WAR, PEACE & PEOPLE

Command Presence

2008-02-06T14:54:00.000-05:00

A constant theme in the fan mail I receive is that my books would make great movies. Well, I cannot but agree (I’m scarcely impartial here) but I also know that the devil is in the detail and that many a great book has been a disappointment on the screen because of a poor screenplay, lousy casting, a poor director and so on. Conversely, sometimes books which look near impossible to transfer to the screen have been turned into masterpieces. Here, War and Peace and A Bridge Too Far become particularly to mind and I’m sure there are more recent examples.

As a consequence of this interest, some years ago I discussed casting the principal characters in my books on the web. Frankly that section needs updating but I recall mentioning that George Clooney would make an excelling Fitzduane.

Recently I received an e-mail from a Special Forces veteran taking issue with my choice. Let me quote:

Hello,

I would suggest either Viggo Mortensen, Daniel Craig or Sean Bean. Being a SOG veteran, each of these three gentlemen strike me as having that command presence so palpable in Hugo. I do not get this serious 'vibe' from Mr. Clooney. He does not seem real in his roles involving warfare, violence or command. Much more of a caricature with a sneer, rather than a warrior.

I’m a great admirer of George Clooney but it did make me wonder whether Clooney is entirely happy when playing military roles.

By the way, all my books were optioned for the movies, and a screenplay was written but the producer concerned , Bill Todman, went on to make the X-Men movies.

Such is Hollywood.

Recession?

2008-01-23T11:23:00.000-05:00

Well, I have been forecasting a U.S. recession in 2008 for more than four years now largely because of the bow wave effect caused by the ruinous war expenditures linked to structural weaknesses in the economy such as: The fast rising National Debt; the Balance of Payments crisis; the soaring costs of Energy; an excessive dependence on Credit - and so on.

In essence, the Bush expansion has been financed through borrowing and has focused more on consumption than investment so its demise has been an accident waiting to happen. Nonetheless, I did not expect the rest of the world to panic, to the degree it has, at the same time. One has to wonder how many banks and other financial institutions worldwide have been infected by the sub-prime fiasco or been sold some other financial derivative of little or no value. Could it be that Wall Street is deeply and fundamentally corrupt? Yes, it could. Add in the fact that globally bankers are like lemmings and we could be looking at a bigger financial disaster than a U.S. recession.

How so? All too many foreign financial institutions seem to have bought the dubious financial products marketed by Wall Street to the tune of not hundreds of billions, but trillions and then add in the fact that far too much of the world is still psychologically dependent upon the U.S. and stir.

It's hard to be convinced by the proposed U.S. economic stimulus. First, it is too small an amount to have much of an impact on an economy the size of America's. Secondly, a great deal of it is likely to be spent upon imported goods - whereas what we need are well paid jobs in the U.S.. Thirdly, it will take too long to work it's way through the system.

If we are going to have an economic stimulous, and there is a strong argument for it, it should be spent on something sustainable and here it is hard to find more worthy candidates than Energy and Infrastructure.

Change of e-mail address

2008-01-18T13:50:00.000-05:00

I’ve been having e-mail problems. After Comcast took over Adelphia, they continued to let voreilly@adelphia.net function for a while but recently cancelled it without any warning so now only victororeilly@comcast.net works. I was alerted of this fact by one of my friends but have to wonder how many other e-mails have not got through. I have learned that people are not very good at keeping their address books up to date – even if mailed to make changes – and tend to rely on the ‘Reply’ button. Sending them a change of e-mail address notice – even in capital letters – does not work. My suspicion is that reading is out and skimming is in. The two should not be confused.

To Blog or Not To Blog

2008-01-17T22:12:00.000-05:00

It’s curious how times passes. My last entry was dated August 20 2006 and now, over sixteen months later, I find myself living a bachelor life again after some 25 years – the last nine as a single father. My daughter, Evie (21 last November) is now seeking fame and fortune in Seattle and my son, Bruff (18 last July) is taking a gap year in Europe before heading off to university, possibly in Europe. I’m very proud of them and missed them both to the point of tears. But the whole point of bringing up children is to get them ready to live their own lives – and they were ready.

I stopped blogging for a while for several reasons: Firstly, I didn’t really want to write about my daughter’s departure at the time – she was the first to fly; it was too private and too painful. Secondly, I wanted to focus all my energies on book writing. Thirdly, I debated the value of blogging. It seemed like pointless indulgence – fun for me, but of scant interest to the rest of the world. Over time, I was to learn to the contrary. Simply put, numerous friends, acquaintances and readers were using it as way of staying in touch so I was much chastised for quitting, albeit temporarily.

I shall endeavor to make up for lost time. It's nice to be back again.

The Bush Administration apart, what is the greatest threat to this country? China? Militant Islam? Or is it closer to home?

2006-08-20T14:46:00.000-04:00

I was prompted to ask that question, yet again (I study this stuff) after reading a truly elegant essay by Michael Skube in today’s Washington Post – today being August 20 2006 and Mr. Skube being a lecturer at Elon University.

Titled: Writing Off Reading, here is an extract:

We were talking informally in class not long ago, 17 college sophomores and I, and on a whim I asked who some of their favorite writers are. The question hung in uneasy silence. At length, a voice in the rear hesitantly volunteered the name of . . . Dan Brown.

No other names were offered.

The author of "The DaVinci Code" was not just the best writer they could think of; he was the only writer they could think of.

In our better private universities and flagship state schools today, it's hard to find a student who graduated from high school with much lower than a 3.5 GPA, and not uncommon to find students whose GPAs were 4.0 or higher. They somehow got these suspect grades without having read much. Or if they did read, they've given it up. And it shows -- in their writing and even in their conversation.

A few years ago, I began keeping a list of everyday words that may as well have been potholes in exchanges with college students. It began with a fellow who was two months away from graduating from a well-respected Midwestern university.

"And what was the impetus for that?" I asked as he finished a presentation.

At the word "impetus" his head snapped sideways, as if by reflex. "The what?" he asked.

"The impetus. What gave rise to it? What prompted it?"

I wouldn't have guessed that impetus was a 25-cent word. But I also wouldn't have guessed that "ramshackle" and "lucid" were exactly recondite, either. I've had to explain both. You can be dead certain that today's college students carry a weekly planner. But they may or may not own a dictionary, and if they do own one, it doesn't get much use. ("Why do you need a dictionary when you can just go online?" more than one student has asked me.)

You may be surprised -- and dismayed -- by some of the words on my list.

"Advocate," for example. Neither the verb nor the noun was immediately clear to students who had graduated

from high school with GPAs above 3.5. A few others:

"Derelict," as in neglectful.

"Satire," as in a literary form.

"Pith," as in the heart of the matter.

"Brevity," as in the quality of being succinct.

And my favorite: "Novel," as in new and as a literary form. College students nowadays call any book, fact or fiction, a novel. I have no idea why this is, but I first became acquainted with the peculiarity when a senior at one of the country's better state universities wrote a paper in which she referred to "The Prince" as "Machiavelli's novel."

The answer to the question “The Bush Administration apart, what is the greatest threat to this country? China? Militant Islam? Or is it closer to home?” would seem to be America’s truly awful educational system.

It isn’t just bad. It is now spiraling downwards as academic year after academic year of poorly educated Americans in turn infect the next generation with low and declining educational standards to the point where there is no understanding of what world class standards should be.

In fact our general level of education is now so low – compared to other developed nations and many other developing ones – that our collective ignorance is now metastising into a core weakness in our national immune system. It is becoming a threat to our standard of living, our prospects for the future and, without question, to our National Security.

Ironically, many Americans are aware that there are serious problems with the K-12 educational system but they rationalize this knowledge by convincing themselves that, at least, their children are going to a good local school and, anyway, American educational standards at college and university level are the best in the world.

Read Michael Stube’s essay and weep. The rot is just as deep in the Third Level sector.

It just costs more to acquire.

Is the U.S. the cause of many of its own woes?

2006-08-18T23:05:00.000-04:00

If a complete stranger walked up to you and hit you, you might well be inclined to hit that person back. In addition, you would, if you were a normal, sentient human being, also like to know the reason - if only out of polite curiosity, or because you would prefer not to be hit again.

Alternatively, you might mount your own personal War On Terror – better yet, at other people’s expense - and go and kill, maim and destroy in some local neighborhood, where you thought some local undesirables might be lurking. In which case, one would hope that men in white coats would haul you away and lock you up in a padded cell.

Frankly, I’m not particularly surprised at President George W. Bush’s lack of curiosity about our various enemies motives – his focus seems to be solely on using terror for political advantage, and I would not wish to stress the man by suggesting that his brain retain two thoughts at once – but I am a little taken aback that five years after 9/11 so few Americans seem to be either interested or concerned that a goodly proportion of the planet now holds the U.S. in low esteem, or wishes this nation harm.

“Could we be doing something wrong?” would seem to the next logical question, but somehow it is not being asked.

It’s time that it was.

We don’t yet understand the scale of the disaster that is the American intervention in Iraq. It’s time we did.

2006-08-07T11:05:00.000-04:00

Iraq is such a disaster, from the U.S. point of view, that I don’t think either the extent, or the significance of it, has yet dawned on the American public. Certainly, the polls indicate that a majority of American citizens is concerned, but there is scant evidence that people appreciate the cataclysm that President Bush and his Administration have inflicted upon both Iraq and this country. If they did, the dominant emotions would be outrage and fear; and such feelings would be well justified.

In truth, that day may never happen because this Administration is more secretive than most - and lies without conscience or shame; the media continue to be corralled by their corporate owners, and negligent into the bargain; and Congress, which funded the whole miserable business without thought or care, and yet has legal oversight responsibilities for it, is complicit.

Let me list just some of the elements of the disaster. Its scale, over time, has the potential to be as disastrous for the U.S. as Japan’s ill advised decision to attack Pearl Harbor in 1944. True, the consequences may not be that severe, if we are very lucky, but the price, even under a best case scenario, will be horrendous.

After nearly three and half years of U.S. Occupation of Iraq, all we have to show for our efforts is a destabilized and impoverished Iraq sinking rapidly into the maelstrom of a civil war. Further, Iraq’s much touted democratically elected government has shown itself to be an ineffective sham capable of meeting only under the protection of American arms – which predictable situation, just by itself, destroys its credibility with the very people it is supposed to be governing. The military may claim that we have never lost a tactical engagement but, whether literally true or not, the reality on the ground is that we have suffered yet another strategic defeat just like Vietnam.

We have destabilized the entire Middle East to the point where a regional war, or worse, is a strong possibility. In fact Sunni states, such as Jordan and Saudi Arabia, are already helping the Iraqi Sunnis. As for Sunni, but officially secular, Turkey, it has been transformed from a strong NATO ally to a nation whose people now largely hate and despise the U.S., and where Islamic fundamentalism is on the rise. The list of other potential participants in a Middle Eastern conflagration is too long to list in full, but includes Syria, the Lebanon, Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan and so on. Even Indonesia, with its large Muslim population, has been making concerned noises. There is the potential here for something even more dangerous than a regional war.

We have vastly strengthened Iran’s influence throughout the Middle East despite the fact that Iran is not only a proven enemy of the U.S. but also has imperial goals in a region which is of major strategic significance to this country because of oil. The Shia Crescent, dominated by Iran, is now a very real possibility.

Our occupation of Iraq has shown us to be consistently untruthful, brutal, corrupt, racist, indifferent to the rule of law, decadent, militarily incompetent, and incapable of protecting our friends. A consequence of all this has been that not only have we lost the moral high ground, to the point where we no longer have any credibility in much of the world, but we have shown that we are vulnerable to asymmetric warfare and can be taken.

By demonstrating publicly and regularly that we are at least as bad as Osama bin Laden and other terrorists have stated, at least in Al Jazeera image terms, we have vastly strengthened the terrorist cause, and increased the terrorist threat, and their access to major financing, for decades to come. In fact, our actions have fanned the flames of Islamic Fundamentalism beyond their wildest dreams.

Despite the U.S. being "The beacon of democracy," the media center of the world, and a nation which supposedly has more expertise in communications than any other, we have lost the media battle utterly to the point where our enemies have a virtual dominance of influence over not just Middle Eastern opinion, but, albeit to a lesser extent, over much of the rest of the world. Given the outpouring of sympathy for us after 9/11, and the general approval of our initial actions in Afghanistan, the loss of all that good will demonstrates quite remarkable insensitivity and incompetence.

We have wrecked the Iraqi economy, and done severe damage to our own, by spending over $400 billion so far and by incurring liabilities which may bring that total to over a trillion dollars even if we start pulling out immediately. To compound the problem, these funds have been borrowed, so carry interest, and will have to be repaid in the years ahead at the very time when demographics are eroding the tax base. Such borrowing is almost invariably inflationary and such trends have already started. Finally, to add insult to injury, we have borrowed much of this money from nations such as China who are our strategic competitors.

Oil was under $30 a barrel before our invasion of Iraq in 2003. It is now over $75 a barrel, an increase of over 250%, a financial blow of extraordinary significance to the average American – and just about every other human being on the planet – and one which will not only fuel inflation just by itself but which also is pouring untold billions into the coffers of our enemies.

We have killed, injured, or imprisoned so many Iraqis – people we were supposedly liberating – to the point where there is scarcely a family in the country which has not been directly affected by tragedy. Precise numbers of those killed are not known but are variously estimated at between 50,000 and 150,000.

The Iraq War & Occupation has cost the lives of approaching 2,600 U.S. troops and close to 20,000 have been physically injured to date with tens of thousands more needing some kind of psychological treatment. The costs, both human and financial, of such casualties to families, friends, and the Nation over the decades ahead are incalculable.

We have allowed our ambitions in Iraq to distract us from the very real requirements of the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan – a country which, unlike Iraq, was genuinely tied in to 9/11 and where in 2001 we had enjoyed considerable initial success. A consequence of this neglect has been a weakening of Afghanistan’s fledgling democratic government and a rebirth of the Taliban through the active support of certain powerful elements in Pakistan, a Muslim nuclear state. Indeed, the Taliban have not just been given refuge in Pakistan but they have re-emerged, trained and re-armed, in considerable strength. Of course, according to the Bush Administration, Pakistan is an ally in the War on Terror which begs the question of why it remains such a haven for the Taliban. One then has to realize that Pakistan abuts Iran, a Moslem state with nuclear ambitions, to appreciate the seriousness of the error we have made in neglecting Afghanistan.

Finally, Americans need to realize that apart from strengthening our enemies, our Iraq misadventure has left us with a tired, worn-out and disillusioned military whose equipment now needs to be replaced at vast expense across the board. What does vast expense mean? Hundreds of billions. How will this be funded? By borrowings which will eventually have to be re-paid by the American taxpayer.

Quite how an exercise which strengthens our enemies, and leaves us weaker, serves the National Interest is a matter the American voter may care to ponder.

Are U.S. automobile manufacturers really and truly interested in saving energy? ‘No!’ would be a reasonable answer.

2006-05-08T08:22:00.000-04:00

I am prompted to write about this after having seen Rick Waggoner, CEO of General Motors, on a 60 Minutes segment last night about Ethanol.

I watch 60 Minutes because it offers convincing evidence that we will shortly be able to live for ever – the male presenters are all approaching a hundred or something, and still seem to be full of vim and vigor - and because Leslie Stahl is very pleasant to look at. Also, being used to European TV, I feel starved of decent documentaries. Of course, the downside of 60 Minutes is that it is presented at an intellectual level which a moderately intelligent ten year old might reasonably feel was beneath him, or her, but maybe CBS executives have more information on the cognitive ability of the American viewing public than I have. I hope they are wrong because if they are right then this great county’s prospects are going to be grim.

Personally, I think the TV networks, led by Fox, are agents of some foreign power which is dedicated to destroying America by dumbing it down. Osama Bin Laden is really Rupert Murdoch in disguise (and on stilts). It’s a plot, folks.

Be that as it may, Waggoner was about as enthusiastic about Ethanol as he might be about legislation banning SUVs – though to be fair, he said all the right things (albeit in a tepid way). However, what did come across is that he is more interested in maintaining the status quo, in terms of car culture, than in making any radical changes in either his vehicle range or the American Way of Life (feel free to sing the National Anthem, in the language of your choice, at this point),

That is really not good because people like Waggoner are the leaders of the U.S. automobile industry and if they are not prepared to address the energy crisis with a sense of compelling urgency, we are not likely to get out of this major threat to our economic wellbeing in a healthy state.

I find all of this a little baffling because I know there are solutions out there. Further, I suspect that finding and applying them would give a much more solid boost to the economy, in terms of well paid jobs, than flipping hamburgers at minimum wage.

It is worth bearing in mind that the Energy Crisis is not a bolt out of the blue. Not only have we known for decades that oil and natural gas are finite resources, but we also had a major warning in 1973 of the political dangers to our oil supplies.

In the face of this evidence, the response of U.S. motor manufacturers has to been, through the introduction of SUVs, ever larger pickups and minivans, to increase the American public’s dependence on oil. And the U.S. government have conspired in their efforts.

For their next trick, corporations like Generals Motors and Ford and so on seem highly likely to wreak further havoc on their work forces – even if they don’t go into bankruptcy to offload their healthcare and pension commitments (costs which will then be picked up by the taxpayer).

Is this the best that this highly paid cadre of motor industry executives can do?

