The 246!

Now THIS is the proper way to look at things. Found courtesy of Black Five

The 246 should be mocked into oblivion.

Rep Sam Johnson Smacks Down Ron Paul, et al

Maybe instead of adding weight against the DisHon. John Murtha, I can make a contribution against the cut-and-run idiots closer to home.

Observe the cliché-ridden themes of the alter-moonbat rant of libertarian and isolationist Ron Paul:

‘Questioning his patriotism’
It’s nothing more than a canard to claim that those of us who struggled to prevent the bloodshed and now want it stopped are somehow less patriotic and less concerned about the welfare of our military personnel.

‘America Imperialism’
Why are we determined to follow a foreign policy of empire building and pre-emption which is unbecoming of a constitutional republic?

‘9/11 was an excuse to attack Iraq’
Don’t forget: the Iraqis and Saddam Hussein had absolutely nothing to do with any terrorist attack against us including that on 9/11.

AND

For all the misinformation given the American people to justify our invasion, such as our need for national security, enforcing UN resolutions, removing a dictator, establishing a democracy, protecting our oil…

‘We’re helping Osama Bin Laden’ or ‘they hate us because we’re there’
His recruitment of Islamic extremists has been greatly enhanced by our occupation of Iraq

‘It’s the Wrong War
Resorting to a medical analogy, a wrong diagnosis was made at the beginning of the war and the wrong treatment was prescribed.

‘We can’t win’
We all know, in time, the war will be de-funded one way or another and the troops will come home. So why not now?

Now compare Ron Paul’s blathering with Sam Johnson’s perspective on the issue of the ‘non-binding’ resolution. I include the full text** of Johnson’s comments, not just because I agree with him, but because it is his very perspective and the roots of that perspective that are at the core of the debate on the alternatives: Abandonment or Victory.

“You know, I flew 62 combat missions in the Korean War and 25 missions in the Vietnam War before being shot down.

“I had the privilege of serving in the United States Air Force for 29 years, attending the prestigious National War College, and commanding two air bases, among other things.

“I mention these stories because I view the debate on the floor not just as a U.S. Congressman elected to serve the good people of the Third District in Texas, but also through the lens of a life-long fighter pilot, student of war, a combat warrior, a leader of men, and a Prisoner of War.

“Ironically, this week marks the anniversary that I started a new life – and my freedom from prison in Hanoi.

“I spent nearly seven years as a Prisoner of War in Vietnam, more than half of that time in solitary confinement. I flew out of Hanoi on February 12, 1973 with other
long-held Prisoners of War – weighing just 140 pounds. And tomorrow – 34 years
ago, I had my homecoming to Texas – a truly unspeakable blessing of freedom.

“While in solitary confinement, my captors kept me in leg stocks, like the pilgrims… for 72 days….

“As you can imagine, they had to carry me out of the stocks because I couldn’t walk. The following day, they put me in leg irons… for 2 ½ years. That’s when you have a tight metal cuff around each ankle – with a foot-long bar connecting the legs.

“I still have little feeling in my right arm and my right hand… and my body has
never been the same since my nearly 2,500 days of captivity.

“But I will never let my physical wounds hold me back.

“Instead, I try to see the silver lining. I say that because in some way … I’m living a dream…a hope I had for the future.

“From April 16, 1966 to February 12, 1973 – I prayed that I would return home to the loving embrace of my wife, Shirley, and my three kids, Bob, Gini, and Beverly…
“And my fellow POWs and I clung to the hope of when – not if – we returned home.

“We would spend hours tapping on the adjoining cement walls about what we would do when we got home to America. “We pledged to quit griping about the way the
government was running the war in Vietnam and do something about it… We decided that we would run for office and try to make America a better place for all.

“So – little did I know back in my rat-infested 3 x 8 dark and filthy cell that 34 years after my departure from Hell on Earth… I would spend the anniversary of my release pleading for a House panel to back my measure to support and fully fund the troops in harm’s way….and that just days later I would be on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives surrounded by distinguished veterans urging Congress to support our troops to the hilt.

“We POWs were still in Vietnam when Washington cut the funding for Vietnam. I know what it does to morale and mission success. Words can not fully describe the horrendous damage of the anti-American efforts against the war back home to the guys on the ground.

“Our captors would blare nasty recordings over the loud speaker of Americans protesting back home…tales of Americans spitting on Vietnam veterans when they came home... and worse. “We must never, ever let that happen again.

“The pain inflicted by your country’s indifference is tenfold that inflicted by your ruthless captors.

“Our troops – and their families – want, need and deserve the full support of the country – and the Congress. Moms and dads watching the news need to know that the Congress will not leave their sons and daughters in harm’s way without support.

“Since the President announced his new plan for Iraq last month, there has been steady progress. He changed the rules of engagement and removed political protections.

“There are reports we wounded the number two of Al Qaeda and killed his deputy. Yes, Al Qaeda operates in Iraq. It’s alleged that top radical jihadist Al-Sadr has fled Iraq – maybe to Iran. And Iraq’s closed its borders with Iran and Syria. The President changed course and offered a new plan …we are making progress. We must seize the opportunity to move forward, not stifle future success.

“Debating non-binding resolutions aimed at earning political points only destroys morale, stymies success, and emboldens the enemy.

“The grim reality is that this House measure is the first step to cutting funding of the troops…Just ask John Murtha about his ‘slow-bleed’ plan that hamstrings our troops in harm’s way.

“Now it’s time to stand up for my friends who did not make it home – and those who fought and died in Iraq - so I can keep my promise that when we got home we would quit griping about the war and do something positive about it…and we must not allow this Congress to leave these troops like the Congress left us.

“Today, let my body serve as a brutal reminder that we must not repeat the mistakes of the past… instead learn from them.

“We must not cut funding for our troops. We must stick by them. We must support them all the way…To our troops we must remain…always faithful.

“God bless you and I salute you all. Thank you.”

**all emphases are Rep. Johnson’s

Rep. Johnson, as a veteran who suffered the consequences of a feckless Congress in an earlier war, has views that are clearly more substantive and deserving of recognition than the isolationist Paul’s. But since Paul is a useful idiot of the Left on this issue, I expect he’ll get a lot more media airplay.

Extra: If you get a chance to see the C-SPAN videos of the speeches, do so –and especially so in Rep Johnson’s delivery, watch it until the end. There you will see Rep. Johnson conclude his weighty observations and comments by struggling to walk away from the dias with the painful and permanent reminders of his service to his country. What a somber contrast in gravitas with the manic-Pekinese egoism that exudes from Medical Deity Paul.

