The ‘Phibian does a nice job of countering and articulating my position better than I ever could. ‘Victory by any other name is just as sweet.’ More importantly, he doesn’t suffer from verbosity, I must been cursed by gypsies or something, and IDs something the ‘I love booty kicking’ group tends to ignore.

“The Political Center of Gravity of our side of this battle is the unity of support inside our government. We can do everything else 100% right, but if the anti-American Left and their bed-fellows in the Islamist Movement succeed in taking down that CoG (which is faltering), then we lose. Period. “

Got that?

It’s not because I’m a puh–uss-ie or defeatist or terminally dumb or morally challenged that I say take half a loaf, nor why CDR Salamander says about the same thing. It’s because I accept the failings and fickleness of the American public, that CoG the ‘Phibian talks about being wobbly after being worked over with a slick campaign by the opposition, to support this being the weakest and critical link in the chain that could cost us Iraq the way it cost S. Vietnam its freedom. (After having been proven utterly wrong before. Don’t gloat, John. It doesn’t go with the Santa Claus image at all.)

Of course I don’t like the ‘talk to Iran and Syria’ bit. But as the Vietnamese general said to the American general, ‘It is both true and irrelevant.’ Pro-victory. It’s not just a phrase.

Nor are those who disagree with me lame. They have a point about the immorality and the seeming dissonance of bringing in the IRC to help stabilize the region when we putatively went there to end such types of influence. Good eggs. I just wish they’d stop stepping on gollum’s neck so hard and accept that yes, guys like the ‘Phibian have critical points too.

Ultimately we better be able to rally together and start practicing what we shouted at the anti-war jerks: argue all you want before the decision is made but then back whatever decision comes down the pipe fully. Otherwise we risk losing because of our fractiousness. If The Pres chooses the ‘Butt Kicking’ option I’ll back it. If he chooses the ‘Ack’ school of thought I’m okay with that too. Pro-Victory. One Team. One Fight.
ry

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Hmmm. Is the CoG the "Opposition" or izzit The People?

And where's your plan for dealing with the Press, which really is your conduit to The People, blogs notwithstanding.

Ry is your view of proping up a new crook likely to lead to a better situation than the old crook we had?

I'm thinking those years of effort, the wounded the dead and no real progress is what your opponents are seeing. Am i missing something?

What in your idea is an improvement over the previous status quo of more Sadam? More to the point how is it going to grant victory over terrorism? Where is your half loaf?

That's a good point John about the CoG.

AS am I Trias. If the bottom falls out of the American public support it's all been for nothing when we leave and Congress does whatever they can to make it go away. We've been down that path before. We see the same moves being made. That world is far worse than shaking hands with Saddam. We can't turn back the clock and the worst pathway now isn't a Saddam but something worse.

Take what you got. toss The People(the CoG of the political element) a bone to keep the mission going. Don't give them something and they quit and you lose it all.

Half a loaf is that the 'Vietnamization' program works. It just needs time. ARVN, and Bill can probably back me on this, wasn't real good in 1969. By 1973 John Paul Van was able to use mostly ARVN ground forces backed with US airpower to shatter an NVA offensive using more tanks than Hitler used to take Poland.

THe half loaf is keeping the enterprise going and not retreating. Retreating leads to Kosovo and not to a Saddam. We need to keep it going, and we can only do that by convincing the US public that there is an end to the tunnel. That means tangible gains in security in short order.

Talk to Iran. Make concessions to them, but not the whole hog. 2 years down the line you re-insert ground forces to do the job right when the public has moved on--- Operation Desert Fox or even Linebacker 2 style.

We can deal with the CoG that is the opposition on the ground over there. If we allow for the time necessary. We need to buy time. We need to play rope a dope just long enough for the American public to get over the negativity.

We need a breather for the populace who is now really war weary. More along the lines of Robert the Bruce negotiating his famous surrender(for over a month) than Neville Chamberline and "Peace in Our Time". Cememnt the gains you've got by at least making the motions of following this path, and get the populace back on your side by making them think you actually listen to them. Give the next admin a decent situation to work with since this isn't going to be over by the time Pres Bush leaves.

The next guy/gal will have to bring a strategy to deal with the press. I cannot fathom one.

