Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) has returned from Iraq and given an interview to a liberal blog site--Think Progress--in which she complains about a 'Green Zone Fog' that clouds the minds of Members of Congress. She is to be congratulated on getting so close to the truth; we have identified it here as a 'Jedi Mind Trick' performed on elected officials by General David Petraeus. Fortunately, Tauscher is too disciplined to be fooled by Master Petraeus. She insists that the surge is not working, and that Iraq is in fact 'dramatically worse' than when she last traveled there two years ago.

In this respect she differs from--well, from most every serious person who has recently addressed the situation. Certainly those who travel beyond the Green Zone believe that things have gotten better. Those include O'Hanlon and Pollack, Tony Cordesman, Congressmen Ellison, McNerney, and Mahoney, and even Hillary Clinton from her perch stateside.

And this anti-surge jag actually represents a bit of a departure for Tauscher, who has formerly been targeted by the left for her 'Bush Dog' views. One liberal site suggests that it was pressure from the Netroots has forced Tauscher to toe the company line:

But politicians react to fear, and the threat of a Democratic primary challenger is often what it takes to get these Bush Dogs in line. Earlier this year, there was lots of buzz in the liberal blogosphere to challenge Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher, who has generally fought against progressives since getting elected. Even without a candidate emerging, Tauscher has taken a stronger stand against the War after the bloggers scared her.

The Wall Street Journal apparently agrees; they noted before she went to Iraq that she had moved to the left to avoid criticism from the base:

Tauscher, long known for her national security credentials, has toned down her hawkish impulses, voting against the recent surge and taking a harder line on missile defense.

One example of her shift: on July 29, the DailyKos criticized Tauscher for arguing that legislation to impeach the Attorney General was unconstitutional. By August 2, she had signed on as a cosponsor of the same measure.

None of this is to say that Tauscher is wrong in her views on Iraq--though she is. But there is clearly reason to believe that she will go to great lengths to please the battiest readers of ThinkProgress, DailyKos, and other liberal blogs.

And it's clear that Tauscher went to Iraq intent on not accepting anything said by General Petraeus or any other representative of the U.S. military. She says that she refused to go to Iraq for two years because she did not want to be forced to "drink the Kool Aid." She says that the military showed her nothing that did not support their contention, shaped by 'empirical facts,' that things have gotten better. Yet she somehow saw that sectarian strife remains an insurmountable problem, and that there is no reason to continue the U.S. presence.

That presents one problem though: it is universally agreed that sectarian violence will follow the U.S. departure. Indeed, Democrats insist that the U.S. depart precisely because such violence is an intractable problem for the foreseeable future, and we can do nothing about it. Many predict a spasm of ethnic cleansing after we withdraw, perhaps coinciding with the collapse of an unstable government.

It seems rather silly then for Tauscher to insist that the withdrawal not resemble a '"Saigon-like helicopter liftoff trying to remove people" and not be followed by "ethnic cleansing and devastation of Iraqis." The continuation of Operation Phantom Thunder is intended by the military and the government to prevent both of these outcomes. If Tauscher has some plan to withdraw that is just as effective, then she ought to share it.

Posted by Brian Faughnan at 02:09 PM | Permalink | E-mail the author | E-mail article

I don't know how I missed this story, now almost a week old, but it is priceless:

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A wealthy Russian tried to buy a U.S. B-52 bomber from a group of shocked American pilots at an airshow near Moscow, a Russian newspaper reported Friday.

The unidentified Russian, wearing sunglasses and surrounded by bodyguards, approached the U.S. delegation and asked to buy the bomber, the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper said.

An astounded member of the U.S. delegation said the bomber was not for sale but that it would cost at least $500 million if it were to be sold on the spot.

"That is no problem. It is such a cool machine," the Russian was quoted as saying by the newspaper, which said its reporter overheard the conversation. The bomber was not sold.

The Russians have definitely developed a firm grasp of capitalism. Democracy--not so much.

Via Ace HQ. And in case you missed yesterday's extremely popular link to some of the best photography from the Moscow air show, here it is again

Posted by Michael Goldfarb at 01:48 PM | Permalink | E-mail the author | E-mail article

Instapundit is cataloging the responses to today's wacky editorial from the New York Times in which the paper's editors expose their complete ignorance of the United States Constitution--mainly that they think it somewhere guarantees the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Writing on Senator Coburn's (admirable) effort to prevent any infringement upon the rights of American veterans, the Times writes:

As the Army’s suicide rate hits record levels in the Iraq war, there’s small wonder practically everyone in Congress wants to deal with the parallel emerging crisis of depressed veterans tempted to take their own lives. Everyone, that is, except Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma. He stands alone in blocking final passage of a suicide prevention bill in fear that the government’s record-keeping on troubled vets might somehow crimp their ability to purchase handguns.

Even the craven gun lobby should manage some shame over this absurd example of Second Amendment idolatry.

