|
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Regarding Saddam's possible nukes: "How he would have used them is one of
those real uncertainties for which I have no way to apply probabilities."
An excellent source of info on what is really going on
in the world is The Strategy Page,
www.strategypage.com.
They've addressed this in their articles and their
podcasts. Israel is a likely target of a Middle Eastern nuke, from Saddam's
regime or the Iranians. Any first generation bomb from Iraq or Iran would be
large and not easy to deliver by missile, or as a dropped bomb. They have
said in the past that the Israeli nightmare scenario is a civilian plane
that leaves African airspace and heads towards Israel. African airspace is
essentially uncontrolled and planes suddenly appear leaving it heading in
all directions. The Israeli air forces are said to be ready to shoot down
such random planes before they reach Israel.
Edmund Hack
==
I'm with Cochran.
The fact nobody has mentioned is that there will be no
stable unitary Iraq except under the same methods of government that Saddam
used. Maybe if there'd been a different approach 4 years ago things would be
otherwise, and maybe not. That doesn't matter now. What does matter is that
no one will be in charge in Iraq until he shows that he's a more ruthlessly
effective butcher than anybody else.
I'd rather not have an American officer in that role,
with American soldiers carrying out his policies.
W
==
The Gods must be crazy
Jerry,
Well, I knew that Dr. Cochran and I had different
opinions, thought I was a bit surprised at his vehemence.
Some responses:
1. Define "Strategic Threat." I never said or implied
(OK, I don't think I did, but please recall that my post consisted of my
most raw and paranoid of immediate musings...) that the US was in imminent
danger of being subjugated by Islamofascists; I said that (a) if
conventional warfare program in Iraq fails, we will have to face the
political consequences of having our foreign policy dictated by the
Islamofascists, or of using the nuclear threat for triflings, since we will
never again have a credible conventional response; and that (b) some parts
of a balkanized US might be easy pickings for them after we tear ourselves
apart.
And I would submit that a follow-on major terrorist
attack, even if accomplished by non-WMD means, to which we cannot offer the
chance of non-nuclear retaliation is a strategic threat by definition.
2. My immediate concern is much more for the latter.
There is reasonable room for debate over the best approach in Iran, and I
would be willing to listen to arguments that immediate withdrawal is the
best possible response. However, there are no such arguments being posited;
the congress is attempting to impose this strategy against the
recommendations of the Commander in Chief and the officers in the field.
Worst are my concerns about the calls for impeachment;
impeachment of a sitting President in time of war predicated on the
unpopularity of the war and the repeated assertion (which I and many people
believe go against the facts) that the war was forced upon us through lies
and deceit in the office of the President. The Clinton impeachment was
perhaps silly, but it was never a danger to the stability of the Union,
perhaps because of the "snigger" factor -- "you're impeaching him for
illicit sex?" People cannot deny that impeachment is in the air -- it has
been since the 2004 election, and in the news recently. Many people (though
perhaps I read too many of the right-wing pundits) have commented that the
purpose is purely and cynically political, to pay back the far left pundits
for putting the Democrats in control of Congress this term.
As I said in my second letter posted, the issue of
impeachment really rests on whether Reid (and Pelosi) can swing one-third of
the sitting Republican Senators (while holding their own caucus together, of
course). Sixteen men. Getting that many to vote for impeachment is, perhaps,
implausible. It is, however, far from impossible.
And what are the consequences of impeachment and the
establishment of the current Speaker as President? With the US at war and
emotions high, I can only foresee blood in the streets. Your "serving
officer" notes his fears that Al-Qaida would not hesitate to kick us while
we're down (and I'll repeat my comment about needing radiation protection
gear to visit Bethlehem for Christmas 2008). Total domestic chaos and
popularity numbers for the new Administration that make Bush's current
numbers look astronomical. You can draw your own scenarios -- and assess
their relative plausibility -- from there.
And I fear I must note that the wisest among us, by
about 1951, had established the death date of the republic as 2012, and that
date is coming fast. And the method of death -- an excess of insincere
televangelism. Something that falls under my heading of "the end of the
union."
Respectfully,
=========
Subj: Fertilizing the oceans with
iron for carbon sequestration
A little Googling shows that this matter is scarcely
new: it goes back to at least 1991, and there's been plenty of heat on both
sides. There have been attempts to reconcile the conflicting claims; see,
for example,
http://web.mit.edu/chisholm/www/publications/fefert.pdf
That one points out that how long the carbon *stays*
fixed are at least as important as how fast it *gets* fixed, in determining
whether dumping iron will reduce atmospheric carbon-dioxide levels. As of
the time of the paper (2002), neither side apparently had usable
measurements of how long the carbon would stay fixed, and each made a
different assumption. Reminds me of the old "World Dynamics/Club of Rome"
modeling exercises, in which the assumptions, not the data, drove the
conclusions.
