tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72298696829993228482024-03-13T22:35:34.890-07:00Aardvark's HavocAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569977943863292337noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229869682999322848.post-30531535261665920882011-03-18T11:16:00.001-07:002011-03-18T15:49:42.708-07:00Libya and the Decision Maker's Dilemma<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Now that Muammar Gadhafi supposedly called a cease-fire to his campaign to crush the rebels, let the feel good ism begin. It only took five weeks for those paragons of virtue known as the "international community," specifically the European Union, to screw up the courage to authorize a no-fly zone against a third rate military power. But when you're a no-rate military power like the EU, I guess that's something.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Implementing a no-fly zone is far more complex and resource intensive than its advocates let on. And it's bound to get messy with people getting killed, including civilians. That's why the Euros need NATO, meaning the United States. </div></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Meanwhile at home, it's so bad on the leadership front that even the French look decisive compared to our greenhorn president. In his book "Diplomacy," Henry Kissinger notes that for decision makers, latitude for action is greatest when available information is at its scarcest; windows of opportunity for bold, decisive leaders to shape events and ensure the national interest. Kissinger, writing for adults, never reckoned on an empty shell chief executive like Obama. Our affirmative action prez, flitting through a succession of jobs in academia and government, leaving no notable achievements, lacks hard experience to inform any meaningful decision making. Thus, Obama, like the know-it-all college freshman who ardently believes in the goodness of internationalism, defers to the consensus of others, certain it's the right thing to do.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Odds are it's Gadhafi who knows what he's doing. The dude will abide by whatever resolutions the Eurocrats put before him, for a time. But bureaucrats, not understanding the Libyan context and operational art, will leave loopholes. Tyrants like Gadhafi, who parse grammar with the same zeal as campus thought police, will exploit those loopholes to murderous effect.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">There's the difference between Gadhafi and Obama. One acts as though his life depends on it, and the other couldn't act to save his own.</div></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569977943863292337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229869682999322848.post-12020733451098246752011-02-15T08:46:00.001-08:002011-02-18T00:11:17.593-08:00JFCOM and the Unkindest Cut of All<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Acknowledging there is waste in defense spending, <a href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/02/15/give-defense-what-it-needs-and-cut-what-it-doesnt/">Max Boot</a> wonders why DoD is at the head of the line for budget cuts while our military is engaged in Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on terror. One early budget casualty was Joint Forces Command. As reported in the <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.armytimes.com/news/2011/02/ap-jfcom-closure-to-cost-jobs-020911/">Army Times</a></span>, JFCOM "employs nearly 6,000 military and civilian personnel, with the bulk of those working in southeast Virginia. Its mission is to train troops from all services to work together for specific missions."<br />
<br />
Were JFCOM outside of DoD, it likely would have survived in perpetuity, like almost every government program voted into existence. In this case, JFCOM carried the stink of the military. And that, in the age of Obama, makes for a budget cutting opportunity. Ostensibly, Secretary Gates axed it because of the proportionally large numbers of contractors working for JFCOM. <br />
<br />
Well... even a broken clock is right twice a day.<br />
<br />
JFCOM is to DoD what the “Bridge to Nowhere” is to Alaska: a spending hole with little tangible benefit other than the jobs it provides (with taxpayer money) and the votes it bought. It’s also a place to park yet another four star general waiting for a service chief job to open up, or retirement. <br />
<br />
The real reason to shut down JFCOM is that it never worked. I’d wager that almost all of JFCOMs people are capable and devoted. Yet, they assumed an impossible task. There’s an old adage that while many things in life can be learned, few can be taught. Like all other institutes of centralized learning, what JFCOM provides and what the real world demands, highlights the vast difference and utility between explicit and tacit knowledge. <br />
<br />
A few years ago my corps was training as a joint task force for an exercise in Thailand. To help us out, Pacific Command sent their “certification” team to our planning conference, armed with the latest doctrine, techniques and procedures from JFCOM. After listening to five minutes of irrelevant checklists, and unworkable procedural advice, I asked the major leading the certification team how he and his team would certify intelligence operations for the JTF?<br />
<br />
Major Certification: “Well, for example, we’ll look at how you employ your Trojan Spirit” (intelligence satellite communications).<br />
<br />
Me: “We’re not using a Trojan Spirit. Landing rights for the system, transportation, security and spectrum deconfliction are too expensive for the exercise budget. We’ve coordinated for a cheaper T-1 line instead.”<br />
<br />
Major C: “OK, then we’ll look at how you employ your all-source analysis system and see how effective it is at battle tracking during the exercise.”<br />
<br />
Me: “We aren’t using the all-source. Our intelligence element that runs the system is in Iraq and we’re unable to get personnel who can devote several months training together, here, to run one for the exercise. We’re going to do an exercise workaround instead.”<br />
<br />
Major C: “Instead of this workaround, have you checked with Forces Command to try and fill your personnel vacancies?”<br />
<br />
Me: “We did that several months ago. The operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have pulled lots of intel folks away. And even if we could get soldiers, they wouldn’t be a cohesive unit with the special training required to run the automation.”<br />
<br />
Major C: “Then, we’ll examine your training objectives and match those to your joint mission essential task list to see how you perform. After we observe and control that, you’ll be well on the way to certifying as a JTF.”<br />
<br />
Me: “Those essential task lists are so broad as to be meaningless. For example, ‘perform operational intelligence’ could mean anything and everything we do within the exercise context. And the fact you “certify” us as a JTF is meaningless, having trained within the artificialities of a canned scenario lacking any of the depth and complexity of the real world, the ad hoc team we’ve assembled will vanish once the exercise is done.” <br />
<br />
Undaunted by a display of tacit knowledge gained through years of experience, the major then continued his brief. To be fair, he was not an intel officer and was merely executing his task. Neither he, nor his superiors, however, seemed to get that the meaningful action is on the periphery, and not at headquarters. Training ad hoc organizations like JTFs are exercises in fluid dynamics; a complex network of people, processors, sensors, communicators and knowledge in constant flux and continual adaptation to its environment and purpose. Such things tend to defy external analysis.<br />
