But the cat came back...

It's been over a year since I last posted anything here. I felt I had nothing left to say about what was happening in the world, but recent events have caused me to re-evaluate that.

The immediate catalyst for this is the current stand-off in the Ukraine, Crimea specifically at this point, and the kaleidoscope of ideas about what should or should not be done. I have some definite ideas, and they are along the lines of, well, drawing some lines.Brzezinski's article of 3 March 14 is in the ball park, and his background is such that he's familiar with how Moscow does business, pay no attention to the President he worked for.

Obama has made a complete mockery of himself world-wide with his "Red lines" and lack of response to them being trampled, and what Putin is doing right now is in full knowledge that the US (and consequently the EU) will do nothing concrete to stop him.

The problem actually goes all the way back to the end of the Cold War and the expansion of NATO into former Warsaw pact countries. Poland, Czech Republic and the Baltic States are hostile to Russia and a natural fit to NATO updated for Russia vs USSR. Likewise Romania and Bulgaria were never part of Russia but subject to the latter's pressure, therefore good candidates.

There is a bigger question here though; what is NATO's raison d'être in a post-Cold War world? Let's start with the name: North Atlantic Treaty Organization. This suggests a geographical connection and a group of like-minded countries. Those are two separate criteria; I consider Australia and New Zealand to be like-minded countries but the geographical connection isn't there. There is another concept at work too though: the Sphere of Influence.

The US had a shit-fit in 1962 about the USSR putting nukes in Cuba, immediately in America's back yard. It is instructive that the solution to that stand-off involved the US removing the equivalent (already placed) missiles from Turkey, an analogous geographical threat to the USSR. In the labour relations field this is called "Interest-based Bargaining" and it works with human nature. The hypocrisy of the USA in this case is not to be overlooked, but all's fair in love and Containment.

Containment was the strategy of The West vs. the USSR/World Communism. My off-the-cuff assessment of Containment's contribution is that it was plausible in concept but flawed in execution. What success it had was basically attritional (Vietnam and Afghanistan the most significant episodes) with eventual economic exhaustion of the USSR from trying to out-produce us in war materiel. It is widely overlooked these days, but "collapse by arms race" was the basic Reagan strategy against the "evil empire". Gorbachev formally ended the "Red Menace" of World Revolution, thus obviating the need for Containment, or so you'd think. Inertia however is Newton's First Law for a reason, and huge organizations and the mindsets behind them are as subject to it as much as any minor planet zipping around the solar system. Flash forward to 2008...

Putin called NATO/G.W. Bush's bluff in Georgia then, partly to reabsorb South Ossetia, more to serve notice that Georgia was in Russia's sphere and NATO could sod off. This isn't a Human Rights blog so I won't argue rights and wrongs in a moral sense which are subjective in any event. We don't tend to think that way since we are so certain that we are morally superior, but moral superiority doesn't protect you from jackbooted thugs, and that's the real-world issue.

What then is my real-world prescription for the Ukraine thing? Draw some lines and then put troops on them. Ukraine is a Frankenstein nation which could be simply and logically partitioned into East (Russia) and West (Europe) with the consent of most people on the ground. West Ukraine could then join NATO if that seemed the thing to do, but it's an economic basket-case with a per-capita GDP somewhere around that of Egypt so I'm not sure the EU wants it, but not my problem. Not ideal in a lot of ways, as there are resources and industry involved as well as people, but you have to pick your battles.

The talk right now on our side is economic sanctions, but that's not the language Putin is using right now so it's not certain the point will be made. This does have similarities with the Sudetenland in 1938, and the remedy is the same: military force. The Czechs could have held the Germans off with any military backing at all from France, but the iron to do so was lacking. The level of war-weariness in France at that time far exceeded anything in the US and Europe right now, but the present level of hand-wringing will be as (in)effective as that of '38.

