Sticky wicket? I think not...

While I agree with the vast majority of Bill Lind's statement regarding the danger Israel faces with its current course of action (and the benefits it offers to Hezbollah), I disagree with a portion of this:

"An interesting theoretical speculation is whether, if Hezbollah’s 4GW success continues, some Middle Eastern governments might try adopting Fourth Generation techniques themselves. Lebanon’s fictional government has suggested the Lebanese Army may join Hezbollah in defending southern Lebanon from an Israeli invasion. Militarily, such an action would be meaningless, and it probably reflects a desperate desire to keep the Lebanese Army (which is 40% Shiite) from fractioning, along with Lebanon itself. But what if instead the government called for a million marchers, mostly women and children, to head toward the Lebanese-Israeli frontier, waving palm branches and singing songs? That’s how Morocco took the Spanish Sahara, and it would present Israel with a sticky wicket indeed." [emphasis added]

In fact, such an action HAS already been suggested by Lebanese bloggers. Will it actually come to pass? I would imagine not. That being said...

At this point, Israel should be so lucky. Such an action by the Lebanese people, quite apart from representing a difficult decision for Israel, would offer one of the few face-saving escapes for Israel at this point...a valid reason to cease their ineffective military campaign...a chance to show the world they can be swayed by humanitarian concerns...a chance to demonstrate that someone OTHER than Hezbollah was responsible for Israeli retreat from a no-win situation.

Then again, I question whether Israel's military leaders would have the depth of vision to recognize such an act as an opportunity.

How is this not obvious?

From a Hezbollah fighter quoted in the Guardian:

"Despite Israel's claims to have inflicted heavy losses on Hizbullah, Ali insists his side is in a strong position. "Things are going very well now, whatever happens we are winning. If they keep bombing us we will stay in the shelters, and with each bomb more people support the resistance. If they invade they will repeat the miserable fate they had in 1982, and if they hold one square foot they will give the Islamic resistance all the legitimacy. If they want to kill Hizbullah they have to kill every Shia in the south of Lebanon."

And hey, whatever happened to Hezbollah being so hard to find because they never mix with civilians? Thanks, Salon.

The Israeli military continues to stand ready to pummel any organized Arab army that threatens it...and continues to stand completely unprepared to deal with their actual enemies (or at least the strategies adopted by their nation-state enemies - Syria and Iran).

The "hiding among civilians" myth

Myth. Got it. Thanks.

That being said, Hezbollah continues to reap more long-term benefits from Israeli action than do the Israelis. And by agreeing to a limited framework for a cease-fire before the Israelis (likely on terms Israel won't accept anyway), they show not the weakness suspected by some bloggers but what I would call greater political savvy. #1, they claim to advance a cease fire in order to protect innocent Lebanese civilians affected by the fighting; #2 they strengthen their position within the Lebanese government (much more of a long-term victory than anything they can achieve on the battlefield under current conditions); and #3 they leave Israel looking as the sole bad guy (again) - pushing even those Arab governments that frowned upon Hezbollah's initial actions that sparked the crisis to recognize the movement's (now enhanced) political strength.

Welcome to the 4th Generation?

Disillusionment, war, Strategic Corporals, all that stuff

'Waiting to Get Blown Up'

How do you make an Army realize the 'war' it wants...isn't:

"No one wants to be here, you know, no one is truly enthused about what we do," said Sgt. Christopher Dugger, the squad leader. "We were excited, but then it just wears on you -- there's only so much you can take. Like me, personally, I want to fight in a war like World War II. I want to fight an enemy. And this, out here," he said, motioning around the scorched sand-and-gravel base, the rows of Humvees and barracks, toward the trash-strewn streets of Baghdad outside, "there is no enemy, it's a faceless enemy. He's out there, but he's hiding."

How do you suppose a grunt from WWII, fresh off the lines in Normandy, Italy, or any of the Pacific islands would answer that 'desire' to re-fight WWII?

And how do you make an army train to fight the war it finds itself in rather than the war it envisions?

"We're trained as an Army to fight and destroy the enemy and then take over," added Dugger, 26, of Reno, Nev. "But I don't think we're trained enough to push along a country, and that's what we're actually doing out here."

I think the passage of time has created a false image of WWII...of morale, effectiveness, and the 'joy' of waging full-scale conflict every day. That being said, soldiers who have resigned themselves to getting "blown up" everyday while they search for an enemy to fight probably have not fully internalized the tenets of a counterinsurgency campaign.

Such a campaign is advanced by inches - and those inches are measured within the minds of the locals, not by terrain or enemies killed. In some cases, the metrics make all the differences...which explains the optimism displayed in a number of blogs written by soldiers serving in units that perhaps better understood what success looks like in a counter-insurgency campaign.

Let's talk about political grandstanding....

This is rich:

A group of about 20 House of Representatives Democrats sent a letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert urging the Illinois Republican to secure an apology from Maliki or cancel the address on Wednesday to a joint meeting of Congress. Some said they planned to boycott the speech.