Granting access exclusively to guys like Roggio and Mike Yon just strengthens the 'lap dog of the Army and Administration' argument. I'm not sure ANYTHING can be done about the press with its negativity and hostility. I haven't a sol'n to this one John, and I do recognize that this particular could be the deal breaker from word go from now on. If it is we're farked, but I haven't a clue how to deal with it. I'm only gollum working on my lonesome.

Masochists. ;)

Ry you say toss the people a bone. What exactly is this bone comprised of? What is this half loaf? Then show me how the people of America are going to have this breather as a result.

Jeesus Trias. Are you wearing your obstinate hat today? ;)
We draw down (but not withdraw) and thereby reduce casualties. The people get the benefit of not worrying about as many loved ones. As Barnett says, 'We don't really care about non-American deaths anyways.' And he's got good historical precedent, old and recent, to back that up. That's the bone/breather pt 1. Got it?

And this is prediction Trias. In a social science domain. There is no calculating to 6 decimals, no reducing down to prime factors to see cause and effect(unlike core sciences you can't really id most of the factors much less control for one). Besides, you can't prove causation unless you do the test, and it seems you're saying I have to prove causation before you'll be willing to let me try. A bit circular, no?

Troops come back. People get the impression we're in the final stages. We're leaving and soon. Casualties drop. Iraq get calmer as we let Iran have some of what they want and call off their militias. Things look better. We're leaving and things are getting better. we're sustaining fewer casualties and there looks to be an end to the whole damn thing. That's the breather/bone pt2. Got that?

The half a loaf is that we haven't left and are still bumping heads both inside and outside of Iraq fighting for the optimum sol'n. We still have something on the ground making a difference. We have the ability to go utterly kinetic again at a time of our choosing with a better idea of how to do the second half of the war right(the reconstruction part). That's the half a loaf. Got it?

Of course i'm obstinate. It's paid off too you finally wrote something tangible.

pt1 it sounds workable but there are significant political forces pushing for total withdrawal not a drawdown. And how will this not be viewed as a US defeat?

no not 'prove' rather argue for it.

pt2 fair enough except... the Iran part. Iran adores the US floundering. They will link any agreement to US allowing them nukes and that will block diplomacy. I'm really not sure what the US will offer that Iran will get sufficiently excited about. It's not like Iran sings yankee doodle is it?

Utterly kinetic after a drawdown? I don't think so.

I dunno Ry that's a very mouldy half you have there and while you've got the US eating it places like Iran and NK will be full steam ahead. All the same the reality appears to be that the whole loaf is beyond US political and citizen will now.

How depressing.

Your way, it would seem, has us working a linear instead of convergent synthesis. Step by step.

YOu sound ChemE so I'm assuming you know how inefficient linear is compared to convergent.

I'm proposing to eat that mouldy half of bread because it works in a convergent manner to deal with multiple problems. We currently don't have the manpower to do anything about Syria, Iran, NorKor, Somalia and AFrican excursions by terrorists to establish bases there, ...... We aren't goig to have the manpower to do anything by staying on the same path either(while Iran and DPRK steam full ahead). We have X problems and we're only dealing with X-Iraq and Afghanistan. That isn't good enough.

I'm not jesting about going Kinetic either. Confidence in Coalition forces was highest when they were out smashing group after group. The mistake was in stopping that and allowing a 4th/5th gen opponent develope. Pull back. Let them become confident. Coalesce into something bigger. Stomp it flat, including the IRanian supported militias when we go back. It has a lot of downsides. But it's better than the downside of leaving altogher because domestic support evaporated.

Iran is very complicated Trias. THe threat from outside brings people who would otherwise be opposed to the IRC to side with them. Solidarity. THey have major domestic problems that threaten to fracture the country---in part why we wanted millions to fund opposition groups in Iran. The feeling of increasing IRaqi strength was the reason why much of the ME sided with us in Desert Storm. That also can be played here, particularly when we can point to the various gov'ts that we were just following their desires in pulling out(all those statements they'd written, all the op-eds in all the state run media). Of course, we'd be willing to come back and deal with the increasing Iranian power if they'd, you know, look the other way while we did it or signed on to help a little bit like when we went in 1991.

Saudi is already saying that they're going to support the Sunni in Iraq over exactly those fears Trias---Shia Iran becoming more powerful. It isn't so binary as Iran gets their wishes/Iran doesn't get their wishes. Iran getting their wishes unites the region against them to some degree, and that's something we can use so long as we don't actually bail outta Iraq and ruin or reputation. It's a yin-yang world: destruction is also a part of creation. I may not be able to articulate it but I have thought long and hard on this Trias.

