perfidy

So it looks like blame in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse thingy might lay partially upon Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who may have known about it before the date he claims to have found out (ooh! Definitive!). This AM on the news I saw three stars on that guy's lapel. Three stars!

As Blackfive notes in the link above, nothing is certain. I don't know what the facts is. But I fervently hope that further investigation shows that orders and blame originate much farther down the chain of command than Lt. Gen.

Well, well, well. Former Neocon man of the hour (now revealed as merely a con man) Ahmad Chalabi was spying for Iran. Or not, details are sketchy. Either way, he's on the outs and in big, big trouble.

The million-dollar question for me is, why did it take this long for Bush's people to drop this smarmy dickhead like a hot potato? He's known to be untrustworthy, widely disliked by Iraqis, incapable of leadership, and ethically suspect. In short, he's the last person to put in charge of a delicate and Herculean task like managing the rebuilding of Iraq.

(Cheap shot coming...) Hm. I guess they just had a hard time getting rid of someone so much like themselves.

Haw!

Blackfive has an email from a Marine Colonel in Iraq:

A little more than one week ago the world awoke to the shocking and graphic images of the horrific treatment of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of their U.S. captors at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. Global condemnation was swift and the Arab street was whipped into a mad frenzy as anti-western television stations ran the photos nonstop 24 -7. No other message would penetrate for days. No manner of reconstruction successes or steps towards sovereignty would seal the rift that these terrible photos had opened in the hearts and minds of many in the Middle East. To many, it was hard proof of what they had already believed about the United States all along.

Within days, the President apologized to the world for the horrendous acts of a few misguided soldiers that cast a dark shadow on all of their 135,000 compatriots. The Department of Defense announced that it would put together a system of compensation to repay victims of the abuses and the United States Congress launched into full investigative mode. . . . These investigations have so far resulted in criminal or administrative actions against at least 12 individuals, including the relief of the prison chain of command and criminal referrals of several soldiers directly involved in abuse. General Courts-Martial will be convened as early as next week as charges have already been brought against a handful of the soldiers involved in the outrageous acts. Unfortunately, with the election season now upon us, there are those in Washington who see political gold in professing their righteous indignation. As the volume of their shrill voices continues to drown out reason, many have lost sight of the real story here. Donald Rumsfeld said it best last week when he testified before the United States Senate. "Judge us by our actions", said the Secretary of Defense. Watch how Americans, watch how a democracy deals with wrongdoing and scandal and the pain of acknowledging and correcting our own mistakes and weaknesses. And then after they have seen America in action -- then ask those who preach resentment and hatred of America if our behavior doesn't prove the lies in the falsehood and slander they speak about our people and way of life. Above all, ask them if the willingness of Americans to acknowledge their own failures before humanity doesn't light the world as surely as the great ideas and beliefs that first made this nation a beacon of hope and liberty to all who strive to be free. And believe it or not, this is exactly what has happened. Iraqi media, almost unbelievably, have in recent days begun to editorialized astonishment at how the United States has responded. No covers ups. No denials. The President of the United States, the world's most powerful man, formally apologized to the people of Iraq. The U.S. Congress grilled a senior member of the Administration and all the while the U.S. media was allowed to report on the unfolding story with full freedom and access. "Why does Arab media fail at self criticism and why can't Arab human rights NGOs pressure Arab governments the way their counterparts do in America?", asked the host of satellite news channel al-Arabiy's (one of the harshest critics of the United States) "Spotlight" news program. The follow up commentary was even more astounding, given the source. "The Americans exposed their own scandal, queried the officials and got the American Government to accept responsibility for the actions of its soldiers," stated the host before asking her guests why this sort of open and responsive action isn't taken in the Arab world.

There's much more. Go read it all.

By way of Rocket Jones, this nugget of brevity from Mr. Green:

Abu Ghraib represents a betrayal of our principles, while this murder [Nicholas Berg - RJ] represents an expression of theirs.

That's about the best summation of the relationship between the two events as I've seen.

Via TNR, this astonishing post from the sixth anti-terrorism chief under Bush, John Craig:

George W. Bush was right to order the invasion of Iraq, a former White House adviser from Elizabethtown said during a rare public speaking appearance Tuesday.

"I believe the decision to use military force in Iraq was the right decision at the time," John B. Craig, former senior director for combating terrorism, said during a panel discussion at Elizabethtown College, where he serves as scholar in residence.