Uh-huh. Who said we were gonna allow the elected leader of a country to express his opinions or the opinions of his (largely Shia...you know, like Hezbollah) majority constituency when he talks to Congress? That would be a slap in the face to those who sacrificed so much to get him there in the first place, right? But, of course, abandoning Iraq in the midst of the violence (an oft-suggested policy change suggested by said Democrats) is not a slap in the face to those who sacrificed, right?

So...Maliki appeals to his base in a speech. The Dems decry his appeal to his base in an appeal to their own (just not the "Get out of Iraq" portion of the base). And what do the Republicans do? I'm sure THEY'D never stoop to such lows, right? Right?

Ah...the joy of politics.

Rhetoric and reality

Uh-huh. Everyone likes to talk about troops to stabilize Lebanon and - perhaps - allow it to become a real state that can stand alone (minus Syrian, Israeli, or Iranian influence and minus a paramilitary force that is virtually a state unto itself). There's just no one willing to put their troops into the sort of environment that drove France, the US, and Israel out of Hezbollah's 'space' in the past. So, in the end, we abandon the idea of strengthening Lebanon as a state because the political will to commit real forces to dealing with the problem doesn't yet exist. (sigh).

"They only had one small condition for the force to be made up of soldiers from another country,” Mr. Barnea wrote. “The Germans recommended France; the French recommended Egypt, and so on. It is doubtful whether there is a single country in the West currently volunteering to lay down its soldiers on Hezbollah’s fence."

From The WaPost

"Without wanting to alarm my neighbors who are adjusting to the nightly barrage of Israeli missiles, I cannot help but cast the current conflict in apocalyptic terms. What began as a surgical military operation staged by a relatively small organization has metamorphosed into an existential showdown with the potential to transform the political landscape of the Middle East. And it has put Hezbollah in its favorite spot -- center stage, with the international community looking on."

An excerpt from the US News Lebanon Journal

Great firsthand account of the scene in Lebanon. Note the increasing wariness of Hezbollah fighters:

On Tuesday, they don't even let us out of the car and tell us to keep moving. Unlike the previous visits, they look tired and a little worried. The sense is that the bombing is getting on their nerves. While they looked defiant before, today they look resigned. They're not ready to quit, but they hardly have the "bring it on" attitude. And winning sides usually want the media around. They don't.

The increasing Hezbollah use of civilian-occupied terrain...and the relentless Israeli targeting of these new hiding spots:

It's a moonscape in Haret Hreik. Hezbollah fighters are the only ones staying inside the neighborhood, while some families come in during the day to check on their apartments and get clothes covered in dust and rubble. The Hezbollah guys are getting less friendly about access; early on they acted as if they were winning. Not so much anymore. They have bunkers underground they stay in, and that's what the Israelis continue to try to hit.

[...]

The trails are covered with burned-out cars and he'd take us there but, really, it's way too dangerous. Israeli jets are up and periodically pound targets in the distance. We pass on the offer. He says that so far they have only hit Hezbollah offices and facilities in the town.

Another Hezbollah man, who won't give his name, tells me that many people who work the fields and tend the animals during the day then sleep in a series of caves in the surrounding ridges. I can come back and sleep with his family if I want, but the caves are full of Hezbollah fighters, and the Israelis are trying to hit the caves themselves at night. Again, I pass on the offer.

The problem remains...there is virtually no way to separate most Hezbollah fighters from civilians. There is no way to cut their supply lines other than to bomb every vehicle on the roads. Any tactical (or even operational?) military success Israel achieves will be very difficult to convert into strategic success. The next generation of Israel's enemies will be forged by this conflict. Israel will continue to lose international support for its future actions...and no matter how hard we try to imagine international opinion is meaningless, that is not the case. How can it be? Especially in what can loosely be defined as a 4th Generation war? The battleground is as much or more in the minds and attitudes of people as it is on the fields of Lebanon.

"Sidestepping the issue..."?

From the Post:

Spellings said that if schools cannot show progress after six years of required improvements under the federal No Child Left Behind law, then parents must be offered a way out for their children.

[...]

Spellings was later pressed by reporters on whether private schools would be held to the same accountability standards under the plan, since they would be taking public money.

"Well, as we have gotten very sophisticated about data and measurements in public schools, I think parents have come to expect that, they have come to expect report cards not only about their child but about the quality of their schools," she said, sidestepping the question. "I certainly am a strong believer of accountability in education."

Earth to reporter: the accountability comes from the parents. They don't think the school is performing? They take their child and their voucher somewhere else (as opposed to waiting for someone at the top of a large bureaucracy to decree, five-ten years later, "We think perhaps this school is not doing well."

The whole point in the voucher program is to make schools accountable to the students and their parents. Matter of fact, if the system works correctly, it should be quite simple for the federal government to gauge the effectiveness of private schools when there are more vouchers available...there won't be any vouchered students attending.

There has been a bit of press and a bit of blogging regarding the education report (found here) cited in this article. Much of it (especially in the press) well off the mark.

Bottom line highlighted in the press: When viewed as 'blocs' - public or private - schools perform similarly in many cases.

