The end of Osama bin Laden

Announced last night by the President was the killing of Osama bin Laden and capture of his body during an operation in Pakistan, that took place at a mansion.

Congratulations, President Obama.

My thanks to the trigger man giving bin Laden a taste of war has he knew it coming for him.

 

Now, about these Private War organizations continuing to destabilize Nations around the globe, and the hearty help of countries interfering in unsanctioned ways in other Nations... no good end will come of Private War practiced by individuals, groups and Nations.  That is uncivilized behavior in the extreme.

That is what happens when standards are not kept up: you become uncivilized.

And you don't have to look very far, at all, to see that happening.

From refresher to hard ends

Looking at terrorism in SE Asia I have put together the following posts:

Dropping the dime on the oil drop

Mountain warfare and what it takes

Terrorists on the decline?

A DIME does not pay the toll

Terrorism: the good, the bad and the ugly

A quick refresher on Pakistan

Terrorism and Pakistan, part 1 and part 2

The Hard Part

Management of Savagery -The 'weak horse'

How many troops can we support in Afghanistan isn't the right question

Afghanistan and the essential fight

The shadow and the firestorm

 

These articles are predicated on understanding both Counter Insurgency (COIN) and Mountain Warfare (MW) and, of the two, MW is the more essential one as it is the regional and cultural base that we have to work with.  Today our view of COIN is one based on semi-successful campaigns (France in Algeria) which were a short term success and a longer term mixed bag, our hard work in Colombia with the local governments against FARC, and in the Philippines against the Moro-Islamic Liberation Front.  Iraq has many deep teaching points for us and we should not squander that learning experience when approaching COIN in Afghanistan.  Indeed the failure of Saddam and Turkey to crush the Kurds in the border region between Iraq and Turkey tells us much about Afghanistan and COIN, and what NOT to do.

From the Algerian experience the one salient lesson is: anyone who was once an insurgent who goes back to their old ways should be immediately confronted.  By not doing that, by not requiring local groups to permanently abide by peace, the doorway to a new insurgency was opened.  If your foes cannot enforce their settlement, then do not make one with them.  The forces confronting the Tamil Tigers have learned this hard lesson and that is why it is down to the 'last man' which looks to be the last Tamil Tiger.  Forces that factionate and cannot enforce peace upon those factions are not negotiating from any viable position.  It is possible to siphon off those who have just grown tired of fighting, but they are to be watched and not trusted so long as their old comrades continue to fight.  You can get a 'separate peace' in Private War but you cannot get a return of the trust that was abdicated by the individual who decided to leave civilization to fight it.  Similarly the cohesive society of the Kurds means that much lip service is given to not harboring the PKK from Turkey (and Iran), and yet individual fighters can and do get that refuge.  Turkey and Iran have both utilized attempts to dissolve the Kurdish culture, Kurdish language and Kurdish traditions and only by having those upheld by secular government has Iraq earned peace.  It is unfortunate that those other bordering Nations do not afford tolerance to multiple cultures in their own borders.

From the Kurdish experience, anti-FARC COIN, and work in the Philippines we can garner one major lesson: hard terrain makes for long COIN campaigns.  Decades long in some cases.  Serious work against FARC started in the mid-1990's and still has not completely eradicated it, as it now has support from the tyrant in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez.  In that part of South America there is jungle and mountainous terrain, both, that make finding and removing insurgents a difficult task.  The terrain works to the benefit of the insurgents who are few and can attack anywhere to terrorize.  Similarly the Moros in the Philippines restarted their proto-independence movement after WWII (after failing in the Philippine-American War, a successful COIN campaign led by the US Army) that then gained strength in the 1990's with the addition of al Qaeda funds and operatives, often from their Indonesian affiliate.  Again terrain tells the tale, and being able to root out an insurgency in jungle conditions is a non-trivial task.  In the area that was demarcated as Kurdistan after WWI, the Kurds have seen their territory sliced up and have waged an insurgency, in turn, against the Turks, Iranians, Syrians, Iraqis with each having faced the problem of some of the best fighters in the region fighting to proclaim their cultural identity and solidarity.  Mountain warfare against insurgents is one of the most difficult to achieve as the mountains, when used with strong local knowledge, become a palpable enemy to COIN forces.  That is cultural heritage the Kurds retain from before they migrated out of the area we now call Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan and Pakistan along the Pashtun regions we face a foe similar in background to the Kurds in that it is a warrior based culture and tribal on that basis, although even more primitive in that individuals can raise Family and Clan and Tribal forces on their own without any government oversight.  These personal units are generally referred to as 'Lashkar', although multi-group affiliates do arise using that term (ex. Lashkar e-Toiba) to show some personal fighting affiliation to a group or belief it is understood that these are not the personal fighting units of the region but agglomerated groups.  In staging a 'surge' in Afghanistan the areas being 'surged' into are those on the border regions influenced by the Pashtuns who live, by and large, in Pakistan but, like the Kurds in the Middle East, cross borders into other countries due to tribal affiliations and cultural identity.

Can such a group be successfully integrated into civil society?

Yes.  With that said, when such cultural groups cross borders it is understood that their kinsmen across those borders are not, of necessity, influenced by a Nation State peace agreement with the tribal society in that region of that Nation State.  If you live elsewhere you do not become peaceful in another Nation merely because a peace was reached elsewhere with your kin.  As the use of Lashkars indicate, the societal basis for the Pashtun region of Pakistan and Afghanistan is different than that of the Kurdish areas in the Middle East and must be taken into account.  Thus the history of that society must be a paramount concern when staging COIN to see if there is any basis for a 'separate peace' in Afghanistan with the Pashtuns. 

From my refresher article above, comes the discouraging news that the Pashtuns have outwaited the British Empire which put in place a 100 year agreement for recognition of borders between British held territories and Afghanistan.  Thus from that we can draw the following: an imposed peace or settlement by an outside Nation is not going to be the terms of a long-term and successful peace.  Temporary while the outside force is present, yes.  And when Afghanistan rejected that border agreement as permanent, due to that ethnic pressure, it can be assumed that no current 'successful' surge will remain in place for long on the ground without a larger consensus agreement amongst all Pashtuns.

To put it bluntly: to get a long-term peace agreement and recognition of borders between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Pashtuns will need to not only sign-on to that agreement but abide by it and be a full player in the negotiations.  That puts on the table one of the nastiest yet most interesting prospects of all: the Pashtuns declaring a Nation State homeland separate from Pakistan and Afghanistan, both.  This has been a minority position in the Pashtun regions for decades, but independence is one of the starting fuels of bloodshed against governments in that region and to end that source those voices must be heard, reasoned with and their consent given at the tribal level for any larger multi-Nation consensus.

Because this is mountain warfare terrain, all other tribes must agree that any renegades who try to raise Lashkars for any reason beyond simple tribal defense needs to be hunted down and ended.  There is a difference between militias for local defense that wear uniforms and have a chain of command and those who wear no uniforms, have no command and no greater sanction than THEIR LEADER or THEIR RELIGION to go to war.  Those sanctions must be firmly implanted as illegitimate and lethal to any trying to do so.

In doing this we must come to understand the American COIN campaign that started in 1783 and ended in 1787: the uprising against high State taxes that put farmers in jail and confiscated their land brewed a rebellion against that rule that only ended when a new consensus was reached by the creation of the US Constitution.  In that work local militias are of State concern and, so long as they are not given pay or made permanent by the State and held by the people, the Federal Government will only call upon them when the threat to all States is paramount.  The United States experience with COIN and with State government becoming draconian is clear and crystal clear: you do not get a peace until the safety and security of the people is ensured and that those people are not oppressed by their government.  In return local self-protection is respected while going to war on your own is prosecuted as illegal warfare or Private War or piracy, depending on the terminology used at the time. 

Our modern military understanding is a hot house flower bred under the massive 20th century wars and continued on through the Cold War and is not representative of the normal condition of the military for mankind.  We cannot apply our highly technical systems to primitive cultures in the realm of warfare, and must bring about the understanding of civilized use of warfare that is run by the Nation for Public War while outlawing Private War that has NO State sanction.  The State can and Publicly sanction Private War groups to go after other Private War groups, then those fighters fall under Public War domains while executing their own understanding of war and accepting the consequences of it.

It is this understanding that must be found within the cultures of the region of Afghanistan and Pakistan.  This will not be easily performed as witness the current state of the tribal systems of the region in regards to Private War groups.  Any 'surge' that does not draw that deep, dark, red line between Private and Public War and that attempts to 'prosecute' Private War fighters in a civil court will fail as it is a demonstration of not understanding the difference between Public and Private War.  By taking it into a civil law venue, then Private War is given recognition and ENHANCED no matter what the verdict is, because it is seen as a viable application of war by individuals since it is given a public trial venue.  Yet these are not civil crimes being committed, but war crimes due to military justice.  That justice has always been harsh as separating Private War and requiring it to get Public sanction enhances the peace WITHIN society by removing warfare FROM society that is not sanctioned BY society.

We do have statutes for those fighting Private War that are picked up for public offenses or otherwise turn themselves over to public authorities: they are the Piracy Statutes and are only applicable inside the territory of the United States and given to those that surrender to us after being pronounced as fighting Private War against us.  This has been a stance of the United States since its Founding as executed by Jefferson, Jackson and, most notably, Lincoln.  Those caught making war against us in the military venue get military justice.  Those that submit to be tried for their crimes in a public venue get civil justice.  When you are brought in making war against the United States or, indeed, any Nation you are to be put into the military justice system as that is what you were doing: performing military activities.

Terrorism, as those on the Left like to point out, is a tactic.  They never, ever, not once want to state what is the form of war that has that as its main tactic as that then tells you what to do with those individuals performing it.  It is a tactic of piracy, to terrify others with warfare so as to get your way.  Pirates have taken lives, taken slaves, taken ships and have fought on land and at sea since the first City States arose and they have been seen and treated in one way, only, since the beginning of civil law and society.  It is only when they surrender to civil justice, civil prosecution and willingly give themselves up to be judged for the accusation of piracy that they get a trial in civil court.

This is what needs to be brought to the Pashtuns: the understanding of the defense of civil society from those willing to wage war against it on their own.  Currently the Pashtuns have little to recognize as they, themselves, are divided by two major Nations, terrain and yet are bonded by kinship, culture and custom.  To do this and get this peace requires the understanding of Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Pashtuns that they are going to be given time to work out an accord that is suitable to ALL of them by consensus with no hold-backs, no lprovisos and no 'well maybes'.  If they cannot come to accord INSIDE their culture then no peace will ever be found OUTSIDE of it.  To do this does not require great multi-culti, glib worded politicians, but good,hard on-the-ground tribal leaders from other cultures that have this and perhaps a number of military historians pointing out exactly how Lashkars are seen by civilized people and why being civilized has such a high value to it that it is worth killing off Lashkars and taking up the positive liberty of civil defense for defense ONLY.

Because, apparently, the British Empire couldn't teach this lesson.  Nor could the Persian Empire before it.

Nor has Pakistan or Afghanistan or the USSR.

The only person who MIGHT have been able to teach that is the last Western leader that is STILL sung about by the bards of the region and how his passing changed the lives of everyone there.  Unfortunately he is long dead.

A guy by the name of Alexander.

Often with 'the Great' appended to it.

And if we can't learn the teachings of mountain warfare, how to deal with local cultures and get them to cooperate from our history, then Alexander's name will probably outlive all of ours and our Nations as we let this cancer spread by creating the conditions for its spread at home and abroad.  Getting rid of this Gordian Knot is not achieved by more rope.  Too bad that is what we now have on order, with nary a sword to be seen, and with that rope we shall, assuredly, hang ourselves as being too civilized to be civilized and do the right thing.

We could learn a lot from Alexander.

If we dared to use the sword to cut out this cancer.

Good luck with that rope stuff.

Terror, terrorism and Ft. Hood

To the family and loved ones of those that have died in the recent tragedy at Ft. Hood you have my deepest condolences and sympathy for your sudden loss.  My words cannot express my feelings adequately.

To those that have been wounded in this attack, you also have my sympathy and my regard for surviving such an attack.  Many of your comrades around you were not wounded because of you just as the fallen have died in place of another so you, too, have received the sharp end of the unexpected.  My deepest regards to you, your families and loved ones, and I wish you a speedy recovery.

To Police Sergeant Kimberly Munley:  thank you for your courage and cool under fire while wounded.  You have saved many lives by your action and that of your fellow officers to end this tragedy and ensure that it would end.  My best and dearest wishes for a speedy recovery from your wounds and return to health.

