perfidy

Conveniently abstracted by Spoons, we have the essentials of the recent testimony before the 9/11 commission of former FBI director Louis Freeh and former (thank God!) Attorney General Janet Reno. Here are the salient points:

• Janet Reno never specifically briefed incoming Attorney General John Ashcroft on the threat posed by al Qaeda;
• In her 8 years in office, General Reno was briefed about al-Qaeda, but was never told (and apparently never asked) the location of al-Qaeda cells in the country;
• Reno "never focused on just al Qaeda," because of the Oklahoma City bombing;
• Clinton's FBI Director, Louis Freeh said that the FBI was not given the resources it needed to fight terrorism;
• Freeh was aware that Bin Laden had issued several fatwas in the 1990s ordering his followers to attack the U.S.;
• Nobody thought investigating terrorism cases was the best response to Al-Qaeda's declared war on the U.S., but it was the best anyone could do "in the absence of invading Afghanistan";
• During Freeh's time in office, "We weren't fighting a real war [against terrror]";
• General Reno testified that the majority of the [Democrat-reviled] Patriot Act has helped counterterrorism efforts.

Again, we need to change the focus from assigning blame and partisan grandstanding to a more fruitful lessons learned analysis. These items indicate that prior to the attack, no one new about the attack. This is not surprising. MoveOn.org's poster in the DC Metro claiming that "Bush Knew" are moonbat fantasy. We need to stay far, far away from that sort of thinking.

What we need is a clear exposition of what policies hindered the collation of intelligence we had; what policies might, if implemented, increase the amount and quality of information we get; and what security measures might be both effective and appropriate for a constitutional republic. I have no idea, of course, what the commission's report will look like. But considering the behavior so far of all the commissioners, I do not think that I will be getting what I am hoping for.

Mac Owens has an excellent and detailed look at the second half of the Vietnam war - the post Tet period. Owens discusses the value of the Combined Action Program or CAP that I mentioned in the comments to several recent posts here, and the progress that had been made in stabilizing South Vietnam in the three years between Tet and the Easter Offensive.

A sample:

Sorley examined the largely neglected later years of the conflict and concluded that the war in Vietnam "was being won on the ground even as it was being lost at the peace table and in the US Congress."

Most studies of the Vietnam War focus on the years up until 1968. Those studies that examine the period after Tet 1968 emphasize the diplomatic attempts to extricate the U.S. from the conflict, treating the military effort as nothing more than a holding action. But as William Colby observed in a review of Robert McNamara's disgraceful memoir, In Retrospect, by limiting serious consideration of the military situation in Vietnam to the period before mid-1968, historians leave Americans with a record "similar to what we would know if histories of World War II stopped before Stalingrad, Operation Torch in North Africa and Guadalcanal in the Pacific."

... Far from constituting a mere holding action, the approach followed by the new team constituted a positive strategy for ensuring the survival of South Vietnam. Bunker, Abrams, and Colby "brought different values to their tasks, operated from a different understanding of the nature of the war, and applied different measures of merit and different tactics. They employed diminishing resources in manpower, materiel, money, and time as they raced to render the South Vietnamese capable of defending themselves before the last American forces were withdrawn. They went about that task with sincerity, intelligence, decency, and absolute professionalism, and in the process they came very close to achieving the goal of a viable nation and a lasting peace."

... The Marine Corps approach in Vietnam had three elements, according to Krulak: emphasis on pacification of the coastal areas in which 80 percent of the people lived; degradation of the ability of the North Vietnamese to fight by cutting off supplies before they left Northern ports of entry; and engagement of PAVN and VC main-force units on terms favorable to American forces. The Marines soon came into conflict with Westmoreland over how to fight the war. In his memoir, A Soldier Reports, Westmoreland writes:

During those early months [1965], I was concerned with the tactical methods that General Walt and the Marines employed. They had established beachheads at Chu Lai and Da Nang and were reluctant to go outside them, not through any lack of courage but through a different conception of how to fight an anti-insurgency war. They were assiduously combing the countryside within the beachhead, trying to establish firm control in hamlets and villages, and planning to expand the beachhead up and down the coast.

