Art La Flamme

CNN is just now starting to talk about a 1.5 meter by 1 meter hole under the railbed, and Russian assertions that — gasp! — this tragic accident may not be an accident but indeed the work of (dum, dum, DUM!) terrorists.

Well, of course it’s terrorism. Investigators have shown up and have begun to ask questions of the locals — have there been strangers in the area recently? Maybe Chechens? Or some other terrorists from the North Caucasus region?

I have no doubt that it’s terrorism, and would not be surprised in the least if it turns out to be tied to Grozny or Russia’s own internal Muslim conflict. Basayev may be dead, but the conflict rages on, the issues remain unresolved.

And it will be interesting, in these next couple of days, to see how the US responds to Russian cries about the threat she faces from Muslim terrorists. Sometimes, Russia and others like the US see eye to eye on the subject, but not always. I wonder how it will play out this time.

Figured it out yet?
(more…)

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve departed. Gone. Poof. Into the wind.

I am going back to Iraq.

Field Manual 30-5, Combat Intelligence, February 1951

I’ll be there for a year, or until they tell me to come home. I should get a two-week-or-so break somewhere along the way.

I’d like to keep blogging here during the year. I am sure there’d be things to write; I know, though, that the Army is a bit cautious about blogs, so I will have to see what wickets I’ll need to jump through in order to blog. Feel free to email me and ask questions; if I can answer them, I will, and if not, I’ll either lie (ok, no, not really) or I’ll just fess up that it’s not appropriate for me to answer, for whatever reason. If I upload photos, or blog here or elsewhere, or bookmark neat things, it’ll all show up in this RSS feed.

“As crutch attests”

About going

I’ve had people ask me different questions about this adventure. The questions generally fall into a couple of categories.

Aren’t you worried about going? No, not really. Things started to sink in Sunday morning, early, that it was almost time for change. I think I get more angst about the change, the picking up and going someplace, than I do about where I’m going or what I’m going to do there. I do a pretty good job of living in the now, and it’s only that slight anticipation that my now will likely change that gets me thinking about it. But no, it’s not worry. I’ll be fine.

Are you worried about being there? No, not really. I know that some have a view that Iraq is some horrible place, but that’s not a view I share. Yes, there is violence, yes there are crimes occurring. But there’s that in Los Angeles, New York, Moscow, and so on. I’m a believer — I believe in the Iraqis, in the Iraqi government, and in what we’re doing there. So no, I’m not worried about being there. I’ll be fine.

Victory in Europe (VE) Day, 08 May 1945

How’s your family taking it? Well. I don’t like saying that we take separation well, or that we’ve done this enough times that it’s not new. That sucks. But it is true — we have done this enough times, for the war, for other missions, for schools and the like, that we’re pretty good at it. My wife runs the house, with or without me there. The kids have their routines, with or without me there. We have mail, and email, and sometimes video chats. My wife covers down on the gift shopping for us when I’m not there, and I work hard to draw out of our kids info on what’s going on in their lives. I don’t like being apart, much less for a year, any more than I like missing another set of birthdays, another holiday season, another recital or event. But it happens, especially when service to the Nation and to the Republic comes before family.

What’ll you be doing there? I’m a staff guy. There’s no door kicking for me, no jumping out of a helicopter as it gets ready to set down on the objective. I sit and think deep thoughts, ask questions, give a briefing from time to time, and make an all-out effort to avoid making PowerPoint slides (not just while in Iraq, but in life in general). It’s not a bad deal, and it’s stuff that I’m actually well suited to do. But through all that, I remain ready to all of those basic soldier skills we expect of every soldier; if they need an extra gunner, I go.

Band-Aids, circa 1944

What do you do?

And every time I get ready to go somewhere, I seem to end up fielding questions from friends / family: What can I do to help while you’re gone?

So, some thoughts on that, too.