<br />
Not living in a hardscrabble world in which one must daily surmount obstacles, intransigence and human frailty, academics prefer maxims and ideas; things easily gained by rote memorization, i.e., explicit knowledge. One can argue that most analysis and commentary in the public domain are external, and thus, shallow. As an example, Abu Muqawama's <a href="http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawama/2010/08/oh-thats-messed.html">post</a>:<br />
<br />
“<span style="color: #1a1a1a;">Rumors of JFCOM's demise have been floating around for some time, though, so this cannot be completely unexpected. One of the wisest military analysts I know remarked, upon hearing the rumors, that JFCOM does three valuable things that either the joint staff or another command will now have to pick up:<br />
</span><br />
<ol style="list-style-type: decimal;"><li><span style="color: #1a1a1a;">Writing joint doctrine.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #1a1a1a;">Monitoring force readiness and modernization across the services.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #1a1a1a;">Coordinating U.S. and NATO modernization efforts.”</span></li>
</ol>NATO is an empty shell only to be revitalized when Europe is attacked by Russia. As for 1 and 2, I believe, like Peter Drucker, that there is nothing so useless as doing well that which should not be done at all. <br />
<br />
A truly wise military analyst was Sun Tzu. In his <a href="http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2011/02/08/sun-tzu-the-enemy-of-the-bureaucratic-mind/">blog</a>, Walter Russell Mead describes how reading <em>The Art of War </em>was an “unsettling experience” since there were no weapons and tactics Sun Tzu would not use, and in his time, Sun Tzu directly conflicted with the prevailing pieties of rule based, Confucian China:<br />
<br />
<em>“The Art of War</em>, a book which has inspired Chinese emperors, Japanese shoguns, Napoleon, Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh, does not just subvert conventional morality. It is even more profoundly opposed to the bureaucratic mind: the approach to the world that believes that everything can be reduced to technique and procedures.”<br />
<br />
Two thousand years later, we still celebrate Sun Tzu. In a few years, JFCOM and those who created it, will be forgotten. </div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569977943863292337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229869682999322848.post-31734040946956262732011-02-05T05:16:00.000-08:002011-02-05T12:42:35.904-08:00China's Hubris<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Back to blogging after supporting a military exercise in Japan. Working as a defense contractor with our allies provides insight you don't get from the media or foreign policy journals. Most of us, however, do it to reconnect with our armed forces, active and retired.<br />
<br />
Discussing China, Tom S., a retired Marine colonel, related his war college trip to Peking in 2000. The soldiers in the elite, palace guard unit in the capital, set up static displays of weapons and equipment for the class. Being a light armored vehicle guy, Tom snuck around the guard and looked inside an armored personnel carrier. He was amazed at how primitive and lacking were the internals. So bad, in fact, he concluded the thing was probably towed to the site. A classmate and Navy captain, the CAG of an aircraft carrier, had similar observations about the Chicoms' answer to the F-16. Looking at the controls, he found seventies era avionics and a disjointed cockpit layout.<br />
<br />
Whatever the Chinese allow for foreign consumption is meticulously measured and rehearsed. Unless the Chicoms were channeling Sun Tzu--projecting weakness to hide strength--our officers took home different lessons than intended. First, that the Chicoms suck at public relations. Displaying crappy equipment to your greatest adversary, like the cheesy Top Gun footage of their new stealth fighter, and the fake Olympic fireworks, speaks for itself. Second, and more importantly for their prospects as global power broker, they don't know what they don't know.<br />
<br />
Projecting power and influence is something the United States has done for decades. It requires a sublime harmony to nest the instruments of power with national goals and operational art. It's like spiral development of software, except on a national level with proportionally greater complexity. And no system does that better than nations with cherished histories of individual liberty and free markets. Here, whether by temperament or inclination, the Chinese are amateurs who believe a temporarily surging economy will buy global power status. And they believe their time is now.<br />
<br />
The Chinese say the United States is "fierce of mien, but feint of heart," a paper tiger. But China should take counsel of another ancient people. It was the Greeks who defined hubris as a human condition. The last time the People's Liberation Army tried to project power on a large scale, the battle tested Vietnamese spanked them. Despite the weakness and indecision of the current occupant of the White House, the Chinese would find testing the U.S. a task of considerably greater magnitude.<br />
<br />
Considering China, one is reminded of the famous observation of the Bourbons of France: despite their long reign, they managed to learn nothing and forgot nothing.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569977943863292337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229869682999322848.post-66147280561724656052011-01-05T08:07:00.000-08:002011-01-05T21:05:53.303-08:00On Rumsfeld<div style="font: 13.0px 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 18.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">I've always had two minds about Rumsfeld. His gruff approach to flag officers was always counter-productive. (There was the irony of a few generals and admirals getting back what they long gave to their subordinates.) I suspect a lot of that animosity grew from Rumsfeld's frustration at the "in the box" thinking that characterizes the ground forces, especially the army. Although he once told a soldier that you go to war with the army you have, Rumsfeld expected emerging technologies to be bigger combat multipliers than they were.</div><a name='more'></a><br />
To truly understand Rumsfeld, one must appreciate how utterly conventional and unimaginative is current military thinking. Only slowly are army leaders grasping the impact of complexity on military art and science. Command posts at all levels still push information up the hierarchy in a cycle of non-stop power point decision briefs to senior leaders who have little technical understanding of the units and processes they're directing. Today's successful businesses, on the other hand, quickly realized that the meaningful action is on the periphery where employees are interacting with customers.<br />
