The state of the alienation.

The old blog is getting zero traffic these days, but I suppose I can't be surprised as I haven't had a lot to say of late.

A perusal of the news shows that the world continues on it's perennial voyage to heck in some hand-borne conveyance, but really no faster or slower than it has recently. The economy of the west is in varying states of distress which has it's trickle-down effect on everyone else. The more I read about how things are done in the USA and the piling-on of stifling government regulation, the more I doubt the US will ever get back to the status it's had for the 60+ years since the end of WWII.

News that should make me feel better is that it's more and more clear to the public that Global Warming is a scam. There are two main reasons that doesn't cheer me as it should; one, Obama's crew are moving ahead to classify CO2 as a pollutant (fine the trees then!) and two, if anything, it's going to get colder.

The latter is more likely to have an impact on me than the former, living in a northern clime (tho not in fact above the 49th //) but if the Americans succeed in completely destroying their industrial base it bodes not well for the rest of the hemisphere. I've read a good deal about how the present state of the US economy came about from off-shoring all manufacturing (mostly to China) and then having some sort of credit shell game to generate the money that would then be sent to the Chinese as well as the industrial base.

Quite the house of cards, and there are some arguments against unrestricted Free Trade that can be made (and have been), but not my forte so I won't wade right in. I will however go on record as saying that in a phone poll some years ago I was willing to pay a bit more for milk if it ensured we had a domestic supply. This doesn't work for everything, but it is obvious that the lifestyles most of us expect are unsupportable in the long term. The bubble has certainly burst in the States, so we should take some lessons from that.

Anyway, not the sort of vitriol my fans are looking for, and to that I just say that it's too bad I didn't have this kind of forum when I was 20. That being said, I've stayed out of jail, so maybe that's all to the good...

If anyone is still looking here, I like a challenge, so challenge me. Work, etc. is pretty hectic so I don't have the time I once did, but I work a lot better if motivated, so YOU can take that as a challenge. Find something that pisses me off enough to rant about it, and I will.

Both arms tied.

I would have to search for it again, but I saw yesterday some news extract that the Afghan MoD has asked NATO to refrain from the use of artillery or air strikes against the Taliban. I didn't see anything about tanks, but you can bet that's next.

For all of our technological edge over the opposition, our actual advantage boils down to one thing: Firepower. You can have all the sensors you want to tell you where the bad guys are, but you need effects. It used to be called the "sensor-shooter" link, but a telling change has that now as the "sensor-ACTOR" link. This politically-correct amendment might as well be to "observer" if you're not going to do anything with the info you gather. A "sensor-observer" link sounds redundant, and it is.

The only thing that gets the other side's head down in Afghanistan are things that go "boom", and the bigger the better. The walls of those compounds, grape huts, etc. are quite immune to small arms fire and of course our enemies know that. Removing the Guns and aircraft from our arsenal will level the playing field, which is NOT the plan in war. You want every advantage you can get in general, and more specifically you need heavy weapons to overcome defensive works.

It already takes an unreasonable amount of time to get approval for arty/air strikes, resulting in less effective operations as our guys get pinned down at best or dead at worst. I know where this is, but I'm not sure where it's going; there's a point past which it's not possible to achieve the desired results as out options are whittled away. We already don't have freedom of movement ('though those helicopters will help a bit), and if you remove our ability to defend ourselves and liquidate the enemy when we find them, we have well and truly lost.

"Lost" in this context only means our objective; stabilizing Afghanistan to no longer be a haven for those who'd do things like 9/11, the Madrid metro bombings, etc. Fighting these clowns is like playing "whack-a-mole" anyway, so I personally feel we've been in the 'Stan about six years longer than is in our National Interest.

I capitalize that because a lot of people forget that the government is supposed to look after it. Neutralizing Al Queda, etc. n'import ou is within our interest; pouring blood and treasure ad infinitum into a basketcase central Asian country is not.

Again, just me. Actually not; I haven't met any ISAF veteran in the CF that thinks (off the record) that we can in fact sort Afghanistan out. We keep going back because it's our job and the money's good. Some like the danger and excitement (when it happens), but more and more feel that we're wasting our time. Tie their hands more by cutting off tactical options and you'll see a lot more PTSD cases due to what they couldn't do that they should have. That is all me, but as unscientific as that statement is, I'll stand by it. It's not like it hasn't happened in Bosnia and on all those UN missions, and our RoE are headed in that direction.