REAL bottom line: that doesn't matter. What matters is the school YOUR child attends and the options YOU have to help your child succeed. Viewed from this perspective, it is largely irrelevant if the generic 'public' school does better or worse than the generic 'private' school. It matters that your child goes to the best school you can find...and you, as a parent can hold that school responsible for its performance. For someone trapped with a chronically underperforming public school, it is small comfort that, overall, public schools are not as bad as theirs, wouldn't you say?

Uh-huh.

Surprise, surprise:

When Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed seven others in a July 12 cross-border raid, sparking an aggressive Israeli military reaction on Lebanon, a Jordanian friend of mine changed his MSN messenger user name to "F*** Hezbollah."

It stayed like that for three days as Israel pounded the southern neighborhoods of the Lebanese capital and the southern part of the country, where many supporters of Hezbollah live. Hezbollah volleyed Katyusha rockets and longer-range missiles on Israeli villages and towns. "Hezbollah f***ed up big time," he wrote me later, calling the group "pawns in the hands of the Syrians and the Iranians."

[...]

But as the Israeli military operation continues and the number of killed Lebanese civilians rises complete with ghastly pictures on Arab TV, even those who fault Hezbollah for starting the dangerous back-and-forth lobbying of missiles and rockets are turning their criticism towards their usual foe, Israel.

Yesterday, my Jordanian friend changed his MSN Messenger name again. Now it reads: "F*** Hezbollah and Israel. Long Live Lebanon."

Like I said...

And like he said:

James Dobbins, a former Bush administration envoy to Afghanistan who now heads military analysis for the Rand Corp., said choice of targets by Israel was the key and may be misdirected.

"The military rationale seems rather thin, since many of the targets have no conceivable relationship to Hezbollah," he said.

Hezbollah has little visible presence and few links to Lebanon's military. It is skilled at cloaking its actions from Israeli sensors, while its primitive rockets — which have also killed innocents — are fired from easy-to-hide mobile launchers. Their lack of a guidance system leaves them without a traceable electronic signature, said Mustafa Alani, a military analyst with Dubai-based Gulf Research Center.

"The Israelis face their classic problem: They cannot punish Hezbollah, which has no physical structure to destroy," Alani said.

But I'm sure a good old-fashioned end-around will really show Hezbollah who's the boss!

Are you kidding me?

The nanny state run amok? The idea that such legislation could even gain press is disturbing. How about alcohol? Sugar? Cars that get less than 20 MPG? Clearly people aren't capable of making decisions without the wise guidance of 50 aldermen, right?

Conventional answer to an unconventional foe?

Prepping the Battlespace?

"Imposing" strategy on Hezbollah?

Come on guys. Comparing this to the Gulf War campaigns (fought against a poorly-trained, equipped, and led Arab army trying to ape Western tactics) is going to lead you to all sorts of wildly inaccurate conjectures (like the belief that an Israeli ground incursion into Lebanon will be more effective this time than it was in 1982...or the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon will go any better than it did prior to retreat in 2000).

The leaders of Hezbollah aren't stupid. They won't sit in southern Lebanon, dug in, waiting for Israeli ground forces to surround and annihilate them. You give far too much credit to Israeli operational planners and far too little to Hezbollah. Israel is faced with an opponent that mastered the Improvised Explosive Device long before anyone knew what it was in Iraq, an opponent whose tactics were copied by the Chechen resistance, an opponent that is not constrained by any laws of warfare. Any casualties inflicted on Israeli soldiers show its weakness against a non-state opponent. The majority of casualties inflicted against Hezbollah will be difficult to identify and just as likely appear as strikes against innocent civilians on the battlefield. How does Israel win in either case?

If Israel's current active opponents (Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the militant wing of Fatah...not to mention Hezbollah) could be defeated through simple conventional campaigns, do you really think they'd still be around...?

A clever turn of phrase that too often explains Israeli actions

From a Guardian Op-Ed:

Despite bitter lessons from the past, Israel's political and military leaders remain addicted to the notion that, whatever they have a right to do, they have a right to overdo, to the point where they lose what international support they had when they began their retaliatory measures.

[...]

Indeed, the point of Hizbollah's aggression is the expectation that Israel would act in ways that will only deepen its isolation. Nothing is likely to achieve the goal of Israel's enemies more effectively than disproportionate measures that even its friends cannot support.

What, exactly, makes someone an 'expert?'

From at least one blogger's perspective, this Hezbollah operation may have been planned for some time. An excerpt from April:

“What’s happening here is very unusual," Zvika, the Israeli Defense Forces Spokesman, said. But he wouldn't tell me what, exactly, was so unusual. Shortly after I left the country, a story broke in the Daily Telegraph that explained it.

Iran has moved into South Lebanon. Intelligence agents are helping Hezbollah construct watch towers fitted with one-way bullet-proof windows right next to Israeli army positions.

Here's what one officer said:

This is now Iran's front line with Israel. The Iranians are using Hizbollah to spy on us so that they can collect information for future attacks. And there is very little we can do about it.

