Being the highly motivated worker that I am, the veritable font of productivity (Pay no attention to the time stamp on this post!) that sets the pace for everyone around me, it occurs to me after reading this that I might live in the wrong country:

For Egyptian-born Muslim cleric and television host, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, there is a simple answer to Egypt’s productivity problem — pray less, work more.”Praying is a good thing … 10 minutes should be enough,” Al-Jazeera television personality Qaradawi says in a religious edict, or fatwa, published on his website.

Praying five times a day is one of the five pillars of Islam, along with the well-known requirements of making a pilgrimage to Mecca and of giving alms to the poor.

[…]

Society’s increased Islamisation over the past 30 years has already silenced some critics of long prayer sessions.

According to an official study, Egypt’s six million government employees are estimated to spend an average of only 27 minutes per day actually working, reflecting a real problem with productivity.

27 minutes per day… that sounds perfectly sustainable. I can manage that. Show up, spend some time waiting for the bathroom, choose a rather long passage from the Koran as a prayer (say, the entire Koran, perhaps), eat lunch, wash up again, choose another long passage from the Koran (say, the rest of the Koran), go home. I’d probably only be working during the first 27 minutes of the day. Of course, I’m not much of a morning person, so I’d probably make it a point to show up a half hour late if I thought I could pull it off.

There is a price for all of this, though…

Religious beliefs in Egypt are very overt, from the headscarf covering the majority of women’s heads to the bruise on many a man’s forehead showing how piously and how often he has touched his head to the ground in prostration.

So, in order to get out of work, all I have to do is slam my head against the floor as hard as possible twice a day. Let’s think about this… brain damage, or work? Brain damage, or work? Hmm… let’s pray on this…

*WHACK*

Wain bamage, or bork? Wain bamage, or bork?…

*WHACK*

DEATH TO AMERICA!

I don’t agree with Kaplan very often, but I do agree with him here:

It’s a shame that Adm. William “Fox” Fallon has resigned, or been ousted, as commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East. But he brought it entirely on himself.

Contrary to the charges of some Democratic lawmakers, this is not another case of an officer’s dissent being stifled. Nor does Fallon’s departure herald a tilt in U.S. policy toward war with Iran.

[…]

Fallon, who is one of the military’s finest strategic minds, may well be right. Certainly his views match those of many senior officers. But they are contrary to the president’s views, and Fallon knew this. There is much debate within military circles these days over how far, and in what forums, a general or admiral should take his disagreements with political leaders. By most standards, Fallon probably went too far, too publicly. The U.S. Constitution does call for civilian control of the military, and generally, we should be thankful for that.

Look, I’m all for dissent. It’s a good thing that our top military leaders are debating among each other how to best defend our country. However, it is not a good thing when the person in charge of our military forces in the Middle East is going to Al Jazeera, Esquire, or anyone else that will listen, and telling them an entirely different message than our civilian leadership. This would akin to me posting something negative about my boss or employer here and naming names - it’s just a really bad idea. It’s a simple concept, really - if you have problems with your employer, tell your employer. Don’t tell everyone else unless you don’t want your employer to be your employer anymore. Simple as that.

That said, now that Adm. Fallon is out of the way, we’re still not invading Iran. First off, invading countries requires money, and Congress is being difficult enough about Iraq. There’s no way that Bush is going to have enough money to invade Iran even if he wanted to. Secondly, we’re stretched pretty thin at the moment, between our involvements in Iraq, Afghanistan, and our normal deployments in Korea and Europe. I’m not sure what we would invade with at this point. Furthermore, if we invade Iran, it’d be like flicking the light switch on a really dirty bathroom - just as the Taliban scattered for Pakistan when we invaded Afghanistan, I would have to imagine that the radical Shiites in Iran would just run to all of their neighbors. Considering how we’re having enough troubles keeping Iraq together and considering how Pakistan is hanging by a thread, now is probably not the right time to do that. Of course, if Iraq ever settles down, it might be a different story, but that’s still a ways off.

I apologize for the past week’s inactivity. However, it has given me some time to come up with some very interesting topics, of which this is hopefully one of them.

First, for those of you who aren’t familiar with the original Axis & Allies board game, the premise is that it’s World War 2 and you have to pick at least one of the major powers of the time (US, Britain, Russia, Germany, or Japan) and, working with your allies (fellow players, usually), attempt to defeat the opposing alliance to either achieve or prevent world domination, depending on whose team you’re on. It’s a dice-driven strategy game that I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve spent far too much of my life playing. In fact, I even found an open source version of the game that I still play on my laptop when I’m bored called TripleA. There are different units, each with varying levels of mobility, strength, defense, and cost. Resource management is handled through the acquisition of IPCs (Industrial Production Certificates). The more IPCs you get, the more units you can build. You get IPCs each turn, but the number of IPCs you get each turn is determined by which territories are under your control.