Ah, the craven gun lobby, cravenly protecting rights that actually are guaranteed by the Constitution. My own reading of the Constitution, and admittedly I'm neither a lawyer nor an editor at the Times, has failed to turn up an exception to the Second Amendment for veterans who fail to meet some psychological standard set by--who exactly? Best response yet, from Charlie Foxtrot:

My only question would be, how does having government "specialists" tracking people that they consider to be "high risks" fall under the category of "Liberty"? Hmm? Just so long as were are not tracking people with terrorist ties via the Patriot Act, right NYT? Only the stressed out soldiers need to be tracked as risky.....

Posted by Michael Goldfarb at 01:30 PM | Permalink | E-mail the author | E-mail article

Just posted at THE DAILY STANDARD, William Kristol on the Washington Post's "Pathetic Preemptive Strike":

The Washington Post, working hand-in-glove with Democrats in Congress, has gotten out front in preparing the domestic battlefield for September's fight over the war in Iraq. The Post led today's paper with an account of a leaked draft report from the Congressionally-controlled Government Accountability Office (the GAO's final report is due next Tuesday). The headline: "Report Finds Little Progress on Iraq Goals; GAO Draft at Odds with White House." Here's the good news: If this is the best war opponents have to offer, the administration is in amazingly good shape going into September.

The Post reporters--both strongly anti-Iraq war--characterize the GAO judgments as "strikingly negative." But there's nothing striking about them. The Democratic Congress ensured that the report would deliver negative "grades" for the Iraqi government by asking the GAO to evaluate whether or not the benchmarks have been met now--just two months after the major combat operations of the surge began. For the report from the White House, Congress asked the administration to detail if the Iraqis are making "sufficient progress." But Congress asked the GAO, by contrast, to report if the Iraqis had "completed" the benchmarks. This ridiculous standard was a Congressional trap that forced the GAO to waste time and taxpayer money to come out with a pre-ordained and meaningless judgment, since no one ever promised or expected that the Iraqis would have met the benchmarks by now. And the GAO report doesn't really shed light on the key question: Are the Iraqis making progress?

And what are the benchmarks that Congress set up? Do they include criteria that matter? No. Grassroots political progress? Not in the GAO report. The turn of the Sunnis against the insurgency? Not in the GAO report. The stabilization of Anbar province? Not in the GAO report. And progress against al Qaeda--the single most vital and direct American national interest in Iraq? Not in the GAO report.

Go read the whole thing.

Posted by Michael Goldfarb at 12:41 PM | Permalink | E-mail the author | E-mail article

WWS pal Christian Lowe has an interesting post up at Defense Tech on the Active Denial System, aka the Pain Ray. The system got a fair bit of play in the news early this year when the Pentagon invited camera crews to witness an Army test of the device and "almost cooked an AP reporter." Christian reports:

Well, it looks like commanders in Iraq have been pleading for the device, which is pretty far along in its development. But fearing the post-Taser backlash from some groups, the Pentagon denied the technology in favor of more lethal methods...

It seems this is the sort of catch-22 the military is in when it comes to non-lethals. The devices conjure up grim images of pain and discomfort when you look at what they do, so groups object to them often on human rights grounds and ethics.

Go read the whole thing, it includes a note from one of the engineers who developed the system and is "convinced that the tragedy at Fallujah would not have occurred if an Active Denial System had been there."

This latest flap over non-lethal weapons brings to mind a similar situation that developed over the "green beam designator," which allowed soldiers to temporarily blind drivers approaching a checkpoint. There were repeated calls to deploy the device to Iraq, but fear of a backlash, as well as a 1995 UN agreement banning the use of lasers that could permanently blind, prevented the device from being rapidly put into the field. It has since made its way to Iraq, but like the Pain Ray, concerns about misuse and the possibility of relatively minor injuries were allowed to slow the process. Of course, the only other option available to most soldiers working a military checkpoint is an M-16 or a .50 cal--weapons that are likely to do much worse than blind the target.

This system has the potential to peacefully diffuse a situation that might otherwise spin violently out of control (OR NOT--SEE UPDATE BELOW). It'd be a shame if American troops weren't given access because of some Pentagon fear of lawsuits.

Update: Bill Sweetman has an alternate explanation for the Pentagon's failure to deploy the ADS. Click here to read it. The bottom line is that Iraq is apparently too hot for this technology:

The ADS, as we learned at an IQPC Defense conference in London in February, generates its millimeter-waves (not goolie-toasting microwaves) with the help of a commercial-technology gyrotron, an assembly of superconducting magnets which won't do its voodoo unless it is cooled to 4 degrees Kelvin - that is, a smidge above absolute zero and somewhat colder than a June day in International Falls.

The Humvee-mounted version that we've all seen can't carry a cooling system big enough to do the job on more than a 95-degree day. So ADS works fine in San Francisco, and would work in International Falls if anyone could be bothered to leave Rudy's Saloon for long enough to demonstrate about anything, but is not that much use in the Sandbox.

I must defer to Sweetman.