Craig argued that war discussions took place in public meetings and that the decision to invade Iraq was ultimately based on polling data.

"In our system, the majority of the public is the applause meter, the gauge, for setting policy," he said. "The idea that the administration needed a justification for invading Iraq wasn't raised until after the decision had been made. If the public was against this, the public should have stood up and asked some really tough questions."

Huh. Really. Any such questioning was swept aside when WMD came into the picture. By intimating that it "knew" there were WMD in Iraq, the administration was able to prevent the debate on nation building from ever happening. Those persons advancing the "invade Iraq" policy knew they'd lose the public debate, if it came to that, on the simple risk/reward analysis. They needed a wildcard, and they didn't have one.

So they made one up.

Hard-rocking Zionist Gene Simmons went on a tear on Austalian radio, managing to vilify the entire religion of Islam. Seemingly his rant started by trashing terroroists; before long his massive reptilian tongue had knocked his brain into submission and before anyone knew it, he was explaining that Islam itself was to blame.

Now, you can read all the primary and secondary sources on Islam you wish, and there is no way that any sane person would come away from such study convinced that an entire religion spanning so many cultures, languages, and legal structures is out to get you. Just no. Don't argue about it. That doesn't mean that certain goofy fuckers within those structures aren't out to get you, but you can't blame something as broad, abstract, ancient, and interpretive as religion solely for them.

Yasser Soliman, chairman of the Islamic Council of Victoria, said the remarks were "very unfortunate. He's very famous obviously and popular and, as a result, influential."

Famous? Yes. Popular? OK, by most any measure yes. Influential? With every guy in America who owns a guitar knowing at least most of one KISS song, influential is a good choice of words. Influential on American foreign policy? Fear not.

Let me add that the toughest part of this entry was deciding on a title. I opted for the "Thunder Down Under" angle because everything that happens in Australia is marketed here as thunder down under, so the cheese factor appealed to me. Other candidates:

"Muslims Not Pulling Trigger to Gene's Love Gun"
"Caling Doctor Hate"
"Rocket Ride to Mecca"
"Gene's Tongue Latest Weapon in WoT"

I tried some others with puking blood, 7" leather heels and demonic face paint but nothing was really clicking.

In respect to recent events involving savage beheadings, Patton sez it good.

Thanks for the reminder, pigs. I, perhaps alone among my peers, have reached the peak of feeling badly for the actions of my countrymen; it's all downhill from here. The miscreants of the US military are on their way to the judgment and punishment they've so richly earned, and I sincerely hope that the same can soon be said for the followers of al Qaeda, bin Laden, and al-Zarqawi.

While I strongly suspect I'm a bleedinger-heart person than Patton is, and therefore may well reach greater peaks of disgust, dismay, outrage and shame in the future over the actions of my countrymen, I know one thing. At our worst, we're much, much better.

"I take full responsibility."

Donald Rumsfeld said this to Congress last week, during hearings. I never thought the phrase would be so empty of meaning. Can one utter the phrase, then do nothing? What else is being done? I do not necessarily mean that the only acceptable path is that Rumsfeld resign. It is this: When one takes full responsibility, some level of personal sacrifice is required; if none is proffered, then the acceptance is meaningless.

I cheer for small aviation businesses; it's so hard to get into the game, and so many participants do it for love, instead of for rational reasons. One man's aviation business dream just came to an end, when he took full responsibility:

Important Information for Customers

Customer experience has uncovered a type of pump failure never experienced in years of field and laboratory testing of the dual rotor vacuum pump design, including the deliberate destruction of over 300 test pumps. These failures resulted in malfunctioning of both pumping chambers simultaneously. The failures are concentrated on the 300 horsepower Lycoming IO-540 engines. We believe that these engines generate a resonant frequency resulting in breakage of both graphite rotors. Multiple replacement pumps have failed on three different engines. At this point, we can’t be certain about similar failures occurring on other engines. A failure rate of 3%, while seemingly small, is not acceptable for our product. Although the dual rotor pumps are performing well in the other 97% of installations, shipping of dual rotor pumps has been halted. The tens of thousands of dollars of orders on hand will not be filled. Aero Advantage refuses to continue marketing a product that might not perform satisfactorily for all its customers.