Economic (and other) Collapse

Although insulated from the immediate effects of a collapsing/restructuring/whatever Economy by nature of my employment, it’s big news and I shouldn’t just ignore it here. Or maybe I should, but it turns out that I won’t, so lucky you.

Much attention is paid to the Stimulus Package although it’s obvious that no-one, especially not the people supposedly passing it, seem to know what all is in it. This is disturbing on this scale (there is undoubtedly a LOT of pork), but not my government, so what do I care, right?

Well, as Canadians we share a continent with what is (for now, at least) the largest economy the world has yet seen; I recall something about an elephant… It is plainly obvious to anyone not on the public payroll that our economy is taking a pounding as a direct result of what is happening in the US and to a lesser extent the rest of the world. Even China has a $600B stimulus package for its’ economy, as China has been severely punished by the implosion of American investments and the sub-prime (read: bad loans) housing bubble.

I know bugger-all about economics past the supply/demand curve and the guns-vs.-butter debate, but some things are apparent even to me. Bad investments of the sort Wall St. has been pushing of late (derivatives, toxic mortgage paper, whatever) are pyramid schemes on the largest scale. That scale is big enough to undermine major banks and wipe out smaller ones and many investment firms, while leaving the “Masters of the Universe” with the fruits of their ill-gotten gains.

Optics are important, and the above is how it looks to most people, especially the taxpayers on whose backs this will be paid off. A lot of people, including Vladimir Putin are less than enamoured of bailing out capitalists with public money, and I am one of them. If you’re running a for-profit enterprise (especially one that produces nothing) and you go tits-up, I fail to see where that’s my problem as a taxpayer. You tried, you failed, and the world will go on without you, trust me, so now go do something else.

For the Gain, something must be Ventured, and this implies risk. I have no objection to people making money by any legal and ethical (not always the same) means, and I’m known to take a few chances myself. No, I don’t have a gambling problem or anything like that, but I recognize that life is pretty dull if you don’t push your luck now and again. A bit of danger is great for focussing, so too much of a safety net makes it at the vey least an unsporting proposition.

If you can convince people to invest in junk of whatever stripe in order for you to make millions, well caveat emptor is the rule of the game and a reasonably regulated market will sort you out eventually. That is what happened here, although the reasonableness of the regulation in that market was questionable to say the least. What should be happening here is a lot of investors are poorer and (some of them, anyway) wiser, and the speculators and junk bond kings are out of business. Some banks fail, and the FDIC insures your deposits as long as you were a smart enough investor to know the limitations of that coverage. In Canada it’s up to $100K, and the US has in light of the current flap raised theirs to $250K. More money than that? Figure it out yourself, I say.

These institutions have been saved by the US government, although with strings attached. The big one right now is Obama’s executive pay cap of $500K for any firms receiving bail-out money. This may look good, and executives of companies suckling at the public teat certainly don’t deserve bonuses (though they were getting them while running their companies into the ground) but the law of unintended consequences kicks in with a vengeance.

It has been pointed out that $500K is not enough money for an executive of a major company to live on in places like New York, and I do have to say I agree with that. The first effect will be to drive the best and (supposedly) brightest execs away from these companies. The next will be more government involvement in everything.

Yes, bigger government, more government jobs, more regulation and less people actually producing anything. There was some talk of Protectionism out of all this, but that’s being pooh-poohed. Everyone loves Free Trade, but I’m beginning to think that countries had best start thinking of their own best interests again. There is a certain amount of market “survival of the fittest” implied, but that is not the same as big-fish-eat-little-fish which is what most people think of when they hear about evolution.

You need a big trade bloc to make tariffs work, but NAFTA could do that, especially if we build more nuclear plants and get off the imported oil and gas. More of an issue for the USA than us, but they drag is down with them. Inefficient companies fail, consumers (taxpayers) are protected, and the US sets out to rebuild itself. Prosperity breeds more prosperity and we benefit too. Some protectionism prevents the Japanese and Koreans from selling us cars that weren’t built here, so who would really care if the used-to-be-Big Three go under?