If the US is serious, it should land some Marines in the Ukrainian controlled parts of Crimea and dare the Russians to try something. Putin is, contrary to wishful thinking in the liberal media, an entirely rational actor and is unlikely to bite off more than he can swallow. The Crimea is bite-sized right now, the rest of the East is still too big. That can change in either direction based on the response from Ukraine and Europe/the US; making Crimea too prickly to swallow or folding completely and allowing the Russians to walk uncontested into majority Russian areas of east Ukraine.

Putin doesn't want a war, but he'll absorb as many Russians outside Russia's current borders as he can without a big fight. That's Putin's strategic objective and it would do well to remember it in order to interpret his actions. He (and most Russians) doesn’t want to be like "us" and it's pretty chauvinistic to presume that they should. Seeing what blowhard self-referential pretentious busybodies “we” are these days I can't say I blame them.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

[I found this as a draft after I said I was ending the blog but I hate leaving things unfinished, so THIS is the last post for AotF]

The "social media" which is supposed to connect us is also a catalyst for distilling previously hidden differences which will push us apart.  I know people who insist on spewing their pet causes and political ideals all over the news feed, and I have "unfriended" several over things they insist on inflicting on everyone they know. 

Once upon a time there were rules for polite company, and not discussing politics or religion played a large part in them.  Now everybody knows what (almost) everybody thinks about pretty-much EVERYTHING, all the time, and familiarity does indeed breed contempt.  "Social Media" encourages a great deal of what I consider to be anti-social behaviour, specifically ad hominem attacks.  I will go after peoples' IDEAS, but not them personally; if I feel that negatively about the person I won't waste my time or effort on them.

Of course what happens when people know who you are pales in comparison to what happens when people can be anonymous.  Yes, I know that sounds hypocritical on my anonymous blog, but I have work-related reasons to keep things the way they are. More importantly, I never say anything here that I would not say in person to whoever I'm talking about, violent idiots excepted; I'd rather deal with them through a rifle scope or the business end of a cosh.

My point?  I couldn't deal with 600 real friends, I see no point in aspiring to have that many cyber acquaintances.  How many of your Facebook "friends" would help you move?  Show up to a BBQ? It's now like people have anywhere up to thousands of pen-pals, except that you are sharing your life in 140 characters or so at a time.  What do we really know about the personalities of these people?  Knowing their taste in cat videos is not the same as knowing their hopes and dreams or having those "you-had-to-be-there" in-joke memories from the stupid things you've done together.

Facebook is a tool, and like all tools it can be misused and hurt people.  The anti-bullying efforts that are being made today are being stymied if not outright thwarted by the fact that if people are hassling you, it doesn't end at school.  Even if you try to avoid them online, once those parasites have their sights on you they will spread horrible shit about you via whatever social media is trendy at the time.  My personal solution for bullying is to meet it with superior force or at the very least surprise and violence to make them think twice about messing with you, but the sort of kids who get bullied are picked on because they are incapable of standing up for or organizing amoungst themselves.

The title refers to a Kipling poem about cutting through bullshit and identifying basic truths:

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race, I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

One look around the world indicates that our part of it at the very least is trying entirely too hard to ignore objective reality in favour of what we'd LIKE to see. This blog started modelled on "Arithmetic on the Frontier" (hence the name, go figure) but as it has moved along over the years I think the message is more in line with the above.  New and shiny is not necessarily better, and that applies to ideas as well as gadgets.  Certainly things have improved immeasurably since the Bad Old Days, but hard times taught some hard lessons which we would do well to remember lest we need to constantly re-learn them the hard way.

Not the End of the World, just the end of this.

It's been over a month since I've had any real drive to write anything here so I think this'll be it.  I just don't feel that I have anything new to add, in effect I have run through all of my opinions on anything I'd write about; I really wanted to stimulate some discussion here but that has not really worked either.  I'm not sure exactly what happened but I find it much harder to get worked up about this stuff, and the intemperate rant was the lifeblood of this blog. 