<div style="font: 13.0px 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 18.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 13.0px 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 18.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">The slavish devotion to doctrine, SOPs and tactics, techniques and procedures, comes at the expense of contextual understanding. Thus, army and Marine commanders have no hesitation in applying the counterintelligence field manual designed for Iraq to their operations in Afghanistan. This linear approach to the non-linear dynamics in the real world creates enormous inefficiencies and friction, usually invisible to outsiders.</div><div style="font: 13.0px 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 18.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 13.0px 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 18.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">This is just speculation about what bugged Rumsfeld based on his expectations and the language he used describing his vision. Could be that his grumpiness was merely that he's a crotchety old man who spent too much time near the Potomac.</div><div style="font: 13.0px 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 18.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 13.0px 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 18.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=aardvshavo-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0307590615&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=FFFFFF&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569977943863292337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229869682999322848.post-54545206004900405832011-01-05T07:55:00.000-08:002011-01-05T11:04:34.992-08:00CAPT Honors; What's Important<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Three points. First, this incident should be viewed in context. However these videos appear to outsiders, consideration for Honors' intent and purpose should have figured in the court of public opinion. Did Honors help his CO maintain a good command climate aboard the Enterprise? Most who served with Honors say yes.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Second, can Honors fight? That's the reason he was selected to command the Enterprise. His superiors had to give Honors glowing efficiency reports for him to command one of eleven carriers in the navy. After appointing Grant commander of the Union Army, Lincoln took flack because of Grant's reputation as a boozer. "He fights," was all Lincoln replied.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Third, what is the "chilling effect" of all this? Far too many flag officers now are little more than corporate cheerleaders; humorless, with little personality. This latest wussification of the military will be a natural selector for more higher level drones, devoid of imagination and calculating every move based on the risk to their careers.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569977943863292337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229869682999322848.post-28422425677031934602010-12-15T23:11:00.000-08:002010-12-15T23:12:27.509-08:00Campus Tyranny<div style="font-family: Georgia, Arial, Tahoma, Verdana; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 15px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After posting on DADT, I googled some of the latest on the discussion and found </span><a href="http://thecollegevoice.org/2010/12/11/dadt-opposition-a-symptom-of-republican-radicalism/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">this</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">. Mr. Nigrosh's article is full of the usual college freshman, leftish boilerplate and name calling, all designed to cut off debate. In a sophomoric touch, he generously allows that he has no problems with the Republican Party as vital to the two party system, but later says republicans are "confrontational, dismissive, arrogant and closed minded." Yet, he wants to encourage debate.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a name='more'></a></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Well, he should talk to Kate. Here's her reply to my comment:</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 15px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Roger, personally, I think it’s insane that people have to even explain WHY repeal is needed….it’s discrimination, plain and simple.It IS a civil rights issue! By trying to make it into a security issue, opponents have merely been trying to pull the sheets over the public’s eyes while claiming not to be homophobic and discriminatory. Claiming that the armed forces operate with a “stricter moral plane” is 1) sad that you think a “stricter moral plane” = anti-gay positions and discrimination, and 2) I’d argue that the armed forces actually tend to be backwards and operate way behind the times. For example, women were not allowed into West Point for too long, and once they were, there were rapes, harassment, etc. Is that also part of the “stricter moral plane” you speak of?</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 15px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You think it’s a security issue? Well, there was a study done of similar repeals in 5 of our allies (albeit some of them 20 yrs ago…we are so, embarrassingly, far behind) and they all found little or no impact to cohesion and security as a result of the repeals. In fact, they found it to be a benefit. By bringing things out into the open (it being ok to let others know you are gay) harassment actually decreased. See for yourself: (you have an article, interview, and a book to choose from) </span><a href="http://www.npr.org/2010/12/07/131857684/how-gay-soldiers-serve-openly-around-the-world" rel="nofollow" style="color: #423b35; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">http://www.npr.org/2010/12/07/131857684/how-gay-soldiers-serve-openly-around-the-world</span></a></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, Arial, Tahoma, Verdana; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 15px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Lastly, I agree data can be pliable….but not when you have a 70%/30% split. If you have a 51%/49% split, ok, there is some fudge room. But with 70%?? Wake up.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">You see, no reason to debate because you and your kind are bigots. And like many, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Kate's knowledge of U.S. history is merely a catalog of grievances. W</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">hen I wrote that the armed forces always operated on a stricter moral plane (one cannot operate "with" a "stricter moral plane"), I referred to the code of conduct and devotion to duty that allowed our troops to fight under impossible conditions. At Iwo Jima, 27 Marines and sailors were awarded Medals of Honor, 28 percent of those awarded during all of World War II. The sacrifice there was so great that Admiral Nimitz noted that, "Uncommon valor was a common virtue." Weigh our history of valor from Bunker Hill to Forward Operating Base Wanat, and only then, reflect on the actions of a few immature, officer wannabes.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Or consider <a href="http://www.blackfive.net/main/2008/05/the-last-stand.html">this</a>. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">But, after all, we are dealing with an armed forces that is "backwards and operate way behind the times." To those like Kate, people in the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">military might as well be like the ancients, who differ not just in manner, but in kind. Image if campus was like Major General Scales' <a href="http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2010/10/4757970/">office</a> overlooking the A Shau Valley, and every time the faculty went into its bi-monthly meeting on curbing con</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">servative speech, one third were killed or wounded.