The International Federation of Library Associations has just named an "official" Cuban librarian to its Intellectual Freedom Committee, which is to say, they've picked someone who supports government censorship. Earlier this year the American Library Association's governing council rejected a resolution asking Castro for the immediate release of the imprisoned librarians. Some ALA leaders refuse to recognize the independent librarians because they don't have official library degrees, which of course they can get only from Fidel.
Mark Wetmore, a Vermillion Library trustee tells us, "It diminishes all our libraries a little if we know that there are people being persecuted for trying to operate free, uncensored ones and we don't at least try to do something about it." It's too bad more of the world's librarians don't also see a moral obligation to their Cuban brethren who want to read freely.
The folks of Vermillion, South Dakota must have a fine public library. Their Library Board of Trustees went where others fear to tread earlier.
The Vermillion, South Dakota, Public Library Board of Trustees took a stand for intellectual freedom on November 18 when it voted to sponsor the Dulce Maria Loynaz Library in Havana, Cuba.Cuba's Dulce Maria Loynaz Library, an unofficial institution free of government control, is one of approximately 250 independent libraries founded since 1998 to challenge restrictions on freedom of information. The goal of Cuba's independent library movement is to offer public access to uncensored books reflecting all points of view.
In March, 2003, many of the independent libraries in Cuba were raided by the State Security police, resulting in lengthy prison terms for more than a dozen librarians. All of those jailed have been recognized as "prisoners of conscience" by Amnesty International, which is calling for their immediate release.
The Dulce Maria Loynaz Library was one of the institutions singled out during the 2003 crackdown. The director, Gisela Delgado, was not detained during the raid on her library, but her husband, Hector Palacios, was arrested and sentenced to 25 years in prison. During the raid, most of the Loynaz Library's books were confiscated by the police. The Cuban courts have ordered the burning of many of the books seized from the independent librarians.
"Cuba's independent librarians have been targeted for repression because of their principled challenge to censorship," said Jon Flanagin, president of the Vermillion library trustees. "We felt we had a moral obligation to offer our support." Flanagin emphasized that the library trustees' action will be funded solely by private donations and at no cost to the Vermillion library or to the city. The first two volumes shipped to Cuba were a collection of Mark Twain and the first of the Harry Potter series, both in Spanish.
"A hundred years ago the Vermillion library started out with 300 volumes, about the same number of books as the Dulce Maria Loynaz library had before it was raided," Mark Wetmore, vice president of the trustees, stated. "But Vermillion's library grew rapidly from that beginning, in a society that nurtured free access to all types of information. We hope that our sponsorship of an independent Cuban library will, in some small way, help that process there, as well as encourage other American libraries to offer similar support."
With this action, Vermillion joins the French cities of Paris and Strasbourg, which have also formally adopted a number of Cuba's independent libraries. The Cuban library is the second with which Vermillion has established a special relationship; in 1989, it adopted the library in its sister city, Ratingen, Germany.
The Vermillion board exercised a fine sense of irony with their gesture. The works of Mark Twain and the Harry Potter novels are among the books that know-nothings here in the U.S. most try to ban, according to the American Library Association, which has plenty of fire to protect pornography in libraries and none to help fellow librarians rotting in Castro's jails.
December 24, 2004
Family gathering
The Rev. Donald Sensing has posted his Christmas Eve sermon: why Christmas is, in its most profound sense, a family reunion.
When someone receives Christ as Christ was sent – the unique embodiment of the eternal God – and when someone believes in the name of Jesus, God makes him a son or her a daughter of God. It takes a second birth to be made a child of God, a birth of the spirit, not of flesh. We are reborn from above. Jesus said in the Gospel of John, "Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again'" John 3:6-7).So we are brothers and sisters of Christ in the family of God. The book of Hebrews teaches, “Both the one who makes people holy [that’s God] and those who are made holy [that’s you and me] are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters” (Hebrews 2:11). In a way, the Nativity is the adoption ceremony of you and me as God’s children.
Read the whole thing.
Islands of happiness and peace
In the darks days of December 1941, Winston Churchill visited President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Washington, D.C. He made this statement to the American people on Christmas Eve.
Fellow workers, fellow soldiers in the cause, this is a strange Christmas Eve. Almost the whole world is locked in deadly struggle. Armed with the most terrible weapons which science can devise, the nations advance upon each other.Ill would it be for us this Christmastide if we were not sure that no greed for the lands or wealth of any other people, no vulgar ambitions, no morbid lust for material gain at the expense of others had led us to the field. Ill would it be for us if that were so.
Here, in the midst of war, raging and roaring over all the lands and seas, sweeping nearer to our hearths and homes; here, amid all these tumults, we have tonight the peace of the spirit in each cottage home and in every generous heart. Therefore we may cast aside, for this night at least, the cares and dangers which beset us and make for the children an evening of happiness in a world of storm. Here then, for one night only, each home throughout the English-speaking world should be a brightly lighted island of happiness and peace.
Let the children have their night of fun and laughter, let the gifts of Father Christmas delight their play. Let us grown-ups share to the full in their unstinted pleasures before we turn again to the stern tasks and the formidable years that lie before us, resolved that by our sacrifice and daring these same children shall not be robbed of their inheritance or denied their right to live in a free and decent world.
And so, in God's mercy, a happy Christmas to you all.
Tip via The Braden Files.
We will make it so.
December 23, 2004
Rumsfeld in Mosul
SecDef Donald Rumsfeld has flown into Mosul for Christmas Eve.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld visited wounded soldiers and brought holiday greetings on Christmas Eve amid tight security at an air base in northern Iraq where an insurgent’s attack killed 14 U.S. troops and eight other people earlier this week.Hoping to demonstrate compassion for the troops’ sacrifices, Rumsfeld landed in darkness and walked immediately from his plane to a combat surgical hospital where many of the bombing victims were treated after Tuesday’s lunchtime attack on a mess tent. The most seriously wounded already have been transferred to a U.S. military hospital in Germany.
Out of concern for security, Rumsfeld’s aides went to unusual lengths to keep his visit a secret prior to his arrival, with only a few reporters and one TV crew accompanying him on an overnight flight from Washington.
In an interview aboard the C-17 cargo plane that brought him to Mosul, Rumsfeld said he’d been planning to visit U.S. troops here long before Tuesday’s deadly attack, believed to have been carried out by a suicide bomber.
“The focus of the trip is to thank the troops and wish them a Merry Christmas,” he said.
Read the rest of the AP report for a sterling example of witless slanted reporting. Then read historian Victor Davis Hanson for genuine insight about Rumsfeld's importance.