This piece is a bit old, but I think it sketches
another of the issues:
http://enews.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/sea-carb-bish.html
=In one iron-fertilization experiment in warm
equatorial waters, chlorophyll increased 30-fold in a week, and there was
increased carbon sedimentation down through 100 meters. But the bloom
shortly dissipated, the fate of the carbon in deeper waters wasn't followed,
and long-term effects weren't measured.
In a more recent experiment in cold Antarctic Ocean
waters the plankton bloom persisted much longer. Seven weeks after the
experiment ended a distinct pattern of iron-fertilized plankton was still
visible from space -- "which means the fixed carbon was still at the
surface."
Bishop says that "people who want to add iron think
the particulate matter will fall straight to the bottom; I have sampled
natural plankton blooms, and I have not seen that happen. These guys have a
potentially effective method of sequestering carbon, but as yet there is no
scientific basis for their claims."=
Then there's this one:
http://www.llnl.gov/str/May04/Caldeira.html
=Another issue arises with the bloom of marine plant
life and the availability of other nutrients. “The models indicate that,
eventually, other macronutrients become depleted even as we add iron,” says
Caldeira. “When that happens, the bloom falters, and the organisms are no
longer taking up as much carbon as they did in the beginning.”=
Remember Lord Cherwell's calculations of the
effectiveness of Area Bombing of workers' housing districts in German cities
during WW2? He had an implicit assumption that the number of housing units
destroyed would be proportional to the tonnage of bombs dropped, with *no*
diminishing returns. If the calculations of the "Sure it'll work!" partisans
are based on assumptions like *that* one, ... .
It doesn't surprise me that the answer to, "Will it
work?" is still "We don't know." The oceans are big and the research ships
are few and expensive to operate. The new "gliding" robotic-submarine
data-collectors will help, but it'll be decades before there are enough of
them, and more decades before they gather the decade-scale data needed to
calibrate the models.
What does disappoint me is that both the "Will so!"
and "Won't either!" scientist-partisans are so vehement.
Would not the appropriate attitude for *scientists* on
both sides be, "Let's find out!"?
Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com
If I have allowed the impression that using
iron to catalyze marine blooms as a means of removing atmospheric carbon is
new, that was unintentional. I wrote about this in the 1980's. I first heard
of the notion from Russell Seitz, and there have been presentations at AAAS
meetings.
There have been some tests of
the theory but little research into developing techniques for its use.
Bad assumptions are hardly uncommon over
the centuries. Bad models make for bad predictions. On the other hand, it
seems reasonable to assume that something can be done: removing carbon from
the atmosphere is certainly possible. The question is how can it be done
efficiently (assuming we want it to be done at all: there are some
advantages to warmer climates).
In any event, the answer to the questions
is more experiments.
==
Please , Sir , may I have more Carbon Offsets ?
Dear Jerry :
Last year, an American Spectator essay ranked Nigeria
as a liberal democracy because 52% of its literate citizens think highly of
America.
Now it features Pat Michaels lambasting the executive
summary of the IPCC global warming report for implicit racism in lowballing
21st century African economic prospects.
http://adamant.typepad.com/seitz/2007/04/back_to_biafra.html
Russell Seitz
=========
Subject: global warming
throughout the solar system
Jerry
I did a quick search on Google for global warming
around the solar system. I found references global warming on other planets
in the following places:
Pluto:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2002/pluto.html
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Pluto_Is_Undergoing_Global_Warming.html
Neptune's largest moon, Triton:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1998/triton.html
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1998/23
Maybe Neptune itself:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2006GL028764.shtml
Maybe Jupiter:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/
2006-05-04-jupiter-jr-spot_x.htm?POE=TECISVA
And, of course, Mars:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070404203258.5klhwqs4&show_article=1
http://sciencenews.org/articles/20070407/fob7.asp
Apparently the evils of Western civilization (what's
left of it) and big SUV's are causing a solar system-wide catastrophe of
global warming. Of course, changes in solar output have nothing at all to do
with it. Not a thing.
Now I think I'll ask GM about visiting their Hummer
dealership on Pluto.
Ed
==
Jerry,
All those Martian SUVs are hurting them worse than
they are us...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1720024.ece
Mars is being hit by rapid climate change and it is
happening so fast that the red planet could lose its southern ice cap,
writes Jonathan Leake.
Scientists from NASA say that Mars has warmed by about
0.5C since the 1970s. This is similar to the warming experienced on Earth
over approximately the same period.
Since there is no known life on Mars it suggests rapid
changes in planetary climates could be natural phenomena.<snip>
Of course the article tries to postulate that this is
happening by a mechanism that doesn't hamper the terrestrial anthropomorphic
warming model. However, note that 0.5 C, "similar to Earth's" is in fact
proportionally greater due to the lower blackbody temperature of Mars...on
the other hand, the difference is well within the error bars.
Respectfully,
J.