"All the same the reality appears to be that the whole loaf is beyond US political and citizen will now." Which is why I'm proposing bastardy. A misdirection play if you will. Give them something that looks like what they want, but isn't. IT builds faith in the masses you can then exploit when needed. I may not like being an SOB but I play the role well.

*For the clueless or humorless, I do know Don's stuff is parody - which is why it was a good lead-in for The Rest Of The Post.

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I’m a Californian. I was born there. I was raised there. Did all of my education up thru my BA in chemistry there. I’ve driven up and down roads most other Californians don’t even know exist. I know California pretty well. Except for the fancy places to eat since to me Napa was a place to pick up and drop something off.

If you drive along the 5, there’s a really great trucker stop in Tracy by the way, or the 99 freeways between Sacto and Paso Robles you’ll spend your entire time in the central valley which is nothing but agriculture. Well, agriculture interspersed with lots of sage brush and some nice rolling hills around Kern country. Kids can still find summer jobs picking apricots or almonds in the Turlock/Denair area and any other kind of field work throughout the valley. On the southern side of Stockton, 45 minutes to 20 minutes, been a while since I’ve driven it so I’m not sure how far out anymore, you turn on the AC and put it on recirculate or your car/truck cab winds up smelling of cow chit for the next hour.

Simply put, I know how important agriculture is to the Central Valley. The smells around Stockton, the kids working strawberry fields, the miles and miles of pvc pipe for spraying of crops are all indicators of how important agriculture is to the state. That’s how hard core the region is devoted to agriculture. They live and die by it in the Valley.

Drought in the central valley, or someone living north of Sacto messing with the Colorado River allotment to the valley, means the cost of most of your produce goes up in the rest of the US. It is that major a contributor to the US food supply---even if Louisiana claims to grow better rice (but do you guys grow Basmati rice in LA, huh?).

And yet, when I heard about this story of hard times from labour shortages in the valley over at the NYT. I couldn’t help but smile. About damn time.

I’m not unsympathetic to the farmers and cattlemen who live there. Quite the contrary. I just know a dirty little secret about the whole deal. Yup, this example absolutely shows that being a farm hand is a hard job that no American wants, for $6.25/hr that is---though you can find broad shouldered and tow headed kids working those fields when school, activities, and the law allows for it during the summers. Yup, shows that nobody has bought the machinery, that does exist, that eliminates the need for mass manpower in the fields because it is cheaper, currently, to hire seasonals. Yup, it shows that we’re all going to wind up paying a bit more for things in the coming months. It shows that we’ve placed the almighty dollar before lots of things in this country.

See, every year in California there’s a cry to institute a higher minimum wage or a ‘living wage’ in some municipality and the state senate. But one thing nobody ever wants to deal with there is that the wage is suppressed, costs of product are suppressed as well, by illegal immigration, whether that is busboys, line chefs, cleaning crews, or field hands.
One would almost be moved to call it an open secret of institutionalized sweat shop labour since the avg wage these guys make is far below, and they receive raises far slower than, the norm while the entire economy is predicated on costs being this low in CA, but that’s racist to say dontchaknow.(And impolitic to say. Kind of like knowing who is in the Klan but not telling the FBI back in the day.).

So every year we pretend that we’ll raise the minimum wage to help the poor farm worker, when it won’t since he’s mostly off the books to avoid Federal heat, and pretend we aren’t going to continue to use sweat shop labour to keep prices low so we can buy that new keen i-toy Apple released (while living in karmic bliss because we bought ‘fair trade’ coffee to boot). So every year we toy with the idea of raising the minimum wage when we know that if we actually do change it and actually change the plight of the farm hand here illegally it’ll send nasty ripples thru the national economy.

It proves many of the talking points hurled about by both the open border and closed border advocates, and puts just as many into the grave.

I say this looming instability is all to the good.