Rumsfeld is, of course, a blunt and proud man, and thus can say things off the cuff that in studied retrospect seem strikingly callous rather than forthright. No doubt he has chewed out officers who deserved better. And perhaps his quip to the scripted, not-so-impromptu question was not his best moment. But his resignation would be a grave mistake for this country at war, for a variety of reasons.The blame with this war falls not with Donald Rumsfeld. We are more often the problem — our mercurial mood swings and demands for instant perfection devoid of historical perspective about the tragic nature of god-awful war. Our military has waged two brilliant campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. There has been an even more inspired postwar success in Afghanistan where elections were held in a country deemed a hopeless Dark-Age relic. A thousand brave Americans gave their lives in combat to ensure that the most wicked nation in the Middle East might soon be the best, and the odds are that those remarkable dead, not the columnists in New York, will be proven right — no thanks to post-facto harping from thousands of American academics and insiders in chorus with that continent of appeasement Europe.
Out of the ashes of September 11, a workable war exegesis emerged because of students of war like Don Rumsfeld: Terrorists do not operate alone, but only through the aid of rogue states; Islamicists hate us for who we are, not the alleged grievances outlined in successive and always-metamorphosing loony fatwas; the temper of bin Laden's infomercials hinges only on how bad he is doing; and multilateralism is not necessarily moral, but often an amoral excuse either to do nothing or to do bad — ask the U.N. that watched Rwanda and the Balkans die or the dozens of profiteering nations who in concert robbed Iraq and enriched Saddam.
Donald Rumsfeld is no Les Aspin or William Cohen, but a rare sort of secretary of the caliber of George Marshall. I wish he were more media-savvy and could ape Bill Clinton's lip-biting and furrowed brow. He should, but, alas, cannot. Nevertheless, we will regret it immediately if we drive this proud and honest-speaking visionary out of office, even as his hard work and insight are bringing us ever closer to victory.
You can also read Rumsfeld's own words for yourself.
Secretary of Defense's 2004 Holiday Message to the TroopsThis is the time of year when we want to give special recognition to the men and women in uniform -- volunteers all -- who defend our Nation and the cause of freedom.
But it is appropriate to go beyond a usual holiday message to put in context what is taking place at this time in our country's history. What the men and women in uniform are doing today will prove to be a pivotal chapter in the history of America's meaning and mission.
Since this great Republic's founding, Americans have stood at liberty's front lines. In its earliest days, the United States was the world's only democratic nation. But as the centuries have passed, the audacious and powerful ideals of freedom and self-determination that defined the American experiment have swept across the world.
We have seen it in recent times, in nearly every region of the world:
• in the joy of reunited Germans dancing atop the crumbling Berlin Wall;
• in the face of the lone young man who stood defiantly before the line of tanks in Tiananmen Square;
• in the millions of Afghan women who braved violence and intimidation to cast their votes in Afghanistan's first-ever democratic presidential election;
• in today's passionate debate over free and fair elections in Ukraine; and
• in the tens of thousands of Iraqis who have volunteered to come to their newly liberated nation's defense.These momentous events would not have been likely had it not been for the daring and determination of America's founders, and for each of the many generations of Americans that followed who kept the flame of liberty alive at home and nurtured it abroad. This is the meaning and mission of America – and no one is more important to that mission than the American soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine.
In these difficult and trying times, I ask our men and women in uniform to remember this: There is perhaps no greater calling in life than what you are doing -- standing on freedom's front lines. And there could be no finer legacy to bestow to future generations than being part of our nation's forward strategy for freedom and contributing to a safer and more peaceful world.
So to all of you who are serving our nation -- I thank you for your courage. I thank you for your commitment. And to your families and loved ones, I extend my deepest appreciation for your sacrifices. And to all of those who have lost loved ones in this global struggle against extremism, and to all of those recovering from the wounds of battle, know that all who have served our country have been part of something that history and future generations of Americans will honor for decades to come.
Please also know I am deeply grateful to you and that you have my full respect. You have my very best wishes for the holiday season.
- Donald H. Rumsfeld Secretary of Defense
Season of giving
So, tomorrow is Christmas Eve. At our home the tree is finally up and decorated, thanks to the ladies of the house, and packages will start flowing under it momentarily. There's just a bit more shopping to do today while the baking starts in earnest.
Better writers than this one are thinking about Christmas gifts, too. Here's wise Peggy Noonan on the true spirit of gift-giving. She remembers a miraculous and unexpected present when she was seven years old, and its importance.
The joy of receiving a happy gift and being grateful for it and excited by it opened up my mind. It cracked open my imagination and let a truth that seemed like magic in.Is there a moral to this memory? What it taught me, what I remember all these years later, is that everyone likes gifts but no one is more affected by their power than children. They are susceptible to wonder. A child can look at a red toy car in the red-green glow of Christmas tree lights and imagine an entire lifetime. A child can play with a new doll and smell good things being cooked and hear sweet music and it can make that child imagine that life is good, which gives her a template for good, a category for good; it helps her know good exists. This knowledge comes in handy in life; those who do not receive it, one way or another, are sadder than those who do.
We have two more days before Christmas. Remember the soldiers and sailors, remember ma and pa, remember your friends but especially remember the kids.
Read the whole thing. Then go read Tony Woodlief's brilliant tale of a nearly fruitless quest to buy toy guns for his sons.
He led me to the back, where he had assembled -- and I am not making this up -- gun racks to hold all the toy armaments. If Santa ever needed to assemble a commando strike force, this could be his armory.I almost cried. Here was every kind of toy pistol and rifle imaginable, made of real wood and metal. Single-barrel, double-barrel, over-and-under, even blunderbuss. Sighted, scoped, with and without shoulder strap, pump action, bolt action, underlever cocking . . . (Insert Tim Allen gorilla sound here).
Remember the troops
During a dark and violent week in embattled Iraq, take a few minutes to remember those who are serving and sacrificing in the military. Two emotional works might nudge you along.
Here's Until Then, a well-produced slide show with music.
Second, versions of a poem have been circulating around the Internet but Snopes.com has tracked down the original author, James M. Schmidt, and his text as written in 1986. Good detective work; moving poem.
Twas the night before Christmas, he lived all alone,
In a one bedroom house made of plaster & stone.
I had come down the chimney, with presents to give
and to see just who in this home did live
As I looked all about, a strange sight I did see,
no tinsel, no presents, not even a tree.
No stocking by the fire, just boots filled with sand.