Murtha Watch: Possibly Part 1 of Many

I've been considering making the UNHon. John Murtha the object of a running theme for quite a while now and haven't yet decided to definitely take on the task (Since I'm way behind on what I've already publically promised I will remain undecided for a while). The first part of deciding whether to take this on is to really evaluate and get to know your enemy -- and as retired military man, parent to a once and possibly future military man as well as in-law to military personnel, make no mistake Murtha IS my enemy. So I've been asking myself what kind of people would vote for this, this....well, whatever he is I can't really tell, but I suspect 'deranged' might be one of the adjectives.

Tonight I visited the Desp. John Murtha's House website and found a link to a map of his district here. (There is also a huge .pdf file on his site that will make an excellent reference for further study). A less detailed representation is below:

Fascinating! - And the Dems took Texas Republicans to task (and court) for Gerrymandering?

The demographics of Murtha's district deserve close analysis all their own, but at first blush it looks like his district was designed to avoid paved roads and cable access as much as possible. I suspect Murtha's base is largely poor, comparatively uneducated, and has statistically less access to a broader world view than some other places [update: based on the last election I have to also wonder about Pittsburgh]. (Oh! And his base includes a lot of people on his pork gravy train of course). I'll bet the vote in that district split largely along the Greedy-Ignorami Alliance vs. the Informed Patriot Defenders lines. Too bad the Greedy-Ignorami got out the vote last time outnumber the Patriots 2-1.

Another Update:

Maybe I'll just read Murtha Must Go and provide practical support to their effort. Catch their latest observations here.

Subversive Dem's and Roundheel Republicans

Subversive

–adjective

1. Also, sub·ver·sion·ar·y / tending to subvert or advocating subversion, esp. in an attempt to overthrow or cause the destruction of an established or legally constituted government.

–noun

2. a person who adopts subversive principles or policies.
[Origin: 1635–45;<>

—Related forms sub•ver•sive•ly, adverb sub•ver•siv•ism, sub•ver•sive•ness, noun

—Synonyms 1. traitorous, treacherous, seditious, destructive

With the Dem’s takeover of Congress has come the inevitable, and of course cowardly, SUBVERSION of the National Security through the weasel-like ‘non-binding resolution’ ploy to be followed by further SUBVERSIVE acts to undermine the war effort.

Meanwhile, their fellow travelers in the mainstream media scribe accounts of their activities as if they were merely reporting the Congress was declaring it National Dental Hygiene month.

NOW can I question these idiots’ "patriotism"?

ADDENDUM:

Here’s hoping several of the Republican A**hats who voted with the Dems soon experience and recognize a deliciously ironic loss of office over this -- an attempt to appease the Left, on the very issue of appeasing our enemies.

Until the Republicans in Congress ditch their ossified leadership and start heaping rightful scorn on those who have deserted the War on Terror, ALL future appeals for contributions sent to me will meet my ‘roundfile’ unopened. If enough people did it, we wouldn’t have to do it very long to make things right.

Bombers over Baghdad

Hat Tip: IPBTHL (Instapundit, Praise Be To His Linkness)

Note: After proofing this, I decided it may come over as gloating. Be advised it is actually just glee!

 

Omar Fadhil (Iraq the Model) posted a photo and story at Pajamas Media of a B-1 orbiting the city of Baghdad [PJM link broken: original here]:

“Meanwhile a new bird appeared in the sky. Not exactly new but one that’s been absent since the end of major operations in 2003. In fact this is the first time I’ve ever seen the B-1 flying over Baghdad. Since Tuesday, the long-range huge bomber appeared several times over — the city spending as long as 75 minutes in some cases.”

While the article is probably not completely accurate, I can’t describe how gratifying this development is to me. It is now one of several (three I can think of off the top of my head anyway) instances where a major analysis I performed was vindicated after initially receiving resistance from decision makers in the AF and DoD.

Sometime around 2000 I was doing concept and employment analyses on one of the Air Force’s iterative ‘Next Generation Bomber Studies’ contracts. I developed scenarios whereby a high-subsonic aircraft would loiter in orbit near or over a battle area in order to service time-critical targets of various stripes, including Close Air Support. When this was briefed to the AF’s program office responsible as part of a package of different concepts, a senior AF representative was heard to say:

(Sniff)…we don’t loiter bombers.

A short while later in the same meeting, in a discussion on time-critical target model scenario assumptions, another senior representative was heard to say:

(Sniff)….we don’t use bombers for close air support.

When Operation Enduring Freedom hit, one of the big news items (in the trade anyway) was the use of Long-Range Strike assets as direct fire support of Special Forces operators working with Northern Alliance ‘warlords’. At the time, it was a single instance of modern bombers being used in this manner, and it could always be claimed to be an exception.
Until now.
So I guess (Sniff)….the AF DOES loiter bombers.

Islamofascists ARE the Enemy

(Sorry Lefty Dems, you're still only in second place)

Friends,
I've opined on the nature of the enemy in the War on Terror before at length here and here.

But if you want to see the absolutely ‘best’ breakdown to-date of the threat we are up against in the War on Terror go here to read the post at Breath of the Beast (Hat tip Michael Ledeen). Consider the referenced post as a refinement on the earlier posts.

The post even comes complete with a Contrarian that shows up in comments at both Ledeen’s Pajama Media blog and the Breath of the Beast. Well, actually it is more of a 'nit-picker'. The Contrarian cavils over the fine point of labeling the threat ‘Islamofascism’ instead of the more generic ‘Theofascism’ without offering any reason to avoid the more concrete and narrowly defined term other than the risk of being labeled an ‘Islamophobe’. Since any ‘phobia’ involves an ‘irrational fear', this label is of course easily deflected by anyone with a modicum of grey matter by asking in return: “If it is a ‘phobia’ on what basis would one be able to characterize it ‘irrational’?

The Contrarian is apparently engaged in hawking a book AND a ‘philosophy’. I won’t link to his stuff, because…well, let’s just say "Mortimer J. Adler , he ain’t". You can find the Contrarian's stuff on you own easily enough if you follow his internet spoor. I did, and would suggest reading Adler’s Six Great Ideas as a more rewarding exercise.

updated: corrected a very stupid typo.

John Boehner Likes to Sidestep

John Boehner, on Hugh Hewitt last night, tried to tell us “he did not have sex with that woma…“-- Oops!...I mean he tried to explain how his ‘benchmarks’ aren’t the first step in slow-leaking leverage to the Left to "cut-and-run".

BizzyBlog (Hat tip Instapundit, of course) nails Boehner’s ‘approach’ to the wall. Go there and read it all, including the comments!