Nothing should be too big to fail, and market things should be left to the market to solve. The government’s only job there is to make sure things don’t get out of hand (i.e. slavery, etc.), certainly not to bail out banks that couldn’t be bothered to do due diligence. I say that, but it’s far more of a mess than that, as many of these banks were forced by the US government to take on these bad loans. That requires a more nuanced approach, but no matter what the government does to fix things, the laws should at the vey least be clear and understood by all.

Yes, I’ve wandered off whatever the hell it was I wanted to say. It was mainly personal and corporate responsibility and transparent government, but I suppose I should be concerned that I even had to talk about that. Comments or critiques can as always be addressed to me here, but other than mental exercise for myself I’m hoping to make people think critically.

The Star-Mangled Banner

I missed most of the Superbowl on Sunday night, but I did see the terrible rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” as performed by Jennifer Hudson.

This is not, I have to say not a kick at Ms Hudson, who certainly can sing, and has had a rough time of late. That said it is part of a broad trend which I see as another indication of the anaemia besetting Western societies and a harbinger of our eventual eclipse. A part of the linked article talked about Ms Hudson’s take on the anthem being “more personal than patriotic”, which to me is a particularly galling example of how people have no concept of what a National Anthem is all about.

I asked a co-worker what the words of the American anthem were about, and I stopped him after about the fifth word he said, “fight”. The SSB is about a battle, one of those (taking-the-piss alert) that the American actually won in the War of 1812.

An anthem is supposed to kick you in the ass and make you want to defend those ramparts, take that hill, whatever. Contemplating the amber waves of grain can be done at your leisure, which is why I am not excoriating Faith Hill’s take on “America the Beautiful”. It was (my opinion again) lame, but it doesn’t offend me because her version doesn’t fly in the face of the song’s genesis and/or purpose.

The best example I can think of immediately that grabbed me was the Red Army Chorus at the 1987 Canada Cup belting out the “Internationale”. That kicked ass, and it was in Russian so I have no idea what they were saying (Ok, here’s an English version) but the point is that it at least made me think of something active or aggressive.

That last is a bad thing to the nanny-state supporters who know what’s best for us, and of course Nationalism is the root of all evil, so we are not meant to feel inspired to great deeds or feel any connection with those of our forbearers. Heaven forbid that Canadians, etc. should find some common history to pull them together.

Closer to home, “O Canada” is regularly mistreated, and it (especially in English) is weak to begin with. The original French is much better, now that I understand it, providing some competition for that which should be our anthem, “The Maple Leaf Forever”. No, I don’t mean the emasculated, bland versions the CBC commissioned, but the original. Of course it could use a bit of updating, but that could be done in such a fashion that didn’t destroy the power of it. Of the “approved” version, I don’t know how you “protect the weak” etc. without a bit of bloodshed, and conquering the elements isn’t really the same thing as vanquishing some human foe.

When I stand for an anthem (no matter whose) it should be something that makes me want to stand up, not something that puts me to sleep. I am very conservative in this regard, but if you’re going to retain anything of the past, the National Anthem is the best place to do it. Of course, understanding a good anthem requires a bit of history too, so I guess it’s no surprise more people don’t complain like I do because the words don’t mean anything to them anyway.

That however, is a rant for another day.

No "Hama rules" vs Hamas

This article in Speigel Online is a bit disjointed, as if it is trying to cover all viewpoints at once, but it dredged up something I had forgotten the name of, that is how properly deal with the likes of Hamas.

Some commentators have suggested that "Hama Rules" are "no rules", but I strenuously disagree. The rules are "we'll give you enough rope, then hang, draw, and quarter you". A good synopsis is, as often, to be found at Wikipedia.

To give you the general idea:

According to Amnesty International, the Syrian military bombed the old streets of the city from the air to facilitate the introduction of military forces and tanks through the narrow streets, where homes were crushed by tanks during the first four days of fighting. They also claim that the Syrian military pumped poison gas into buildings where insurgents were said to be hiding.