More powerful weapons, including missiles with a range of 30 miles, are also being brought in.

From the perspective of another, it was simply a matter of happenstance. An excerpt from July:

Hezbollah and Israel stand along this border every day observing each other through binoculars and waiting for an opportunity to kill each other. They are at war. They have been for 25 years, no one ever declared a cease-fire between them. … They stand on the border every day and just wait for an opportunity. And on Tuesday morning there were two Humvees full of Israeli soldiers, not under observation from the Israeli side, not under covering fire, sitting out there all alone. The Hezbollah militia commander just couldn’t believe it -- so he went and got them.

The Israeli captain in charge of that unit knew he had really screwed up, so he sent an armored personnel carrier to go get them in hot pursuit, and Hezbollah led them right through a minefield.

Now if you’re sitting in Tehran or Damascus or Beirut, and you are part of the terrorist Politburo so to speak, you have a choice. With your head sunk in your hands, thinking "Oh my God," you can either give [the kidnapped soldiers] back and say "Oops, sorry, wrong time" or you can say, "Hey, this is war."

It is absolutely ridiculous to believe that the Hezbollah commander on the ground said Tuesday morning, "Go get two Israeli soldiers, would you please?”

Who do YOU believe? I'll tell you what I believe. Our second "expert" commentator is absolutely right in stating this wasn't a knee-jerk "go get 'em operation" generated from a dark, smoky room somewhere far from the border. However, it was likely part of a larger strategic vision. There is no room for 'cowboy style' operations there - both sides are too good at masking their intentions and showing the other what they want to see..."Ahmed sees an Israeli patrol exposed? Hm. Why is that? What do they have planned? How do they plan to exploit our actions if we attack? We will wait and plan until we know for sure if this is a lure or a pattern to be exploited."

NOT "Hey Ahmed, those stupid Israelis are without support! Let's go grab them and hope they run through a minefield when they come after us!"

The game doesn't work like that. Those who DID operate like that - on both sides - are dead. There is no room for spur-of-the-moment operations. Only deliberately planned operations that incorporate detailed reconnaisance, deception, and careful planning - sometimes months in the making.

So. This operation likely has been planned for some time - and is not a spur of the moment act by a Hezbollah commander who sees a brief opening (such an 'opening' in that neck of the woods spells "ambush," not "opportunity").

So. The Hezbollah forces that carried out this operation did not do so in a political vacuum. They understood the context of what was going on in Gaza. They understood Israeli responses to these sorts of acts - especially based on the response Israel had just shown. That implies a level of intent higher than our second 'expert' indicates. Hezbollah is an extraordinarily disciplined (para)military organization. And they conducted a detailed, planned operation to grab those Israeli soldiers - an operation likely approved at the highest levels of Hezbollah. It does NOT mean Nasrallah jumped on the phone and said "go grab me a coupla Israelis" - but neither does it mean a local commander smelled opportunity and jumped on it strictly on his own. Hezbollah, as an organization likely knew very clearly this operation was proceeding...and knew what the repercussions would be. To assume otherwise is to sell them short as an organization - dangerous to say the least.

All that being said, I still stand behind my original sentiments - also echoed here in an editorial from the NY Times. There is no strictly military solution for Israel right now...and they walk down a dangerous path of escalation if they don't realize that simple truth.

Update:

Michael Totten describes what he believes would be a more useful - and certainly less inflammatory Israeli response to Hezbollah's actions. Certainly better than giving Hezbollah free press as the defenders of Lebanon, eh?

Enter the contradictions.

Come on. If yer gonna establish a meme, at least know when to hide the truth.

Opening line:

Nobody waves at the soldiers here. Children do not crowd around the Humvees, asking for pens and candy, as they do in the rest of Afghanistan [emphasis added]. Even the girls throw rocks at passing U.S. military helicopters.

Later, this base suddenly becomes the norm:

To see how violent the war in Afghanistan has turned, look no further than the soldiers at this base [emphasis added].

Right. Look no further than the base that is unlike any of the other bases in Afghanistan. Great point. Later still:

These troops aim to put pressure on the Taliban, to go into areas where the U.S.-led coalition has not had a steady presence before [emphasis added].

WAIT a minute. Aren't we talking about everywhere in Afghanistan? No? But I thought...oh forget it. Once again:

And two days after that, on June 20, a medical convoy tried to give free medical help to the village of Sarbesa. Elders said the U.S. soldiers scared the women and children and asked the medics to hold their clinic outside the village. Only 30 people came. In other parts of Afghanistan, such clinics typically draw about 250 people.

''We would have been mobbed anywhere else,'' said Capt. Bill Adams, 36, who has a stash of candy and pens that no Afghans want to take. ''The people here are very guarded. It takes patience [emphasis added].''

Right. Mobbed anywhere else. But THIS base represents conditions in Afghanistan. You know, because that's where the reporter was. Does it matter if it's unlike the rest of the country? Of course not! That would ruin a good story. And, of course, this gem:

The Taliban has been entrenched here for years; so have the poppies and the drug traffickers.

