Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
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Now we know what BillT does in his spare time... And courtesy of a commenter at Lex's, here's some fixed-wing craziness to go along with that.
As for what congress critters do in their spare time... endanger American lives and foreign policy. But hey, no biggie, right? I really am beyond words--I cannot wrap my brain around this.
And more politicized intelligence... Of course, if Israel disappears in the near future (and the rest of the world copes with the literal fallout), we'll look back and say it was Bush's fault for doing nothing back in 2008 before it was too late. Nevermind that a politicized intelligence service made it utterly impossible. *looking for something to take out my frustration on*
Oh yeah, it's Valentine's Day. Here, use these.
"Dark," you say? "Bad mood?" Who, me? - FbL
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Okay, here's a something a bit lighter (though the idea of on whom future success depends is worrisome): Krauthammer covers some of the detail of the recent Iraqi election, and the good news goes far beyond the simple fact that an election was held in peace and safety. - FbL
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Alright... here's a genuine feel-good story appropriate to the day: Married 53 years... and deploying to Iraq.
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Now we know what BillT does in his spare time... And courtesy of a commenter at Lex's, here's some fixed-wing craziness to go along with that.
As for what congress critters do in their spare time... endanger American lives and foreign policy. But hey, no biggie, right? I really am beyond words--I cannot wrap my brain around this.
And more politicized intelligence... Of course, if Israel disappears in the near future (and the rest of the world copes with the literal fallout), we'll look back and say it was Bush's fault for doing nothing back in 2008 before it was too late. Nevermind that a politicized intelligence service made it utterly impossible. *looking for something to take out my frustration on*
Oh yeah, it's Valentine's Day. Here, use these.
"Dark," you say? "Bad mood?" Who, me? - FbL
*******************************
Okay, here's a something a bit lighter (though the idea of on whom future success depends is worrisome): Krauthammer covers some of the detail of the recent Iraqi election, and the good news goes far beyond the simple fact that an election was held in peace and safety. - FbL
*******************************
Alright... here's a genuine feel-good story appropriate to the day: Married 53 years... and deploying to Iraq.
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*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires. Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute. Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is. The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now. Of course, now I have to call them UAS's, because someone got a Legion of Merit for the name change.Anyway, I call the post H&I Fires because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is Free Fire Zone.
No no. Not 2008. More like 2003.
And put it context with all of Obama's overtures to Iran (whch they threw back in his face)... the only people taking a belligerant/hostile stance toward Iran are not Democrats.
It's the old saw about choosing the simple answer--simple answer is: 2007 was a political hit job and/or bureaucratic shenanigans.
As for this on and off and on assessment I don't have anything much to add. It might have been politics or incompetence. I hope it wasn't incompetence again. If it was a political hit job a treachery of that order requires a hanging. So either way it's a bad sign. It may also have been an attempt by somebody to slow down the idea of attacking Iran which I recall was pushed fairly heavily for a while.
1. The guy overseeing the gathering/writing of it was a political appointee with some interesting connections...
2. The "exeutive summary," which was the basis of all press reports and most of the politicians' commentary on it, tilted the report from being "there are some indications they may have stopped, but we're not sure because we have no proof they have and we can't verify anything because we don't have enough human intelligence (HUMINT)" to "they stopped pursuing a weapon in 2003." In some places it was downright contradictory.
In my opinion, it was a total political hit job and absolutely unconscionable. Talk to people who have had to live in the swamp that is CIA/State mid/upper-level leadership/paper-pushers and they will tell you that national security there all too often comes second to political power-plays and outright fights with the DoD/White House, especially under Bush. You can argue that the analysis department Wolfowitz (IIRC, maybe it was Rumsfeld/Cheney...) set up at DoD was out of bounds, but the reason for doing it was partly to get it out of the political sewer and try to get a handle on what was real and what was spin/games (and speaking of spin/games... The AP completely botched the reporting of the investigation into whether it was acceptable/legal--reported the exact opposite of what the investigation had found, then changed the story repeatedly--I caught them on my blog in mid-spin).
People used to say military intelligence was an oxymoron. Now we have Senate intelligence.
Of course...you could probably say that about flying fighter planes along the surface of a lake...but at least they're not even pretending to be performing any necessary service, they're just being badasses for badassery's sake.
I do think Iraq was the lowest hanging fruit. I've no problem with that. In many ways it simplified the ME/S Asia politically. What threat does Iran face now that she need nukes? Iraq's gone. The elements of Af'stan that were thorns in her side are fitting for their political lives. It was isolation in many ways. What torques me is that the Euro-pacifist crowd looks at it and says there's no reason to be alarmed we can just talk to them and we'll get them to stand down. I've resigned myself to the Barnettian pathway vis Iran, but that's not 'cause I like it. Sans a much bigger coalition than did Iraq Iran's the bridge at Remmagen.
If anything should've been above Iraq it's the DPRK and Kartman-Jong iL. Geebus. The people are actually getting dumber and phsyically smaller from 2 decades of famine, caused by Stalinist policies, and they actually have tested both missiles and nuclear devices. If you're talking about the worst of the worst AND the most immediate threat, well, i don't see how everyone comes up with Iran out of the original Axis of Evil. Iraq was easier and simpler, but Iran? Quit smoking the *metaphorical* crack.