With things like towns in Alabama turning into ghost towns and serious economic threats to the folks in the Central Valley we’re now faced with a situation where we’ll have to get real about what the real cost of living should be because we’ll have gotten rid of, as much as possible, black market labour. That in turn then allows us set the state/national minimum wage where it should be to fit the definition it’s had since its inception (the wage necessary to support a family of two adults and two minors on a single income). We’ll be able to assess how hard/if immigration has taxed the Californian/national health care system and how much/if it has fueled the complete over valuation of housing in the state. But most of all, it’ll force the nation to make up its collective mind on how it wants to handle the labour flow (and other flows: labour, security, financial) once and for all. Will we go for a system the aids global dysfunction or for one that seeks to rectify dysfunction (I’m hoping for the latter, but not holding my breath)?

Currently, we live with a dysfunctional set up. Much of South and Central America’s brightest and hardest working come to the United States to increase their standard of living and to join in the prosperity. Right now roughly a third of Mexican college graduates want to come to the US to work even if that means working well below their skill and intelligence level. Guatemalans are leaving their country to do work in Mexico *Mexicans* aren’t willing to do for the wages available in Mexico that are a far sight better than what’s available to them Guatemala. That’s good for us as we get cheap goods/labour here and whatever is produced in Mexico is kept really cheap too. But in the long term is that bad for the collective them? If we keep much of the work here, skilled or unskilled work, while suppressing the minimum wage we seem to only be isolating both prosperity and capital here. That doesn’t improve our lot much though it cements their lot at the status quo.

If people are angry about the disparity in quality of living, which some are, and if you think a lack of prosperity/wealth with the attendant tendency toward liberalized, classical liberal, governance is a cause of anger that leads to either gravitating toward Bolivarism( subscription required at USNI, but freerepublic also has it here for free), which is hostile toward the US or any other Western power, or terrorism is this a smart policy?

I don’t think so either.

But neither is building a moat backed it up with a mine field and a division of troops down on the southern border going to fix the problems caused by illegal immigration to the US. If we keep all the jobs, all the prosperity, all the things that drive people toward liberalism, here then there’s little hope of liberalism taking root elsewhere. We benefit from liberalism (not progressivism) taking root instead of Bolivarism ala Chavez and Emo Morales or the Marxism of Obrador in Mexico. This is analogous to benefiting from a liberal regime springing forth from the corpse of Hussein’s Iraq to usher along changes to the ME that will cut down on terrorist groups using that region as a base from which to attack the collective West.

So, what is it we should be doing? This is tough. It takes will and brains instead of soft/hard hearts.

Soft heartedness tends toward a sense of selfishness in this matter and leads to quick and easy moral gratification: ‘I let them make their lives better. I’m a good person.’ Of course, this approach doesn’t really take into account the effects back in ‘the old country’. Movement of capital and brains weakens the parent country. If you can see this when talking about natural resources, or even be so bold as to call it raping the country, why can’t you see it when we’re talking about human capital? We worry here in the US that so many of our engineers are of foreign extraction and may just go ‘back home’. If it applies to us then why does it not apply to others as well?

A hard heart approach is just not going to make the world better, and, much worse, it doesn’t help make this country any safer, quite the contrary. Locking people into poverty rarely produces real security. Draining off those who would be against Bolivarism and other stripes of socialism and victimhood does not make the other country resistant to those ideas since they’re almost all here, now does it?

Neither approach feeds the bulldog.

What we have to do is governed in part by Barnett’s definition of Connectivity (http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/glossary.htm#Connectivity ), or for those who actually have PNM the 4 Flows and the 10 Commandments of Globalism. There’s no doubt that the influx of immigrants from south of the Rio Grande has helped keep labour and goods costs down here in the US. That’s indisputably a good thing---money to spend elsewhere on other things across the board. But the brain and ‘gumption’ drain is taking its toll south of the Rio Grande---brain drain is not helping those countries fire up their economies. The capital flow from the US south of the Rio Grande definitely aids both parties---face it, a collapsed Mexico that underwent a civil war would *not* be good for the US at all as guerillas hiding in San Diego or other border cities, like Nogales, before striking at places would just bring their war here. (Always surprises me to hear regionalism here in the US. “Not my problem. I live in Idaho/Florida/wherever.” Gee, thanks. Am I your countryman or not? Regionalism is all well and fine in sports and such, maybe even BBQ competitions, but when deciding national policy, it’s a real jack@$$ move since you’re willing to screw over people you shouldn’t for your own benefit.)

So we have to keep capital flowing to Mexico and places south of the Rio Grande since stopping has a good potential for either a Chavez or a civil war in Mexico is not good for the US in any way, shape, or form. That’s leaving the people who demand permanent revolution in power. That’s giving people the victim card to play and get control, as el president for life, of a country; and subsidizing it too.