Rather like a horror move, it’s all kind of fascinating to watch in a horrible kind of way. Feel absolutely free to scream.

I will tell you this: Twenty five years ago I drove a Volkswagen Golf diesel which drove like a dream and got 40 mph plus to the gallon.

Modern European and Japanese diesels are better still.

If we don’t live in suburbia, how can we live? Well, the Venetians do rather well, but there is no reason why newer cities cannot work too.

2006-05-06T15:53:00.000-04:00

I have long been fascinated by how much money and effort we devote to projects like the development of a new car or a new aircraft or a new missile, yet how little attention we give to the best way to live on a day to day basis. In saying that, I’m not trying to denigrate the value of cars, or aircraft or missiles (you never know when you might need one) but merely to suggest that a certain adjustment in priorities might be in order.

“Balance is everything,” as the bishop said to the tightrope walking actress - under circumstances I am too discreet to comment on further.

I’m prompted to write about all this not only because James Howard Kunstler, author of ‘The Long Emergency,’ thinks that suburbia is doomed, but also because I have lived in a variety of locations where a car was not essential and can confirm that life without a car on a daily basis is entirely possible without the world coming to an end. And, no, I did not suffer. I’m not a masochist. I merely walked (from café to café), took a bus, tram subway or train and typically shared a car with friends when I had to make a longer trip.

The correct balance, at least in my experience, is where a car is not essential for one’s routine activities, like commuting, but where one has access to one for longer trips or something out of the ordinary. Cars are great when necessary, and better yet when there is a trunk to put the mother-in-law in.

Such a compromise, if widely adopted, would have a dramatic impact on both energy usage, and on the gridlock which is currently choking our cities, and our highways, to the great detriment of our health, our children’s health, our general quality of life and our finances.

But, whatever about my personal experiences, the really good news is that there are whole chunks of the world where a relatively balanced existence is being lived right now – so you can go and see for yourself without driving (just take a train through the cities of Europe) – and the even better news is that some extraordinary work is being done by some brilliant people to show that high density living of superior quality – whether in a village, town or city - is eminently possible without the routine use of an automobile; and yet you will still have access to green space, lakes, a reasonable selection of flora and fauna, together with the creatures that roam suburbia these days (my son encountered a bear when he was cycling to school a couple of years back; but what can I say – this is Virginia).

Some of the most remarkable ideas on new city design are contained within a memorable work by J. Crawford called ‘Carfree Cities.’ In it, he not only gives numerous examples of existing pedestrian orientated cities but he also includes detailed work on a new scaleable design for a city which is built around a metro route but where no location is any further than 35 minutes away. In addition, only 20% of the urban are is planned to be built on so green space is everywhere. And to top it all, the book is a work or art in itself.

It’s a remarkable production. Go see it - and order it - at www.carfree.com and feel inspired. There is hope for mankind as long as people like Mr. Crawford are around. And no, I have never met him.

PEOPLE: Truth-teller James Howard Kunstler – Author of ‘The Long Emergency.’ Read it, (panic), then act! It’s not fiction.

2006-05-06T12:08:00.000-04:00

Current polls state that not only two thirds of American dissatisfied with the way President George W. Bush is doing his job, but no less than three quarters believe this nation is heading in the wrong direction.

What makes these findings all the more compelling is that, on the face of it, we are in the middle of an economic boom. Growth is heading towards 5%, unemployment, at 4.7%, is low, consumer spending remains high and business profits in most sectors are excellent. Yet 75% of Americans have a queasy feeling in their stomachs. Last night’s Big Mac? Probably not (though don’t underestimate the lethality of Fast Food).

Kunstler, a thoroughly entertaining writer, won’t ease your anxiety, but he will intrigue you as he builds a convincing case that we really are running out of both oil and natural gas, that the touted alternatives from hydrogen to ethanol are not going to provide an adequate alternative, and that the present car based, 11 trips per house per day, American Way of Life is unsustainable.

In particular, he slams suburbia and all its related ills – everything from the lack of public transport and sidewalks to strip malls to the prevalence of fast food outlets (which are, themselves, only sustainable through the availability of the cheap oil which underpins factory farms). He points out that the current pattern of suburban living is only possible if you have a car and cheap fuel – and that just won’t be the case in the future. He also points out something that is really irrelevant to his energy thesis: much of American suburbia is just plain ugly, particularly when compared with the cities, towns and villages which can be seen in Europe.

Kunstler is not all doom and gloom, but he does foresee a long a painful period – hence the title of his book, ‘The Long Emergency’ – while we evolve towards a less energy intensive way of life. He points out that we are going to have to do this anyway or the consequences of Global Warming, and other environmental damage, are going to be catastrophic. Hurricane Katrina was merely an early warning.

Vice President Cheney recently remarked that the American Way of Life was sacrosanct (or words to that effect). Implicit in his remarks is the opinion that Americans don’t want to change – and will not change. Well, Cheney has been wrong before, and, I believe is wrong again. And he is also not doing the job which he was elected to do – which is to inform Americans fully and truthfully about the issues, and then to provide effective leadership so that realistic solutions can be found.

I believe that Kunstler is entirely right in his prognosis though I don’t agree entirely with his conclusions. However, late in the energy day though it is, I do believe that Americans will welcome a comprehensive energy policy, even if aspects of it are initially unpalatable, because anyone, who does not have sawdust between his ears, knows that something has to be done.

But, just like Vice President Cheney, I have been wrong before.

By the way, Kunstler, who can be very amusing, suggests that one reason the Bush Administration seems to be so little concerned about the Energy Crisis – except politically - is because so many of its key members believe the end of the world is coming so they will be saved by the Rapture; which I guess they will drive to in their SUVs.

Do we have an Energy Crisis, an Oil Crisis, or both – or neither? And does any of this matter?

2006-05-05T14:58:00.000-04:00

According to what to what I observe, hear, see on TV, read and can deduce, we do, indeed, have an energy crisis in the U.S. so I’m a little baffled that so little is being done about it – especially when the lead times to take remedial action are so long.

For instance, building a new refinery in a rush still takes five to seven years, and nuclear plants tend to take even longer. Even wind farms take more time than you would think both because the turbines are highly specialized devices – and so not exactly mass produced (as yet) - and because environmental objections can take for ever. So, all in all, it is probably a good idea to think in terms of a gap of ten years between initiating an energy project and having power come on line. True natural gas power generation plants can be brought on stream faster, but not only is natural gas becoming frighteningly expensive, but – just like oil - it’s running out.

Aren't I a cheery fellow!

Mind you, I don’t expect oil and gas to actually run out – there will always be a few barrels of oil hidden in the rock a few thousand feet down in some inhospitable spot somewhere – but I do expect the price of these diminishing commodities to go up and up and up; which is exactly what is happening. Do you know, oil was around $22 a barrel at the beginning of Bush’s reign – and the price of natural gas has quadrupled since 2002? Of course the prices slide back a bit now and then because that is the nature of a marketplace where heavy speculation is involved, but the trend line is unmistakable and the trajectory is up. This is arguably a good thing if you are on Viagra, but is not so good if you are paying the bills.

Worse, the U.S. is more dependent on energy than just about anywhere else in the world. Not only do we use over twice as much energy as Europeans, for instance, but we are unique amongst developed nations in having developed a suburban based lifestyle where one is virtually entirely dependent upon the car – and where sidewalks are lacking more often than not. Then, to add insult to injury, we have scandalously neglected the public transport systems in our cities to the point where you need a car there too in many cases. And, as for Amtrak, it is little more than a decrepit political football although the potential of rail in various forms is plain to be seen.

I have a private theory that Americans are as car obsessed as they are because only when driving do they actually feel in control and relatively safe from the cares of the world such as job insecurity, excessively long work hours, credit card debt, doctor bills, marital problems, mutinous children, and all those other issues that the American Way of Life likes to surround you with. Now, exactly why one should feel safe when speeding along a crowded freeway at seventy miles an hour is a good question. Here, all I can recommend is that you drive over to your shrink to find the answer.

Rumsfeld, Master of Charm, Wit and Illusion. Time to do a disappearing act.

2006-04-21T09:13:00.000-04:00

There is much discussion about Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld’s style, at present, but very little about the caliber of the man as a whole as manifested by his track record since his appointment. That’s a pity. It’s revealing.

After Rumsfeld was sworn in as Secretary of Defense on January 20, 2001 it soon became clear within the Pentagon that he was both a force to be reckoned with, and had an agenda. Within months there were few generals who did not complain about his arrogance, his secretiveness, his acerbic manner, his lack of respect for their rank and dignity, and his dismissiveness. In short, he became widely disliked.

He became particularly unpopular with the Army leadership. There, he became associated with wanting to cut the Army by a further two divisions – there were ten in the active component at the time – in order to fund missile defense and bombers. In short, he was perceived as being all about technology and having little time for boots on the ground.

His relationship with Army Chief of Staff, General Eric Shinseki, was so poor as to border on active hostility. Simply put, the two men gave every appearance of loathing each other. In real terms, they did not have a working relationship. Shinseki, whose ideas about transforming the Army were deeply flawed, was not innocent in this regard.

Given these circumstances, Rumsfeld could have been expected to sack a number of senior generals, both to clear out dead wood, and to make the point that civilian control of the military was to be taken seriously. Instead, having riled the generals, he did nothing, thus revealing that he was more about bluster than bite. He knew that if he sacked generals he would encounter serious opposition in Congress, and he was not prepared to take such political risks. Fundamentally, Rumsfeld, for all his reputation as a tough chief executive, is primarily an opportunistic, turf oriented, politician. He will huff and puff and bluff, but, when push comes to shove, he will not take the hard decisions if his personal position is, thus, to be put at risk. Widely known as a consummate bureaucratic in-fighter, pragmatism, rather than principle, is his guide. In essence, he is not a leader; he is a careerist, a perfect example of the modern Washington public servant.

Like tends to recognize like, and the generals were not slow to spot this core weakness. Despite all the noise, it would be business as usual in the Pentagon. Favored programs, even though they made no sense in the current threat environment, would be continued. Nothing would fundamentally change. Generals would retire to well paid jobs in the defense community. Budgets would not be cut. The money flow would continue. The military industrial political complex was safe.

After 9/11, and the Army leadership’s overly cautious and slow response when called to action, Rumsfeld had a further opportunity – and every good reason - to remove General Shinseki, but, once again, he backed away.

Rumsfeld is widely accused of sacking General Shinseki from his position as Army Chief of Staff for stating in Congress that, in his opinion, several hundred thousand troops would needed to implement Operation Iraqi Freedom. That widely believed story is utterly untrue. General Shinseki served his full term of four years – with his authority undiminished until the very end. All that actually happened was that Shinseki’s successor, General Jack Keane, then the Army’s Vice Chief of Staff, was named ahead of time and, ironically, the effect of that decision did more to weaken Keane than Shinseki; and, in the end, Keane did not take the post. In sum, Rumsfeld initiated a bureaucratic maneuver against Shinseki that backfired.

Sources close to Rumsfeld describe him as “flying at 100, 000 feet.” What they mean by that is not just that Rumsfeld is overly occupied with the big picture at the expense of the detail of execution, but that he is dangerously ignorant of the details, in many cases, and much more concerned with implementing his political agenda, and expanding his bureaucratic empire, than with making sure that the Department of Defense – and the War on Terror – is being run effectively.

Insiders say that Rumsfeld has good instincts, such as over his concern about the poor quality of many Army generals, but that his lack of moral courage – which many regard as indecisiveness – and lack of understanding of military detail, hopelessly undermine him operationally. They also say that Rumsfeld’s dependence on a constantly recycled list of relatively lightweight aides such as Douglas Feif, Stephen Cambone and Larry de Rita, does nor reflect well on him; and that he shares President Bush’s tendency to be excessively dependent on cronies instead of seeking out independently minded talent.

It is appreciated that this picture of Rumsfeld is at odds with his media image as a charming, straight-talking, decisive and effective Secretary of Defense, but it is supported both by inside sources, and by a truly significant quantity of evidence.

Most compellingly, many of Rumsfeld’s actions and decisions, or failures to take action, demonstrate clearly that there is a serious gap between the image and the substance of the man.

• Although well aware in 2001 that he had a serious – and very real - problem with the competence of a number of senior Army generals, he took no action. Further, he showed weakness in dealing with General Shinseki despite the fact that he considered Shinseki, for very good reasons, unfit for his post as Army Chief of Staff. These decisions, or lack of decisions, were to prove disastrous in the case of Iraq. Why? Because inadequate Army generals ended up running the operation. Here, it is worthwhile contrasting the example of General Marshal who sacked dozens of Army generals and hundreds of colonels when he took office. He knew fully well that the garrison peacetime Army had produced more careerist blockheads than creative warfighters. After all, these were the same type of people who had court-martialed Billy Mitchell for warning of the potential of aerial warfare; and who had derided the tank in favor of horse cavalry as late as the 1930s. The core Army officer culture of careerist anti-intellectualism has not changed over the decades.
• Although well aware that his Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, was not up his job, Secretary Rumsfeld left him there for President Bush’s first term because it would have been politically difficult to take action. The problem there was that the Deputy Secretary’s is supposed to run the Department of Defense on a day to day basis. Given that Wolfowitz was notorious for doing nothing and avoiding all confrontation, yet was pushing a neoconservative agenda – which included invading Iraq - the end result was disastrous. Fortunately, today, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England, Wolfowitz’s successor, is proving to be vastly better. Unfortunately, he, too, has a defense contractor background – and it is too late.
• Although he was, and is, well aware that budget of the Department of Defense was, and is, effectively out of control, Secretary Rumsfeld, perhaps because of his close ties with defense contractors, has taken no action. Not only are we now spending more on defense than the rest of the world put together – a truly extraordinary situation – but we are getting far fewer individual platforms for the money because the platforms we are buying are now so complex and expensive they cost vastly more. It would be hard to find a better example of what happens when generals are allowed to pick their own toys without proper civilian control. Experts call this process the death spiral because costs per unit increase so much eventually one can only afford one per category. Ridiculous though that sounds, reflect that the B2 bomber now costs about $2 billion per unit and that because of its complexity only about 30% are available for action at one time – yielding an effective cost of about $6 billion per operational bomber. The Israelis run their entire defense forces – Army, Navy and Air Force - on about twice that amount, and they are scarcely deficient in either size or sophistication.

Secretary Rumsfeld’s errors in relation to both Afghanistan and Iraq are, arguably, too numerous to mention in detail, but certain points are worth covering.
• Rumsfeld allowed himself to be distracted – by the invasion and occupation of Iraq - from the entirely valid pursuit of Bin Laden, Al Qaeda and the Taliban very early on, with the result that not only are the Taliban resurgent, and Afghanistan under-resourced and unstable, but Bin Laden has not been caught.
• Rumsfeld was, and remains, an active participant in the Administration’s extraordinarily destructive policies towards the detention of detainees. These led, inevitably, to a climate where abuse towards prisoners was not just tolerated, but actively encouraged; and which, in turn, led to scandals such as Abu Ghraib and many others. The strategic effect of these policies has been to cost the U.S. the moral high ground in the War on Terror, to alienate potential allies and to build support for our enemies. Mistreatment of prisoners is also of dubious military effectiveness, particularly in an insurgency where winning the support of the local community is so essential. And it is wrong.
• Rumsfeld’s sustained involvement in the formulation of the attack plan to remove Saddam Hussein is a matter of record. Accordingly, it is near inexplicable that he should have given so little attention to what would happen after Saddam was toppled. Arrogance or ignorance or both? One can but conjecture. However, we do know that the consequences – which were predictable, and which are still with us – have proved to be disastrous. Two of his failures in this regard are worth identifying: Firstly, he was party to the fatal decision to disband the Iraqi Army; secondly, he was party to the strange decision to appoint the entirely inadequate Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez as land forces commander in Iraq.

Rumsfeld has claimed credit for transforming the U.S. military to make it leaner, lighter and more expeditionary – and, thus, more capable of fighting the GWOT (the Global War On Terror). The evidence suggests that not only are we losing the war in Iraq, but the military remain as service oriented, and procurement driven as ever. Further, the facts are that where change has taken place, the initiatives for such changes, whether for better or worse, normally started before Secretary Rumsfeld took office.

The attack on Secretary Rumsfeld by the posse of retired generals should not lead to his dismissal. The retired generals, in most cases, were part of the problem and are now trying to distance themselves from the failure in Iraq. No, Secretary Rumsfeld should go because of his failures in his job. Being charming and witty and a master of illusion is not a substitute for competence when it comes to being Secretary of Defense of this nation.

“I was only following orders.” The very, very model of a modern Major General – and that’s the problem.

2006-04-19T11:38:00.000-04:00

On March 19, 2006, recently retired Major General Paul D. Eaton, in an Op-Ed in The New York Times, called for the immediate dismissal of his erstwhile boss, Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.

Rumsfeld, he argued, “is not competent to lead our armed forces.” He went on to state: “In sum, he (Rumsfeld) has shown himself incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically, and is far more than anyone else responsible for what has happened to our important mission in Iraq.”

Major General Eaton then went on to say: “In the five years, Mr. Rumsfeld has presided over the Pentagon, I have seen a climate of groupthink become dominant and a growing reluctance by experienced military men and civilians to challenge the notions of the senior leadership.”

