Brad Taylor's Blog, page 6

Syria is turning into a quagmire, and for once, it isn’t the United States that’s stuck in the mud. Surprisingly, it’s the mighty Resistance of the Middle East.  Hezbollah.

In 2000, Hezbollah was hailed as the Arabic version of David, fighting off the Goliath of the hated Israel and forcing them to flee from Lebanon.  The Arab world cheered the departure.  In 2006, Israel came back and fought a sharp, short war with Hezbollah, and pretty much had their ass handed to them on the propaganda front.  While the numbers were extremely lopsided with respect the casualties, in truth, in order to win, all Hezbollah had to do was not lose.  Which is exactly what they did.   Once again, the Arab world saluted them as heroes.

My, how times have changed.

Syria has been Hezbollah’s ally since its inception, giving them arms, money, and political cover.  In return, Hezbollah has supported the Assad regime through thick and thin, going so far as to assassinate those who disagreed with Syria’s approach to Lebanon.  The support has been mutual and lockstep, but it’s now causing a little bit of a problem.

When the Arab Spring began in Egypt, Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, was the first in line cheering on the protesters.  He kept up the drumbeat of support right up until Mubarak fell.  When the spring spread to Syria, he grew silent.  Probably sitting in a back room – much like any other politician in the world dealing with a crisis – wondering how to spin the story.  The Arab world scratched its head.  How could The Resistance cheer on the fall of one dictator but not another?

As the Syrian war slogged on, Hezbollah went from silence to limited support, vocally stating that the insurrection against Assad was fomented by “western” interests.  Following this, they felt the first chink in their propaganda armor.  Hamas, a Sunni terrorist group, ignored Hezbollah’s proclamations, sided with the rebels and called on all Jihadists to take it to Assad.  A significant turn of events that barely made a ripple here in the US, Syria had been Hamas’ protector as well, and Hezbollah had been a Hamas ally, with both focused on the destruction of Israel.  Now they are on opposite sides of the fence, and it didn’t make Nasrallah happy.   Hezbollah answered Hamas’s call to arms by ordering them to leave Lebanon, which didn’t really fit in with their proclamation of being The Resistance.  The heroes’ shining mantle was getting tarnished.

The Syrian civil war continued, and Assad grew more vicious, yet the rebels would not quit.  Hezbollah went from vocal support to actually joining the battle, sending fighters to help Assad crush the rebellion.  Nasrallah personally came out and said that Hezbollah would fight to the death, vowing victory for Assad.  At first working in secret, Hezbollah had now openly chosen sides.  And the Arab world answered.

Last week, the foreign minister of Bahrain, a moderate Arab country, called Nasrallah – the leader of Hezbollah – a terrorist.  Think of that.  An Arab country called the leader of THE RESISTANCE, a man that had been cheered as a savior in 2006, a TERRORIST.  When I read that, I just about fell out of my chair.  Yes, I understand there’s more at play here (Bahrain is a predominately Shia country ruled by Sunnis, and the monarchy has grown sick of Iran and Hezbollah messing with its little island), but still, it is significant.

Right after this, Turkey, another moderate Muslim country, said that Hezbollah – which directly translated means the “Party of God” – should change its name to the Party of Satan.  Yes, you read that right.  Turkey said Hezbollah should be called Satan.  Once again, the statement is pretty incredible, and it must be making Nasrallah wonder what the hell happened to his shining armor.

There’s a new cold war happening in the Middle East between Sunni and Shia, with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on one side and Iran on the other.  Both want to be viewed as the leader of the Arab world, and Syria has become a fault line in the battlefield.  If Syria has shown us anything, it’s that there is no monolithic Arab identity.  Just as in America, all politics is local, and each Arab entity decides on its course of action based on what will help it the most.  Nobody is more surprised by this than Hezbollah.  The terrorist group expected its old mantle of The Resistance to matter, and that others would follow its lead just because it said so.  Much to Hezbollah’s surprise, the goodwill and political capital it had gained in its fight against Israel evaporated as quickly as snow in the Sahara.

And in the Sunni Arab world, Hezbollah went from Hero to Zero just as fast.

 

In the movie The Princess Bride, one of the characters repeatedly exclaims “Inconceivable!” every time an event occurs, prompting another to respond, “You keep using that word.  I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Substitute red line for “inconceivable” and any reporter could say the same thing about the Obama administration’s current foreign policy proclamations.  I wrote a blog some time ago about the red line the administration proclaimed for nuclear development in Iran, a line that was crossed long ago, forcing them to parse their words to wiggle out of the box they’d created, to whit:  They didn’t mean develop the capability or create the components for a bomb.  They meant actually assembling one.  Ahhh…so much difference.

Another Obama administration red line has been President Assad deploying chemical weapons against his people.  President Obama and his staff have avowed on at least seven occasions that the use of chemical weapons was a clear red line with harsh consequences.  It would be in Obama’s words a “game changer”.  Last week several western intelligence agencies stated that Assad had, in fact, used chemical weapons on the Syrian people.  The U.S. said we weren’t convinced.  Yesterday, our own intelligence community said it’s looking like he did.  Oops. Now what?

Like it did with Iran, the administration has backpedaled on what the red line of chemical weapons activity would be in Syria.  First, it was any indication of movement of chemical weapons.  When the Syrian army was detected loading chemical agents into aerial munitions last December, it reduced the red line to actually using them, not preparing to use them.  Now, the box is built, and it’s going to be very hard to get out.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m no hawk on Syria. Quite the opposite, actually.  I hear John McCain frothing at the mouth for military intervention, and I wonder if, like the people who confused the Chechen bombers for the Czech Republic, he hasn’t confused Syria with Sudan.  I personally believe that if we were going to do any regime change in Syria, we should have done it long ago, when we had some ability to control the outcome.  Now, with rebel groups freely pledging fealty to Al Qaida, it makes it nearly impossible.  It’s like watching a child pornographer wrestle a serial killer.  Who really gives a shit who wins?  Both are evil.