Posted by Michael Goldfarb at 11:27 AM | Permalink | E-mail the author | E-mail article

Just one day after major clashes between Iraqi Security Forces and the Mahdi Army during a Shia religious celebration in Najaf, Muqtada al Sadr has ordered the Mahdi Army to halt all attacks in Iraq, including attacks against Coalition forces. The fighting in Najaf resulted in 52 killed and over 300 wounded, according to reports, and have harmed Sadr politically while placing him in the crosshairs of U.S. and Iraqi forces.

Sadr's aides were out in force, calling for the Mahdi Army to lay down its arms. "We declare the freezing of the Mahdi Army without exception in order to rehabilitate it in a way that will safeguard its ideological image within a maximum period of six months starting from the day this statement is issued," said Sheik Hazim al-Araji, an aide of Sadr, while reading a statement from Sadr on Iraqi state television. The statement was backed up by Sadr's spokesman. "It also includes suspending the taking up of arms against occupiers as well as others," said Ahmed al-Shaibani, Sadr's spokesman.

The major fighting in Najaf broke out on Tuesday, after police and Shia pilgrims clashed the previous day. "Gunmen believed [to be] from the Mahdi Army began firing on security forces and the Badr guards," security officials told the Associated Press. A curfew was declared in Karbala, and the religious festival marking the anniversary of Imam Mahdi, the "12th Imam," was canceled. Mahdi Army fighters are still said to be occupying the center of the city.

The police in the area are believed to be loyal to the Badr Brigades, the political opponents of the Sadrists. A Sadrist member of the Karbala city council denied the Mahdi Army was behind the attacks, and even blamed the attacks on "pro-Iranian groups among security forces that guard the Karbala shrines." Shaibani, Sadr's spokesman, also denied the Mahdi Army was involved in the Karbala fighting, though the timing of Sadr's call for a cessation of Mahdi Army activity casts serious doubt on these statements.

Muqtada al Sadr's backdown exposes his confrontational approach to both the Iraqi government and Coalition forces as highly problematic, and it also makes clear his weakening political position inside Iraq. Since Sadr fled to Iran in January, he has lost operational control over elements of his Mahdi Army, which in reality is an amalgamation of criminal and ideological elements. And with this loss of control, Iran has begun to exercise more direct control over some Mahdi commanders--the Qazali brothers and the Sheibani Network, for instance--rather than controlling them by proxy through Sadr. The elements of the Mahdi Army can be roughly described as follows:

The Mahdi Loyalists: These are Muqtada al Sadr's true believers. They receive support from Iran.

Iranian-back Mahdi Army: These groups are what Multinational Forces Iraq describes as the "rogue" Mahdi Army. As Sadr lost operational control, Iran's Qods Force stepped in and took over direct control. The rogue Mahdi Army (along with the special groups, who are often one in the same) receive funding, weapons, training, and operational guidance from Qods Force, and in some cases cells are led by Iranians. The rogue Mahdi Army and special groups are essentially Iraqi Hezbollah.

Mahdi Criminal Elements: These are criminal gangs that fight under the guise of the Mahdi Army. This provides the criminal gangs with political cover, and provides with Sadr the ability to inflate his ranks and wield more power.

Mahdi Nationalists: These are the nationalist, anti-Iranian elements of the Mahdi Army which largely support Sadr due to loyalty to his father. The Nationalist elements form the "Noble Mahdi Army," which has agreed to work with the Iraqi government and Coalition forces.

Allied Shia: These are Shia groups that allied with the Mahdi Army as they feared violence from al Qaeda and Sunni insurgents. These groups turned to the Mahdi Army for protection due to a distrust of the Iraqi Security Forces or a lack of a security presence. Some of these allied groups have been pressed into service by the Mahdi Army. Elements of the Allied Shia are part of the "Noble Mahdi Army."

The U.S. military has been working to divide the Mahdi Army for well over a year, and has conducted numerous operations against the extremist elements of Muqtada al Sadr's militia--the rogue Mahdi Army, criminal elements, and elements of the loyalists. These elements have been targeted at every opportunity by U.S. and Iraqi forces in Baghdad, Diwaniyah, Samawa, Karbala, Basra, and throughout the South.

Sadr's call for the cessation of Mahdi Army attacks follows his recent backtracking from violence in the South and involvement with the Iranians. Sadr denied taking part in the assassinations of the governors of Muthanna and Qadisiyah provinces. Sadr also denied conducting an interview with The Independent in which he admitted his Mahdi Army was training alongside Hezbollah. Also, despite denials of sheltering in Iran, Sadr has yet to be seen in public since the U.S. reported that he'd fled Iraq in early July.

Sadr has a very real image problem to deal with vis-à-vis the Mahdi Army. Today’s statement calls for an end to violence in order "to rehabilitate [the Mahdi Army] in a way that will safeguard its ideological image." The fighting in Karbala, the violent opposition to the Shia-led government, the criminal activity, and the assassinations of Shia governors should cause Sadr considerable worry. These activities are no longer being tolerated by the greater Shia community.

With the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (formerly SCIRI) and large elements of the Badr Brigades breaking away from the Iranian sphere of influence, they now have a greater motivation to fight Sadr and his Mahdi Army.