The problem is of course me and not whoever is/is not reading my stuff, but the good news is that the demise of AotF won't disappoint too many people.  The blog has survived a lot of upheavals in my life including a combat tour to Afghanistan, but it's tired so it's time to retire it.  Maybe when I retire as well I'll find a new life for this, but that's a few years off yet so don't hold your breath. 

There are some real diamonds in all of this rough, so I remain pleased with the six years that AotF has skulked in its' obscure corner of the interweb.  At the end of the day, if I have managed to make even one person actually THINK about something as opposed to just parroting what the schools and media indoctrinate them with, I will count it a sucess. 

That (Big) Bird has Flown

I have been quite remiss in keeping this up-to-date, but you get what you pay for as always and I'm back, so let the rejoicing begin. With that out of the way, I have not managed to whip up a sense of righteous indignation/outrage about anything of late but I do have some observations on recent events and these follow, maybe (no promises) even in some coherent fashion.

At this point it has been universally recognized that Mitt Romney clobbered "The One" in the first candidates debate last week, and I really wish I didn't understand why so many people were surprised by this.  Take a look at Romney's accomplishments vs Obama's and you'll see the difference between someone who gets (real) stuff done and someone who talks a good game.  At least, until the latter doesn't when faced with someone as smart as him (surprise!) who has an actual plan, or at least direction.

Some online poll says that I agree with Romney's positions about 85% versus something like 12% for Obama so full disclosure on which way I'm leaning on the faint chance that it wasn't blindingly obvious.  Also irrelevant since I don't live there and won't be voting for anyone, but I will say it here (and I'm not alone) that America needs to dump Obama's crew if they are to have any chance to get back on their feet.  There is no magic bullet that will do it, but the axe has to swing around the bureaucracy quite a bit, and PBS is but the leading edge of it.

If domestic issues bore you (though they shouldn't, since you live "there") we have vast room for foreign policy improvement from the last 10 years.  I use 10 years to encompass not getting out of Afghanistan in 2002 and the invasion and occupation of Iraq (for no material or geopolitical gain) from 2003, not to mention the mess Obama made to compound all of that.  Following the "triage" approach I advocated in the last blog entry one needs to know one's enemies, and no amount of ignoring people who want you dead will change how they feel; just ask Lara Logan, she should know.

Apparently the current US administration's assertions that the assault on the Benghazi consulate was "spontaneous" never convinced many people (and none who paid any attention).  This, especially including the murder of the US Ambassador and other US nationals on what is under international law US soil, is grounds for some major payback; indeed wars have been started for less in a less pussy-footing age.  What has Obama done?  Sent the FBI who spent less than a day investigating, and no time at all running the terrorist fucks to ground and killing them with smart bombs and Spec Ops guys.

I have always asserted that there is no point having a big stick unless people believe that you will use it.  The way to make them believe is use said stick to kill people who mess with you.  This will make your enemies think twice and your friends multiply when they see that you both can and WILL protect them.  Instead, the Obama legacy to America's already dismal foreign policy is to lose what influence they had, even a year ago, in the Middle East.  Just ask Hosni Mubarak; oh wait...

Since everyone (whose opinion matters) likes a plan versus mere complaints, here's what I think the US has to do to get back on its feet:

1. Cut all aid to countries which are not actively helpful to US/Western interests;
2. Pull all major ground forces out of everywhere in Asia and the Middle East;
3. Leave a "trip wire" in startegic areas; intel-gathering locations with robust defence and enough offensive punch to punish anyone who whacks the hive. Back this up with Carrier Task Forces, weighted toward the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
4. More work for these Carrier groups, keep Chinese territorial aggrandizement in check, particularly in relation to the legitimate territorial claims of China's neighbors.  The second-biggest (but the biggest practical one) stick in the arsenal had better be good for something other than hoovering up taxpayer dollars.
5. At home, chop, de-fund and repeal as necessary to trim the bureaucracy and cut red tape which holds  back economic progress and energy security.