There are one of two positions you start off with in Axis & Allies - either you have more units in more strategically useful places but less IPC production capabilities (Axis), or you have fewer units but far greater IPC generation capabilities (Allies). If you’re in the former position, your goal is to reduce Allied IPC generation capabilities as fast as possible by taking as much territory as possible with the lowest possible cost. A quick victory is probably the only victory you’re going to get. If you’re in the latter position, your goal is to wait things out, adopt an initially defensive posture, taking offensive opportunities when and where they present themselves but generally not forcing anything. Suffice it to say, if you have more units in better strategic areas than your opponent and you’re generating more IPCs than your opponent, your opponent is probably toast. Conversely, if you don’t have enough units and you don’t generate as many IPCs as your opponent, your goose is probably cooked. There are some ways to work around that condition, however, especially against less skilled opponents. The key is you have to find one strategic quality that you have more of than your opponent and do your damndest to exploit it.

In Axis & Allies, there are three basic strategic qualities that you can achieve superiority of. The first is, of course, IPC generation - this is the big one. If you have it and can maintain it, you will eventually win. Failing this, the next option is unit quantity and position. If you have more units in the right places than your opponent, you might be able to leverage it to reduce your opponent’s IPC generation and maximize yours sufficiently such that you gain IPC superiority. Finally, if you have neither of these, there’s still mobility - if you’re able to move your units easier and quicker than your opponent, you may be able to position them such that you can achieve superior quantity and position at a given point, which, in turn, may eventually leverage into IPC superiority. The last option is a bit of a long shot, though, and can be fairly easy to lose against a decent opponent.

To understand how the last option works, it’s helpful to understand how you move units in Axis & Allies. There are two land units worth mentioning since they’re the ones that can actually take territory - they are infantry and armor. Infantry move one space per turn. Armor, meanwhile, can move up to two spaces per turn. If you have armor and your opponent has infantry, you may be able to mass it quickly at one point and flank an opponent’s infantry position. This opportunity rarely presents itself, however - few land areas are large enough to be more than two or three spaces abreast, so infantry can move into position nearly as quickly as armor. Real mobility lies in the sea - if you have enough transports, you can get just about anywhere faster than your opponent. Transports, like armor, also move two spaces at a time. The difference, however, is that transports move on the ocean, which is much less dense and much more open. Hypothetically, you can load up transports in Japan, approach East Asia, notice that your enemy is massing against your attack there, and promptly redeploy to a more advantageous position in, say, Africa. It will be at least two or three turns before your opponent can get his or her troops into position to counter yours, during which you may be able to do enough damage to balance out IPC production, or at least focus your opponent’s energies on coming up with ways to defeat your army while you develop another attack force. The reason this works is because it’s nearly impossible for someone to defend all points at once.

There are a number of problems with this approach, however:

1. It’s a very brittle advantage - without sufficient transports, you won’t have it. Since transports are weak, defensively, this advantage can be easily countered by an opponent that’s smart enough to do something about them.
2. Even if your opponent is too dense to actually get rid of your transports, they’re still going to be able to defeat any invasion you launch sooner or later. Presumably, if you’re using a set of hit-and-run transport-based invasions, it’s because you have insufficient resources to face your opponent head-on. However, in order to face them in this capacity, you not only have to generate units to attack with (something which your opponent can generate more of already) but you also have to build sufficient transports to send them, thus further handicapping your efforts. Consequently, sooner or later, your force will be defeated once they land.
3. Though your opponent may not be able to defend all places simultaneously, if given enough time, they will be able to defend enough places to reduce your forces’ effectiveness to near-nil. This will then lead to your opponent being able to competently deal with the vector of your attacks (the transports), thus eliminating your last strategic advantage.

How does this tie into Iraq?

It all began last Wednesday when what’s left of Al-Qaeda forces launched an offensive in Mosul, taking advantage of the fact that the Iraqi Army and the US military cannot defend all of Iraq equally. This is similar to using the strategy I just mentioned - Al-Qaeda is using the one strategic strength it has (mobility) to try to counter the strategic advantages contained by the Iraqi and US units (quality and strength of units, ability to produce more units). However, the end game is rapidly coming to pass - unlike the past, Iraqi military units are increasingly competent and can respond to Al-Qaeda offensives in record time. In this case, they’re already getting ready for an offensive, as reported by the LA Times, and it’s less than a week later. Eventually, it won’t matter where Al-Qaeda hits; Iraqi or Iraqi-allied forces will either already be there, ready to deal out much more damage than it receives, or they’ll be there within a day or two, again ready to deal out more damage than Al-Qaeda can hope to muster. Once that happens, it’ll only be a matter of time before Al-Qaeda’s mobility is reduced such that they won’t be able to muster a successful offensive anywhere in Iraq, no matter where they wish to deploy it.