Entrenched for years. Got it. But...no...wait - this story is about NEW violence in Afghanistan. The NEW rise of the Taliban...isn't it? So let's see what the main meme within the story is: Afghanistan is getting worse!

And the story is supported by...talking about a new base established where the Coalition has not been able to operate before...followed by numerous references to how receptive Afghans are elsewhere while they are only beginning to become receptive here.

I'm not really sure if I follow the logic. Afghanistan is SO bad we're now pushing to areas we've never before occupied. It's SO bad that, in these areas where we're just establishing a presence, the Afghans don't mob Coalition troops to ask for things...like they do everywhere else in Afghanistan. You know, where it's getting bad. Only not. Because we now have the ability to push to new regions. Because people ARE mobbing Coalition forces elsewhere. Losing track of the meme? Good. Me too.

Grand Strategy again

Michael Young takes a look at the current crisis in the Middle East from an insider's perspective. He sees the same sort of opportunity to turn Hezbollah's overreach against them that may yet take place with North Korea. Unfortunately, in both cases the method to exploit these overreaching actions is not military - or not entirely military. While the US has come to that realization in its dealings with North Korea, Israeli leadership still thinks it can achieve its goals through unilateral military action. I would call it a near-impossibility that merely increases the likelihood of a wider-ranging war with few real victors.

Clearly, Hezbollah is hoping (and prepared) for a heavy Israeli military response. As Mr. Young suggests,

It would be far smarter for Israel, and America, to profit from Hezbollah’s having perhaps overplayed its hand. The popular mood here is one of extreme anger that the group has provoked a conflict Lebanon cannot win. The summer tourism season, a rare source of revenue for a country on the financial ropes, has been ruined. Even Hezbollah’s core supporters, the Shiite Muslims in the south, cannot be happy at seeing their towns and villages turned again into a killing field.

What to do? While the United Nations has been ineffective in its efforts toward Middle East peace, it may be the right body to intervene here, if only because it has the cudgel of Security Council Resolution 1559, which was approved in 2004 and, among other things, calls for Hezbollah’s disarmament.

The five permanent Security Council members, perhaps at this weekend’s Group of 8 meeting, should consider a larger initiative based on the resolution that would include: a proposal for the gradual collection of Hezbollah’s weapons; written guarantees by Israel that it will respect Lebanese sovereignty and pull its forces out of the contested Lebanese land in the Shebaa Farms; and the release of prisoners on both sides. Such a deal could find support among Lebanon’s anti-Syrian politicians, would substantially narrow Hezbollah’s ability to justify retaining its arms, and also send a signal to Syria and particularly Iran that the region is not theirs for the taking.

One important thing: No Lebanese government could legitimately help to advance such a plan if Israel were to try to, as its army chief of staff put it this week, “turn back the clock in Lebanon by 20 years.” Israel must cease its attacks and let diplomacy take over.

Indeed. Too aggressive a military response by Israel weakens Lebanese democracy (which benefits Syria and Hezbollah more than anyone else), puts Israel back into the role (villain) it has typically been cast in by Arabs and (too many) Europeans, and increasingly detracts from efforts to separate Iran from its nuclear ambitions.

Hidden in the poll numbers:

American anxiety over globalization (appearing as "the economy" as the second most important issue behind Iraq, support for Democratic positions on the economy, and a desire to limit legal immigration), unrealistic expectations on gas prices (that both parties shamelessly pander to with ridiculous suggestions they know won't pass), and health care. Again, the war in Iraq overshadows what would likely be the largest debate(s) of the day if it weren't sitting at the center of the national stage right now. And, of course, both parties use Iraq to advance agendas that don't particularly help our position in Iraq.

Pulling out would lead to chaos that makes the current mess in Gaza and Lebanon look like nothing while continuing under the assumption that we can achieve some sort of 'total victory' puts us in the position where the 'perfect' is the enemy of the 'good enough.'

Hrmph.

Blazing the right path

Andrew Krepinevich highlights a basic truth of counterinsurgency: advisors are often far more effective than independent combat units from the occupying nation. The military has been slow to learn this lesson, often committing the wrong troops in the wrong numbers to this absolutely vital job - and paying the price when poorly advised ISF units failed to properly carry out their duties, fell apart under contact, or ended up serving as enablers for militias rather than enablers for stability and rule of law.

Luckily, many of the units in Iraq today understand the importance of competent IA/ISF...and have begun to understand their role differently as a result. This will hopefully fill the gaps left by an under-manned US advisory program.

North Korea takes a step too far

While the missile tests were enough to reenergize the international community in its efforts to bring North Korea to heel, this latest fallout between North and South (a South that was, in many ways, the last of those willing to give Kim Jong-il the benefit of the doubt) signifies that the North has badly overplayed its hand:

Tension between the two Koreas erupted at bilateral ministerial talks in the South Korean city of Pusan, where the Pyongyang's delegation parried complaints about the missile tests and focused instead on economic cooperation and requests for aid.

