Werewolves Of London

Update: Police reporting second vehicle - the bus - appears linked to the first.

Memeorandum has two links going on the London terror incident.

MSM stories and blog links here. Fox reporting Hyde Park is also being evacuated.

London - A car containing an large explosive device has been defused in the Haymarket, London. The silver Mercedes, parked near a nightclub, contained petrol, gas cylinders and nails and Police described it as a “potentially viable explosive device”.

Comments

[Fred Beloit]

Say, winkie, isn't this just some childish prank we shouldn't pay any attention to?

[nowingker]

We need to ban nails now!

We need to ban consumer access to gasoline now!

We need to ban consumer access to Mercedes now!

That will keep us safe, right, little wingers? Isn't that your prescription for every potential terrorist attack, don't worry about the intelligence end of things, but ban the tools they used, that will teach them! Isn't that why millions take their shows off at the airport and we can't take shampoo on the plane or bring our own sealed water past security?

Never seen a worse case of stupidity and missing the forest for the trees.

[Fred Beloit]

Thanks, winkalamma, for confirming my anticipation of your view of the London Matter. BTW, where is my apology?

[IslamoLlama]

I'm just glad that the NSA secret wiretaps and CIA secret prisons were able to nip this disaster in the bud.

[rwilymz]

"Isn't that your prescription for every potential terrorist attack, don't worry about the intelligence end of things"

You're partially right. The simplistic, superficial response is to ban the tools. [By the way, I put on shows at airports when taking off my shoes -- and putting them back on. It's a thing I have with warrantless searches].

But it transcends party. The groundwork for superficial airport security was laid in the liberal 60s and 70s during the "Fly me to Cuba" heyday, and it annoyed FBI counter-terrorists to distraction. In short, if We The People are satisfied with the image of "doing something" then enough is being done. As a result, the image is about all we have.

And that is no more apparent than in the inane "take off your shoes" and "place all your 3OZ or smaller liquids in a clear plastic bag" shinola.

Couple that with the standard law-enforcement mechanism of reducing the "usual suspect" group by likelihood being considered rude and prejudicial and thus prohibitable -- otherwise known as "profiling" -- we've created a scenario in which, literally, everyone is considered just as likely to be a terrorist as every other person when there is no rational support for that philosophy. The cops are overworked checking everyone.

Somehow lost in all this is that the trained apes of TSA haven't uncovered a single solitary instance of an attempted terrorism in the millions upon millions of individuals checked with their ever-expanding list of checks to make. Not one.

It was passengers who disarmed -- dis-footed? -- the Reid guy, who was likely to only inflict gym-shoe stink on the rest of the passengers. In order to carry enough explosive in shoes to do more than smell bad it'd have to have been either significantly larger [think 70s platform shoes] or so volatile that he'd never have risked walking in them.

It was British and US intel -- and mostly British -- who found the guys who wanted to play junior chemists in coach. If they'd failed, there's little doubt that the passengers would have allowed it.

It was FBI who stopped two novice plots in the US -- one in LAX and one at JFK.

Trained apes? oh-fer. Oh-fer a couple hundred million. That's how many airline passengers they've harrassed and annoyed.

[nowingker]

I'm kind of surprised to hear that is your view, I would have expected you to say 'better safe than sorry' and that we needed to employ every method including humiliating 80 year old white men wearing metal belt buckles in order to be 'safe' from terrorism, also surprised you don't fully embrace warrentless searches as a needed tool to thwart the terrorists.

The issue of racial profiling is tricky there is a grey line somewhere where it becomes not a useful law enforcment tool but out and out discrimination. There is a big difference between looking harder at a young arab male, looking for suspicious signs or eratic behavior and searching every single person with an arab last name and treating them like terrorists.

I recently learned an interesting fact, after the state of NJ was suid about racial profiling on the highway they stopped doing it, the result has been a huge increase in illegal weapons in Newark because now that nobody is stopping blacks driving up from the South nobody is getting the guns before they get to New Jersey.

[IslamoLlama]

"Trained apes? oh-fer. Oh-fer a couple hundred million. That's how many airline passengers they've harrassed and annoyed."

There's something to be said for the appearance of defense. Malls put up fake video cameras to "catch" shoplifters. Cops park their cars on major roadways to discourage speeding. Farmers put scarecrows in the field. If we didn't have even the illusion of defense, I imagine we'd see vastly more airline-related incidents.

But other than that, you're right. Airline security - much like mall security and traffic cops - are a joke. It would be nice if we took it a bit more seriously.

[nowingker]

Llama, I don't get how worthless 'security' procedures protects anyone from anything.

Seems to me, based on past attacks that terrorists and hijackers did their homework on security issues. I would find it pretty unlikely that the next airline terror attack is going to include anyone who bought a one way ticket in cash or a stranger asking a passenger to bring something on the plane for him.

The test results that have been made public [illegally, according to Dubya] show that TSA ROUTINELY misses actual guns, knives and plastic explosives and other weapons that the undercover operatives put through the scanners. They are too busy feeling up innocent women and harassing people in wheel chairs. And all the while nobody is paying attention to the people who have access to the airport via food service and other secondary services, where in all liklihood the next attack will come from.

[rwilymz]

"I would have expected you to say 'better safe than sorry' ..."

I am a libertarian -- lower-case 'L' -- who works for DoD and understands how/why they do what they do, and helps them do it.

I even understand the impetus behind "Patriot Acts" and know that it is nothing new -- we've been whittling rights for decades. If the question is "do I like it" the answer is "no farther than I can throw it" [and I have a bum shoulder]. If the assertion is "Bush and the Republicans are assaulting our Constitution like no one else" the answer is "not even close". If the assertion is "Democrats wouldn't do these things" the answer is "maybe not these *specific* things, but they'd have others of their own that are just as onerous as these".