On the wall hung pictures of a far distant land.
With medals and badges, awards of all kind,
a sobering thought soon came to my mind.
For this house was different, unlike any I'd seen.
This was the home of a U.S. Marine.
I'd heard stories about them, I had to see more,
so I walked down the hall and pushed open the door.
And there he lay sleeping, silent, alone,
Curled up on the floor in his one-bedroom home.
He seemed so gentle, his face so serene,
Not how I pictured a U.S. Marine.
Was this the hero, of whom I’d just read?
Curled up in his poncho, a floor for his bed?
His head was clean-shaven, his weathered face tan.
I soon understood, this was more than a man.
For I realized the families that I saw that night,
owed their lives to these men, who were willing to fight.
Soon around the Nation, the children would play,
And grown-ups would celebrate on a bright Christmas day.
They all enjoyed freedom, each month and all year,
because of Marines like this one lying here.
I couldn’t help wonder how many lay alone,
on a cold Christmas Eve, in a land far from home.
Just the very thought brought a tear to my eye.
I dropped to my knees and I started to cry.
He must have awoken, for I heard a rough voice,
"Santa, don't cry, this life is my choice
I fight for freedom, I don't ask for more.
My life is my God, my country, my Corps."
With that he rolled over, drifted off into sleep,
I couldn't control it, I continued to weep.
I watched him for hours, so silent and still.
I noticed he shivered from the cold night's chill.
So I took off my jacket, the one made of red,
and covered this Marine from his toes to his head.
Then I put on his T-shirt of scarlet and gold,
with an eagle, globe and anchor emblazoned so bold.
And although it barely fit me, I began to swell with pride,
and for one shining moment, I was Marine Corps deep inside.
I didn't want to leave him so quiet in the night,
this guardian of honor so willing to fight.
But half asleep he rolled over, and in a voice clean and pure,
said "Carry on, Santa, it's Christmas Day, all secure."
One look at my watch and I knew he was right,
Merry Christmas my friend, Semper Fi and goodnight.
Now, visit the USO and make a donation. Merry Christmas.
December 22, 2004
China to absorb N. Korea?
Here's an thought-provoking perspective on what's happening in the increasingly hellish North Korea.
With each passing day, it seems more and more likely that the current North Korean regime's days are numbered. Suspicious railroad explosions, the recent purge of a powerful relative of Kim Jong Il and an exodus of upper class elites all indicate a regime on the verge of a breakdown.The worst long-term scenario for America is that the Chinese will take the initiative and trigger an internal coup that would overthrow Kim Jong Il and replace his cabal with a Beijing-friendly military dictatorship. It would truly be a foreign policy disaster for America to allow the Chinese to do this, for it would help China establish hegemony over vast stretches of north Asia.
Chinese ambition to dominate much if not all of Asia is evident, as proven by official policies aimed at purposely misinterpreting local histories around its border regions in order to justify a possible Chinese territorial takeover in the future.
China wants to safeguard her interests and extend her influence in northeast Asia. Most assume that the two Koreas will be unified once North Korea collapses. However, a more likely possibility is for North Korea to be absorbed by China. With North Korea currently dependent on China for many of its basic necessities including fuel, the absorption process could actually be very smooth and natural.
Tip via American Foreign Policy Council.
Scare-mongering? Perhaps. But the Chinese have a demonstrated ability to work patiently and relentlessly towards large strategic goals. This is not implausible.
Inside job
Yesterday's violent incident in Mosul would seem to be an inside job by infiltrators.
An explosion tore through a crowded U.S. military mess tent in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Tuesday, killing at least 22 people and wounding more than 70. U.S. military officials updated the casualty toll early today, saying that 14 of the dead were U.S. soldiers, and most of the casualties were Americans who had just sat down to lunch.It was the deadliest attack on a U.S. military installation in the 21 months since the war in Iraq began.
The explosion, which came at noon, was at first believed to be caused by a mortar round or rocket that pierced the white canvas tent that serves as mess hall at Forward Operating Base Marez, near the Mosul airport.
But in an online assertion of responsibility for the attack, a radical Muslim group described "a suicide operation." Military officials said the cause of the blast was under investigation, and some security experts said the extent of injuries indicated that it was possible a bomb had been planted inside the hall.
One shot by a rocket with such deadly timing and accuracy would seem highly unlikely -- the enemy is just not that good at targeting. Other bombardments have included multiple rounds, sometimes with deadly effect but requiring an element of luck.
As Army investigators picked through the mess hall for clues to the origin of the blast, the looming question was whether insurgents had been able to smuggle a powerful explosive onto the base, or if an insurgent mortar crew had managed an accurate shot.Mortar rounds fall frequently on the post -- sometimes a half-dozen a day. This week, one insurgent group, the al Mustafa Brigade, boasted of firing 15 60mm mortars toward the Marez base, posting video of men in ski masks manning the tubes.
Most of the time, the explosions are shrugged off by soldiers as little more than a nuisance. Most are fired quickly and at random by insurgents who leap from cars in the city's busy streets without taking necessary measurements.
When mortars do strike buildings on the post, the information is usually kept secret to avoid tipping off attackers about the accuracy of their strikes. U.S. officers worry, however, that insurgent informants on the post may be passing targeting data to attackers on the outside to help them refine their fire.
DEBKA's take seems right:
If it was indeed a suicide operation as the group claims it would mean base shared by US and Iraqi national guards troops had been penetrated by followers of one of three al Qaeda groups attacking Americans in Iraq.
UPDATE: Belmont Club has a must-read analysis.
Also, the enemy ruthlessly mortared the field hospital where the casualties were taken. Read a chaplain's moving first-hand account.
December 21, 2004
Staying the course
The editorial page of the Wall Street Journal surveys the Ba'athist-led insurgency still fighting democracy in Iraq and draw the right conclusions.
All of this has strategic and political consequences. One is that the troubles in Iraq aren't a matter of starry-eyed nation-building gone awry, as some conservative second-guessers now suggest. Most Iraqis really do want to build a free country. But they are opposed by an entrenched, ruthless Baathist network that is akin to the Mafia. These elements can't be bargained with, or lured into elections. They have to be killed. Imagine if the Nazi SS still had sanctuaries in Germany in 1947; no one would be thinking it had to be given a place in a future Adenauer government.This also suggests that the number of U.S. troops on the ground matters much less than the intelligence our forces can get from Iraqis. We could have half a million troops there and they wouldn't do much good if they didn't know where to find the "former regime elements." The Pentagon strategy of training Iraqis to fight with us is exactly correct, even if the effort began much later than it should have.