Posted by Bill Roggio at 06:14 PM | Permalink | E-mail the author | E-mail article

David Kilcullen, who was the chief counterinsurgency adviser to General David Petraeus, has posted another item over at the Small Wars Journal. Kilcullen always makes for interesting reading, and he doesn't disappoint with this latest.

Kilcullen offers some deep insight into al Qaeda's current troubles in Anbar--specifically, why it is that the terrorist groups Iraqi affiliate, AQI, failed to cement its relationship with the tribal sheiks in that region. The answer is surprisingly simple--AQI failed to abide by Rule #1: Bros before Hoes:

Islam, of course, is a key identity marker when dealing with non-Muslim outsiders, but when all involved are Muslim, kinship trumps religion. And in fact, most tribal Iraqis I have spoken with consider AQ’s brand of “Islam” utterly foreign to their traditional and syncretic version of the faith. One key difference is marriage custom, the tribes only giving their women within the tribe or (on rare occasions to cement a bond or resolve a grievance, as part of a process known as sulha) to other tribes or clans in their confederation (qabila). Marrying women to strangers, let alone foreigners, is just not done. AQ, with their hyper-reductionist version of “Islam” stripped of cultural content, discounted the tribes’ view as ignorant, stupid and sinful.

This led to violence, as these things do: AQI killed a sheikh over his refusal to give daughters of his tribe to them in marriage, which created a revenge obligation (tha’r) on his people, who attacked AQI.

AQI also broke Rule #2: Don't mess with another man's livelihood:

Other tribesmen told me women weren’t the only issue. The tribes run smuggling, import/export and construction businesses which AQI shut down, took over, or disrupted through violent disturbances that were “bad for business”. Another factor was the belief, widespread among the tribes (and with at least some basis in fact) that AQI has links to, and has received funding and support from, Iran. In their view, women were simply the spark – AQI already “had it coming”. (Out in the wild western desert, things often tend to play out like The Sopranos… except that AQI changed the rules of the game by adding roadside bombs, beheadings, murder of children and death by torture. Eventually, enough was enough for the locals.)

Kilcullen is pretty clear that while these developments are significant, and translate to real political progress at the grassroots level, the project could still go either way. But even if things don't work out as planned, Kilcullen still sees an upside in the Coalition's re-engagement with the tribes of al Anbar.

Indeed, the Coalition Provisional Authority deliberately side-lined the tribes in 2003 in order to focus on building a “modern” democratic state in Iraq, which we equated with a non-tribal state. There were good reasons for this at the time, but we are now seeing the most significant political and security progress in years, via a structure outside the one we have been working so hard to create. Does that invalidate the last four years’ efforts? Probably not, as long as we recognize that the vision of a Jeffersonian, “modern” (in the Western industrial sense) democracy in Iraq, based around entirely secular non-tribal institutions, was always somewhat unrealistic. In the Iraqi polity, tribes’ rights may end up playing a similar role to states’ rights in some other democracies. They will remain a competing power center to the religious political parties, and hence will probably never be popular with Baghdad politicians, but if correctly handled they have the potential to actually enhance pluralism in Iraq over the long-term, by restraining the excesses of any central government or sectarian faction.

Go read the whole thing.

Posted by Michael Goldfarb at 05:12 PM | Permalink | E-mail the author | E-mail article

Congressional Quarterly reports today that 67 Democrats who voted to slash the defense budget by more than 20 percent have won earmarks for home-district projects, totaling about half a billion dollars. Nine of the 12 Democrats who voted against funding defense completely were among those who received earmarks. Some of the highlights:

• Dennis Kucinich, who proposes shifting $75 billion from the “bloated, wasteful Pentagon budget” toward education programs, voted against funding the Defense Department--even though the bill included his earmark of $1 million for a “highpower, lightweight zinc-air battery” made in Kucinich's district.

• Maxine Waters--another consistent critic of high Pentagon spending--got $1 million in the defense bill for launchers for air-to-air Sidewinder missiles not sought by the military. The launchers are built in Inglewood, California, in Ms. Waters' district.

• Marcy Kaptur secured $58 million for her district, including $4 million for a 'Geospatial Airship Research Platform' (otherwise known as a blimp). She too, voted to cut the DoD budget by 21 percent.

• Congressman Jim McDermott, who voted against the bill, secured $11.5 million for his district, including $1 million for an 'Extended Cold Weather Hand Protection System.' Presumably this is far more than he would have gotten for 'gloves.'

• Barbara Lee, who has railed against 'unnecessary weapons programs,' secured funds for two projects the Pentagon regarded as unnecessary. The first was a grant of $2 million for a “lithium ion metal battery” made in Berkeley, and the second was $1 million for the Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland, Calif., which includes a park, planetarium, observatory and exhibits.

Is it defending her to point out that Ms. Lee at least, is putting her money where her mouth is, and insisting that defense dollars NOT be spent on defense? And of course, Ms. Lee ultimately voted against the funding bill, as well.