Listening to Boehner try to explain how 'benchmarks' were a good thing was like listening to Charles Durning sing.

"Ooh I love to dance a little sidestep, now they see me now they don't-I've come and gone and, ooh I love to sweep around the wide step,cut a little swathe and lead the people on."

Here’s a little something that maybe they didn't teach you in school Congressman Boehner:

Benchmarks can be tough enough to meet in a relatively predictable and stable business environment. But they are totally useless in a chaotic environment like, oh I don’t know, say maybe A FREAKIN’ WAR ! ?

We Win - They Lose. That is the ONLY benchmark we need because it is the only benchmark that works.

Darth Biden

"Failed Policy' Emboldens Enemy"….

"You don’t need to see his identification….. "

"These aren’t the droids you are looking for…. "

Running Biden’s big quote from the linked article through my handy de-BS’er to peel away the static we find:

"It's not the American people or the U.S. Congress who are emboldening the enemy," said Joe Biden, a White House hopeful in 2008. "It's the failed policy of this president — going to war without a strategy to stop us (Democrats) from subverting the war effort, going to war prematurely before making sure we couldn’t twist it to our political advantage , going to war without enough public relations troops to overcome our allies in the mainstream press."

Biden made his mark as a foot soldier in the Cowardly Congress that abandoned South Vietnam. He leads the effort this time.

The disdain with which I hold men such as Biden is beyond written or verbal expression. Oh, I suppose I could try and just paraphrase Curly by simply stating “I crap bigger than Joe Biden” but then... doesn’t everyone?

Saddam's End: Feels About Right

Saddam Hussein, by all accounts, is about to be hanged. While I can't imagine how this event plays out in the minds of the survivors of his terror, to me it just feels like something that needs to be done...is about to be done.

Good.

Now let's move on with our lives as soon as it IS done.

May Iraq elect ever more just governments from here on out, and her peoples find peace and prosperity. (Of course we may have to do something about Wahhabists and Islamofascists to help that last part along)

Moonbat Hunt Called Off

I initially wrote about half of this as another "Moonbat hunting" piece, but it came over as just plain mean given the target, which isn’t part of my nature (No really! – life is mean enough without adding to it unnecessarily!).I want to reserve Moonbat Hunting for the really mean ones that deserve it, so instead I am compelled to write this as an advice column.

WSJ Online’s Best of the Web Today identifies a Ms. Demetra Delía with a problem (fifth item):

'Those Hateful Airplanes'
More fun from the letters column of the San Francisco Chronicle (fourth letter):

Thank you, Fleet Week. My preschool-aged daughter, having heard your airplanes overhead all week, is now completely traumatized and afraid to go outside. She just heard a commercial airliner in the sky and ran inside shrieking, shaking, and trying to close all the windows and doors. We tried to have a fun family weekend enjoying free music in our park, but it was ruined by the thundering sound of those hateful airplanes overhead, forcing her (and most of the other children I saw) to throw her hands over her face and cower.

If there is ever an opportunity for me to vote on any proposition keeping this ridiculous event and huge waste of resources from marring the skies of my city again, you can bet I'll be the first in line to get it voted in.

DEMETRA DELÍA
San Francisco

Taranto notes:
Apparently Demetra's little girl also is afraid of commercial planes, not just "hateful" military ones. Shouldn't parents try to help their children overcome such fears rather than wallow in them?

Now, 1) with a name like Demetra Delía, 2) living in Frisco, (they hate it when you call it ‘Frisco’) and 3) with a demonstrated penchant for carping about jet noise [aka the Sound of Freedom Baby!] I just KNEW Ms Delía had to have a good, even if somewhat short internet spoor trail to follow.....and I was right.

From her presence on the Internet, we can deduce that Ms. Delía, unfortunately, might have difficulty helping her child overcome her fears.

Here we see her with her daughter at the last Phish concert/festival in August 2004. I’d say off-hand they seem to be about the most normal-looking people at the concert. But if the event was anything like the pictures taken, it looks scarier than the 2002 Laughlin River Run to me. I know sound can have a powerful effect on even unborn children: an unkind person would point out the Phish noise might have traumatized the lass even through her ear protectors, so let's just say all the creepy characters that seemed to permeate the place could have done it instead.

Ms Delía’s letter above is somewhat of a ‘disconnect’ from the one she wrote last year to Salon.com where she described her daughter as “curious, independent, loving and fearless”. I say ‘somewhat’ because as you can in last year’s letter Ms Delía seems to carry a lot of anxiety over being a parent. I hate to inform her, but while 28 may seem to be a young age to be a mother in San Francisco, where for ‘some reason’ they aren’t having many kids, in the real world it is quite normal to have them even younger!

She seems to have some of the important basics down: such as “kids really need is to know that their parents love and support them”, but she gets it wrong about it being ‘all’ they need. They need structure, rules, and routine to feel secure. They need to think they are exploring without your supervision and yet find that you always somehow seem to be there to keep them out of serious trouble. When they learn the rules well they don’t need you physically there to protect them later at all – your early lessons will protect them. While Ms Delía would “rather spend my time enjoying her – not stressing about the possibilities”, 'stressing' is the parents job, especially when they are very young (You do it when the're older out of habit). Stress and prepare now, sleep better and more soundly later, not because it is easier in the long run (it is) but because it is better for the person you are parenting. More than once in this modern age did I have to remind one of my kids that I wasn’t their buddy, their friend, or their peer: I was their Father and I took the job seriously. I thanked my parents for taking that attitude when I was older, and my first-born has already done the same. In comparing the two letters, I have to wonder if the fear she sees in her daughter might be a case of simple projection.

And finally Ms. Delía, and this may seem a little harsh, but if you really want a more happy and healthy, well-adjusted life for and your daughter, you really need to find a better belief system (fourth response) .

Almost forgot!
About those airplanes scaring your daughter: at her age is when many children go though their first unreasonable ‘fear’ experiences: don't 'stress' on little things like that, just get some parental support.

UPDATE 10/13/06: "Best of the Web Today imitates Elements of Power after Elements of Power Shamelessly (Metaphor Alert!) Hangs on Best of the Web Today's Coattails". Seems I wasn't the only one that pulled on this thread (sixth item today).

Horton is the Who…

As in “Who is a ranting Anti-globalist, Anti-capitalist, Anti-Western, Useful Idiot, Lancet Editor with his panties in a knot?”

Six HUNDRED THOUSAND deaths!
Lest you have any doubt about how absolutely ludicrous the ‘new’ Lancet ‘report’ that claiming 600,000 ‘excess’ war deaths is, just consider the source…..