Who says board games aren’t educational?

Dubai World, a company that gained some small measure of infamy when one of their subsidiaries, Dubai Ports World, attempted to buy management of some large US ports, is increasing their stake in the MGM Grand. Clearly, this means that we can expect less security against terrorists in MGM Grand-owned properties since Dubai World is an Arab company, because, as everyone knows, Arabs live in a hive-like society, in which they all accept instruction from the Queen Bee.

(Sarcasm. Learn it, live it, love it.)

From the BBC: Bush ‘to veto’ troop funding bill

US President George W Bush is to veto the Defence Policy Bill, a White House spokesman has said.

The veto is in response to a section of the bill that could leave the Iraqi government liable for compensation claims from Saddam Hussein’s victims.

[…]

The bill would have exposed Iraq to “massive liability in lawsuits concerning the misdeeds of the Saddam Hussein regime,” said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel.

“The new democratic government of Iraq, during this crucial period of reconstruction, cannot afford to have its funds entangled in such lawsuits in the United States,” he said.

Lawyers acting on behalf of Saddam Hussein’s victims could have had the Iraqi government’s US-based assets frozen pending the outcome of their cases, the White House said.

I’m happy to see that the Democratic Congress is still working hard to find new and creative ways to “fund the troops” while openly sabotaging our efforts in Iraq. Considering how the new Iraqi government is at least nominally democratic, and, consequently, mostly not Sunni, and considering how Saddam’s government was a fascist Sunni dictatorship, I’m wondering how that idea even made it far enough for Bush to veto it.

I had a random thought a couple of weeks back - how can people support the Iraqi people so they spend less time killing our soldiers and more time working and supporting their families? One idea that I came up with is that we could buy Iraqi goods - it certainly would support our goals in the region a lot better than buying Chinese goods. Thanks to Google, I found out that I’m not the only one with this idea:

BAGHDAD — U.S. shoppers will soon see “Made in Iraq” on clothing sold in American stores.

Shelmar, a 51-store retail chain based in Memphis, became the first American retailer to place an order with an Iraqi factory last month. About 2,000 tracksuits and boys shirts are expected to be on store shelves by early October, says Mike Longo, president and partner in the privately held company. Shelmar also does business as M Town and has stores in seven Southern states.

“We’ve got to get (Iraqi workers) back to work,” says Longo, who is a West Point graduate and former Army captain who taught at the Army’s military college in 1991 and 1992. “Otherwise, my buddies are going to keep getting … blown up.”

The only problem I have with this program is that, unfortunately, it focuses on state-owned factories. It’s understandable why this would be the case, though; the article gives the impression that, before we showed up, Iraq’s economy was very centralized, with the state owning most of the means of production. In conjunction with the war, I doubt there’s enough private capital in the region to support large-scale private operations. To do something about this, here are two things I’d like to see occur (but probably never will):

1. Get contracts going to the state-owned factories. They’re already there - may as well use them. It would seem we’re already on the right track on this anyways.
2. As part of the reconstruction effort, find a way to get capital in private hands so private entrepreneurship can take root.
3. Once private citizens in Iraq have some capital of their own, begin privatizing the state-owned industries, releasing shares to the workers and allowing private Iraqi citizens to buy into the industries. This would give the Iraqi government some much needed capital and reduce the amount of state interference in the economy.

Whether any of this will happen, though… well, we’ll see. Either way, I’m happy to see that Iraq is producing enough to export, and that American citizens will get a chance to help support the Iraqi people.

… but really don’t.

For those of you that don’t follow the news, General Musharraf declared a “state of emergency” in Pakistan approximately three to four days ago. A decent round-up of what’s going on, and people’s thoughts on it, can be found here.

From where I’m sitting, this isn’t all that surprising. Gen. Musharraf is one of a long list of dictators that the United States has propped up because he’s better than any popularly elected alternative that we can see coming from the region. A rather telling quote can be found here, in an article titled, appropriately enough, “US Likely to Continue Aid to Pakistan: Stuck Between Rock and Hard Place”:

Musharraf and his advisers, meanwhile, appear to be quite confident. There’s little to no doubt in their minds about whether or not the US will continue to support Musharraf’s regime. One aide to the Pakistani president said that the US “would rather have a stable Pakistan — albeit with some restrictive norms — than have more democracy prone to fall in the hands of extremists,” which - like it or not - sounds logical.