He believed the Marines "should have been trying to find the enemy's main forces and bring them to battle, thereby putting them on the run and reducing the threat they posed to the population." Westmoreland, according to Krulak, made the "third point the primary undertaking, even while deemphasizing the need for clearly favorable conditions before engaging the enemy."

Read the whole thing, it's a keeper.

"Nader tells youths to brace for draft."

On my planet, which my people call earth, it is known that we have not had a draft for thirty years and that it would not only be political suicide to reintroduce it, it would destroy the lavishly equipped, intensively trained and stupendously lethal volunteer force we are so very proud of.

Nader needs to stop smoking the crack.

Yet another tedious example of how Bush's "No Child Left Behind" plan is actually designed to further increase, if possible, the basic innumeracy of this nation. Unless...unless Bush himself doesn't understand the difference between a median and an average. Can it be? Can this really be it? Brothers, there is hope! We can still save this economy. All we need to do is find a way to teach Bush about the difference between a median and an average. We must put our best, our brightest teachers, who are paid less than 30k a year, to work on the problem. Perhaps we'll test afterwards, just to make sure.

Kevin Drum has more detail, as usual.

- Kerry says middle class families are worse off and the rich are better off under George Bush.
- George Bush says that's not so: average income has gone up 5.9% in the past three years. Not bad!
- Oops, wait a second. That's "average" income. The right measure is "median" income, since the average is skewed upward by.....the rich being better off.
- Median household income has decreased 3.3% since 2000.
- But wait! If you take into account tax cuts and increased entitlement income, median household income has.....declined 0.6%.

Even flat income for three straight years is disastrous, of course, something the writer of the article seems not to understand. So no matter how you measure it, middle class families are worse off and the rich are better off under George Bush. Just like Kerry said.

There's been some fairly kickass Perfidious discussion recently about Presidential policy and Iraq, and somehow we've managed to suckerentice new commenters to weigh in. Sweet!

Buckethead posted yesterday an excerpt by Rosemary, QOAE that argued that liberals are impossible to please right now. All in all, she is right that many people have knee-jerk responses against every move the President makes. But at the end of the day, that's a straw-man argument that doesn't get at anything terribly important.

[Here comes the first-person perspective!] Even though I'm not a liberal per se (at least not on Tuesdays), I do generally oppose the President's views and treat his actions with overall suspicion. But I think Rosemary is giving me and many others too much credit for our discernment.
Back when Clin-ton was in the White House getting hummers and ordering opportune missile strikes, I second-guessed his every move. I spent 1993 convinced that NAFTA was economic poison (hey... I was in college), and when he launched those rockets in 1998, I was positive that that strike had been ordered to take media heat off his impending blowjob testimony.

All this is simply to say that there's a class of people in this country, probably pretty large, who have a hard time giving any President the benefit of the doubt. The office is held by mortals not gifted with foresight, and they are bound to have human flaws. I for one don't often have the intestinal fortitude to trust them to overcome those flaws.

That all being said, Bush's policies abroad do scare the bejeezus out of me, and I tend to grip at every new development. I'm still not convinced that the libervasion of Iraq-- though undoubtedly and manifestly a good thing-- is the best way to crush international terrorism. Maybe it is. Maybe it ain't. So far the Prudential Center hasn't blown up, so Boston at least has been safe for the last 18 months. Am I willing to give him the benefit of the doubt? Sort of. I'm the guy in the back seat of the car going 120 mph with his hands over his eyes, saying "I hope you know what you're doing!"

Anyway, I had a point here...

Right. Buckethead highlighted another section of Rosemary's post in which she argued that regarding terrorists, we only have two choices: to wait and die; or move now and kill. I disagree. I think that we are actually in the midst of pursuing a third way right now, and that more should be done along these lines. [note to Buckethead: yes, here comes the hearts and minds bullshit again. Pls hold fire until I'm done.] One reason I'd like to see more troops in Iraq, especially specialists rather than fighters, is that the faster and more effectively the general public decide "yes, they're infidels, but the lights work!" the better.

The Marines are as usual way out in front in doing this. Recently they resurrected the "Small Wars Manual", which was written back when the US had actual imperial designs on places like Haiti, Guam, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. Although a lot of the information is entertainingly outdated, it still contains a great deal of heard-won wisdom on how to make villages accept your presence and work with you. That, in the long run, is the most potent weapon we have in the war on Terrorism. When the recent Sunni Uprising went down, I saw in it an opportunity to demonstrate the power of the Third Way. Smack without mercy anyone who shoots at us, and resolutely resist attempts to draw us into backing down or levelling the place. News out of Iraq is spotty, so I don't know what the hell to think now, but I still hope that my way is a good way out of Iraq's and out current trouble.