Little Green Footballs Clearly Identifies the Enemy
Lancet editor Richard Horton was a “star” speaker at the recent “Time To Go” demonstration of the UK “Stop The War Coalition”. Updated 13 Jan 08: here's a direct link to the ‘You Tube’ video (Click on Screenshot below).


This is what passes as a ‘professional’ this days?
He does seem pretty passionate (frothing, actually) and his self-righteousness comes over loud and clear. Of course he was pretty self-righteous about the MMR shot a few years back, before his ‘error’ (see I’m a nice guy) was exposed and he had to play CYA.

Two Questions...
As this appears to have all of the statistical claptrap normally reserved for Second-Hand Smoking ‘studies’, I just have the same two questions about this so-called ‘report’:

1. What were their names?
2. Where are they buried?

Now this is the second Lancet sham piece on the subject of Iraqi war deaths (as I’m sure you’ve heard about by now or remember the first), so one wonders how much longer he will be at the helm of what was once the “world’s leading independent medical journal” given his apparent proclivity to spew this nonsense, alienate others in his profession AND bite the hand that feeds him.

If Horton is allowed to stay at the Lancet, I think we can count on another one of these ‘reports’ to come out in two years.......just before the next election....... again.......for the third time.

I can see it now:

“Six MILLION Excess War Deaths” Yeah, thats the ticket!

PS: I wasn't going to blog tonight, but this guy gets the 'Noncom' BS Artist Detector in me going. For all his tough talk in front of a luddite crowd, something tells me that even if this twit had a d*** -- he still wouldn’t be a man.

UPDATE: The lead 'researcher' of this 'study' is the same as the last one. Coincidentally, he just happens to be a New York Democrat with political aspirations AND (Surprise!) an apparent bug up his sphincter about the war in Iraq.
UPDATE to UPDATE 01/13/07: The link above would have diirected you to an article about Les Roberts but the link has disappeared (it looks like it was due to the incompetence of the source vs. the conspiracy of a capable one), but the essence has been captured here (for now).

Morally Confused Lash Out At The Secretary of Defense

Defense secretary tells veterans that U.S. faces a ‘new type of fascism’....And the new appeasers take umbrage.

How deep is the irrationality of the Left on the subject of the global terrorist threat? How motivated would they be to lash out at the bearer of any meritorious criticism of their 'position'?

It is very telling, that an article that identifies so directly the similarities between today's so-called war 'dissenters' and the 1930's appeasers whose primary goals is/was inaction against the Fascism of their respective eras, garners a rating of two stars out of a possible five stars with 1828 votes as of 8:04pm Central. There has to be at least one fat-fingered idiot rating the story 1/2 star repeatedly from as many IP addresses as possible to skew the overall rating of the article that low.

Instead, why don't they spend some time answering the SecDef's question:

“Can we truly afford to believe somehow, some way, vicious extremists can be appeased?”

I'd love to know their answer.

Update 8:45pm: 2 stars out of 5 for 1969 users.

Final Update 8:45pm Friday 1Aug06: 2 stars out of 5 for 2686 users. "Fat Fingers" must still be checking in from time to time.

Who is Tony Karon?

In the spirit of all the recent exposure that media bias is being given these days I offer the above question.

Like the overwhelming majority of Americans, I rarely watch CNN anymore. So I really didn’t know who this "weird" guy was on Paula Zahn’s show ‘Now” that aired on 8 August 2006.

Zahn had a little roundtable on the Hezbollah vs. Israeli combat situation, which I’ve posted part of below. There are numerous instances of "(CROSSTALK)" in the transcript that don’t fully convey the scale of said ‘crosstalk’. And not all ‘crosstalks’ were created equal – some were quite long and a few only momentary. From my perspective, about 90% of the volume of crosstalk came from someone (whom I later learned was Tony Karon) stepping on other people’s attempts to express their views -- especially those of John Fund’s.

I’ve redacted the panel’s background information so the reader can focus on the exchanges. All links are posted at the bottom to avoid spoiling the flow. Those of you who know the answer already should not ruin it for everyone else and more importantly: you need to re-evaluate what you use your memory cells for and why.

Here’s the extract of the transcript downloaded the next day:

We're going to put today's developments to our "Top Story" panel right now: John Fund, Donatella Lorch, and Tony Karon.

Great to have our trio with us tonight.

Donatella, the bottom line here is, the Arab League hates the French-U.S. plan, and the Israelis aren't buying into the Lebanese plan. So, where is there any opening for a compromise here?

DONATELLA LORCH: Well, neither plan seems to be digestible to the other side.

But this is standard. They're going to have the two factions that are going to try and push their agenda as much as possible, including the United States.

So, what has to be done here is, they have to go back. They have to negotiate behind closed doors. And, at the same time, notice that the fighting has intensified along the border. The Israelis are saying they will bring more troops up; they will intensify it. Rockets keep on coming from Hezbollah's side.

Now, if we look at it the way it is, Hezbollah -- Hezbollah doesn't want to be disarmed. And they -- and they want the Israelis out of there, as do the Arab nations. So, there has to be some form of a compromise.

ZAHN: Well, let's talk, John, what about that compromise is going to look like. Even the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, says you can't please all sides here. And he says, the goal is simply to get on the road to a lasting solution.

JOHN FUND: Well, the...

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: Is that going to be all that different from what has been thrown out before?

FUND: Yes. The U.N. led out with the elements of a compromise six years ago, Resolution 1559, which said, central to having peace in the area, rather than a pause in the peace, was disarming Hezbollah.

ZAHN: Well, that didn't work.

FUND: All -- well, but somebody has to enforce it.

I think the plans can work, if they're accompanied with an international embargo on Hezbollah being resupplied with arms that is actually enforceable. If not, I can assure you, we're going to have a pause in the hostilities, not a peace.

ZAHN: What's the reality here, Tony? Is that ever really enforceable? John just mentioned, for six years, nothing has happened.

TONY KARON: I don't think it's enforceable because of the political climate in the region. I don't think you can solve Lebanon in that -- in the way that he is suggesting, without solving particularly the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Israeli-Syrian conflict, U.S. tension with -- with -- with Iran.

If -- un -- unless you have a comprehensive solution in that way, you're not going to get the political arrangements to work. That's why Hezbollah has never been disarmed.

FUND: Well, then the terrorists -- the terrorists will have more arms. And terrorists do what terrorists do. They launch attacks on innocent civilians, which is how this all started, remember?

KARON: Well, I think that...

LORCH: Well, this is not a two-faction war. This is not Lebanon against Israel.