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">During 23 years in the army, I rarely thought about gays in the military. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">On one occasion, two artillerymen in my battalion claimed to be gay to get out of deploying to Desert Storm. Other than that, i</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">t simply was not an issue. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Combat soldiers, operating in close confines and with a complete lack of privacy, require special bonds of trust and discipline within their units. Many of our warriors still view homosexuality as a moral issue, and such feelings cannot be legislated away. As for the majority of the armed forces either favoring or having no issue with repeal of DADT, most of those are REMF's, and have more in common with civilians than they do with soldiers or Marines. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Finally, regarding these "allies" that allow openly gay service; which allies keep the sea and air lanes open to international commerce? How many have liberated 25 million people from tyranny in the last ten years? Who among them keeps Taiwan free from Chinese communist slavery? </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The answer for those of you who suffer from an Ivy League education is: they are not us. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />
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</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569977943863292337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229869682999322848.post-52564618880532608702010-12-15T15:52:00.000-08:002010-12-15T23:51:31.609-08:00The Inspector Clouseau of World Leaders<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I came across this funny 2008 Daniel Craig </span><a href="http://www.parade.com/celebrity/2008/10/daniel-craig"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">interview</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> in Parade magazine. In the interview, which I vaguely remember at the time, Craig was asked who would make the better Bond, then presidential candidates Obama or McCain?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“Obama would be the better Bond because—if he’s true to his word—he’d be willing to quite literally look the enemy in the eye and go toe-to-toe with them. McCain, because of his long service and experience, would probably be a better M,” he adds, mentioning Bond’s boss, played by Dame Judi Dench. “There is, come to think of it, a kind of Judi Dench quality to McCain.”</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After I stopped laughing, I grimly realized Craig was onto something. If Obama's real enemies are republicans, people who cling to God and guns and tax paying Americans, Craig was absolutely right about the toe-to-toe thing. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What I really love is the fantasy world that liberals inhabit. The guy with no military experience, probably never held a gun, rides a girls bike, and would like to be left alone to eat his waffle, this is the secret agent? While a man who flew ground attack jets into enemy territory, endured capture and torture and refused special treatment because his father and grandfather were four star admirals, is .... Judi Dench.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As his track record for incompetence grows, the one movie character that Obama is like, is the great Peter Sellers character, Inspector Clouseau. In this classic </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQAMvmi1Zwk"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">scene</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> from "The Return of the Pink Panther," we see our hero in action, solving all the wrong problems and oblivious to the reality around him. The blind man's brilliant and hilarious defense of the free market is just as perplexing to Obama as it is to Clouseau.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The major difference between Clouseau and Obama, of course, is that we laugh at Sellers' imitation of a bumbling detective, but not at Obama's imitation of a president.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">How can an idiot be a policeman? Indeed. Or an actor.</span><br />
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<iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=aardvshavo-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B0001AG01M&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=FFFFFF&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569977943863292337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229869682999322848.post-3647807611211682962010-12-09T09:52:00.000-08:002010-12-13T16:04:43.948-08:00Don't Ask, Don't Tell<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Imperfect as it is, the 1993 Clinton Administration compromise, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT), struck a delicate balance between allowing gays to serve and the maintenance of good order and discipline in the military. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">However, time marches on, and so does the left. The central, brilliant insight that competent revolutionaries share is that success lies in attacking the cultural pillars of society. Chief among those is the martial spirit of the armed forces. Polls consistently show that of all American institutions, the military remains the most revered. So while many Americans favor repeal of DADT on “fairness” grounds, the hard left knows that attacking the warrior ethic is a critical step in creating an orthodoxy of moral nihilism in the U.S.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">To favor repeal of DADT as a civil rights issue misses the point that the military operates on a different, higher moral plane. Service in the armed forces is a privilege, not a right, and characterized by an adherence to a severe moral code. Servicemen forfeit many constitutional protections when they join and are accountable to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). For example, adultery, and sodomy, are crimes under the UCMJ. This strict discipline is imperative, especially in the ground forces, in maintaining the cohesion and the morale vital for units in combat. Those who favor repeal as a retention issue should note that far more servicemen are discharged for felonies, weight/fitness issues, bad debts and domestic abuse than are discharged for homosexuality.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">With DADT repealed, the feminization of the armed forces can continue unabated. Like many progressive initiatives, these came to the military from outside and clashed with the prevailing warrior culture. Congress already instituted a virtual “Nanny State” on the armed forces and flag officers at every level meekly complied. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At every echelon commanders must staff equal opportunity, sexual harassment, and safety officer billets that have little to do with combat readiness, sap morale, time and resources. Servicemen are constantly lectured on everything from finances, sexual assault, suicide prevention, hygiene and motorcycle safety. Schools and promotion boards require floors and ceilings so the “right” number of women and minorities get promoted.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Women serve on ships and, starting in 2011, on submarines, where they require separate space and attention to meet their needs, all in the name of gender equality. But Increasing fraternization means more pregnancies. In an already over deployed force, others must pick up the slack while servicewomen are on maternity leave. This increases combat readiness how?