We need to keep the people flow into the US to keep our economy moving, as I’ve been told that at 5% unemployment everyone who wants a job has one by economist friends, and to improve our image abroad (something anyone who’s looked at the H1 visa fight is familiar with is that students who’ve trained in the US trend toward having a favorable opinion of the US. Not always, but the trend is there.). This keeps us moving forward, money flowing into regions that would otherwise be disposed to becoming havens of revolutionaries or terrorists, and people with favorable opinion from experience effecting people in the ‘old country’ to our benefit. It helps our poor schmucks and theirs simultaneously, not to mention making a career in terrorism really un-attractive since there are both internal and external factors now being applied since the bulk of the pop now have something to lose and the US has more leverage on the country.

We don’t keep the current set up as it is deleterious to both for a host of factors. We are not the nation of Emma Lazarus’ time , but neither must we be cruel and stupid about the issue. Yes, we want ‘them’ to have better lives by not living destitute and with the means to pull themselves up out of it. Yes, we don’t want them to flood our country. We can satisfy both conditions if we’re smart and have the will to take some hard choices. Yeah, allowing some manufacturing jobs to go South means less here. That hurts. In the long run though is it better since this will lead toward wage parity, meaning it isn’t so much cheaper to have it made over there? This means keeping host upon host of people out. But in the long run it means their countries get fixed and allow them similar standards of living as we enjoy here, or reasonable facsimile that they choose for themselves, while keeping the rage that leads to revolutionaries or terrorists to a minimum. Make hard choices that really satisfy nobody for 50 years or instant gratification that gets us what we’ve gotten? I know which one I’m choosing. How about you?

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1) Protection by Massive Attack. Song reminds me of me and Jess, how we got together, and how we never figure out who is actually protecting who in this relationship.

2) Aenema by Tool. Lex said it best when he listed this song for a different meme: It’s a Southern California thing.

Sure, it’s a beautiful place. Many of the people are great. But there’s just something about the place that you wouldn’t mind if the San Andreas went so you could take a refreshing dip in Arizona Bay. I was born there, raised there, and lived there up until six years ago (26 years all told) by the way, so don’t get huffy about me CA hating.

3) Lullaby by The Cure. It annoys Miss Thang. ‘Nuff said? Not quite. For some odd reason it motivates me about grading and gets me into ‘the zone’ when grading. Maybe that’s because it feeds into my darker instincts and gives me reason to be an uncompromising of my principles and responsibility to the chemistry community grader? Maybe. You better study, chuckleheads, because otherwise Spiderman is having you for dinner tonight.

4) Sea of Sin by Depeche Mode. This is definitely not a song for kidlets. I’m not always a prude, only about 99% of the time.

5) ‘Cowboy’ by the Vandals. Another So. Cal. band, with Tool being the other. Something I've listened to from my early days up until today. Also annoys Miss Thang (bonus!). This is an anti-suburbanite poseur anthem. That's the element which is the element that annoys Miss Thang since I explained it to her as such when she asked (double bonus!). Plus, who can pass up the guitar part from ‘The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly’ theme, even if it is buried in a punk song?

6) ‘Voices’ off of the Macross Plus soundtrack. This is just something I find really, really pretty and sometimes I just need to hear something really, really pretty (before I go postal, burn down my lab, and slaughter Miss Thang).

7) Elevation by U2. This is just a good tune in my opinion. A rather feel good about the world after listening to pop song.

As usual, Argghhh! is where memes come to die. I’m not tagging anyone but you’re welcome to leave your seven songs if you wish.
--ry

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And the world still had problems. I pooh-poohed going to Somalia because it was not the US’s fight. Ditto for Kosovo. That was what I thought at 22. Was not our fight and little real gain to be had by sending them there—like Vietnam, right(wrong, as I was to learn much later, like so many others when we began to find out how terrible the Vietnamese were doing, and much of SE Asia for that matter after the communists had their way with the region.)? So why did we do it?

I was still arrogant at 22 and had little idea of how the world worked; and even less about how to get ahead in it. So this HS drop out went back to school. First I went to a junior college and then on to a four year to earn a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry, where I met my Fair Jessica (not to be confused with the Blog Father’s---mine’s better, but I’m biased.).