This is, in many ways, a proxy war. We have the Americans involved, that want to get rid of Hezbollah. We have the Iranians, the Syrians. The way to get -- stop weapons to come in to Hezbollah is for -- somehow or other, for Israel to talk to Syria, for the United States to talk to Syria, to talk to Iran.

ZAHN: Well, the U.S. government has told us they are talking to Syria, maybe not with high-level...

KARON: Well, no, I think it's, you know...

ZAHN: ... officials, but certainly through back channels.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: There's no doubt that that is going on at this hour.

KARON: Well...

FUND: The U.N. resolution has been on the table for six years. It's not enforced.

The problem the U.N. has is credibility. Everyone looks at the U.N. and says, you're not going to back up what you say you're going to do. And that's why the international force has to have real teeth this time, not just being a paper tiger.

ZAHN: Tony.

KARON: Well, John, I think that the problem is, yes, the U.N. Resolution 1559. But there's also U.N. Resolution 242, U.N. Resolution 338, U.N. Resolution...

(CROSSTALK)

FUND: You're making my point.

KARON: No.

FUND: Nothing -- the U.N. never enforces anything.

KARON: Right. But the point is that the United States is only insisting that the U.N. enforce resolutions that -- that concern this conflict.

FUND: Let's start with something...

KARON: No, that's...

(CROSSTALK)

KARON: And it's -- no, but... (CROSSTALK)

FUND: Something that actually has people -- innocent people dying, which is terrorists launching rockets...

KARON: The U.S. has actually started with the 242. And they actually dropped that.

(CROSSTALK)

FUND: ... would be a good place to start.

ZAHN: All right.

KARON: ... the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

(CROSSTALK)

LORCH: The main -- the main thing we have to do right now is try to -- what they have to do right now is try and figure out a way for the shooting to stop and the dead -- the death to stop.

And, to do that, the Arab countries feel that, if the Israelis aren't told that they have to leave, that they will just stay there, and that they will stay there for as long as they like.

So, in addition to this resolution, there has to be a timetable to -- if they agree to the Israeli troops staying, for how long, and when will they leave, and who will replace them, what is the mandate of whoever is going to replace them.

KARON: There's an additional point here, which is that...

ZAHN: Very quickly.

KARON: ... which -- which is that Israel actually doesn't control southern Lebanon at the moment. In order to get to that point, it's going to have to massively expand its operations.

I tuned in right after the introductions but right as the first question was thrown to the panel. As the segment progressed I became increasingly irritated with the behavior of the person I would later learn was Mr. Karon. He wasn’t too bad until John Fund bluntly pointed out how UN resolutions tend not to be enforced.

My first question was “who is this little pissant with the bad Irish accent?” (Mr. Karon comes to us from South Africa, but in his agitated state his tenor sounded kind of like a brogue anyway) My first guess was he was probably a spokesperson for some foreign Non-State Actor organization like Anarchists Against Israel or something. My second question was “why is he so hot-to-squawk on UN Resolution 242”? (I could be mistaken, but I believe there was at least one reference to 242 made by Mr. Karon not listed in the transcript that was buried in the so-called ‘crosstalk’.)

I’m not an ‘expert’ on the subject of UN resolutions of course, but I’m pretty familiar with 242, as it was the basic UN product at the end of the 1967 “6-Day War”, a conflict of particular interest to me. Some would say the resolution ‘brought about the end’ (but I wouldn’t go that far) of the fighting. It didn’t make sense to me that Mr. Karon would wave 242 so boldly in this discussion because it really wasn’t relevant in this situation (Hezbollah kidnaps soldiers and rockets Israel then Israel takes exception and proceeds to kick a**).

Then it occurred to me that perhaps Mr. Karon thought Resolution 242 was about something else, or perhaps he didn’t really understand it. It turns out it is the latter, as a quick search online revealed Mr. Karon has a long history of either ignorance or willful misrepresentation of what Resolution 242 actually contains. From the website of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), we find posted waaay back in February of 2005:

Tony Karon…………misrepresented the terms of U.N. Resolution 242 in his Jan. 10 column entitled “After the Palestinian Elections.” He wrote that the resolution “requires Israeli withdrawal from the territories it seized in 1967,” implying that Israel must withdraw from all those territories (emphasis added). CAMERA contacted Karon to point out that the resolution was carefully worded to call for the withdrawal “from territories,” not “the territories.” This language, leaving out “the,” was intentional, because it was not envisioned that Israel would withdraw from all the territories, thereby returning to the vulnerable pre-war boundaries. And any withdrawal would be such as to create “secure and recognized boundaries.” The resolution’s actual wording calls for “Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.”

Gee, with a title like the "TIME" Magazine Senior Editor For World Coverage, you’d think he’d be a little bit better informed on such topics. But as a Neocon-hunting ‘former’ activist who views the Vice President of the United States as one of the ‘ingnorant ultranationalists’, I guess that makes him just another barking moonbat with press credentials.

Having read some of his ‘professional’ stuff and his blog, I would say Mr. Karon seems very much in the vein of an ‘almost’ geopolitics author, much like Professor Mary Ann Glendon is on the subject of immigration. That is ‘almost’, in the sense that he almost gets a lot of things but doesn’t really get ‘all’ of anything. He also seems to be an ‘if only’ thinker as well – what he writes would be insightful ‘if only’ the world really did work the way Mr. Karon seems to think it should.

Reading his stuff actually makes me a little sad. It is the same sadness I feel when I’m around monkeys: You almost made it to the top rung little dude… you almost made it.

Sources:
1. Paula Zahn’s “Now’ 8 August 06 Panel Discussion: Downloaded 9 August 06 @ 0734 CST

2. CAMERA release extract

Go to Blackfive. Now.

Black Five's in a "dialogue" with some guy named 'Geoff' (IF that is his real name) from the leftish nether regions of the Blogosphere.

Ol' Geoff can't possibly be as far out of the well-travelled byways as I am, but if you stumbled in here go read Uncle Jimbo's post. Now. I hope he got the video working better, but it is still worthwhile though it is out of synch.
Check Six!

War is Ugly, But There’s Uglier

Blogs of War brings us a link to a pretty darned good (heck!- it is great) and very timely piece from Jules Crittenden on possible outcomes from where we stand at this point in history. Included is a slight variation on an old truism:

“War is ugly, but it is not the worst of options”

I agree.

Maybe the Iranian mullahs and sectarian Baathists will reconsider the course they’re steering, or maybe they’ll keep trying to turn ‘now’ into that ‘later’ I talked about (a while back) where we must adjust our view of the Islamism vs. Arabism debate.

Hezbollah Rocket Boyz

"The purpose of the [Hezbollah] rockets is not to decorate south Lebanon."