Brave stuff – and there is no doubt that Secretary Rumsfeld has a great deal to answer for – but it misses the key point that that the our Army generals are at least as much to blame. In effect, General Eaton is trying to distance the Club of Generals from the fiasco in Iraq – and his accusations will not stand because it was and remains the job of those very same generals to implement the policies of the administration, and the evidence quite clearly shows that their track record has been abysmal.

Look no further than the results after three years of war in Iraq. Precisely how can one invade a country with no plans for what do after the invasion is successful? That defies credulity. Then consider the fact that one of the poorest nations in the world has fought the richest nation in the world to a halt even though we are spending $6.8 billion a month there. That is a demonstration of incompetence by those in charge, the generals, on an epic scale. Then factor in Abu Ghraib and the consistent way in which the blame has been kept away from general officers – even when the evidence points clearly in their direction.

Simply put, the generals must be held accountable too. They are the interface between policy and action, and the notion that they can wriggle out of responsibility because they had not got the guts to stand up to Secretary Rumsfeld is more a condemnation of the lack of character of our generals than a criticism of the Secretary.

Honorable generals resign – and then speak out publicly - when asked to do things they are fundamentally opposed to. Instead, the current crop of generals has chosen to put its careers ahead of country, its lavishly paid defense contractor retirement jobs ahead of the welfare of its soldiers, and to adopt the Nuremburg strategy: I was only following orders. It’s someone else’s fault.

That will not do. When you are a general, with all the authority, prestige, rewards and responsibilities of such a position, you have a proportionate duty of care towards the nation you have sworn to defend. If you take your oath as an officer seriously, you do not have the option to be a moral coward and to take refuge in groupthink. Morally, you must do the right thing. It is your obligation as an American soldier, and it is your sworn duty as a general.

Or it used to be. All too many of the current crop seem to lack the competence, character and values which the rank of general requires.

Retired Major General Eaton concludes his article by urging that Congress must assert itself. He points out: “Too much power has shifted to the executive branch, not just in terms of waging war but also in planning the military of the future. Congress should remember it still has the power of the purse; it should call our generals, colonels, captains and sergeant to testify frequently…”

He is partially right, but he misses the two main points: Firstly, the Senate needs to pay much closer attention to the caliber of the generals it confirms. Secondly, it must hold the generals of this Great Nation accountable in the fullest sense of the word – or Iraq will merely be another name on a list of grotesquely expensive military disasters.

What is war, anyway? And is there a connection with oil at $72 a barrel?

2006-04-19T10:59:00.000-04:00

Most of us tend to think of war as armed conflict between military forces – whether regular or irregular – but I have come to the conclusion we would be wiser to adopt a much broader working definition, and to adapt ourselves accordingly. Right now we’re spending truly vast sums of the nation’s scarce resources on preparing for, and fighting, conventional wars, while ignoring a significant range of threats which can cause at least as much damage – and, arguably, more - to the essence of this country, compared with, for instance, conventional military weapons such as aircraft or tanks or submarines.

In short, we’re wearing intellectual blinkers which is never a good idea when one is surrounded by dangers which emanate from the full spectrum.

What are these additional threats – or, at least, those we know about? The range is wide, and includes both obvious menaces to our national wellbeing, such as economic warfare (which most people don’t understand), and much fuzzier dangers such as an inadequately educated and informed public, a Congress that is in thrall to commercial interests, a food chain that is in deep trouble, an infrastructure that is seriously frayed, the loss of our manufacturing base, a balance of payments deficit that is approaching a trillion dollars a year, a budget deficit that is approaching half a trillion dollars a year, an unhealthy addiction to oil – and so on; and on; and on.

We’ve acquired some bad habits over the years; and some very bad leaders. Circumstances, or someone’s deliberate design? Well, that is a very good question.

Now you may say that these additional threats not only have nothing to do with war, but are not being (and cannot be) used by our enemies – so should scarcely be the concern of our warfighters. In reply, I would merely request that you think more deeply about these issues because I think the logic of what I am saying will finally hit home. But, first let me add a little context.

It is my belief that our enemies – mostly smart people with patience - know perfectly well that they cannot defeat us in a head on traditional military confrontation, so, instead, have adopted a multi-faceted long term strategy in which we are encouraged to defeat ourselves – with a little help from behind the scenes. Here, I don’t see defeat as the U.S. being laid waste, much as Germany was in 1944, but more as a steady process whereby we are seriously weakened over time to a point where we can no longer influence events, and become irrelevant to the ambitions of others. You could call it ‘Defeat by a Thousand Cuts.’ Others may see it more as process of being bled to death; or being strangled very slowly. Ironically, may Americans may not even notice the whole business happening until the negative trends are irreversible. War by stealth, you might say. It is scarcely a new invention. Sun Tzu was born in China in 500BC and one of his most famous sayings is: “The best battle is the battle that is won without being fought.” He did not see war as breaking things and killing people – unless there was absolutely no alternative.

The trouble with our current, blinkered, attrition oriented approach is that not only are we failing to recognize the threats we are up against, but that we are producing warfighting leaders who are entirely inadequate to their tasks. To them, war is about blowing up a target set, and having Kellogg, Brown and Root provide “comfort while you kill.” The downside, that such mindless brutality creates enemies faster than we can kill them, both in the country in question, and internationally, seems to be missed.

As a consequence, we had Vietnam, but paid no attention to the clear lessons of that war. So, now we have Iraq at $6.8 billion a month out of the U.S. taxpayers’ pockets (and that is only part of it). And, as an added bonus, the price of oil has risen to $72 a barrel – over three times the price it was at before the invasion.

Worse yet, a great deal of that extra money is going to finance the very people and nations who hate us most. No wonder the Iranians can afford nuclear weapons. We’re giving them the money – and, by threatening them, and creating instability, we are driving up the price of oil.

We need to re-think how we think about the American way of war.

Everyone says it’s the Iraq war that’s pulling Bush’s ratings down. I’m not so sure.

2006-03-20T15:49:00.000-05:00

I miss the current affairs coverage one gets in Europe so try and compensate by, amongst other things, watching the talk shows on Sunday. They don’t remotely compensate, because they are geared more towards infotainment than information, but at least they get me up on Sunday mornings. Mind you, why that is a good thing escapes me – but I’ll deal with that issue some other time. However, I think I should warn you that my mother used to breakfast in bed no earlier than 10.00 am – breakfast being brought on a tray by a servant - before bathing, and then descending for a pre-luncheon sherry at midday. I’ve got a different tradition, but you have to admire style.

One of the things I have noticed recently is that all the pundits attribute Bush’s recent lousy ratings solely, or, at least, primarily, to the war in Iraq. “It’s Iraq, stupid,” seems to be the mantra and a very credible mantra it is given the fiasco that is the Iraq war – which also happens to be costing us, according to Pentagon Controller Tina Jonas, $6.8 billion a month.

$6.8 billion a month! Call it $7 billion and that equates to $84 billion a year and that is before you add so many extra military costs to the taxpayer that I’ll only depress you if I mention them. And to make matters worse, we’re borrowing a great deal of this moola from the Chinese and other people who don’t terribly like us. Quite how putting the nation into major hock helps the security of this nation escapes me, but maybe Bush has climbed the Beanstalk and found the goose that lays golden eggs.

Or maybe he just believes: “Let the voter pay – after I’ve gone.”

Back to Bush’s recent lousy ratings.

Nonetheless, I’m not so sure that the Iraq War is the dominant cause of his woes. My private theory is that the Iraq war is more a symptom of a deeper worry and that the real reason why more and more Americans are feeling concerned is that they are slowly wising up to the fact that although the economic figures look great in global terms, they hide the fact that most Americans are seeing their economic positions erode in real terms. Sure they are compensating by borrowing more to keep up the standard of living which they think they are entitled to, but the fact remains that when, at four in the morning, the picture of the underlying reality floats into focus, they wonder and worry.

Regrets for the delay between blogs, but I took time off to focus solely on book-writing. There were several reasons for this:

2006-03-17T12:19:00.000-05:00

• Firstly, I needed all the energy I could get to wrestle with ‘The Blood Of Generations.’
• Secondly, a whole bunch of readers wrote in and said, in effect: “We love your blogs, but we’d prefer more books - so blog less and write more!”
• Thirdly, I wanted to get some feedback from my initial burst of blogs.

I have a hard time saying ‘The Blood of Generations’ is finished, because I am now an experienced enough author to know no book is close to being finished until it appears in print, but suffice to say that it is now a complete story and a terrific thriller – and I’m very proud of it.

Are President George Bush & The Republican Party secretly members of Al Qaeda? Their agendas certainly coincide.

2005-10-04T07:44:00.000-04:00

“Look not at what they say, but what they do.” Old Washington D.C. Proverb – along with “Count your fingers after you shake hands in this town – and wash them afterwards too.” Inside the Beltway (the ring road that circles Washington) betrayal is almost an act of friendship; and it is certainly part of the initiation process.

But enough of cheery talk about the capital of the arsenal of democracy (and the World’s largest debtor – and climbing).

The great thing about Osama is that, rather like Hitler, he tells his enemies what he is up to and, frankly, he’s a better communicator; a sort of Moslem Moses; a positive maestro of simple declarative statements of mayhem. And with the advantages of working with Al Jazeera and Fox News to get his message out. Together with a secure cave, a well oiled Kalashnikov, plenty of hot tea and the prospect of seventy-two virgins, what more could a maniac want?

For the U.S. economy to be screwed? Actually, yes.

Hitler was equally specific when he listed his plans for World domination in Mein Kampf, but with reviews like “Beyond the anger, hatred, bigotry, and self-aggrandizing, Mein Kampf is saddled with tortured prose, meandering narrative, and tangled metaphors….” (taken straight from Amazon.com) and only Goebbels as his press agent, one can see why the Rhineland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, France, Norway, Denmark and Russia were surprised when his troops blasted in. Who would have guessed the man had a yen for invasions? Even the book jacket was a hard read.

But enough of marketing failures – though I note in passing that Mein Kampf is selling all over the place these days (which should cause someone, somewhere, some concern). The point is that Osama has been quite specific that his main effort is focused on the destruction of the U.S. economy.

9/11 was no more than a symbolic launch party. Osama’s longer term strategy is for us to overspend so much, we’ll never get out of the hole. Fundamentally, he wants us to go bust - and guess who is helping him?

The U.S. military? Close!

You’ve guessed it: President George W. Bush and the Republican Party (including those well known symbols of high moral principle, conservative compassion and cuddliness, Dick Cheney and Tom DeLay). And, to coin a phrase, they’re doing one heck of a job.

They are spending this great Nation into the gutter.

The Pentagon: Thieves, Incompetents – or both.

2005-09-07T08:56:00.000-04:00

Bottom line - they cannot account for our money.

The United States of America was established, so legend says, by a bunch of fiercely independent settlers who were not prepared to tolerate the depredations of their English rulers – so determined to govern themselves. In support of this objective, they came up with a truly admirable document which we know as the U.S. Constitution. Fundamental to that Constitution was a deep understanding of the frailties of human nature – which were to be countered by checks and balances – and the concept of accountability.

Accountability.

The military definition of accountability is admirably clear:

“(DOD) The obligation imposed by law or lawful order or regulation on an officer or other person for keeping accurate record of property, documents, or funds. The person having this obligation may or may not have actual possession of the property, documents, or funds. Accountability is concerned primarily with records, while responsibility is concerned primarily with custody, care, and safekeeping. See also responsibility.

So much for the theory. Now read on about the practice and reflect that the Pentagon’s extraordinarily high expenditures – which they seem either incapable or unwilling to monitor - are currently putting every man, woman and child in this country ever deeper into debt. A strong military is one thing – and eminently desirable. An irresponsible military which displays scant concern for the American taxpayer is something else entirely.

The last bastion of accountability is not the Supreme Court. It is the American voter. If he or she chooses to remain ignorant and indifferent we are likely to receive a practical lesson – sooner rather than later - in how a Great Power collapses.

GAO Investigator Rips Pentagon On Iraq War Finances Boston Globe, July 15, 2005

Full accounting lacking, he says

By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff

WASHINGTON -- Congress's chief investigator yesterday blasted the Pentagon for its ''atrocious financial management," saying the Defense Department was not able to give federal oversight officials a full accounting of the $1 billion being spent each week on the war in Iraq.

''If the Department of Defense were a business, they'd be out of business," David Walker, comptroller general of the Government Accountability Office, said at a breakfast with reporters yesterday.

''They have absolutely atrocious financial management."

The GAO has been examining the Pentagon's Iraq expenses, and ''we're having extreme difficulty in getting the Department of Defense to provide a full accounting of what they're spending" there, Walker said.

''I can't understand how we're spending $1 billion a week."

Walker said the money the government is spending on homeland security and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had little to do with what he called a looming budget crisis. But the Pentagon, whose work is monitored by the GAO, is not accounting for the money it is spending and is ''not doing an adequate job" of defining whether the money that is being spent is accomplishing what the government wants, he said.

Maybe the time has come to think a little more about how we chose our government leaders: All our government leaders.

2005-09-03T14:10:00.000-04:00

Business corporations are not without their murky side (to put it mildly) but eventually the pressures of the marketplace tend to ensure that incompetence will be detected. One early warning sign is an unsatisfactory profit trend (though such results can be, and are, fiddled) but the definitive warning sign – albeit, delivered a little late in the day - is when the corporation in question runs out of cash.

That simple signal tends to get everyone’s attention. It is one of the wonders of capitalism – a genuinely self-correcting mechanism if operated properly (a major qualification which I will comment on some other time).

The trouble with government is that it does not have a readily recognizable built in self-correcting mechanism so it is not only possible, but common, for all kinds of charlatans and idiots to reach high office and there wreak havoc on the wellbeing of the public while, at the same time, using public funds – our money - to keep themselves in power. A creature from outer space, on a fact-finding trip, might well find this an odd situation but such is, indeed, the reality of how most advanced Earth democracies operate. Still, the creature might well note that some Earth countries function rather better than others.

He might then tend to look at the United States of America and wonder what the Vulcan mind-meld was going on!

We seem to have a leadership and competence crisis – ideally the two should be related - which stretches from the presidency to the generals to the Bol Weevil Directorate (if it does not exist, it will soon); and it shows every sign of getting much, much, much, much worse. Mediocrities employ and promote even greater mediocrities (because they don’t want to be shown up by smart asses) in a cycle which makes no small contribution to the dumbing down of America.

But, already I can hear your patriotic sensibilities cutting in: “America is the richest and strongest country in the World,” you are crying.

“Well, we could also be in the running for the title of ‘The World’s Most Incompetent Nation,” I could reply – but I am too polite. That said, I would like to submit a few modest offerings to support my incompetent leadership thesis – which is another way of saying that a truly alarming number of branches of the US Government seem to be run by people who don’t know how many legs to place in one half of a pair of pajama bottoms; and even when prompted, they are totally baffled by the issue of how many toes to insert.

But, let me return to my very brief listing of supportive facts. For further data, look no further than the daily news.

The state of the Presidency:

Exhibit #1 President George W. Bush. Do I need to say any more? I think not. Still, I think it is worth noting: that a budget surplus has been turned into a massive budget deficit on his watch; that oil was under $30 when he was elected – and is now over $70; that he has no energy policy worthy of the name; that he has done more damage to the global environment than Saddam Hussein; that he has no infrastructure policy; that the poor have become poorer each and every year he has been in power; and that his running of the invasion of Iraq – carried out for specious reasons – has been a demonstration of incompetence and callousness under more headings than one might care to name. And now he has the distinction of being the first American president to preside over the loss of a complete American city.

The conduct of the War In Iraq:

One might be tempted to blame Commander-In-Chief, President George W. Bush for all the deficiencies in the conduct of the Iraqi War, but it is doubtful that he is sufficiently competent – in an executive sense – to have caused such a series of disasters by himself. Here, he was well assisted by Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, and by an Army Leadership, led by CENTCOM Combatant Commander, General Abizaid, whose performance has been consistently inadequate. The point here is that an exercise to remove a tyrant – albeit for the wrong reasons – did not have to turn into a brutal and ineffective occupation. Though a series of bad decisions and incompetent leadership we turned ourselves from liberators into occupiers. In effect we created the situation that we are now attempting to resolve at enormous cost in blood, misery, money and despair. And there is still no end in sight.

The conduct of the War On Terror:

The objectives of the War On Terror were fairly simple. We were to either bring to justice or kill those responsible – and make the Homeland secure to prevent anything like 9/11 happening in the future.

Four years later, Osama Bin Laden is still free, the restoration of Afghanistan has been neglected because of the focus on Iraq, we have earned the contempt of much of the World, and Homeland Security is a mess: air cargo still is not checked; our ports are not remotely secure; the Mexican border remains wide open; and, as to our capability in the event of a major terrorist attack, consider the reaction to Hurricane Katrina – and weep.

The state of US Government agencies:

After 9/11 there was a spontaneous pulling together of the nation coupled with virtually blind support for the institutions of government.

Subsequently, we have learned through a series of well documented reports that our blind faith in government was decidedly less than justified and four years after 9/11 it is becoming clear that, despite the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars of our money, the overall situation has not improved to an extent remotely commensurate with the expenditures involved. Reflect that after close to a quarter of a century, NASA still has not been able to sort out the problems with the space shuttle. Reflect that Homeland Security has a budget of $41.1 billion for FY2006 and look at its current performance in relation to Hurricane Katrina – and cringe. Then reflect that our border with Mexico remains, four years after 9/11, close to wide open.