Practically I see the establishments on either side of the US political landscape keeping any useful changes from being made, the proliferation of special-interest and NIMBY groups having made any decisions on the simplest of projects virtually impossible.  I see Romney as a better choice than four more years of Obama (and it increasingly looks like O sees it that way too!) but I'm not so naive as to think there's a magic bullet.  Well, "enlightened despot" has the best chance, but that's the rarest of beasts, and not on the menu in the States anytime soon. 

BFFs no more, Pakistan

First I have to laugh at the ironic black humour of this:

One of the participants of the rally, Abdullah Ismail, passed away after he was taken to Mayo Hospital. Witnesses said he had complained of feeling unwell from the smoke from US flags burnt at the rally.

That's out of sequence in the linked article with the below, but ya gotta lead with something like that. The "meat" follows:

Hafiz Saeed alleged that the film, Innocence of Muslims, had been produced with the backing of US establishment. He said the director, the producer and all those involved in the production and release of the movie must be hanged publicly. “The US must make a law against blasphemy – or we will not let the US consulates in Pakistan function,” he said.

As dismal as we are at responding to the threat of Islam, I don't see that happening any time soon. Also, as things are at the moment (protests and embassy assaults all over the "Muslim" world) I think this is an easy "either/or" choice.

He said a resolution condemning the movie in the parliament was not enough. Instead, President Asif Ali Zardari must announce jihad against countries like the US that supported attacks on Islam. The Organisation of Islamic Countries Conference should announce a boycott of US goods. Ijazul Haq, the PML-Z chief, said the people had shown their loyalty to Islam. He said the government leader’s silence was shameful. He said no one had dared commit blasphemy during his father Ziaul Haq’s rule.

There we are (emphasis mine), the "j" word which useful idiots in the West refuse to understand. My response to that: "Fucking bring it, assholes." I encourage everyone in Pakistan who isn't an idiot to get the hell out if you can before these guys get their way, because I don't see things improving even if all of us infidels pack up and let the region fall (completely) apart.

It's late, but nonetheless still diplomatic triage/cost-benefit time. Afghanistan: FUBAR, leave now. Pakistan: circling the drain, leave soonest. Egypt: c. 70M people who don't like us, tread carefully with essential staff only. Libya: either "you broke it you bought it" or (my advice) write it off after busting the heads of the people who killed the US Ambassador. Tunisia: we can and should help them smack down the Salafists as there are enough people there who don't want them.

For that small sample we're 1 for 5 and I could keep going but things don't get a lot brighter with the trouble spots of Asia and the Mid East. The upshot is that "we" have limited resources and should spend them defending our actual interests and friends (e.g. Israel, Tunisia) and let the rest of them do whatever they want within their own borders, much as is happening in Syria right now.

Some people wring their hands (when they are actually paying attention) and think we should intervene there a la Libya. I say: take a look at how well that's worked out (and Iraq, and Afghanistan) and tell me again that we should take sides in this thing. Turkey, Iran and Saudi are all players in that region, I say leave them to it. Hell, those three are players in Iraq too so leave them to it. Afghanistan has China, Iran, India, Pakistan and Russia to tug at it, so why are we dragging things out.

When I was in Afghanistan five years ago these "Green on Blue" killings were essentially unheard of, now there's at least one a month. When it's at the point when you suspend training with the host nation because you're afraid they'll kill your trainers you're long past doing any good.

Back to Pakistan, where I began this. While there are elements of Pakistani society which are not inimical to our own, if we have to choose between them and, say, their great rival India, we can and should work with the latter. India is a bulwark against both radical Islam and China growing unchecked, both of which are in our interests.

Undoubtedly the Chinese would see this differently, but China shares the first problem, so all of us getting along is a plan if we can swing it. I encourage you to read "The Clash of Civilizations" by Samuel Huntington if you haven't already for a bit more in-depth realpolitik than you will get in a few posts here. There is both the original article from 1993 and the book, both worth your time.

Speaking of threats to Consular staff...