 

Any act in which an individual reclaims their negative liberty of warfare, to act as an animal, is one that is of pure terror as it is the loss of civilized controls upon the self and a return to the state of an animal.  It does not matter if it is a calculated dropping of such restraints or pure blinding animal impulse overwhelming the individual: the source of such reclaiming does not change the event, itself, save when those dropping the restraints of civilization act together without cause.  Those that commit such acts do not deserve our pity nor our attempts to exculpate them by blaming such an uncivilized act on conditions.  Guilt or innocence is for a jury to decide, and then source and reason indicates level of punishment.  The presumption for any charged is innocence and proof must be beyond a reasonable doubt of a jury.  Juries can get it wrong, yes.  Trying an individual in the court of public opinion guarantees a wrong verdict as our media play up to emotions, not facts, and thus misguide our thinking via intent through lack of content.  That is why we have juries: to avoid emotional based conviction or decree of innocence as neither weighs the facts.

During my time working on the civil side of DoD, I visited many bases and facilities fully under military control.  The level of self-control and civility was and is astonishing and when any individual within the armed forces reverts to their animal nature it is a double pity as such an individual not only became uncivilized but betrayed the trust of their comrades in arms who depend upon them.  As we depend upon them to defend our Nation, this is the highest form of loss we can suffer as it erodes the trust within the very organization we use to keep us safe.  No higher loss of trust can be found, save for treason, and when plotted with malice aforethought and intent to change the course of a Nation through one's actions, then the act, itself, is treason as well as reclaiming one's negative liberty of Private War.

Those individuals who step forward to learn the trade of arms do just that: learn the trade of arms.  We ensure that they get the highest level of training not only in the arms but in themselves so that they come to understand themselves and their place in our common defense.  These individuals are trained in more than just arms, but in treatment of wounds, first aid and many other areas that allow them to survive the harshest conditions that humanity offers them, which is the battlefield.  The battlefield is that place where civilization falls apart most directly, and yet we try to place civilized rules so as to keep the carnage and atrocities down.  Our soldiers are taught to uphold civilization not where it is easy and comfortable, in their homes and offices, but where it is least likely to be upheld which is that chaotic field of battle.  That training is done to help distinguish between those that are uncivilized and need to be stopped, and those that are civilized and need to be protected.  Due to the chaotic nature of the battlefield this is never easy, and such laws of war have come about so that the innocent are not destroyed by the nature of war, itself.

When on such bases I never wondered if soldiers were kind, courteous and competent.  They were US soldiers.

Even on the most open of bases and facilities before 9/11 I did wonder about the lack of even side arms for self-protection.  As we have come to understand Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, we have come to learn that normalizing of the mind takes many forms and soldiers now employ those forms from immediate de-compression via violent video games to meditation and counseling.  Thus I had no worries about soldiers who had been in Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Colombia, Philippines, and elsewhere being in harms way.  We have changed how we deal with the aftermath of battle upon the minds of our soldiers, and in many ways we now come to understand the more ritualized techniques of primitives and those before modern times that required similar forms of purification, understanding and re-acclimating themselves to civil society after the horrors of warfare.  They are far better prepared to identify danger and how to respond to lethal threats and even the non-lethal sort that involve warfare than any police officer can be.  While both see similar threats, the field of war goes far deeper into how a soldier will asses a lethal situation and respond.  While they could not respond to stop the attacker at Ft. Hood, they served instantly to care for the fallen and stabilize the wounded and save lives immediately.  There was no question of paperwork, training and instant reaction as that had all been done.  Not all who were there were veterans, that is true, but the response between soldiers in different units points to a coherence of understanding that goes far deeper than any civil set of forces that require higher levels of coordination between them outside of the immediate realm.  Soldiers responded to treat the wounded, secure the area, and ensure communications and supply lines for that is their job.

My question is simple:  why are our citizen soldiers denied the right of self-protection due to any citizen of the United States?

They are citizens first.

Soldiers second.

We trust them to fight for us and correctly identify the enemy in the heat of battle and uphold the highest laws of warfare in doing so.

Why do we not trust them as citizens with the positive right of self-defense?

If our Armed Forces were remiss in identifying an individual with troubles, a person with deep personal misgivings of the armed forces and their mission, then that must be addressed, to be sure.

But to deny our citizens the right to protect themselves openly when they are trained in the highest morals and ethics of warfare to distinguish between minor events and lethal ones on the urban battlefield?

A soldier by taking up arms to protect our Nation is a target on and off the battlefield as they are openly stating their willingness to die for us.  In uniform or out of it, they are targets of our enemies who wish to destroy our will to fight and our Nation.  There is no safety when there are lack of arms as those who revert to their base, animal instincts will always and ever find a way to kill to assert their will over others.

That is the nature of man.

That negative liberty and right of asserting one's will over others also creates, simultaneously, the positive right and liberty for self-defense, to uphold one's existence and to assert the civil right to survive without being threatened by death by those wishing to control you.  When taking that animal liberty against a citizen working with civil means, the positive liberty and right spring into being so that there is a higher authority to be invoked when man turned as animal against all mankind arises: yourself who will hold yourself accountable to civil laws for your actions.

Can we not entrust our soldiers to understand that at home, too?

They know the laws of war and the laws of peace and the differences between them.

If we, on the civil side, cannot make that distinction, then we are seeking to dissolve that compact which allows our society to flourish and inviting the law of nature to rule over us with no means to address it.

No good will ever come of that.

Double Standards: GC and the press

From my previous work on The Volunteer Fifth Column I cited the following:

8) On 19 OCT 2006 CNN has decided to become the anti-American outlet of choice for Iraqi insurgents and terrorists. That is when they decided that to 'tell the other side of the story' in Iraq meant showing the murder of a US soldier via sniper fire. This was *not* a military assault, but a pre-planned and executed murder of a US soldier for propaganda video footage. CNN has refused to call it such or to even indicate that it is an evidentiary piece for war crimes as the showing of such is actually against the Geneva Conventions. In previous eras that would be considered activity worthy of a War Crimes tribunal for those involved. Strange how so many are ready to call for that for US soldiers in combat and *not* for those publicizing the murders of US soldiers.

Joining CNN in this category is the New York Times with its running of a video showing the death of Staff Sgt. Hector Leija as reported by Gateway Pundit on 03 FEB 2007 due to the uproar over the Stars & Stripes first report on this by the NYT. Not only did they not go via their own codes of conduct and respect for the family of a fallen serviceman. By doing neither and showing such video, the NYT is also liable for War Crimes prosecution by abrogating the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of the wounded and dead of lawful combatants.

Because of the lax attitude towards holding anyone accountable for any actions, I doubt that either organization will be brought up on charges. Specifically under the following:

Convention IV
Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, 12 August 1949.
Part I. General Provisions
...
Art. 5 Where in the territory of a Party to the conflict, the latter is satisfied that an individual protected person is definitely suspected of or engaged in activities hostile to the security of the State, such individual person shall not be entitled to claim such rights and privileges under the present Convention as would, if exercised in the favour of such individual person, be prejudicial to the security of such State.

Where in occupied territory an individual protected person is detained as a spy or saboteur, or as a person under definite suspicion of activity hostile to the security of the Occupying Power, such person shall, in those cases where absolute military security so requires, be regarded as having forfeited rights of communication under the present Convention.

In each case, such persons shall nevertheless be treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed by the present Convention. They shall also be granted the full rights and privileges of a protected person under the present Convention at the earliest date consistent with the security of the State or Occupying Power, as the case may be.

The use and reporting of actual sniper fire to kill a lawful combatant by individuals not affiliated with the Armed Forces of the High Contracting Powers or of those that would be considered to be equivalent in a civil war from the opposing side are considered to be neutral unless they take part in activities AGAINST said lawful combatants. Thus, by using such coverage and not clearing it with the lawful Armed Forces command structure and publicizing it in a manner that is against any High Contracting Power or equivalent, the neutrality is abrogated and LOST.
Further in the same Convention:

Part III. Status and Treatment of Protected Persons
Section III. Occupied territories

Art. 68. Protected persons who commit an offence which is solely intended to harm the Occupying Power, but which does not constitute an attempt on the life or limb of members of the occupying forces or administration, nor a grave collective danger, nor seriously damage the property of the occupying forces or administration or the installations used by them, shall be liable to internment or simple imprisonment, provided the duration of such internment or imprisonment is proportionate to the offence committed. Furthermore, internment or imprisonment shall, for such offences, be the only measure adopted for depriving protected persons of liberty. The courts provided for under Article 66 of the present Convention may at their discretion convert a sentence of imprisonment to one of internment for the same period.
The penal provisions promulgated by the Occupying Power in accordance with Articles 64 and 65 may impose the death penalty against a protected person only in cases where the person is guilty of espionage, of serious acts of sabotage against the military installations of the Occupying Power or of intentional offences which have caused the death of one or more persons, provided that such offences were punishable by death under the law of the occupied territory in force before the occupation began.

The death penalty may not be pronounced against a protected person unless the attention of the court has been particularly called to the fact that since the accused is not a national of the Occupying Power, he is not bound to it by any duty of allegiance.

In any case, the death penalty may not be pronounced on a protected person who was under eighteen years of age at the time of the offence.

Now Iraq is not being occupied unless reporting is being done from a viewpoint of presenting "the other side's view" - which is that the US is 'occupying' Iraq. Promulgating that storyline can either be done in context of the US is helping a Free Iraq, and the sniping is an illegal activity that they are reporting upon and are, thusly, under all laws of Iraq that cover such reporting or that those doing the reporting for the presentation of such violence in the light of the insurgents agree that Iraq is 'occupied' and thus such reporting falls under that of 'occupied territory'. So the first case makes these news organizations liable to the civil criminal codes of Iraq for this, but this is also combat against an insurgent force. Mind you, if you push the 'Occupied Iraq' concept, then the folks doing this should be summarily charged and imprisoned under the UCMJ. But I suspect they wouldn't like being in Gitmo. In which case that brings us to the dead and wounded Geneva Convention. This brings us to:

Convention I
For the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field, Geneva, 12 August 1949
...
Chapter II. Wounded and Sick

Art. 12. Members of the armed forces and other persons mentioned in the following Article, who are wounded or sick, shall be respected and protected in all circumstances.
They shall be treated humanely and cared for by the Party to the conflict in whose power they may be, without any adverse distinction founded on sex, race, nationality, religion, political opinions, or any other similar criteria. Any attempts upon their lives, or violence to their persons, shall be strictly prohibited; in particular, they shall not be murdered or exterminated, subjected to torture or to biological experiments; they shall not wilfully be left without medical assistance and care, nor shall conditions exposing them to contagion or infection be created.
[Parts applying to urgent medical treatment ommitted]

Art. 13. The present Convention shall apply to the wounded and sick belonging to the following categories:

(1) Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict, as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces. (2) Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions: (a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; (b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance; (c) that of carrying arms openly; (d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war. (3) Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a Government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power. (4) Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof, such as civil members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labour units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces, provided that they have received authorization from the armed forces which they accompany. (5) Members of crews, including masters, pilots and apprentices, of the merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the Parties to the conflict, who do not benefit by more favourable treatment under any other provisions in international law. (6) Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy, spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.

...

Art. 17. Parties to the conflict shall ensure that burial or cremation of the dead, carried out individually as far as circumstances permit, is preceded by a careful examination, if possible by a medical examination, of the bodies, with a view to confirming death, establishing identity and enabling a report to be made. One half of the double identity disc, or the identity disc itself if it is a single disc, should remain on the body.

Bodies shall not be cremated except for imperative reasons of hygiene or for motives based on the religion of the deceased. In case of cremation, the circumstances and reasons for cremation shall be stated in detail in the death certificate or on the authenticated list of the dead.
They shall further ensure that the dead are honourably interred, if possible according to the rites of the religion to which they belonged, that their graves are respected, grouped if possible according to the nationality of the deceased, properly maintained and marked so that they may always be found. For this purpose, they shall organize at the commencement of hostilities an Official Graves Registration Service, to allow subsequent exhumations and to ensure the identification of bodies, whatever the site of the graves, and the possible transportation to the home country. These provisions shall likewise apply to the ashes, which shall be kept by the Graves Registration Service until proper disposal thereof in accordance with the wishes of the home country.

Thus the wounded and dead due to sniper fire are to be treated honorably throughout the entire procedure from event to interment in the grave for the dead. Not going through proper military channels on any and all events of wounding and killing that are recorded and propagating them without military authorization is an act against the State or High Contracting Power or equivalent. That reporting removes all protection of the Geneva Conventions from those doing such reporting on the dead and wounded encountered against an insurgent force IN ADDITION to the local laws. I find such reporting to be absolutely reprehensible by ANY news organization and cannot see how they can ethically justify such as doing so puts them in contradiction of the honorable treatment of the dead and wounded. Both CNN and New York Times do not treat the dead and wounded honorably by their use of film to show partisan views of such events and are considered to be working outside of normal military channels against the Nation of those being wounded and killed, in this case the United States.