Unfortunately, in part because we keep supporting people like Musharraf in the region, there is no groundswell support of American interests in Pakistan. Any broadly popular political movement in Pakistan is guaranteed to have interests that are at least perpendicular to ours, if not flat-out opposed. However, until we start supporting popular interests in Pakistan, that’s never going to change. Of course, if all popular options in Pakistan are opposed to us, it’s quite understandable why we would want nothing to do with any of them, and it’s also quite understandable why we would not want a proven nuclear power to be directly opposed to us.

More bad news in Iraq - cemetary workers are beginning to feel the pinch as fewer people die.

It’s a quagmire!

Iran is apparently feeling frisky - it’s calling out Canada for human rights violations:

UNITED NATIONS — In a bid to discredit Canada at the United Nations, Iran is equipping world diplomats with a 70-page booklet on Canada’s alleged human rights violations. Written by Iran “in the name of God,” the document asserts that the Canadian government denies its people food, clean water and the right to work.

“To the great dismay of the international community, it is a great concern that the rights of women are violated, and no serious attention has been paid in promotion and protection of women’s rights in Canada.”

Now, don’t get me wrong - I’m not saying Canada is perfect. I mean, they still believe in hockey, among other things, which is just wrong and immoral. However, Iran lecturing Canada about women’s rights is quite comical, though Iran is relatively progressive compared to, say, Saudi Arabia. Then again, being progressive regarding women’s rights compared to Saudi Arabia is somewhat akin to being progressive towards Jewish rights compared to the Nazis…

Wait - is it possible for me to Godwin my own post? Crap - it looks like I’ve done it! Well, I guess I’m done, then.

First, there was Sen. Liebermann indicating that a strike against Iran was a perfectly reasonable option. Now, France is saying that the world should “prepare for the worst… (which_ is war)” with Iran.

Am I the only one finding it interesting that it’s France and Liebermann that are serving as the canaries in the mine on Iran? Strange bedfellows indeed.

Gen. Petraeus gave his report to Congress today. Before uttering a single word, however, there was this:

MoveOn.org’s ad in the New York Times.

Let’s dissect the MoveOn.org ad, shall we?

General Petraeus is a military man constantly at war with the facts. In 2004, just before the election, he said there was “tangible progress“ in Iraq and that “Iraqi leaders are stepping forward.”
Washington Post, “Battling for Iraq,” by David H. Petraeus. 9/26/04 (see below)

In 2004, things couldn’t have been much worse. The battles for Fallujah were already underway. Abu Ghraib was about to rear its ugly head. On the other hand, there was some good news - the United States no longer had direct control over the government of Iraq, handing it off to an interim government that would be replaced with elections the next year. In order for things to improve from 2004 on (and they most certainly have), Gen. Petraeus had to be on to something.
even he admits that there’s too much violence. Continuing on…

Every independent report on the ground situation in Iraq shows that the surge strategy has failed.
GAO report, 9/4/07
NIE report, 8/23/07
Jones report, CSIS, 9/6/07

1. If you take a look at the GAO report, you’ll notice that civilian attacks do drop, starting in October 2006 - this is consistent with Petraeus’ report, though GAO reports a less steep drop in civilian deaths. Also note that Petraeus’ report goes through to August, whereas the GAO report only has data up to July. Furthermore, if you look at the GAO report, you’ll find that attacks of all kinds drop rather steeply in June 2007. That would be the start of the surge.

2. The NIE report begins with the title, “Prospects for Iraq’s Stability: Some Security Progress but Political Reconciliation Elusive”. This would be contrary to MoveOn.org’s assessment that the NIE report supports the statement that “the surge strategy has failed”. That said, you can’t judge a book by its cover. So, let’s take a quote from the NIE:

There have been measurable but uneven improvements in Iraq’s security situation since our last National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq in January 2007. The steep escalation of rates of violence has been checked for now, and overall attack levels across Iraq have fallen during seven of the last nine weeks. Coalition forces, working with Iraqi forces, tribal elements, and some Sunni insurgents, have reduced al-Qa’ida in Iraq’s (AQI) capabilities, restricted its freedom of movement, and denied it grassroots support in some areas. However, the level of overall violence, including attacks on and casualties among civilians, remains high; Iraq’s sectarian groups remain unreconciled; AQI retains the ability to conduct high-profile attacks; and to date, Iraqi political leaders remain unable to govern effectively. There have been modest improvements in economic output, budget execution, and government finances but fundamental structural problems continue to prevent sustained progress in economic growth and living conditions. (emphasis not mine)

So, in short, attack levels fell when the surge began (nine weeks before the report came out), but violence is still high. Interestingly, Gen. Petraeus doesn’t disagree with this, stating in his original report:

To be sure, trends have not been uniformly positive across Iraq, as is shown by this chart depicting violence levels in several key Iraqi provinces. The trend in Ninevah Province, for example, has been much more up and down, until a recent decline, and the same is true in Sala ad Din Province, though recent trends there and in Baghdad have been in the right direction. In any event, the overall trajectory in Iraq – a steady decline of incidents in the past three months – is still quite significant.