The next time Democrats complain that the Defense Department has wasted money on unnecessary projects, or mixed up its priorities and left our soldiers holding the bag, remember how they have chosen to spend scarce defense dollars. Remember too, that if many Democrats had their way, the dollars available would be far scarcer.

Posted by Brian Faughnan at 04:15 PM | Permalink | E-mail the author | E-mail article

Newsweek runs the piece from Cpl. Mark Finelli, a noncommissioned Marine Corps officer who served in Iraq from July 2005 to February 2006. Finelli bemoans the failure of the Bush administration to institute a draft in the months after 9/11, or more generally to ask Americans to make any kind of sacrifice on behalf of the war.

The real failure of this war, the mistake that has led to all the malaise of Operation Iraqi Freedom, was the failure to not reinstitute the draft on Sept. 12, 2001—something I certainly believed would happen after running down 61 flights of the South Tower, dodging the carnage as I made my way to the Hudson River [I worked at the World Trade Center as an investment adviser for Morgan Stanley at the time]. But President Bush was determined to keep the lives of nonuniformed America—the wealthiest Americans, like himself—uninterrupted by the war. Consequently, we have a severe talent deficiency in the military, which the draft would remedy immediately. While America’s bravest are in the military, America’s brightest are not. Allow me to build a squad of the five brightest students from MIT and Caltech and promise them patrols on the highways connecting Baghdad and Fallujah, and I’ll bet that in six months they could render IED’s about as effective as a “Just Say No” campaign at a Grateful Dead show.

I'm a bit sympathetic to Finelli's argument, especially because it comes from the right place: he doesn't want a draft for the same reason the Charlie Rangel does, i.e. to turn people against the war, but in order to make the American military a more effective fighting force:

Democracies at war abroad cannot wage a protracted ground operation when the only people who are sacrificing are those who choose to go. This is the greatest lesson of my generation. Young Americans: you may not want to kill jihadists, but they are interested in killing you and your loved ones. Wake up.

Part of you has to love this guy. He thinks we can kill more terrorist through a draft. But still, I'm not sure his analysis is supported by the facts, and on at least one fact, the folks at Newsweek were asleep at the wheel, allowing Finelli to make a statement that is patently untrue. Finelli starts off with the subject of MRAP:

According to the Pentagon, no service personnel have died in an MRAP. So why isn’t every Marine or soldier in Iraq riding in one? Simple economics. An MRAP costs five times more than even the most up-armored Humvee. People need a personal, vested, blood-or-money interest to maximize potential. That is why capitalism has trumped communism time and again, but it is also why private contractors in Iraq have MRAPs while Marines don’t. Because in actuality, America isn’t practicing the basic tenet of capitalism on the battlefield with an all-volunteer military, and won’t be until the reinstitution of the draft.

Like in the first quote, Finelli seems to think that if only the sons of the rich were called to Iraq, the IED problem would miraculously solve itself. But that seems unlikely--and the fact is that American soldiers have died from IED blasts while riding in MRAP vehicles--at least three last fall in an incident that remains classified and six Canadian soldiers were killed riding in an MRAP earlier this summer. These are just two incidents I know off-hand, I suspect there are others--after all, American soldiers have been killed by IED blasts while riding in the much more heavily armored Bradley and Stryker APCs, and even in the M1-A1 Abrams. It's just not true to that MRAP vehicles are a silver bullet to the IED problem, and the military is set to spend some $20 billion on the program anyway, because they do offer U.S. soldiers increased protection. If it's a travesty that the military didn't respond more quickly to demand for MRAP, then the current problem is just the opposite: a rush to field systems that may not be ready for combat and that may not be the best solution available.

As far as the draft, again, I'm sympathetic. It's unfortunate that the Bush administration failed to call upon the nation's best and brightest to serve in the Armed Forces in the wake of 9/11. But conscription threatens to create problems that the military spent decades trying to solve: rampant drug and alcohol abuse in the ranks, low morale, etc. Finelli stipulates that the draft he wants would be different from the draft that created those problems in the Vietnam era, but he points to deferments as the source of those problem--there is no evidence to support his logic on that count. THE WEEKLY STANDARD ran a piece late last year by William Groom examining some of the problems with a draft:

Politics aside, let's look at why so-called "universal military service" is a nutty idea: Presently there are about 50 million American men and women of draft age, between 18 and 28, with about 5 million more reaching draft age every year. (One must assume that women would be drafted equally with the men; in these times, how could they not be?) Now just ask yourselves: What on earth would the U.S. military do with all these people? They would all have to be housed, fed, clothed, transported, schooled, counseled, medically cared for--and you'd have to pay them something, wouldn't you? Otherwise they'd be slaves. Those costs alone would dwarf all the current entitlement programs in America.

And how could they even be trained and supplied? (At the very peak of World War II, the largest war in history, the U.S. military had about 16 million service men and women, and our relative taxes were higher than they had ever been.) And what about this: Presently there aren't nearly enough training tools--tanks and other military vehicles, planes, ships, artillery pieces, missiles, rifles and other weapons, communications devices, etc., let alone instructors--to possibly begin to instruct and equip all those millions of people in the armed forces.