"If we didn't have even the illusion of defense, I imagine we'd see vastly more airline-related incidents."

Being a DoD contractor for roughly ever I've had to undergo annual "security briefings" in order for my company to maintain its contractor status. One such many, many years ago was an FBI counter terrorism guy, who gave the obligatory 20 minute wuptido and then freelanced a gripe about some new airport "security" thing. This was early/mid 80s.

He was all over himself in praise of El Al methods -- which is largely unseen by passengers -- and all over US methods, which is [was, even then] intrusive and largely ineffectual. El AL security asks people questions in non-confrontational ways and folks in back rooms with cameras having no sound watch body language of the passenger in responding to the ticket agent or security guy.

US methods are tech-heavy -- oooh! gizmos! how neat!! -- and if you apply yourself, you can fool the gizmos. The answer to tech is more tech.

[seekeronos]

I'm waiting for the ultimate in airline security (as as far as the passenger angle is concerned) -

(1) All passengers are checked in - ALL luggage gets scanned and checked.

(2) Wear something easy to disrobe from - because your clothing gets checked in as well. That's right, you're going to fly nekkid.

(3) Seating options are no longer a concern, as there are no seats - only padded shelves to place your gassed, unconcious body on.

(4) No guarantees that your knocked-out carcass won't be ...erm, treated in an unseemly manner... by the trained TSA apes, sorry. If it makes you feel any better though: they will be specially screened for being blind.

"Knock'em out and stack'em like a cord of wood".

[nowingker]

All they would have to do is forbid all carry ons other than medicine. Simple, elegant totally effective. No carry ons and they can then walk you through the metal detector and the puff gizmo to make sure you don't have any plastic explosives on you. Not invasive, no need for pat downs or new technology that lets the TSA see your naked body [sickening].

If we really wanted to prevent passengers from getting weapons on airplanes this is what we would do. Instead, we have the worst result, massive intrusion to the point of legalized assault that nets us zero in terms of security.

[IslamoLlama]

"(1) All passengers are checked in - ALL luggage gets scanned and checked.

(2) Wear something easy to disrobe from - because your clothing gets checked in as well. That's right, you're going to fly nekkid.

(3) Seating options are no longer a concern, as there are no seats - only padded shelves to place your gassed, unconcious body on.

(4) No guarantees that your knocked-out carcass won't be ...erm, treated in an unseemly manner... by the trained TSA apes, sorry. If it makes you feel any better though: they will be specially screened for being blind.

"Knock'em out and stack'em like a cord of wood"."

Hahaha! Seek, I am intrigued by your airline and wish to receive your newsletter.

[Buzzy]

Of course we're all ignoring exactly who is at war with us here, so of course searching white (or black for that matter) little old ladies makes perfect sense. Oh well, the Islamists will just keep on attacking till someone finally figures it out and gets it right.

[nowingker]

Its so funny that the wingers are absolutely terrified of the "IslamOfacists" absolutely convinced that we're invovled in WWIII and a death struggle, yet, somehow also think the terrorists are utterly stupid and incapable of doing anything remotely sneaky or intelligent. When drug dealers realized that black guys and white hippies coming back from the Carribbean were getting stopped, they started putting drugs in baby strollers and using well dressed mules, but eh gads, no, those crazy muslims are too stupid to figure out a way around racial profiling, and goodness knows there is no non muslim out there in the whole wide world who would help out a terrorist for a price, nope, all we have to do is stop and frisk anyone who looks like an arab or muslim and doncha know our troubles will be over, we'll be flying the friendly skies again in no time. Righto. Hey, speaking of profiling and stop and frisk, how's that war on drugs going? did we win that yet? no? after 35 years? I wonder.....wrong tactics? simplistic strategeis? Nope, nothing to learn there, move along.

[Phoenix]

"El AL security asks people questions in non-confrontational ways and folks in back rooms with cameras having no sound watch body language of the passenger in responding to the ticket agent or security guy."

I've heard about this. Pretty amazing. But that's not all, is it, Rwilmyz? Seems to me I read about a lot of things/ways the Israelis had come up with to make flying safer. One thing..... they have missiles or missile detectors on each plane.

Seek - ha ha. What a mind you have. Only blind people can be flight attendants. haha....

[rwilymz]

"Its so funny that the wingers are absolutely terrified of the "IslamOfacists" absolutely convinced that we're invovled in WWIII and a death struggle"

For all practical purposes we are.

Same sort of "death by a thousand cuts" mechanism as certain ...um ... "loyal oppositionists" use when describing the death struggle of the Constitution [or freedom, or empowerment of the impoverished/minorities/women/et al] as it's being slowly pared by the inexorible and omnipotent hands of NeoCons.

Use that as the model.

"terrorists are utterly stupid and incapable of doing anything remotely sneaky or intelligent"

Oh, hardly. These panislamists are neither stupid nor uncunning, but they *are* rather linear. Which makes them fairly, even if not entirely, predictable. The example I keep using is that if the panislamists were led by someone who'd had classical military training, he'd have written off Iraq as a lost front, and devoted the limited resources elsewhere -- like Kansas City. But nope; they keep piling in.

"eh gads, no, those crazy muslims are too stupid to figure out a way around racial profiling"

I forgot to mention that the answer to tech is not only more tech, but also tech-avoidance.

Unless they can get a Visa under the name of "Dave Smith" from Columbus OH, and bleach their hair to suit, ...

"goodness knows there is no non muslim out there in the whole wide world who would help out a terrorist for a price"

Shades of "24". Yes, there are. But the purpose of profiling is to devote resources where the probabilities are. You know that. How many white guys travel by air each year in/into the US? Hundreds of millions. Middle easterners? Hundreds of thousands. How many of each attempted or succeeded in attacking the airplane for "terrorist" purposes? One white guy [Reid]; 19 middle eastern guys.