The number of car bombings and suicide attacks has also declined in each of the past 5 months,
from a high of some 175 in March, as this chart shows, to about 90 this past month. While this
trend in recent months has been heartening, the number of high profile attacks is still too high,
and we continue to work hard to destroy the networks that carry out these barbaric attacks.

So, there’s agreement there.

3. The Jones report does not contradict the NIE or GAO reports - it also reports that the situation is improving, that the Iraqi Security Forces are starting to make headway, and that they’re not ready to assume the lead in Iraqi security yet. Interestingly, this is also what Gen. Petraeus reports:

As I noted earlier, Iraqi Security Forces have continued to grow, to develop their capabilities, and to shoulder more of the burden of providing security for their country. Despite concerns about sectarian influence, inadequate logistics and supporting institutions, and an insufficient number of qualified commissioned and non-commissioned officers, Iraqi units are engaged around the country.

Compare this to the Jones report:

The Commission finds that in general, the Iraqi Security Forces, military and police, have made uneven progress, but that there should be increasing improvement in both their readiness and their capability to provide for the internal security of Iraq.

[…]

While severely deficient in combat support and combat service support capabilities, the new Iraqi armed forces, especially the Army, show clear evidence of developing the baseline infastructures that lead to the successful formation of a national defense capability. The Commission concurs with the view expressed by U.S., Coalition, and Iraqi experts that the Iraqi Army is capable of taking over an increasing amount of day-to-day combat responsibilities from Coalition forces. In any event, the ISF will be unable to fulfill their essential security responsibilites independently over the next 12-18 months.

Gen. Petraues’ report does not contradict that timeline - in fact, he refuses to speculate on when that might occur.

Moving on… next up, the MoveOn.org ad has this to say:

Yet the General claims a reduction in violence. That’s because, according to the New York Times, the Pentagon has adopted a bizarre formula for keeping tabs on violence. For example, deaths by car bombs don’t count.
“Time to Take a Stand,” by Paul Krugman. 9/7/07

Unfortunately, I don’t have a TimesSelect membership, and I’m not about to pay for one now. That said, as I mentioned earlier, the GAO, NIE, and Jones report all indicate similar drops in violence as that reported by Gen. Petraeus.

Next up…

The Washington Post reported that assassinations only count if you’re shot in the back of the head — not the front.
“Experts Doubt Drop in Violence in Iraq,” by Karen DeYoung. 9/6/07

First, Gen. Petraeus declared the drop in “ethno-sectarian” deaths to be 55%, not 75%. In Baghdad, he reports a higher decrease of 80% since December, which may be what MoveOn.org was responding to. However, Gen. Petraeus reports that total civilian deaths, less natural causes, went down by 45% since December, a number which the MoveOn.org ad doesn’t dispute. Furthermore, from the Washington Post article:

Senior U.S. officers in Baghdad disputed the accuracy and conclusions of the largely negative GAO report, which they said had adopted a flawed counting methodology used by the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Many of those conclusions were also reflected in last month’s pessimistic National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq.

So, in short, MoveOn.org cited a source that contradicts its preceding sources!

Continuing on…

According to news reports, there have been more civilian deaths and more American soldier deaths in the past three months than in any other summer we’ve been there.
The Associated Press, “Violence Appears to Be Shifting from Baghdad.” 8/25/07
National Public Radio, “Statistics the Weapon of Choice in Surge Debate,” by Guy Raz. 9/6/07
Associated Press, “Key Figures About Iraq Since the War Began in 2003.” 9/5/07

Let’s start with the first AP article:

The AP tracking includes Iraqi civilians, government officials, police and security forces killed in attacks such as gunfights and bombings, which are frequently blamed on Sunni suicide strikes. It also includes execution-style killings — largely the work of Shiite death squads.

In other words, this article uses ISF casualties as civilian deaths. Nice. It then says they’re on the rise. Of course they are - that’s because the ISF is doing more of the fighting. Is that true? Who knows? The important thing is that, as long as you count military casualties as civilian casualties, you’re going to be able to draw really bad conclusions. For example, I could claim that Iraqi insurgents have inflicted over 3,000 American civilian casualties, and that’s why we need to fight there - we must stop them from killing our people! Oh, did I mention they were members of the Armed Forces, and they’re over there suppressing a civil war? Why, does it matter? They’re killing thousands of our people!