"The South side will pay a price before the nation for causing the collapse of the ministerial talks and bringing a collapse of North-South relations that is unforeseeable now," the North Koreans said in a statement before leaving for the airport, a day before the meeting was due to end.

The North Koreans demanded that the South stop joint military drills with the United States due next year, saying it was ready to protect South Korea with its 1.2-million-strong armed forces.

The North Koreans demanded that the South stop joint military drills with the United States due next year, saying it was ready to protect South Korea with its 1.2-million-strong armed forces.

That provoked an unusually biting reply from South Korean Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok that echoed the rhetoric of the years before Seoul's determined policy of rapprochement.

"Who in the South asked you to protect our safety?" Lee told Kwon on Tuesday, according to a South Korean official. "It would help our safety for the North not to fire missiles or develop a nuclear program."

The South said the North could also forget about any more aid until it returns to separate talks on its nuclear weapons.

Bro, if you've got the South's reunification minister (a man who has spent the last few years thickening his blinders regarding the duplicity of the North) telling you to get outta town, you've over-stepped your bounds.

So now the question is this: will greater international cooperation aimed at defanging North Korea prove more fruitful or more frightening? Always difficult to judge when you're dancing with a madman.

Interestingly, the title of the Reuters article was "Diplomacy in tatters as two Koreas spar." I would argue that diplomacy aimed squarely at North Korea has ALWAYS been in tatters...it's only now that the South has been forced to pull off the rose-colored glasses of reunification to see the truth. On the same note, this diplomacy among the folks dealing with the North (China, South Korea, Japan, Russia, and the US) is likely to improve. In fact, a much more common front toward the North may emerge from all of this. So...tatters? Probably an overstatement - or at least an admission of a years-long truth that has been carefully avoided by the South.

Looking for a better example of diplomacy in tatters? Here ya go.

Taking a 'grand strategic' view

What do I mean by 'grand strategic?' Check it out.

Israel's expanding offensive in Gaza and new incursion into Lebanon, both intended to recover captured Israeli soldiers will likely not recover those soldiers, will leave many residents of both the Palestinian Territories and Lebanon with the impression they are in a new, life-and-death struggle vs. Israel (upping militantcy among an already over-stimulated segment of young men). It will also discredit moderates who have worked to bargain with Israel and strengthen the view among the "Arab street" (a term I HATE to use by the way) that Iran is not only justified...but heroic in its efforts to develop a nuclear capability. Donald Sensing expands on this notion on his blog as well:

All of which means that Israel was forced to react to circumstances rather than create them. Yet the real initiative is political, not military, and Hamas and Hezbollah (unjustly) hold the high ground there. I doubt that Israel’s military actions will reverse that.

Who else likely wins from both this incursion and the continuing turmoil in Iraq? Probably Syria since #1, they could justify their previous occupation of Lebanon by playing themselves up as the protector from Israel and #2, Syrians don't want to risk putting themselves in the shoes of Iraq (dangerous chaos) or Lebanon (less capable of defending themselves against Israeli incursions) by upsetting the current status quo. Assad isn't a particularly impressive leader, but the alternatives start to look far less 'liberating.' For the 'silent majority' - those who aren't aggressive Islamists, devout democratic reformers, or big fans of the current regime, the best of a bad set of options begins to look like the current regime.

All in all, I'm doubtful that Israel will achieve its desired short term outcome and, in the long term, I think their actions will only make the region less stable while strengthening the hand(s) of their most bitter opponents.

Here? A (very) contrarian view:

Beyond Lebanon's responsibility, of course, Syria and Iran are also sine qua non causes of the invasion of Israel. The former, despite its much ballyhooed withdrawal from Lebanon last year still, exercises considerable influence and enables Iran, as we pointed out last week, to reinforce its Hezbollah client. A strong legal case can now be made that Iran and Syria have become legitimate targets of Israeli self-defense.

So war it is -- a war of self-defense against unlawful Lebanese aggression in which the Israeli government has the obligation to its citizens to inflict maximum damage to the infrastructure of those who have attacked them. But this responsibility is not Israel's alone. If the international community wishes to vindicate those most sacrosanct principles of national sovereignty and the right to self-defense, it must assist Israel. It must condemn the attack and demand both the safe return of the IDF soldiers and the bringing to justice of all Lebanese officials who have been complicit in this act of war. It must demand the dismantling of the Hezbollah infrastructure, which it has already (toothlessly) called for.

Army to rebid Halliburton unit contract - Yahoo! News

And an obligatory over-the-top response from a Democratic Senator:

"It has taken them far too long," Sen. Byron Dorgan (news, bio, voting record), D-N.D., said of the Army decision. "I believe literally hundreds of millions and probably billions of dollars have been wasted — it's almost an unbelievable amount of waste and abuse and likely fraud."

Is he talking about term limits for Congress perhaps? Unfortunately, no. Keep an eye on the next set of contracts and how much they cost to set up and maintain. Providing basic services in austere environments is difficult (and, therefore, expensive) at best...impossible when the wrong folks are chosen to carry out the contract. I've run across KBR since my days in Bosnia and they have always provided quality service above and beyond that provided by their military equivalents. I also know quite a few folks who've worked for KBR...and they speak unreservedly of the ever-tightening standards to which they are held in the name of good stewardship of government money. Can the same be said of the Senate? Hm....