And boy, do they have rockets....probably more than ten thousand of them.

The escalation and nature of the ongoing Hezbollah-Israeli combat didn’t happen by chance. Patrick Devenny (formerly with the now-defunct Moonbat Central) foretold much of what is now going on in the Middle East in the Winter ’06 edition of the Quarterly of the Middle East Forum, including the Syrian and Iranian complicity. His conclusion:

Hezbollah will maintain its rocket arsenal as long as Iran continues its violent opposition to Israel's right to exist, the Assad regime retains control in Syria, and Hezbollah continues to leverage its militia for political power inside Lebanon. Hezbollah may find the threat of its arsenal outweighs its use.

Read it all HERE.

I wonder if Israel is now working towards an early deployment of the THEL-M instead of waiting around until ’08?

COBRA II REVIEW: PART 4

Parting Comments Concerning Authority of Evidence, Bias, and Utility

There were a mere handful of questions that I had beforehand that were answered by this book. The battle accounts were apparently selected on the merits that they helped prop up their assertions, and provided little more than the authors wanted us to remember.

The authors sometimes sought to minimize the experience of those who were either part of the effort or had an impact on the decision-making process. By way of example, Gordon and Trainor employ “damning with faint praise” against the former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, describing him as a “military history buff”(pg 33.). The authors employ similar means against LtGen Ricardo Sanchez in several places, most notably identifying him simply as a "junior three-star general whose last assignment was in Europe".

I found the extensive use of anonymous “present at the briefing/meeting”, "interview with a former x official" and “notes of a participant” references for many of the most contentious issues discomforting. While no doubt some should be kept anonymous for National Security reasons, too many unnamed sources seem to be anonymous just to protect somebody's career. There were many assertions made throughout the book that really should have had citations, but instead were presented as undisputed facts -- usually at the end of a string of common knowledge, expressions of common beliefs, or material with citations.

The index is one of, if not THE, poorest I can remember encountering, and made it very frustrating to relocate a lot of material after I had read ahead.

In Conclusion

Cobra II is too painful a read for the too few to mention nuggets of information that I found useful (and not found elsewhere), to make this book worthwhile. It is tailored to promote the authors' views and not to give a balanced account of the war in Iraq. I found it so fundamentally flawed that I now wonder if I should reread The General’s War with a far more critical eye.

COBRA II REVIEW: Part 3

Four More Things That Didn't 'Go Wrong'

Today we parse the remaining 'four things' (of five) where, according to the authors of Cobra II, "we done wrong".

The U.S. Failed to Adapt to Developments on the Battlefield?

This assertion is simply more Monday-morning quarterbacking. It bears writing once again that until we won Baghdad and secured enough of the landscape to mitigate the threat of WMDs, all other threats (rightly) paled in comparison. The authors oversimplify somewhat in asserting that we incorrectly assigned Baghdad as the only real center of gravity, as we viewed the total Baathist party machine as the key center of gravity. It just was also true that control of Baghdad meant control of most of the key parts of the Baathist organization.

The complaint by the authors is somewhat misleading, as they note in their Epilogue that the forces in the field adapted quite well (although, like Prairie Pundit, I believe the authors overstate the impact of the ‘Feyadeen surprise’ and greatly understate the actions taken by CENTCOM). The authors’ real beefs are with General Franks and above. Again, while the authors bemoan that in General Franks’ view, the Feyadeen were “little more than a speed bump on the way to Baghdad”, they fail to prove why he wouldn’t think otherwise. After the war those players who would become major threats became obvious I suppose, but Feyadeen activity was just another data point in a real-time and broadband data stream that battlefield commanders have to consider when deciding action. The authors in effect, assert the odd idea that General Franks fought, and won, the wrong war. Yet if you look back at our objectives for going to war, they have all either come to pass or are moving towards fruition instead of failure. About the best the authors and other war critics can rightfully claim is that we could have (not necessarily would have) ‘done better’ and that we aren’t done ‘yet’. I would suggest they brush up on their Roosevelt (the good one).

The U.S. Relied Too Much on Technological Advancement?

This is the most simple, and simplistic, assertion made in the book. By employing the sound military judgment to minimize exposure of troops to the NBC threat (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical: what we used to call this stuff before the WMD acronym came to exist) through minimizing the number of troops employed and moving faster than the enemy could tolerate, we quickly won the 'conventional' war. This is also in keeping with established military doctrine if I correctly remember my MCSC course on NBC operations.

The authors in their summary concede that the approach taken won the war but, to employ a cliché used by critics on the left but carefully danced around by the authors, ‘failed to win the peace’. Oddly enough, with a slight change in agenda and reprioritization of the facts, the authors could have made a very good case for the Administration’s (and CENTCOM’s) strategy being a sound one up to the point that Paul Bremer, as the Provisional Coalition Authority, decided to override the military’s (and others) strong recommendation to keep and reform the existing Iraqi Army. While this probably would have gone far in suppressing the initial growth of the insurgency(as the authors imply), the authors also then would have to have given more thought to how a different set of problems, threats, and challenges would have surfaced – and they would have, because in war, the Law of Unintended Consequences plays out with every decision a commander makes. In layman’s terms: the enemy always gets a vote in how events will turn out.

The U.S Military ‘Structures’ are Dysfunctional

I actually agree with this assertion, but the authors failed to adequately present their case that it adversely impacted the war. Use of anecdotes to highlight pitfalls, problems, and conflicts in the decision-making process is interesting, but hardly damning. This has always happened with all important decisions: when the consequence of getting a decision wrong is as important as the need to make a decision. This is hardly the first time a strong SecDef, acting in accordance with the desires of the Commander-in-Chief, has dominated the decision-making process, and it won’t be the last. Bemoaning an apparently pliable JCS or CENTCOM that is responsive to the demands of the SecDef is not evidence of a dysfunctional structure in itself. The authors’ case would have been better made by a different book that more thoroughly explored and examined the long-term impact of the Goldwaters-Nichols Act on the military: specifically how the 'Law of Unintended Consequences' produced a more ‘corporate’ military than we should have or desire. Unless your business is killing large numbers of people and changing governments, there are definite limits to the amount of business experience that directly translates to military need. I believe post Clinton-Aspin, we have degenerated too much into a business mentality – Something you would have thought we would have learned before now. As this is the 20th Year (a minimum military career) since Goldwater-Nichols, it would be a good time for such a critical examination, and provide a counterpoint to a lot of the ‘other views’ now out on the subject, and shine a bright light on the Clinton Administration’s SecDef (Aspin) and Congress’ culpability in the problems with how the military operates today.