Jesus.

Next, the NPR article:

The military measures stability in Iraq by looking at total attacks daily — attacks on U.S. troops, Iraqi forces and Iraqi civilians. The Pentagon says total daily attacks are now at a one-year low. But last year was the deadliest for Iraqis since the invasion, so the comparison, says retired Army Col. Paul Hughes, is somewhat misleading.

No it’s not. The point of the surge was to decrease violence. It’s lower than last year. Sounds good.

“Even with the security that’s improved in the Baghdad region,” Hughes says, “they are still not getting the electricity and the water that city’s citizens need.”

Before the war, Baghdad had round-the-clock electricity. Today, more than four years since the invasion, the city averages about six hours of electricity a day.

This, of course, does not touch on how much electricity was being received in other parts of Iraq prior to the war, nor that there was no insurgency before we invaded Iraq because Saddam had the rather interesting knack of either gassing them or by wiping out their food supply.

Then comes the gem of the NPR article:

And then there’s the issue of Anbar province. Both the White House and the Pentagon have attributed the changes in Anbar to the surge strategy. But several military advisers who worked in Iraq until late last year have said that is simply not true. MacGregor says that the increasing cooperation between U.S. forces and Sunni tribes in Anbar started more than 18 months ago, long before the “surge.”

“And they were done on the initiative of the Marines and the Navy who looked at Anbar and said, “There’s gotta be a better way to do business here,” he says.

So, things were improving before the surge? Cool!

Finally, the third article:

_Prewar nationwide: 3,958 megawatts. Hours per day (estimated): four to eight.

_Aug. 14, 2007, nationwide: 4,110 megawatts. Hours per day: 10

Remember how I asked about the power situation for the rest of Iraq? Well, does this answer that question?

WATER:

_Prewar: 12.9 million people had potable water.

_July 13, 2007: 15.4 million people have potable water.

SEWERAGE:

_Prewar: 6.2 million people served.

_July 13, 2007: 11.3 million people served.

Of course, it wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for the sanctions… I mean, it’s not like it was Saddam’s fault that all of Iraq’s resources went to its capital or anything. Of course not.

*************

Okay, I’d continue dissecting this, but, frankly, MoveOn.org did a wonderful job of putting enough sources in their article to keep me from dissecting them all in a timely fashion. As it is, I’ve spent far more time on this than I should have. If someone wants to carry the torch and continue the dissection, more power to them. Either way, though, understand this:

MoveOn.org was wrong about what Petraeus had to say. It was even wrong about what its own sources had to say, at least the ones that I looked at, and picked contradictory sources to make its argument. If that isn’t proof of some “book cooking”, I don’t know what is.

So, via Instapundit, I found this article at Gateway Pundit on a rally in Indonesia where people planned the next Islamic caliphate. The event brought in 100,000 people, which is pretty impressive, and it got me thinking:

What was so great about the Caliphate, anyways?

In theory, the original Caliphate was the only state governed by the laws of Allah instead of man. Of course, being an atheist and all, I think that’s a load of bunk, and besides, I don’t see any Catholics calling for the return of the Papal States. So, what makes the Caliphate so special?

Thankfully, we have Wikipedia to the rescue… yes, I know it’s not a good primary source, but when you need basic information in a hurry, it works just nicely. Long story short, caliphates have two rather interesting features:

1. They’re the descendant political structure left from Mohammed’s absolute rule and as such are meant to be a marriage between church and state. A western equivalent might be Deseret or, taking a more period example, the aforementioned Papal States. Other possible parallels include the Holy Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire, both of which used the church to provide legitimacy for monarchic rule.
2. Each caliphate was essentially the major power in the world during their period of reign. For example, during the Umayyad Dynasty, the Caliphate stretch from Spain to Pakistan. The Ottoman Caliphate went as far north as the gates of Vienna.

So, what happened to these powers? The same thing that happens to all empires - they began to splinter. The Umayyad Dynasty began to collapse; the attempt to find a replacement for it led to the creation of the Shia sect of Islam that is predominant in Iran and southern Iraq. The Ottoman Empire was caught flat-footed by a sudden burst of European innovation, as the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution kicked in, fueled in part by resources from the New World. Eventually, the Ottoman Empire picked the wrong side in World War I, Kemal Ataturk took control over Turkey, the French and English divided up the Middle East amongst themselves, and the rest is history.