Obama’s learning a hard lesson in the value of rhetoric, though.  Do nothing after such harsh statements about red lines and the world sees the U.S. as full of hot air, a recipe that may embolden others such as North Korea, or scare our allies such as Israel into taking action on their own because they no longer have faith in American resolve.

But if we do something we will invariably be drawn into another Mideast nation-building effort, regardless of what our new security strategy wanted.  Unlike Libya, where the only thing at stake from flawed policy was the life of our ambassador, we can’t allow Syria to devolve into militias running amok.  The risks of conflict spreading to Lebanon or Jordan are very real, and we cannot allow WMD material to flow out into the intra-linked terrorist networks.  Chemical weapons in the hands of the rebels would almost guarantee they will end up on our shores, and be used against us.  This mess isn’t like Libya.  Air power alone will not achieve our policy goals, because this time we will most definitely have to deal with the mess left behind.  If we go, it will be boots on the ground – at the very least to secure the WMD sites.

Correction, if we go, it should be boots on the ground, but that’s not saying we will.  In the end, the political machine will decide what the public will bear, and like Afghanistan in the 1980s, we can turn and run if the polls show it’s not favorable because nobody in office now will have to deal with the future repercussions.

Or we could choose option number three:  Dither some more while proclaiming we have no credible proof that chemical weapons have been used, in effect kick that damn red line down the road.  In public Obama is demanding Syria let a team in to investigate, but I’m fairly sure he’s calling Assad in private and begging him to deny the request.  It’s the only way he can keep pushing the red line back and delay a decision that should have been made three years ago.

I can hear Assad now, talking to his military, “Obama keeps saying red line, but I do not think it means what he thinks it means.”

Today, the U.S. commander of all pacific forces, Admiral Samuel Locklear III, stated that climate change was the biggest threat to national security.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Climate change. Before I’m castigated as a Neanderthal, I see his argument.  I really do.  Massive climate change engenders a plethora of natural disasters, which break down societal structures and cause a weakening of the overall state architecture.  But listing this as THE threat to the United States?  Maybe in three hundred years.  But if we’re looking at probabilities such as that, then why not go a little further?  Using his logic, I’d unequivocally state the opposite.  It’s not global warming we need to worry about.  It’s the absolute coldness of outer space.  Without a doubt, the sun burning out of fuel is the greatest threat to United States national security. It won’t happen for a billion years, but what the hell, when it does, we’re looking at some serious effects to our way of life.

How on earth did this man rise to his current position?  North Korea just nullified the armistice that ended the Korean War, in effect going back on war footing after 60 years of peace.  They’re also furiously researching and testing missile systems that can deliver a nuclear warhead to our shores.  China is waging a shadow war using cyber attacks, infiltrating our infrastructure in such a way as to destroy our transportation, electrical, financial and communications architecture in the event of hostilities.  And climate change is his top priority?  Really?

I understand that climate change could possibly cause security concerns—albeit at a glacial pace—but if you wanted to look at non-traditional threats across the board, I’d say that a weakened United States would rank right up there, as we are a stabilizing force throughout the pacific—to include providing massive relief for the very natural disasters he’s fretting about—and yet we can only provide such assistance as long as we can afford it.  Our national debt ranks as a much higher near-term threat to security than climate change.  Make no mistake, at the rate we’re spending, we’re going to be in financial ruin long before the Hawaiian Islands are swallowed by rising seawater and massive heat waves kill all the crops.

It disturbs me to see our top commander in the pacific, who prioritizes our national assets to protect national interests, more concerned about a potential threat in the year 2313 than actual threats currently staring us in the face.  North Korea is no joke, and China is rapidly becoming a peer competitor to Locklear’s vaunted navy.  Neither are friends to the United States.

Maybe Admiral Locklear needs to spend a little less time staring at a thermometer in Hawaii and a little more time reading open source news reports about his region, because I’m positive he’s ignoring his intelligence summaries.  He might stand to learn a thing or two about current threats to our nation located within his AOR.

I finally saw Zero Dark Thirty the other day, and all the top-secret/administration giving up classified debate aside, I found it pretty slow.  Including the culminating hit at the end.  I wasn’t on target, but if they moved in real life like the molasses actors did on screen, Osama bin Laden would have been in India before they reached the third floor.  The movie did, however, remind me of a paper I’d written a long time ago.  I haven’t blogged in awhile because I’m buried in security work and deadlines, so I though I’d post it.

While I was at the Command and General Staff College – basically a year off at Fort Leavenworth – I did a study on substate CLT using open source documents from historical events in an attempt to clarify what led to success or failure.  I’d already written my master’s thesis on CLT writ large, so I had something with which to start.  This was written in 2003, but it’s held up over time.  I found it interesting how many of the points in my paper played out in Zero Dark Thirty.  Be forewarned though, the paper’s 32 pages and isn’t a bunch of discussion about shoot-em ups.  Like the movie, it is primarily focused on the difficult task of strategic and operational manhunting, not on the tactical finish.

Substate CLT

Today is the publication date of General Stanley McChrystal’s book MY SHARE OF THE TASK.  I’m looking forward to reading it, but have already seen press reports stating he barely discusses the Rolling Stone article that brought about the end of his career.  He simply assumes responsibility for the entire affair, as I would absolutely expect.  When the article first appeared and the whirlwind began – over two years ago, right before the publication of ONE ROUGH MAN – I wrote a blog about it.  I never posted it due to competing demands of publishing and a little pressure from others not to aggravate the very media industry that would be reviewing ONE ROUGH MAN.  To this day, I regret that decision, and figured better late than never.  General McCyrstal is one of the smartest officers our Army has ever produced, and it’s tragic his career ended because of a flawed journalist with an agenda.  Michael Hastings took the Rolling Stone article and wrote a full-length book, which lost one publisher when the Army finished its investigation and couldn’t corroborate his story.  Today, Hastings continues his agenda, now trashing GEN Petraeus every chance he gets.  Anyway, General McChyrstal will never refute the story, but I can. The original Rolling Stone article can be found here.  The following is an uncut blog from over two years ago, so do some math when you see dates, timeframes, etc.