The largest lesson concerns the will of the U.S. political class to prevail. Especially now that the U.S. election is over, it'd be nice to think that we could forge a consensus directed at victory, rather than at domestic score-settling. Everyone claims to like that Saddam was deposed, but it becomes clearer every day that his forces aren't yet beaten. Along with the imported terrorists, those forces are trying to make Iraq their Stalingrad, where they can outlast America. If they succeed, it won't matter a whit that John McCain lacked "confidence" in Donald Rumsfeld.
December 20, 2004
Saving lives on the battlefield
Military doctors reports that today's miniaturized medical technology is having a huge impact on the rate of battlefield deaths, according to Wired News.
In the old days, injured soldiers had to wait for all but the most basic care until they got to stand-alone surgical hospitals. Now, troops can quickly set up mini hospitals, complete with intensive-care units and operating "rooms," in a flash.The equipment is "reduced in size and weight enough that a handful of people can carry it all inside a few Humvees, set it all up within an hour and have all the equipment for (the) first two operations inside of five backpacks," said surgeon Dr. Atul Gawande....
Among other things, military doctors have turned to miniature versions of blood-testing, ultrasound and oxygen machines, which often occupy large chunks of space in U.S. hospitals. Ventilators have been shrunk, too.
But while the smaller medical devices work "very well," their purpose is ultimately limited in the mini hospitals, [Dr. George] Peoples said. "Our goal is not to be doing definitive, state-of-the-art surgery. It's literally lifesaving surgery. That's one of the lessons we've learned over the last decade, the idea of what we call damage-control surgery: You're not trying to fix everything the first time you see the patient. You stop hemorrhaging, stop infection."
This is a major advance over prior conflicts, even those as recent as the 1991 Gulf War. Nevertheless, one outcome is more wounded warriors, many with grevious injuries for a lifetime. The price of freedom is still very, very high.
Related:
• New England Journal of Medicine - Casualties of War — Military Care for the Wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan.
• DoD - U.S. Casualty Status (pdf)
Red Dogs in Afghanistan
Tonight's Nightline on ABC may be interesting. Here's the preview summary via their daily e-mail:
It is understandable that most of the country's attention has been focused on Iraq these last few months, but the U.S. military is also conducting operations in Afghanistan. There are currently about 17,000 American troops stationed in Afghanistan, and their primary purpose is to stabilize the country and find Osama bin Laden. Just last week, with the release of a new audiotape, we were reminded of how elusive bin Laden is. Most suspect that he is somewhere in the mountainous border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The rugged mountains of Afghanistan is where the Red Dogs are stationed. What you will see tonight is extraordinary video diary put together by filmmaker Richard Mackenzie and cameraman William Skinner, who spent six months with this Marine Corps reserve helicopter squadron, designated HMLA-773 but who go by their call sign "Red Dog." The squadron has at its disposal 8 Super Cobra Attack helicopters and the latest Huey helicopter gunships.Remember, these marines are reservists. Back home they are commercial pilots, customs pilots, federal agents, and a few are unemployed. Almost all were once full-time in the Marines and then signed up as reservists after they retired. They talk about what motivated them, what they see their job as now, and they also talk about the incongruity between the hi-tech tools they have at their disposal and the landscape and terrain and lifestyle of the people there, which is practically medieval.
This spectacular show, shot in some of the harshest terrain in the world, will help you realize just how difficult it might be to find Osama Bin Laden.
Keep the faith
Ralph Peters sums up the 2004 military year: skill, faithfulness, and accomplishment in the face of adversity both at home and on the battlefield.
This was a year of major policy errors and deadly challenges. U.S. election requirements conflicted with military necessity. Troop levels were capped too low. Their civilian superiors prevented combat commanders from taking decisive action, fearing that casualties would become a political football. The terrorists and insurgents put down deep roots while our election campaign dragged on.But our troops always came through for us, no matter the limits imposed upon them. Whenever they were allowed to fight, they won. Our tragic reverses, such as the disastrous First Battle of Fallujah or the initial rounds of fighting in Najaf, resulted from indecision and miscalculations at the highest levels of civilian leadership, not from any military failings.
Now, as 2005 approaches, we need to give the men and women in uniform the support they deserve.
First, this means increasing the size of our ground forces so that we don't have to cripple the superb military we've built over the past generation. This is going to be a long war. There is no excuse for temporizing while soldiers and their families suffer needlessly. There are not enough troops in uniform. Fixing that problem should be our nation's number-one military priority.
We also need to support our troops by keeping faith. Too many of the Washington civilians who couldn't wait to go to war now can't wait to bail out of Iraq. But victory belongs to the steadfast. Iraq's elections can't become an excuse for cutting and running. We have to see this one through.
More.
December 19, 2004
Iranians casing Houston consulate?
Here's another scary, shadowy report from Israeli intelligence site DEBKA, this time involving potential threats close to home and elsewhere.
[F]oreign intelligence services have been telling Israel since late November that Iranian spy teams have been spotted outside Israeli missions in various parts of the world, including one nabbed by the FBI watching Israeli consulates in Los Angeles, Atlanta and Houston. It was made up of Iranian Americans, Arab and Pakistani students - some of them US citizens, and all activists belonging to Muslim fundamentalist groups.They were perfectly aware that the data sent to Iranian intelligence was intended for use in hostage taking and bombing attacks against Israeli missions.
The notion of Tehran-instigated terrorist strikes in the middle of America’s main cities struck alarm in US intelligence agencies and Homeland Security department. Clearly, operations of this magnitude could not have been planned without top-level sanction from spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, or without the presence in America of an operational network. Although assigned with striking Israeli consulates, there is nothing to stop this network from expanding its mission to American strategic targets as well.
Of particular concern are the close ties evolving between Iranian intelligence and al Qaeda cells based inside the Islamic republic. US intelligence sources have learned that Khamenei in person has created a new clandestine umbrella organization for bringing together as an arm of his bureau all the al Qaeda-linked groups and likeminded movements.
US intelligence experts are certain that data gathered for Tehran by the captured Iranian surveillance team may well have reached al Qaeda, some of it passed deliberately. Osama bin Laden’s organization is believed to be plotting a major attack in the United States. The Islamic Republic is in the habit of using proxies for its terror campaigns, like the Lebanese Hizballah against Israeli targets. That Al Qaeda operatives are harbored in Iran and run cells in many countries make it a natural partner-in-terror.