Do the math.

In each case it's miniscule; in one case it's so miniscule that to devote more than nominal resources to uncovering the 0.00000000000001 chance is, frankly, money wasted.

"all we have to do is stop and frisk anyone who looks like an arab or muslim and doncha know our troubles will be over"

All? Nothing can get anyone to "all".

"But that's not all, is it, Rwilmyz?"

Probably not. But the guy was just harping and that was what came out. Figured he was having a bad day, and talking to a bunch of DoD contractors just put the icing on his shit-cake.

[nowingker]

Don't get me wrong, frisking caucasion grandmothers and white guys in armani suits is worthless, but so is searching EVERY arab male and thinking that is going to "keep us safe"..why is it sooo difficult to only search people who appear suspicious either that or change the rules so that everyone and their bags are treated equally. Seems just about as unlikely that a pregnant muslim woman would be planning to blow up a plane than grandpa from Texas, based on statistical probabilities and past behavior. While profiling is more intelligent than 'randomly' searching people when you know that 99% of them are innocent travelers...it leaves a lot to be desired in the efficiency and intelligence departments.

[Fred Beloit]

Yes, profile now and no BS about it. This would just have to be an inconvenience our Arabic citizens and visitors would have to tolerate, you know, like the lack of foot baths in the halls of Congress and the DC Mall museums.

[Fred Beloit]

Well, what do you know, some kids played a childish prank in a Scotland airport and the UK police got all excited over nothing. Why can't they take it easy on a few guys trying to have a bit of fun?

[nowingker]

Fred, lay off the stupid pills.

[Fred Beloit]

Very, very lame response. Is this juvenile and unoriginal answer the best you can do, poo poo head?

[nowingker]

I believe a lame and juvenile answer is the correct response to a lame and juvenile post and poster, which is exactly what and who you are Fred ole boy and exactly the kind of response your idiotic posts about the UK bombs being 'childish pranks' deserves.

You are a winger through and through, never met a stupid, idiotic straw man argument you didn't embrace.

[Fred Beloit]

My, I'm so ashamed, poo poo head. Also feel bad about how your friends, the Muzzies, keep embarrassing you by their crazy antics and undermining your views of the peaceful world community and the evil US.

[nowingker]

Oh Fred, I know you are not ashamed, you are too stupid, parochial and racist to be ashamed of any of your idiotic counter productive war mongering.

But you and your opinions don't matter, even in the full length of history, when in 10/20/30 years if you live that long everything I have said is proven to be true about the Iraq folly, failed strategies in the war on terror, it won't matter, you are too dumb to ever see it or admit it.

You and the rest of the wingers will go to your grave believing that all we needed was more war, more violence and more killing to 'win' agaisnt the terrorists.

[Fred Beloit]

"...when in 10/20/30 years if you live that long everything I have said is proven to be true about the Iraq folly..." Oh, poopsi, a wet dream at your age? Well good luck with it. I think I've narrowed down your, as per usual, wordy comment to save some keystrokes: "Fred is dumb and stupid", (pardon her redundancy). Did I get it in fewer words or didn't I?

[Fred Beloit]

"You and the rest of the wingers will go to your grave believing that all we needed was more war, more violence and more killing to 'win' against the terrorists." All we need is love, eh? By the way have you ever considered that war is the only way to protect ourselves from such people? Look at Israel. Would you like it if you had to live like an Israeli when any second you could be killed or mutilated by a religious cult fanatic?

[nowingker]

Since there were no Iraqis involved in 9/11 and Iraq was not ever a threat to the US nor had any relationship with Al Quaeda, it would be DUMB AND STUPID to consider that the Iraq war was in any way, shape or form a way to 'protect ourselves' from terrorists.

The Palestinians are not religious cult fanatics, again you show your absolute ignorance at what motivates them to attack Israelis.

[Fred Beloit]

Then it should make you happy that we are killing the women-oppressing, culture-destroying, human-rights-denying, and terrorist sheltering Taliban in Afghanistan. Are you happy about it?

[nowingker]

Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld turned special operations forces into a "giant killing machine," said Douglas Macgregor, a former Army colonel and frequent critic of the Defense Department.

Now, with Rumsfeld gone and Navy Vice Adm. Eric Olson about to take control of U.S. Special Operations Command, Macgregor anticipates a return to the fundamentals drilled into Army Green Berets, Navy SEALs and other specially trained troops.

"The emphasis will be on, 'If you have to kill someone, then for God's sakes, kill the right people,'" Macgregor said. "In most cases, you're not going to have to kill people and that's the great virtue of special operations. That's been lost over the last several years."

'Demanding and sensitive'
Olson has been deputy commander since August 2003; Army Gen. Bryan Brown, the command's top officer for the past four years, retires from the military next month.

At defense industry conferences and in congressional testimony, Olson has said the manhunts that grab bad guys as well as headlines will continue to be necessary against terrorists.

"The nation expects to have forces that can emerge from darkness with precision and daring to conduct missions that are especially demanding and sensitive," Olson told the Senate Armed Services Committee at his confirmation hearing June 12.

But these assignments, known as direct action, are means to a broader end.

"We understand well that it is the indirect actions that will be decisive," he testified.

Through the indirect route, support can be overt or covert. But it always is aimed at eliminating safe havens for terrorists. This is done by training foreign militaries, supporting surrogate forces or providing humanitarian, financial and civic backing to areas viewed as possible breeding grounds for terrorists.

It is not uncommon for a battle-ready Army special forces team to rumble into a remote village and spend most of its time painting mosques, drilling wells and running medical clinics.

"It's basically anything that doesn't involve combat operations against terrorists," said Andrew Feickert, a national defense specialist at the Congressional Research Service in Washington. "As Admiral Olson has said, we're not going to kill our way to victory."