In this light, it’s pretty obvious why many Muslims would like to see a caliphate come back. Each caliphate (Arab or Turkish) corresponded to a time when Islam was ascendant in the world. However, what those who pine for a new caliphate don’t get is that each caliphate was the direct result of the Islamic culture being better organized and more technologically advanced than its neighbors, something which hasn’t been true in over 200 years now. In fact, if it weren’t for the fortuitous discovery of oil in the Middle East, the former areas of the caliphates would be completely irrelevant today.

As others have had to learn the hard way, governing according to medieval nostalgia is a very quick way to become disappointed. If they really wish to create a new caliphate, one that would compete with the West, then they need to outdo the west. They certainly have the oil reserves for it.

For those of you that are unaware, I live in Reno, Nevada. One of my state senators is none other than the Senate Majority Leader, one Senator Harry Reid. In fact, he spoke at my high school many years ago. It was somewhat fascinating at the time. Unfortunately, he’s recently done a wonderful job of making a rather poor name of himself. His approval rating in the US is a whopping 19%. Dennis Miller is making fun of him. He announced that the Iraq war is lost in April, right around the time that General Petraus was about to begin the surge. This doesn’t include the various corruption scandals that his name seems to get attached to like glue, including fishy land dealings.

Now this (courtesy of the Washington Post):

Sen. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) charged that Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, who took command in Iraq four months ago, “isn’t in touch with what’s going on in Baghdad.” He also indicated that he thinks Petraeus has not been sufficiently open in his testimony to Congress. Noting that Petraeus, who is now on his third tour of duty in Iraq, oversaw the training of Iraqi troops during his second stint there, Reid said: “He told us it was going great; as we’ve looked back, it didn’t go so well.”

Reid seemed most provoked by an article in yesterday’s edition of USA Today, which quoted the general as saying that he sees “astonishing signs of normalcy” in the Iraqi capital. “I’m talking about professional soccer leagues with real grass field stadiums, several amusement parks — big ones, markets that are very vibrant,” Petraeus told the newspaper.

The general’s comments came on the same day that the Pentagon released to Congress a quarterly report on security in Iraq. It said that the three-month-old U.S. counteroffensive in Baghdad has not curtailed overall violence in the country but has instead shifted it from inside the Iraqi capital to places around it.

So, let’s recap:

Reid is not in Baghdad. Gen. Petraus, I’m assuming, is, at least from time to time. Petraus mentions that things are actually starting to look good in Baghdad, which is actually consistent with the report released to Congress that says that, in Baghdad, violence is down. Reid says that Petraus is not in touch with Baghdad.

Maybe I’m being a little pedantic here, but it looks like Reid isn’t in touch with the report that’s upsetting him, much less Baghdad. Furthermore, the entire point of the surge was to get the violence out of Baghdad so Iraq would have a capital to govern from. I also have to imagine that fighting in the suburbs is a heck of a lot easier to do than fighting in the middle of an urban center, especially when it’s your side that actually cares about collateral damage. So, from where I’m sitting, I’d say that, though things definitely need improvement, they’re trending in the right direction. Besides, Petraus has been on the job for four months. It takes a little longer than that to fix five years worth of mistakes.

Well I’ll be - courtesy of Mickey Kaus at Slate, a wonderful article about Iran’s goals at Real Clear Politics:

Since Day One of the planned operation to snatch British sailors from Iraqi waters, the Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guards) “War Kitchen” in Tehran had already drawn multiple recipes for the following weeks and potentially months to come. Indeed the regime, reacting to rising pressures from sectors of its own population and from the American-British-led coalition, engineered an “escalating” incident. The main scenario, as projected inside the minds of the Iranian “Jihadi-cooks,” is based on one request from the Khamenei-Ahmadinejad regime: waste time, as much time as possible. To the mullahs and their men in power, it is crucial to win the race between rising internal pressure inspired by the political changes in the region and pressure against the Iranian-led “axis” in the region, directed at the U.S. and the U.K. initiatives in Iraq. In short, Tehran’s regime wants to crumble its enemies before they crumble it.

“Catching” a British Navy unit off the shores of Iraq — regardless of the GPS positioning of the unit — is the opening play. In ten days, Tehran has already scored one success: The UN is discussing what to do about the 15 British sailors instead of how to shut down the 15 nuclear centers in Iran. The debate has been deflected and is now in the hands of the Iranian cooks. The opening play is followed by the dramatization of the “incident.” First, the regime begins showing the captives and swings media attention between details (”were they in Iranian waters?”) and outcomes (”will they be tried?”) of the phony case. Another psychological victory is scored: The international press follows the Iranian maestro’s gesticulations. As usual with the Western mainstream media, the story’s details become the devil, and their readers are denied the big picture.