At the junior college I ran into things that started to put other earlier experiences into context. My Cambodian born friend, who had a shrapnel scar of his calf and a chunk of meat missing where the scar was, gave me a little perspective. And the African students who spoke French better than they did English gave me an education about the world too. Seeing Vietnamese girls with the same scar on their throats I’d seen ever since grade school started to make sense---a little boy doesn’t understand rape and so can’t connect the evidence to the crime.

I started to learn something cold, hard, disturbing, and utterly unforgiving: there are Wolves out there and if we let them have their way they’d eventually spread their disease where ever they could; they’d wreck things simply to make themselves big chits (even if being big chit didn’t amount to much at all). So, I gave isolationism the deep six.

It just was not realistic. Particularly when I started studying how people around the world blamed us (The West, the US, and the Anglo-sphere. Take your pick.) for what ailed them (and to be honest, sometimes they were right as we did do wrong by them, but other times they were wrong). We couldn’t pretend that if we just stayed home and left the world to themselves we wouldn’t be placing a crosshairs on our chest. We already had one, sometimes earned and sometimes not. As Barnett himself would say: we can’t just firewall them off. It just wasn’t realistic anymore.

So we went to Somalia. It was a good thing (something hard to accept for those who lost loved one’s there and in light of recent events). So went go to Kosovo. It was a good thing ((except for those who had to go on those long, boring flights in the webbed chairs of Starfrogs, got hurt, or had to do the actual heavy lifting)). We were exporting security and connectivity to these parts of the world. We were making their lives better. We were giving them fewer reasons to reach for a gun and more incentive to reach for a lawyer to settle their problems, and thereby making ourselves safer. We were living up to our ideals, but it was costly. Oh so very costly to live up to them.

Vietnam started to make sense to me seeing as how I grew up around the thousands of refugees who came here, continue to come here, and I listened to the horror stories the old ladies with the black teeth, wore the black aoi dai, and had breath that smelled of hoc nam had to tell about how their oldest sons were slaughtered by the followers of Ho Chi Minh. How it was done long after the war was over. How the drug trade and human trafficking were the best ways to make a buck and get ahead in SE Asia became very real to me when I had to see it, and the even worse aftermath, up close and personal. It made sense to me why we went to that far of land then, even if others around here agree with David Drake that going there didn’t do the Vietnamese, or those who went to fight, and damn good at all (You guys did do them some good. You really did, and those that were the people you were helping appreciate it---I’ve met them, I've eaten cross legged in their homes. Never let anyone steal that from you. You’d be kings for a day if you weren’t such humble bast-turds and contacted the folks in Westminster, CA.) We’re idealists here in the US. We’re the brother of the world, part of our multi-ethnic heritage. And a brother’s love is a wondrous thing. A brother’s love is something that’ll get a brother to fight in fights that really aren’t his own or of his choosing; and make him fight harder than he probably should. We’d done it before. We continue to do so. It costs us big. It ruins the lives of some of those very dear to many of us. But still we send them. We’re idealists. We want a better world than we woke up to today. Making that world better costs mega, and not in dollars and cents. A future worth creating has an immense human cost, for us and for those we aim to help. Getting the killing over fast keeps the cost down, but it doesn’t ever make the cost disappear.

My long, odd, and oft times unconventional education has also shown me that at times corporations weren’t evil incarnate, most times actually. They have their moments of duplicity, but often times they’re motivations are misunderstood because people use lenses and prisms to interpret what they’re doing, a sort of circular logic game people play to justify hating Big Business regardless of the good they actually do (we on the right often do the same for NGO’s). Does anyone actually think the guys in the lab at Pfizer just want to bilk joe avg? Does anyone think I went into chemistry because I had illusions of being a millionaire living in Malibu with a 40’ yacht? I went into chemistry a) because I was pretty good at it and b) because when my grandmother died in my arms there weren’t drugs cheap enough to prevent what happened to her (brain aneurysm) or pain meds to prevent her from suffering more than she should have, farkin’ entropy. I sure wasn’t going to find the next super cheap anti-clotting medication on my own in a garage lab (sorry, chemistry does not work like the tech industry does where decentralization is better or even preferred.). But with a contract at Pfizer, or Eli Lilly, or some other pharma firm I just might (unfortunately kerataconus reared its ugly head and put the end to that little plan). Corporations are peopled with individuals who aren’t jackals by and large, even the executives (Not as sure about the marketing and accounting departments though. I think they really are jackals.). Unfortunately, the rules, gov’t implemented rules to protect people who have invested their pensions in these companies or to protect you from when we well intentioned scientist types make mistakes in the lab, prevent them at times from being charities. Like gov’t, businesses have a bottom line they have to toe. That’s an angering but true little factoid.