The question of why we have so many lousy leaders running our government has to be asked; and answered.

As I have written before, when writing about the inadequacies in the Army General Officer Corps, leadership matters. However, the Army does not have a monopoly on that requirement. The self evident truth is that leadership matters in every walk of life.

But here I am writing about the need for true and effective leadership in government – the government of the United States of America - where special factors such as the sheer scale of the enterprises to be led, and politics, are involved.

And the question is: Why do we have so many poor leaders in government at this time?

Here is what I think.

Party loyalty rules:

Patronage – defined as “The power to distribute or appoint people to governmental or political positions” – is fundamental to the US party system and has probably been around since we lived in caves. Nonetheless, it is a highly dubious practice if party loyalty is regarded as the main attribute leading to selection as seems to be the case far too often – particularly where the Bush Administration is concerned. If competence and character are not regarded as fundamental requirements we are on a slippery slope right there.

Careerism is endemic:

Careerism is the curse of the military though, regrettably, certainly not confined to them. It means, in essence, putting one’s career ahead of the mission – including sacrificing one’s integrity in the interests of expediency. It is a pattern of behavior which tends to stultify initiative because advocating change, or doing anything different from the norm, might upset one’s superiors. It tends to breed an obsession with appearance ahead of substance – “Looking good ahead of doing good.” Careerists typically rise on the coat tails of a mentor and will do everything necessary to please that mentor. In turn, as they advance, they acquire their own entourages of servile, ambitious hangers-on. It is a very dangerous cycle because it is self perpetuating and absolutely antithecal to people of character. It is also extraordinarily hard to eliminate because careerism works so well. Careerists do get to the top – at great disadvantage to the public weal. Look no further than the conduct of the war in Iraq to see careerism in action.

Sycophancy is normal:

Leaders of character typically loathe sycophants because, apart from the crassness of such behavior – defined as “fawning obsequiousness” - it means they are being told only what they want to hear as opposed to what they need to hear. However, sycophants are more the norm than the exception in government. You can often pick them out during photo-ops and press conferences. They constitute the rows behind the Public Figure – slightly out of focus, but secure that their turn will come. It normally does, and therein lies the problem.

Cronyism is rife:

My dictionary defines ‘cronyism’ rather succinctly as: “Favoritism shown to old friends without regard for their qualifications, as in political appointments to office.” Hard to top that explanation. Absolutely rife in the military where, currently, competence at general officer level does not seem to be a requirement. Is that damming or what!

Dumbed-down America may be reaching the upper echelons:

There is great debate about whether dumbing-down is really taking place in this country. Personally, I think we probably have as much innate talent as ever, though I have strong doubts as to whether it is developed as well as it used to be. Given that the brain needs exercise as much as the body, albeit of a different sort, that is not a good thing. For instance, children used to be brought up to be much more self reliant whereas today they are scheduled and confined to an extent that does little to encourage initiative. As to the US school system, the last thing it encourages is independence of mind; and it is academically awful (as international comparisons demonstrate again and again).

There is a belief that the high quality of US Third Level education compensates for the crassness of the school system – but I have strong doubts as to its validity. Now clearly there are many excellent Third Level institutions, but overall I notice a pervasive tendency to train rather than to educate. As a consequence, we are producing large numbers of degree holders who know their own specialties well, sometimes brilliantly, but who lack the ability and intellectual curiosity to think creatively outside their areas of expertise.

I call them ‘Professional illiterates.’ They are disturbingly common.

The Rise of ‘The Cheating Culture: Why More American Are Doing Wrong To Get Ahead:’

I am prompted to include this observation after reading an extraordinary book of that name by David Callahan. In it, and it is a remarkably calm and reasoned book, he makes a persuasive case that America’s winner-take-all society has created an imperative to get ahead at virtually any cost to the point where America is losing its moral compass. A corollary of that claim is that far too many of our leaders have secured their high positions by cheating or deception; and that they lack a moral compass.

Conclusion:

This is such an important issue that I don’t want to suggest I have any answers. I just want to define the problem, illuminate it a little and recommend that we think about it a great deal more.

The underlying point is that the consequences of bad leadership in government are so disastrous. Inadequate leaders with big egos have a tendency to lead us into famine, flood, pestilence and war – which, for many, adds up to destruction.

Right now, President George W. Bush seems to be right on target.

We have every right to feel very afraid.

Maybe the environment is a player in this thing we call National Security? And, just maybe, it is sending us a message.

2005-09-01T12:48:00.000-04:00

The Bush Administration will go down in the annals as the most environmentally destructive bunch of greedy opportunists in American history. Theirs is neither an innately Republican pattern of behavior nor a predictable Democratic weakness. It is mostly no more complicated than corruption and carelessness run rampant.

To be frank, you could probably add the adjective ‘ignorant’ – in front of ‘opportunists’ - because Bush and his people seem to operate as if they are not affected by the polluted air we breathe, the poisons we routinely inhale, the contaminated water we drink and the hormone fed, and otherwise over-treated, and over-sprayed, cancer and nerve disease inducing meat, poultry, fruit and vegetables we eat. And I could probably dwell for a while on our polluted fish stocks – though they may not be a problem for long at the rate we are over-fishing.

Apparently to be a Bush Republican is to be environmentally immune. But is that possible, I hear you cry?

Let me give you the long answer: “No!”

It may be scant consolation, but Bush Republicans are as mortal as anyone else. They, too, shall pass.

All of this brings to mind the thought that National Security is not just about defending this nation against terrorists. It is a must more fundamental and far-reaching obligation which the Bush Administration has knowingly and repeatedly reneged on.

Hurricane Katrina is, so to speak, a warning shot across the national bows. If we don’t pay attention, there will be a great deal worse to come. American infrastructure, health, wellbeing and prosperity are all fragile, vulnerable targets waiting to be hit.

Terrorism is a symptom of a blend of desperation and misunderstanding; but it is not the core threat.

The core threat is our behavior.

Caliber & Character: Are both flawed? Rumor has it that a damning report by the Picatinny Arsenal on the 5.56mm cartridge is being suppressed.

2005-08-30T16:25:00.000-04:00

“Prosser shot the man at least four times with his M4 rifle. But the American M4 rifles are weak--after Prosser landed three nearly point blank shots in the man's abdomen, splattering a testicle with a fourth, the man just staggered back, regrouped and tried to shoot Prosser.”

The above is extracted by a truly remarkable August 2005 combat report from Mosul, Iraq, written by Michael Yon. You can read the original – and see his action photographs - on his blog at www.michaelyon.blogspot.com

The issue here is not the gun fight in Mosul, but the disturbing fact that the 5.56mm round which we have used since Vietnam has, once again, shown that it is not a man-stopper. It will certainly kill eventually, and it is light and accurate at modest ranges, but it has a disconcerting track record of failing to take a hostile out before he has time to shoot back.

How many American lives have been lost through the deficiencies of the 5.56mm round are hard to calculate but combat veterans emphasize that the total is high – and that such deaths would be entirely preventable if we had a round that was up to the job.

The combination of the War on Terror and the fact that the Army is due to pick a new rifle has brought the question of rifle caliber front and center yet again. Special Forces seized the initiative and, after numerous tests, came to the conclusion that a 6.8mm round would deliver significantly improved killing performance while still retaining a useful degree of backward compatibility.

It is not the purpose of this piece to back any particular choice but more to draw attention to the importance of the issue – our soldiers are in small arms contact multiple times each and every day – and to express serious concern at the behavior of the Army leadership. Not only has the issue of the inadequacies of the 5.56mm round been glossed over for about forty years, but I am advised that attempts are being made to suppress a new report by the Picatinny Arsenal on this vital subject.

The word is that the Army are determined to retain the inadequate 5.56mm caliber round because they have so much invested in it – despite its poor combat performance.

This is a situation which is remarkably reminiscent of the Army’s mismanagement of the body army and Humvee issues. It is an absolute indictment of the character of the Army generals in charge.

Do you have to sell your brain to be a soldier (or to work for the government)?

2005-08-19T10:10:00.000-04:00

Our greatest human resource is brainpower - yet the paradox of the military is that the construct they work within is based upon a form of discipline which is inherently and actively hostile to an independent cast of mind.

For the most part, if you are a creative and original soldier, the system will either hammer you into conformity at an early stage, or else cut off your chances of promotion much beyond O5 or O6 – Lieutenant-Colonel or Colonel. As a consequence we get, mainly in the officer corps, what is known as the ‘Military Mindset’ – intellectually limited, careerist (in the case of some), conservative, conformist, predictable – albeit, more often than not, though certainly not always, physically brave – though morally timid.

As they say, and it is an observable fact, most officers will put their lives on the line way before they will risk their careers. Moral courage is a rare thing in the military if only because it is rarely rewarded and almost invariably punished.

The Military Mindset is no small problem because it means, in effect, that we have an intellectually limited military which is operating way below the human potential which would normally be represented by the large numbers of people that are contained within the military. Further, natural selection takes place before most people join the military. Truly creative thinkers steer clear because they cannot stand the thought of living without intellectual freedom. Conversely, unimaginative types naturally tend to gravitate towards the reassurance of a military structure. Either way, the military neither attracts nor encourages the intellectually brightest.

The Military Mindset exists because the military are addicted to a particularly rigid form of hierarchical discipline that was originally developed to cope with large numbers of almost completely un-educated soldiers – and which, I would argue, is no longer appropriate for today. In fact, even the Romans had trouble with it when they had to deal with unconventional warfare. This is not to say that the military do not need discipline – all human endeavor is shaped by discipline to some extent or other – but more that the military’s existing form of rigid, zero fault, hierarchical discipline needs to be modified significantly to the point where authority is delegated to the lowest level possible and rules are more of a guide than a cage.

The US has a particular problem with the Military Mindset both because it now makes such extensive use of military retirees as consultants (people who have been already been conditioned to be as conformist as the serving military) and because the Federal Government is nearly as hierarchical, rigid and bureaucratic as the military.

Rigid minds are at least as great as great a threat to National Security as terrorism – and, probably a great deal more so.

Rotten policies, rotten generals – and rotten results.

2005-08-17T09:58:00.000-04:00

A persistent theme of this blog is that we have a serious problem with both the quality and the integrity of many of our current crop of US Army generals. Simply put, we have the wrong people – subject to some exceptions - leading the Army. They are self-seeking careerists for the most part and, above all, they are not professional. They know how to keep up appearances but they lack the necessary breadth and depth of knowledge to be masters at what they do. They are neither informed or experienced. Some are entirely out of their depth. More than a few are extremely dumb. Most are risk averse (in the sense that any action might damage one’s career – so inaction is preferable).

Rotten leadership tends to produce rotten results which is why we have the mess we have in Iraq. It really did not have to be this way. A fiasco of such proportions was not inevitable. In fact, it was caused, to a significant extent, by the inactions and actions of a number of senior generals in the US Army. In essence, they, the Army generals, set the conditions for chaos in Iraq to result – and, predictably, our enemies, and many ordinary Iraqis who were not terrorists, but who were apalled at much US Army behavior, rose to the occasion. If the roles were reversed, and America was invaded by a bunch of Iraqis to remove an undesirable leader, many Americans would have behaved exactly the same way. People are naturally territorial – and they find it unacceptable to be invaded.

Many insiders know about this situation but so far have been reluctant to comment publicly because of a feeling that they would be pilloried for criticizing the Army during a time of war. This is classic misguided patriotism because the very time you really do need to seek out incompetent Army leadership is in time of war. That is when incompetence gets soldiers killed and jeopardizes the success of the Mission. Further, the leadership of any organization should never be confused with the led. The buck stops with those in charge, with people like General Abizaid, Lieutenant General Sanchez and General George Casey and so on.

So far, the Army generals have done a masterful of deflecting criticism by aggressively, but secretively, blaming the Bush Administration for sending them to war without enough troops (not necessarily a valid accusation, by the way) and by wrapping themselves in the flag. Dr. Samuel Johnson came up with the statement, “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel,” to describe exactly such false behavior.

The Bush Administration is very far from innocent if only because members of that Administrations, such as Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, refused to fire Army generals they knew were inadequate for the tasks at hand. Nonetheless, the truth about Army leadership incompetence is now beginning to leak out from subordinate Army officers who witnessed the poor leadership in detail, from civilian colleagues and from a number of well sourced journalists and academics.

My information is that a series of books exposing the deficiencies of Army generals in Iraq will hit the market in 2006. One of the most interesting promises to be a work by well known author, and Washington Post journalist, Tom Ricks. I am told the working title is ‘Fiasco.’

If the U.S. Government’s first priority is the security of its citizens, then could it be that this Administration’s priorities are simply wrong?

2005-08-15T23:29:00.000-04:00

I submit that the answer to the above very serious accusations is a simple, “Yes!” That said, I invite you to consider carefully the full implications of what this all means. Just for starters, it means that the country is heading in the wrong direction and that the fabled War On Terror may well be one of the lesser problems we have to deal with. But there is more, so think on.

Meanwhile, let me develop my arguments a little further.

The threat of Terrorism: Not a dominant threat.

Terrorism is a threat to a security, and needs to be countered, but it is certainly not the dominant threat to our security that President Bush is making it out to be.

This is not to say that terrorists could not gain access to weapons of mass destruction – pretty much anything is possible – but more that the balance of evidence suggests it is a manageable threat, at a reasonable cost in lives and money, if this Administration does not hype the bogeyman of terror (arguably for reasons of political advantage) into the kind of conflagration that could engulf the Middle East in war, deprive us of oil, seriously damage our economy and cost innumerable American and other lives.

But is such a downside possible?

Sad to say, the evidence of Bush’s track record would indicate that such developments are not only possible but tend towards the probable. This president (the Commander-In-Chief, let us remember) invaded Iraq with no plan about what to do after major combat (which was not that major) finished.

That is not a criticism: It’s an indictment.

But me proceed.

Bush has a strong ego. He does not read. He does not listen. He is not thoughtful. He seems remarkably lacking in intellectual curiosity. He seems to have no analytical ability. He appears to hate foreigners (about whom he knows little even though they comprise 95% of the World’s population). He appears to care little about people’s lives unless they are rich enough to back him politically. He is not informed. He appears to be remarkably lacking in genuine human concern. He functions from within a heavily guarded cocoon served only by a carefully selected group of advisors who will, it appears, do anything – regardless of truth, integrity and morality – to keep him in office. His life, past and present, is a lie at almost every level. In essence, he is a creation of no caliber apart from a salesman’s superficial charm, designed by his minders and political backers to seek and hold onto power solely because of his name. As with any product, from soft drinks to toilet paper, his value lies mainly in his brand recognition.

That totality, since the American public have chosen to elect him to be President of the United States, not once but twice, makes him appallingly dangerous. Like other men of scant worth before him, he would like to make his mark on history, regardless of the cost to the country he leads or the World as a whole.

Consider that in the last few days alone, the price of oil has reached $67 a barrel and the President has threatened Iran with military action. Factor in that he has already threatened Syria and that fighting in Afghanistan is very far from over.

Consider that since the invasion of Iran, for reasons which turned out not to be valid, we have wrecked that nation’s already troubled economy in the guise of saving it; killed, wounded and imprisoned hundreds of thousands of Iraqis; lost about 2,500 American dead (US and Allied military and contractors); had about 14,000 wounded - and damaged the US treasury to the tune of roughly $250 billion and climbing.

In addition, at a time when we have never needed friends more, we have managed to alienate most of the rest of the world to the point where this country is widely despised – even by our traditional allies.

So what, many Americans will reply. We are the strongest country militarily in the World – and the largest economy. No one can take us on.

Look no further than the situation in Iraq to see the lie in that.

Consider the devastating damage that will be done to the US economy if the price of oil continues to increase.

Consider that every increase in the price of oil increases the funding available for the support of terrorism. We are actually bank-rolling our enemies and doing little about it because, amongst other reasons, the President and his family have worryingly close ties with the Saudis (who are the main source of funding, and a not inconsiderable source of manpower, for the terrorists).

Terrorism and Homeland Security – or the lack of it.

The Bush Administration’s oft stated concerns about terrorism – and its foreign adventures - would be more convincing (if still misguided) if, nearly four years after 9/11, adequate precautions had been taken to secure the American Homeland. Instead, we find that the Bush Administration has bowed to the pressures of business interests (who are determined to have cheap labor and positively do not intend to pay for security) to the extent that:

Our borders remain effectively open to the extent that literally millions of illegal immigrants are entering the US each year.

Key targets such as chemical plants, many either near or in major population centers, many capable of inflicting mass casualties if sabotaged, remain as vulnerable as ever.

Incoming containers – and there are millions of them each year - remain virtually un-checked. Air cargo (as opposed to passengers) remains virtually unchecked.

Our accessible infrastructure – bridges, tunnels, power distribution, gas storage, pipelines, refineries, Internet hubs, data centers and so on - remains pretty much as accessible and vulnerable as ever.

Other foreign threats

Clearly we do face other foreign threats though, if you think about it carefully, most supposedly hostile nations are more concerned about our possible actions against them, than they are motivated by a real determination to invade or otherwise hurt us.

In short, we are being threatened because we are threatening. True, these countries do not like us much but, in essence, we are generating our own enemies. In this category, countries such as North Korea, Iran and Syria come particularly to mind; and, longer term, there are more than a few in Washington DC who feel that war with China is inevitable – so are acting in a way which could well make such a cataclysm a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Folks, there are well over 1.3 billion Chinese? And they are a nuclear power with considerable expertise in rocketry? And they are extremely smart?