Some disaffected Copt in the US has made some anti-Islam video (I can totally see where this came from) and people are dying again:

The US ambassador to Libya is among four Americans killed in an attack on the US consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, President Barack Obama has confirmed.
Unidentified armed men stormed the grounds on Tuesday night in a protest over a US-produced film that is said to insult the Prophet Muhammad.

I can't say this is a big surprise; the "democracy" we've enabled in Libya is an armed free-for-all. You will note the lack of embassy attacks while Qaddafi was running the place. I'm so glad we helped bring things to this point; I guess we can hope that it gets better, but things are looking pretty Mad Max for the near future.

Egypt has done a similarly ineffective job of defending the US embassy, thankfully without lethal result, and the Muslim Brotherhood (in its' English Twitter feed at least) has condemned the attack. The problem as always is with hard-case Muslims, of which there is a nigh-inexhaustible supply in places like Egypt. The offending video was put on the Internet (what isn't?) and it's not like it was beamed from space onto the sides of the Pyramids and to the mobile phone and TV of every Muslim in the world. Even if it was, that is merely a nuisance not exactly "eye for an eye" stuff.

Canada cut ties to Iran for a bunch of reasons, but one of them was a belief (based on the storming of the UK embassy late last year) that Iran was not serious about protecting consular territory and staff. It looks like we can put a few other places in that category, although to be fair these things sometimes catch host governments by surprise. I won't give Iran the benefit of that doubt, as they have a bit of a track record of storming embassies...

Particularly disgusting in this case is the declaration of the US Embassy in Cairo apologizing for "the abuse of freedom of speech". The inside dhimmi threat of "our" people kowtowing to "radical" (read: observant) Muslims is FAR more dangerous than any number of rioting protesters in foreign lands, even armed ones. The loss of an embassy and/or staff is a tactical loss, but at least serves as a litmus test of who our friends really are. When Western governments start apologizing for violence against THEM, that is a disaster.

Fortunately in this case Hillary has come out strongly against the Cairo Embassy "statement" so things at least aren't any worse in the big picture than they were before the attacks. It is interesting to speculate on whether there would have been such a strong repudiation had the White House not been in the middle of an (actual) election campaign. As I write this I expect (as do many others) that the latest paroxysm of Islamic rage over something stupid is not yet spent.

A stick in the spokes of the "Axis of Evil"

A couple of days ago, the Government of Canada cut diplomatic relations with the Islamic republic of Iran, closing our embassy and booting out theirs. I say: about bloody time.

There are the usual (Prime Minister of Canada) Harper-haters who seem to love every repressive Islamic regime the world over and have been chiming in on this, but the truth is that Iran's current government is NOT a friend we want. Working off the "company you keep" model of character, let's see who Iran's friends are; this should convince most people that we are right to keep our distance.

1. Syria, specifically the Assad regime. Do I really need to go into detail here?
2. Hezbollah. Regardless of the general anti-Israel bent of much of the media and the Left, Hezbollah is not the sort of neighbour anyone wants, at least not if they want to do things their own way. Of course the usual suspects don't care as long as it's just "Zionists" who are being killed...
3. China. China is all about business and expanding their influence, and as close to amoral about who they deal with as you care to get. China is also blocking the UN Security Council on votes to do something about the mess in Syria.
4. Venezuela: Chavez and his cronies are big fans and have gotten a lot of arms and training from the Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah affiliates.

This gives you the idea. I was going to include Russia on that list, but they have been distancing themselves from Iran for a while now. I have said it before and I say it again now: the Iranian PEOPLE are not our enemy, just the current regime (which many Iranians have been tortured, raped and killed for opposing). If anything this move by my government is long overdue. When they get a decent government back in we'll reestablish regular relations; until then there is no point in even talking to them.

And if Israel/whoever else attacks Iran? I don't think going after their nuke program is worthwhile, but bombing the #%&k out of the IRGC would be a step to the good for everyone. Well, everyone we might want to help, anyway.