Related:
• Israel - Consulate General to the Southwest, Houston
A divine adoption
The Rev. Donald Sensing has posted his sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Advent. He examines the recent cover story in Newsweek that tried, in a notably shallow way, to debunk the possible historicity of the Virgin Birth and therefore the meaning of the Christmas story. The counter-argument: there are many reasons, both historical and theological, to indicate that the Virgin Birth is true.
Claiming Jesus was born of a virgin was foolish to claim falsely, but mandatory to point out if true, even if the fact worked against Jesus's acceptance by most Jews.... [N]o sensible case for inventing the story can reasonably be made; its inclusion makes sense only if it is true.Note that both Matthew and Luke affirm the birth, then move on and never bring it up again. The central affirmation of all the New Testament is that Jesus is Son of God, not specifically son of a virgin. Peter’s confession of who Jesus is - "You are the Christ, the son of the living God!" - makes no reference of Jesus's virgin mother. The center of Christian faith is that Jesus was raised from the dead, not born of a virgin.
Even so, Jesus's conception by the power of the Holy Spirit brings forth a perfect union of his being of God and being of humanity. Jesus is nowhere presented as a hybrid product of divinity and humanity. Jesus is not a half-and-half person. Jesus is affirmed as fully human and fully God. Unlike the semi-divine figures of pagan myths, Jesus was not a demigod with a human side corrupting his divine being. Neither was Jesus simply a human being with an exceptionally rich spiritual life. Jesus was Immanuel, fully God, fully with us, fully human.
Read the whole thing.
December 18, 2004
Front row Joes
Here's a classy gesture from Dallas Mavericks fans towards some of our nation's wounded warriors.
They've dodged bombs and bullets, suffered bruises and burns. They've lost limbs and stared at death's door.Jim Leslie figures the least he can do is let these brave U.S. soldiers — most wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan — sit on the front row at a Dallas Mavericks game.
"It's a small way for me to show some appreciation for what they've done for us," said Leslie, one of dozens of Mavericks season-ticket holders giving up their seats for tonight's game. "I still don't think it's enough."
In all, about 140 injured soldiers from Brooke Army Medical Center near San Antonio will fly to Dallas — on a chartered jet donated by American Airlines — to see the Mavericks play the Atlanta Hawks. They'll enjoy complimentary food and beverages and have their pictures taken with Mavericks players, dancers and officials, including owner Mark Cuban.
"This is a chance for these servicemen and women to feel the admiration and respect of 20,000 people, reinforcing for them that we as a nation feel grateful for what they have done for us," Cuban said in an e-mail.
The key playmaker for "Seats for Soldiers" is a season-ticket holder named Neal Hawks, who reluctantly let the Mavericks publicize his name, a team spokeswoman said.
Hawks first offered front-row seats to soldiers last season, bringing eight to each of three games.
"Last year it gave me the chills to see the ovations that just eight soldiers received," Hawks said in an e-mail.
So this season, he approached other season-ticket holders, figuring he might get 50 or 60 tickets. Instead, he said, he got 133 — all on the front row. The total value of the tickets: roughly $150,000.
It will be a chance for the soldiers to recognize just how much Americans appreciate their service and sacrifice, said Cpl. J.R. Martinez, 21, of Dalton, Ga., who attended one of the games last season.
"A lot of these soldiers are definitely right now probably in the depression stage," said Martinez, burned over 40 percent of his body when his Humvee hit a land mine in Iraq last year. "For them to go and be able to feel that energy, it's definitely going to help their morale."
December 17, 2004
Yushchenko's dioxin poisoning
To amateur eyes, this is looking more open & shut all the time.
Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned by TCDD, the most harmful known form of dioxin and a key ingredient of the Vietnam-era herbicide Agent Orange, the scientist who conducted tests on the presidential candidate's blood said today.Abraham Brouwer, professor of environmental toxicology at the Free University in Amsterdam, told The Associated Press that the dioxin was TCDD, chemically known as tetrachlorodibenzoparadioxin. Brouwer carried out tests on blood samples sent by Yushchenko's doctors in Vienna.
TCDD was a key ingredient of Agent Orange, a herbicide blamed for myriad health problems in U.S. veterans of the Vietnam War and local villagers. It is produced inadvertently during manufacturing processes that use chlorine, such as paper and pulp bleaching. It is also given off by incinerator fumes. There is no commercial production of TCDD.
The tests also confirmed that Yushchenko's blood contained 100,000 units of dioxin, the second highest concentration ever recorded.
"It is a single chemical, not a mix," said Brouwer said. "This tells us ... there is no way it occurred naturally, because it is so pure."
"There were some small signals in the test that may tell us something about where it was ... made," he added.
Yushchenko, who faces Kremlin-backed Viktor Yanukovych in a repeat presidential election on Dec. 26, fell ill after having dinner with Ukrainian Security Service chief Ihor Smeshko and his deputy Volodymyr Satsyuk on Sept. 5.
Yushchenko reported having a headache about three hours after the dinner, and by the next day had developed an acute stomach ache. He later developed pancreatitis and gastrointestinal pain, as well as a severe backache. About three weeks after his first symptoms, Yushchenko developed severe facial disfiguring which is the hallmark of dioxin poisoning.
Yushchenko told the AP on Thursday that he is convinced he was poisoned at the Sept. 5 dinner.
"It was a project of political murder, prepared by the authorities," Yushchenko said. The dinner "was the only place where no one from my team was present and no precautions were taken concerning the food," he said.
Hyscience has more and ponders an important question: why dioxin?
However, toxicologists are baffled -- as was this blog -- as to why any assassin would use Dioxin as a murder weapon. As CodeBlueBlog said, right from the beginning, if we are to assume that there were someone whose intention was to kill Yushchenko, or even disfigure him, in no way could he depend on Dioxin to do either.
It may be that the desired outcome wasn't outright assassination, but rather debilitating illness and subsequent political intimidation. The choice of poisons may have been driven by a hope for plausible deniability through the use of an industrial pollutant in a long-despoiled nation (think Chernobyl). The KGB and its affiliates haven't always been smart, just dependably ruthless.
Armoring up
Here's good news: the nearby Stewart & Stevenson plant is ramping up its production of armored truck cabs for the military.
Deadly rebel attacks on supply convoys in Iraq sent the Army scrambling to bolster the number of armored vehicles there, and a Sealy military truck maker will respond by tripling production of its heavily fortified truck cabs.Stewart & Stevenson currently is producing five of the hardened cabs a day at its manufacturing facility in Sealy, about 50 miles west of Houston. Early next year, the company will start assembling 15 of the cabs a day with an angled design that makes them harder for radars to detect.