Do we really want to orchestrate a shooting war, which stands a good chance of going nuclear, with these guys?

Are we nuts? Does nobody remember the lessons of World War I where the World stumbled into an abattoir for humans virtually by accident – and was, seemingly, indifferent to the consequences until it was too late.

By the way, total casualties in WW I – a pre-nuclear conflict - are estimated at around 37.5 million. WW II added at least another 20 million. As to WW III, it might be better for all concerned - not to find out. What is certain is that an awful lot of Americans will die in it to the extent that Vietnam – which we lost – will appear as nothing.

China and the Axis of Evil (a remarkably provocative and stupid phrase) apart, it seems highly likely that other threats will crop up and that some will become extremely dangerous. Such is the nature of the world we live in. One could come up with many examples but arguably the simplest would be a revolution in Saudi Arabia which would, simultaneously, deprive us of access to Saudi oil.

Without enough oil, the US economy will tank - and the consequences will not be pretty.

The balance of probability is that the US will have to intervene in various countries in the years ahead both for practical reasons such as the desperate need to keep the oil flowing, and for related reasons such as the need to intervene if Russia (for instance) intervenes in a nation of strategic interest to us.

The irony here is that despite all Secretary Rumsfeld’s talk about Transformation and re-structuring the services to make them faster and leaner and lighter (as if one could assess military competence by weight, or the lack of it) the services and their equipment have ended up about as worn out as they have ever been since WW II.

The War On Terror has left us militarily a great deal weaker –and, particularly in Iraq, has handed the terrorists (who were not initially in Iraq to any significant extent) the moral high ground. And, there is considerable evidence that, two and a half years after the invasion of Iraq, we are losing this particular war. True, the insurgents cannot hurt us much militarily – if we remain cooped up in our giant bases and do little - but they can bleed us both physically and economically, they can neutralize our reconstruction efforts, and they can keep significant portions of the country unstable. In short they can and have denied us the initiative - and that is all they need to do.

Now, riddle me this: Precisely how does that help National Security?

Is Iraq not, indeed, redolent of Vietnam? But wait, it gets worse because Iraq is a country of genuine strategic interest to us.

What are these National Security threats that we should really be concerned about? The ones to worry about are self inflicted. We are in self destruct mode.

My essential point is not that we do not face threats of various degrees of severity from across the globe, but that we need to stop thinking in simplistic military terms.

Instead, there is a real imperative to assess any and all threats in a more holistic way, and to appreciate that although some threats involve physical force and the time honored tradition of breaking things and killing people, others span the spectrum of possibilities from deliberate campaigns to break our will - to economic warfare; and that all these techniques either are, or can be, connected.

More importantly, we also need to wrap our brains around the disturbing reality that one can make a very good case that the main threats to the security of our citizens are internally generated – and that no external enemy at all is necessarily involved.

Indeed, we are currently making ever more impressive progress towards destroying life as we know it in the US from within. We are in self destruct mode. America won’t vanish in a puff of smoke – the process, like cancer, is more insidious – but the quality of American life could well degenerate significantly. In truth, I would argue that it already has but most Americans don’t know it because of unparalleled hype on the one hand and because most Americans are profoundly ignorant of what other countries are achieving.

That may sound alarmist and fanciful but there is plenty of evidence to support that ‘self destruct mode’ claim, and precedent over the millennia shows that most great powers collapse from within – albeit with a little help from the Huns or the Mongols or the Normans or Al Qaeda or whatever bunch happens to be on the approved list of external enemies at the time.

Now, let me list the evidence:

Though one of our greatest points of immediate economic vulnerability is our dependence on imported energy, we have no policy to become self sufficient in energy.

The Bush Administration rammed through an Energy Bill recently so has been touting its successes in the energy field. Unfortunately, although this Energy Bill will do a great deal for the bottom lines of major energy corporates, who scarcely need the tax breaks involved, it will do virtually nothing at all to institute an Energy Strategy. Once more, President Bush has helped a few very rich friends to the great detriment of the American people.

America desperately needs an Energy Strategy. The reasons are obvious and compelling. Three primary concerns are involved here. The first concerns the sheer availability of oil (and other energy products) from unstable foreign suppliers. As matters stand, supply is very far from guaranteed. The second relates to the sheer cost of obtaining such supplies. Even if we can get what we need, will it really be good for this economy to have to pay $100 a barrel – and rising? The third involves our whole approach to the utilization of energy. Do we intend to proceed with consuming energy as normal like a bunch of lemmings until doom is certain - or are we going to change our whole approach to energy utilization?

An energy strategy focused on making America self sufficient in energy could have so many benefits (if properly implemented – positively not a given) it is hard to know where to begin. It would generate high quality jobs, stimulate American ingenuity, galvanize education, improve the environment, reduce our trade deficit, revitalize the economy and aid our technology exports. And it would be fun in the fine tradition of: “Let’s show the bastards!”

One of the arguments of the Bush Administration against an energy strategy is that technological breakthroughs – such as hydrogen power - are not yet ready for prime time so an energy strategy would just be a waste of money.

That sounds credible - because many promising technologies are not fully developed – but it is also grossly misleading.

The facts are that we could do a vast amount to reduce energy consumption right now and to encourage more efficient usage though existing technologies. Corporations did just that after the oil crisis in 1973. They used techniques as simple as increasing insulation to great economic benefit – and that was over 30 years ago. The precedents are there and technology has improved vastly since then - as California’s new Zero Energy Homes, to give one very small example, are demonstrating. The Nation just needs a sense of direction or what some call ‘Leadership.’

The underlying truth is that for America to continue depending on imported energy from unstable foreign sources is a National Security issue of incalculable proportions.

Though our economy is growing well on paper, the fact is that the standard of living for about 80% of the population has not improved for nearly three decades and may well be in active decline right now.

The Bush Administration is currently touting the success of its tax cut led economic policies and points to the facts that the economy is growing at over 3% and that unemployment is down to 5%.

These figures are both true (as far as I know) and grossly misleading in their implications. I hate to quote a cliché but the saying, “There are lies, damn lies and statistics,” instantly comes to mind.

The implication of the Administration touting growth figures is that if the overall economy is growing, your personal income is growing. It is a credible claim at first glance, but the facts, where about 80% of the population is concerned, don’t back it up.

The facts show that the top layer is indeed getting richer, but that the average family is almost certainly losing ground. This is because Bush’s tax cuts were slanted to benefit the rich and corporate interests, and because rising health contributions (even if you do have health insurance), education costs, gas costs and state and local taxes – to name but some of the cost increase elements – are crucifying both the Middle and Working Classes.

Unfortunately, it does not stop there. In addition, we now have a situation where not only are more and more employers cutting back or abolishing health insurance, but even hard earned corporate pensions are at risk for millions.

A reasonable person would, most certainly, regard such an assault on the wellbeing of the average American a National Security crisis.

Though how we treat the environment has a direct effect on our health and the quality of our lives, the overall state of the US environment is a major cause for concern – and that is before one gets to global warming and the impact of a truly vast rash of de-regulation by the Bush Administration.

Research shows that the majority of Americans are not that interested in the Environment (an indictment in itself of both the educational system and government leadership). They don’t seem to think it affects them directly. Preserving the Environment is seen as more of an abstract cause which might be nice to support in theory except that most citizens have more pressing priorities.

Well, such attitudes might be reasonable if the Environment was something you could keep in a store and only take out occasionally but since the Environment concerns the air we breathe, the water we need for survival and wellbeing of the very Earth we dwell on, and live off, such a careless attitude defies rationality.

The facts are that pollution and other abuses of the Environment cause a staggering array of unpleasant and expensive medical problems for millions up to and including death – and that the USA is now so polluted that even if we stopped tomorrow, it would take centuries for the Environment to return to a healthy state; and some damage would be permanent.

Worse still, we have polluted the oceans around us so seriously that even something as traditionally healthy as eating fish regularly can be harmful to one’s health.

Osama Bin Laden would be proud to accomplish so much damage to America – and that is before Global Warming is factored in.

Abuse of the environment is a National Security threat of major proportions.

Though we spend half again or more as other advanced nations spend on health care – and pride ourselves on having the best health care system in the world – the fact is that not only are health costs beginning to hurt and cripple more and more average families, but our international rating shows that the quality of our health care is mediocre at best.

The rich will get outstanding medical care regardless of where they live because they have the money to travel and to pay for it. I wish them well - but the rich are not the issue here. The health care of the average American is – as are the facts that over 40 million American have no health care at all, and over twice that number find themselves in that situation in any one year. Tens of millions of others are under-insured. Further, corporations are cutting back on health benefits at an alarming rate – and health costs are rising way faster than inflation. In fact health costs are now such a major item that they are beginning to impact on the creation of jobs.

The health care system is a mess and it is literally killing people because expensive as it is, it is just not that good. Medical error and hospital acquired infections alone kill a couple of hundred thousand people alone each year – and that is before you get to the side effects of legally prescribed drugs.

American health care casts are more than 50% higher than those of other advanced nations for several measurable reasons: Firstly, insurance companies and HMOs are so concerned not to pay out too much that administrative costs are substantially higher in the US: Secondly, US health care is market driven so there is a primary focus on specifying the patient expensive care instead of focusing - as was traditionally the case – on simply caring for the patient: Thirdly, US pharmaceutical companies grossly overcharge the American consumer with the excuse that breakthrough drugs cost a fortune to produce (ignoring the fact that many are government financed).

The bottom line is that health care is about as fundamental to the safety of the average American citizen as it gets.

Though Americans love American food, there is ever increasing evidence that intensive factory farming techniques are producing raw materials of dubious quality and that the diet we eat by way of processed foods and fast food restaurants is killing way more Americans each year than terrorists could hope to do in a century.

We have had a succession of health scandals from asbestos to smoking, but the biggest scandal by far – which is only just beginning to break - concerns the appalling state of American food. Produce is sprayed with potentially harmful chemicals. Animal raw material such as beef, pork and poultry is overdosed with hormones, antibiotics and other additives – many of which are banned in other countries – reared under cruel and un-hygienic conditions and then when processed, or served in restaurants, prepared in such a way with excesses of salt, sugar, fillers and other additives as to virtually guarantee disastrous health results.

President Bush would be better employed worrying less about the War On Terror and worrying a great deal more about America’s Disastrous Diet.

The situation is so bad and so serious that, despite all the advances in medical care, life expectancy of the average US citizen looks like dropping.

Now if that – the premature death of hundreds of millions of American citizens - is not a threat to National Security, I don’t know what is.

Though most Americans quite rightly want strong defense, one has to be greatly concerned about the results. On the one hand, we are spending more on defense than just about every other nation in the world put together; and, on the other hand, the insurgents in Iraq alone (a nation with a population of only 25 million – compared to our 300 million) have been able to fight us to a de facto standstill.

The US Defense Budget is so vast and so out of control that its excesses are hard to explain because they defy credibility. Thanks to a blend of gross negligence by both the Administration and Congress, and the greed and ignorance of both the defense contractors and the military - and massive corruption all round – we have now reached the stage where not only are we outspending the rest of the World combined (which is lunacy) but we cannot account for what we have spent according to the Comptroller General. Further, the military’s desire for the latest technology is so obsessive that modern weapons have become so expensive on a per unit basis that we can scarcely afford to use them, let alone lose them. In essence, we are spending more and more to buy fewer and fewer weapons.

It does not seem to occur to the Defense Establishment that the national interest requires that other priorities such as Health, Education, Social Security and the Environment have to be met.

To illustrate the point with just two examples, reflect that just one single F-22 fighter costs, at approaching $400 million, roughly the same as a brand new state of the art 250 bed hospital.

Reflect then that we are spending well over one billion dollars a week to keep the Iraq war going – and that the F-22 is near useless in this kind of war.

On top of everything else, not only are we spending far too much on weapons but all too frequently we are buying the wrong things.

Oh, and by the way a single B2 bomber costs $2.114 billion as of 2005. Don’t even ask about spare parts and other running costs. Just weep.

Though we are vastly proud of the myth of American democracy, there is considerable evidence that the real system is not working as originally planned – and that the average American has lost confidence in it. In fact, it gives every sign of being hijacked by the rich and other special interests to the great disadvantage of the average American. In essence, it has become corrupted.

Under the Bush Administration, the budget surplus created by the Clinton Administration – which started office with a deficit inherited from Bush Senior – was eliminated and the greatest deficit in American history created to the great benefit of the rich and to the economic disadvantage of the average American.

Recent research by the Indiana University Center On Congress found that 86% of Americans thinks that lawmakers lie, over 80% think they spend more time on getting re-elected than doing the work of the American public, and about 57% don’t like the way Congress is doing its job (with negative sentiments higher amongst older and well-educated Americans).

During the last Presidential Election, 79 million Americans did not vote.

When the 2005 $286 Transportation Bill was signed by President Bush, it contained 6,371 pork projects – which had nothing to do with the issue at hand – and which wasted the taxpayer an astounding $25 billion.

The above are but a few examples to illustrate a growing feeling that the American political system has been taken over by the rich, and corporate interests, at the expense of the normal working American.

“Washington is corporate occupied territory,” argues Ralph Nader – and there is every evidence that he is right.

“One citizen, one vote,” may well be what the constitution says (roughly) but the realpolitik implementation is far closer to: “One dollar, one vote; more dollars, more votes; many more dollars, more access to the political decision making process.”

One could talk a great deal more about corruption in the electoral process – both Florida and Ohio come to mind re the Presidential election – but the growing lack of trust in the system that is emerging from the American public is far more serious.

Without trust, the system – no matter what you call it – will self destruct. It is also a truly lousy role model for nations trying to emerge from autocratic leadership – such as Iraq. Fundamentally, it suggests that behind a façade of popular participation by the electorate, America is no more democratic in practice than your average dictatorship or oligarchy – where a privileged elite rules the roost regardless of who is nominally in power. Yes, I know that is something of an exaggeration but we are talking perception here. Then again, how apart from reality is the perception?

Is a massive decline in support for American Democracy a crisis – and a threat to National Security?

I would like to believe that most of us would think so - but I am very far from sure.

Though America remains at the forefront of many cutting-edge technologies, American are measurably losing ground across a wide spread of advanced technologies – and many are widely considered to be less than well educated. The ignorance factor: Is there genuine cause for concern?

"First God created idiots. That was for practice. Then he created school boards" Mark Twain

American power rests on the pillars of a vast and vibrant economy, and an extraordinarily innovative and technologically advanced culture – which in turn depends on a highly educated and technologically advanced culture.

Well, that is the good news. Unfortunately, such a past is not indicative of the likely reality in the future. The disturbing news is that a plethora of reports covering everything from international competitiveness to the skills of our secondary school students indicates that we are losing ground rapidly in relation to the capabilities of our peers across the globe. Further, surveys of the general US population, from the average voter to college students, indicates a lack of awareness of general issues that is truly alarming.

Legislative Acts like ‘No Child Left Behind’ generate a great deal of media coverage but the evidence is that they make scant real difference – despite great cost to the taxpayer – because of a near universal tendency by teachers to teach down to the test instead of up to the potential of the students.

The bottom line is not that America has a hopeless educational system – individual aspects shine – but more that most of it is truly not up to international standards.

Many Americans aware of this in a fuzzy sense but fail to realize either the extent or the consequences of the problem – partly because they are not adequately educated themselves. Poor education feeds upon poor education. The dumbing down of America is a spiral – heading down.

Is the dumbing down of America a National Security issue? Of course it is. In fact only someone truly dumbed down would think otherwise.

The essential argument of this document is that there is much more to safeguarding the security of American than jingoistic comments about “Carrying the fight to the enemy,” or “Fighting terrorism in Iraq is infinitely preferable to fighting terrorism in America.”

Such observations are both superficially true but are also grossly misleading.

The truth is that if we do not repair our own weaknesses what happens in Iraq will be the least of our worries.

Sex and the Secretary of Defense

2005-08-10T15:07:00.000-04:00

It is interesting to note that at a time when the situation in Iraq has clearly deteriorated still further, the Secretary of Defense has chosen to exercise his very considerable authority by relieving four star General Kevin P. Byrnes as commander of Army Training and Doctrine Command (better known as TRADOC). The actual order was given by the Army Chief of Staff, General Peter Schoomaker.

Outstanding! At last Rumsfeld is doing something about the incompetence of some of the senior generals in Iraq, I hear you cry.

I’m afraid not. TRADOC is headquartered in Fort Monroe, Virginia, USA, and General Byrnes has been relieved for “Unspecified sexual misconduct” according to an AP report. This catch-all phrase does not, apparently mean that he has slept with a sheep, or a goat or a camel – which might indeed deserve a mild reprimand if carried out publicly in full uniform – but merely that he has, so other reports say, merely been having an affair with a woman other than his wife.

I didn’t know any Army general had that much initiative, I hear you say. But what has sexual adventuring got to do with the US Army? Does the Army claim the right to police a soldier’s sexual morality? You’ve got to be kidding me!

Sad to say, I’m not kidding you. The Army really does have the authority to police the sexual activities of its soldiers in uniform – even if carried out in the privacy of the bedroom; and even if the individuals concerned are actually buck naked.