 

July 2010

I realize I said I’d be blogging about themes in my book, but something real-world happened recently that I’d like to discuss.  In late June, the United States lost one of the finest minds on counter-insurgency in GEN McChrystal, and I’m weary of reading blogs and posts about how it is “about time someone told the truth” and how an “outsider journalist finally got it right.”  Nobody’s said a damn thing about what General McChrystal is really like, preferring to believe the Rolling Stone article’s tripe.  I told myself I wouldn’t get involved in fights on this blog, and would remain “above the fray” so to speak, but the article is a travesty, and the damage from it demands a response.  I’ve waited for someone that knows him to set a counter-balance, but I haven’t seen it.  So, here’s the GEN McChrystal that I know.

First, some ground truth:  I am not, nor have I ever been, in GEN McChrystal’s inner circle.  I was not in Afghanistan with him when the Rolling Stone article came out.  I haven’t seen him for nearly three years.  The fact that I’m blogging at all would sicken him to his core.

So what authority do I have to discuss the topic beyond the Rolling Stone reporter with a scalp on his belt?  I served under McChrystal for close to five years.  First as a Troop Commander, then as a Squadron Commander, in a unit tasked with the highest priority combat missions within the United States umbrella.  My last two years were spent on a rotational basis as a commander of a classified taskforce under his direct control.  I think I’m qualified.

The question I’m asked most often is “Why did he do it?”  Like he took a fall on purpose.  The next question is “But if it isn’t true, why doesn’t he rebut it?”  Which is what I’ve heard every talking head say over-and-over again.  On both counts, they miss the mark.

Before I answer those questions, I want to dissect a few of the author’s comments in the article, not to pick out easy targets in an ad hominem way, but just to show what I saw in the first few paragraphs.  Paragraphs that indicated the author had a clear plan of attack that was completely counter to the man about whom he was reporting.

After a little warm up on the “rogue general” theme involving bad mouthing the French (with GEN McChrystal actually shooting the finger to his chief of staff – something so out of character it’s like it was written by a hack Hollywood screenwriter), he states that GEN McChrystal’s favorite beer is Bud Light Lime, a tidbit that would subliminally show how close the “reporter” got to the “real” GEN McChrystal. That’s all great Rolling Stone fodder, but here are some facts:   Gen McChrystal has been at war for close to a decade, all in Muslim countries where alcohol is forbidden.  I’ve seen him at social occasions and in combat, and he’s not a big drinker.  If he has a favorite beer, I don’t know what it would be, but do know it sure as hell wouldn’t be something as eclectic as Bud Light Lime.  I’m sure that brand name was picked because it was just off-kilter enough to sound real to the reporter, given his extensive “experience” at war.  It wouldn’t do to have the General drinking plain old Bud Light, after all. I’m not implying that Gen McChrystal never drinks; just that it isn’t high enough on his agenda for him to actually have a favorite beer.  A favorite beer hovers somewhere around his favorite toilet paper, which is to say he has never really given it any serious thought.

The writer then continues, stating that GEN McChrystal’s favorite movie is Talladega Nights.  I’m not even sure where to go with that one.  It’s so out of character that I wonder if the writer was in a room with someone pretending to be GEN McChryrstal.  The man isn’t big on movies.  While under his command, he would become aggravated when we watched movies in between missions because the time could be better spent studying the enemy.  If a soldier had time to watch a movie, he wasn’t putting enough effort into solving the problem.  It’s almost like the guy wrote what he thought a rogue general would watch.  If you actually had the audacity or stupidity to use a movie quote from Talladega Nights to McChrystal,  he would have looked at you like you were an absolute moron.  Which would also be the exact moment that you ceased to exist for him, because unlike the article portrays, he cares about one single thing:  a commitment to success for our nation.

I’m now going to get petty on the inconsistencies because I think it does show how much “research” the reporter did.  He proudly quotes that McChrystal was once the “regimental commander of the 3rd Ranger Battalion.”  That sounds great, but the regimental commander is in charge of the REGIMENT.  Not the BATTALION.  I’ll give the guy some props here though, because McChrystal was in charge of both 2nd Batt AND the 75th Infantry Regiment.  First one, then the other, as he was promoted up the ladder.  So, the reporter’s partially right, like a broken clock that’s correct twice a day.

Enough on the faulty reporting.  I could go on and on with the discrepancies and outright lies in the story (General McChrystal was promoted to Major General after Tillman’s death – when in fact he was a Major General before he even assumed command, etc), but I know that folks who want to believe the reporter will do so regardless of what I say.  After all, the reporter’s not getting anything out of lying, is he?

So, why would GEN McChrystal allow such reporting to happen?  In my opinion, there is no grand conspiracy.  Simply put, he trusted Hastings and that trust was misplaced.  It happens all the time in all walks of life, from Bernie Madoff fleecing America to a husband or wife getting blindsided by an affair.  I’ve heard people say that GEN McChrystal just didn’t understand the press because of all of his “black ops” time, and thus pulled a Pattonesque screw up, but that’s not the case.  He was the press spokesman for the Pentagon at the opening of our assault into Afghanistan.  Trust me, he understands the press.  When in Iraq he had a healthy appreciation of the damage and/or the reward the press could provide.  As the commanding general of Afghanistan war effort, his appreciation only became stronger.