Why they are not under indictment under the Geneva Conventions or treated as espionage agencies is beyond me. The use of such is a War Crime by any definition and doing so to harm a State is against the Geneva Conventions and makes one working for the enemy of the State that is being targeted for such coverage.

When I hear all the blather from 'journalists' about the Geneva Convention and terrorists, I do, indeed, ask myself: why are they not raising a holy furor about these people violating not only journalistic standards but the laws of war?  By violating such standards 'journalists' lose their 'protected persons' status.

You do not show images, video or anything about the dead, sick or wounded on the battlefield unless it is first approved of by the powers in question who are within that territory during the time of your stay there.  While the US is fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan under orders from the Executive Branch carrying out the will of the Legislative Branch, the rule of law in those areas where US forces operate ARE the laws of war.  When a soldier is wounded or sick, they become a protected person under the GC and need the greatest protection from harm, abuse and exploitation possible.

Even with the AP already a member of The Volunteer Fifth Column, it now gets moved up a notch from mere mis-reporting and fauxtography to absolutely contravened activity.  The AP has now shown the image of a fallen soldier after receiving orders from Defense Secretary Gates,as seen at Blackfive reporting from Politico:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is objecting “in the strongest terms” to an Associated Press decision to transmit a photograph showing a mortally wounded 21-year-old Marine in his final moments of life, calling the decision “appalling” and a breach of “common decency.”

The AP reported that the Marine’s father had asked – in an interview and in a follow-up phone call — that the image, taken by an embedded photographer, not be published.

AP reported in a story that it decided to make the image public anyway because it “conveys the grimness of war and the sacrifice of young men and women fighting it.”

The photo shows Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard of New Portland, Maine, who was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade in a Taliban ambush Aug. 14 in Helmand province of southern Afghanistan, according to The AP.

Gates wrote to Thomas Curley, AP’s president and chief executive officer. “Out of respect for his family’s wishes, I ask you in the strongest of terms to reconsider your decision. I do not make this request lightly. In one of my first public statements as Secretary of Defense, I stated that the media should not be treated as the enemy, and made it a point to thank journalists for revealing problems that need to be fixed – as was the case with Walter Reed.

“I cannot imagine the pain and suffering Lance Corporal Bernard’s death has caused his family. Why your organization would purposefully defy the family’s wishes knowing full well that it will lead to yet more anguish is beyond me. Your lack of compassion and common sense in choosing to put this image of their maimed and stricken child on the front page of multiple American newspapers is appalling. The issue here is not law, policy or constitutional right – but judgment and common decency.”

Neither the SECDEF nor the family of Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard wanted the image of him splashed on newspapers around the world.  There is decency for the dead in wartime and when the SECDEF 'asks' he is telling you that you can't do that as we have seen from the Geneva Conventions.

There is no equivalency between those who are fighting for no Nation utilizing their full liberty of Private War and having no command structure over them, no accountability and following none of the laws of war, to those that wear a uniform, are accountable, fight for a Nation, under a legitimate declaration of war, and are in a war zone.  No moral equivalency between the two.  When you splash the picture of a dead soldier that the SECDEF and the soldier's family have asked you not to publish you are not liable for a mere lawsuit.

You are liable to be tried for espionage under a military tribunal and shot if found guilty.

It is a war crime.

Not a civil crime, not due to the civil justice system, not a mere criminal penalty, but one of the highest crimes of war recognized for over a century.  No excuse can be put forward for doing that to any lawful combatant.

Ever.

That is why getting adjudged an unlawful combatant is vital: it tells you what to do with those who aren't fighting under the recognized, civilized, laws of war.

I expect the Left to make all sorts of moralizations, if they even care about the laws of war as something other than mere talking points to misconstrue and bash the US with.  Then to use that misconstrued logic to perform their own heinous offenses against the sensibilities of all civilized people who recognize the laws of war.

Which our enemies DON'T.

There is accountability with being civilized and having laws you adhere to.

When you contravene them you are due a penalty.

I expect that penalty to be paid in a military court as that is the jurisdiction involved.

If someone would just get the guts to charge these scum for doing these actions and showing our brave soldiers images when they have been killed by those who follow no laws of war whatsoever.  Luckily the family was involved, too, so they didn't get a first notification via opening the front page of a newspaper and seeing their dead son on it.

Afghanistan and the essential fight

The following is a posting from The Jacksonian Party.

The following is a position paper of The Jacksonian Party.

Of all the things that cannot be done, Nation Building is the one that cannot be done from the outside. To have a Nation one must have a people committed to it, willing to stand up for their neighbors to live under the rule of law and be able to expect some modicum of protection from their government. When reading Sen. Lieberman's piece in The Wall Street Journal of 06 FEB 2009, I come away agreeing with much and disagreeing with some areas. While I have disagreed with Sen. Lieberman on many social issues, on military and foreign affairs I find more than majority agreement with his positions.

First and foremost is a strategic coherence on the fighting in the Afghanistan theater, as it is more than just Afghanistan a full and complete approach that includes Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Pakistan, India, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan is essential. I have looked at the main supply routes now under attack by al Qaeda, Taliban, Mehsud fighters, and followers of Hekmatyar and they are choking off the critical supply routes to Afghanistan from the south. Because our supply system depends so much on shipping as the cheapest form of transport, fully 90% of all supplies for Afghanistan arrive in Pakistan and must be shipped overland through the passes through the mountains. Those routes must go through hostile provinces, now under siege and often full control of these opposition forces. Pakistan has not been ready to take up arms to finally integrate these Pashtun provinces into their country, disarm the rebels, and disband traditional war fighting bands (known as Lashkars, or personal forces beholden to a leader or organization). At this point the most powerful organization is Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's terrorist organization that spreads across the Central Asian Republics that used to be held by the USSR.

Russia has been unwilling to offer supply services and, instead, wishes to send troops into Afghanistan. This would further break up command, put different Rules of Engagement in play and cause more complexity than what we now have on the ground. To simplify command the command structure must revert to the Nation that actually declared war on Afghanistan and that is the United States: it is our responsibility to see it through to its end, not NATO's. Further we need the troops that can be acclimated to the climate and who have the best capability to fight there. Finally we need a secondary route of supply for our forces so as to lessen reliance on Pakistan.

The route to do this is clear: work with Turkey, Greece, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan for a route across the Caspian using Georgia and Azerbaijan to trans-ship goods from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea. This would bypass the need for Russian help and put Russia on notice that interdicting Georgia or Azerbaijan is a direct threat to US warfighting in Afghanistan. In theory this should be part of a 'hope & change' initiative by the US to offer good contracting through those Nations, help support Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan trade with the rest of the world and help to start putting the ability of Pashtun tribal areas into a role of reduced significance in our fight in Afghanistan. Doing so would also put it to Pakistan that the US is more than prepared to set up alternate and more expensive means of secure transport if they are unwilling to step into their role to actually build their Nation.

Unfortunately I do doubt if the new leadership in the Oval Office has the skill, fortitude, and capability to be assertive abroad in a war handed to them by their predecessor which was mandated by the 9/11 attacks and Congressional response.

Thus to firm up strategic coherence with limited supply lines, the troops most able to fight in such conditions, and fight extremely well, are Mountain Warfare, Alpine, Highland and other similar forces from NATO. Mountain Warfare forces are not regular, flatland forces, and have some of the most rugged and disciplined training for fighting in the most hostile climate the planet has to offer. I go over that in this article, on such troops and how they consistently out fight, out maneuver and out survive their opponents in any conditions. These are not 'Special Forces' but Specialized Forces and this is their domain of battle and now that Iraq is moving towards civil control by local authorities, it is time for a full deployment of Mountain Warfare forces into Afghanistan. During the Winter of 2007-08 Canadian Mountain Warfare forces staged the first successful winter campaign in Afghan history: the locals said it could not be done. When we look back at all the training camps identified in Pakistan we can rest assured that specialized forces known for their ability to infiltrate in hostile climates had no small part to play. When the Taliban attempted a Spring Offensive their troops were spotted, targeted, more than decimated and routed.

To that end the US should call on all NATO Allies to agree to a unified set of Rules of Engagement administered by CENTCOM and remove any and all troops not willing to be under that ROE. Additionally the US should call for all NATO and Allied specialized warfare units adapted to Mountain Warfare to come and join us in removing the al Qaeda, Taliban and other forces in Afghanistan and in interdicting their supply routes. Further all Stryker Brigades not actively needed in Iraq should now be given Afghanistan as their central mission area as these are the troops best equipped to do forms of fighting that were once only the realm of Special Forces. This redirection may actually cause a draw down of troops in Afghanistan, but the fighters put in often fight far above their 'weight class' on a 3:1 basis or better. As this fight may take up to five more years to complete, the US is now in sore need of a SECOND Mountain Division and we should spend the eighteen months necessary to train and equip such a Division.

As these forces are ones best able to adapt to climate and local problems, they are the ones that should be used and only backed up by regular forces that are also adaptable and able to change to varying local conditions of tribal concerns. This needs to be dovetailed with Mr. Lieberman's second point.

Further the US should seek the help of Mountain Warfare troops in Iraq, particularly Kurdish troops, as Kurds have ethnic heritage that stems from that region of Central Asia. Iraqi troops drawn from all ethnic and religious groups in Iraq, however, are to be the primary goal, even if Kurds will tend to lead such troops at the highest levels, the lower levels will be populated by a diverse set of ethnicities, cultures and religions. What we seek is the necessary cultural and ethnic support, along with combat support, to help Afghanistan examine how it is that close cousins can work with others. This is one of the great benefits of having done such hard work in Iraq: we can now ask for help from those we have helped and know that when we say it will be a tough fight, we mean it.

Second is increasing civilian capacity both in areas of tribal and National concerns, and in helping to stand up local government beyond the tribal level to interact with the National government. Here Provincial Government has not received much attention by the MSM or even embedded reporters, but has proven to be a key mediator between tribes in locales and in passing problems up to responsible offices to be addressed without bias towards any tribe or ethnic group within a locale. I have heard very little about this middle-tier of government from anyone in Afghanistan, and yet a good federal system of distributed powers and local authority has been a demonstrated positive good for all Nations, save for periods of internal conflict and then the National government must take on the same role as the Provincial Governments so as to mediate in good faith between Provinces and Ethnic groups.

To do this requires substantial training of government officials at that level not only on the bureaucratic side, but the accountability side. This is of primary importance as policing power administered to the good of all citizens then removes an argument for forces controlled by strongmen. For Afghanistan to self-govern, the day of Private War forces held by the local leaders in tribes must be ended and equitable policing power enforced at the Provincial level. This requires training for judges in these concepts to be carried out and administered by them. Further a means for checking and restraining judicial authority and a system of higher courts is necessary so as to remove judicial bias via an internal check and balance system within the judiciary itself. This gives citizens the right to appeal judgments they feel to be unfair and yet puts a final stop at such things at the highest National level. Continuing problems in the judiciary will be seen at that level and, with good training and mentoring, addressed over time. This does not mean that tribal level courts or other systems need be abridged, just that they need to be incorporated into the larger suite of judicial systems in the Nation.

Do note that this is not a mandated system from the outside, by the US, and must be indigenous to Afghanistan. If there is any legal tradition to the English Common Law system, however, the US and Great Britain will be in good stead to help firm up such a system as we all use the same judicial philosophy. Even absent that, ensuring that good laws that are not biased towards any one group or ethnic concern becomes a key point in demonstrating that the tribes can be respected, that local control can be exercised and that war fighting is done by the Nation, not strongmen.

The single, largest threat to civil government in Afghanistan is not ethnic rivalries, although those are ancient and need to be addressed, we, in the West, can learn profitably from our ancestors on how best to do this. Nor is it the Islamic Radicalism of the Talibe and al Qaeda sort as these arise and fall in frequency in Islam, although the death toll to each is horrific. Both of these seek a common table setting with which to become local overlords of their peoples and other peoples, and it is that source which threatens Afghanistan to its core time and again. I looked at this some time ago in Defunding the opium trade in Afghanistan, and stand by that view and it is the one of Jefferson: a people who are able to profitably farm to sustain themselves and have enough to trade and ensured income from it will prosper. The illegal nature of the crop does not change that component, but shifts it hard against local support for food and shifts it to imported food via illegal commerce to procure it. It is true that many farmers plant in fallow or rugged areas unsuitable to farming and gain meager extra income from that, from which their lives are put at risk from the criminal class seeking to gain those crops. Here the criminal class can be actual criminals, Islamic Radicals, local strongmen... the list is near infinite and yet their means of coercion and meager pay while taking the middle-man's cut is unchanging. To destroy that system, the farmer needs the tools and skills necessary to not only grow legal goods for local use, but to have an advantage of better techniques and equipment to do this.