The tragic aspect of all this is that at a time when the Army has rarely had a worse crop of generals, command incompetence no longer seems to be grounds for dismissal – whereas sexual competence (not that I have any inside information on General Byrnes’ performance as a sexual athlete) is. In fact the situation it is worse than that. So far gross incompetence, criminal activity and in some cases, cowardice in the face of the enemy in Iraq, has mainly resulted in the promotion of the general officers concerned.

Secretary Rumsfeld knows full well that he is singularly ill served by the majority of the current Army General Officer Corps but instead of thinning out the ranks of these people and promoting talent from lower levels – as was done most memorably by General Marshall prior to World War II - he has chosen to adopt the role of a Pontius Pilate and to wash his hands of his responsibilities in the interests of avoiding political controversy.

The price of Secretary Rumsfeld’s negligence and of poor Army leadership is being paid in blood by American soldiers and in money by the American people; and it is also being paid by the people of Iraq who we purportedly invaded to save from a murderous dictator, but now seem to be killing in very large numbers or converting into future terrorists.

The Secretary should worry less about the sexual antics of his generals and much more about whether they are of adequate caliber to lead. Or perhaps, in the light of several years of fiasco, the average American voter should look higher up the chain off command than mere generals and question whether we have the right people in charge at the very top.

It’s an eternal truth: Leadership matters.

Where terrorism is concerned, we should worry a great deal more about what we don’t see than what we do see.

2005-07-29T10:16:00.000-04:00

When confronted with a terrorist campaign, there is a consistent tendency by military counter-terrorists to try and quantify progress, or the lack of it, in numeric form. An awareness of the numbers involved yields the illusion of control. Senior officers armed with numerically quantified charts make statements like: “There remains a great deal of work to be done, but we are confident that we can surmount the challenges that face us.”

That is code for: “I truly, deeply and madly do not what is going on, but I have a sneaking suspicion that whatever it is - is not good for my career -and I want to get out of here ASAP.”

Which is code for: “We’re fxxxed!”

Microsoft’s PowerPoint may well be terrorism’s greatest friend.

My essential point here is that there is a great deal more to a terrorist campaign than bombs and bullets – and that military counter-terrorists have a pronounced tendency to focus on easily quantifiable incidents of violence instead of untangling, and countering, what else the bad guys have been up to.

The truth is that the most serious consequences of terrorism, which have to do with the suborning of the population, are rarely violent in themselves. Violence – and the threat of it - may well help to set the conditions, but the results that ensue from the climate of passion, fear, hate, resentment and hope that is thus created are normally both hard to read and near impossible to quantify. They can, however, be sensed. Counter-terrorism is hugely about feelings, about empathy, about knowing your enemy, and about timing.

The conduct of effective counter-terrorism arguably bears a closer relationship to an involvement in an intense, but doomed, love affair, than to conventional war. It is an intimate, deadly business leavened with intense encounters, misunderstandings, deceptions, conflicting desires and emotion.

It is mutually destructive and rarely is there an easy solution.

But let me close with an example of what terrorists can achieve apart from blowing up things and killing people. In Ireland’s War of Independence against the British – which lasted, very roughly, from 1916-1921 – the Irish freedom fighters (called terrorists or insurgents by the British) stripped effective government control of the population from the British and transferred it to a new, albeit unofficial, Irish administration, before the British really understood what was going on. By the time the British ceded control of Ireland to the Irish, they had, in fact, already lost it in practical terms. Being militarily stronger, and much better armed, the British had won most of the fights, but, virtually without realizing it, they had lost the war.

Does the word ‘Iraq’ resonate in this context.

By the way, independent Ireland is now the richest country in Europe after Luxemburg.

What we don’t know can’t hurt us - if we’re dumb and getting dumber.

2005-07-28T20:01:00.000-04:00

Right now, the US is not being well served by its media - despite the paradox that some of the best journalists in the world work in this country. Given the vital importance of well researched information in the functioning of a healthy democracy, this is not a happy situation.

In fact, it bodes ill for the future of this country because it is likely to lead towards a government by, and for, self-serving special interests – who have bought their way into power - of a worryingly ignorant and manipulated public.

In further fact, there are more than a few concerned citizens who think we have reached that state of democratic breakdown already, and that the democracy we hold up as a role model to the rest of the world, is mainly a well marketed myth, an illusion to keep us content.

Now there is a thought to roll around your brain.

So why is US media – subject to some very notable exceptions, because there are some great publications, TV programs and broadcasting - generally speaking so remarkably mediocre?

US media is now dominated by large commercial interests who clearly fail to understand the moral standard that power needs to be balanced with obligations. Thanks to easing of regulations concerning the legality of owning multiple media outlets (matters like how many radio stations or newspapers one corporation might own – the numbers used to be severely restricted) we have now reached a situation where most media corporations own substantial numbers, and are now monopolies in their immediate areas. Accordingly, they, the corporations, are milking their assets (whether they be newspapers, magazines, TV companies or radio stations) for maximum profitability by feeding the public the media equivalent of fast food – cheaply produced unhealthy instant gratification at the expense of well researched, intellectually stimulating, news (which costs money to report). Such a corporate approach is currently yielding quite astonishing profit margins, but at the price of substantially neglecting the public interest, and of degrading the customer base of the media. The public are not happy and can be seen to be voting with either their subscriptions or their controls. Readership, viewership and listenership of almost all media have dropped, and are continuing to drop. However, profits are still rising because, so far, the market, given the monopoly situation, can – has to - absorb the necessary price increases. Monopoly is about no choice.

Large government, bureaucratic and corporate interests have all learned to control the media remarkably well. The effectiveness of the concept of the press acting as a reliable check to balance out the power of the establishment is now own, sadly to question, First Amendment or no. The system has mutated. It now knows how to neuter checks and balances. In fact, deliberate propaganda has now reached a level of effectiveness, in terms of influencing the public – in this case the American public - that might well turn Goebels green with envy. No, I am not calling government, bureaucratic and corporate interests Nazis (I remain a firm believer in the merits of capitalism); I am merely saying that the current ability of government, bureaucracies and corporate interests to spin, to lie, to distort and to obfuscate is entirely consistent with the Nazi tradition. Control techniques are many but, probably, the main tools used are advertising (“Print that, and I’ll pull my advertising”) and control of access (“No you cannot have an interview with the Secretary of Defense because you have written stuff we don’t like).

Media corporations regard the American public as dumb – and getting dumber; and, as can be seen fairly blatantly, dumb down their content accordingly. I would like to say this media corporate mentality was mere supposition but I have first hand knowledge of it. In fact, some years ago, I was warned by my publishers of the perception that the American public was getting dumber and was advised to dumb down my books. At the time I thought my publishers were joking. I was to learn that as far as their advice to me was concerned, they were not.

I found the whole notion of having to deliberately dumb down my writing singularly disturbing – and did not do it. I don’t write rocket science in the first place – and I really did not think my writing was that unclear. But that is for others to judge.

I would be singularly depressed by all this except that America’s media deficiencies, at least where news is concerned, are substantially compensated for by a quite extraordinary number of truly marvelous non-fiction books. If there is an issue, there is a book on it – and many of these books, at least in my experience are truly excellent. That tells me that the talent is there but that there is something wrong with the distribution.

It would be a great thing to witness a media turnaround.

By the way, if you want more hard data on the unsettling subject of US media, let me reccomend, 'The News About The News: American Journalism in Peril" by Leonard Downie Jr. and Robert G. Kaiser.

Reflect also that Judith Miller is still in prison.

A growing sense of unease about, and antipathy towards, President George W. Bush and his Administration.

2005-07-20T08:10:00.000-04:00

Many of my friends are Republican and, after much soul searching, most seem to have voted for Bush in the 2004 election. Most were not entirely comfortable with George W. Bush – to put it mildly - but the general consensus was that Senator Kerry was a weak candidate, had lost their trust over his anti-Vietnam stance, and, anyway, was something of a doofus; and certainly not a strong enough leader; or at least not charismatic in any shape or form. The guy, it was felt, was more wooden than Gore. Also, they were Republican so how could one, in good conscience, vote for a Democrat unless the case was clear – which it was not. Then there was a strong, over-riding feeling that US should not change leadership in the middle of a war. It would send the wrong signals to the enemy.

These are good people, and most seem to have tried hard to do the right thing, but few were happy with their decision.

But why not?

There were considerable concerns about Bush’s intelligence, about the innate caliber of the man. During the presidential debates he had come across as more of a used car salesman armed with talking points prepared by others than as an intelligent, confident leader. Was Bush, in fact, more image than substance? Was he a merely puppet with Cheney, Rove and a group of well heeled ultra rich pulling the strings?

There was distaste that, once again, as when running in the primaries against Senator John McCain, Bush had sought to secure his election victory through what was clearly a well orchestrated smear (this time by the Swifties). The feeling was that this revealed an unpleasant side to the man, and his people, which did not reflect well on either his party or the dignity of his office. It just wasn’t honorable. It was dirty.

There was great angst about Bush’s seeming indifference towards balancing the budget as well as his apparent lack of concern for the financial wellbeing of the average American – even the average well off American. His spending plans were creating a Federal budget deficit of unparalleled proportions yet his tax breaks primarily benefited the ultra rich. He seemed to be both unaware of, and indifferent to, the ever increasing financial pressures on the Middle Class. He seemed unconcerned about our enormous borrowings, our ever increasing trade deficit, the loss of well paid manufacturing jobs and of a host of other issues fundamental to the financial health of the American voter.

Although Bush projected the image of being a strong leader in the War on Terror, the gaps between his rhetoric and reality seemed to be increasing by the day. The reasons given for invading Iraq turned out not to be valid – and now there were serious questions about whether he really knew what he was doing. Then there were issues about Homeland Security. If we really were under the level of threat he had stated, why were the borders still open over three years later? Why were ports still so vulnerable? Why was rail almost completely neglected? Why were chemical plants mainly accidents waiting to happen?

There was a widespread and growing feeling that the Republican Party, whose traditional values of less government, fiscal rectitude and sensible social concern, had been hijacked by a bunch of Southern opportunists who were working 9/11 and the Religious Right for entirely opportunistic personal advantage – rather than because of belief. True, they were not prepared to vote for Kerry just yet on that basis – because one had to ride out the rough spots in politics, and support one’s party – but such thoughts chafed.

Since the election, none of these reservations have gone away. Instead unease has evolved into antipathy in the face of a President who seems incapable of admitting a mistake, or of really doing very much other than advancing the interests of his well heeled friends.

The War in Iraq is turning out to be a disaster, the military have been weakened, there is every indication that the terrorist threat is increasing, health costs are out of control, American infrastructure is crumbling, the Nation’s international reputation has rarely been lower – and the President’s penchant for smear has surfaced one again.

My friends are not happy campers. They feel the care of the America they love is being both neglected and abused.

And this is just what my Republican friends think…

How much do we know about what is really going on in Iraq?

2005-07-17T08:18:00.000-04:00

A friend of mine who worked in the Green Zone in Baghdad, that heavily guarded bastion reserved for the Commanding General and the Coalition Provisional Authority and its successors, remarked to me that Public Affairs was re-organized while he was around to focus primarily on the folks back home. It was a U.S. Presidential election year. The over-arching objective was to keep the American public happy about progress in Iraq regardless of events. The notions that the truth might have some utility, might possess some inherent moral value, and that maybe the Iraqis should get some serious communication attention, were tossed out the window.

Shortly afterwards, Public Affairs and Information Warfare were merged. Information was now a warfighting tool and would be disseminated as such. Veracity was irrelevant in the new equation. All that counted was the effect. True, major events such as significant bombings or serious attacks could not be glossed over, or hidden completely, but such news could still be delayed, downplayed, spun or otherwise manipulated to such an extent that its impact could be severely diluted. Above all, you could buy time until some major distracting event occurred – the capture of Fallujah being a classic example.

The tendency of the US media to give government statements priority under virtually all circumstances, and to accept them more or less at face value, particularly when National Security issues are involved, has made it even easier for the US government to control the news. Then there are other instruments which can be used to keep the media from asking too many awkward questions including classifying information, and control of access to people, events, transport, security and transportation. Control of access is an extraordinarily powerful tool because without access reporters cannot do their jobs and, as a consequence, may lose them; and it is a tool that is used ruthlessly.

Such an environment of government control, coupled with the very real hazards of carrying out investigative reporting in Iraq, mean that it is highly questionable as to whether the average American citizen has a clear idea of what is happening on the ground in that country. Further, it also means that major stories about events which might be considered embarrassing to the US Government, are rarely, if ever, followed up to resolution. The following few, more obvious, examples illustrate this point. Clearly there are deeper issues concerning the conduct of the war which should also be examined.

What is the true story of Abu Ghraib and why have no senior officers been charged?

Why did the shortage of armored protection occur in the first place – and is it really over?

Why do the military not keep track of both Iraqi insurgents and civilians killed and wounded – and what are the true figures?

Why are the costs of occupying Iraq so extraordinarily high?

Why have the military been so unsuccessful in securing even such critical routes as the road from Baghdad Airport to the Green Zone.

Are the numerous arms dumps in Iraq secure at last?

Are the borders still open?

The culture of secrecy and news manipulation that pervades events in Iraq does little to advance the cause of democracy in either the US or Iraq.

The day of the tank and the armored fighting vehicle in the US Army is very far from over

2005-07-16T07:15:00.000-04:00

The RPG-7 is one of the most lethal hand-held weapons our forces have to face.

Rocket propelled grenades were used with deadly effect against us in Vietnam, shot down our Blackhawks in Mogadishu, are one of the favorite weapons of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and are so common in Iraq, they can literally be found lying in the streets. Elsewhere in the world, from Liberia to Indonesia, they are equally ubiquitous because they are cheap, easy to source, simple to use, and frighteningly destructive.

A single projectile from an RPG-7 can sear its way through up to five inches of steel armor and can turn the vehicle it hits into a blazing coffin of mangled steel.

No less than ten such rocket propelled grenades struck the lead M1A1 Abrams tank of Colonel Perkins’s brigade of the 3^rd Infantry Division (Mechanized) as it thrust into Baghdad for the first time.

Apart from some scars on its paintwork, the Abrams was utterly undamaged. It swung its turret around and relentlessly went about it’s business of killing with 120mm cannon, 7.62 co-axial machine gun and .50 heavy machine gun. It was not a fair fight. It is not the intent of the Army to fight fair. Its mission is to win at minimal cost in American lives.

That was very much the pattern throughout the rest of the column. Volleys of RPGs, heavy machine gun fire and small arms fire proved largely ineffective against the tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles of the 3^rd ID. Artillery and mortar fires were also shrugged off.

The point about the heavy forces of the US Army is not that they are entirely invulnerable to enemy fires – some vehicles were disabled and some casualties taken – but that casualties in these forces tend to be minimal compared to unarmored infantry, or even soldiers in light armor, and that heavy armor brings unparalleled mobility, lethality and survivability to the modern battlefield.

Together with courage, those are the elements that win wars.

There is nothing new about the dominance of US heavy forces in open terrain, such as desert, as was well proven in Iraq I, but the pleasant surprise of Iraq II was how successful heavy armor proved to be in built-up areas such as towns and cities where conventional Army doctrine had long stated infantry were the key - despite appalling casualties of 30-70% in simulated combat during MOUT (MILITARY OPERATIONS IN URBAN TERRAIN) exercises.

Fortunately, Army warfighters have a long tradition of throwing doctrine out the window when it seems to make no sense, and the 3^rd ID were not short of initiative and daring. The results speak for themselves.

The question now is how the Army will treat its heavy forces. When teamed with air power, as Iraq II has shown, the Army’s heavy forces are unstoppable, yet for the last four years they have been starved of funds while the previous Chief of Staff of the Army focused on building an Interim Force of Stryker wheeled, lightly armored vehicles with the argument that Strykers are more deployable. However, deployability is not much use if your forces cannot do the job when they get there; and Strykers are not warfighting vehicles.

Unfortunately, Strykers even have limited advantages on the deployability front because they have ended up being too heavy for the C-130s which constitute the bulk of our tactical airlift, and are also severely lacking in terms of mobility, lethality and survivability. Further, they are vulnerable to RPGs. True, Strykers can be transported by C-17 or sent by ship but so can Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles in exactly the same time with the added advantage that they bring with them vastly more combat power.

Doubtless, a limited number of Strykers will have some utility in a peace-keeping role, but it is the consensus of informed observers that the much neglected heavy forces, the units that actually do the fighting, deserve an increased share of the Army’s resources at a time when this nation is at war and looks like being at war for many years to come.

Is what are we spending on defense making us weaker?

2005-07-15T08:44:00.000-04:00

Virtually all Americans want a strong and secure America both because it feels good (rather like backing a winning a winning football team) and because it is distressing to be attacked and to be unable to fight back. Then there is the possibility that the bad guys could kill you.

Frankly either the freeways or cancer induced pollution will probably get you first – terrorism is a minute threat in the scheme of things , but the argument can indeed be made that one needs a big stick.

Nonetheless, the measure of a strong America does not lie in its defense budget alone; and the size of the spend does not necessarily equate to effectiveness. In fact, there are strong grounds for arguing that our current extraordinarily high levels of defense expenditure are actually making us weaker both because we are spending money on the wrong things in many cases, and because we are putting the economy deeper and deeper into debt; and foreign nations are lending us most of the money.