So an additional taxpayer expense would, by necessity, be to multiply all of our present military bases (just when we're trying to get rid of as many of these dinosaurs as possible) as well as to multiply all the above-mentioned equipment by about 500 percent. And we would go positively broke doing it, just as the Russians did.

Even assuming this vast horde of 50 million--or let's just say half of that, 25 million, by the time you've weeded out people for one reason or another--were all uniformed, trained, and ready to go fight, the question then becomes: Where is it they would go, and with whom would they fight?

Fortunately, the threat of huge global land conflicts such as World War II, or some great war in Europe with the Soviet Union or in Asia against Communist China, has faded into oblivion. As it did, military planners tailored our fighting forces to the all-volunteer professional military we have today.

Therefore, we would be left with this: Millions of newly drafted servicemen and women, languishing around U.S. bases, grousing about their two years of conscripted service, instead of being able to educate themselves or find useful and productive jobs.

The volunteer Army has problems all its own, but conscription isn't the answer. And frankly, I think that Finelli sells himself and his comrades short--the five brightest guys from MIT and Caltech probably wouldn't last five minutes on the road to Fallujah. We don't need DARPA to solve the IED problem, we need more patriots like Finelli to go out and kill the bad guys emplacing the devices, and the best way to get them is to expand the volunteer Army.

Update: Also see Murdoc.

Posted by Michael Goldfarb at 03:58 PM | Permalink | E-mail the author | E-mail article

Kim Kagan has produced her latest Iraq Report for THE DAILY STANDARD, this one detailing Iranian activity inside Iraq over the last 15 months. The report is the most comprehensive document on this subject I've come across, and it includes a series of maps and other images that help illustrate the mechanics of Iranian influence in Iraq.

I follow this stuff pretty closely, but I've never been quite clear on exactly what constitutes the "special groups" that MNF-I discusses so frequently, who finances them, what shape they take, etc. Kagan goes a long way toward clarifying this:

The Qods Force and Hezbollah trained Iraqis in groups of 20 to 60 so that they functioned as a unit--a “secret cell” or “special group.” The Iraqis returned to Iraq after their training, maintaining their group’s organization. Thus, each “special group” in Iraq consisted of 20 to 60 Iraqis who had trained together in Iran in how “to use EFPs, mortars, rockets, as well as intelligence, sniper and kidnapping operations.” These special groups could be combined into larger organizations. The director of the Amin Allah charity coordinated “more than 200 rogue JAM members” and “ordered them to conduct assassinations on local citizens and government officials who oppose the group’s illegal activities.”

How about the Sheibani network we've heard so much about?

By August 2005, Abu Mustafa al-Sheibani had developed an extensive “network of insurgents created by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps with the express purpose of committing violence against U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq.” Sheibani’s group introduced into Iraq “‘shaped’ explosive charges,” based on a model used by Hezbollah against the Israelis, and its fighters trained in Lebanon as well as Sadr City and “‘another country,’” according to U.S. intelligence sources. An American military official in Baghdad explained that “the U.S. believes that Iran has brokered a partnership between Iraqi Shiite militants and Hizballah and facilitated the import of sophisticated weapons that are killing and wounding U.S. and British troops.” An American Special Operations Task Force report claimed “the Lebanese Hizballah leadership believes that the struggle in Iraq is the new battleground in the fight against the U.S.” Sheibani’s group was estimated to include 280 fighters organized into 17 bomb-making teams and death squads.

And on the effect of the surge on Iranian activities:

In 2006, Coalition forces were also spread too thin to cover the lines of communication south of Baghdad. For example, only 200 soldiers from the Polish Division in Multi-National Division Central-South were stationed in Kut through spring 2007, detached from the bulk of their unit. Thus, smugglers could bring Iranian weapons without expecting interdiction along open routes in 2006.

The surge of U.S. and Coalition forces, including the addition of another Division Headquarters, made it possible to begin interdicting weapons flowing along the major highways and the Tigris River. Multi-National Force-Iraq reinforced Kut with 2,000 soldiers from the Republic of Georgia, who arrived in July and August 2007 for operations that will commence in September. MND-C plans to use this brigade to search every truck coming along the highway through Kut.

There's so much information in this document, it's hard to rip just a few items from the text. Still, for anyone trying to understand the role of Iranian forces in Iraq, and the complex networks the supply and sustain, "The Iran Dossier" is a must-read. Click here or on the image above right for the pdf.

Posted by Michael Goldfarb at 02:11 PM | Permalink | E-mail the author | E-mail article

From the Atlantic: Rereading Vietnam, by Robert D. Kaplan.

From Slate: Should We Be Worried About Russia and China Ganging Up on the West? by Ian Bremmer.

From the New York Daily News: Front-line Lessons from the Iraq Surge, by Michael Totten.

From the Mudville Gazette: Wearing the Black Flag, by Greyhawk.