Dell joins in as well

Nicholas Carr discusses Dell's entry into the world of corporate bloggery (joining GM) - and the snarky response it received from the...uh...main-non-mainstream-blogosphere. What do you call guys who want nothing more than to distance themselves from the MSM, anyway?

Personally I think Carr can be every bit as snarky and dismissive as those he mocks...but then, his blog wouldn't be much of a read if it wasn't huh?

It'll be interesting to see how much weight Dell actually puts behind this tool. GM seems convinced it's worth spending advertising dollars to lure people into theirs in order to deliver a less filtered and more 'current' message to consumers than the traditional. The Dell blog has already shown a willingness to respond to the blogosphere in pretty short order....

Horrific? Yes. But....

There's much blogging to-do today regarding the release of a video from Iraq featuring the two American soldiers captured and mutilated a few weeks ago. Much of it dwells upon the inhumanity of 'the enemy' - a valid point, especially for Western audiences. But if we look at it from the view of insurgency/counterinsurgency, the insurgents responsible for the attack and the release of the video clearly gain more than the US within that particular neighborhood - especially when we take a look at this:

"A message introducing the video states that this video is presented as “revenge for our sister who was dishonored by a soldier of the same brigade,” referencing the rape and murder of an Iraqi girl and her family by a group of American soldiers in al-Mahmoudiya"

There was a great deal of speculation immediately after the soldiers' disappearance that this was a 'revenge' attack following the death of Zarqawi. Why? Because we still often fail to view insurgencies for what they are. For those individual insurgents who carried out this attack, it was in retaliation for something much closer to home and more personal - the death of that family and the rape of the young girl by American troops from the same unit. Within the Mahmudiyah neighborhood, who do you think looks like the hero/protector and who do you think looks like the villain receiving his just desserts?

And that's the difficulty in counterinsurgency campaigns. Every move that alienates the populace (intentional or not...the rape was clearly not an intentional military manuever...intentional terror and torture are much more in the realm of the insurgency) makes it that much harder to suppress the insurgency. And when the insurgents mount a substantial 'publicity stunt' like this, they gain a great deal within their own support base.

The 'battle' for Mahmudiyah just got tougher.

Ralph Peters remaps the Middle East

The quandary faced by anti-Lieberman bloggers...

If bloggers supporting Lamont keep pushing this race into the national spotlight (which is clearly the case), don't they run the risk of opening the floodgates for the primary? In other words, a vote previously dominated by "hard core partisans" becomes a more reasonable sampling of the Connecticut electorate because they've been more exposed to the race and understand the stakes in sitting on the sidelines.

If Dems - and a healthy number of previously unaffiliated voters - come out in large numbers for the primary...

About 900,000, or 49 percent, of the state's voters are unaffiliated. They're the largest block, followed by Democrats and then Republicans.

Some local registrars of voters said that this year they've seen a larger-than-usual number of unaffiliated voters ask to switch to a political party, typically the Democratic Party.

George Cody, the Democratic registrar in New Canaan, said some Republicans have asked to change their affiliation to vote in the primary. But it's too late. The deadline to change from Democrat to Republican or Republican to Democrat was in May.

Judith Beaudreau, the Democratic registrar in Vernon, said she heard some unaffiliated voters saying they wanted to become Democrats to vote in the primary between U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman and challenger Ned Lamont.

...Lieberman is fairly close to a 'sure thing.' If leftist bloggers continue to generate national attention, they are likely to ensure that happens...thus making them look less like the political kingmakers they envision themselves as and more like the 'netroots' that ran Dean so far down the wrong road in the 2004 Presidential primaries. Kind of puts them in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" sort of situation, eh? How to walk the line between stirring up their loyal, leftist base without stirring up the general electorate that disagrees with most of their message? A tough line to walk.

Taking the Rational Approach

The Opinion Journal sits down for a talk with Bjorn Lumborg to discuss rationalism and its application to world problems:

In 2004, he invited eight of the world's top economists--including four Nobel Laureates--to Copenhagen, where they were asked to evaluate the world's problems, think of the costs and efficiencies attached to solving each, and then produce a prioritized list of those most deserving of money. The well-publicized results (and let it be said here that Mr. Lomborg is no slouch when it comes to promoting himself and his work) were stunning. While the economists were from varying political stripes, they largely agreed. The numbers were just so compelling: $1 spent preventing HIV/AIDS would result in about $40 of social benefits, so the economists put it at the top of the list (followed by malnutrition, free trade and malaria). In contrast, $1 spent to abate global warming would result in only about two cents to 25 cents worth of good; so that project dropped to the bottom.