The army was mobilized, and Hafez again sent Rifaat's special forces and Mukhabarat agents to the city. After encountering fierce resistance, Rifaat's forces ringed the city with artillery and shelled it for three weeks. Afterward, military and internal security personnel were dispatched to comb through the rubble for surviving Brothers and their sympathizers.^[4] Then followed several weeks of torture and mass executions of suspected rebel sympathizers, killing many thousands, known as the Hama Massacre. Estimates of casualties vary from an estimated 7000 to 35,000 people killed, including about 1000 soldiers. ^[5] Journalist Robert Fisk, who was in Hama shortly after the massacre, estimated fatalities as high as 10,000.^[6] The New York Times estimated the death toll as up to 20,000.[2] According to Thomas Friedman^[7] Rifaat later boasted of killing 38,000 people.

A wholesale massacre in Gaza was never on the cards, but I feel that the Israelis made their point, and balanced that with the political angle in deciding to withdraw. Hamas is particularly thuggish and stupid, so I'm sure there will be a Round Two, it's only a question of when, and that's the real test for Israel's politicians.

Israel definitely lost vs. Hezbollah in 2006, but in that case it was a Pyrrhic victory for Hez. Israel made life miserable enough for anywhere that launched a missile, etc. at them that Lebs of all stripes are much happier letting the sleeping IDF dog lie. The IDF for it's part took the time to lick it's wounds and accomplished much the same result in Gaza but without embarrassing itself again.

Laying the temporary smackdown on your enemies is not a defeat unless you said you would eliminate them. The only way the Israelis can "win" this sort of thing is to go house-to-house, top-to-bottom and kill anyone who even looks at them funny. With 90% of the population then dead, a viable two-and-a-half state solution is probably workable. Doesn't seem likely with that sort of condition, but hope springs eternal for our political elites.

Hamas is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and it is to be noted that Syria has had no significant problems with Islamic wackos since 1982. It worked there because Syria didn't give a rat's ass what Amnesty International, etc. thought of their methods, but they still paid a (tolerable) international political price. If the IDF did this the Americans would lose their nerve and pull the plug on the billions in aid that gets sent to Israel, and then, well, nothing good would come of it.

In and Out Clever; pretty close this time, so we'll see if Israel has really re-learned how to do this sort of thing. Der Speigel can try to be all things to all people, but Israel can't do that and survive. Even those who dislike Israel have to ask themselves if they'd like Hamas running the whole place. Not even a choice if you ask me, but the clowns with the Hamas banners in the West never do ask for some reason...

Give 'em enough rope

Some sort of truce seems imminent in the Gaza situation, for whatever that's worth. Israel has certainly made a mess of anything to do with Hamas they could find, but it's apparent to me that the High-Value Targets are drying up. More importantly for Israel, they have managed to run amok in Gaza for three weeks and take negligible losses.

This will not convince Hamas to give up; only death will do that, but it sends a message that the IDF has come back from the dismal performance it put in against Hezbollah in 2006. The key to this sort of operation is "in and out clever", and the "clever" part at least seems to have happened. The Israeli public has seen what happens when they unilaterally give up control of contentious areas, and they have apparently had enough of being patsies.

Hamas wants this truce to regroup, and normally it would be foolish to give it to them. "Ask me for anything but time" is attributed to Napoleon, and time is indeed the one variable that commanders can't finesse. The following snippet suggests that the Israelis have a tactical reason to allow their mortal enemies to regroup:

The Qassam rockets were fired into Sderot at 9 a.m. -- seven hours after Israel's cease-fire went into effect. The rockets injured one person, and Israeli aircraft destroyed the rocket launcher soon afterward, an Israeli military spokesman said.

An hour or two before the rocket attacks, Palestinian gunmen opened fire on Israeli forces in northern Gaza, the Israeli military said. Troops returned fire.

Hamas was dug in deep, those of their leadership that survived, and letting them come up for air gives them a chance to come up and take a pot at IDF targets. When you have the confidence that you can give better than you take, you can afford the luxury of giving up time and initiative. Even then it's only because you know you can take the latter back whenever you want.

So, the IDF is back in form, and the Israelis know that they can only count on themselves to manage their security. There has been a great deal of anti-Israel/anti-Jew vitriol expressed around the world, so Enemy Situation: no change. Friendly morale is better, and as long as the Americans continue to support Israel there is a secure bulwark against Islamic expansion in the Mid East.