Another theory is that he did it on purpose, because he “didn’t like the cards the administration was dealing”.  This, too, is bunk.  The cards in GEN McChrystal’s hand were plucked from the deck by him.  He created the campaign plan and sold it to the national command authority.  He got nearly everything he asked for.  Far from wanting to quit, the GEN McChrystal I know thought to the core of his being that he was going to win.  Period.  Just like had happened in Iraq.  On my last rotation in Iraq there were a thousand murders a month in Baghdad alone.  It was a cyclone of sectarian violence that had convinced me we were doomed.  GEN McChrystal thought otherwise, and, along with GEN Casey and the other architects of what became known as “The Surge”, worked to win.  And I’ll be damned if they weren’t right.  Afghanistan is no different, and the GEN McChrystal I know would not cash it in.  Period.  Especially to some reporter from Rolling Stone who made him look like an ass.

So what happened?  Simply put, I believe he was duped by an untrustworthy reporter.  GEN McChrystal understood the impact of information, and probably thought Rolling Stone would be a good venue to change some minds on the war.  To get out some ground truth on the fight and impart his viewpoint to an audience that typically only gets one side of the story.  He’d had a pretty good track record with reporters.  Some articles bad, some good, but all-in-all, a win on the information front.  This should have been no different, but, unfortunately, he was in the crosshairs of a gossip columnist guttersnipe and failed to realize it.

If you were to go to any battalion in the US Army – or Marines – you’re going to hear bitching about higher command.  Squads bitch about the platoon leader.  Platoons bitch about the Company Commander.  Companies bitch about “those idiots at battalion”, and so on, until you reach a level where you hear bitching about the National Command Authority.  I’m not saying it’s right.  Just that it’s not indicative of what GEN McChrystal’s staff actually thought.  They were just venting.

When I was with him, one would be hard pressed to leave alive if you were to utter some of the things in that article.  This reporter chose to immortalize every bad thing he heard from a bunch of unnamed “aides” for a quick buck and his name in lights.  Imagine all the hurtful things you’ve ever said; now imagine them in a national magazine.  It wouldn’t be flattering, and you’d be stuttering “But, but, but…that’s not me…”

Which brings up the point of why GEN McChrystal won’t say it’s bullshit.  The answer is that it won’t benefit the Afghanistan war effort.  Yes, that’s right, he cares more about the mission than his personal footnote in history.  The article’s damage was done, and fighting it would only serve to prolong the agony, which would hurt the effort in Afghanistan.  Something he considers more critical.  In the end, he held the nation’s interests above his own.  Something the reporter from Rolling Stone would never understand.  Or maybe he completely understood, and deliberately crafted a story that would serve his purposes.  Judging from his other reporting, that may be the case.

We have yet to feel the second and third-order effects of destroying GEN McChrystal’s Army career.  While the damage to the counterinsurgency fight will be significant, I’ll leave that analysis to others and focus on an area that has received scant attention.  Journalists gleefully seized on the story like rapacious sharks, not even realizing the damage the article has caused.  Succeeding in the military is a slog-fest fight from the beginning–a slow, hard grind where skill and perseverance get you to the top.  It’s not like Hollywood, where one good movie makes you a star, or apparently like journalism, where one juicy story can put you in the spotlight.  It takes dedication and commitment, and no commander will now risk thirty years of hard work for reporters who may just be trying to get their names in lights.

Try being an honest journalist attempting to report about any other general at war nowadays.  You’re going to find yourself outside waiting, because there’s no way to differentiate between reporters who are in it for the good and those looking for gossip.  After all, GEN McChrystal, a man who dealt with the press on a daily basis at the pentagon, and has given hundreds of interviews since, failed to see the danger.  No general in his right mind is going to let a reporter get within a half-mile of him, and I don’t blame ’em.

All of which is a shame, because most reporters respect the rules.   Most reporting is honest, and America deserves to know the truth.  Without the embeds, we get vague theories based on what the reporter hears outside the tent, away from the command.  A half-baked guess at best, which leads to half-baked opinions, and then half-baked voting by a population that doesn’t understand the intricacies of what’s at stake–in a country where the military is a reflection of the society at large.

Good luck with that.  Don’t start bitching at the Army, though.  Send a note to Rolling Stone.

After the Sandy Hook tragedy there has been an abundance of emotional discussion on banning “assault weapons”, but very little talk on the intricacies of what that means.  Make no mistake, with two daughters, Sandy Hook sickens me to my core, but the blatant posturing for political gain by people who know better almost rivals my disgust at the act itself.  Almost.  Everyone now seems eager to jump on the bandwagon of how evil “assault weapons” are, without ever really defining what that means.  Even previously pro-gun politicians are proclaiming their support of a ban.  On the surface, it seems very simple:  Create a law that makes it illegal to sell “assault weapons” that slaughter “indiscriminately”.   Why can’t that happen?  The bumper sticker is because the gun lobby has so much power it overcomes the will of congress.  In truth, it’s a little more complicated.

I’m not going to pick a side here.  I’m simply going to attempt to explain the problems inherent in the debate, because I was having this very discussion with my wife and was astounded at how little she knew about guns.   I’ve purposely steered clear of any discussion about the second amendment, mental health issues, armed teachers, or anything else involving hot-button topics, preferring to stick with some nuts and bolts that apparently aren’t as common knowledge as I thought.   My purpose here isn’t to debate, but to clarify.

When I was a boy there was a rash of handgun violence in inner cities, most conducted with very cheap, short-barreled revolvers, and nicknamed “Saturday night specials”.  They were junk, and had about as much chance of blowing up in the shooter’s hands as they did harming someone, but they were plentiful and cheap – perfect for throwing away after a crime.  They were weapons that nobody – short of a criminal – would own, and an easy vote to get rid of on all sides of the aisle.  The weapons served no useful sporting or defensive purposes, so get rid of them.  A push came to ban them nationally, but when it came time to specifically define what a “Saturday night special” was, a roadblock appeared, precisely because the weapon functioned exactly like every other revolver.  In order to clearly define the cheap junk, the ban would have outlawed every other weapon that operated similarly.  Thus, it failed, because the congress – while hating Saturday night specials – did not believe it would be in their best interests for reelection to eliminate a whole class of weapons.