The authors make a lot of noise about Secretary Rumsfeld’s apparently single-mindedness in minimizing the number of troops involved in the operation, and while not separating the SecDef’s desires from the President’s, they seem to minimize the point that Rumsfeld was operating in accordance with the President’s wishes. This minimization overamplifed and caricaturized the SecDef’s motives and impact on the decision making process.

Another area where the authors overextend their reach is in jazzing up the impact of the apparent marginalization (as they present it) of the State Department in the decision-making process. I would assert that the authors could make the case for the State Department’s self-marginalization, given the recognized need to ‘clean up’ the 'Realpolitic' State Department – not that I would fault Secretary Powell at all: the job may take years beyond the term of this administration, and many Secretaries of State to clean out the Realpolitic deadwood.

One of the ironic points not made in Cobra II is that Secretary Powell, when Chairman of the JCS, had a long-running battle with then-Congressman Les Aspin over force sizing, and when Les Aspin was made Clinton’s SecDef, he slashed defense spending and the military to levels well below what Colin Powell and the DoD had identified as The Base Force: the minimum military required to preserve our superpower status and carry out our superpower responsibilities. It could be said that this step was the first in a downward spiral of capability and force employment that we are still going through today.

The Bush Administration Disdains Nation Building

So, the Bush Administration planned for the Iraqis to be able to reconstruct themselves and remake themselves into a Democracy. So what? The worst that can be said of the outcome is it isn’t happening fast enough (how much due to Bremer’s missteps?) to satisfy critics. How fast would things have to be happening before the critics WOULD be satisfied?

The one 'concept' that first comes to my mind and is most associated with 'Nation Building' is: "Quagmire". One also wonders how “Nation Building” squares with the constant chant from the left: “you can’t impose a democracy”. The Bush Administration had (and has) good practical and political reasons not to be TOO engaged in nation building. It was a course of action selected from among many with many other possible outcomes.

The authors point out that the Administration planned for other nations and NSAs (Non-State Actors, an older and less sugar-coated term for what most call NGOs these days) to provide much of what would be needed in post-war Iraq. Until crunch-time, how were we to know the full scope of the fecklessness and in some cases subversive natures of our so-called ‘traditional’ allies. After all, didn’t we gain imprimatur of the U.N. before we went to war? How much good did that do in the end?

The authors spend a good portion of the book trying to build support for their assertion that the military largely ignored the planning and execution required for conditions after the war, and that things would have been 'better' if only the State Department had been more deeply involved. I would ask the authors: What in the recent history of the State Department would lead you to believe that:

a.The State Department was capable of delivering a winning plan,
b.The State Department could have successfully executed such a plan and,
c.Even if the State Department were capable of creating and carrying out such a plan, would they also be flexible enough to adapt to how the insurgents of all stripes would have adjusted to their plan?

The citation “No plan survives first contact with the enemy” comes to mind.

A minor nit, but illustrative of the kind of devices the authors employed in writing Cobra II, is found in the Epilogue concerning ‘nation building’. They use a trite factoid that the electrical grid was not restored quickly after the war as an example of our inability to provide essential services which somehow made us look weaker than the Iraqi’s believed. In reality, heroic work was done to get the electrical grid back on line as quickly as possible. We had no idea how bad the electrical system infrastructure had deteriorated under Saddam, but we brought electricity back on line as quickly as possible -- and while certain parts of Iraq had received ‘favorable’ treatment before the war, the people living in these areas complained more loudly after the war, because the electrical grid service was restored using a more democratic ‘distribution’ of service. In short, the Sunni Baathist enclaves that were pampered under Saddam didn’t get more power than Shia areas after the war, which now receive MORE electrical power than they did under the Baathist regime. Boo. Hoo.

Tommorow: Part IV (the wrap-up)

COBRA II REVIEW: Part 2

Warning Will Robinson! Agenda Ahead! Warning! Warning!

As a big fan of the authors’ earlier work, The General’s War, I was ready to plunk my money down on this book without knowing anything else about it. While waiting for it to come out, I tried to find out all I could about this new book: eager to learn much once again from Mr. Gordon and Gen. Trainor. This desire is what lead me to listen in on the book release party (audio here) on CSPAN, and as I posted earlier:

Between what one of the authors (Gordon) said and the utterances of the panel of ‘guest’ commentators, I decided to read the book with a much more critical eye.

Gordon indicated in his remarks at the book release that he went in to this effort with no idea what the war in Iraq would bring, just that he knew that he and Gen Trainor could leverage a lot out of the network of contacts developed during the writing of The General’s War. From his remarks, he also indicated that it was much later after the war that the story they tell in Cobra II came together. Contrast this ‘truth’ with opening statement in the foreword to Cobra II:

We wrote this book to provide an inside look at how a military campaign was so successful in toppling Saddam Hussein’s regime set the conditions for the insurgency that followed.

Aside from Gordon’s opening remarks, the authors' commentary at the event aligns more closely with the foreword of the book. Combining this discrepancy with the previously noted money trail behind the book that was acknowledged at the release event I believe, reveals this book as primarily a whetstone for one or both of the authors’ axes -- although it is somewhat easier to believe this motive of Gordon than Trainor.

The book begrudgingly acknowledges that General Franks won the war he fought, but asserts that he fought the wrong war (more later on this point) and because of this, the war in Iraq was a failure. Further, the authors assert the ‘failure’ to prevent/control the post-Battle for Baghdad environment was due to five key coalition failures. To the authors’ way of thinking, we:

1. ‘misread’ the foe,
2. failed to ‘adapt to developments’ on the battlefield,
3. relied too much on ‘technological advancement’,
4. have ‘dysfunctional’ military structures, and
5. have an Administration that ‘disdained’ nation building.

Five Failures?

Let us tackle each one of these so-called ‘failures’ individually. To kick off the effort, let's look at the first assertion in this post.

The U.S. ‘Misread’ its Foe?

While acknowledging ‘part’ of the ‘misreading’ was due to poor intelligence on the part of the CIA and the rest of the U.S. intelligence apparatus, the authors are in effect minimizing the impact of ‘poor’ U.S. intelligence. The fact that all of the Western powers had poor intelligence on Iraq was played down throughout the book: acknowledged but never really focused upon or explored. Had this facet been examined more thoroughly, it would have become immediately apparent that perhaps much of what was supposedly ‘mistaken’ concerning Iraq, including the power structure, military capability, and Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), was in reality unknowable beforehand. It was ‘unknowable’ because much of the critical ‘truths’ about our foe was and possibly still is locked up inside Saddam Hussein’s punkin’ little, and megalomaniacal, head.