Criticism of 'sexier SWAT-style raids'
At a House Armed Services Committee hearing in June 2006, Max Boot, a national security expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, said critical indirect tasks had been "shortchanged by SOCOM in favor of sexier SWAT-style raids."

Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on terrorism and unconventional threats, said the blame rests with the Bush administration. By choosing to invade Iraq, the administration gave special operations forces a heavy combat role.

"The main thing holding them back at this point is Iraq, which is pretty much all direct action," said Smith. "The desire has been there, and I think General Brown was trying to move it that way as best he could."

Brown, through a spokesman, said the command "has always emphasized the indirect approach because that is the approach that will ultimately prove decisive."

-------------------------

See if you can absorb this Fred, it is coming from our OWN MILITARY. KILLING people indiscriminately does not help our cause, as I have told you from the beginning.

Unless we are going to invade every country that oppresses women, violates human rights and destroys local culture, then you don't have much of an argument. We fucked up Afganistan by invading Iraq, we failed to put sufficient resources into nation building in Afganistan, so the Taliban is still there, coming back time and time again. Another failure of the Bush Administration.

[nowingker]

Shake-up in Special Ops
Fridovich will run the Center for Special Operations, a 4-year-old organization located at MacDill that plans and oversees anti-terrorism campaigns. He will replace Lt. Gen. Dell Dailey, who has retired and been nominated by Bush to be the State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism.

Fridovich has spent the past six years in the Pacific region helping guide what the military considers a successful effort against Abu Sayyaf, an al-Qaida outgrowth in the Philippines.

In a recent edition of the military journal Joint Force Quarterly, Fridovich wrote that the U.S. "cannot simply enter sovereign countries unilaterally and conduct kill-or-capture missions. It must blend host nation capacity building and other long-term efforts to address root causes, dissuade future terrorists, and reduce recruiting."

This indirect approach, Fridovich added, "demands diplomacy and respect for political sensitivities."

‘Winning hearts and minds’
Money helps, too.

Earlier this month, the U.S. paid $10 million to four Filipinos who provided information that led to the killing of two top Abu Sayyaf leaders.

Wurster, a combat pilot with more than 4,000 flying hours, will run Air Force Special Operations Command at Hurlburt Field, Fla. The current commander, Lt. Gen. Michael Wooley, is retiring.

Along with Fridovich, Wurster has substantial experience in the Philippines. From 2000 to 2003 he was the senior special operations officer at U.S. Pacific Command.

In a telephone interview, Wurster called the rewards a "pretty effective tool" that send an important signal. When people in a community are willing to turn in the enemy for cash, it means they are confident the white hats outnumber the black ones.

"That is when your campaign is properly structured and producing the desired effects," he said.

Rep. Smith, an enthusiastic backer of Brown and Olson, said it will be a major challenge to translate success in the Pacific to the volatile Middle East.

"Winning hearts and minds is one thing when you're coming into a relatively stable place where there's a minor insurgent problem," he said. "It's very hard to do those things in the environment that exists in Iraq."

--------------------

Pay special note to the future head of Special Ops saying that we can't uniliaterally enter sovereign nations to conduct kill or capture missions.

Funny, that's what we 'liberals' have been saying all along, how WEIRD that the post Rumsfeld, post-neo con military is saying the exact same thing.

Do you think the commies have again infiltrated the upper echelons of the military, like they did during the Eisenhower Administration, oh, oops, that was a lie, wasn't it....

Hmmm, what to think. Can't be that the 'war on terror' has been fought using the wrong strategies for the last six years can it? Nah, couldn't be.

[Fred Beloit]

"...said Douglas Macgregor, a former Army colonel and frequent critic of the Defense Department." Not too difficult to see why he didn't make General. But why show me this? This is what we call anecdotal evidence, evidence used by those who want to pull wool over their opponent's eyes. You wouldn't be trying that with me would you, poopser? But I'm not going over recent history, which you distort deliberately, again with you. Suffice it to say that Iraq gives us ample opportunity to close with the enemy and we should not abandon Iraqis to the enemy's kind mercies. Adieu, we'll miscommunicate again I'm sure.

[Fred Beloit]

One more thing, please. Could you explain for me the difference between special operations and Special Forces?

[nowingker]

Anecdotal evidence? You are a moron.

This is public information about a shift in how the military is handling special operations you idiot.

Just like a winger, anyone in the military, current, former, retired whatever that criticizes the failed policies of Rummy and Bush and it becomes 'anecdotal' or they are 'disgruntled' or you ask a stupid, pointless question.

Fred, as I said, you are too stupid, this article is obviously lost on you because it (a) involves a strategy beyond 'kill everyone in sight to make them pay' and (b) is exactly what the critics of Bush have been saying for 6 years.

What "enemy" are we abandoning Iraq to? It is the SUNNI IRAQIS who are running the insurgency and have been since day one. They ARE THE IRAQIS, they just don't happen to like the US forces in their country or want to live under the Shia. and that is their business not ours. Al Quaeda is a bit player in Iraq and was NEVER THERE AT ALL UNTIL WE TOOK OVER.

OMG, you wingers are unbelievable, you don't even believe the things the military tells you because they contradict what the moron in the WH has been saying all along.

Pointless. The sky is yellow, Al Quaeda is running Iraq and always was, Saddam Hussein had WMD that he moved out of the country and there are hundreds of terrorist cells in the US, Bush is a great president.

[nowingker]

I will try one more time, Fred.

Maybe the article was too long for your little mind to process
-----------
Now, with Rumsfeld gone and Navy Vice Adm. Eric Olson about to take control of U.S. Special Operations Command, Macgregor anticipates a return to the fundamentals drilled into Army Green Berets, Navy SEALs and other specially trained troops.