From the Wall Street Journal ($): Bombs Away, For Good, by Linton Brooks.

The babes of the Moscow air show, via Alert 5.

Posted by Michael Goldfarb at 01:09 PM | Permalink | E-mail the author | E-mail article

The Manchester Union Leader ran an embed piece earlier this week by Nathan S. Webster, a freelance photojournalist and creative writing instructor. Webster was embedded with the 82nd airborne, though a different brigade from the seven Sergeants who penned the recent op-ed for the Times. Webster's style, and his reporting, is somewhat reminiscent of another aspiring creative writer, Scott Thomas Beauchamp, except there's a sense of balance and honesty that was conspicuously absent from the work of TNR's Baghdad Diarist. Webster writes,

Every soldier in Bayji doubtless had moments of doubt and fear, of bone-deep exhaustion, of hard breaths taken after a legitimate near-miss. It's no different for a reporter - but I got to leave when I wanted. I learned a few things, about our soldiers at war and where they fight.

The desert heat is Biblical. Under the ceramic body armor plates, your chest feels like a faucet, ceaselessly dripping, absorbing, stinking.

Yes, a bit overwrought--certainly would make for an interesting semiotic analysis--but not bad. He goes on:

I learned the most cynical soldier would be the one most eager to pose for pictures with Iraqi children. The best squad leader and NCO will laugh about his long-past demotion, that being a Pfc. was much better the second time around.

They can be cruel. Some throw rocks at stray cats or are pointlessly mean to the Iraqis they work beside.

Almost nothing is off limits to their gallows humor. They laugh about a guy who was shot through both arms and got sent home, "but he's totally okay, so it's funny." They take nothing seriously. Except for everything.

When they tell what it's like to lose a friend, they speak with a quiet weariness entirely out of place in a 21-year-old.

I took hundreds of pictures. In the end, they all show the same thing.

Each picture's subjects - U.S. and Iraqi - are patriots, heroes and men.

Petty cruelty juxtaposed with daily acts of courage and heroism, gallows humor that conceals a deeper concern for one's comrades--it certainly passes the smell test.

Posted by Michael Goldfarb at 11:58 AM | Permalink | E-mail the author | E-mail article

One of the key issues that Congress will need to address when it returns in September is legislation to restrict energy production in the U.S. It's not framed that way, of course. The legislation being considered is ostensibly supposed to help produce more energy, but that's not the effect it will have.

Among the myriad problems with the House bill for example, is that it allows anyone 'harmed' by global warming to bring suit against any federal agency that fails to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions as required in the legislation. Plaintiffs are specifically authorized to recover $1.5 million, and to be compensated for legal fees win or lose, as long as the court determines it to be 'appropriate.'

During debate on the legislation in the House, Congressman Darrel Issa described the provision like this:

Mr. Chairman, this piece of legislation is a license for an unlimited amount of suits against the government by the extreme environmental groups. In fact, this bill pays a $75,000 bounty on top of unlimited legal fees to anyone who sues the government even if, in fact, that suit is based on this body's failure to act. Yes. Lawyers will be telling us, by suing us, that we must do more, and there will be no controls. They can sue in all 92 locations around the country. They can sue for any reason. We will have to pay the bill. When they lose, too bad. When they win, they get paid for taking from us not only 100 percent of their legal fees but $75,000 on top of that.

This is a license for America to be held hostage by the trial lawyers. It was deliberate. It was slipped through the committee. They said it was going to be fixed. In fact, nothing has been fixed; and we have been prevented from having an amendment on the House floor. This is undemocratic, and the Democrats know it.

The Heritage Foundation's Ben Lieberman has written a short paper on the problems with the House and Senate energy legislation, and he manages to fill the paper with problems bigger than this--a sure indication of just how much harm these bills might do, if enacted.

Posted by Brian Faughnan at 10:53 AM | Permalink | E-mail the author | E-mail article

Yesterday I pointed out that the lefty bloggers seem to regard Congressman Jerry McNerney as a weak-minded victim of General David Petraeus's 'Jedi Mind Trick'. Today it seems that Brian Baird was also seduced by the Dark Side:

It’s becoming apparent that these people are being bombarded with such bad information, so many “experts” whose only expertise seems to be at abject failure, that they can’t see the patently obvious any more. Watch the YouTube above. Baird’s constituents are sputtering with rage as he sits there and rubs snake oil all over his head and says “see, really, it makes the hair grow, just like the guy said. You just watch.”

Just a few months ago the left was enraged that George Bush stuck to the same plan in Iraq regardless of changing facts. Ultimately, of course, the lack of success in Iraq led him to switch commanders and plans, with positive results. Yet it's the left which now calls on their leaders in Congress to ignore the results and stick with the same plan--regardless of facts.

More importantly, can Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid risk allowing General Petraeus to testify on the results of Operation Phantom Thunder in open session? How many simpletons are there among Congressional Democrats, who might be fooled as easily as McNerney and Baird?

