Bill Whittle is an internet favorite. If you’ve only recently begun browsing blogs, his writing may not be familiar. It should be.
His latest effort comes in two parts. And it is a rip-snorter that will make you remember and think seriously. I’ll tell you no more than he discusses alliances and deterrence. If you sincerely want to understand where we really are in this world, you need to read this.
Welcome back, Bill.
UML Guy has the best description yet of what we are attempting to do in the Middle East–Standing up the dominoes.
For those of you as old as I am, you will remember the opposite which got us involved in Vietnam. In the Middle East, the dominoes have already fallen, and we need to reset them.
There are two significant elections this week, and most Americans are minimally aware of either. But we should be.
Australians and Afghanis go to the polls this week to determine their leadership. For Australians, it is business as usual, just as it is here. Latham and Howard vie for the post of Prime Minister, and the race for seats in Parliament are pretty much neck and neck. Slatts, Kev, and Tim have all the specifics. Tim has a poll of Aussie bloggers.
The important issue in Australia is Iraq and Islamicists. Howard is a staunch supporter of both, and Latham is their Kerry.
Afghanistan is anything but business as usual. This election is their first. Ever.Hamid Karzai faces some 20 others in his bid to retain his position. Prime among his opponents is Abdul Rashid Dostum, who was once Karzai’s military advisor. Karzai is Pashtun. Dostum is Uzbek. So, tribal and sectarian divisions are in play. Slice, who just returned from a tour there believes Karzai will have no problem winning the election. But he must get at least 50% of the vote to avert a runoff–most likely against Dostum.
With virtually every MSM reporter in this country covering our election, we’ll get little info on wither except through internet sources. I would recommend Hook as the man on the scene for Afghanistan, and the above-mentioned Aussies, as well as Arthur and Chris, for word on the Australian election.
The most ancient, and most widely used Weapon of Mass Destruction is famine. It is time for us to take aim at the most pernicious practitioners of this weapon. We already dispatched one–Saddam Hussein–but there are plenty more of them in the world. And their headquarters is in New York City.
I sometimes wonder if the purpose of the UN isn’t to provide a place for despots to gather and compare notes on how best to destroy political enemies within their own borders. Genocide is only the most visible tool in use, but it requires a great deal of effort, and tends to draw attention to the operation. It is much cleaner, and far more profitable, to simply starve your enemies. This brings all kinds of foreign aid which can be redirected to feed your military forces and political cronies.
Ethiopia’s Mengitsu was a great practitioner. He managed to starve thousands during his rule, and received gifts from the US and Europe while doing so. Mugabe has pretty much destroyed what was once Africa’s breadbasket. Saddam had no problem with diverting all the Oil-for-Food dinars into his palaces and claiming the sanctions were killing children in Iraq. While Palestinians live in squalor, Arafat eats well and fattens his bank account with foreign aid dollars and Euros.
I believe we need to declare war on this particular WMD. And we can’t do it in an altruistic manner. We’ve tried that for years. We have to eliminate the tyrants who practice it. It will simply require a slightly different angle in the approach to the GWOT. We can do the same things, but couch it in different words.
The first step is to move the headquarters from NYC to Baghdad.
I have to point out several posts by Marvin at Little Red Blog.
History is filled with examples of man
The concensus of Democrats and MSM is that Iraq is a quagmire, and continues to go badly. I understand their desire for that to be true. Obvious.
Yet Wretchard has been tracking, with statistics and everything, where and when the most recent attacks have taken place. He has done a lot of work putting it all together and drawing what I feel are strong conclusions.
I have to go back to something I wrote earlier, though. People tend to compartmentalize information, and censor in their minds any link between seemingly disparate facts. Intelligence analysts look for those tenuous links rather than discarding them. And the greatest indicator in my mind as to the success or failure in Iraq is peripheral information.
Bashir al-Assad is the President of Syria, a Baathist and President in the same sense as Saddam was President of Iraq. He has an intelligence network throughout the Middle East, and has strong ties to Baathists still in Iraq. I would say his intelligence on the true situation in Iraq is better than any other. And what does his intelligence tell him about the situation? I can only make an educated guess. But I think his recent actions say a lot.
He has decided to pull troops back from Lebanon, which Syria has occupied for thirty years (the real occupied territory). He has agreed to post troops along the border with Iraq to help prevent jihadists from crossing over. And he is attempting to find a new home for some Iraqis who fled to Syria during the last two years.
My analysis is that he sees the situation in Iraq as becoming stable enough for the US to consider actions against other supporters of terrorism. And he views himself as target #1. That’s one list where he would like to see his status decline.
So, who do you believe–the New York Times or Assad’s intelligence service?
The World Bank, a UN agency, has concluded something remarkable about the Middle East.
“If only half of the region
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