America oversupplies her own large scale agricultural corporations, called 'Big Agriculture', while having let the small farmer become beholden to a system of paybacks and payoffs via Congressional funding in the Agriculture budget. And yet 'the war on drugs' can actually, for once, be fought by the military and administered as part of a Counter Insurgency plan: COIN to address the rural farming base of Afghanistan with useful and needful dryland techniques and water conservation that can be done locally would begin to shift the base of that rural section out from the strongman as the money to be garnered by trade of legal goods would not come with immediate threat of life that the illegal sort has. Protecting these communities until they can protect themselves is the GOAL of COIN, in case anyone has forgotten that. This requires a multi-year commitment of shifting funds from America's already overstuffed Big Agricultural sector and putting those funds, skills and tools to use in Afghanistan. The road to fighting the indigenous Taliban and other Islamic Radicals requires not only the right skills on the military front, but the right ones on the civilian front.

There will be no peace, no ending of the supply of radicals until the local farming community has a Jeffersonian attitude demonstrated to them of how good husbanding of farms, crops and livestock via insured means taught by those skilled at such farming can gain the farmer a decent, reliable profit and demonstrate that the need to work together to maintain that system is greater than any minor profit an individual would get from illegal goods. When the land holder is invested in the land and its husbanding of resources and care, the system of tribal views changes to become centered on THAT. The farmers in their tribes will then become the backbone of the tribe, and will be the ones who will need protecting BY the tribe so that the local tribe may flourish.

With a single, hard blow, the US can remove the Central Asian supply system from Afghanistan in not less than a decade and make Afghanistan a net agricultural *exporter*. By teaching dryland techniques, how to husband rain water and other water sources, how to deal with droughts... these are the finest and most well honed weapons in excising this problem and demonstrating that investing in yourself to sustain your people is not only a good thing to do, but well supported. To date the US has paid almost no attention to this, and yet the military component to bring this home is absolutely necessary to peoples who are brought up as warriors: farming must become the respected backbone of the community to support local warfighters to protect the tribe and Province. The badge of honor must shift from how many you attacked and killed to how well you defended your people so that they may flourish against those wishing to strong arm them.

There will be no peace in Afghanistan or Central Asia until this is done.

Third is expanding the Aghan Army, and that is vital so that Private War forces that threaten the Nation can be addressed and so that Afghanistan may protect herself against neighbors such as Iran and China. With that said, we cannot discount the English and American experience of local militias under Provincial control that can stand ready to serve the Nation and yet also counters threats from local sources. As I looked at above this requires a change in COIN from Nation-Building oriented to re-orientation of local populations that will see some value in local and National control over war fighting. We cannot and must not disrespect the fierce and honorable tradition of the Afghan peoples: it has protected them for centuries against Persian, British and Soviet Empires. The very local skills of warfighting need to be upheld as that is the trump card against any invader, and supporting it through local economy and having these forces on-call to defend the entire Nation must become an honorable trade in itself. Thus the current Afghan Army will transform over time: we must beef it up now, for general self-protection of the Nation, but what must be set down is a way of reformulating it over time to reflect the culture in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan, as so many detractors like to point out, is *not* a modern Nation and we cannot make it become one no matter how much money and how many lives go to it. America and the West, however, did not arrive at modern civilization without going through this exact, same phase between roughly 900-1700 A.D. Modern tools and training do not an Army make: there must be the tradition an necessity of it that makes it a respected profession *beyond* a tribal virtue. Afghanistan, at this point in time, looks more like 16-17th century Central Europe than a modern Nation State. We must identify that the Christian Tradition is not present in Afghanistan and yet the Westphalian State concept has actually taken root in another Islamic Nation: Iraq.

One of the few and great goods of the British Empire was to demonstrate that religious tolerance was no weakness upon the majority and strengthened the State. In Iraq the local traditions are now those of religious tolerance, as you cannot get through the fact that not only do two major branches of Islam have root in the Nation, but Christianity of more than one form, minor Islamic Sects, Yazidi, Alevi, Judaism, and even followers of John the Baptist. There is no more modern equivalent of a Christian Westphalian Nation State concept in action in the Islamic world than in Iraq. British Westphalian rule had to deal with the fall of the Ottoman Empire, there, craft a common law system, and the toleration of religions in Iraq is one of the great legacies of the British rule there. That is why Iraqi involvement, especially Kurdish involvement, is vital and necessary to long term victory and peace in Afghanistan. There will be no reduction of violence in Islamic Radicalism until a peaceful method of co-existing with multiple religious sects is found and that can only be done via a tolerant population seeing the good and end in bloodshed over religion as any legitimate means to power. Iraq is well poised to teach this at a civil level, and our help of Iraq to become stable must require us to ask them to help the United States in spreading that word of civil peace and its practices to Afghanistan.

For those looking to a long-term end to al Qaeda and similar groups: this is the only way forward that does not involve a horrific death toll. Many will die to do this, but our modern world demonstrates that this CAN BE DONE. Unless many have forgotten, the lives lost to uphold 'The Prince of Peace' demonstrates that having good intentions in a religion is NOT enough to spread peace. To do that requires a tolerant civil society that accepts religion as a personal means to enlightenment, not something mandated by the State for all peoples in the State. Religious Nations can exhibit tolerance towards other religions and not castigate or kill the members of them as those are members of civil society and of value to the entire Nation. We can but look to those pointing the way before Westphalia and directly after to examine how best to do this, and we will find thinkers like Machiavelli advocating for enlightened Princes. That does not mean *nice* Princes, but ones that will understand enlightened self-interest is in creating a safe and stable society *first*. To create a true, civil military force requires a true civil society. America can help lay the foundations, form fast friends with the peoples of Afghanistan, introduce them to Islamic enlightened rule concepts in Iraq and help *both* these Nations to secure long term civil societies for themselves.

That is what we did after WWII in Germany, Japan and Italy and should be the exact, same goal today: to help these people to civil societies and peaceful co-existence within their Nations with religious toleration and a productive class of people worthy of being defended by the Nation.

I disagree with Sen. Lieberman in the fourth goal in broad terms, but agree in many details. 'Hardening' Afghanistan is a loser's proposition as it requires time, effort and ability to be applied to the negative of defensive operations and sustainment. Many of the civil institutions need to be mightily revamped and many of the ones that we take as necessary in a modern State can't be built until the lower level society comes to some basic agreements in the Nation. Our own young Nation at the Founding had a very different set of organs and power arrangements in it than we do today: our goal must be to help Afghan society to create the organs they need in the form that best suits them and ensure that they are accountable to civil society. We did this in Iraq, ensuring that a good system of Inspectors General in the Iraqi military had the ability to root out corruption and subversive elements, and our own institutions have such organs throughout them.

Anti-corruption task forces are good, but changing the tone and tenor of civil society to move away from substantive gifts to honoring gifts, as is seen in Japan and other parts of East Asia, is a good and worthy goal. When trinkets devolve into bribes, the system becomes corrupt: those who seek honor they don't deserve will want bribes, those willing to accept the honor will take the trinket. Any goal of self-policing a society must involve the higher esteem of the honorable gift and the disdain and even disgust at the bribe. Here the value of our older allies in Japan and Korea should come to the forefront, and civil teaching of how cultures can still honor and respect, without the need for bribery have to become a necessary section of helping the Afghan society to flourish. Even in our enlightened Nation, this is no longer respected and officials now seek and take bribes, and while prosecuted for them, those seeking to excuse such activities are not castigated for corroding civil society. If we are on the downward slope of this, we can assuredly help others to see our bad example and NOT TAKE IT.

On the civil side that will give Afghan society an area in which they can be SUPERIOR to the US, and take just pride in doing that and then disdaining the corrupt American officials who only know the value of money and not the value of leading a good life. In truth much of the Left in the United States could do with this lesson, and the best way to get it is to teach the right way to do it via our friends and allies in the world. One does not need to be a mighty warrior to become a mighty,honored and respected person. Even as we forget this, we can still bring in those who know it to teach it, to get Afghanistan off to a better start. And once they do that, Afghanistan self-hardens and is sustained from the inside.

In the broader sense of regional engagement, the US will continue to have vital interests in Central Asia so long as corrupt societies create havens for Islamic Radicalism. The modern world can no longer afford an Empire of any sort, and yet another one from Central Asia will bring a death toll to the planet that is horrific beyond all recounting. India and Pakistan are well agreed that they prefer to screw each other up over Kasmir without outside interference - if we are their friends we should RESPECT that and not meddle as we have a full plate. Indeed the best way to end that conflict is by cutting out the criminal money supply from Afghanistan and seeing if the US can help in some COIN operations in the Northwest Frontier Provinces and southeast provinces in Pakistan. Active fighting to remove radicals and separatists will have no end until civil society has been given breathing space and local accommodation between these ethnic populations with the Nation of Pakistan can be performed. This does not require a full constitutional convention, but some formulation of civil organs to address the problems of the different ethnic groups in Pakistan with each other. Many feel that the agreements they made at the founding of Pakistan have not been honored, while others were more than willing to wait out a century holding pattern put in by the British Empire on provisional borders between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This cannot happen until the Pakistani ISI, its Intelligence Service, stops funding the damned radicals. This is something that can and must be addressed to at the Nation State level as the ISI is the source of much of the unrest in Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and even into the Central Asian Republics. All Nations have need of an Intelligence Arm for the protection of their Nation: any Nation that funds one that not only puts internal but external order between Nations at risk must be asked why they are doing this. Simply put the ISI, as it currently is, must go. There will be no peace in Kasmir until the ISI's activities in funding Radical Islamic groups ceases completely. Any civil society that aims at disrupting its neighbors must be told that doing so will bring the death they are exporting to their own people: and it has already started. The nest of vipers, finding the rough and thick boots of US troops stomping them flat in Afghanistan now slither home to the warmer nest of their paymasters. At this point the ISI can only be seen in the light of destabilizing their own Nation to their own ends, and they no longer care about the blood spilled by those they fund in Pakistan.

Iran is a tough case to deal with and yet, if we work with Turkmenistan in a cross-asian route for supply, the US will then have an entire suite of friendly Nations encircling Iran. Iraq, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan will only leave Pakistan as the last great outlet for Iranian exploits and they are already facing problems from the local Balochs in the East of Iran who feel they got a 'raw deal' in both Iran and Pakistan. To this day Iran has problems with Baloch separatists and the underground independence groups have demonstrate high levels of competence and expertise in their terror attacks in Iran.

By shifting through Turkmenistan the US can slowly erode Russian influence in the region and help to stabilize that realm of Republics that would help us in getting a supply route to Afghanistan. Perhaps we could call it the 'Modern Silk Road' and open up some venues for increased civilian traffic through these routes to get better export markets for the Central Asian States. These Republics are not lacking in trade goods, but they do lack the modern transportation and means to get them to a global market. A long-term strategy of opening up a conduit for US supplies will, of necessity, start to build the infrastructure necessary to address the poverty in Central Asia due to their lack of markets. By opening up a non-authoritarian route for market goods, that is to say not going through Russia, China, Iran or Pakistan, these people will be able to start not only supplying goods to US warfighters (so we don't have to ship it all), but find other venues for their products in the empty trucks and ships going *back* to the Black Sea. Here the opening of trade venues in Georgia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, and Turkey will enrich the entire region as these 'exotic' goods move from luxuries to items finding their place in the global market. Indeed, America should welcome this opportunity to start laying the infrastructure for the 21st century of trade in the world: built of necessity to become the first pathways to the spread of market based economics in some of the most deprived areas of the planet in Central Asia.

Unfortunately I cannot see the current Administration doing this: it is too much hope & change to believe that America can be a demonstrable force for enlightenment and trade, even while making the necessary routes to keep our troops supplied. Such is the myopia of zero-sum Leftism in America that we cannot seize this opportunity to turn our investment in blood into something greater for all peoples in Central Asia.

Fifth is a 'surge' in political commitment to Afghanistan in America. I fully agree with the Senator here. Our political class only knows the value of money, not of lives: and then are willing to sacrifice both to schemes of home ownership, retirement systems, medical systems and such that will impoverish us all and shorten our lives if we follow those dreams to their poisoned fruit.

The United States used to know how to see opportunity in strife and reach out to do more than any other people on the planet would ever dare to do, while leaving our people free to choose their own lives, well and unwell, while garnering general support for those needful things that protected the Nation. Now we seek to protect all the citizens in detail and will be at risk of losing them in whole rank.

Soon we will have our own COIN operations in the desert South West of the US and northern Mexico.

Perhaps it is time to take the lessons of limited government, government that protects the Nation and is held accountable home to the United States.