Posted by Brian Faughnan at 04:16 PM | Permalink | E-mail the author | E-mail article

The Bush administration will soon deliver its September assessment on progress in Iraq. It's clear that in addition to reviewing the challenges to reconciliation at the national level, officials will consider 'bottom-up' progress. NBC's First Read carries a report on progress in Ramadi:

Since then, the PRT's have worked to help the local officials build their government and to bring back essential services to the people there. Suttee noted that there have been 102 days without attacks (though that is not consecutive days). The military is finding weapons caches at a greater rate, he said, and PRT officials are able to travel in two-vehicle convoys down from four vehicles several months ago.

State Department official Kristin Hagerstrom reported that she is now able to walk on the streets and, for example, "you can buy an ice cream cone."

You can view Ms. Hagestrom's briefing, or read it here:

It's hard to measure progress based on the ability to buy ice cream without fear of attack, but it is worthwhile to consider the progress made by the PRTs in many parts of Iraq. The State Department recently released a summary of PRT progress by province.

Posted by Brian Faughnan at 03:57 PM | Permalink | E-mail the author | E-mail article

From the Middle East Journal: The Future of Iraq, by Michael J. Totten.

From Contentions: Syria Hysteria, by Max Boot.

From the Wall Street Journal: A Denier's Confession, by Bret Stephens.

From the Sacramento Bee: England is Vanishing, by Cal Thomas.

From Defense Tech: Japan Launches Carrier...Sorta, by Norman Polmar.

Posted by Michael Goldfarb at 02:51 PM | Permalink | E-mail the author | E-mail article

As U.S. and Iraqi Security Forces continue to push out into the Belts surrounding Baghdad, al Qaeda and insurgent groups are attempting to push back. Two significant attacks occurred in Salahadin and Diyala province, while U.S. and Iraqi forces press the raids on al Qaeda's network and the Iranian-backed Shia terror cells.

Iraqis serving in the Indigenous Counterinsurgency Force prepare
for a mission at their checkpoint in Al Namer, Aug. 19.

Salahadin

Southern Salahadin province, the region just north of Baghdad, remains a hot spot for al Qaeda and the insurgency. While reports last week of a massed al Qaeda attacks on Iraqi police stations in Samarra turned out to be false, about 30 al Qaeda fighters did attempt an attack in the city on August 27. U.S. and Iraqi forces successfully repelled the attack, and killing 12 and captured 14 enemy fighters in the process. Two U.S. soldiers and two Iraqi civilians were killed during the fighting.

In Tikrit, the Iraqi Army captured "the leader of a network of terrorist cells linked to the former regime of Saddam Hussein," and his daughter, Raghid Hussein. Raghid finances the insurgent network while in exile in Jordan. Interpol issued an arrest warrant for Raghid on August 17, and for her role in financing the Iraqi insurgency, she has been placed on the list of America's 41 most wanted. Iraqi Army Scouts also captured a cell leader responsible for several assassination attempts, including the 2004 assassination of the governor of Ninewa province.

Diyala

U.S. and Iraqi forces maintain the pressure in Diyala province after successive U.S. and Iraqi offensives in Baqubah and the northern Diyala River Valley cleared al Qaeda from the region. The latest operation occurred in Khalis, where a joint U.S. and Iraqi Army air assault resulted in 33 al Qaeda operatives killed and three captured during a series of firefights and helicopter strikes in the city. Voices of Iraq reported that the bodies of an additional 11 al Qaeda fighters were found after the operation.

As U.S. and Iraqi forces operate in Baqubah and the north, al Qaeda in Iraq has struck in the south and east. Al Qaeda operatives dressed as Iraqi soldiers set up fake checkpoints and kidnapped nine civilians in Muqdadiyah. The government has imposed an indefinite curfew in the district while implementing a "new security plan." The city has been hit with a string of suicide attacks and assassinations.

Al Qaeda and Special Groups

The special operations forces raids against al Qaeda's network continue and a significant number of al Qaeda operatives are being killed in the latest round. Eight al Qaeda operatives were killed and 11 captured during raids in Kirkuk, Tikrit, and Baghdad on August 28. Nineteen al Qaeda were killed and 22 captured during raids in Baghdad, Salman Pak, Kirkuk, Ba’ajah, Muqdadiyah, Hawija, and Taji on August 26 and 27. A suicide bomber coordinator, a cell in the Arab Jabour region, an administrative emir, and a foreign terrorist facilitator were among those killed or captured. On August 25, U.S. and Iraqi forces killed three al Qaeda operatives and captured eight during raids in Husaybah, Kut, and Baghdad.

The raids against Iran's proxy terror groups continue as well. On August 27, Coalition forces captured eight members of the Iranian-backed special groups terror cells during a raid Baghdad's Sadr City. The main target of the raid, a "Special Groups senior level facilitator with possible Iranian connections," was captured along with seven suspected cell members. On August 28, Iraqi and US forces captured a weapons distributor who is connected to the special groups network and who has "direct ties to other senior commanders in militias operating in and around Baghdad."

Posted by Bill Roggio at 12:28 PM | Permalink | E-mail the author | E-m