"As fast as we make these cabs, they want them overseas," said Dennis Dellinger, president and chief operating officer of Stewart & Stevenson Tactical Vehicle Systems.
Army officials say they are doing the best they can to adjust to a threat environment that has changed dramatically since major combat was declared over in May 2003.
As of Wednesday, at least 1,298 members of the U.S. military have been killed since the war in Iraq began in March 2003, according to the Defense Department. Of those, hundreds were killed or injured by insurgent attacks on convoys, according to the military.
The Army plans to spend $4 billion on additional armored vehicles and to upgrade others with "armor kits."
To date, only 10 percent of the 4,800 medium-weight military trucks and 15 percent of the 4,300 heavy-weight military trucks in Iraq are equipped with armored cabs, according to the House Armed Services Committee. Of the nearly 19,900 Humvees operating in Iraq, 78 percent are armored.
This leaves plenty of work for Stewart & Stevenson.
Stewart & Stevenson dedicates 500,000 square feet of covered space to build the armored cabs. It plans to add a second line, multiple shifts and up to 50 workers to handle increased production.
The Army requested the production increase in November. It could have started before next year, the company said, but the Army gives Humvees top priority for the metal used to make armor. Until recently, the metal was hard to come by in large enough quantities for Stewart & Stevenson to apply it to truck cabs.
Dellinger has since secured metal suppliers from around the world. He is hopeful it's enough to do the job.
At 15 cabs a day, Stewart & Stevenson will process 1.2 million pounds of armor metal each month, up from 400,000 pounds.
"When you're asking people to work overtime or on a holiday, it comes easier when they know it's for a soldier over there who's fighting for our freedom," he said.
The armored cabs feature machine-gun mounts and inches-thick bulletproof glass. They are designed to protect crews from AK-47 assault rifle rounds, 12- to 16-pound land mines and artillery fragments.
New features for the cabs are angular gun ports on the driver's and passenger's sides. More.
Related:
• Stewart & Stevenson - Tactical Vehicle Systems, LP - Sealy, Texas
God on their side
The "Orange Revolution" happening right now in Ukraine has a distinctly religious component. Like the Poles and other oppressed peoples of Eastern Europe, faith in God has sustained the pro-freedom forces in Ukraine.
Ukraine's Orange Revolution (named for the color adopted by the country's reformist opposition), is a broad-based movement that brought millions of citizens into the streets to press for free and fair elections. Now it is on the verge of a dramatic victory. In just nine days, on Dec. 26, this nonviolent people-power movement will likely make pro-Western reformer Viktor Yushchenko the country's next president.On the surface, the Orange Revolution has had a secular look, with students, members of the middle class and workers rising up against corrupt rule.The movement has on its side the sexy Ukrainian girl group Via Gra, Eurovision song-contest winner Ruslana and the Klitschkos, Ukraine's boxing brothers. Not to mention Sting and Gerard Depardieu.
But there is another side to Ukraine's peaceful revolution. Interspersed with earnest youths, families and grandmothers who braved subzero temperatures at daily rallies for Mr. Yushchenko were nuns bearing orange sashes, proto-deacons and priest-monks.
The scene at Kiev's Independence Square was part political rally, part rock concert and part fireworks display. But it was also a religious experience....
Mr. Yushchenko, who typically ends his speeches with "Glory to Ukraine, Glory to the Ukrainian People, and Glory to the Lord, Our God," is a devout Orthodox Christian from northeastern Ukraine who regularly takes confession and communion. His faith is reinforced by his American-born wife, Katya Chumachenko, who last week told the Chicago Tribune: "We're strong believers in God, and we strongly believe that God has a place for each one of us in this world, and that he has put us in this place for a reason."
Tip via Outside the Beltway
At its root level, it is perhaps not unlike the Red State phenomenon we experienced here in November: people of faith choosing the hard road of liberty over the soft assurances of accomodationists. How appropriate during this season of Advent, when we re-experience how light entered the world to overcome, painfully, a profound darkness.
December 16, 2004
How Iran might deter the U.S.
Here's a peek inside Iran's strategic thought-process and its plans to deter any military strike from the U.S., authored by a professor at Tehran University. The basic response would be to immediately enflame the entire Middle East. Interesting.
Henceforth, any US attack on Iran will likely be met first and foremost by missile counter-attacks engulfing the southern Persian Gulf states playing host to US forces, as well as any other country, eg, Azerbaijan, Iraq or Turkey, allowing their territory or airspace to be used against Iran. The rationale for this strategy is precisely to pre-warn Iran's neighbors of the dire consequences, with potential debilitating impacts on their economies for a long time, should they become accomplices of foreign invaders of Iran.Another key element of Iran's strategy is to "increase the arch of crisis" in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq, where it has considerable influence, to undermine the United States' foothold in the region, hoping to create a counter-domino effect wherein instead of gaining inside Iran, the US would actually lose territory partly as a result of thinning its forces and military "overstretch".
Still another component of Iran's strategy is psychological warfare, an area of considerable attention by the country's military planners nowadays, focusing on the "lessons from Iraq" and how the pre-invasion psychological warfare by the US succeeded in causing a major rift between the top echelons of the Ba'athist army as well as between the regime and the people. The United States' psychological warfare in Iraq also had a political dimension, seeing how the US rallied the United Nations Security Council members and others behind the anti-Iraq measures in the guise of countering Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.
Iran's counter-psychological warfare, on the other hand, seeks to take advantage of the "death-fearing" American soldiers who typically lack a strong motivation to fight wars not necessarily in defense of the homeland. A war with Iran would definitely require establishing the draft in the US, without which it could not possibly protect its flanks in Afghanistan and Iraq; imposing the draft would mean enlisting many dissatisfied young soldiers amenable to be influenced by Iran's own psychological warfare focusing on the lack of motivation and "cognitive dissonance" of soldiers ill-doctrinated to President George W Bush's "doctrine of preemption", not to mention a proxy war for the sake of Israel.
Tip via American Future.
Make-up
Despite the tough implications of this report, there is a certain twisted comical element as well.
Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi and his terrorists in Iraq may be moving around Iraq with impunity because they spend hours in front of the mirror making up their faces, according to intelligence services quoted by the Berlin newspaper Tagesspiegel.In a story released before publication Tuesday, it said the services claimed the Jordanian Islamist's group were major buyers of rich theatrical make-up, and used the cosmetics to drastically change their appearance.
The false appearance would explain why the terrorists were not being recognised, despite widespread wanted posters. The United States has posted a 25-million-dollar reward for his capture.