We sure could use it right about now...

Cosmoline and the common man

Cosmoline is a grease best known for the use and preservation of firearms by the military, but also serves in many other industries including the automotive and aircraft industries.  It was swabbed in as a lubricant to the big guns of battleships and was a grease that tended to just get everywhere as a little bit of sunlight would slowly soften it and a hot deck would melt it.  Thus it has a melting point like paraffin wax, but has a much slicker consistency due to other, smaller, hydrocarbon chains.  When on metal (and metal coatings) it preserves them, when put on wood it penetrates it to the point you will never get the last of cosmoline out of the wood until you expire... and yet the wood has a lovely preservative that will, on hot days, slowly leech out.  Today it is being phased out in favor of thin film coatings that you can apply by air sprayers, but its lubrication and preservation qualities will mean it will be around with our civilization for some time to come.

I have encountered it before as a roughly applied undercoating to vehicles in Buffalo as a final 'winterizing' coat put on during frosty days of December.  Particularly in those places that will not heat up, like wheel wells, it can last until the January thaw, that day or two of warm temps that will start to put it through a phase change.  Normally it was the cheap auto shops that did that, and they would recommend a different under-coating for the areas that warmed up near the engine and exhaust systems.  Getting up close and personal didn't happen until recently, when I purchased a firearm that, while new production, can be modified to fit older equipment, primarily cartridge magazines that were manufactured in truly huge numbers during World War II.  So when one can say that they are picking up three magazines from World War II, it does not, automatically, mean that they are picking up printed paper items...

An early warning: if you have never done this before and don't trust some of the cleaners/solvents/methods then try them on a small part *first* and see the results.  Wood is its own problem and needs some idea of what you are doing based on what the end product is you are aiming for, as some methods can remove old lacquers and finishes... and some pieces you may want to have refinished and may *want* to get rid of the older ones.  Generally the older metal oxide finishes can take a lot more abuse, but if unsure do a small test first and examine the before/after results.

Coming from a background of growing up in semi-rural New York, and having a father who was an electrical engineer and yet had done much else in his life, I knew of some ready cures for things like tar encrustation in engines, oil that had picked up enough junk to look like sludge and other such fun things.  And the two methods of getting rid of cosmoline has this under a major heading: Better Living Through Chemistry.  The methods my father used are just the same and recommended for well ventilated areas or garages, only: kerosene, turpentine, paint thinner, and gasoline.  That and a container for such, normally being a plastic tub that, no matter what it started life as, turned into a grimy black open air pan.  That and some hefty toothbrushes that will never be used for anything else and rags, plus maybe a drying rack that may have started life in an oven and now would exist solely for the air drying of metal parts coming from such lovely procedures.  Strip down a small engine, drop all the parts into the pan, cover with any of those fluids, and a day later (or even a few hours) you have a pan full of black fluid hiding parts that can now be toothbrushed off and rag dried and put on a rack for air drying, usually in the sunlight.

Works, too!

After trolling through various car and military surplus sites, that way is still a common one for dealing with cosmoline.

For smaller and more delicate parts my father would use such things as WD-40 or a spray on brake cleaning solvent.  Those are also popular methods for dealing with cosmoline and require the well ventilated areas, etc. plus rags to help out.  Really, if the military surplus stuff was just dunked in a vat of liquid cosmoline for a few minutes or hours, so that it could penetrate everywhere, then you have no idea of if the thing was cleaned before that.  Your more aggressive degreasers you will just add toothbrush, rag, elbow grease and rack! Normally you would never, ever let this stuff near a modern firearm, what with all the lovely alloys used, plastics and other things that just might be considered 'junk' by the aggressive cleaners.  Stuff from pre-1960 didn't worry about that so much, and most of the common ways of cleaning things in the field would include all sorts of lovely, improvised and often highly toxic and flammable solutions.  Beyond those, the other thing to consider is the standard, modern firearms cleaners used to get oil and grease from same which include spray-on oven degreasers, stuff like 'Goof Off' (a personal favorite used to remove sticker residue) and similar items.

Once cleaned you will want to get a nice coating of a modern lubricant/grease on the items (depending on what parts you have), so as to protect them for more regular use.  I use KG-3, and it is non-ammonia based and was developed to pour down modern artillery pieces and yet be relatively safe to the user and the environment.  I use most of the rest of the cleaning line to support the company, although my pleasure use of firearms is limited when I do use them I want something that is relatively easy to use.

So that is the Better Living Through Chemistry section on cosmoline removal.

Of course, once clean and dry you will want to reapply a modern lubricant and grease to protect the stuff for more normal use.  I use Militec lubricant and grease, which I've decanted into smaller containers and applicator syringes for my own use as I've described in other entries.

As cosmoline has a heat based phase change from grease to actual fluid that is the same as paraffin wax, the next method is that of Heat.

If you have taken something apart that has cosmoline on it, put it on a rack over a pan and pour boiling hot water over it.  That is, actually, damned simple for small parts, and just requires, like the pure chemical methods, having a pan and rack that you will never, ever use for anything else.  Really, if it was just paraffin you could be sure of getting the last of it off by letting it set up, but since it is a grease at normal temps you will instead find that it has spread out over every nook and cranny of the rack and tub and will resist all but the harsh, chemical methods above.  Clean, safe, non-toxic and still requires a rag and brush for final cleaning, but you knew that at the start with all of these.  Of course since it is a firearm, the last thing you want is water to stay anywhere on the equipment, and so you will soon find yourself putting a lubricant of your choice on the parts.

Next up on the heat area is the EZ Bake Rifle Oven as described in the Surplus Rifle site, in exquisite detail, it is, in essence the equivalent of an EZ Bake Oven, save that you will scale up the concept by using a trashcan.  It is simplicity itself to make a low power oven that will heat up to just 140 degrees Fahrenheit with said trash can, lid, light bulb receptacle, racks, drip pans and thermometer.  Hell you could probably add a thermocouple and kill switch so that it would automatically turn off when that hot and turn on at, say, 125 degrees.  Improvements to it have been suggested, like making it an IR lamp, not a normal light, and so on and on.

Take that idea and scale it down and you get a couple of coffee cans, paint them black, put lids on them and out in the sun, preferably in an enclosed space.  For larger pieces, like said entire rifle, you wrap it in rags, cloths, etc. and double wrap it in black, plastic garbage bags and put it in a car for a couple of days when it is all bright and sunny out.  Also seen are sheds, attics, racks over wood stoves, cans/containers on top of the furnace in the winter... really an endless array of ways to let passive heating do the job.  And if the color of the stuff is generally black, then letting the items sit on a shelf by a window for a few days with rags under them will also do it.

My method started with the coffee container idea, but then went to the other method for dealing with paraffin that my sister showed me: the double boiler.  This is, basically, one large outer pot with lots of water heated up until it reaches the melting point of whatever is in the inner pot.  I put a second coffee can over the top, used duct tape and floated a small glass with encrusted paraffin in it to find the right temp, and then set it on low.  Inside the lower can was my rag of choice at the bottom and I just let hot air do the rest.  Necessary for this was a rack on the bottom of the double boiler to keep steam from getting trapped under the can and tipping it over.

A great method described is the use of a hand steam cleaner and a bucket: put rifle over bucket (or other parts) and use the hand steamer on them.  For larger pieces you start at the top and work down.  You get nice, clean equipment, and still have a hand steamer to get wrinkles out of good clothes!

Also described is kitty litter, black bag or box and sunlight, although I would make sure the kitty litter is clean, unused and then consider the clay residue it can leave... but you will be giving the equipment a good final toothbrush and rag cleaning session, so that might point out spots you missed.  Again, Your Mileage May Vary.

No matter what, you will want modern grease/oil/preservative applied to the material, save for wood in case you are going to try and refinish it, then you are on your own, but great articles on that abound.

Finally there is Chemistry and Heat which includes lye soap in hot water, which is sort of the best of both worlds if you don't mind working with lye.  Standard degreasers for household use in hot water also have recommendations behind them.  I wouldn't want to use the automatic dishwasher method as the cosmoline tends to penetrate when it isn't getting dissolved and really, wouldn't want the taste or smell of that for a few years when doing dishes... if I had an *old* machine used for nothing else set up, maybe.

In theory you should be able to get it cold enough to cake and then just flake off... considering the types of material used in the past, that is probably not recommended.  It is the sort of climate like Alaska that plays havoc with this stuff - cold enough to flake off in winter, hot enough to make it run in an enclosed space in the summer.

General rules are:

1) Anything that will be in contact with cosmoline or chemicals will thereafter not serve for any other purpose.  A turkey roasting pan will never be used for a turkey or any other roasting thereafter.  Rags are for use until thrown away.  So empty, used coffee cans are good for cleaning parts, but you won't be storing any consumables for humans in them afterwards.

2) Clean-up of the equipment is still necessary.  Who knows where that stuff has been *before* it got dunked and *after*?  You don't, that's for sure, unless you are in an old warehouse and find a crate of old WWII surplus equipment or stuff never shipped overseas and forgotten next to the Lost Ark of the Covenant... and there have been some very unhappy surprises of small amounts of moisture trapped by cosmoline and parts rusted out on the inside.  Hate to have that happen with other chemicals around industrial and military facilities.

3) Clean-up of you is necessary.  Good soap and water, but for some methods a hand cleaner that works on grease and oil, like DL Permatex Blue Label, is necessary.  Or gloves... you did make sure that none of the cosmoline or other chemicals spattered or dripped on good clothes, though.... that stuff really does get everywhere when not watched or contained.

4) Ventilation is necessary.  Unless you like the smell of cosmoline and cleaners, that is.  WD-40 gives me a headache, and really, use of that should be done outdoors.  Even the stuff I do use, personally, needs ventilation so it is a positive requirement.

5)  Modern lubricants or older ones if no modern equivalent exists.  Put on rag, wipe rag over cleaned equipment, use dry rag to wipe afterwards.  Use grease sparingly, unless it is recommended by the manufacturer or you can see that it will get some hard use and you won't get back to it very often... then you want one that resists carbon and other deposits and still use it sparingly.  My syringes put out so little that the grease often turns into a liquid on contact with metal, because the amount is coming out of a near needle fine opening and metals are a great conductor of heat.  Remember to examine for spots you missed, or old worn spots on equipment that may need some greater attention or just recognition that they are worn.  Consider lubricants to be a gunk magnet, so they are necessary but used only as needed in as little as needed.  Booted CV joints in a car need a lot, your trigger mechanism in a rifle needs extremely little.  If you can see it, you probably have too much on unless otherwise specified for the equipment.

 

Hopefully I will never have to deal with larger equipment... and if you have time, then passive removal of 90% is easy to achieve with patience added in.  For me the double boiler and coffee can method worked fine and got rid of the stuff in some very tight places.  I used dust-off to get air through those and then a quick hit of KG-3 after.  Although those were not active spaces, they weren't ones I wanted drops of cosmoline coming from for the next few years... but I did get some nice special effects on the outside of the can as a few drops of coffee came out from the small space I left uncovered by duct tape.  Cosmoline vapors were trapped, coffee sweated out by the drop or three.  For that work I got some cheap equipment and a piece of history... and that is without any easy price on it.

My thanks to the soldiers of yesteryear!

That equipment is safe and ready for use, again...

Yesterday's Ready for Tomorrow

Very few will take a stab at this, so I will give it a go, and see what Sen. McCain's view on the armed forces were prior to 9/11. We must remember that this was in the heady downtime that Sen. McCain helped by getting a 'peace dividend' of cutting US force size and support, while President Clinton was going on multiple overseas ventures in: Somalia, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Kosovo, Haiti. This was heavily criticized by many in Congress.

In Somalia the House looked early on at supporting suspending aid to Somalia after the coup by Siad Barre, and his military killing 5,000 innocents (H. Con. Res. 207 starting 03 OCT 1989) which would escalate to any legal assistance for humanitarian aid and protection of UN security guards and relief efforts in a few years (H.Con.Res. 370 08 OCT 1992). By 10 NOV 1993 HR. 3116 on the DoD budget passed by both Houses would state the following

(1) the United States entered into Operation Restore Hope in December of 1992 for the purpose of relieving mass starvation in Somalia;

(2) the original mission in Somalia, to secure the environment for humanitarian relief, had the unanimous support of the Senate, expressed in Senate Joint Resolution 45, passed on February 4, 1993, and was endorsed by the House when it amended S.J. Res. 45 on May 25, 1993;

(3) Operation Restore Hope was being successfully accomplished by United States forces, working with forces of other nations, when it was replaced by the UNOSOM II mission, assumed by the United Nations on May 4, 1993, pursuant to United Nations Resolution 814 of March 26, 1993;

(4) neither the expanded United Nations mission of national reconciliation, nor the broad mission of disarming the clans, nor any other mission not essential to the performance of the humanitarian mission has been endorsed or approved by the Senate;

(5) the expanded mission of the United Nations was, subsequent to an attack upon United Nations forces, diverted into a mission aimed primarily at capturing certain persons, pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 837, of June 6, 1993;

(6) the actions of hostile elements in Mogadishu, and the United Nations mission to subdue those elements, have resulted in open conflict in the city of Mogadishu and the deaths of 29 Americans, at least 159 wounded, and the capture of American personnel;

and (7) during fiscal years 1992 and 1993, the United States incurred expenses in excess of $1,100,000,000 to support operations in Somalia.