This is the guy who is taking over, not a former or retired officer. Get it? He's returning Special Ops to 'fundamentals'

-----------------------------------

Fridovich will run the Center for Special Operations, a 4-year-old organization located at MacDill that plans and oversees anti-terrorism campaigns. Fridovich has spent the past six years in the Pacific region helping guide what the military considers a successful effort against Abu Sayyaf, an al-Qaida outgrowth in the Philippines.

In a recent edition of the military journal Joint Force Quarterly, Fridovich wrote that the U.S. "cannot simply enter sovereign countries unilaterally and conduct kill-or-capture missions. It must blend host nation capacity building and other long-term efforts to address root causes, dissuade future terrorists, and reduce recruiting."

This guy is going to take over, he's still in the military, not disgrunted or retired. Get it?

-------------------------------------------------------

Wurster, a combat pilot with more than 4,000 flying hours, will run Air Force Special Operations Command at Hurlburt Field, Fla. In a telephone interview, Wurster called the rewards a "pretty effective tool" that send an important signal. When people in a community are willing to turn in the enemy for cash, it means they are confident the white hats outnumber the black ones.

This guy, is going to take over, he's still in the military, not retired or disgrunted. Get it?

--------------------------------------------

But, clearly, three men who are taking over key positions in special ops, with their predecesors all retiring, who ALL are talking about a major strategic shift, is just "anecdotal"

They don't come any denser than you you wingers.

[rwilymz]

"you explain for me the difference between special operations and Special Forces?"

Special Operations is a unified command [US Special Operations Command [USSOC], headquartered at MacDull -- sorry, old habit -- MacDill AFB in Tampa. I used to work in their building when Joint Deployment Agency was attached to them]. Special Forces are the elite units of each branch which get the bulk of the hard shit assignments.

Special Forces may or may not be assigned to work USSOC operations -- but probably will just by the nature of them. Special Forces are, though, tabbed to work in the operations of every other Unified Command's operations. Most notably CentCom's in A'stan and Iraq.

"Fridovich will run the Center for Special Operations, a 4-year-old organization located at MacDill ..."

It's older than that. It grew out of Carter's "Readiness Command" -- RedCom -- in 1988.

"three men who are taking over key positions in special ops, with their predecesors all retiring, who ALL are talking about a major strategic shift, is just "anecdotal""

Talk is one thing. If they can -- or will -- implement is another. Hopefully they do. Military thinking tends to be stodgy. They're one of the best textbook examples of "if the only tool you have is a hammer...". There are periodic shifts in military thinking and it's nothing to declare "Ta DAAAAA" about.

Instead it's something to say "alright, let's see if this works better". Often it does. Just as often it does not.

We'll see.

[nowingker]

Rwilymz,

I have an honest question for you, if you are who you say you are and do work at DOD maybe you can give an honest answer, and not play the rhetorical, technical games you are so fond of.

I've been perplexed as to how the military ever agreed to such a low number of troops in Iraq, when what I've read the first round of troop estimates were 300,000-500,000 to occupy and pacify Iraq. What happened?

Did we train the military too well in submitting to civilian authority, even to to the point of leading the troops into the proverbial 'box canyon'? I can understand the military going into Iraq even if/though as it has been said many senior commanders thought it was foolish and a waste of time, but I CANNOT understand how they allowed the plan to be so poor and with so few troops. I think our military tends to overrely on tech toys and under rely on intelligence, but they're not stupid, they had to have known this was going to be a disaster.

Did they figure once it was clear that 125,000 troops weren't enough, more would be forthcoming and didn't count on Rummy being stupid and so stubborn he wouldn't admit his mistake?

Did they really believe Iraq could be pacified by 125,000 troops? I find this REALLY hard to believe, as hard to believe as that anyone in the military really expected no insurgency or opposition from the population.

Why didn't more generals speak up? Did they and nobody outside DOD knows it, except for those who retired and went public?

I just do not believe that the sum total of the United States Military brainstrust ever thought that 125,000 troops was sufficient to occupy Iraq.

[rwilymz]

"What happened?"

We don't have them, pure and simple. Oh sure, you can go down through the rolls of each branch -- particularly the Army and Marines -- and count heads. There's more than that, by quite a bit.

But a supply clerk is not the same as infantry. The MOSs necessary to fill out an invasion/occupation, while easily trained, are not that numerous.

The US military is a tech-heavy force. Tech requires support, and roughly half to 90% of each branch is comprised of support types. It's not like the cavalry of 1870 where everyone in the outfit slings their bedroll and their winchester on their saddle and rides off to face Sitting Bull. We have a relatively low supply of combat troops.

And what we've got are largely occupied elsewhere. 10K [+-] are devoted to "peacekeeping" in the Balkans. 35K [+-] are devoted to babysitting Lil Kim and the Pompadours. 15K [+-] are in A'stan. And despite the number that you may find reported in m/l accurate reports in the press, it's a general reality that we don't deploy more than about half of our fighting force.

No matter how important it may be to secure, e.g., Iraq, it's more important to not let the country get invaded -- however slim the likelihood.

"I CANNOT understand how they allowed the plan to be so poor and with so few troops"

The plan used was simply one of several provided by the military. Bush had next-to-nothing to do with it. Nor did his cronies. They just liked it better. Significant advisors did not.

But, as with all plans, you make do with what you have. We're short on *this*, we get around that by trying *that*. Doesn't work? Try *the other*.

"Did they really believe Iraq could be pacified by 125,000 troops?"

Pacification isn't in the amount of soldiers with guns, but what you have those soldiers with guns do. We could pacify the country within a few months if we'd follow age-old military doctrine. One of our soldiers gets killed in a village, 100 villagers die. Pick them at random. Works like a charm.