Read the full thing - it’s worth it. Kaus argues that Iran blinked - the British got their soldiers back, they didn’t have to apologize, and that was that. On the other hand, Iran got to keep the soldiers for an exceptionally long time. The only question now is how long will the UK and US stay on guard out there and flex some muscle through carrier diplomacy?

Via Washington Post:

The Senate today defied a White House veto threat and narrowly approved a $122 billion war spending bill that calls for combat troops to begin withdrawing from Iraq this summer.

The 51-47 vote fell mostly along party lines, with two Republicans — Sens. Chuck Hagel (Neb.) and Gordon Smith (Ore.) — joining Democrats in support of the package, which would fund U.S. military activity in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Democrats also attached language that would start troop withdrawals within 120 days of passage, with a March 31, 2008, goal for completing combat operations in Iraq. Some troops could remain in Iraq after that deadline in order to conduct counterterrorism training and security operations.

President Bush has made it very clear that any funding bill that has a timeline in it will be vetoed, and both the House and Senate versions have timelines in them. What this means is that it will take a while for the funding packages to get approved between the two houses, then Bush will veto the resulting bill, which will then lead to further delays in the funding process. As if that weren’t bad enough, Victory Caucus points out that the funding bill isn’t even on the emergency calendar. As has also been widely reported, both the House version and the Senate version are full of plenty of pork to help bribe just enough people to actually get a majority on this, including:

HOUSE
—–
- The effects of Hurricane Katrina on shrimp populations
- Asbesos abatement at the Capitol power plant
- A minimum wage increase
- Peanut storage
… among other things.

SENATE
——
- Sugar beet disaster abatement
- Insect infestation damage reimbursements
- Livestock production losses
… among other things.

Of course, none of these things have anything at all to do with the war or funding thereof and, better yet, none of it is going to get past Bush’s desk since he refuses to sign any funding bill that contains a withdrawal date or provision.

So, what happens now?

- The House and Senate will spend some time after spring break ironing out a unified bill to hand to President Bush.
- President Bush will undoubtedly repeal the bill.
- The House and Senate will posture about how Bush is preventing them from funding the troops, even though they’re the ones that wrote a bill that Bush made abundantly clear will never get past his desk (oh wait, they’re doing that already). Meanwhile, Bush will continue to posture similarly against them.
- Eventually, someone will give.

The only question is… who? Personally, I suspect that, considering the amount of pork they had to throw into their bills to get them off of their own desks, I somehow doubt they’re in anywhere near as strong of a position as they’d like to be on this. Consequently, I suspect this is more symbolic than anything else and is simply meant to appease the Democratic base so they can say, “Well, Bush is still evil and we still can’t defeat him,” or something to that effect.

In the end, though, it’s the troops that’ll suffer.

Sorry about the relative paucity of posts around here lately - been rather obnoxiously busy with work. That said, there’s something very interesting happening in the news right now…

From the LA Times - Irani official alleges held British admit territory violation:

TEHRAN — An Iranian official today alleged that 15 British personnel detained in the Persian Gulf had confessed during interrogations to violating Iranian territorial waters.

Iranians transported the British sailors and Marines from a base in southwestern Iran to the capital for “interrogations and investigations,” said officials speaking through official news outlets.

The seizure in the volatile Persian Gulf has sparked a diplomatic row between London and Tehran just as the U.N. Security Council prepares to impose further sanctions on Iran for its nuclear program.

Meanwhile, Reuters is reporting that a fisherman says he saw Britons detained in Iraqi waters:

“We’ve been working in this job for many years and because of our experience we can distinguish which is the Iraqi and which is Iranian side,” he said, adding that Iraqi boats never venture across because of tight security by Iranian coastguards.

He said the ship the British forces were searching was among several that had been anchored for a week or more, waiting to unload or take on cargo at an Iraqi port.

“The ship was in Iraqi waters,” said the fisherman, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.

This is very interesting for a variety of reasons, including the fact that Iran isn’t handing the British sailors and marines back and has been interrogating them. If Iran overplays their hand here, even though the British people aren’t exactly for the Iraq war at the moment, their not exactly known for backing down against those that wrong them, either (see Falklands War). I don’t think this will be a Gulf of Tonkin-esque incident, but I do suspect that this could very easily sway British opinion in the direction that Iran really is dangerous and that sterner measures need to be put in place to ensure they don’t get nuclear weapons. If this incident doesn’t horribly backfire in the face of the Iran, I don’t know what will.

I think it’s pretty safe to say that Bush and his fans are smiling right now.

EDIT: Pajamas Media has a good roundup of what’s going on, including some analysis and a running blog of each event as it unfolds.