Email. You have my email address, right? A note, something personal from time to time, would be cool. Sure, send me the link to that NY Times article; even better is cutting and pasting it into the email itself (because some web sites get blocked or require that I go to an MWR (Morale, Welfare & Recreation) computer to see) or as an attachment. Best, though, is including it and offering up your thoughts on it, too.

Actual mail. You have stamps, right? As long as there have been literate soldiers, there have been letters from home in their pockets. An actual letter is awesome, probably all the more so in this age of email. Yes, it takes longer to write, yes, your penmanship might be a bit off, but so what. Real letters are awesome. Throw in an article from the hometown newspaper, or something from Time or Rolling Stone or Hot Rod, and you’ll make my day.

If you want to go above and beyond that, well, there’s a ton of other things you can do.

Wounded Warrior Transition Units. Find your local military installation, and get in touch with the Wounded Warrior unit. These are the units where our banged up, battered, and slightly-damaged guys go to mend. Guys and gals whose role in life is to get better, after something has happened to them. Want to help someone locally, to help make the world a better place and to maybe honor our soldiers just a bit? Contact the unit, and see how you can help.

Family Readiness Group. Peek around and find the local unit near you. They might be on a base, they might be a Guard or Reserve unit in your area. This is the group of spouses, kids, and extended family (parents, loved ones, boyfriends / girlfriends, etc) who are working to help each other and themselves while their loved ones are gone. Sometimes there are problems to be solved, sometimes there are bake sales to raise money to send care packages to their loved ones.

Army Emergency Relief. AER is help for soldiers in need. A quick loan in a jam or a grant in a time of need, it’s money to help soldiers during their hour of need. It’s run locally — here‘s the link to the one at Walter Reed Army Medical Center — and it’s tax deductible.

Footlocker, packed in 1946

No wallowing

I suppose it would be easy to wallow in my own misery, over having to go. Or over having to go someplace again, or over having to go for a year. There are a million reasons one could be upset about going, or be upset about a loved one going.

But I won’t. I don’t think I can. Things could be so much worse.

As I was getting ready to go, I was looking for those last little things I would need to take with me, I made a stop off in the footlocker that had belonged to my wife’s grandfather. The photos in this post — I took the photos that day as I was peeking here and there.

Los Angeles Times, 08 December 1941

On December 7th, he got the call. He left the next morning, heading off with the 32nd Cav, his National Guard unit. Apparently, he bought the paper on the way that day. He came home from the war in 1946.

5 years. Sure, he got R&R from time to time, but still — five years. That’s a long time. That’s a lot of letters to write. That’s a lot of great experiences with your kids that you’ll never get back.

Late in his life, when I was a lieutenant stationed in Germany, he came to visit us. I made the time to go show him all of our equipment — M1A2 tank, M2 infantry fighting vehicle, M109A6 self-propelled howitzer, and everything on down to machine guns and pistols. It was fascinating to hear his views of our military today — our equipment, our organizations, our capabilities, our training. He had been, at times, want for things as simple as a heavy machine gun that worked reliably — that’s hard to reconcile today with my worries about things like access to email and Skype. Understanding this history not just of my profession but of my own Army and the sacrifices asked of our soldiers in the past, is helping me balance the pressures of heading back to Iraq.

I don’t know how much, if any, difference I’ll make, but I’ll do my best.

Alright, that’s enough for now. More later — whenever that is.

The United States of America mismanaged detainees during the initial phases of the Global War on Terror (GWOT) because it did not understand its own history. The American administration failed to capitalize on its own lessons learning during the establishment of Prisoner of War (POW) procedures during World War II (WWII), and the legal precedents established in Johnson v. Eisentr?ger (1950). This is important because civil rights groups and others are legally challenging the US Government on its detention policy.

(more…)

Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri?s 2005 letter to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq addressed the information, social, and time critical variables of the contemporary operational environment. Zawahiri, as a senior leader and chief strategist for Al Qaeda and the pan-Salafist movement, used the letter as a means to offer guidance to Zarqawi, whom he viewed as a senior tactician but junior strategist.