His 'Copenhagen Consensus' can be found here. More from the Journal:

His organization, the Copenhagen Consensus Center, held a new version of the exercise in Georgetown. In attendance were eight U.N. ambassadors, including John Bolton. (China and India signed on, though no Europeans.) They were presented with global projects, the merits of each of which were passionately argued by experts in those fields. Then they were asked: If you had an extra $50 billion, how would you prioritize your spending?

And the results of that survey? Click here.

The Times runs into an unexpectedly savvy web-opponent

Thomas Friedman writes a column (registration required, of course. You go Times!) denigrating GM in the Times. In days gone by, GM would attempt to perhaps write a letter to the editor (which they did). The Times would either choose to run it or not - and then, perhaps edit the letter rather than presenting GM's response in its entirety (which...um, they did). And then, of course, the story would end. Score one for the Times, right?

Not so fast. Blogs aren't just for personal use...and techno-savvy/media-savvy companies are coming to realize that (not that I ever would have guessed GM would be considered as such).

Step 1: GM's VP for Global Communications writes a very personal response on the GM "Fastlane" blog.

Step 2: The GM blog tracks the troubles they have posting a rebuttal in the Times...and gives us all the dirt.

Step 3: GM buys online advertising space simply to direct people to its blog and fill them in on the argument.

This is not an old-style media campaign. This is a web-savvy campaign that actually leaves me with a bit more hope for the future of GM. Now, of course, they just need to start building a car I'd like to buy.

As for the Times...well, they're current financial trends would seem to indicate they are, perhaps, as out of touch with the 'winds of change' as many claim GM to be.

Good for the goose...how about the gander?

One has to wonder...could the same rationale applied by the WSJ regarding speed limits...

We are often told, by nanny-state advocates, that such public goods as safety require a loss of liberty. In the case of speed limits and traffic deaths, that just isn't so.

...be applied to the War on Terror? Does Big Brother offer the same sort of false arguments when reducing liberty that the 'nanny' offered in this case?

A quiet day in Mogadishu?

Looking for rule of law and security -regardless of the cost in freedom (and who can blame folks like this fellow when 'individual freedom' has brought years of absolute anarchy?).

But we had five years of anarchy with every man wanting to be the king of his own area, not thinking of the common man. So people are happy that the factions have come to an end.

I live with my aunt and she is very happy at the arrival of the Islamic Courts because they come with Islamic morality. The old warlords were truly hated. There is now one party in Mogadishu and it is Islam.

How long, though, until Somalis tire of this? Or this? Or this?

I imagine one could make the argument that this is the price we pay for hightailing it out of Somalia in 93-94 after Americans were stunned to discover nation-building is difficult and dangerous. As we saw in the aftermath of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan (followed by its civil war), the unintended consequences of leaving failed states to themselves can be quite heavy.

Back to the nature of war - once again.

More talk of what the rash of charges against US troops means. Breakdown of discipline? I don't think so. Military attempts to dodge the Press by pushing a bunch of old cases into the light of day at once? Again, I don't believe so.

My guess? The initial investigations of Haditha (and a few others) caused various levels of command to kick into high gear and begin investigating their own actions (or, more appropriately, the actions of their subordinate units). These more thorough investigations and increased command emphasis kicked up a number of cases that had been poorly hidden - or no one had been looking since commanders all like to assume problems like this can't occur on their watch - so we're seeing them all appear 'at about the same time.' The bottom line is that you don't find what you aren't looking for.

At the same time, the US military is doing a much better job of understanding the non-kinetic side of this fight. Because of this, they are re-investigating incidents that a year or two ago might not have caught a second glance. That's a good thing. What it really indicates is the military doing a much better job of internal policing as opposed to a rash of crimes from 'burnt out soldiers.' Counter-insurgency is tough work...and it's a whole lot tougher if commanders don't understand just how different it is from a straight-up black and white fight. Once again, we're seeing the effect of the Strategic Corporal. And by that, I don't mean a junior enlisted soldier specially trained to make strategic decisions...I mean that those tactical, minute-by-minute decisions made by junior soldiers now have strategic or even grand-strategic implications...whether it's choosing to leave one Hummer to man a checkpoint, choosing to leave a weak leader in charge of a checkpoint, or shooting the wrong car approaching a checkpoint. Unfortunately, we outside of the war zone are most exposed to the actions of the Strategic Corporal when the decision is incorrect. The correct decisions allow s/he to better understand the enemy, better understand the nature of the threat, and better understand what appropriate action looks like. Those decisions lead to a more successful unit over the course of weeks, months, and years. Difficult to track in our ADD society and often hard to quantify. Mistakes are easy to quantify. There are dead soldiers, captured soldiers, or dead civilians. More IEDs because there are more angry Iraqis. All the sort of stuff that is easy for the Press to cover. How exactly can a reporter even report the individual successes of these Strategic Corporals? In most cases, they can't recognize success or even wise decisions because they don't have the background, can't wait out the consequences of the actions, or simply aren't looking because it doesn't fit their chosen meme.

That being said, I've seen a lot of good reports documenting units taking the right steps - of those 'corporals' making the more difficult 'right' strategic decision that often may appear to increase the risk to his/her patrol in the short term.