This dilemma continues in one form or another any time a “weapons ban” is discussed.  Truth be told, there are certain weapons that wouldn’t bother me if they were banned , but there’s just no way to do that with any specificity that wouldn’t impact other, legitimate weapons.  Take the Tec 9 pictured here:

 

 

 

 

 

While others will call me a sell-out, I would not blink an eye if this weapon ceased to exist.  It’s not accurate, not easy to shoot, and serves no redeemable purpose for anything other than gang violence in my eyes, and yet how could you ban just this gun?  Here are your options:  A.  You can ban it outright – as the ’94 Assault Weapons Ban did, IE – “the TEC 9 is now illegal for sale”.  Four months later the maker changes the name to “Homedefender 10” and starts selling again (actually they changed it to “AB-10”, as in “After Ban”).  B.  You could ban the caliber of bullet the Tec 9 fires, but they’d just re-tool to a different, comparable caliber.  C.  In the end, the only way to ensure success would be to ban how it operates.  IE – ban recoil operated semi-automatic handguns with a detachable box magazine.  And here is where I step in, because that definition would ban every single semi-automatic handgun in America, from a target .22 to legitimate weapons for home defense.   And that, in a nutshell, is the problem with an assault weapons ban.

All semi-automatic weapons function one of two ways: 1. The gas from the burning propellant is diverted and used to chamber another round, 2. The recoil energy of the fired round itself is harnessed to chamber another round.  This semi-automatic aspect is what gives the “assault weapon” its ability to put many rounds down-range in a short amount of time, and what makes it lethal.  It’s not the pistol grip, the flash suppressor, the fact that it’s black plastic or that it’s evil looking.  It’s how it operates.  So, if you truly wanted to prevent another tragedy like Sandy Hook (given that you believe the weapon is the problem – please no comments on this, just assume for now) the surest way would be to do exactly what I said above about the TEC 9: ban how it operates.  The problem is that if you do that, you eliminate an entire class of weapons that people use for hunting and sport – including weapons like this, which look evil to some but are in reality very, very expensive, tack-drivingly accurate systems used for varmint hunting and competitions:

 

Some would say that’s a small price to pay, that rifles such as this are no more than expensive assault weapons because they look evil, but you also eliminate this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Ruger mini-14 that is called the “ranch rifle” because ranchers use it to protect their livestock from predators.  Some would continue that this is still not that big of a deal, but you also would eliminate this:

 

 

A Remington 1100 shotgun used by duck and deer hunters all over the United States.  In fact, it would eliminate every single semi-auto shotgun no matter the make, along with every semi-automatic .22 target rifle and squirrel gun such as this:

 

 

They all operate the SAME way, and thus would be eliminated.  A minority would state that’s still worth the cost, but the majority of Americans, when confronted with a ban of this magnitude, would not support such a thing.  And congress knows it.  With the current emotional state of the country, it’s easy – and a great sound-bite – to get on TV and say, “I’m going to ban all assault weapons”, but it’s a hell of a lot harder to come home to your constituents and say, “I also banned all your shotguns, .22 plinkers, and ranch rifles”.  It’s not the “gun lobby” that prevents this from occurring.  It’s the American public.  Doing so would guarantee that the congressman or senator would not be reelected in all but the most liberal areas.  So, not being able to do anything concrete, but still needing to show that they were doing “something”, in 1994 congress went another route, basically going after how a rifle looks instead of its capability.  After a lot of gyrations, the ‘94 ban stated that a rifle was an “assault weapon” if the following was met:

Any semiautomatic rifle made after 9/13/94, which can accept a detachable magazine and which has two or more of the following characteristics is a banned Assault Weapon:

Folding or telescoping stock,
Pistol grip which protrudes conspicuously below the action of the gun,
Bayonet mount,
Flash suppressor or a threaded barrel designed to accommodate a flash suppressor,
Grenade launcher. (more precisely, a muzzle device that enables launching or firing rifle grenades, though this applies only to muzzle mounted grenade launchers and not those mounted externally).

So, if the rifle was semi-automatic, able to take a detachable magazine, and had TWO of the other items, it was banned.  This, on the surface, seemed to be a perfect choice, and people like Diane Feinstein are today proclaiming that the ban needs to be reinstated, but the truth is that this ban did absolutely nothing because it only discussed cosmetic differences.  The average person, not understanding exactly how the ban worked, would look at this weapon and say that, after 1994, it was illegal.  After all, it “looks” like one that “should be included”:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guess what?  It wasn’t.  By definition, it’s not an assault weapon.  Neither is this one:

 

 

California went further, creating their own state ban (that’s still in effect) that basically took the federal guidelines and restricted the weapons to only ONE of the extra features.  If Sandy Hook had occurred in California with any of these rifles, it would not be classified as an assault weapon, because it’s not by California law:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the end, defining a weapon by how it looks does little to affect anything, something that even people who are rabidly pro-gun control state, such as the legislative director for the Violence Policy Center, who said, “The 1994 law in theory banned AK-47s, MAC-10s, UZIs, AR-15s and other assault weapons. Yet the gun industry easily found ways around the law and most of these weapons are now sold in post-ban models virtually identical to the guns Congress sought to ban in 1994.”

It’s the weapon operation itself that delivers the devastation, not what it looks like.  For instance, this is the Ruger Mini 14 in two different configurations.  The top as a ranch rifle, legal after the ‘94 ban, and the bottom as a tactical rifle, illegal after the ‘94 ban.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One looks “evil”, but both possess the same operating system.  An operation that, while potentially used for nefarious purposes, is also used daily for a host of appropriate reasons.  One crazy asshole should not preclude millions of others from operating weapons legitimately (my opinion).  It’s horrific that the “black rifle” was used for a crime, but it’s not any more horrific than someone who uses fertilizer to build a bomb, as Timothy McVeigh did. 