Zawahiri is a longtime Mujahid. He began his involvement in the Salafist movement in his home country of Egypt, as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and later with the umbrella organization al-Jihad, or the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. By the time al-Zarqawi took up arms against the Jordanian monarch in the mid 1990?s, Zawahiri has been detained and tortured by the Egyptian authorities for his crusade against what he perceived to be an apostate regime in Cairo, had fought in Pakistan and Afghanistan, had been expelled from Sudan, and even been arrested in Russia as he began his global effort to united the Salafist movements.

Zawahiri?s global perspective drives his view of the contemporary operational environment, and in his letter to al-Zarqawi, Zawahiri stresses the social critical variable over all others. Zawahiri believes that ?the strongest weapon which the mujahedeen enjoy – after the help and granting of success by God – is popular support from the Muslim masses in Iraq, and the surrounding Muslim countries.?

Zawahiri stresses the cohesiveness and unit of action amongst all Muslims, and thus all Iraqis. He urges al-Zarqawi to conduct operations and undertake actions that will unite the Iraqis against the Americans and what he see as an apostate regime in Baghdad. They will find success, Zawahiri argues, ?by the alliance, cooperation and gathering of all leaders of opinion and influence in the Iraqi arena.?

But at the same time, Zawahiri also urges to show more restraint in conducting operations against the Shia, if for no other reason than embracing the importance of the social critical variable of the Iraqi environment.

?We must repeat what we mentioned previously, that the majority of Muslims don’t comprehend this and possibly could not even imagine it. For that reason, many of your Muslim admirers amongst the common folk are wondering about your attacks on the Shia. The sharpness of this questioning increases when the attacks are on one of their mosques, and it increases more when the attacks are on the mausoleum of Imam Ali Bin Abi Talib, may God honor him. My opinion is that this matter won’t be acceptable to the Muslim populace however much you have tried to explain it, and aversion to this will continue.?

But in addition to the social critical variable, Zawahiri also stresses the importance of time in al-Zarqawi?s operations. He urges al-Zarqawi to understand, appreciate and embrace the long struggle of which his efforts in Iraq are only a part. Zawahiri stresses that it will take considerable time to expel the Americans; establish an Islamic authority in Iraq, in the void created with the departure of the Americans; extend the jihad to neighboring secular states; and finally to take to war West, in order to defeat Israel. Zawahiri stresses this, knowing the strategic importance of the role time will play, and understanding al-Zarqawi?s tactical background.

Lastly, Zawahiri stresses the role that information plays as a critical variable both in the contemporary operational environment in Iraq, and in the global contemporary operational environment. He emphasizes recent media coverage from the international press, messages sent to the followers, and he specifically cites the role of the media in the struggle for the support of the people. He urges al-Zarqawi that ?more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media. And that we are in a media battle in a race for the hearts and minds of our Umma (community of believers). And that however far our capabilities reach, they will never be equal to one thousandth of the capabilities of the kingdom of Satan that is waging war on us.?

Zawahiri used his letter to al-Zarqawi to stress the information, social, and time critical variables of the contemporary operational environment in Iraq and around the world. Zawahiri?s emphasis on these three critical variables stresses the integrated nature of the critical variables, and his understanding of their role in the contemporary operational environment.

Don’t mock me.

This movie is like mashed potatoes for me. It’s total comfort food. See if you can follow along:

It’s got John Landis directing. Same guy who directed Blues Brothers. Ditto for Animal House. The list keeps on going from there. The script for this is great, and Landis does a great job bringing it to life.

It’s got Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase working as a team. And Spies Like Us was made back in ’85, back when they were at the height of their game. They are top performers in this. It’s not laugh-so-hard-you-can’t-breath kind of funny; it’s on par with Stripes.