But we don't do that; it's rude. And it doesn't fit our long-term model. We don't want to acquire Iraq -- or depopulate it; we want to transform it. You don't transform by reimplementing the Mongol tactics of Ghengis Khan.

The cost of a relatively benign occupation of a nonpacified population is somewhat more people shooting at us.

Where my specific criticism of the current actions comes in is that there are no military plans that every go off without a hitch. None. The mark of a successful plan is not that it works right straight out of the chute, but that the folks in charge acknowledge where it isn't working and adapt to the circumstances.

We apparently were not expecting this degree of insurrection, and from competing sources. So instead of trying to keep them apart and proceeding with our rebuilding plan, use the circumstances to our advantage: allow the competing factions to fight among themselves and step out of the way while they do it. When they're done, we can continue.

[nowingker]

If we don't have the troops, why would the first plans have called for 500,000? And if we can't deploy that many troops doesn't it mean our forces are 100,000-200,000 short of what is needed?

Your answer seems too pat, 'oh they happened to pick this plan out of many' and it happened, coincidentally to track with Rummy's idea of a light, mobile all tech/no soldier vision and it happens to track almost exactly with the number of troops that he proposed and it happened to be at odds with conventional wisdom and Colin Powell's plan for Iraq that never even included an occupation.

I don't think people expect invasions to go off without any problems, what I expect is that OBVIOUS issues like what to do with the army, securing the armories, keeping the peace, having enough native speakers, understanding the country's history and how it plays into potential reactions to a US invasion force would be considered--ad naseum--worked through every possible permutation with contingencies for the contingencies.

What I also expect is for it to take less than six years to make a strategic change, which in my estimation is too little too late and we cannot now fix the situation, if it was ever fixable in the first place.

I, personally, also expect not to be blatantly lied to by the government and the military when I can see with my own eyes that what is being said is not true, or I can turn into the BBC or any other non American media source and see that what the gov. is saying about success is a complete fucking lie, though I understand that you probably consider that part of the art of war and propaganda.

[bloodrage bob]

aaaaand, after ignoring commentary from noyyyinger for all this time, i guess in a way it's kinda comforting to see him/her still frantically spewing spittle in ever-longer wordstorms as part of his/her quest to exonerate all muslims everywhere of everything. "never mind your own eyes!!! believe what *I* tell you!!!"

sun rising in east? ...check.
death & taxes? ...check.
muslim tool noyyyinger? ....check.

[rwilymz]

"If we don't have the troops, why would the first plans have called for 500,000?"

1] I don't know that they did;
2] to the degree that the plan desired more troops to implement it, all OPLANS on the shelf are essentially the military's version of "what would I do if I won the lottery?" They largely presume nothing is going on anywhere else, and all the resources of all branches of the military at their disposal.

"Your answer seems too pat, ... and it happened, coincidentally to track with Rummy's idea of a light, mobile all tech..."

Or is it the other way around? Rumsfeld, despite what you may think of him, is no slouch. Perhaps he was simply doing his job.

Perhaps all of "Rummy's" light/mobile, tech-heavy advocacy is simply the result of looking at the topography of this nation which has:
- limited manpower possibilities with no draft and no real likelihood for a draft
- the capacity for lotsa tech to make up for it
- extremely limited capacity to deploy in force based on "potential" threat and for indefinite periods of time...

and advising the military to start thinking and planning along the lines of what we *actually* have in the arsenal rather than what the military would *like* to have.

Just maybe?

"...at odds with conventional wisdom and Colin Powell's plan for Iraq that never even included an occupation"

You're arguing in favor of "conventional military wisdom" now? Just a few posts ago you were lauding the fact that conventional military minds were being replaced wholesale by new-thinkers.

"Conventional" wisdom would have used, oh, say 40 divisions to do what [essentially] 10 did, it would have flattened everything in sight and displaced nearly everyone it came across. "Conventional" wisdom uses the military as a bulldozer of war. We would probably have had a pacified population -- living in tents and rubble and depending on us for their survival, and occupation would have probably been trivially easy.

Modern 'Merkan wisdom, however, -- even before "Rummy" gets involved -- suggests precision use of the military to eliminate key objectives and leave as much of everything else standing up.

But Powell's advice [and mine, had they asked me] isn't at odds -- from the aspect of "convention" -- from our ground invasion. Different scope; same theory.

Different likely conclusions, as well. Such as:
1] Iraq's own indigenous malcontents would be doing the bulk of the war fighting
2] the likely length of actual military hostilities would therefore be considerably longer -- and may even have been still going on
3] once it was over, we wouldn't be "occupying" because we weren't there except in support
4] but the actual war might still be going on
5] we'd probably have just as many troops devoted to Iraq and probably getting shot at just as frequently

"I don't think people expect invasions to go off without any problems"

I do. A great many who are naturally sympathetic to the military because of their otherwise political leanings understand when they *don't* work, but I'm well aware that a great many who are naturally distrustful of the military use every excuse to backbite the military every chance they get, and "a plan that doesn't work as exoected" is virtually indistinguishable from "a failed plan".

"what I expect is that OBVIOUS issues ..."

Obvious... to whom? and when?

I'd suggest they are obvious to you because you've had people tell you to gripe about them; and I'd suggest that you wouldn't have been any better at this in the summer of '02 than the folks at CentCom were.

"securing the armories, keeping the peace..."

If wishes were horses...

"having enough native speakers..."

We still don't. And we aren't likely to, either. There's no draft, remember? It doesn't help that the kind of people who [seem to be] more inately gifted in language [seem to] have a greater propensity for being gay -- and thus being excluded from the military or tossed out once entered. Another of my criticisms, actually. Shooting yourself in the foot because you've got a smudge on your boot. Self-defeating.