Containment worked passably against Communism during the Cold War, so perhaps it's an option against the currently most menacingly unpleasant ideology. Fight them in Israel and Afghanistan, support the Ethiopians against the Islamist factions in Somalia (I give that six months or less before they take over again), in other words stick with the idea of having a "free fire area" to suck them in and kill them.

This is expensive and not so fun for whoever lives in these areas, but better there than here, right? Well, we'll see what happens in Gaza. There's a good chance that a lot of the citizens of Gaza have had enough of Hamas and would (quietly) welcome the Israelis administering the place for a while. That way the food, fuel, medicine etc. will get in since the IDF will control the borders and not have to cut everything off to keep the weapons out. In any event, I don't see this truce lasting (it's already been broken by Hamas), but this opens the "third phase" of Operation CAST LEAD. It remains to be seen what form it will take.

Better tried by twelve than carried by six.

The most succinct comment I saw in regard to this story was "Ridiculous.", and that it certainly is.

The bare bones:

'Capt. Robert Semrau is accused of shooting, "with intent to kill," an unarmed male civilian during an October battle in which Afghan, Canadian and British soldiers defended the capital of Helmand province, Lashkar Gah, from an insurgent attack.' I personally commend him on shooting "with intent to kill", as that is the only way to do it, but there are others that seem to differ.

There was a three-day battle resulting in over 100 dead bad guys (Taliban, etc.), which is indicative of, hmm, let me think, a war, maybe? In fact it's a Counter-Insurgency fight, the messiest type against an enemy that doesn't wear uniforms. It also takes place in a country that has now seen three straight generations of war, and the locals know to keep out of situations like this.

That last fact is one that you won't see in the papers too much, but EVERYONE in Afghanistan knows to stay away from battles, troops in contact (TICs)and get out of the way of our convoys. There are no spectators for a big fight; if there was an apparently unarmed Fighting Age Male (FAM) he was possibly a suicide bomber, most likely a spotter.

The charges against Capt. Semrau are bullshit and will most likely quietly be dropped or he'll be found Not Guilty at a Court Martial. I don't have any information on this other than the news report, but I've been in his position ('tho I never had to shoot anyone) and I know that the troops can't afford to be wondering if they'll be charged for doing what needs to be done under the circumstances.

If the media or the Army think the locals need this foolishness, here's what the senior ANA officer on the ground (most likely a former Mujaheddin with decades of fighting experience in his homeland) had to say:

'On Thursday, an Afghan army general who was present during the battle said he had not heard of any soldier engaging in "inappropriate conduct" in connection with death of the suspected insurgent.

According to Gen. Sher Muhammad Zazai, so many Taliban militants were killed that it would be hard to say how each of them died.'

There is a bit more background in the North Bay Nugget, of all places, but none of that suggests to me that anybody's going to jail over this. Regardless, I'd be most interested to know how this even became an issue, let alone turned into a news story and charges against a guy sent to do a highly dangerous job in a shit-hole part of a failed country that is no threat to Canada. I have a lot of previous posts about what I think of Afghanistan, but this is a new angle.

Our soldiers are put in bad situations requiring judgement calls, and unless Capt. Semrau tied this guy up and put a bullet in the back of his head, there is no crime or rational basis for charges. Kids will watch you over there, at least as long as it's safe to do so, but if FAMs are looking at you immediately before or after a major battle in an unstable area, they are up to something. If buddy was watching us and talking to people on a cell phone or radio, that only means one thing and that's a belligerent activity.

"Unarmed observer" in this context is not a UN drone put somewhere to report on things that nobody has any intention of doing anything about. They report on troop strengths, movements, timings, tactics, equipment, and even spot for mortars and ambushes. Again, I don't have the facts, but this is to try to give the uninitiated some idea of why someone who is not obviously armed could be considered a legitimate military target. The suicide bomber thing is too obvious as well.

As for a "coverup", whoever thinks that is the cause of the delay between incident and it making the news has no clue about how ponderously administrative things move in the military.

I hope this whole thing disappears as soon as legally possible, but Capt Semrau's tour is now ruined if the fighting, IEDs, and constant low-level stress didn't manage to do it already. Again I speak from experience that frequently in a war zone your most implacable enemy is the military/political bureaucracy, NOT the opposition. I wish Rob the best of luck against his new enemies: the media and the Military Justice System.