One last thought. I've long advocated learning more about the thought processes of terrorists and the populations that spawn them, as a way to stem the future tide of 'splodeydopes and radical jihadists. Some would disagree. They are the Second Option radicals. Others, mostly stinky hippies, think the US deserves what it gets and prefer to celebrate the free and liberal policies of Kim Jong Il and Fidel Castro. They are the First Option radicals.

We keep seeing evidence that in the Middle East in general, and within each country in specific, there are certain cultural differences that make all communication difficult. What comes across and gentlemanly conduct in Oklahoma translates as being a real pussy in Baghdad. The troops on the ground have to learn-- are learning-- how to bridge these divides and make their missions a success. But how can we ensure that the lessons they learn there make their way back up the chain of command and get written into a new edition of the Small Wars Manual? If Rumsfeld and his crew have one failing (and they have many), they seem to cling with evangelical fervor to their ways. Because of that, I'm having a hard time giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Rosemary, I do agree with you that doing nothing and waiting means that more people around the world will die in spectacular and horrifying ways thanks to terrorism. I'm just not convinced that the only other option is to kick all the ass you say we should.

[wik] Via Kathy Kinsley I find this Weekly Standard editorial that comes to the exact opposite conclusion that I have. Funnyguy (sorta) Larry Miller writes some excellent observations about the "end-zone dance' that was the aircraft carrier landing ("Mission Accomplished" my ass!), but then argues this:

Message to the administration: No one in Europe or on the left is ever, ever, ever going to like you from seeing a photograph of a marine handing a bag of groceries to a woman in a burkha. Jacques Chirac is never going to say, "Well, they have built a lot of community centers. Maybe Bush was right."

Win. Stopping building schools. Win. There's plenty of time and need for hospitals, but first . . . Win. Yes, yes, Iraqi girls can be very empowered by seeing a female colonel running an outreach program, and we can all chip in for the posters that say "Take Your Daughters To Mosque Day," but in the meantime, would you please win.

Larry, we are winning. On all fronts. The schools are not for the French, and the hospitals are not for college-age liberals. They are for Iraqis to use, so their country has the institutions that create stability. It would be a terrible thing to win the battle and lose the war, to have a newly free and nominally democratic Iraq elect a radical Islamic government with state legitimacy and lots of tax money to fund terrorists. It would be a terrible thing for Iraq to devolve into regional squabbles, and subdivide into a Balkans-esque set of interlocked ethnic zones. We need to win on all fronts, and bullets will only help with one of them.

The Beeb reports that Canada - you know, the kindler, gentler, greener and morally superior nation to our north - is condemning to death hundreds of thousands of defenseless seals. The government defended the move as more humane - they're gonna shoot the little bastards instead of the traditional club to the head. It appears that crass economic motives are the motivation for this return to senseless animal cruelty, as commercial fish stocks were vanishing, and the cull was important for the local economy during a traditionally slow economic time of the year.

Me, I think them seals is commies.

How can you not club a face like that?

For more info on the mechanics of seal slaughtering, go see the Nuke Baby Seals for Jesus site.

At least, that's what Andy Rooney thinks. That's the actual title of the piece. I never liked the pretentious blowhard much before, but now I really can't stand him. Read this article, and bask in the awesome disregard and complete lack of understanding exhibited therein. Whenever I have seen an interview with troops in the field, they are constantly saying - in complete contradiction to Rooney - how they are proud to fight, knowing that they are preserving the liberties and safety of Americans back home; even of fat condescending fucktards like Rooney. This excrement is a classic example of the worst kind of liberal contempt for, and lack of comprehension of, the military.

For some useful perspective on the recent comments here at Perfidy, Rosemary, the Queen of all Evil gives us this:

The liberal complaints about Iraq and 9/11 are contradictory. You have made it impossible to please you.