Basically, the idea of 'peacekeeping' in Somalia cost $1.1 billion over two years (about $1.65 billion in 2008 dollars, or the equivalent of two years in Iraq), and, by the end of it, was a Presidential venture that wasn't backed by Congress. Things were starting to get out of hand by 1996 as seen in the DoD authorization passed that year in HR 1530, skipping down to Title XIII looking at peacekeeping:

(a) FINDINGS.—Congress finds the following:

(1) The President has made United Nations peace operations a major component of the foreign and security policies of the United States.

(2) The President has committed United States military personnel under United Nations operational control to missions in Haiti, Croatia, and Macedonia that could endanger those personnel.

(3) The President has committed the United States to deploy as many as 25,000 military personnel to Bosnia- Herzegovina as peacekeepers under NATO operational control in the event that the parties to that conflict reach a peace agreement.

(4) Although the President has insisted that he will retain command of United States forces at all times, in the past this has meant administrative control of United States forces only, while operational control has been ceded to United Nations commanders, some of whom were foreign nationals.

(5) The experience of United States forces participating in combined United States-United Nations operations in Somalia, and in combined United Nations-NATO operations in the former Yugoslavia, demonstrate that prerequisites for effective military operations such as unity of command and clarity of mission have not been met by United Nations command and control arrangements.

(6) Despite the many deficiencies in the conduct of United Nations peace operations, there may be unique occasions when it is in the national security interests of the United States to participate in such operations.

(b) POLICY.—It is the sense of Congress that—

(1) the President should consult closely with Congress regarding any United Nations peace operation that could involve United States combat forces and that such consultations should continue throughout the duration of such activities;

(2) the President should consult with Congress before a vote within the United Nations Security Council on any resolution which would authorize, extend, or revise the mandate for any such activity;

And as Bosnia-Herzegovina is brought up, it does get some criticism, too taken 13 DEC 1995 Congressional Record DOCID:cr13de95-74 (the first part of that here):

(Sen. Frist) In the absence of vital national interests, a lack of clear mission has combined with the lack of support of the American people, and we have faced a loss of American life. We have ended these missions without reaching our goals, without achieving any semblance of peace and democracy, and at great cost to the real mission of our Armed Forces: To be ready to defend, with overwhelming force and resolve, the real threats to our life, liberty, and well-being--or those of our allies. Again, Mr. President, we need only look toward our recent experiences in Somalia and Haiti.

In each of these instances, United States and Presidential credibility is offered as a reason such ill-conceived initiatives cannot be opposed. In the case of Bosnia, the Congress and the people are not even given the opportunity to approve or disapprove--but simply to give our approval and comment after the fact. Some argue that this is the President's prerogative under the Constitution, but it is not a shining moment in the life of American democracy. We are asking America's finest men and women to face possible death for a commitment outside of our national interests.

That is Sen. Frist speaking against President Clinton's late night sending of US forces to Bosnia. In Section 8124 of the DoD budget for FY '96 Congress would specifically deny funding to any non-Congressionally approved mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina via the funds transfer mechanism. The problem was, of course, that US involvement in Bosnia only marked a way point in the Balkan Conflict which would flare up again in Kosovo. It is in that atmosphere that Sen. McCain came up with speech on Ready Tomorrow: Defending American interests in the 21st century on 20 MAR 1996. It has a very forward looking cast to it, particularly when looking at it early on:

The potential threats to our national security interests today and in the future are different from those of the cold war; they are less deterrable by traditional means and often less easily defeated. We no longer face a superpower threat from the former Soviet Union, although we must be `prepared to prepare' to defend against an emerging major power threat. We must deal with a wide range of lesser threats throughout the world, including: regional and ethnic conflicts in which the United States could easily become involved; the rise of extremist and radical movements; the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them; the increasing capability of individuals and nations to attack us through our dependence on technology, particularly information and communications systems; and finally, both domestic and international terrorism.

Each of these are, indeed, key points in the 21st century and high marks for that. Yet, when it comes time to actually address them, Sen. McCain starts to go into the realm of 'fiscal realities':

In this effort, we cannot ignore the fiscal realities of our debt-ridden Federal Government. Planning for our future military capabilities must be tempered by a realistic view of fiscal constraints on future defense budgets, without allowing those constraints to become the dominant factor in our decisions about future defense requirements. We must be prepared to accept the cost of being a world power. In short, we must focus on the most cost-effective means of maintaining the military capabilities necessary to ensure our future security.

Mr. President, we now face a significant gap between our force plans and the resources available to implement them. By 1995, the defense budget had been cut by more than 35 percent in real, inflation-adjusted dollars in just 10 years. Independent assessments of the cost of the BUR force show that it exceeds the funding levels dedicated by the current administration in the Future Years Defense Program [FYDP] by $150 billion to $500 billion.

One of the 'fiscal realities' is that the federal government had already bitten off far more than it could chew in Social Security, Medicaid, subsidies to big business, and, indeed, a raft of social and economic programs that expanded government quickly and beyond the means to pay for them. Those 'fiscal realities' were budget busters then and *now*, and will slowly eat up most of the consumable budget within two decades. Before that point in time the US Federal Government will not have money to spend on much of anything outside of those programs without extreme and draconian taxation and interference in the economy.

This is the problem with old-style 'fiscally responsible' Republicans who believe that when government takes on any new responsibility not given to it by the Constitution, that the government should never, ever give it back. This is the view that government must slowly, inevitably, take over anything that is given to it forevermore, and the first place it shows up in a representative democracy is *not* those things devoted to 'government services' or 'entitlements', which garner votes, but to the basic area of defending the Nation: defense.

A bit further on Sen. McCain comes to this point:

Over the past 5 years, we have reduced our military manpower levels by more than half a million people. After a dangerous trend 3 or 4 years ago of declining military readiness, there is now broad agreement that we have restored current levels of operational activity and readiness of the smaller BUR force. However, we have done so by foregoing the modernization programs required to ensure the effectiveness of that small force.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has repeatedly warned that procurement accounts are seriously underfunded, and the Vice Chairman has said we face a `crisis' in weapons procurement.

[..]

Because of the modernization crisis, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs has set a procurement funding goal of $60 billion per year. However, the President's fiscal year 1997 defense budget includes only $39 billion for procurement--nearly $5 billion less for procurement than was projected in the previous year's budget and far short of the Chairman's target. The administration now projects the $60 billion procurement funding goal will not be reached until the year 2001--3 years beyond the Chairman's target.

Mr. President, there is a dangerous long-term impact of postponing essential force modernization programs. America's future military readiness hinges on our ability to retain technological superiority over any potential adversaries. We have already seen some reduction in United States capabilities to fight in a single contingency such as the Persian Gulf. The continuing failure to invest wisely in military modernization programs has put our future readiness at risk.

This part would, unfortunately, come to bite the US far faster than Sen. McCain or anyone in the 1990's could have believed possible. I examined this in the realm of specialized warfare, but it would spread far beyond that in just a few, short years after Sen. McCain gave this speech. Those readiness levels would decline, as seen at the DNI site with a report by a Senate staffer in 1997 after visiting the NTC and JRTC, two major training centers for the armed forces:

Army-wide Shortages in Key Personnel

Despite high operating tempos and work loads, both OPFORs at the NTC and JRTC were described as fully manned, enjoying high esprit de corps, and having retention rates at least as good as the rest of the Army, if not better. For the units rotating into the NTC and JRTC—i.e. the Army's combat units; that is to say, the heart and sole of the Army—there is a very different story. I was told the following:

Units coming to both training centers frequently do not come with many of their sub-unit commanders; these have frequently been assigned to peacekeeping missions or other deployments that separate them from their units. As a result, sub-units—from basic squads on up—do not train with the commanders that they would go to war with. When this happens, it violates a key dictum of readiness and one of the basic points of having the NTC and the JRTC: the Army should “train just as you go to war.”

At the NTC, units rotating in typically come with a 60% shortage in mechanics and a 50% shortage in “mounted” mechanized infantry (in their Bradley APCs). These were described as “Army-wide” shortages: they were demonstrated by virtually all the units coming to the NTC. These shortages were described as due to these personnel, especially the mechanics, being deployed abroad for missions such as Bosnia. On average, all Army personnel now spend from 180 to 220 days of each year away from their home base, and families, on deployments. This average used to be about 165 days per year. According to Army testimony to Congress, the increase in these deployments is for peacekeeping missions.

At the JRTC, units were described as typically missing 25% of their basic infantry: mostly junior enlisted personnel with combat military specialties and mid grade non-commissioned officer (NCO) personnel. This was described as a recruiting problem and specifically not because of deployments such as Bosnia.

In actuality, these problems may be worse than indicated here. I was told at the NTC that the NCO shortages are often temporarily addressed by pulling junior NCOs into the unfilled senior and mid level slots to make more complete units for training purposes. At the JRTC, because one third of each brigade's junior enlisted and NCO personnel do not deploy for a rotation, it is possible that gaps in the units that do deploy are filled with those that would otherwise stay home. I was told this is not occurring; however, I am skeptical that it never happens.

The worrying part of this is that the multiple 'peacekeeping' missions of President Clinton, even before adding in Kosovo, had started to strip out readiness from the US Army across the board. What Sen. McCain was seeing was not there and the warnings by the JCS would come home to roost very, very quickly. This was bad enough, at the time, but would get worse with the diversion of Kosovo, and by NOV 1999 the US Army would have to announce that two entire Divisions, 10MD and 1ID, had fallen to the lowest levels seen since Vietnam. The impact would not be long-term, but would side-line the 10th Mountain Division until late 2001 and it would not be the spearhead into the one mountainous region that did contain an enemy that would attack the United States: Osama bin Laden operating out of Afghanistan. Any Mountain or Alpine Division is a specialized and premier fighting force, maintaining levels of training and morale far and above normal forces, as they will fight in areas where 60 or 70 degree shifts in temps in a couple of hours are not unknown, and where altitude sickness can kill you as assuredly as a bullet can. Those choices made by Congress in the early 1990's to get a 'peace dividend' and then to not support the armed forces properly through the early Clinton years were already showing up.

By the year 2000 another investigation would look at what had happened to the 10MD in particular:

Summary Findings and Conclusions

The character, enthusiasm, and professionalism of the officers, non-commissioned officers (NCOs), and enlisted men and women in the 10th Mountain Division is impressive. The 10th Mountain Division is officially rated by the Army at a level that lends support to General Shelton and the other respondents to candidate Bush's assertion of non-readiness. Strenuous efforts of the 10th Division's personnel are manifest to make it as effective a combat unit as resources permit. Various unit commanders expressed a willingness and readiness to take on and perform effectively any mission assigned, as has been the case in the past.

However, beneath the favorable overall readiness rating and an understandable - and professional - expression of confidence by various commanders, and despite all the hard efforts of the officers, NCOs, and enlisted personnel, the 10th Mountain is today experiencing multiple, serious shortages of people and material resources, training deficiencies, and other impediments to readiness, a large number of them resulting from policies imposed by Washington.

The issues include the following:

Incomplete manning in many combat and support units, sometimes to the extent that important secondary - if not primary - missions cannot be performed and/or primary mission performance is degraded. Moreover, because of Army force structure decisions, what is normally one-third of a US Army division's combat strength (an entire ground maneuver brigade) does not exist in the 10th Mountain Division.

Gaps in the leadership of the Division throughout its hierarchy, such that enlisted personnel are frequently doing the work of sergeants, lieutenants are doing the work of captains, captains of majors, and so on. Also, in cases where a position is occupied by an individual of appropriate rank, that individual may be less experienced than in the past or than experienced personnel - in and out of the 10th Division - deemed sufficient.

Training deficiencies that include less satisfactorily trained personnel received from Army training or personnel trained on equipment not assigned to the division, and incomplete opportunities to overcome these training inadequacies.

Non-availability of various equipment , training ammunition shortages, and funding shortfalls for facilities.

Various policy directives and allocation of resources from Washington (i.e.: from the civilian and military leadership of the military services and the Department of Defense and from Congress) that either impede readiness or that are ineffectual at addressing known deficiencies.