Aero Advantage was founded, in good faith, to improve safety of flight and to allow greater peace of mind for its customers by eliminating sudden loss of the vacuum source. While the precise changes that are needed to improve reliability may already be in place, they would likely require between 3 and 9 months to finalize and place into production. The company can not survive the financial burden of having no sales for that length of time and is closing its doors. Closure of the business was an extremely difficult decision for me, the inventor and company founder, since I have invested five years of work and most of my life’s savings in the business.

Several parties have expressed an interest in procuring the current technology and continuing the development of the necessary product improvements.

It is with much regret that I announce the above decision. I believe it is the correct one for all concerned.

Sincerely,

David A. Boldenow

Aero Advantage
My condolences, and respect, to Mr. David Boldenow. I'm sure he'll succeed at whatever he does next, and whoever deals with him will know he is of good character.

I'm having a hard time reconciling battlefield success in the War on Terror with the loss of the cultural or social contest.

Recently, BBC reported that Santiago Cathedral in Spain will remove a statue depicting St. James, aka "Moorslayer", to avoid upsetting non-Catholics: "Among the reasons for the move is to avoid upsetting the 'sensitivities of other ethnic groups' ". Similarly, a hospital in Norway removed a mural of Winnie the Pooh characters, which included Piglet, from its children's wing for fear of offending Muslim sensibilities. Meanwhile, a town in Michigan caved instantly to local Muslims' demands for amplified calls to prayer across the city in what Muslim leaders there called "a pioneer city for the whole United States".

In other recent news, rampaging Muslims destroyed and defiled 29 Orthodox churches and monasteries along with 800 homes in Kosovo. Don't hold your breath waiting for arrests. And just two years ago, terrorists of the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade shot their way into the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and used it as a fortress for weeks before ultimately surrendering to the IDF. They were exiled.

So.

Wherever or whenever Muslims care to defile, destroy, or disrupt non-Islamic religious structures is fine. Whether it's armed bandits, marauding mobs, or craven domestic "leaders", the result is the same. There is little coverage, little concern, and zero outrage from international or domestic organizations. Apparently, Muslims can dictate not only the terms of public expression, but affect what goes on in within religious structures outside of Islam, as this statue business illustrates.

As a thought experiment, consider what would happen if Catholic militants stormed one of the 150,000 holiest sites of Islam and used it as a strongpoint for a month- under arms, sleeping, eating, defecating, urinating within it; or the local Protestant sect in Riyadh demanded that church bells ring to summon worshippers; or for that matter, lodge a complaint with the government of Turkey and explain that those huge minarets at the Hagia Sofia "upset your sensibilities".

Terrorists and jihadis are wasting a whole lot of human capital, effort, and material in fighting the US military. Instead of training, fighting, and dying, all they had to do was move here and demand everyone else accomodate them. No muss, no fuss, and guaranteed effective.

I'm waiting for the first conservative idiot commentator to characterize criticism of this sick turn of events as "aid and comfort to the enemy".

CBS News: Abuse of Iraqi POWs

What, are we finished talking about this already?

Does anyone seriously believe that this is the only occurrence? The army itself has indicated it knows of other incidents; they're just not public yet.

Exactly how well is the battle for "hearts and minds" going, at this point?

We have well-defined success criteria in Iraq: Some form of democracy, a "westernization", the restoration of human rights. What are our criteria for failure? At what point, exactly, do we decide that the pooch is screwed, and it's time to go? In business you don't throw good money after bad.

The President's answer to this is never. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that we have continuous stories of prisoner abuse, every two weeks, for the next year. Can we succeed in Iraq if something like that happens? The answer is NO. The chance of success is ZERO. So that's one situation under which we'd "cut and run", which is a shitty way of putting it. When a business shuts down a money-losing line of business, we don't call it "cut and run", we call it sensible management.

Likewise, the phrase "cut and run" is being used to characterize a political decision that could potentially be very damaging to the people in power. Both sides of the debate have fallen into the language trap.

I'm not saying it's time to leave Iraq; what I'm saying is that in the light of failures of intelligence, failures of planning, and failure to win hearts and minds (with worsening chances for ever achieving it), exactly why are we still there? Are those goals achievable?

Enumerating possibilities and framing responses to them is called planning. This seat-of-the-pants administration reaps now from the sown seeds of its simplistic, ass-kick, deceptive, and lowest common denominator approach to foreign policy.

Welcome back.