A perfect place to have emphasized this point would have been where the authors recounted regime members revealing (well AFTER the war) that Saddam called his key people in and told them there really were no WMDs just prior to the war. Of course, this would beg the question that if he said he was deceiving them earlier, how would they/we know if he wasn’t deceiving them (and now us through them) from that point in time forward?

Given that Saddam’s revelations to his generals dovetail neatly with records of an unusual and significant amount of military convoy activity to Syria, given allegations that WMDs were winged away in military transport aircraft, given the apparent complicity of certain members of the U.N Security Council in propping up Saddam’s regime under the Oil for Food Program with a motive to cover their tracks, and given the recent declassification of the existence of over 500 WMD warheads and artillery shells that very well could be the drippings left behind in a quick housecleaning, and given that armament stockpiles are still being inventoried, how can we say this matter is settled?

I’ve never been a big fan of conspiracy theories and am reserving judgment as to what this all means – and that is my point: I can recognize when there are sufficient unknowns to reserve, and not rush towards, judgment. The authors of Cobra II should have reserved judgment as well.

One point the authors hammer home every chance they had was that we failed to respond, adapt, adjust (or whatever!) to what Messrs. Gordon and Trainor characterize as the real foe: the Fedayeen. Of course, they do this in a manner that marginalizes the Republican Guard, conveniently avoiding an in-depth analysis as to what the war might have looked like if we hadn’t moved so far and so fast. For example, early in the book one of the most prominent points made concerning the preservation of critical bridges the Coalition forces would need, is that Saddam didn’t want the bridges blown because it would hinder his own actions in maintaining control over his own population after the conflict. This has the effect of minimizing the importance of one of the key coalition objectives, preservation of the bridges, and making that goal look like yet another ‘misread’ on our part. Yet as we move through the book, we learn that in some cases we were lucky and in others we were able to secure bridges before they could be blown because we moved so quickly.

Among the most annoying things about the authors’ efforts is how they consistently marginalize the fact that we (the Coalition) really viewed the threat of WMDs as a 'most serious' threat and primary campaign planning factor. WMDs were, given the circumstances the most important factor weighing in on all aspects of the war planning and the biggest potential threat to our forces and our success.

What would have been the consequences of an alternate reality to what actually occurred? Would we have gotten bogged down and slipped into a war of attrition before we could get to Baghdad? How many more Coalition lives would have been lost than we have lost to date? That answer too is unknowable. But it is undeniable that in dealing with an enemy believed to have WMDs, moving as quickly as possible exposing as few people as possible to danger in order to get the mission done MUST be considered a prudent strategy. The ‘misreading the foe’ canard only looks good post-facto because the use of WMDs didn’t materialize. Thank God.

COBRA II REVIEW: Part 1

Prelude

I apologize for having taken far longer to write up a review of this book than I meant to take. It’s not that I had to mull over the information afterwards to get my brain wrapped around the book, nor was due to my lack of opinion on the book’s merits...

It was because of the “target rich” environment this book provides. I had to really wrestle with coming up with as concise as possible, yet reasonably complete summary of just what is essentially wrong with Cobra II.

If you would care to review more concise and more specialized reviews instead, I highly recommend Victor Davis Hanson’s Commentary piece and PrairiePundit’s thoughts on the subject.


My Cliff's Notes version would read:

The authors make a lot of hay while failing to provide adequate support for many of their assertions, even where I would like to (and do) agree with their end position. Although Victor Davis Hanson (link above) finds Cobra II flawed but worthwhile, I cannot make the same recommendation.

What makes a book “successful” IMHO? aka “A long, slow wade into the deep end”

(Yeah, the rest of this post is a little tedious, but at least you'll know what the standards are....)

I won’t just recommend or keep books because they embody or present a great truth that I want to keep at hand for further study, or just for the renewed enjoyment that comes from revisiting them. I very often recommend or collect books that must be judged, in the final analysis, as complete failures from the author’s "message" point of view. I do this when, though the author(s) fail to make their case, they still provide a wealth of hard data or historical evidence that is in and of itself very useful. It is a quirk of mine to collect books where the author or authors lay out all of the salient points, prove to have an obsession for hard facts, and a knack for finding the most minute of details -- sufficient information for the reader to form their own judgements -- yet still fail to prove their argument.

When this happens it seems almost as if the authors miss the point of what they are writing about. Examples of this that immediately come to mind, that I recommend and keep in my library, are Battleship: The Sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse and The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers.

Battleship (my book doesn’t have the subtitle on the spine – perhaps it was on the dust jacket) is remarkable for its gripping account of the sinking of the HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse by the Japanese just days after Pearl Harbor. The author (some editions seem to have a co-author listed) lays out the timelines and all the geographical, operational, technical, political and situational facts in the finest detail. The book reveals the important personalities, command dynamics, and individual actions taken. For all the accuracy in recreating the events of the battle, and in spite of the very specific and accurate title, the book fails because the author’s entire effort reaches beyond the events and builds up to the crowning assertion that because English battleships were vulnerable when used improperly (without any air cover), battleships in general were too vulnerable to airpower and therefore obsolete. The author didn’t even adequately make the case that just under-armed English battleships were obsolete. When I first finished reading this book years ago (1979-80?), I wondered: given the quality and scholarship that went into the book, perhaps there was an editor’s hand involved in an effort to generate sales through pandering to a then-contemporary controversy over plana to reactivate the U.S. Iowa class battleships? (I intend to someday read some other edition and look for differences.)

The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Paul Kennedy is another wonderful resource that uses a tremendous amount of history and economic data to try and build a case that the US was/is destined to follow in the footsteps of earlier Great Powers that ‘overspent’ the nation’s treasure on defense. The book is worth the price as a primer on the Hapsburg Empire alone, but the author’s attempt to tie the goings on of settled distant history to today’s unsettled ‘future history’ and to draw so direct a corollary between the foibles of past ‘empires’ to the U.S.’s current superpower status is in a word, "farcical".

The cherry-picking of then-current economic information didn’t hold up at the time of the writing and it sure doesn’t hold up in retrospect. Although I suppose the author could make the case he was right about the root cause of the demise of the Soviet Union, his evaluation and presentation of the relative cost of defense for the US was poor: At the time of the writing (and even more so now) it wasn’t a question of whether the US wanted to buy “guns” or “butter”, but rather one of “how many guns” AND “how much butter” do we want to buy at the same time?

These books establish the baseline for what is my lowest-level definition of “worthwhile” non-fiction, and Cobra II does not rise to anywhere near this minimum standard.

Tomorrow: What were the authors' 'aiming' at?