Not only are we wasting much of our defense funds but we are increasingly putting ourselves in hock to people who do not necessarily have our good will at heart. They include various European nations, Saudi Arabia and China. That is a situation that is likely to have bad consequences for this nation sooner rather than later. Disastrous consequences are a likely option.

We are actually spending much more on defense than most people realize. The trick to understanding this is to add ALL the defense related totals even in where they are not formally labeled as defense headings by the government. It is in the nature of governments of every stripe to dissemble and deceive.

If you add the 2006 Defense Budget , the Veterans Budget, the Intelligence Budget, supplementary requests for the War on Terror, Homeland Security and various provisions of the Department of Energy’s budget to do with nuclear matters, you end with a figure that is substantially in excess of $600 billion, in fact heading towards $700 billion plus. Please note the 'plus.'

That is a higher spend on defense related matters than the rest of the World combined, and yet not only are the military still complaining they are under-resourced, but no less than three million immigrants a year still manage to infiltrate successfully and illegally. Despite such crippling expenditure, we are not even close to making America secure. Apparently the entire Chinese Army could sneak over the Rio Grande if it so desired. Then there is the matter of the effectiveness, or lack of it, of our myriad of intelligence agencies (some say fifteen, others go higher). As matters stand, two years into the insurgency in Iraq, we still don’t quite know who we are fighting.

Our intelligence budget alone is about $40 billion.

By the way, Israel’s defense budget, which results in one of the most formidable military forces in the world, complete with nuclear capability, is roughly $11 billion; and Israel is not only under constant terrorist attack but is still at war with Syria.

Why is the life of a US Marine valued at less than that of a US Army Soldier?

2005-07-14T06:35:00.000-04:00

Despite many rumored efforts to introduce common sense into the Defense Budget, the end result over many years has tended to be based more on the traditional split between the Services than on real requirements as dictated by the imperatives of National Defense (Not that anyone really knows what these are).

In other words, apart from supplementals, the Chiefs slice the defense cake according to hard won precedent rather than according to need. Typically, the pecking order goes Air Force, Navy, Army – and finally the Marines. This comfortable arrangement at least has the merit of stopping the Chiefs trading blows like a bunch of squabbling schoolboys as they share the spoils, and, better yet, it avoids their having to change the way they do business.

The generals and admirals, you need to understand, loathe change because it threatens the status quo of the military bureaucracy which was what made them generals and admirals in the first place – so, by definition, has to be good and defended at all costs. In addition, the military mindset of the brass at the top is stunningly conservative. In fact, given half a chance, they would bring back the Soviet Union tomorrow. Now there was a bureaucracy to rival their own, large enough to terrify the American public with and yet reassuringly predictable, conventional and inert.

The Soviets are sorely missed, let me tell you.

Yes, I know you have probably read stuff about ‘Transformation’ and how the services are transforming themselves into netcentric organizations optimized for the new digital age, but most of that is smoke and mirrors – albeit of a stupefyingly costly variety – designed to disguise the fact that the military mind remains as rigid as ever. Yes, there are exceptions but they tend to be outnumbered and outgunned; and prone to be suborned by offers of the good life through highly paid retirement jobs.

One has to admit that the military are outstanding at (verbal) camouflage – particularly in a hostile urban environment like Washington D.C.

Now all of this would merely be entertaining in the manner of a Mafia movie (think of one of those meeting where the Dons assemble to sort out their territorial differences while secretly plotting to kill each other and you’ll instantly understand the Pentagon) if we were not at war.

But we are at war, and that makes the games played in the Pentagon decidedly less funny. Above all, we need to make sure that our troops, who are in direct fire contact with the enemy, are properly resourced.

The fact is that the Marines are not properly resourced. Long on fighting spirit and a commendable determination to do more with less, they take pride in being the neglected offspring of the Armed Services but the reality is that in terms of investment per individual Marine, they show up badly in relation to the Army and the other services.

They are still flying derivations of the Vietnam era Cobra helicopter. Their Abram M1A1 tanks – of which they have only three battalions - are old. Their Humvees are falling apart. Their wheeled Light Armored Vehicles, although still deployed with great ingenuity, are decrepit. Their living conditions in Iraq are infinitely worse than the Army’s. And so it goes.

The Marines compensate with determination and ingenuity, and rarely complain, but given that they are doing much the same job as the Army – and have been so doing for about half a century now – it seems only fair and reasonable that they be resourced at the same rate. And right now, they are not.

Working out the details of military budgets is always tricky – because the military like it this way – but it is worth reflecting that the current Army budget is around $160 billion whereas the Marine figure, including their naval contribution, is about $32 billion. True, the Marines are only about a third the size of the active component of the Army – so lets multiply that $32 figure by three to gave equivalency (to yield $96 billion) – but that still demonstrates a substantial difference.

I don’t want to get into a battle of numbers at this time, because the Army generals would argue they have wider duties – which is true – but I do think the time has come for the average Marine in the field to be resourced at least as well as the average Soldier.

The reality is that inadequate resources do get our young men and women killed and wounded – and, in that context, it is worth noting that the Marines have taken casualties out of all proportion to their numbers in Iraq.

Fighting spirit is a fine thing but it won’t stop a bullet. Armor does.

Duct tape for the mouths of generals – a line item for the next Pentagon budget

2005-07-12T14:08:00.000-04:00

US Army generals have a disconcerting and yet consistent habit of declaring, or, at least, implying, that victory is at hand - after the apparent success of a week or less...

Yes, you are not hallucinating: I really did write “a week or less.” Follow the news carefully and you will witness this phenomenon again and again for yourself.

A pattern of disasters over months or years, linked with numerous lives lost, tends to be dismissed with a phrase such as: “We have put the past behind us.” In career advancement terms, quite possibly.

Not so for the dead and the injured and the permanently scarred and their loved ones. The cynicism and ignorance of such US Army language defies civilized description.

Language has a special lack of meaning when used by the Army. All too often, a mere description of an aspiration is confused with substance.

It has to be so – if a general says it.

Such attitudes are morally corrupt, and militarily ineffective. Nonetheless, they are the norm.

The average US soldier who is 'outside the wire' – and most virtually never leave their fortified encampments (yet still draw combat pay) deserves better. He or she has shown that the best of America is as courageous as it gets – but he or she is in a minority of the military. Most of our soldiers are garrison troops who are focused on their three meals a day and who do not venture forth. They are focused on lobster on Fridays. Kellogg, Brown and Root (owned by Halliburton) are doing a commendable job at distracting our troops from the mission at hand.

Short-termism is a feature of the senior American military mind, unfortunately. Long term institutional memory, except where the Army Leadership feels it has been slighted (an important qualification), is not. In fact a detailed knowledge of history, of the kind that might be gained from extensive study and consideration of the history of warfare, is perceived as near treasonous. To read is to think; to think is to question; and to read, think, question – and to advocate fresh ideas is akin to conduct unbecoming a gentleman and an officer.

Which is essentially why Brigadier General Billy Mitchell of the Army Air Corps was court martialled and found guilty.

Mitchell had the impertinence not only to suggest, but to demonstrate, that air power was going to be the coming thing.

Outrageous! Why that was like suggesting that maybe the tank might replace the horse – or that armored vehicles in the maelstrom of 21^st Century warfare, were essential if you did not want your soldiers to be killed!

Probably the best known example of the type of ill-advised public declaration that this piece is about was General William Westmoreland announcing that there was “light at the end of the tunnel” – just before the 1968 Tet Offensive took place (thus destroying the already waning faith of the American public in the Administration’s Vietnam policy). The Viet Cong lost technically by a wide margin, but they won the battle for public opinion; and the North Vietnamese won the war...

By the way, the Army responded to General Westmoreland’s singularly unfortunate statement – which came on top of several disastrous years of leadership of US forces in Vietnam – by promoting him to be the Chief of Staff of the Army.

The man's warfighting record had been truly miserable, but competence, in the general military sense, is not a required attribute for that particular top job. In fact, bravery and tactical success on the battlefield may well count against you. All that matters is the consent of the club of generals - and that you are politically acceptable to your civilian masters. Broadly speaking, Administrations prefer compatible types that they can push around rather than warfighters. They know that talented warfighters are difficult by another order of magnitude. Just for start, they fight for what they believe in.

These days, the Army rarely punishes incompetent generals because it might suggest that some generals actually are incompetent – which clearly they cannot be if they are either left in place or promoted because the Army leadership is, by self declaration, both omnipotent and infallible.

Note: if that concept gives you a headache, reflected that Catch-22 was written about the Army – in the days before the Army Corps had its revenge by divorcing the Army to become a separate service. Billy Mitchell really did have his revenge.

In contrast, disloyalty to the club of Army generals is generally regarded as deserving whatever charges can be made stick – or shunning if the offender has retired. Shunning means being excluded from high paying defense contractor retirement jobs so it is scarcely a minor matter.

Questioning the status quo, for instance by writing a controversial book or article or by questioning the direction of the Army Leadership in the press, is, without question, considered to be disloyalty. Being right merely makes the offence worse. According to current Army culture, wisdom and insight on any and all important matters, belong solely to senior officers; and there intelligence and perception are neatly ordered by rank and seniority.

No lowly captain, for instance, has the right to be right even if he is right – if a general thinks he is wrong. Even more to the point, no lowly captain has the right to be right even if he is right - if he even hints at the thought that he might have arrived at his particular conclusion ahead of those senior officers who are ordained, by virtue of senior rank, to hog any and all glory.

To show up a general may well be a hanging offence.

I would confirm - but I do not want to even hint that I could ever possess the certainty of a general.

I was prompted to write these remarks by reading Major General William G. Webster’s recent comments that US and Iraqi forces have “mostly eliminated” the ability of insurgents to conduct sustained, high-intensity attacks in Baghdad. Whether true, or otherwise, it was a remarkably dumb thing to say, albeit in the time honored style and bombastic tradition of a whole series of US Army generals in Iraq.

Remember Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt? He was the US Army’s equivalent of Baghdad Bob – and one has to admit, he did nearly make that particular excruciating standard. In fact, one has to wonder – if one is prone to surrealism - if they are not perhaps the very same person.

General Fuzzy (the troops really do call him that for solid reasons) Webster’s comments were singularly ill-advised for more reasons that I can adequately cover here – but it would be churlish not to get the discussion started:

It is an impossible to judge the capabilities of an insurgency over a short period. The normal pattern of such insurgents is to “bend with the wind.” That means that, apart from a few designated stay-behinds, they give ground when attacked with overwhelming force, but re-infiltrate afterwards. If you want an example of this technique, look no further than Falluja. It was subjected to more applied violence than just about any city in Iraq – and is subject to more detailed high technology US Marine control right now - yet the insurgents are back to killing US troops within Falluja.

Insurgents feel no obligation to conform to our agenda. Just because we are launching Operation Princeton (for instance) does not mean they are obliged to resist it. They may just decide to soak up the rays during that particular period. And their agenda includes messing with their opponents heads.

It is a really bad idea to be arrogant in the face of the enemy. Our enemies understand the concept of ‘hubris’ as well as anyone and enjoy answering a boast with mayhem and slaughter.

Whatever be the disconcerting truth, it is an even worse idea for a military commander to demonstrate publicly that he or she is dumb.

General Webster’s singularly ill thought through comments were – predictably - greeted by mayhem and slaughter in Iraq the following day.

Ordinary soldiers die when generals say and do thoroughly stupid things.

We really do need to improve the quality of leadership of the US Army. Right now, we are not even seriously thinking about it. Accontability is a joke. And so we get the generals, and the maimed and the dead, and the mind numbing costs, and the failed missions that we deserve.

Is terrorism really one of the main threats to our safety?

2005-07-08T11:29:00.000-04:00

The terrorist bombings in London on July 7 2005 are, without question, profoundly distressing – and truly awful for those both directly and indirectly involved. Nonetheless, the good news is that the British have a long tradition of not over-reacting to such events. They sweep up the broken glass, pick up the twisted metal, carry away the shattered masonry, hose away the blood, tend to the injured, bury the dead, and try and retain a sense of proportion.

The British believe that the actions of a few extremists should not dictate the freedoms, quality and manner of how we conduct our lives; and they behave accordingly.

Such a truth should be self evident. You could call it horse sense.

I witnessed this at first hand over a number of years in the Seventies, when the IRA, the Libyans, the Iraqis, the Palestinians and a host of others were trying to settle various scores in London - and could not but be impressed by British cool. Incidents of extreme violence occurred every couple of days, many close to and around where I lived in Notting Hill Gate in London, but fundamentally nothing ever changed; and nor did our behavior. We went on enjoying the pleasures and resources of one of the world’s greatest cities as if nothing significant had happened. And a lot of mayhem happened.

Why? Well the truth is that terrorism is not, in the main, a serious threat to our lives. It certainly may be if terrorists get hold of weapons of mass destruction - such as nuclear, chemical or biological weapons – but even then we are faced with much greater threats to our daily wellbeing which we chose to ignore.

Traffic accidents, the effects of fast food, pollution of our air, land and water, cross infection in hospitals, the errors of the medical profession, the egregious greed of many corporations and the grinding stress of trying to survive in an excessively bureaucratic winner-take-all society are far more likely to do us in than the explosion of a terrorist bomb.

In essence, since 9/11, the American public has been manipulated by the Bush Administration through a deliberate campaign of fear and induced xenophobia.

Time for some horse sense.

The jailing of Judith Miller and whatever happened to the moral courage of the American media?

2005-07-07T08:41:00.000-04:00

The jailing of Judith Miller of the New York Times is just plain wrong. No journalist can do his or her job without informants and, with rare exceptions, confidentiality is fundamental to securing such sources. The reasons are simple. An exposed source, even one whose motives are pure and who is telling the absolute truth to the great benefit of society as a whole, will almost certainly suffer dismissal, loss of career and quite possibly more severe penalties. That is a high price for standing up to be counted. Accordingly, a journalist, whose involvement in a story is almost invariably transitory, has an absolute obligation to protect his or her sources.

Unfortunately, American society is both unfair and unkind to truth tellers. Nonetheless, democracy, which depends upon informed decision making, just does not work unless there is a free flow of accurate information to the public. It would be nice to think that government and business would provide that as part of their contribution towards the public good, but the fact is that both government and business dissemble, lie, distort and obfuscate to an egregious degree. Indeed, the present Bush Administration is widely reckoned to be the most secretive in American history and most corporate public relations departments are scarcely models of truth and accuracy. As to Karl Rove's politics of manipulation, hate, smear and innuendo, the nation should be ashamed to have him working in the White House.

So all we are left with to keep the system in check are the media – flawed and all as they certainly are – brilliant and vital though they can be.

Now the media know all this, and the fact that Judith has gone to jail over a principle that underpins the profession’s entire ability to do its job – yet they have been curiously indifferent to her fate. The management of Time magazine has effectively caved in over Mathew Cooper, a thoroughly disgraceful performance, and most other media, whether press or TV, seem to be more concerned with distancing themselves than fighting to secure her liberty and the validity of her principle. True, the New York Times has stood tall and has backed Judith Miller to the hilt but the courage of one great newspaper is not enough.

Now is the time for all media to co-operate in fighting this blatant abuse of power and to take such actions such as closing down for one day a week – until justice is done and Judith Miller is released.

Ms. Miller will not give in and she is entirely right not to do so – so she deserves the active and ongoing support of the entire media community. Indeed, she deserves the support of all of us.

All the oil we need – at a price!

2005-07-06T13:56:00.000-04:00

Business Week magazine, July 11 2004 edition, contains a piece on oil availability which gave me pause for thought. It said, in effect, that oil is now so expensive – at $60 a barrel and rising – that vast numbers of previously abandoned wells are now worth re-visiting because new extraction technologies, though more costly than merely pumping, are now cost effective. In short, if we are prepared to pay enough, and ignore the environmental consequences (and what red blooded American cares about the environment), we don’t have the oil supply problem we thought we had.

We can, so to speak, squeeze more out of this Earth of ours… …assuming the consumer can pay, of course.

So all is well with the world, I thought, and went back to listening to Moby while reclining in my hammock while drinking Old Fashioneds through a straw.

It is actually quite hard to drink anything – let alone an Old Fashioned - when one’s head is back in a hammock. The problem has to do with angles, gravity and so on – but the solution, which not many people know – is a bent straw.

Through such ingenuity, civilization advances.

Still, my modest contribution to civilization did not stop me thinking. Could it really be good for the Earth, I wondered, to inject millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the ground merely to get oil out. After all, carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas whose excess production is generally considered to be a major cause of global warming.

True, the oil companies argue that all that injected carbon dioxide will make oil viscous and otherwise bond with the terrain and stay underground, but I will admit to a certain skepticism, and the volumes required to push all the CO2 front, central and upwards are huge – we are talking tens of millions of tons here.

Surely, some would escape and make the global warming situation even worse. All in all, the increased use of vast quantities of carbon dioxide had to a dubious proposition.

Nonsense! said a Republican voice in my ear. This is all Liberal propaganda. Global warming does not really exist. All that CNN stuff about polar bears losing their habitat, and the Snows of Kilimanjaro melting, and glaciers turning into ice cubes, and New Orleans gently sinking beneath the waves, is the kind of smear and distortion Karl Rove would come up with – if he was a Liberal; or paid to be a Liberal; or understood science; or if Dubya got religion.

Just then a platoon of pigs flew by my window.