Haaretz and The Telegraph are discussing the lack of heavy armor in Iraq and connecting that lack to high casualties in April. That situation will only continue, because I just read in my newsletter that the 1st Cavalry Division, which is completing its deployment to Iraq and is for all intents and purposes an armored division, left most of its armor in Texas.

FORSCOM commander General Larry Ellis (under whom I served when he was Colonel Ellis, in his final weeks leading the 1st BDE, 3rd ID and who is a fucking super stud) points out that the improved humvees in service now are the best available solution to the situation. Until either more Strykers become available or an entirely new vehicle designed and fielded, this is it. A different option is to go back to the future: another Army officer says he has 700 old M113s that were prepositioned in Kuwait and have been gathering dust. Why not use them as battle taxis instead of soft humvees, he asks?

Problem is that humvees were never intended for frontline battlefield usage. They were designed to replace the venerable jeep as a mechanized mule, not to operate in the real fight. But in these counter-insurgency operations, where the bad guys are everywhere and nowhere, there are no rear areas where humvees can operate safely. The tactical question might be whether this or that upgraded humvee can do the job, but the larger question should be, what vehicle do we need that can act as ambulance, police cruiser, tactical command post, and general purpose people mover while providing enough occupant protection and vehicle survivability in an environment of 360 degree hostility? And while we're bullshitting, it needs to be light enough for easy air transport and cheap enough to buy a zillion of them. Have something on my desk for Monday.

I was a support guy and worked on commanders' staffs in two different Bde HHCs and one Bn HHC. I drove M577s, the command post carrier version of the original '113. You'll notice that you have to crouch in a '113. On '577s, you'll see how tall the vehicle is- the interior was tall enough to stand up in, and the walls had steel shelving crammed with radios, COMSEC gear, maps, batteries, personal weapons, sledgehammers, shovels, food, shit-tickets (aka victory paper aka toilet paper), comic books, porn, and everything else too heavy or...uh, sensitive... to carry around.

The M113 family is very noisy and very slow. Both the '113 and moreso the '577 (due to the generator and cradle next to the driver's hatch; clearly visible in the pic) severely restrict the driver's field of vision. Not only do the tracks damage roads, but roads also damage track! Wear and tear and continual use on hard surface can increase the likelihood of throwing the track, literally, where the whole damned thing pops right off the road wheels. I don't know how prevalent this problem is in Iraq, since there are numerous '113-family vehicles in the field already, but I'm not sure adding 700 more to the end of the supply chain would be a good thing. Furthermore, stock models are not armored beyond the steel they're made of. They'll stop small arms- probably- but I'm not optimistic about heavy crew-served machine guns (say 12.7 mm+) or RPGs. Even if the steel stops the heavy round or rocket, it would likely spall the interior. I understand that actual '113s, as opposed to '577s, have some sort of an anti-spall kit for interior surfaces and bolt-on armor kits for the hull, but I don't know how available that gear is. Even with after-market add-ons though, an RPG will still likely ruin your day; if an IED blows a drive sprocket, you're in deep doo-doo.

BUT- is all that better than tooling around downrange in the fiberglass and canvas convertible that is the humvee? Probably!

At least until we get some Halderman-ian armored infantry fielded.

I was dismayed last week when a Defense Department contractor was fired for publishing pictures of coffins containing slain soldiers on their way home from Iraq. An undersecretary of Defense argued "we don't want the remains of our service members who have made the ultimate sacrifice to be the subject of any kind of attention that is unwarranted or undignified." While I can understand the DoD's will to secrecy and the policy it generated, it ultimately does very little good. Sometimes risking undignified treatment is the price of freedom.

In the current climate of half-truths and obscurity that President Bush and his advisors seem to prefer, even long-standing policies like this get caught up in the larger tide of similar gestures seemingly designed to deny the American people information that they might actually want to have. I'm not blaming Bush-- this isn't his policy-- but it just doesn't help him, either.

I am personally glad the photos were published. War is an abstraction to us, and images of the fallen make it decidedly less so. Like the images of September 11 (or March 11), and like the hideous photos brought home from prior wars (a Spanish partisan falling, his carbine flung away from his body, his head exploding, the screaming Vietnamese girl, burned by Napalm), they translate the current libervasion of Iraq into human terms far removed from the best-case calculus of the President's advisors or the redfaced screaming of the BusHitler crowd.