One can only hope they show the same fastidiousness as this quite different public figure.
Lessons learned and more
Here's some interesting work by the librarians of the Air University Library at Maxwell AFB in Alabama: extensive bibliographies on Operation Iraqi Freedom Lessons Learned, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, and Ethics and the Military.
Click, read, and learn. Nicely done.
December 15, 2004
Honor
A graduate of my alma mater Wofford College was killed last week in Iraq, along with a veteran brother-in-arms.
Military officials say Friday that two South Carolina Army National Guardsmen were killed in a helicopter accident at an air base in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.A statement by South Carolina Adjutant General Stan Spears says First Lieutenant Andrew C. Shields of Campobello and Chief Warrant Officer Patrick D. Leach of Rock Hill died in the crash. The soldiers were based at McEntire Air National Guard Station in Eastover.
Spears says Shields had served with the Guard for five years. He was a member of the South Carolina Army National Guard's Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 151st Aviation.
He graduated from Wofford in 2001 with a degree in chemistry. He is survived by a twin brother, Phillip, who was also in ROTC at Wofford, "It hurts. It's going to be very difficult for sure. It's going to be very difficult for all of us, for his classmates, his professors who taught him, all of us who remember him,"
Shields' sister-in-law, Leslie, fought back tears while talking briefly with The Associated Press. She says it was a big shock for the family and that her brother-in-law was a lovable guy and fun to be around.
Leach's buddies in Rock Hill called him "MacGyver" because he could fix anything. His brother-in-law, John Landstreet, says Leach's ambition was to be a pilot. Leach had served 18 years.
The military says the accident injured four others, but they have returned to duty.
US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Paul Hastings says the crash occurred when an AH-64 Apache helicopter hit an UH-60 Black Hawk that was on the ground. He says the accident is under investigation and the cause had not been determined.
An e-mail from the college says a small tribute will take place Friday on campus.
Statement from Wofford College President Benjamin B. Dunlap:"Wofford College has suffered a common loss in the death of a recent graduate, 1st Lt. Andrew Shields, who was killed in Iraq last week.
"Tomorrow, Wednesday, Dec. 15, at noon, we will toll the bell of Old Main 21 times in memory of our student and friend. If you are on or near campus, when you hear the bell, please think of him. If you are not in the area, please take time at noon think of Andrew."
Count on it.
The Wofford motto is:
Intaminatis fulget honoribus - Untarnished, she shines with honor.
So too will the memory of First Lt. Andrew C. Shields '01, not the first and not the last of Wofford's men to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country.
December 14, 2004
Vigilantism in Latin America
Following a spectacularly tragic incident in Mexico, Newsweek examines the growing phenomenon of vigilantism in Latin America. Our 21st century world is not so far removed from primitivism as we would like to think.
Vigilantism has taken root in Latin America over the past decade, lending credence to the notion that the region is in the throes of a democratic crisis. From Venezuela and Guatemala to Bolivia and Peru, angry crowds are increasingly taking the law into their own hands, meting out physical punishment for crimes real and imagined. Vigilantes often "lynch" common criminals who, in their view, have escaped justice. More recently they've started attacking public officials suspected of malfeasance. Last May a mob in the Peruvian town of Ilave beat their mayor after accusing him of embezzlement, then dragged him into a public square and left him to die. "Lynching has grown totally out of control," says Mark Ungar, an expert on Latin American police reform at the Woodrow Wilson International School for Scholars in Washington. "It's spreading in the sense that vigilantes are going after criminals, officials, even governments—and once it starts it's hard to stop."Experts generally agree that vigilantes are not merely filling a law-and-order gap created by poor or nonexistent police work. The phenomenon is more complex. The western highlands of Guatemala, where many incidents of lynching occur, is not an area with an otherwise high rate of official crime. Rather, vigilantism is most prevalent in places where people have lost faith in their civic institutions. They no longer trust the police or judicial officials to care about their duties or the people they've been entrusted to protect. Indeed, corrupt police are part and parcel of the problem. A neighborhood protection group in Honduras recently told Ungar that they pulled people out of their houses frequently "and beat the hell out of them"—often while the local police were watching. Says Ungar: "The local officers allowed it to happen."
Analysts say that many cases of vigilantism are desperate attempts by disenfranchised groups to assert a nascent political will. In one case, closely documented by University of Washington sociologist Angelina Godoy Snodgrass, thousands of people gathered on a farm in rural Guatemala in October 2001 to witness the hanging and burning of three men suspected of stealing some fertilizer and candy. In a recent article, Snodgrass notes ominously that the process was "clearly premeditated... [community] security committees had been constituted to handle crime." If vigilantism is left unchecked, say experts, the problem could develop into something even more sinister—swaths of Latin American territory where mobs and mafia types rule.
Taliban captured
Here's good news from Afghanistan.
Afghan security forces have captured Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar's personal security chief as he traveled in a van to the southern city of Kandahar, provincial officials told Reuters on Tuesday.The capture of Toor Mullah Naqibullah Khan, who headed Mullah Omar's household security, could help U.S. and Afghan forces track down his boss, one of the most wanted fugitives in the U.S.-led war on terror.
"We have arrested top Taliban figures Toor Mullah Naqibullah Khan and Mullah Qayoom Angar on the way between Arghandab and Kandahar. They were carrying a satellite telephone and some important documents," said a senior Kandahar security official, who requested anonymity.
The official said eight more Taliban fighters were arrested in Kandahar after the two men were caught, unarmed, on Monday evening. A cache of remote control bombs, time bombs and several other explosive devices and radios was also seized.
With the latest captures, security forces have picked up at least 27 militants since Saturday night, including the brother of a former Taliban governor of Kandahar.
December 13, 2004
Iran's ballistic missile program
The American Foreign Policy Council calls this report "ominous." If accurate, it's more Iranian double-doubling on nuclear weapons.
As international pressure continues to mount on Tehran for its nuclear ambitions, new revelations have focused international attention on another element of Iran’s strategic arsenal. On December 2nd, an Iranian opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), disclosed that the Islamic Republic is hard at work on a new medium-range ballistic missile, the “Ghadr 100.” Experts like Uzi Rubin, the former director of Israel’s Arrow Program, believe that the propulsion system, range, and re-entry vehicle of the “Ghadr-100” are similar to that of the advanced “Shahab-4” – a missile the Iranian regime publicly pledged in November of 2003 not to build. Specific alterations in the missile’s nosecone allow it to hold larger warheads, including nuclear devices, Rubin tells Jane’s Defence Weekly in an interview published on December 6th. What’s more, according to the Israeli specialist, the alterations are the work of “seasoned missile engineers,” likely from the Russian Federation.