After explaining all this to my wife, she said, “So what does that mean?  There’s nothing we can do?”  And I surprised her.  There is one thing I would support.  The ‘94 ban did more than discuss weapons.  It also discussed magazine capacity (or “clip” if you watch the news), and restricted all to ten rounds or less.  Out of everything idiotic in the ban, this one actually had some teeth.  The killer in the “Batman” Aurora Theater shooting entered with a 100 round drum magazine.  This is ridiculous and serves no legitimate civilian purpose whatsoever.  I realize that I’m now treading on dangerous ground, about to be declared an apostate, but a ten round magazine is plenty for any defensive scenario, provided you can shoot – which, if you own a weapon for self defense and don’t know how to shoot it, you are the apostate – and also would have little impact on tactical shooting competitions.  Yeah, there would be an increase in forced reloads on some courses of fire, but others are already limited to ten rounds per magazine or less.  In truth, when I trained on active duty, we were routinely forced to perform a magazine change as part of the skill required to survive in combat.

And that is the crux.  Changing magazines under pressure is not as easy as it sounds.  Forcing some psycho to do that in order to continue killing provides an edge.  Provides time for others to react.  Provides a gap when he or she is essentially as defenseless as the victims on the other end of the barrel.  Provides a host of things that can short-circuit a mass slaughter.  According to the Sandy Hook medical examiner, each victim was shot multiple times by a rifle at close range.  The fact that it was a “black rifle” is irrelevant.  It could have been any number of rifles that will pass any “ban” instituted, but given the rifle at hand, with close to thirty casualties, and assuming a thirty round magazine from news reports, he would have had to reload a minimum of once.  That changes to five with a ten round magazine.  Five different gaps in time for someone to escape.

Unfortunately, in the end logic won’t triumph.  Politicians, sensing public sentiment – and understanding the lack of public knowledge – will continue to rail against “assault weapons”, and we’ll waste enormous energy in debating a piece of legislation that – outside of a magazine restriction – completely ignores the fact that it will do little to prevent any future tragedy.

Unlike investigating the systemic societal problems that underlie each of these horrific events in the first place.  Okay, I got political in the end.  Sorry.

Given the sequence of events over the past few days, I’d be willing to bet that Paula Broadwell really wishes she’d picked a different title.  Sparing any lewd analogies, it’s certainly looking like everyone who’s had anything to do with GEN Petraeus is all in this investigation.  GEN Allen is now being investigated for sending a “number” of emails to Jill Kelley – the number being so high it boggles my mind – and the FBI special agent who started the investigation as a favor to Kelley is under scrutiny for being obsessed with her and sending topless photos of himself via text.  What’s next?  

All I’m waiting on is a story about Broadwell driving from North Carolina to Florida wearing a diaper and a wig, like the NASA shuttle astronaut Lisa Nowak. 

There are a plethora of conspiracy theories surrounding GEN Petraeus’s resignation, mostly centered on the Benghazi investigation, but I think that may be a reach.  It just makes no sense, given that Petraeus will likely testify anyway.  Blackmailing him or preventing him from testifying by destroying his family and career in order to “cover up” Benghazi ignores an obvious fact:  In the end, GEN Petraeus has absolutely nothing restraining him from fighting back, but now has a great incentive to do so. 

Benghazi has generated other conspiracy theories, including that after the fight began, the military and CIA, either by themselves or under orders, refused to provide any help to the beleaguered consulate.  I think this too will eventually be debunked when the story is fully vetted.  It’s my belief, because of the complete lack of prior planning driven by a desperate need to prove Libya was a success, that the response was about what could be expected.  Talking heads who draw lines on a map, then claim “someone” could have been available in X time are simply being armchair quarterbacks without an understanding of basic military logistics.  It takes my wife thirty minutes to get ready to go to dinner, yet according to the armchair quarterbacks on TV, we could have had an entire assault force, complete with transportation, on the ground in a foreign country within two hours.  Yeah, that would have been possible if there’d been a security plan in the first place.   

The analogy I use is a firehouse.  Imagine if your local firehouse, for whatever reason, stood down for a week, with the fire trucks and men being scattered around the state.  If you gave it a call during an emergency, they’d take some time getting together, re-equipping, and launching to your fire.  Now imagine making that same call to a firehouse that’s standing ready to respond.  It’s the difference between having a plan and trying to come up with a plan after a crisis has erupted.  I guarantee when the initial military person heard about the assault on the consulate in Benghazi, his first question was, “Where the hell is Benghazi?” The Pentagon Spokesman himself, when asked about the response, said, “The entire U.S. Government was operating from a cold start.” And THAT is the real crime.   

We “won” Libya “on the cheap”, and by no means were we ever going to put any boots on the ground, so it became politically expedient to ignore any security threats.  After all, embassies get threats all the time.  To take the threats in Benghazi seriously would have entailed a reaction plan, complete with troops on standby – much like a firehouse. Doing that would be tantamount to admitting that Libya wasn’t the wonderland the administration wanted us to believe it was.  Far from increasing security, the administration pulled out what little military capability we had, and the result was as predicted in numerous alerting emails and cables from the consulate. 

So, at the end of the day, I think the various conspiracies swirling around GEN Petraeus and Benghazi will not be born out.  It is what it is: a man guilty of infidelity and an attack against a diplomatic outpost that had inadequate security and no plan for reinforcement.   The only question in my mind is the timing of the release of information. 

 I find it incredible that the director of the CIA was being investigated by the FBI and nobody in the administration had a clue.  It’s simply not feasible.  Petraeus was personally interviewed by the FBI at the end October.  At that time, he admitted to the affair, and more than likely began writing his resignation letter.  It stretches the imagination that the administration had no idea about an investigation that had been ongoing for months against the most powerful man in the intelligence community.  It’s just not possible, no matter how many “protocols” the FBI will inevitably hide behind. 