"understanding the country's history and how it plays into potential reactions--ad naseum--..."

hmmmm

"worked through every possible permutation with contingencies for the contingencies"

Do you want to know what happens when you work through "ad nauseum" the possible permutations and the responses to each ... in a military framework?

You create a "stock answer", a "rote response". You are at once criticising the "conventional" military mindset, and then advising that we dive headfirst into it. If you've already worked through all the future responses, then all a field commander has to do is look up in "The Book" his battlefield commands and presto ... droid army.

What if someone missed something? What if an answer isn't there? We just screwed the pooch. The field commander is frantically searching through the book for something that isn't there, his troops are getting shot, all for lack of a rote response.

The military is enough of a textbook case of "if the only tool you have is a hammer" already, and you want make it moreso?

You advise that we should know who we are dealing with and their history before we invade them [ostensibly to take advantage] but you advise that we *don't* make use of our own advantages?

Wanna know why the US invasion of A'stan is so different from the Soviet ditto just twenty years before? The Soviet military operated largely like you are advising. That's the reason the Soviet's A'stan is more of a parallel to our Vietnam than our Iraq is. They plod along, looking for answers in some big book of "Rote Responski". We are trained to think on our feet. A US sergeant has about as much battlefield autonomy as a Captain or Major in any of the more "traditional" militaries. And this belies plotting out, in advance, and "ad nauseum", the responses to tactical situations.

"I also expect ... it to take less than six years to make a strategic change,... and we cannot now fix the situation, if it was ever fixable ..."

While I may sympathise about our strategic pig-headedness getting in the way of a beneficial [to US interests] conclusion, I've got to quibble about the desire to "fix" anything. I don't know what you want "fixed". Policy, in order to get the US to benefit to as great a degree as possible from the circumstances? okay. Iraq, to make the people there happy and less likely, therefore, to shoot at us? irrelevant. US foreign policy is put here to give us benefits, not anyone else. And if you're thinking about US foreign policy from the mindset of those we trample upon in conducting it, then you are the tail that wishes to wag the dog.

"I, personally, also expect not to be blatantly lied to by the government and the military when I can see with my own eyes..."

Here, you are just going to be shit out of luck.

First of all, what you can "see with your own eyes" is largely incorrect. It's either colored by perception, or it's an optical illusion, and that's all well before the military or the government gets their mouthpieces working on it.

You are a human being with a working brain. I'm not being sarcastic; I can tell your brain is working on this enigma. You see two items, and it is the natural impulse of the human brain to connect them. This is called -- in logic -- rationalization [in any of various forms]. It's called, on the Fun Page of the Sunday paper, an optical illusion.

This impulse is what causes us to create post hoc and other circumstantial conclusions from paleolithic "thunder gods" to the modern "Rummy spake and made it so". People who are naturally inclined to be critical of the military are filling in the blanks left and right and creating fantastical houses of cards, whole cities of cards, in their minds about how it all fits together. And then they describe this city of cards as if it were authoritative. It's not. It's a rationalist's best guess. And they largely aren't very good.

"I can turn into the BBC or any other non American media source and see ..."

I work in the industry, and I know 2% of what's going on. If I had any interest in using my "access" -- which I don't -- I'd know perhaps 2.25%. You are a plebe; a plebe who's interested in the subject, but a plebe nonetheless. What you can pick up from the popular press is going to be anywhere from .5% to .75% of what's going on -- and that's discounting the possibility, more or less massive, that the media source you are obtaining your information from hasn't filtered that information already and doctored it with equivocative words in order to sell newspapers or properly "tease" a television audience to stay tuned after the word from their sponsors.

And this is, again, before the government gets their wags involved, and dispensing misdirection and equivocative words of their own, with their "partial conclusion" and "incomplete totality" and whatnot.

[nowingker]

I think you are the best rationalizer I've ever come across online:)

But, you make it sound like there was nothing that coulda/shoulda been done differently in Iraq, that the 'plan' was the best the military could have/did come up with and all the 'surprises' that we've gotten are just that 'surprises' that couldnt/shouldn't have been planned for or anticipated. I don't believe that. I've read what people at State and what the former generals have to say about the planning process, who ran what, who ignored what, how Rumsfeld operated and what the preconceptions were from the civilians ostensibly running the show. I believe that the military IS too well trained in suverting its authority and knowledge to civilian control and that the generals, knowing if they didn't do what Rummy wanted, would shortly see themselves following in Shinsei's [sp]footsteps and figuring it would be at least a real field test for the new light all tech no soldier army knucled under to give him the plan he asked for and that the civilian planners [read: neocons] running DOD at the time glossed over everything that did not fit their notion of an easy, happy war and further cemented failure by also ignoring and downplaying every warning sign that came. Yes, some of this is inherent bureaucratic behavior you will find in every large institution, but not all of it.

We went into Iraq to "fix" it, remember. If the real goal was a democraticish Iraq friendly to the US, then we've failed. Isn't the surge our last, best attempt to 'fix' things so we can at least leave the country on the road to stability instead of all out civil war and genocide? By my lay calculations there has been zero benefit to the US in invading Iraq. Our military looks incompetant, though it isn't; we told the world a lot of things that were false, so our credibility is hurt, next time America cries wolf, who will jump? We appear to have somehow created a situation that is favorable to Iran, even though the objective was to counter Iranian influence. Iraq is more violent, less stable, more likely to now and in the future serve as a safe haven for terrorists w/or w/out the knowledge of the governmnet, another outcome opposite what we desired. Since in your mind, any damage to Iraq, dead Iraqis, destroyed infrastructure, refugees, etc. doesn't factor into US benefit I will leave it out of the failures. What benefit did we get for almost 4,000 dead soldiers, tens of thousands of maimed soldiers and a trillion and counting? We can't now even claim we showed the world and the ME that we will back up our policies with military action since we are so bogged down in the Iraq debacle it is very unlikely any further 'pre-emptive' wars will be launched, EVEN with Guiliani in the WH.