Wars look ever more like video games, and ever since WWII, the USA has been able to absorb the cost of committment without undue strain. This changes how we see things. During WWI, the USA itself felt the impact of the fighting abroad. Rationing, huge casualty lists, and the sinking of civilian ships brought the fact of war into everyone's consciousness. Ditto WWII, where the stakes for the USA were higher still. But now that war is less of an effort for the country, and conducted on a smaller scale far away (and for increasingly complicated reasons and goals), it becomes more of an abstraction. It's all well and good for me to sit here and play armchair pundit, commenting on that abstraction. But I can easily forget that the men and women in Iraq who joined the military are giving their lives in defense of liberty. I might not see the endgame, and I might not agree that Iraq was the very best place to fight. But neither of those considerations takes away from the gratitude I feel toward the people of the US military.

Images like were published in The Seattle Times (and everywhere else) overcome that abstraction in favor of fact. It is good to be reminded that the military treats its fallen with deep respect and overwhelming honor, and it does the right thing by the dead for the country to see and understand not only the sacrifice they have made, but the great dignity with which our country recognizes that fact. Hiding these images, making a policy of hiding these images, is the wrong thing to do. Whether you are for or against the war, these pictures do a great service.

Below the fold.

[wik] According to the Washington Post, the ban on images like these dates from the Clinton administration, but was specifically enforced at the start of the Iraq War. "In March, on the eve of the Iraq war, a directive arrived from the Pentagon at U.S. military bases. "There will be no arrival ceremonies for, or media coverage of, deceased military personnel returning to or departing from Ramstein [Germany] airbase or Dover [Del.] base, to include interim stops," the Defense Department said, referring to the major ports for the returning remains." (Dana Millbank, WaPo, 10/21/2003). Draw your own conclusions about the Bush Administration's committment to secrecy.

[alsø wik] Kathy Kinsley observes that the Pentagon may be revising the policy. KK has some thoughts.

The Memory Hole has hundreds more.

McSweeney's has gotten ahold of some transcripts from interrogation sessions of Saddam Hussein. Fascinating, revelatory stuff.

Interrogation commenced: 0330 hours

Woke SH quite early to catch him off-guard and groggy. I asked, "What's your first name?" and he said, "Saddam." Again I asked, "What's your first name?" and he said, "Saddam." I kept asking, "What's your first name?" and he kept saying, "Saddam." Once I had a rhythm going, I quickly asked, "Where are the WMD?" and he said, "Saddam."

Interrogation terminated: 0338 hours

- - - -

Interrogation commenced: 2210 hours

I played chess with SH, who is not too bad a chess player. At one point, my bishop took his rook. I told him that in the U.S., when you lose your rook to a bishop, it is customary to divulge a little personal secret, like maybe where the WMD are. He said we weren't in the U.S., then he took my pawn with the horse piece.

Interrogation terminated: 0122 hours

- - - -

Interrogation commenced: 0940 hours

Colonel Beckwith and I told SH that we didn't think it was particularly funny that he had us looking for "Monkey Valley" and the "Camel Ass Testing Facility" when, it turned out, there were no such locations. Also, we told him we were unable to verify the existence of Mohammad Mohahaha and we do not believe his claims of having built an "infidel ray." We told him that, as a result of our disappointment, we would be denying his TV access. He said TV sucks anyway because they don't sing about him anymore.

Interrogation terminated: 1100 hours

We'll break him yet.

Not wanting to be one-upped by the UN-Oil-For-Kickbacks nonsense, the administration has somehow just managed to appoint Ahmed Chalabi's nephew as the "general director" of the Iraqi war crimes tribunal. What the #$%#%? Is that freakin' insane or what? Iraqis, on the whole, seem to hate Chalabi.

Of course, Salem Chalabi's business partner is Marc Zell, of the law firm Feith and Zell. And wouldn't you know it -- the Feith in "Feith and Zell" is Doug Feith, who is one of the "designers" of this war, at least as far as the parallel Pentagon goes.

How can this possibly make any sense?

So they've picked the commission who will try Saddam Hussein for all those crimes against humanity. That's awesome. But who the hell's idea was it to put Ahmad "Mr. Popular" Chalabi's nephew in charge of affairs?

Look, it's important that Hussein get as fair a trial as he can, given that the blood on his hands is more like a giant pool he can swim around in, but Chalabi is a scam artist and including his family on this court raises the risk that the court's legitimacy can be called into question. How hard would it have been to not listen to Chalabi's baseless posturings just once? He's already a walking joke.