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The parallel blind worship of “diversity” likewise leads to muddled thinking. All the Army Chief of Staff, General Casey, could muster after the Fort Hood massacre was that he hoped diversity would not suffer as a result. The following Army report on the “incident” failed to mention Islam and Jihad as motivation for the attack. This despite the fact that Major Hassan yelled out “Allah Akbar” several time as he gunned down unarmed soldiers. Indeed, there is nothing so predictably disastrous as liberalism meeting reality. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Progressivism flourishes in the media, democratic party and academia (aren’t they all the same thing) where the prime directive is that one continually demonstrates the fineness of one’s moral weave, to paraphrase Paul Fussell. The daily grind of millions of people solving problems and making things work, scarcely registers. That reminded me of a story about Jimmy Carter at Camp David. On Christmas morning, Carter supposedly went outside to get some firewood. Without a word to the secret service agent standing there in the cold, he returned to the cabin. It’s funny how the greatest humanitarians are often the biggest hippocrits. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Any social engineering, like allowing gays to openly serve in the military, need only be good intentioned. Forget for a moment that among the ground forces, where the bulk of the warrior ethic lives, most oppose repeal of DADT. Today at Fort Leavenworth, Gen. Casey had another epiphany, this time about DADT. He supports eventual repeal, but not while the nation is at war. Apparently implementation would put too great a stress on commanders who must implement the new policy and the ground troops who must live with it. One question: if repeal is good for the army, and armed forces in general, why wait to implement it?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Great nations fall to insiders long before barbarians reach the gates. That we’re having this discussion means the left is achieving its goal of moral relativism. And the first casualty of moral relativism is the capacity for outrage. Private Bradley Manning intentionally outed hundred of thousands of classified documents in a perfect storm of disgruntled gayness, hatred of country and immaturity. And yet, I’ve heard no calls to hang this idiot for the traitor that he is. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Get used to him, he’s the future.</span><br />
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<iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=aardvshavo-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B004ELAL00&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=FFFFFF&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569977943863292337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229869682999322848.post-32156760479952945582010-11-30T16:30:00.000-08:002010-12-01T15:10:19.145-08:00Leadership Principles of Lao Tzu<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Scholars debate whether Lao Tzu - author of the </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Tao Te Ching</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> and considered by many the founder of Taoism - actually lived during the 4th century BC as a contemporary of Confucius, or was merely a synthesis of early Chinese thought. Whoever he was, his leadership principles are timeless and required reading for those who seek and hold power.</span><br />
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<em><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Governing a great nation is like cooking a small fish - too much handling will spoil it</span></strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">.</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Tarp, stimulus, Obamacare, bailouts, offshore drilling bans, FDA, EPA, and the TSA are all examples of activist government robbing Americans of their constitutional liberties. </span><em><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and robbers there will be.</span></strong></em><br />
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<em><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know</span></strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">. </span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Obama talks much, but says little. No president in recent memory has opined so often on so much. And yet, after his 2010 electoral “shellacking,” he claimed it was a failure to communicate and the slow progress of his agenda that turned off Americans. It’s increasingly clear to even his supporters that he’s incompetent and in way over his head. </span><em><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">To realize that you do not understand is a virtue; Not to realize that you do not understand is a defect.</span></strong></em><br />
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<em><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></strong></em><em><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The people are hungry: It is because those in authority eat up too much in taxes.</span></strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">With 9% unemployment forecast through his administration, Obama’s college freshman worldview and lack of meaningful experience is hampering economic recovery. He won’t extend the Bush tax cuts; he banned offshore drilling killing thousands of jobs; and he signed into law CAFE standards for automobiles that will force car costs up. The hugely expensive and unconstitutional health care legislation is Obama’s greatest tax and assault on American liberty. </span><em><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Be the chief but never the lord.</span></strong></em><br />
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<em><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves. </span></strong></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Lao Tzu knew the marketplace long before Hayek and Adam Smith. Millions of people, self-interested and dealing with day to day complexities, need no centralized guidance. Government does not create jobs, it can only spend wealth others create. The function of government, and leaders, is to remove the barriers to growth and success. Cal Thomas is onto something when he calls for a part time congress.</span><br />