A lack of inquiry by various entities to collect on-the-ground, empirical information on the condition of the 10th Mountain to establish what basis candidate Bush may have had for his statements and/or to verify the statements of General Shelton, Secretary of Defense Cohen, Vice President Gore, and others.

From these findings and the data presented below, it is concluded that,

As stated by a 10th Mountain soldier at Fort Drum "There are two different armies; the one described in Washington, and the one that exists." And, from another, "There is a mind-boggling difference between the division that Washington DC describes and what exists in 10th Mountain." And from still another, "The [Division] only looks good on paper."

Sen. McCain would address the problems of trying to fight two Major Regional Conflicts (say Iraq and North Korea) simultaneously and propose something different:

In conducting a reassessment of our future force requirements, we should focus on a flexible contingency strategy supported by an affordable, flexible force. Our force planning should provide, at a minimum, sufficient levels to decisively prevail in a single, generic MRC. At the same time, we must recognize the existence of many lesser threats and maintain the capability to inflict unacceptable damage on an adversary should one or more of these threats materialize.

This more realistic approach to future force planning will eliminate the gap between our current strategy and fiscal reality. While planning for a flexible force with the ability of fighting a single MRC, possibly together with one or more lesser threats, may necessitate the acceptance of some additional risk in certain areas, it is far better than to plan for forces and capabilities that will never materialize within the limits of likely future defense budgets.

Considering that Congress and the President couldn't even plan for the forces they *had*, a fiscally responsible view might have looked like: don't send troops where Congress won't support them, pay attention to overhead & maintenance, ensure training, and ensure rotation of troops.

You know, the basics?

The things which weren't being done before, during and after Sen. McCain's speech?

The viewpoint isn't half bad, really, but as economics is not a 'strong suit' for Sen. McCain, perhaps he should have looked, instead, to the *rest* of government for 'fiscal responsibility'?

Now, from another realm, I will offer a bit of viewpoint: specialized forces are generally cheaper to keep, but less adaptable, and adaptable forces are more broadly useful but require larger cash outlays.

Why is this?

First, specialized forces can keep their eye on the few things they need to do well and then accept the need to rely on other forces in combat (this is also true of many production based environments). By making forces 'more adaptable' you then up the amount of training required to get that adaptability and the overhead & maintenance of that force to keep that adaptability going. So, when you want 'an affordable, flexible force' you are generally looking at a much smaller force size, overall, if your budget is set. Even in the era of Moore's law, most equipment does not come that adaptable across a variety of environments, from triple canopy tropical to high elevation sub-arctic. To train across those requires more time and energy, and a longer lead-time for those forces. And while putting more capability in via internal force structure is an excellent idea, as seen with the Stryker units now operating in a realm never imagined for them, the time, cost and training to get those up and running is long.

In theory you should be able to cut costs by utilizing Moore's law, but by integrating more into the system you add more to the cost of the equipment via that integration. It *can* be done, don't expect it to be cheaper, however.

Here is where the problems come from, a bit further on in Sen. McCain's speech:

Naval vessels should be self-sustaining and have significant offensive capability while providing for their own defense. Automation of weapon systems and support equipment aboard these vessels should be pursued to minimize the number of personnel required to produce an efficient, lethal fighting platform.

Sen. McCain had already experienced the 'ballooning cost' problem of weapon systems through the 1980's and early 1990's, with some never getting out of development as the projected delivery costs were skyrocketing. And the US Navy has it the worse as a ship is already a highly integrated system: when you add more complexity to it, the costs go up very, very quickly. At the National Defense site, a 2007 article on the cost of the Littoral Combat Ship and its escalating costs lets us take a look at a what a lower personnel, highly integrated ship actually costs:

A combination of escalating costs and uncertain procurement plans have raised questions about the Navy’s ability to keep the LCS afloat, analysts warn.

“It’s clear that Congress is really worried about this program,” says Robert Work, senior naval analyst for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

[..]

The littoral combat ship is the Navy’s new surface combatant for operations in shallow, coastal waters. There are two designs under construction, one by Lockheed Martin Corp. and the other by General Dynamics.

Touted as an inexpensive warship, the LCS originally had been advertised at $220 million per hull. The Navy intends to buy 55 of them in an effort to build its fleet to 313 ships from 277. But in recent months the price tag has more than doubled, setting off alarms among lawmakers.

Navy officials requested $910 million for three ships in the 2008 defense budget. But after significant cost overruns materialized in January on the first-of-class ship, Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter amended the request, asking for two ships instead of three.

Congressional leaders have voiced their concern over the price increases in their defense spending deliberations.

In the House, lawmakers passed a bill that gives the Navy $710.5 million for two LCSs. The Senate’s committee on armed services took a more drastic measure, cutting the Navy’s budget request by almost half in its recommendation of $480 million for one LCS.

[..]

The Navy lacks a warship that can operate effectively in coastal waters. To fill the gap, the LCS was conceived in a few short years to fight in the near-shore environment in anti-submarine, anti-mine and anti-terrorism warfare.

In an effort to expedite the ship to the fleet, the Navy set the LCS on an aggressive construction schedule that has contributed to the cost overrun problems on both lead ships.

The Navy has since proposed to restructure the LCS program to keep the ship on track and within budget. But analysts say it could be difficult to veer the ship back on course because the program is already three ships behind.

This is *exactly* the type of vessel that Sen. McCain touted in 1996: a modular, low crew, modern vessel that didn't cost all that much. Instead, by trying to add in *more* to the ship, the cost has risen from $220 million per hull to $480 million per hull, with only ONE delivered so far. This problem is not limited to the LCS, however, as the Navy also has a problem with a Destroyer replacement, as seen a Strategypage on 25 APR 2007:

Meanwhile, the modern destroyers have grown to the size of World War II cruisers. Actually, some of the larger destroyers are called cruisers, even though they are only 10-20 percent bigger than the largest destroyers. The latest ships in the U.S. Navy's Burke class destroyers weigh 9,200 tons, cost $1.5 billion each to build, have a crew of about 330 sailors, carry 96 (a combination of antiaircraft and cruise) missiles. There's only one 5 inch gun, but two helicopters. These modern destroyers could take on any World War II cruiser and win, mainly because the cruise missiles have a range of 1,500 kilometers. A Burke class ship could probably defeat a World War II battleship, although we'll never know for sure since one of those heavily armored ships never got hit by a modern cruise missile. In effect, the U.S. Navy has settled on just three major combat ship types; aircraft carriers, destroyers and nuclear submarines.

[..]

The problems is that these new "destroyers" will be very large ships, and will cost over $2 billion each. At the same time, the new LCS (Littoral Combat Ship) is sort of replacing the Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates. The Perrys are 4,100 ton ships that would cost about $200 million to build today. The big difference between the frigates and LCS is the greater use of automation in the LCS (reducing crew size to 75, versus 170 in the frigates) and larger engines (giving the LCS a speed of about 90 kilometers an hour, versus 50 for the frigates.) The LCS also has a large "cargo hold" designed to hold different "mission packages" of equipment and weapons. The Littoral Combat Ship is, simultaneously, revolutionary, and a throwback. The final LCS design is to displace about 3,000 tons, with a full load draft of under ten feet, permitting access to very shallow coastal waters, as well as rivers. This is where most naval operations have taken place in the past generation.

Max range is 2,700 kilometers. Built using commercial "smartship" technologies, which greatly reduce personnel requirements, the LCS is expected to require a crew of about 50 in basic configuration, but will have accommodations for about 75 personnel. The ship is designed for a variety of interchangeable modules, which will allow the ships to be quickly reconfigured for various specialized missions. Crews will also be modularized, so that specialized teams can be swapped in to operate specific modules.

And this year at Strategypage, the recent numbers look *worse*:

February 16, 2008: A year ago, the U.S. Navy admitted it was having problems with its Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program, and fired the naval officer (a captain), who was the program manager. These ships were originally touted as costing $220 million each, plus perhaps a $100 million more for the "mission packages" that would be installed as needed. Currently, the ships alone are expected to cost about $640 million, and the program is still in trouble.

In general, the navy is not happy with the performance of American ship builders, and the LCS problems are just another reminder. Costs are rising sharply, quality is down and the admirals can't get satisfactory answers from the manufacturers. For example, the new class of destroyers, the DDG-1000 class destroyers have also faced ballooning costs, up to as much as $3 billion per ship, as opposed to planned costs of $800 million. The current Arleigh Burke-class destroyers only cost $1 billion each.

That cost is going up much faster than inflation, and trying to meet up with the expansion of programs like Social Security... going up nearly 300% in cost in less than a decade, the LCS is in real trouble, and the mission packages are *still* not fully priced out. At the Open Congressional Reports site on CDT they have a summary of the cost of the next generation aircraft carrier:

The Administration's proposed FY2003 defense budget requests $243.7 million in advanced procurement funding for CVNX-1, an aircraft carrier that the Navy plans to procure in FY2007. The FY2003 budget request includes additional research and development funding for the ship. The Navy plans to gradually evolve the design of its aircraft carriers by introducing new technologies into CVN-77 (an aircraft carrier procured in FY2001), CVNX-1, and CVNX-2 (a carrier planned for procurement around FY2011). The Navy estimates that CVNX-1 will cost $2.54 billion to develop and $7.48 billion to procure, bringing its total acquisition (development plus procurement) cost to $10.02 billion. The Navy estimates that CVNX-2 will cost $1.29 billion to develop and $7.49 billion to procure, for a total acquisition cost of $8.78 billion. A Defense Science Board task force is currently assessing how aircraft carriers should serve the nation's needs in the 21st century; it is to report its findings by the end of March 2002. This report will be updated as events warrant.

In theory that is how it should go, if the design can be relatively well set-up before procurement begins and *nothing* gets changed as it goes along. That, however, may turn out to be just the problem with the CVNX program, as seen at Globalsecurity:

The Navy concurred with the March 2007 GAO assessment, but emphasized that a lengthy construction period provided additional time to mature technologies. The Navy noted that technology readiness was closely managed through proven design processes, risk assessments, site visits, and contracting methods to ensure adequate maturity. Specific attention was given to requirements, legacy system availability, technology readiness, affordability, schedule, and return on investment. In addition, initial construction efforts aimed at validating new designs, tooling, and construction processes were already under way.

In the report the Navy also stressed that the decision to delay the program in 2006 had not been related to technology maturity, weight, or stability issues.

By a March 2008 GAO assessment, five of 15 current critical technologies were fully mature, including the nuclear propulsion and electric plant. Six technologies were expected to approach maturity, while four others would remain at lower maturity by construction contract award. Since 2007, the Navy had eliminated an armor protection system from CVN 78, but was evaluating use on follow-on ships, and the air conditioning plant and automated weapons information system were no longer considered developmental. Of CVN 21's technologies, the electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS), the advanced arresting gear, and the dual band radar (composed of the volume search and multifunction radars) present the greatest risk to the ship's cost and schedule. By January 2008, 76 percent of the design was complete. Challenges in technology development had the potential to lead to delays in maintaining the design schedule needed for construction.

And that is what happened to the LCS, DDX, and, now, apparently CVNX, although how much leeway in building and design there is on something like and aircraft carrier will be interesting to follow. Again, this next generation CV platform will be more 'multi-mission' in its outlook - but that design integration comes at a price, which is nearly double that of the current Nimitz class carriers. The longer-term lifetime cost is supposed to help, but that has yet to be demonstrated.

This is not a new problem as many of these articles point to previous cost over-runs during the 1970's and 1980's with DoD procurements that underwent similar cost inflationary moves. When any change to procurement via changes in technology, changes in procurement length (trying to stretch out a procurement to lower the per year cost) or in plain numbers to be procured happens, each of those brings the cost per each item on an upward escalating cycle. Any change to the contract allows the contractor to then give the cost of those changes to the government. Whenever you want a deviation from the contract, no matter how trivial, the cost moves up. This was true of the B-1, B-2, Stealth Bomber, and current stealth fighter aircraft, along with ground-based systems such as the Paladin artillery replacement which skyrocketed in cost due to constantly changing government requirements until that follow-on was canceled. Stepping over the interim technology, by the incoming Bush Administration, was an attempt to get rid of those programs which were put in during the 1990's and then changed, extended, or shortened due to the end of the Cold War.

This is seen in the section on the Air Force which is highly forward looking, but ignored development time for weapons systems:

Air power: Air power that can be quickly deployed and engage the enemy with devastating effect is a critical element of any future force structure. Our air assets must be maintained at the forefront of technology in order to pose a viable threat to our enemies.

Our tactical aircraft must have the capability to deliver precision weapons on enemy targets. Multimission platforms and maximum firepower per platform should be absolute requirements, as the cost of aircraft continues to climb at an enormous rate. Precision-guided stand-off weapons, such as cruise missiles, will increasingly become the weapon of choice for their ability to attack enemy targets without endangering air crews and expensive platforms.