So that’s how I got to be a neo-con, a living breathing neo-con with a conscience and a desire for a better world than I found. Not just some caricature of one. Not some nebulous thing you can demonize out of fear. Not something you can hate simply because you don’t or won’t attempt to find out what my motivations really are and instead toss everything and the kitchen sink at.

I wanted, and still want, the same world Dr. Barnett and Andy Barnett want. A just, fair, and free one full of plenty for all and little need for people to wage wars over things. I just disagreed, and continue to disagree, on how to get there. That meant there was only one party for me. The GOP since the Dems really weren’t that interested in this kind of thing when I was getting started. They were still bashing Reagan for trying to bring down the Sov Union---that jerk who was upstaged by a monkey, war-mad cowboy who, and dolt . They were still calling the ‘buy American’ plan jingoism and fascism (only now they use that very same thing, in a modified form, to bash off shoring---except Dr. Barnett. He sees how this pushes us toward the end zone.). They were making fun of a man who’d had his arm shattered by machine gun fire fighting real fascist bast-turds in Italy over his infirmity. They were pushing platforms that called for the worst, least efficient, least actionable on the personal level and operational level plans I’d ever heard for helping the greatest number of people. Father Scanal’s plans worked and he wasn’t buying their plans. Their plans couldn’t and wouldn’t work as I’d seen from the worm’s eye view. They were for interventionism only when their guy sat below Damocles’ Sword, but called anyone else doing it the worst names imaginable. They thought Vietnam was the worst thing possible and a stain on our national honor; but I’d seen, first hand, that the real horrors of Vietnam were living next door to me and in Westminster, with broken bodies, stolen virtue, ravaged minds, broken hearts, and a home they could never go back to. I had no choice but to become a Republican. The Dems had no freakin’ clue (welfare reform’s done pretty good, even if there are problems with it, ain’t it? And Clinton was forced into that.), even if they won back then.

Odd that I'm a neo-con since I would’ve voted for JFK had I the chance to do so.

So, I sit here wondering, why is Dr. Barnett’s brother calling me Beelzebub? I mean, I want the same things (90% homology) as he and Dr. Barnett do. So what gives?

Largely, it’s an election year. Hyperbole is bound to happen. That’s what happens during silly season. As Chick Hearn used to say, ‘No harm, no foul.’

Then there’s that Andy Barnett has two sons serving in the Gulf and a third seems to have retired from the Reserves of one of the Services (May they come home sound of mind, body, and spirit. May the Lord protect and guide them home to you soon, sir.). Hey, worrying about your kids is a fine reason to be mad at any president by me. I just wish he understood our, we neo-cons, motivations a little better before he hauled out his rhetorical claymore. Or had better aim.

But, man, don’t insult my intentions or my intelligence. Don’t pretend you and yours alone hold the keys to virtuousness. Don’t pretend you alone have our nation and world’s wellbeing at heart. Don’t pretend that you alone have the fair treatment of our retired or injured service people as an imperative. Don’t do that just so you can climb up on a soap box to bash us with a Nerf hammer for political gain. Mostly, don’t do that because it is not true, not by a long shot. We're willing to work with you and not against you on quite a few things if you'd stop to find out who we are and what we're about.

Particularly don’t dis me and all the other neo-cons with the same slander that the left has hurled at the right when we’re on the same side for all intents and purposes of working for a future worth creating; and with that future looking very, very similar. There’s so much more that could be accomplished if neo-libs didn’t see domestic political profit in taking a pound of flesh out of us moderate conservatives or neo-cons. RINO’s and neo-cons really aren’t that much different than neo-libs. If you really look at the nuts and bolts of what we’re about we really aren’t that different than Tom, even if there is a need, which I don’t deny, for you to show where such difference lays.