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<em><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When a nation is filled with strife, then do patriots flourish.</span></strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The rise of the Tea Party, the loss of independent voters, and democratic control of the house, should have told the liberal ruling class that it was a mistake to take the country to the left.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Tao-Te-Ching-Perennial-Classics/dp/0061142662?ie=UTF8&tag=aardvshavo-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969" imageanchor="1" target="_blank"><img alt="Tao Te Ching: A New English Version (Perennial Classics)" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=0061142662&tag=aardvshavo-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=aardvshavo-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0061142662" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569977943863292337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229869682999322848.post-74428215165828795512010-11-29T11:22:00.000-08:002010-11-29T16:11:20.502-08:00Show Me the Real Money!<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Obama froze federal pay increases for the next two fiscal years, saving a few billion dollars. With the US in the hole for trillions, the pay freeze hardly matters. As usual with this president, he goes back to his playbook of offering little in order to appear a fiscal moderate.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a name='more'></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After enacting the almost trillion dollar stimulus in 2009, Obama chaired the Fiscal Responsibility Summit whose purpose, as Vice President Biden said, was to "explore how we got where we are and begin to debate where we need to head." What followed were</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> more auto bailouts and Obama Care. In two years Obama presided over the greatest spending surge in American history. (The only kind of surge he believes in, apparently.)</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Nothing short of entitlement reform, repealing Obama Care, and dismantling the most useless of federal bureaucracies, like Education, Energy and the EPA, will bring down the deficit. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Don't get me wrong, I think the pay freeze is a good step, but its only a baby step. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Young-Guns-Generation-Conservative-Leaders/dp/1451607342?ie=UTF8&tag=aardvshavo-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969" imageanchor="1" target="_blank"><img alt="Young Guns: A New Generation of Conservative Leaders" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=1451607342&tag=aardvshavo-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=aardvshavo-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1451607342" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /></span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569977943863292337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229869682999322848.post-51854409011897197932010-11-24T14:37:00.000-08:002010-12-02T17:09:10.747-08:00Hacking Work: Breaking Stupid Rules for Smart Results<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=aardvshavo-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=159184357X&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=FFFFFF&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>Through numerous examples, efficiency expert Bill Jensen and hacker Josh Klein show why “hacking,” or working around the corporate structure, is crucial for increasing efficiency and maintaining an edge in the marketplace.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A bit too much ink is spent on getting manager buy-in to hacks, as even the authors concede that managers have a vested interest in their workplace tools. Also, this book would benefit from a more thorough explanation of how increasing complexity is flattening hierarchies and pushing critical knowledge to the periphery where the action is, and away from management. But these are minor quibbles.</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hacking-Work-Breaking-Stupid-Results/dp/159184357X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1290665993&sr=8-1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hacking Work</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> is required reading for anyone wanting to work smarter and not harder.</span><br />
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</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569977943863292337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229869682999322848.post-91171131351190174362010-11-22T10:11:00.000-08:002010-11-29T15:58:03.911-08:00Tanks in Afghanistan: Process vs Context and the Military Mind<i><iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=aardvshavo-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0313383774&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=FFFFFF&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>“The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church.”</i><br />
Ferdinand Magellan<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The approval by General Petraeus of a U.S. Marine tank company to Afghanistan, after nine years of combat operations, generated lots of media buzz, recalling the rusted hulks of Soviet tanks from that ill-fated adventure. It also seemingly ups the ante for U.S. involvement, clashing with the president’s desire for a near term withdrawal from Afghanistan. However, the real story is the retreat from counterinsurgency doctrine championed by General Petraeus and the attendant “process focused” mindset of military officers.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sometimes less is not more. Tanks are part of the ground forces toolkit and their employment should be unremarkable. U.S. strategists painted themselves in a corner by advocating a counterinsurgency approach that featured dismounted patrolling and minimizing civilian casualties. Policy makers unfortunately further dictated capabilities commanders could bring to the fight, reminiscent of LBJ pouring over maps and picking bombing targets in North Vietnam. Mounting U.S. and coalition casualties and the fact Canadian and other coalition forces already employ tanks in Afghanistan made the move easier. But why the Marines and not the Army?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In Helmand province where the Marines operate there are better fields of fire, less relief and chance of armor ambush by Taliban with rocket propelled grenades. In other words, good tactical reasons to employ tanks. The Marines are also the smaller ground force and less encumbered by bureaucracy and group think than the Army. This almost always equates to flexibility. It was U.S. Marines that set and first exploited conditions of the Anbar Awakening in Iraq. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">No understanding of the U.S. Army is complete without appreciating its obsession with doctrine. The training and doctrine command (TRADOC), headed by a four star general and employing thousands of soldiers and civilians, is responsible for the bulk of Army thinking. It’s central brain is the Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, which trains officers in doctrinal art and is commanded by a three star general. (Note: if you’re looking for fat in the defense budget, here’s a good place to start.) Every day army life is infused with the application of doctrine to standard operating procedures at all echelons. In an essentially linear approach to life’s complexity, this process focus, while satisfying to many senior leaders, comes at the cost of widespread “conventional” thought. Thus, the “real world,” or the concept of context, becomes an abstraction only understood through an “accepted” process. For example, the mission analysis methodology METT-T (mission, enemy, terrain, troops available and time) is merely a tarted up term for context. Does an army planner really need to be told that he operates with real life constraints? </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Consider the current counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine now in vogue, written by Petraeus and his Jedi Knights at Fort Leavenworth. These lessons learned from Iraq now serve as tactical and operational guidelines for our forces in Afghanistan. One might ask how a document written for Iraq can apply to a different place, people, culture, etc? How can any document address the non-linear dynamics, or almost infinite contingencies U.S. forces may encounter in the future? </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In a defense related forum I’m privy to, debate centers around whether doctrine supports tanks in counterinsurgency. That is disappointing. Most military people support doctrine as an essential point of departure. Wrong. A good education and experience is a point of departure. How about doing what works and stop wasting time with doctrine.