 I’m not taking sides in a political fight, but the fact is that having this come out prior to the election would not have been beneficial to the incumbent.  At the time the entire affair was boiling to a head, Benghazi reporting, as sparse as it was (which frankly deserves its own investigation.  Why does this infidelity consume the press to the point of ripping open every scab available, but the deaths of four Americans, including an ambassador, barely created a ripple?), had taken a backseat to Hurricane Sandy.  Compare that to today’s reporting, and you’ll get an idea of where Hurricane Sandy would have fallen on the news scale had this come out before the election.  Benghazi would have been the star, and that would be a storm rolling right through the election with as much destructive force as Sandy itself.

 Of course, I could be proven wrong.  This story has so many twists and turns I doubt anyone short of a diaper-wearing astronaut will be able to predict the outcome.   

I’ve blogged about our incursion into Libya on three separate occasions, and the main theme threaded throughout was that getting rid of Ghadafi was only half of the equation.  Stabilizing the country afterwards is the other half, and, as I said back then, our foreign policy just doesn’t seem to get that.

Well, it sure does now.  Everyone is scrambling to pin the rose on who killed the U.S. Ambassador and some of his staff, with some blaming a movie that insults Islam as the culprit, and others saying it was a planned attack on behalf of al Qaida.  While I’m not so sure about the al Qaida connection, there’s no way this was an unruly flash mob that simply coalesced on the consulate with unfortunate results.  Unruly mobs don’t show up with rocket propelled grenades and assault rifles, then conduct a synchronized attack.  But that’s really irrelevant.  Whether it was al Qaida or simply a fragment of the many militias that are running around Libya, one fact is perfectly clear:  If Ghadafi was still in power, it wouldn’t have happened.

So far there have been three occurrences of mobs attacking U.S. embassies:  Yemen, Egypt and Libya.  All three have something in common: The governments are in significant turmoil.  One has a little bit extra: The turmoil was caused by our own foreign policy.

Think about it.  The most conservative Islamic country in the world is Saudi Arabia.  Not only did our embassy escape unscathed, but the Kingdom actually condemned the other attacks. 

No matter who actually perpetrated the attack in Libya, what facilitated their ability to succeed was the U.S. removing all governmental infrastructure in the state.  In retaliation, we’re apparently sending two warships with fifty Marines to the Mediterranean, which is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.  What are they going to do?  Invade?  You mean actually put boots on the ground to stabilize the country?  Hell no.  If anything, we’ll launch some missiles into a sand dune, which will have about as much use as banging a wall when you’re angry.

What I find especially ominous is our current dithering over Syria.  Once again, we’re calling for the ouster of the head of state without any thought to the mess that will be left behind.  Only the repercussions in Syria will be exponentially greater, with everything from weapons of mass destruction on the loose to Lebanon descending into sectarian violence reminiscent of the 1980’s.

If anything, Libya should remind us that there is never a conflict “won on the cheap”, and that victory is not achieved the moment the opposing side capitulates.  Believing such folly inevitably leads to what we now have in Libya, and a president giving a hollow promise to bring the killers to justice. 

If he really wants to find the person responsible for the first domino that fell in the death of Ambassador John Stevens, he should look in the mirror.

It’s been a couple of years since I blogged about the damage Wikileaks has done, and the founder is back in the news.  Julian Assange has holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in the United Kingdom, after fleeing from authorities who wanted to extradite him to Sweden for alleged sex crimes.  And yet, his entire existence still revolves, remarkably, around some fanciful plot that the United States is trying to get him, with Assange himself spending his last moment in the sun denouncing the US “Witch Hunt”. What “witch hunt” is he talking about?  The United States has never once tried to arrest him in any manner whatsoever.  In fact, he’s never even been indicted for anything in the United States (although in 2010 the Wikileaks spokesman said it was “imminent”).  But he has for real in Sweden.

The chain goes something like this:  Afghan “war diary” is released by Wikileaks. Assange is indicted in Sweden for sexual assault.  Assange is arrested in Britain based on the Swedish indictment.  The extradition is allowed by the British courts.  Assange scurries like a rat to the Ecuadorian embassy, demanding political asylum because he’s afraid it’s just a giant plot and Sweden is going to send him to America, where he’ll swing from the gallows for his treachery.

Or maybe it’s really all of the above, with the addition of, “I’m guilty of rape, and I’m going to jail.  Gotta stop that, and I’ve got just the mouthpiece that will help.”

The stated reason for asylum is so lame I can’t believe anyone would agree with it.  Does anyone really think the United States could extradite him from Sweden more easily than the United Kingdom?  If we had any inkling of doing that, wouldn’t it be more prudent to request it from Britain, a much stauncher ally than Sweden?  One that’s been described as “the most friendly US extradition regime in Europe”? Why on earth would we sit on the sidelines and wait for this entire nebulous Swedish extradition process to go on, only to have to start it again with Sweden once they got their hands on Assange?  Why not just jumpstart it by cutting in line and requesting extradition from the U.K. first?  That’s not genius coming from me.  In 2010 a London cyber-crimes expert said,“(U.S. officials) might be well advised, if they think they have a basis, to try to extradite him while he’s still here.”  We didn’t then, and we aren’t going to now.  It’s all smoke and mirrors to keep him out of jail for crimes of a far different kind.

Ecuador, in an incredible bit of fantasy, apparently agrees about the “witch hunt”, and has granted him asylum.  Thus, he now exists in a nether-world, sleeping on someone’s floor and unable to leave the building because if he takes one step out, he’ll be arrested.  Which I think is just perfect.

The hypocrisy of the organization itself is staggering.  When Britain threatened to come inside the embassy and forcibly remove him, a Wikileaks spokesman warned against it, saying, “I hope that the UK authorities are sensible enough not to enter the embassy without permission, which would risk upsetting diplomatic relations all over the world.”