Procurement of self-protection equipment is both necessary and cost-effective. Every effort should be made to build upon existing electronic and other countermeasures, including expendables.

At the same time, we should explore opportunities to increase the use of remotely piloted vehicles [RPVs] and unmanned aerial vehicles [UAVs]. Both RPVs and UAVs offer great potential to provide a cheaper, more effective means of gathering information and delivering ordnance, while minimizing risk to our air crews.

We must act now to resolve the issue of strategic versus tactical bombers. We must maintain a viable offensive capability at an affordable cost. Therefore, we must carefully consider cost versus capabilities in assessing the effectiveness of our strategic and tactical bombers in a conventional role. Current information supports a decision to cap the B-2 bomber program at its present fleet size and give higher priority to precision-guided munitions and improved tactical fighter/bomber forces.

This causes some problems as the strategic/tactical accords of the post-WWII Key West Agreement were never examined. Yet it is here that Congress, in its procurement and regulation role of the Armed Forces, should have weighed in and heavily. Changes in what will be procured by Congress inevitably changes force structure, readiness and capability which are to be guided by military needs as seen by the armed forces, but leavened by the National needs of the US against foes or possible likely foes in the future. That is part and parcel of the Congressional procurement system: addressing the overall needs of the Nation, not just the armed forces.

Here Sen. McCain makes a major blunder in his conception of wanting a 'multimission' platform and yet have 'maximum firepower per platform': that is one very expensive aircraft even in thinking about it. When added to the view of wanting to separate the strategic/tactical situation, what this calls for is a platform that can either be a maximum air firepower or maximum ground (Combat Air Support or CAS) firepower or multimission with reduced capability in each of those roles. Which does Sen. McCain want?

The CAS role was then and TODAY filled by the A-10, which was procured in the 1970's... you can't get more in the way of maximal, flexible, on-demand, firepower than an A-10, really. We could use more of them and hand that role over to the ground forces... but that is Key West, again.

A maximal firepower air supremacy platform was then filled by the F-14 and would be filled by the F-22/35 Stealth Fighter... and find a world of few air opponents in the Stealth realm and they are too expensive to deploy into CAS roles. So you have a highly flexible platform for air supremacy that can't be deployed because cheaper, non-stealth systems do a great job once there is no air combat around. And the time to repair/refit a stealth system is enormous, and so the trend towards Hangar Queens of the 1970's, of aircraft spending as much time in maintenance as they did in the air, continued to shift to the maintenance side.

There there is strategic/tactical bombing, which, today, sees the B-52 delivering precision guided munitions because *it* has long loiter time and is multimission. And paid for. The joke that has gone around is that we now need a B-767 for even longer loitering of more, yet smaller, precision guided munitions. The B-2 and B-1 have both played roles in Afghanistan and Iraq, but the old workhorse because it can carry so much and so efficiently with lower cost and time in the hangar is the B-52.

Sen. McCain was forward looking in the UAV/UCAV arena, but no one expected them before 2010. Plus Key West shows up *again* in the USAF wanting control of these while the ground forces want quickly deployable INTEL assets. Here it is conflict that drove the necessity of having such platforms more than strategic guidance by Congress. Having them developed and being able to deploy a few showed their utility and delivered a crying need for tactical and theater level INTEL that just could not be had from the strategic/space based platforms. This coupled with the PGM concept are both stand-outs for Sen. McCain while the inability to address the problems of strategic/tactical systems and understand that a 'maximal firepower' platform could be robust and *cheap* without being multimission, while a multimission one, by having to address so many mission types, made it liable to higher per unit cost. Apparently we are now coming down to the need for a generic, long loiter 'bomb delivery platform', CAS, air supremacy stealth fighters and bombers plus mixed mode/multimission UAV/UCAV platforms.

On to the ground forces as seen by Sen. McCain:

Ground forces: As our overseas basing continues to decline, we must reassess our requirement for large ground-based forces. This will require greater emphasis on allied capabilities for ground combat missions. U.S. ground forces must be readily deployable, requiring a reassessment of the balance between heavy and light forces. Greater emphasis and reliance on smaller, lighter, and more automated systems may be appropriate.

We need to retailor both our active and reserve forces to concentrate our resources on forces we can rapidly deploy or move forward within a few months. We do not need units, bases, reserves, or large stocks of equipment that we cannot project outside the United States without a year or more of mobilization time.

Information technology will continue to revolutionize the battlefield, giving ground commanders unprecedented levels of situational awareness on the battlefield. We must ensure that resources are dedicated to providing these essential technological enhancements.

Our ground forces must be properly equipped to maintain superior offensive and defense capabilities. Increased night warfighting capabilities, increased survivability of tanks and heavy artillery, and improvements in antiarmor defenses are particularly important. Increased capability to detect, defend, and survive in a biological or chemical warfare environment is absolutely essential.

This is, actually, quite good, with Congress to assert its role in restructuring the armed forces. That, like the procurement end, is the Congressional role in regulation of the armed forces, so this is looking at the proper role of Congress in this context. The reducing in the bases and stockpiles, however, does ignore one salient problem: actually supplying troops in the field.

While DLA (Defense Logistics Agency) was undergoing a revolution using IT, with Fedex and UPS as guidance, what is required is that when Congress actually authorizes the use of the armed forces overseas it *must* have stockpiles of consumables *ready* beforehand. While the armed forces and logistics delivery end, the actual production end is ignored in this view. To get quickly ramped up production of necessary goods Congress must ensure that enough contract support and 'emergency production contracts' are laid out within the US industrial base. This was not done in the 1990's and so by the time we get to Iraq, the list of things that were 'out of stock', as in not produced, started to mount: bullets, batteries, body armor, actual rifles/carbines/pistols, HMMVs, HMMV armor, dust protection equipment.

If you want a highly deployable, small and flexible force one must supply the depth to *have* such a force. Even without new weapons, like the Barrett M-107/82, or the problematic integrated weapons platform like the OICW, just having enough M-16's and M-4's around with ammunition was proving to be a problem, along with HMMVs, first introduced in the 1980's. By not doing its job to ensure industrial capacity, Congress would seek to get lighter, smaller, flexible armed forces that are forced to trade weapons to those rotating in as they don't have enough equipment. Congress would not do this in the 1990's, even with a Republican majority, and so when the time for going back into Iraq to finish the job rolled around... you know, one of those 'known conflicts' that we had studied for a decade... we did not have the necessary supplies to ensure that the armed forces had what they needed. Of course we got Congresscritters standing up to decry the supply problems, which they had caused.

Finally that 'emphasis on allied capabilities' would be placing reliance on the only Nations cutting their defense budgets faster than the US: our overseas allies who had come to depend on us for their security.

I will skip over the sections on Special Forces, heavy lift and missile defense, save to point out that defense of space based assets, like INTEL and communications satellites, is not addressed. Those are key to strategic weapons and are assets in maintaining an advantage over future opponents.

From here Sen. McCain would then address a Three Tier Readiness system for the armed forces:

Tier I--Forward-Deployed and Crisis Response Forces: In peacetime, our forward-deployed military forces support our diplomacy and our commitments to our allies. Our forward military presence takes the form of fixed air and ground bases that are home to U.S. forces overseas, and our forward-deployed carriers, surface combatants, and amphibious forces. Some special operations forces are also forward-deployed, both at sea and ashore. Reserves become part of the equation through our military exercise programs.

[..]

Tier II--Force Buildup: History shows that crises can usually be resolved or contained by the deployment of only a small portion of our military capability. In the past 50 years, the United States has responded militarily to crises throughout the world over 300 times, but we have deployed follow-on forces in anticipation of a major regional conflict only 5 times. These include the forward deployment of United States troops in Europe at the onset of the cold war; the deployment of forces to Korea in 1950; the deployment of forces in response to the Cuban missile crisis in 1962; deployment to Vietnam in the 1960's; and deployment to Southwest Asia in 1990.

[..]

Tier III--Conflict Resolution: In only three of the cases mentioned above--Korea, Vietnam, and Southwest Asia--were we engaged in sustained conflict, requiring a large-scale deployment of United States forces.

Forces that seldom deploy must be maintained and available to ensure that we have the force superiority to prevail in any conflict. Conflict resolution forces include those that deploy late in the conflict because of limited airlift or sealift, and the finite capacity of the theater to absorb arriving forces. Also included are the later-arriving heavy ground forces, naval forces that have not already deployed, and air forces that become supportable as airfields and support capability in theater expands.

The reason he looks at this is that Congress has been unwilling to foot the bill to have forces at high degrees of readiness across the board. Yes, this is institutionalizing a problem created by Congress.

The highest readiness forces are Tier I, in this schema, which would consist of those forward deployed, which would be about 1/3 of PACOM, most of CENTCOM and a lesser percentage of EUCOM and SOUTHCOM. Or roughly 1/3 of the armed forces would be maintained at this state of readiness.

Tier II is to be ready in 'weeks rather than days', and have significantly lower readiness coming from CONUS. This is basically the majority of active forces plus that section of the National Guard and Reserves maintained with equivalent equipment, although fall to a somewhat lesser status due to their less than full time activity level. They are follow-on only after initial activity by Tier I forces.

Tier III are the 'peace keepers' and those backing places such as S. Korea, Philippines, and doing joint counter-narcotics and COIN work overseas. These are to be deployed 6 months or more after a conflict starts overseas.

Strangely Sen. McCain then adds this proviso:

Finally, we must reexamine the practice of maintaining combat units for which there is either no identified requirement under our national military strategy, or which cannot be deployed to a theater of operations until after a time certain following the outbreak of a conflict--perhaps 9 months to a year. We should not be spending scarce defense funds on combat forces which do not significantly enhance our national security.

Which is what happened: we did not spend money on forces designed to enhance our national security. We did spend *lots* of money on bi-athlon tracks in Alaska, all sorts of 'bullet proof vests' for police officers, and ignore those units deployed in the field for long periods of time like the 10 MD and 1 ID. When it finally came to Afghanistan, the 10 MD was not 'ready to roll' and it IS a national security asset being able to quickly deploy to parts of the planet that normal forces can't train for easily, which would mean that by the time things were having to be tracked down we were at Tora Bora. No one expected things to go that quickly in the 'graveyard of empires' with the 'brutal Afghan winter' bearing down.

Then there is Iraq.

For all the supply problems, deficiencies, political oversights and just pure blindness towards conditions, when Sen. McCain got up in 2003 to say we needed COIN against Ba'athists when it was al Qaeda doing the worst damage in different areas than he wanted to have COIN, and our troops were not TRAINED for it, I have a severe problem and heartburn. That is a critical national asset called: training and readiness for that role. If you want a force to hit the ground able to do COIN you need at least a year of preparing for it, if not more. How do we know this? Look at the period from 2004-mid 2006. That is how long it took the basics of COIN to start deploying *before* Gen. Petraeus got there. His manual was just being finished, draft copies sent out to the armed forces and training was starting to adapt *then* before he got the thing published. What had happened during the 1990's is that SOCOM and some of the higher status units in the regular forces got such training, but they were limited by force understanding to get their jobs rolling. Even then some of those did outstanding and unheralded work in Anbar province, which would prove key in turning Iraq around.

Like with equipment, if you want well trained, multimission soldiers, you must expend more per soldier and keep a higher level of capability with those soldiers so that they can perform those missions. By not seeking to address the actual, real problems of the 1990's and, instead, institutionalize them, Sen. McCain was ensuring that our logistics supply train would fail at *production* not delivery and that the cost per unit for 'multimission' ships and aircraft would skyrocket because of the complexities involved in their design and construction. And by frequently changing role and mission, that would change design specifications and increase the per unit cost of every piece delivered.

Finally, the need for faster, lighter and better prepared troops is necessary up and down the line. You cannot tier readiness unless you want forces with training and no equipment or equipment and no training. Training is very, very costly and yet it IS the national asset we put back into the armed forces. By keeping the talent, training it, challenging it to keep up with a changing world, the US invests heavily in its own protection. Those decreasing outlays by Congress starting in the mid-1980's and going through the 1990's yielded results that could be expected: uneven at best, difficult to transition and maintain at worse. Those problems in Iraq and Afghanistan did not start with the Bush Administration of 2000, but date back through the Clinton, Bush 41 and late Reagan Administrations with a bi-partisan Congress more than ready to ignore its job and duty to the Nation and cut back on force size, readiness, supplies and backing.

We saved much money during those years.

And we have no right to complain in the cost in dollars and blood for our misguided outlooks then.

We got what we wanted via our elected Representatives.

And what we deserved.

Brought to you by A Citizen of the Republic