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=aardvshavo-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=1586485288&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=FFFFFF&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569977943863292337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229869682999322848.post-56069586104843289952010-11-19T09:44:00.000-08:002010-11-29T15:56:17.039-08:00Colin Powell, Go Away<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=aardvshavo-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B000QCS9BY&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=FFFFFF&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>Colin Powell served as an advisor and division chief of staff in Vietnam and for that, he deserves our thanks.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">His later career was almost entirely self-serving. Despite his well documented liberal tendencies, he's always called himself a republican. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Early on, I suspect he believed that a black conservative, with a distinguished military resume, would have wide crossover appeal. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For a while, he was right. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Eventually, however, he pegged one too many b.s. meters. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He supports discrimination against whites, or for those who know the program by its euphemism, affirmative action. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He voted for Obama over his good friend John McCain. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In this Larry King <a href="http://larrykinglive.blogs.cnn.com/2010/11/16/in-case-you-missed-it-colin-powell/">interview</a>, he gets almost everything wrong. Allowing that the president should focus on the economy, Powell leaves unsaid the damage to the balance sheet done by the bailouts, the stimulus and the nation destroying health care monstrosity rammed through congress. All of these are Obama "accomplishments." Powell not only has no regrets about endorsing Obama, he believes that the American people have lost focus on what the president is trying to communicate. (Note that Obama, the great communicator, needs a teleprompter to make a 10 minute speech.) Watch the video if you dare. I found it disgusting. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Many Americans, especially in the military, still have great respect for Powell. But as with the president, there is a vast gap between the public perception and true capabilities. Powell never commanded a division, an imperative for a combat arms officer in achieving senior rank. As reported in <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_27?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=the+commanders+bob+woodward&sprefix=the+commanders+bob+woodward">The Commanders</a>,</i> by Bob Woodward, Powell also received a bad efficiency report as deputy division commander at Fort Carson. Inexplicably, he then moved up to be Caspar Weinberger's senior military assistant. As Secretary of State he offered Bush the inane "Pottery Barn" analogy that if you invade Iraq you own it. In Powell's version of statecraft for dummies he equates 25 million people with busted store merchandise. By the way, Pottery Barn just writes it off as a loss. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Colin Powell should just come out as a democrat and let it be over. We'd have a lot more respect for him.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=aardvshavo-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0743234758&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=FFFFFF&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/"></a><span id="goog_1348747659"></span><span id="goog_1348747660"></span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569977943863292337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229869682999322848.post-16735133104839326562010-11-18T16:55:00.000-08:002010-11-29T19:48:18.848-08:00Obama's Experience<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This revisits my post from February 2009, right after "the One" took office. It holds up well. I did credit him with writing two books--he may have had help.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333233; font-size: 14px; line-height: 16px;">I</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333233; font-size: 14px; line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">n his book </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333233; font-size: 14px; line-height: 16px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=thank+god+for+the+atom+bomb&x=17&y=12">Thank God For The Atom Bomb</a></span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333233; font-size: 14px; line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">, Paul Fussell notes that those opposed to the bomb were distant from the front and unlikely to associate with any who served there: </span></span><br />
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</span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 15.0px Times; line-height: 16.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> "The future scholar-critic who writes </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The History of Canting in the Twentieth Century </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">will find much to study and interpret in the utterances of those who dilate on the special wickedness of the A-bomb-droppers. He will realize that such utterance can perform for the speaker a valuable double function. First, it can display the fineness of his moral weave. And second, by implication it can also inform the audience that during the war he was not socially so unfortunate as to find himself down there with the ground forces, where he might have had to compromise the purity and clarity of his moral system by the experience of weighing his own life against someone else's."</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a name='more'></a></span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 16.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Change "A-bomb" to "Guantanamo" and "war" to "war on terror" and you have modern liberal thinking in a nutshell. Preserving today's exquisite moral sensibilities requires a remoteness and a capacity for cognitive dissonance that the average person finds unsustainable. Indeed, to Fussell, a rifle platoon leader in Europe when Germany surrendered, it's hard experience that instructs our essence and equips us for life. Like thousands of Americans who "miraculously" survived the mechanized carnage at the front, he was to deploy for the invasion of Japan when the A-Bomb spared him from the coming bloodbath. That kind of experience, common among the "greatest generation" and our armed forces today, seems increasingly uncommon and insignificant to Oprah Nation, where one engages in a non-stop blabfest about their thoughts, dreams and concerns. By contrast, it's not so easy to share that an artillery blast sent your company commander's West Point ring through your buddy's head, blowing his brains out. It's no coincidence that Oprah was one of Mr. Obama's earliest and most devout supporters. Which brings us to the "experience" of Obama. </span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 16.