Why do we have the 9/11 Commission? The purpose was to figure out what went wrong and fix it, so we NEVER have a 9/11 again. That isn't what it is now, is it? It is now a Witch Hunt. Blame someone (Bush) besides Al Qaeda and burn them at the stake. What did they know and when did they know it??? Blah, blah, blah...

We already hear mumblings from people that want to know why we didn't prevent it. It is a circle of insanity. If the Bush Administration had, by some miracle, been able to prevent 9/11 how would anyone know it? Let's say they had vague info that some time in September, Al Qaeda, would do exactly what they did. What should the Bush Administration have done? Act pre-emptively to stop the attack, right? If they were successful what would the screams and complaints be?

...We all know that they hate us. I don't give a rat's ass why they hate us. They hate us and they want us dead. We have two choices:

1) Respond after we get hit and suffer casualities and fatalities. Of course, then we are back to hearing "What did they know and when did they know it?"

2) We go in kick ass and start taking hyphenated names. I'm all about self-defense. If I saw some punk on the street that said, "I'm gonna kill you", you can bet your ass that I won't wait for him to start. I'm prepared to fight and kill, if necessary, to save myself. That is what our country is doing. It's just a grander scale.

I'm sorry guys, but you can't have it both ways. You can't demand that we prevent the tragedy of 9/11, and then demand that we not act pre-emptively against the bad guys when we think there might be a threat.

That isn't possible. How can you stop people from killing you if you wait until they kill you?

We either kick the ass of the terrorists and terrorist friendly nations or we wait until they attack us. If we wait until they "do something to us" you cannot go back and complain that the government didn't stop it. Actually, you can do that and that is exactly what the Left has been doing.

Back in the day, when I was a Mac user, there was a game that I loved. When I switched to Windows, I thought that I would never play the game again. But a chance encounter in the Safeway led to a reunion... 

I was walking down the frozen foods aisle when I saw a guy wearing a shirt with this logo:

That rang a bell, but for a few seconds I couldn't place it. Then I remembered! 

Escape Velocity! Escape Velocity was a simple, yet addictive game. You start out with a small shuttle, with little cargo space and virtually no combat ability. But, if you're clever, you can make money through sharp dealing and avoid being killed or captured by pirates. You can use the money to upgrade your little shuttle, or save for a new and better spaceship. There were hundreds of planets, the Rebellion and the Confederation, pirates, aliens and bars.

All of what I just described would probably keep you occupied for a few hours. But the beauty of EV was the storylines embedded in an otherwise fairly simple yet wide open trading and fighting game. These kept your interest. It was a near perfect balance between the freedom to do what you want, and good narrative. A very clever game that focused on playability rather than snazzy graphics and eye candy.

For years, Ambrosia software vowed that they just wouldn't make a windows version of the game. But the guy in the shirt informed me that they had a new version, and that it had a windows port. One of the reasons (along with tax preparation) that I did little or no blogging over the weekend was the fact that this game now resides on my computer. So, for a good free (well, shareware) game, go right here and download it. 
 

No not that red. Commie red. Siberian Light links to a slew of articles about Russian space plans. It is, after all, Cosmonaut day in the motherland.

Among the articles he links, we see that a Russian company is claiming that it will put six cosmonauts on Mars by 2009. (2011 according to this AP story.) The articles are sadly lacking in details, but they say that they can do it for $3.5 billion. That would be a significant savings over the proposed NASA plan (anywhere from $30 billion to $1 trillion, depending on who you listen to.) The Russian space officials have declared this nonsense, and based on what I know of the current state of Russian technology and industry, I'd have to agree. They couldn't get to the moon in '69, so I don't see how they could get to Mars in five years now, especially given the economic problems they face.

A researcher at the Central Research Institute for Machine-Building, Russia's premier authority on space equipment design, said it would carry out the project with funding promised by Aerospace Systems, a little-known private Russian company that says it draws no resources from the state budget.

The program envisions six people traveling to Mars and exploring it for several months before returning to Earth. The expedition is designed to last three years in all, and would depend on a fully equipped spacecraft containing its own garden, medical facilities and other amenities.

Absent some idea of how they intend to do it, I will have to remain dubious. Still, more power to them! Maybe the Russkies and Chinese and Indians can force America to actually use its capabilities in a sensible and forward looking way, instead of remaining in a blinkered, stuck-in-the-sixties, bureaucratic mindset.