Then again, I'm asking this question of the same people who feel that John Negroponte's record is sound enough to put in charge of the whole freaking country despite no Middle East training or experiene, not speaking the language, and a blood-sauna of his own.

It was 4 AM and I was awake. I'd had one of my standard dreams, it woke me up, and I spent the next half hour thinking about it. And other stuff too.

Before I go any further, please cleanse yourself of any references to "Apocalypse Now", "Full Metal Jacket", "Platoon", "The Deer Hunter", "China Beach", "MASH", "Sgt. Rock", "Nick Fury", and each and every one of his Howlin' Commandos.
First and foremost, I'm awfully young to have served during either the Korean or Vietnam Wars. At the outside, I could have been conscripted to go to Vietnam when I was 2, the year conscription ended, but my martial skills were not yet recognized at that tender age. Second and midmost, an awful lot of boomer-generated media communicates the message that combat vets, particularly Vietnam-era vets, are fucked up and psycopathic, which is dreck. Third and aftmost, I'm not a combat vet and do not pretend that my experiences whilst in the armed services in any way mirrors what soldiers experience in combat. I was in during the Gulf War but the 3ID never left Germany. At least, not as an entire division it didn't.

OK, on with the dream: This was standard dream A1, which over the last 2 years I have about 3-4 nights in 5. I used to get it before that, but not as often. In dream A1, I'm still in the Army, either having recently reenlisted or never having left. Typically in A-series dreams alot of folks I was close to then are still around. Usually we are in the same unit as we were then, and often hold the same rank, all of which is entirely inplausible. The dream, I think, is more about reconnecting than anything else, not having seen these men in so long and being happy to be in their company again. Usually when I wake up I'm sad they're not here.

Now, this morning's A1 dream got me up around 4. And I started thinking about how I felt during Gulf War 1. The pics of protestors in the paper ticked me off, but there was an uncertainty in the air that I wasn't comfortable with. It had nothing to do with whether we'd win the fight- believe me- it was how things were at home that could really get people off mission and into a funk. Funk like introspective and taciturn, not funk like supabad.

See, soldiers, including members of all service branches, want to know that what they do is valued by the people they are ostensibly serving. That the profound sacrifice they make is respected and understood by the wider population. And lemme tell you, when I came home on leave and saw how things were here, I'd give this country a B-. Tops.

It's not about yellow ribbons, although that's nice. I saw plenty of private displays like that, and am seeing them again since 9-11. Which I like. But what is absent are public representations, public displays of support and understanding that communicate what a broad section of the population feels, together, en masse, and not the onesies and twosies of "support our troops" bumper stickers. Displays like that were largely absent in 1990, and they're largely absent now.

But I'm not necessarily talking about billboards or advocating for continuous parades. I mean, particularly for the media, to treat this whole situation as a war, a bona-fide, thunderbolts from Zeus and sword of Ares war. Today, as then, it's just another story, no different on the page from the piece on welfare reform, grade inflation in the Ivy League, and the goddamn weather, bracketed by upswings in fighting. Of course increased violence is newsworthy, but why are ongoing operations within this conflict rarely reported, or relegated to to lesser sections of the paper if covered at all?

You know what would be nice to see? A paper treat soldiers with some goddamn respect, and not as fucking stories. Run some major articles on what they do, and who is doing them. You could do it without running afoul of OPSEC restrictions. And hey, it's even easier because the leads are already there: the command element runing the military side of things in Iraq puts out many press releases every single day discussing who's doing what and where. Why do I have to go to a Pentagon website, or freaky Free Republic, to read them, not the so-called "paper of record" or its minion agencies?

What a soldier in the field needs to know is that he or she is valued back on the block, CONUS, the Land of the Round Doorknob, the World, home. We can put up all the bumperstickers, yellow ribbons, and flags we want, but such singular gestures have little impact. The only way to communicate with them in great numbers is via journalistic media, but it shows no interest in the task. And that's a fucking shame.

But hey, the weekend weather looks promising...maybe I'll wash my truck and take in a movie. I think the movie listings are at the back of section D, just before that paragraph about Army Special Forces soldiers building schools in Afghanistan.

Here is a peek at the New York Times' front page photos from the period 6APR2004-13APR2004. That period reflects the opening rounds of the operations against Al-Sadr. I don't have yesterday's or today's edition.