Add to that the timeframe for this film, and you’ve got magic. It’s classic 80′s cold war, Reagan war mongering. It’s chock full of Soviet fears, Star Wars, and intelligence blunders.

Oh, and Donna Dixon. Hubba, Hubba.

The gist of this story is that the US military / secret cabal has a new space-based laser weapon system that they want to actually test. The plan is to insert two teams — one real, one decoys — into the Soviet Union to grab hold of and launch a nuclear missile at America. The American secret squirrel guys can then test their new toy, save the day, and validate their new toy.

Aykroyd and Chase get sent to Intelligence Operative Training, which is like Satan’s Basic Training program. They get subjected to the worst things the military would ever do to someone — like dragging them behind a boat, radical vertical impact simulation, and putting them in sire resistant suits and hitting them with flamethrowers. Watch this.

The whole thing is filled with one-liners and awesome quotes that, twenty plus years later, still show up in my vernacular. Boys, it’s be a shame to have to kill you now.

There’s a ton of military humor in this that cracks me up, but it’s the intelligence / espionage humor that gets me every time. The humor ranges from the bungling spy jokes, to jokes just about the intelligence profession on the whole. All of that comes out as Aykroyd and Chase make their way through training, on into Pakistan, and across the border into the Soviet Union. I love the collect phone call from Pakistan. Watch this — it’s a classic.

Along the way, they learn the truth — they’re the decoys. They run into the other team – the one with Donna Dixon on it. In coming to terms with their being the decoys, and in seeing Dixon’s partner killed, they realize that they must see the mission through, even if no one expects them to be able to succeed.

The long and the short of it is that they make it into the Soviet Union, they take control of the launcher, and they launch the missile. They realize the seriousness of what they have done, and they jury-rig a way to recall the missile and abort its flight. The secret cabal and American military nuts are exposed, they save the day, and they get the girls.

I saw this in the theater, and I have bought it on DVD a few times – it makes for a great gift. I watch this movie at least once a year, and I use some of these quotes — “Doctor. Doctor. Doctor!” — waaaaaay too often. I love looking for the cameo performances — Frank Oz, BB King, and the like.

And I love Donna Dixon. Hubba hubba.

I gave an interesting presentation today about Egypt, France, the UK, the US and the Soviets back in ’56.

I posted it here, with included notes. Clicking on the link will show the notes.

Georgia and the separatists in South Ossetia came to blows a couple of days ago, ending the de facto stalemate in the war there. Russia has had “peace keepers” there for some time, and this re-introduction of combat operations has dragged Mother Russia back into the fighting.

Russia and the Republic of Georgia are at war.

I realize that, for most of America, this is not a big deal. For me, this is news, with a capital N.

For Russia, this is a win-win situation.

Russia wins in exerting influence over South Ossetia when it comes at the expense of the Republic of Georgia. Russia comes out on top be re-exerting its control over what had been Soviet territories, and what is now territory in a pro-Western, US-leaning country like Georgia.

Russia wins because they can use this as justification for rolling in massive amounts of troops. and not just into South Ossetia, but also in Abkhazia, another break-away region in Georgia.

They win, because they might be able to influence the oil coming out of Azerbaijan en route to Turkey or the oil ports on the Georgia’s Black Sea ports, by right or by might.

And what can Georgia do? Call for US assistance? US troops? Repel the Russians themselves?

They’re going to bleed. They’re going to take as much of a beating as the Russians choose to give them. And there’s not a damn thing else they can do.

The Russians in South Ossetia win. More support, more autonomy, more business with Russia will only improve their lives. They aren’t viable as a state, but they can gain here with some more autonomy and more support from Mother Russia.

And Abkhazia will gain, the same way.

Russia wins. South Ossetia wins. Abkhazia wins.

Georgia loses. America is going to lose. And other western countries will lose, if the oil flow is disrupted or the price goes up.

This, by the way, is worth watching.