Vladimir Putin's Russia is playing a key, reckless role in these very dangerous developments.
China's growing military and economic power
Mark Helprin is concerned about the trajectories and intersection of trends in the U.S. and in China -- trends that the U.S. ignores at its peril.
With its new economic resources China has embarked upon a military traverse from reliance upon mass to devotion to quality, with stress upon war in space, the oceans, and the ether--three areas of unquestioned American superiority. China is establishing its own space- based assets and developing the means to counter others. It would neutralize American strategic superiority as the aging U.S. arsenal is reduced and it augments its own. Its submarine program is directed to the deployment of its strategic force and denial of successively greater bands of the Pacific--eventually reaching far out into blue water--to the safe transit of American fleets. It sees America's advantage in informational warfare both as something to be copied and as a weak link that, by countermeasure, can be shattered. In short, it harbors major ambitions.... [N]o country, ever, has had both the mass and income at the margin that the United States has now, but rather than anticipate, meet, and discourage China's military development, as it easily could, the U.S. has chosen to ignore it. America's métiers are the sea, the air, and space, and with one exception our major allies in Asia are island nations. These factors could be combined to keep China on the straight and narrow for generations longer than otherwise, but America's vision has been knocked out of focus by its ideals, and when China does develop the powerful expeditionary forces that it will need to protect its far- flung interests, the U.S. will probably have successfully completed transforming its military into a force designed mainly to fight terrorism and insurgencies.
Though the dangers of epidemics and terrorist nuclear attacks are now obviously pre-eminent, rising behind them is a newer world yet. This century will be not just the century of terrorism: terrorism will fade. It will be a naval century, with the Pacific its center, and challenges in the remotest places of the world offered not by dervishes and crazy-men but by a great power that is at last and at least America's equal. Unfortunately, it is in our nature neither to foresee nor prepare for what lies beyond the rim.
Read the whole thing.
December 12, 2004
Honored
Here's courage and true love in action.
When Marine Lance Cpl. David Battle learned he'd either have to sacrifice his ring finger or the wedding band he wore, he told doctors at a field hospital in Iraq to cut off the finger.The 19-year-old former high school football star suffered a mangled left hand and serious wounds to his legs in a Nov. 13 fire fight in Fallujah. Battle, who is recovering at his parents' home in this desert city 80 miles northeast of Los Angeles, came under attack as he and fellow Marines entered a building. Eleven other Marines were wounded.
Doctors were preparing to cut off Battle's ring to save as much of his finger as they could.
"But that would mean destroying my wedding ring," he said. "My wife is the strongest woman I know. She's basically running two people's lives since I've been gone. I don't think I could ever repay her or show her how grateful ... how much I love my wife, my soul mate."
With his approval, doctors severed his finger, but somehow in the chaos that followed, they lost his ring.
Although Battle was disappointed, his wife, Devon, said she was honored. "I can't believe he did that," she said. "At first I was mad when he told me, but then I realized how lucky I am to have him in my life."
The couple, who met in the eighth grade, were married in June, just two weeks before Battle left for Iraq. He hopes to eventually return to the Marines, and to replace his wedding ring, but that will have to wait until he recovers.
Winter offensive
Here's a reminder of that other war going on. Don't forget about it.
About 18,000 American troops have started a winter offensive against Taliban rebels in Afghanistan, vowing to eliminate insurgents who could threaten parliamentary elections slated for the spring.The U.S. military said Saturday that it hoped the push, dubbed Lightning Freedom, would persuade insurgents to accept an amnesty offered by President Hamid Karzai that could stabilize the country and allow foreign troops to pull back.
"It's designed basically to search out and destroy the remaining remnants of Taliban forces who traditionally, we believe, go to ground during the winter months," spokesman Maj. Mark McCann said.
"It's going on throughout the country of Afghanistan."
Doubt and faith
Today is the Third Sunday of Advent. The Rev. Donald Sensing has posted his sermon for today, on the intertwining of doubt and faith.
Challenges to faith sometimes arise from unmet expectations. The pressure of events and the ways of the world bear down us and others can force honest minds to ask, "Is there really a God who knows and cares? Does this God have a plan for the world? For me? Is Jesus the definitive revelation of that God, or should we look elsewhere for answers to ultimate questions?"Before we let our doubts become disbelief we would do well to remember that one lesson from John's story is that the Lord's coming among us was not to fulfill our expectations. The advent of the Christ is to carry out the will of God in ways we can grasp only incompletely and which frankly we may not much like. (See the book of Jonah, for example.)
Nonetheless, Jesus is indeed the Messiah. As the promised one, he is sometimes a stumbling block for us because he transforms our expectations as he fulfills them. To say that Jesus is the Messiah not only says something about Jesus, it transforms the meaning of Messiah as well. Faith does not grow from testing Jesus against our criteria to see if he measures up. It grows from testing ourselves against the Messiah so that by his grace we may measure up.
Forgot to mention last week's sermon. It's here.
December 11, 2004
Dictator falls
Here's another reason to be grateful for George W. Bush's re-election: a long-time public nuisance is off the public payroll. Mona Charon explains:
Mary Frances Berry, chairman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, is resigning. Those scratch marks on the floor may be from her fingernails as they dragged her from the building by her feet. Berry has been a member of the commission for 24 of its 47 years -- a record probably unmatched even in Washington, D.C., a city of sinecures.Berry departs with allegations of mismanagement swirling about her head. The commission is small potatoes, Washington-wise, with a budget of only $9 million and a staff of only 70. But no one knows how that money has been spent over the past 12 years, while Berry has presided with an iron hand. Peter Kirsanow, a black conservative member of the commission, writes that the management of the agency is "completely dysfunctional." Record-keeping is said to be "indecipherable," and there hasn't been an independent audit (required by law) for 12 years.
The mismanagement was not limited to money....
Under Berry's direction, the Civil Rights Commission published an utterly fallacious finding about the 2000 election in Florida, concluding that "countless Floridians ... were denied their right to vote."
When Commissioners Russell Redenbaugh and Abigail Thernstrom issued a minority report showing, among other things, that the commission had not interviewed a single Floridian who was denied the opportunity to vote, Berry ruled that the minority report could not be considered an official commission document because they had used the services (free) of a scholar named John Lott.
Another egregious example was Berry's hateful attempts to stir up fear of lynching among black citizens, as noted earlier here and here. Good riddance.