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 18.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 16.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Much has been made of Obama's hybridity and rootlessness. His constant ambition, facility at self-promotion, speechmaking (oceans falling, blah, blah, blah) and the wall he maintains with an adoring media - all speak to his ego and aloofness. The most damning criticism has always been about his lack of experience. Community organizer, president of the Harvard Law Review, newsletter writer for Business International Corporation, senior law lecturer and state and United States senator. Despite the impressive sounding titles on his resume, he's moved rapidly from job to job, never displaying excellence in any of them-save writing best sellers about his favorite topic, himself. In short, his experience is parochial and mainly intellectual-devoid of hardship and sacrifice, and unlike, for example, those of John McCain or Winston Churchill, who fought with the Malakand Field Force, covered the Boer War as a correspondent and escaped from captivity. In Obama's background, I see no evidence of hardship greater than a hangnail or suffering a reporter's impudent question about his qualifications to be president. </span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 16.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 18.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 16.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Obama's inexperience was all too evident during the campaign. Many feared he did not understanding how the world works, promising unconditional talks with our enemies. He'd close Guantanamo but had no plan for the detainees who had tried to kill our troops. He'd tax the rich-who disproportionally create the most jobs as business owners and executives. He was wrong about Iraq, not surprising given his lack of experience there and general unfamiliarity with the military. Having won the election on promises of hope and change, the media assured us that he and his superb transition staff would hit the ground running. </span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 16.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 18.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 16.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And yet, Obama's first few weeks were a disaster. He outsourced his Stimulus Plan to professional porkmeisters in Congress, and then faulted republicans for not jumping behind an 1100 page deficit spending package that no one had time to read in its entirety. This despite his promise of administration transparency and bipartisanship. Aside from campaign style cheerleading and complaining about the lack of bipartisan support, Obama failed to address the pork in the Stimulus. Senator Graham called him AWOL on the debate. In his version of "pimp my presidency," the audacity of hoax then launched a sham fiscal responsibility summit days after signing the biggest spending bill in US history. Others note his penchant for talk vice action, his special envoys spanning the globe to lower the oceans and bring harmony to mankind. Lately, every time Obama or one of his tax cheat appointees talk, the stock market tanks. I doubt Obama socializes with many who understand the daily realities of building a business, navigating stifling bureaucracies or hunting down terrorists. Americans elected a guy who wants to be above it all, stay clean and act cool. And why not? The media and enough Americans mistook his demeanor and rhetoric for governing skill. </span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 16.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 18.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 16.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Obama will ultimately fail in his attempt to remake America along European (socialist) lines. Old school Americans were (are) raised on the ideals of hard work and fair play. Our traditions of self-reliance and perseverance were shaped by the frontier, creating a culture and sense of opportunity and optimism unlike any other. Americans will not accept a super-state, no matter how soothing the rhetoric from our organizer in chief. Now, facing a small but growing tax revolt, Obama puts Joe Biden in charge of overseeing the "Stimulus." Here's a man who never met a speech he couldn't cop. He's so obtuse that he told Gwen Ifill and Missouri state senator Chuck Graham, both confined to wheelchairs, to "stand up, let the people see you." </span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 16.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 18.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 16.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In at least one area Mr. Biden has proved prophetic: our enemies are already testing the president and the foreign policy disaster is coming. The Iranians admitted they've got 6,000 centrifuges up and running, apparently unconcerned with our response. North Korea's rolled out a new ballistic missile that can strike the US. Dictators and despots tend to be shrewd observers of human nature and sniff weakness in our greenhorn president. With Obama's rise, the wreckage to the nation continues. </span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 16.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 18.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 16.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One president who was not a greenhorn was Harry Truman. The only US president since 1897 not to earn a college degree, he's also the last with small unit, ground combat experience. In 1945, as allied forces closed on Japan, the battles for Okinawa and Iwo Jima hinted at the butchery to come. Writes Fussell in </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Thank God For The Atom Bomb</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">: </span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 16.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 18.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 16.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> "He knew war, and he knew better than some of his critics then and now what he was doing and why he was doing it. 'Having found the bomb,' he said, 'we have used it....We have used it to shorten the agony of young Americans.'" </span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 16.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 18.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 16.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In 1945, America had an adult at the helm. We've settled for a lot less today. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Thank-Atom-Bomb-Paul-Fussell/dp/0345361350?ie=UTF8&tag=aardvshavo-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969" imageanchor="1" target="_blank"><img alt="Thank God for the Atom Bomb" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=0345361350&tag=aardvshavo-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=aardvshavo-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0345361350" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /></span></div><div><br />
</div></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569977943863292337noreply@blogger.com0