Seriously!  Wikileaks actually had the courage to say the action would upset diplomatic relations around the world.  With a straight face.  If there has been one single event that has upset diplomatic relations around the world in the last thirty years, it’s Wikileaks itself, and NOW they’re worried about diplomatic relations?  No. They’re worried about their supreme leader being forced to take showers with his back against the wall when he goes to jail for sexual assault.  Period.

The spokesman continued by saying he hopes this can be solved in a “civilized manner”.  Because in civilized countries, when an “civilized” person is accused of a crime, they don’t go to court and prove their innocence.  They get bail and run like a coward, using whatever means necessary to keep from facing justice. 

I hope he rots in the embassy for the next twenty years, hearing phantom police officers storming the stairs.

Today marks the fortieth anniversary of the Watergate break-in, and I find it strangely symbolic given the ongoing debate about the current spate of leaks plaguing this administration.  Watergate was the breaking point for any restraint in the press; the end of responsible journalism where writers weighed the ramifications of a story before publishing it.  Prior to Watergate, American journalists felt they had an obligation both to their newspaper and to their country.  Now, it’s a free-for-all, the only obligation being to make as much of a news sensation as possible, using whatever information you have.  Not only do modern journalists not seem to care, it’s as if they feel it’s their duty to publish everything they find, regardless of the consequences to national security.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not implying that the reporting of Watergate was bad.  It most assuredly was not.  The story needed to be told and the Washington Post did a service to the nation by doing so.  However, the lionization of Woodward and Bernstein has had the unintended consequence of raising a generation of journalists lacking an ethical foundation.  It’s like they only saw the method and the end state, and not the evolution of the story itself.  The editorial team at the Washington Post DID in fact heavily weigh each report in the Watergate series, honestly looking at what damage they might engender to the national fabric, something that now seems as quaint as a quilting bee.  That part of the Watergate saga seems to have been lost.  All that remains is the nagging desire to have someone of Robert Redford’s caliber play the modern day “journalist” in a movie, regardless of the damage done getting there.

Both sides of the aisle are demanding the heads of whoever is responsible for the latest intelligence leaks, with everyone focused on the source.  This is absolutely fine and completely necessary, but why isn’t anyone chastising those reporting the classified information in the first place?  It’s time they are also taken to task.

I’ve blogged about this before, but I’ve lost all hope for the United States press corps to make any judgment on what constitutes a reportable news story and what constitutes a legitimate threat to American lives.  They’ll revert instead to whatever TMZ-like titillation they can achieve to maintain “relevance” in the age of Wikileaks.  It’s disgusting, and a little sad.  In an effort to compete with sleazy blog sites, they’ve become one.  I honestly have no doubt that had a reporter found out about the bin Laden raid before it happened, it would have been reported breathlessly as soon as he could find a WiFi hotspot.  “Osama bin Laden located, SEALS set to raid next week!”

Truthfully, I think a story like that would have had less of an impact on our national security than the two stories that prompted the latest investigations. 

One exposed the intelligence operation that foiled the underwear bomb plot in May.  In so doing, it also exposed the extent of our penetration of Al Qaida by our allies, since the agent in question was working for the Saudis under the tutelage of British MI-6, complete with the asset carrying a United Kingdom passport.  Needless to say, I don’t think they’re too happy about that, and will be much less likely to help us in the future.  Especially since this isn’t the first time the U.S. press has reported information that not only compromises the U.S., but compromises our allies and their intelligence communities.

The other exposed our involvement with Israel implanting the STUXNET virus into Iranian centrifuges to slow down their nuclear ambitions – an operation that is still ongoing.  I wish there was an app that caused an explosion to go off when you read that sentence because the simplicity of the facts doesn’t do it justice.  Read it again.  It’s pretty incredible.  The reporter actually exposed an ongoing covert action against a very real nuclear threat from a nation hostile to us and its entire region.  A nation that routinely chants “Death to America”.  And NOBODY has raised a single question about the integrity of the journalist – in this case, an individual.  If this was World War II, the reporter would more than likely be in jail for treason.  Instead, he’s all over the news, proud of his “Woodward” moment and chafing at the bit that anyone would say it was a deliberate Obama leak.  Why, it was his intrepid reporting, dammit!   He probably sits alone at night in his jockey shorts fantasizing about Brad Pitt portraying him in the movie, heedless of the damage he’s caused to the protection of our nation.  Oh, wait.  He’s a reporter.  So he’s got the first amendment.  I forgot, that protects you from having a conscious, but it shouldn’t protect you completely from the damage you’ve caused to American security.

Apparently it does.  Simply calling yourself a reporter gives you some sort of Avenger’s cloak of immunity; free to spew whatever top-secret stuff you can glean.  Bradley Manning’s defense team is probably watching what’s happening, thinking all he needs to do now is say, “You can’t prosecute me for Wikileaks.  I’m a journalist and this is what we do.”

Neither one of these stories involved any malfeasance on the part of the U.S. Government.  There was no burning reason to expose either operation.  No corruption or cover up.  Instead, both immeasurably harmed the United States’ ability to protect its own citizens. 

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.  I am absolutely weary of giving the press a free pass on harming national security when reporting classified operations.  Being a reporter doesn’t absolve you of your responsibilities as a United States citizen.  If it’s okay to put someone in jail for leaking the information, then surely there should be some repercussions for the person reporting it, even if it’s simply reviling them publicly.

Yeah, I get the first amendment, and would never infringe on it.  In fact, I’m one of the few who’s seen blood shed to protect it, but the American press is getting a little ridiculous.  It’s time for them be a little introspective and come to some common ground on what should or should not be reported; instead of trying to outdo each other by exposing bigger secrets than the competition.

You want to be Woodward and Bernstein, then act like them beyond simply finding a Deep Throat.  Weigh the ramifications of your story before you publish it.