[rwilymz]

"you make it sound like there was nothing that coulda/shoulda been done differently in Iraq"

My job is to provide data irrespective of my feelings about it, and not attempt to guess why and how it will be used during planning. My job is, once a plan has been chosen, to make it work. I don't have a lot of emotion invested in any of them.

But for you to suggest that I think nothing should have been done differently is to admit to only reading what you wanted to read.

"I've read what people at State ..."

Who have the benefit of hindsight, and suffer from the modern American disease of instant celebrity.

As I said, nothing ever goes according to plan. Ever.

Furthermore, no planning is ever done in which there is unanimity in the committee[s] which discuss and advise. There are always dissenters.

And if you can retire from the tight-knit group of folks who discuss and advise, and you are one of the original dissenters, and there is some aspect of the plan which -- surprise!! -- does not work the way it was expected to, then Lo! and freakin behold! you get to go on Larry King Live and tell the whole nation about how you and you alone were the voice of reason because you predicted such-n-so.

...but the reality is, that just as many things that you predicted and wanted in the plan would have been just as unworkable as those things you're currently ankle-biting.

"I believe that the military IS too well trained in suverting its authority and knowledge to civilian control..."

Good. The danger in not having that is military dictatorship.

"We went into Iraq to "fix" it, remember."

What I remember is that's what the politicians said to get a segment of the American people who believe in the modern version of "white man's burden" -- i.e., the Modern Liberal -- in order to get them to dance around the flagpole.

I also remember another one of the political swags being the scare tactics of unchecked chemical weapons, for that segment of the population that is easily frightened into dancing around the flagpole.

Learn this and learn it quick: politicians will say whatever they need to say in order to get you to:
1] vote for them in elections, or
2] grant them the authority to implement their desired policies.

What the politician *says* about why he's doing what he's doing is often at direct odds with reality.

Why has Murtha thrown away 30 years of military training in order to advance the cause of immediate pullout and redeployment to "over the horizon" [a.k.a.: US]? Because that's what the larger segment of his constituents wants to hear. Nothing more, nothing less. The guy's a Marine officer, with war theory training, fergodsake, he knows better than that. The voters aren't officers with war theory training, and they don't know better than that. And what they want to hear is "leave", and a guy who wants them to re-elected him suddenly does an about face. What are the odds?

"Isn't the surge our last, best attempt to 'fix' ..."

You're listening to the politicians again. Don't do that. They will freely and happily mix reality and comfortable fantasy together into a frothy foam to spray all over you if you let them.

"we told the world a lot of things that were false, so our credibility is hurt..."

Here's the deal: the "world" knows better. Our credibility is just the same as it ever was with our allies, and just the same as it ever was with our enemies, and the only changes might be in those in the shadows between. Who do you think considers our credibility so impugnable now? France? France is operating out of just as much selfish self-interest in this whole deal as we are.

It's a dance.

The French *people*? The Frog citizens know no more about anything than you do, and they are being fed the same mixture of self-serving truth and self-serving deceipt by the information Chirac [et al] gives their media as we are by ours.

"What benefit did we get for almost 4,000 dead soldiers..."

Asked and answered. You simply dislike the answer. But it ain't gonna change.

1] Iraq is no longer a *source* for panislamist paramilitary funding. Yes, it is a sink, a "haven" in the emotion-laden terminology du jour, for terrorism. Which is an improvement, frankly. But terrorism survives by state funding largely, and the fewer states there are to fund it, the less terrorism will bother anyone.

2] Iraq is no longer a source for funding by *direct* action; Libya is no longer a source by INdirect action. We invaded Iraq, and Libya took that as a sign of "no shit, Habib, they're serious." Two nations removed from the sponsorship roles and only one of them needed to be invaded. Also called "two birds, one stone".

3] Several nations which were on the bubble [Yemen, e.g.] are now actively participating in terrorist tracking. Half-heartedly ... maybe. But it was no-heartedly prior.

4] We have now got the ability to leave Iraq with our forces, which was a major strategic concern. The *ability*; not necessarily the desire. We are now significantly more flexible.

5] With fewer nations now financially supporting pan-islamist paramilitarism, the ones which donate the cash and military supplies are having to dig deeper in order to pick up the slack left since Iraq and Libya dropped out. Syria and Iran are now bleeding money. It's how we won the cold war...

6] and possibly the biggest benefit: We have made the lines of demarcation suddenly more succinct. We know better who is and who is not funding terrorism on a state-level, and that more clearly delineates the next moves. Wars have a very keen ability to bring things into focus and cause others to do foolish things.

Notice, not once did I weep over "nearly 4,000 US KIA" or "thousands of WIA" or any of that. The soldier's job is to get shot at; was when I was in, is now. Sometimes he gets hit and killed, sometimes hit and wounded. But mostly he's not hit at all, and that is even more true today than ever before.

So many people want to run this war, they can do *so* much better. But they're operating from a wholely emotional platform -- which is the surest way of losing as ever invented. You can't win wars if you're timid about losing soldiers; you can't even fight wars if you're timid. If you break down and bawl because -- gosh -- 750 soldiers die each year in this military operation then you'll be replaced as commander. I worked with an ex-Marine full colonel who retired during VietNam after being passed over by Congress for 1-star. He was passed over because he broke down when he lost a full Company on some operation.

Makes for a great sob-sister movie; makes for lousy national defense.

You cannot operate a war by thinking with your heart. None of the critics who squawk the current KIA figures have the mentality to do any better. Mostly because they display no mentality. All emotion, all the time.

...and "pre-emptive" wars are a multi-century staple of US foreign policy; they aren't going away just because soft-skulled sophists have learned to pout about them.