But you know what? I proll’y could get along with you Andy Barnett. He sounds like a good man, really. Kind of like John’s sister the liberal teacher. Good people with their hearts in the right place but different ideas of where the end zone is and how to get there. Seeing as how Mom grew up in backwoods Wisconsin and raised her two boys as if it was 1964 and a healthy diet of sports (well, for my flesh and blood older brother it really the Sixties. For me it was the 1980’s.) I think I could get along with the guy just fine as he and Tom are Wisconsinites from a middling sized town and raised on sports. Right up until he pisses in my soup, insults me, and tells me that I’m the closest thing to Satan there is on this planet (which he would proll’y say if I was a paleo-con, or any other con for that matter) we’d get along great. But hey, we get you Andy. We get the anger. We get the why of it. We get you and your brother both on an intellectual level. We get what it is you’re trying to create and the reasons behind it. We here at Castle Argghhh! by and large want the same things, just disagree about how to get there or where the there is.

So, just try not to stick that knife so deep into the back of those of us who you really should consider your allies instead of political hacks like Kos who’d drop you the instant they saw political advantage doing so in the future, okay?

But yeah, as we’re learning around here, a brother’s love is a wondrous thing. To all the Big Brothers out there: salut! The world’s on its way to becoming a great place thanks to you guys.
ry

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My first thought on briefly examining the pic in question was that the proportions weren't right for a 155mm, and were in fact a touch squat for a 152mm, which was my initial assessment, which I laid out over at the 'Phibian's place.

Today, I got a copy of the pic and loaded it into Photoshop.

1. I don't think it was 'shopped. I have *some* experience with that. If it was shopped, it's a very good job. (Update: That contention is getting slapped around a little, too, but I don't profess to be a good 'shopper).
2. My initial estimate was off because I didn't realize the fella with the fancy headgear was standing as far back as he was.
3. It is *clearly* a fired artillery projectile (the NYT has admitted it isn't a missile) and not a missile. In their defense, you should see the captioning goofs in Army/Navy/Air Force/Marine Corps Times, Soldier Magazine, and the DoD websites. Shameful.
4, I enlarged the photo. The markings are not right for a US round.
5. I think I *do* recognize the markings. I printed the pic.
6. I measured the width of the rotating band, and then looked at how many times it would measure up the carcass of the round to the bourrelet, which is the shoulder of the round before the curve of the ogive starts (the pointy end). In short, how many times the width of the rotating band was the carcase to the bourrelet? The round in the pic is at best 1:3 5 (bad fingers!) a smidge under. Okay. I'm pretty sure at this point I know what it is. But, I'm the Armorer. Nothing can be that easy. (and it won't be, since I'm failing Analyst 101 and seeing what I want, and not *looking* anymore)

Being the Armorer, I, of course, own a 155mm HE M107 round. That's the standard HE round the US uses. Only problem is, unless I've missed something - we never sent 155mm guns to Afghanistan. Just 105mm. Being the Armorer, I have a couple of types of 105mm, including, of course, HE. Before you ask, I also have 8in, 8in RAP, 175mm HE, and 155mm DPICM (mind you - all legally procured, all inert, empty, and only dangerous (they weigh a *lot*) to your feet and fingers if you drop them. I schlepped the 155mm (roughly 90 lbs empty) and the 105 (I don't remember how heavy empty) upstairs. I left the 170 lbs 8 inchers in the basement. (Stop the sniggering, this is Serious Journalistic Stuff!).

Short answer, I schlep that stuff upstairs. (it *won't* be there when you get home on Friday, SWWBO), take some pics for you guys. And do some measuring.

Okey-dokey. The ratio is 1:7 for a M107. Therefore, not a 155mm. I don't even bother with the 105mm. I just took pics because, well, I can. (Of course, I didn't account for the distortion to the rotating band of the NYT projo because it was fired, either. Oops.)

Now that I'm 99% certain of my ID, I rummage in my sources.

And found the pic up top. (Which matched my expectations - which, in a way, is what happened to the NYT, eh?)

Mystery solved. I'm not going to rule on the journalism, but I will say this - that suckah ain't ours, and we didn't put it there. Which does beg the question... did we just kill a Pakistani Armorer-equivalent? Bummer dude - you need to be better read in to local law enforcement and not hang around with bad guys.

That's my analysis, and I'm sticking to it. Except when I change it because I'm probably wrong. I at least leave it all there for y'all to look at, rather than just move the post downstream, in the equivalent of a page 28 retraction...

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