Consider the following:

6APR: M1 to the right and mid-range in photo; woman crossing street in front of it. Implied malevolence toward women by combining the symbol of the ultra lethal machine with the symbol of the frail, weak. Life taker against life bringer.

7APR: Marine loading dead Marine, in body bag, into Humvee. Beneath, another pic of 2 armed men, energetic, members of the "Mahdi Army". Implication: Marines dead or sullenly defeated as they police their dead; Mahdi Army in action, relentless.

8APR: Navy corpsmen bringing wounded Marine on stretcher to waiting UH60. Beneath, pic of Marine's torso and arm, enough to see holding rifle, closeup. Background, hooded bound prisoner in mechanic's pit. Implication: Marine casualties serious; bottom pic, juxtaposition of huge size and huge weapon from close-up, vs small frail person, made small and, therefore, weak by distance from photographer. Implication: bullying. Lowest pic: Group of ~10 Iraqi men, apparently cheering, 3 visibly armed. Implication again of great numbers, victory, energy.

9APR: Rice testifying at 9-11 commission

10APR: Man grinning, gleefully brandishing pair of US-issue boots he claimed to have retrieved from fallen soldier from ambushed Army supply convoy. Implication: Population is against us

11APR: Old pic of damaged USS Cole with 2 9-11 hijackers.

12APR: Marine in foreground, again proximity to camera makes him large or looming; in middle distance, group of children and woman gathered in doorway, made small by distance. Implication: implied malevolence toward women and children by large, bullying Marines.

13APR: 6-7 Iraqi men looting a burning supply truck. Implication: the entire population is against us.

This small sample demonstrates the astonishing disconnect between the public perception of battle and the reality of combat operations then underway. Given that most of the American public has never served in any capacity, let alone in combat, it must rely on media for all of its information regarding the armed forces. The Times has taken to this task with gusto, allowing the reading public to perceive the American effort in Iraq an utter defeat.

George Will discusses Marine General Charles Krulak, who is the son of Marine General Victor Krulak, who we have been discussing in relation to the CAP program in Vietnam. Will talks about Krulak the Younger's (sounds like a character in a bad fantasy movie) theories on modern warfare, which he describes as the 'Three-Block War':

In today's conflicts, he says, you can have a Marine wrapping a child in swaddling clothes. And a Marine keeping two warring factions apart at gunpoint. And a Marine in medium- or high-intensity combat. It can be the same Marine, in a 24-hour time frame, in just three city blocks.

"You can't," he says, "defeat an idea with just bullets -- you need a better idea." But first you need bullets. You need, Krulak says, the enemy "to be petrified," as were the Germans who gave U.S. Marines a name that stuck -- "devil dogs" -- as a term of respect when, at Belleau Wood, Marines blunted the Germans' 1918 drive on Paris.

There is a heart-rending ingenuousness to U.S. efforts at amicability, even to the point of encouraging Marines, before they entered Fallujah last month, to grow mustaches, as many Iraqi men do. Shiloh, where almost 24,000 Americans were casualties, was where both sides in the Civil War lost their illusions about its being a short and not-too-bloody war. After Fallujah, it is clear that the first order of business for Marines and other U.S. forces is their basic business: inflicting deadly force.

Niall Ferguson offers an historical perspective on the recent difficulties in Iraq. It seems that the British had some difficulties when they occupied the region in the wake fo the Great War. A while back, Military History Quarterly (I believe) had a fascinating article on the campaign that led to the British occupation of Baghdad, but I was unaware of the level of casualties that the British sustained after that.

... okay, maybe that's a little harsh. But read this Grammar Police post on our new super-ambassador to Iraq, John "Honduran Death Squads? What Honduran Death Squads?" Negroponte.

How, exactly, will sending a non-Arab-specialist with a big black mark (and a whole bunch of red spatters) on his record into Iraq help things? Is it just because John's a friend of Cheney and Bush the Elder?

See also the Yglesias and Kleiman links Grammar Police has. This is the guy in charge after June 30th? Shit, might as well put John Wayne Gacy in charge of a kid's birthday party.

[wik] It occurs to me that this might just be a trial-balloon rumor, designed to see if people are really against Negroponte like they were against Kissinger and Poindexter. Calpundit points to another possibility:"there's another thing to keep in mind here anyway: who the hell would want this job? Bush's shortlist is probably really short."

True that.