Bag up the usual suspects

2005-06-29T16:48:00.000-04:00

Watching President Bush last night on television reminded me of various adventures and misadventures in and around Fort Bragg, home of the 82^nd Airborne Division, a slice of Special Forces and Delta, the outfit that does not officially exist (there are several of those, by the way); and it is also the headquarters of the XVIII Airborne Corps.

I first went there in the early Nineties to attend an exhibition called SpecOps which was a sort of Aladdin’s Cave of Special Forces weaponry staffed and visited by strange people who did strange things. If you wanted to kill somebody, this was the place to go shopping. Personally, I fancied a Barrett .50 because every author wants to do evil things to his editor at some time or other, but they are awkward things to lug around when you are flying coach.

After the exhibition was over, I stayed in the area for a few days doing corrections on a manuscript, and then decided I would round off my stay by visiting Fort Bragg on the Fourth of July. Remember I’m Irish, so did not appreciate the full significance of that date. Also us writers can be a little vague sometimes.

Fort Bragg was like a ghost town, and since in those days terrorists were regarded as confined to books and movies – at least as far as America was concerned - the post was wide open and even the Special Operations buildings were unlocked and deserted. This was quite amazing to me because I regarded terrorism as a very real threat to the US and, in fact, though all my books were on terrorism in general, the last book focused on the terrorist threat to America in particular.

Mind you, I was not advocating that the US military go on a global rampage. I was more arguing that reasonable precautions be taken internally (such as controlling the borders) and that, where intelligence was good, the fight should be taken to the enemy in a suitably discrete but lethal manner – as befits the talents of Special Forces.

I was, and remain, against over-reaction because all that does is play in to the terrorists’ hands. Counter-terrorism should be a subtle business. Brutalizing the local civilian population and imprisoning tens of thousands of so called “suspected insurgents” merely recruits hostiles faster than you can capture or kill them. That should scarcely be a surprise. Imagine how you would feel if someone smashed in your front door in the middle of the night, wrecked your house, abused your family (well, so it seemed judging by all the shouting) and then handcuffed you and put a bag over your head before dragging you off to places unknown?

“But I’m not an insurgent,” you will say. Ah, but you soon will be if that is how you, your family, your friends and your neighbors are treated. And let’s add in the fact that your family do not know where you have been taken for months – and the effect of an extended free vacation in Abu Ghraib.

It strikes me that although the US Army generals – this is a command issue - may have a serious problem recruiting Americans, they have done a truly wonderful recruiting job for the Iraqi insurgency.

Could it be that it is our presence in Iraq that is largely fueling the insurgency!

Victor.

Good soldiers retire around the rank of 'Colonel'

2005-06-28T11:39:00.000-04:00

The Pentagon is moderately impressive when viewed from the from the outside, and there is no denying that it is an ingenious design in a purely functional sense. Mind you, you can say much the same about a guillotine.

You can, reportedly (if you don’t get lost, which is the most likely outcome), walk anywhere in the vast complex in no more than a brisk seven minutes which is a neat trick given that “The Building” – as insiders call it – provides office space for about 23,000 people. Floors are separated by ramps rather than by stairs. It could be a roller skaters’ paradise. Jamaica could train its next bob sleigh team there.

Such tricks apart, the place is pretty horrible internally (it was designed to be a government hospital so what else can you expect) and bears a frightening resemblance to one of those laboratory maze experiments where rats are trained to do dubious things before being sliced open and having their entrails examined.

Office space is unbelievably cramped – unless you are a general or the civilian equivalent (in which case you do have room to practice your golf game); daylight is minimal or non existent for most; ceilings are low and oppressive; rooms are disturbingly ill proportioned; the décor would make a prison interior designer weep; and the less said about the food the better. Overall, it’s a tacky place from which to plan world domination which may explain why we’re not doing so well at it.

The Pentagon is a lousy place in which to think.

Great architecture does make a difference. It uplifts, it inspires and it invigorates – and it also allows you to breathe because all those tall ceilings allow the air to circulate. Why do think the Pope is not worried by a non stop diet of priestly sex scandals. He just takes a gentle jog around St. Peter’s, says “Wow!” does a soft shoe shuffle and regains his sense of proportion.

Mind you, the Capitol, a truly impressive chunk of real estate, does not seem to have the same uplifting effect on Congress. They are continuing, quite happily, and at a brisk tempo, to spend this Nation into War Debt induced recession.

Still, I am not claiming that architecture is the only element in the human equation. In the final analysis, character and competence are the deciding factors. I was to going to add “integrity” but I live in hopes that such is still part of character or this society is in more trouble than I thought.

Here I pay tribute to Lieutenant Colonel George Krivo whose retirement award ceremony my daughter, Evie, and I, attended last Friday, June 24 2005. He was an exceptional officer and the Army will be poorer without him. They gave him a well deserved Legion of Merit to add to his medal collection. He remains a remarkably fine human being and will prosper in civilian life.

George could almost certainly have made general, but retired for family reasons. That said, it is a sad but observable fact that an alarming proportion of the better officers in the Army top out at O5 or O6 level (Lieutenant Colonel or Colonel). At general officer level, the Club of Generals seems to prefer careerists to character. The consequences, at a time of war, are self evident. And thus soldiers die.

Victor.

Attila the Hun - frustrated author

2005-06-28T10:14:00.000-04:00

People wonder why Attila the Hun maimed, killed, raped, pillaged and conquered – and otherwise displayed fairly pronounced anti-social tendencies.

Frankly, I don’t know why it is a mystery. The real reason is that Attila was a writer, rather like myself, and he only went berserk because some of his work – the definitive war novel according to legend – went missing. How, where and why, he did not know, but it made him mad to see his creativity vanish into the ether; and so Rome had to go.

And it did. He was a man of his word and frankly a little obsessive. But such is creativity! What can you say! When us writers lose words we think it is entirely natural to lay waste to the known universe. Writing is hard, you know, and it is a terrible thing to have to write the same thing twice. In that context, laying waste to the odd empire, plus a little bit of ravishing, seems a reasonable reaction.

I mention all this because I lost a large chunk of work over the weekend (writing about attending the admirable Lieutenant Colonel George Krivo’s retirement award ceremony in the Pentagon) thanks to failing to understand the intricacies of my blogging software. Naively I thought that if one hit ‘Control S’ one’s work would be saved. Silly old me. Blogger.com (owned by Google) has its own arcane rules.

I am breaking out the Ouija board. Attila will know what to do.

Apples and Abizaid

2005-06-27T06:06:00.000-04:00

Body language is consistently revealing, and no less where General Abizaid, an infamously ambitious and political general, is concerned.

I am prompted to comment on this after watching General John Abizaid, Command of US Central Command (which means he is the main man in charge of Iraq) perform in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee and subsequently on ‘Face The Nation.’

When giving testimony to the SASC, General Abizaid squirmed like a schoolboy caught stealing apples. In short, he looked unsure and as guilty as hell – and decidedly not in control of the situation in Iraq. In contrast, on ‘Face The Nation,’ he delivered a superficially polished and confident performance – providing you do not read the transcript with care.

Abizaid’s overall presentation revealed two things. Firstly, we are in serious trouble in Iraq to the extent that Abizaid is seriously worried about the progression of his career (he wants to be Chairman of the Joint chiefs of Staff). Secondly, that the supposedly hard edged, confrontational talk shows on Sunday are seen as an easy ride for the interviewee.

Interviewers like Bob Schieffer and Tim Russert, likeable and entertaining though they are, are not asking the hard questions.

We are spending over a billion a week in Iraq. This is not good.

Brave soldiers, flawed leadership

2005-06-23T17:51:00.000-04:00

On of the strangest aspects of the Iraq War has been the near obsessional focus by commentators on troop numbers to the exclusion of virtually any serious analysis of how the war has been fought to date by the generals in charge.

In war, precedent over millenia shows that outstanding leadership is crucial - and is frequently more important than troop numbers. In fact, one highly regarded military thinker, Colonel John Boyd, analysed just about every well known battle since we started killing each other and came to the consclusion that it was the smaller side which won in the majority of cases.

Great generals - great leaders - are that important.

The courage of the average American soldier or marine is not in question, but there is ever increasing evidence that we have a serious problem with some of our generals - and maybe more than some. In the light of the evidence of history, this should not be surprising. The kind of soldier who gets to the top in peacetime tends to have a more bureaucratic and conformist mentality - in blunt contrast to the kind of charismatic, creative, thinkers we tend to need in time of war.

Precisely why we so consistently promote the wrong people in time of peace is an important question to be answered at some other time.

In time of war, especially with conduct on the battlefield providing clear proof of caliber, or the lack of it, the traditional and well-proven solution is to sack the uniformed bureacrats who don't know how to fight - and frequently do not want to (a fact we are going to have to face up to) - and re-shuffle the deck so that the thinking mavericks, with a will to win, are put in charge. That happened with a vengeance in World War II when General George Marshall took a veritable scythe to the Officer Corps and allowed talents like George Patton to emerge. It happened again in Korea where heads had to roll before General Mathew Ridgeway finally got a grip on things. It even happened in Vietnam except at the top where, unfortunately, the wrong man, General Westmoreland, was left in charge for far too long - with disastrous results. Nonetheless, the situation on the ground could have been much worse if drastic action had not been taken to replace a significant number of incompetent senior officers.

There was, even in Vietnam, some accountability, even if not enough.

What makes the present situation in Iraq so different is that the current Administration seems to be unwilling to sack any senior general officer despite mounting evidence of truly mediocre leadership up to and including, Combatant Commander level. It is as if there is a faustian bargain between the Bush Administration and the generals which says, in effect: "If you do not question our extremely dubious policies - such as the occupation of Iraq without any proper planning, then we won't question your military incompetence. We'll all go along to get along and the media and the American public will stay silent because they don't want to appear to be failing to support the troops."

This sick bargain explains, in no small part, why we are in the mess in Iraq which we are in today and why the country is $300 billion poorer - so far.

By the way, these comments are not made without considerable inside knowledge of the Army General Officer Corps, but, independent of that, the current situation in Iraq speaks for itself. Insurgent activity is not down; it is up. American casualties are not down; they are increasing. And there is no end in sight.

These observations have been prompted by watching a segment of the Senate Armed Services Committee's hearing featuring Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Chief of Staff General Myers, Combatant Commander General Abizaid and Iraq Commander General Casey.

The evasiveness and manifest discomfort of these witnesses spoke volumes.

Victor.

'Private Warriors' & retired rich generals

2005-06-22T13:55:00.000-04:00

I sacrificed some of my bed time reading last night to watch the PBS Frontline special 'Private Warriors.' Most of the interviews can be tracked down on www.pbs.org

Essentially, what the US Army - the main US focus although contractors of other nationalities are covered also - seems to have done is to cut back on soldiers in uniform in the early Nineties, while passing a vast amount of support activities over to contractors who are led by retired generals and heavily staffed by former military.

In short, we have been fed the illusion of a peace dividend while the totality of the Army establishment, if one includes the defense contracting support, has actually increased. Look at the defense budget if you doubt this.

This is a neat trick which has made a considerable number of retired generals extremely rich.

The downside is that it has promoted careerism, massive corruption and a serious distortion of the way in which the Army fights - at vast expense to the American taxpayer and to the strategic interests of this country.

The American way of war has now been Enronized.

I'm really not sure the Founding Fathers would approve.

Victor.

Return of my web site

2005-06-21T08:47:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I wonder if telepathy really does exist. Recently, I have been working hard to try and get my website up again - it is my main way of keeping in touch with readers - and, as if in support, I have had a sudden increase in fan mail. Very odd and very encouraging.

The new web site went up last night, June 20 2005. Located at www.victororeilly.com it is a combined family effort with the hero of the project being my son Bruff (16 in July) who did all the actual implementation. Scathing about the previous version, which had been set up in Microsoft's Front Page, he determined that this version would be technologically professional so opted to use Cascading Style Sheets through Macromedia Dreamweaver. If that means nothing to you, don't worry about it - I am no computer professional myself. However, I can tell you that although Cascading Style Sheets mean much more preliminary work, the end result is easier to change and is based upon elegantly clean HTML code.

Bruff knew neither Cascading Style Sheets nor Macromedia Dreamweaver when he started but armed with various manuals courtesy of Amazon, set to work to teach himself. It wasn't an easy business, given the pressure of time, and the differing opinions of various strong willed family members, but the end result is clean, fast and readable - which is, of course, the whole idea.

Ideally, my journal (Blog) would have been incorporated into the main body of the web site but for sheer convenience www.blogger.com takes some beating so that will be my Blog home for the indefinite future.

Victor.

Generals like it this way

2005-04-29T17:04:00.000-04:00

WAR: U.S. Army. After I learned to read, I learned than many of the best adventure stories were about war. Thus started an abiding interest in the arcane world of the military. 'Arcane' is defined as "Known or understood by only a few," which is an accurate description of the military world, but what they do not tell you, where the U.S. Army is concerned, is that they, the generals, like it this way.

If nobody understands quite what you are doing, then you are not - in practice - accountable, no matter what the Constitution says. And it also helps that most Congressmen are in awe of the generals who appear in front of them. Crisp uniforms and glittering displays of medals can have that effect even though few are awarded for actual bravery. Such is the power of image - and it is not good, especially when a nation is at war.

During wartime, it is essential that soldiers, marines, airmen and sailors be supported, but that their commanders be held closely accountable.

Those who command and those who do the actual fighting should not be confused. Not now, not ever, never! If you ever want to understand the military, you have to know that. It is one of those fundamental truths of the kind where it may be useful to tattoo it on your eyelids.

I'm a war baby (1944) so grew up surrounded by people who had served in one capacity or another in WW II. It was hard to get them to talk at first but over the years more than a few proved willing to communicate, especially when I became a temporary security guard as a student and had to put in fifteen hour nightshifts with the full timers. Many of them had seen action in the British Army. To defray boredom you talk, and I was a willing listener, and quickly learned the paradox that the more you know, the more people are willing to tell you. The campaigns I remember most vividly concerned fighting communists in Malaya, dealing with the Mau Mau in Kenya, action against Greek terrorists in Cyprus, and a strange little undeclared war known as the Indonesian Confrontation. All involved counter-terrorism. Strangely enough we talked little about facing down the Soviet Union even though that was the foremost mission of the time. It was not a shooting war.

More anon.

Victor.

Bill Gates woke me up this morning

2005-04-29T10:57:00.000-04:00

Bill Gates of Microsoft infamy (Windows has not been the most reliable of operating systems and has caused me misery over the years) woke me up this morning.

I don't mean to suggest that, after a polite knock, he entered my bedroom with a cup of tea, toast and marmalade, and an ironed copy of 'The Times' (my mother used to start her day in roughly this manner at about 10.00am) - but merely that he was being interviewed on National Public Radio.

His point was simple. Microsoft cannot find enough qualified people to hire in the U.S. so is having to set up research establishments in India and China just to find talent - though they would, of course have made some investments in those countries anyway for straightforward commercial reasons.

His subtext was that U.S. high schools are awful academically (he did not go into their other deficiencies) and that this country is suffering from a severe educational crisis. Well, if the stability of American developed Windows over the years is anything to go by, Bill has already proved his point.

There is, in fact, wide agreement that the U.S. educational system is deeply flawed, but not only has very little been done about it (the less said about the 'No Child Left Behind Act' the better) , but the implications of high schools graduating seried ranks of inadequately educated students year after year, decade after decade - when other countries are achieving much higher standards - have not been adequately considered. On the other hand the 'dumbing down' of so many aspects of American life is self evident.

Consider what passes for news on TV: It is pre-digested, as if being fed to babies, and so short of foreign news, one has the impression here that much of the rest of the world does not exist.

Consider the competence - or lack of it - of our intelligence services. The total cost of our intelligence services is estimated to be around $40 billion and climbing but - to paraphrase Winston Churchill - never in the field of human conflict have so many spent so much to learn so little. If that does not worry you, reflect that it is your money that these inadequately educated bureaucrats are spending. If that reality does not hurt, it should.

I went to see Bill Gates in Dublin, Ireland, about ten years ago to watch him speak at the Windows 95 launch. He was on that day one of the worst speakers I have ever listened to. Nonethless, where U.S. education is concerned, I happen to think he is right. And more power to the man for trying to do something about it.

Victor.

Death of a Prince, Rainier of Monaco

2005-04-28T15:21:00.000-04:00

Prince Rainier III of Monaco (the prince who married movie star, Grace Kelly) died recently. It left me with a strange feeling of loss because my parents used to vacation there every summer and not only did I go with them on a number of occasions, but I carried out my first writing assignment there. A less than sober friend of my mother - this was Dublin, Ireland after all - organized it not realizing I was only fifteen. The publication concerned was the 'Dublin Evening Mail' and it was then owned by 'The Irish Times' - a journal of some note which still prospers. The Mail has gone. I plead 'Not Guilty.'

It is great to be young and know nothing. Because I had no clue how a reporter went about his business, I interviewed the great and the not so good without fear or hesitation - and I loved Monaco. It is a miniature nation of less than a square mile in the South of France and much of it is called Monte Carlo, the name that it is arguably better known by.

One rose late, breakfasted off cafe au lait and croissants and then meandered down to 'Le Beach' which was, in fact, a pool and a tiny beach for the rich and the privileged (and those who could talk their way in). The pool was lined by seried ranks of truly beautiful looking women - all topless - which was tough for a fifteen year old.

As to the rest - adieu... But there was a lot to miss.

Victor.