==========
And with energy all things are possible:
Subject: Fusion breakthrough from Sandia Labs,
commercial viability only 20yrs away
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-04/dnl-rpb042507.php
=========
Subject: Harding Story
I have trouble with
the Harding story. Perhaps in Eastern Canada, but not here in the West.
I live in Calgary, Alberta. I have two teenaged sons.
Lazy beggars both. They work as they feel like, which is not much, unless
they want something. Their experience is that formal 'work search' in
Alberta is meaningless at least at the lower end. Mailing of resumes, phone
calls, polite letters: all nonsense.
Turn up in person looking like a worker and the
employer will clap you in irons, put you to work and never let you go. The
younger one went to Wal-Mart to apply at 10 one morning. Came home at 4 PM
with a blue smock and days work done.
Credentials? Who cares. We have intelligent high
school kids wiring and plumbing houses with the journeymen tradesmen barely
having time to do the little bit of truly technical work required, inspect
and sign off. I am not aware of any interjurisdictional dispute between
Alberta and BC as to 'credentials'. All seem to be recognized. You want to
work, turn up, and get at it.
If you mail a resume to an employer, they figure
you're a wanker trying to con the compo or such a bureaucrat you'll never
really work.
There are always credential problems between
jurisdictions. Our civil servants are indeed complete idiots, because anyone
competent is out making money. Even so, care, persistence and pressure work.
As always.
Cheers, got to go, work to be done.
Fred Zinkhofer
==
Hi Dr P.,
To give some credit where it's due, the professional
bodies in Canada recognize the problem (of foreign credentials not being
fully accepted in Canada) and are making some progress in trying to overcome
it. But the hiring situation is a real problem. I suspect part of the issue
is that it's not so easy to get RID of an employee once the person has been
hired. Separation pay can be quite high, and awards in court for wrongful
dismissal likewise. It leads to a culture of excess caution when it comes to
hiring people. But also, management here is broadly, generally
incompetent... it takes a whole culture to nurture managers, and there just
isn't that culture.
As for not getting responses when sending resumes to
Canadian employers -- hey, fully credentialed, experienced, *Canadians*
don't get responses either. Any tiny little thing makes it almost impossible
to get a job in this country. I've spent most of my working life
self-employed because of a minor handicap that makes my resume immediately
rejected by any prospective employer. I have friends who couldn't get a
decent job because they were black, or had an accent, or had worked abroad
for too many years, or had experience that was just a little bit "not
right", or were overeducated, etc....
I don't have any solutions to this problem, but I can
tell you that this culture of excessive caution is doing our economy no
good. We have an excellent educational system, yet most of our best and
brightest leave the country because you can't get a job here, and if you
can, the taxes make it hardly worth it. The problem goes all the way to the
top. Those companies that do succeed, immediately sell themselves out
because it's easier than continuing to compete...
-PM
======
Subject: Despotic populism (mail)
The ruthlessness of despotism in Russia is illustrated
by "suppression of peaceful demonstration". Well, the ruthlessness was
demonstrated when Kasparov was detained for few hours and fined about $40.
Russia is probably not an example of liberal democracy (and never was), but
come on, victims of Stalin GULAG would be offended. Stalin USSR was ruthless
despotism, current Russia -- not by a long stretch.
These are the people who were "peacefully"
demonstrating, BTW:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Bolshevik_Party
They were allowed to demonstrate, but did not like the
allowed site.
Alexsey
========
Hello Dr. Pournelle,
In his recent message (View, April 28, 2007), Dr.
Cochran is proposing tactics for withdrawal, which conflict with Ollie
North's (and several military officers') opinion of the problems involved in
a precipitate "cut-and-run" withdrawl along the lines proposed by Dr.
Cochran. North is a decorated combat veteran, former LTC in the USMC and has
spend many months running all over Iraq for Fox News. Dr. Cochran is a very
smart guy who has (as far as I could Google) zero military experience and
has never set foot in Iraq. Who is more likely to get it right?
Had North challenged Cochran on Cochran's opinion of
the mass of the Higgs boson, I'd support Cochran because in that field he
would the expert and North the amateur.
In a technical field, when even a highly intelligent
amateur with little or no practical experience disagrees with a professional
with years of experience, the amateur is wrong well over 99% of the time.
This may be a handy literary device (e.g., when Doc Smith's Kimball Kinneson
has the idea that births the sun beam) but it is frequently useful because
it is an unexpected turn of events, i.e., a plot twist.
In topics like politics or statecraft, which deal more
with fuzzy "people" issues, the technical issues (e.g., press contacts,
campaign finance laws) are less important and the informed amateur is not at
as great a disadvantage relative to the professional.
Two separate, but related, topics, which Democrats and
other "pull out now" advocates seem to be avoiding, are
What post-retreat policies should be adopted?
What would the fallout from such a pullout be?
Specific questions under the first topic include:
Do we continue to support the IA logistically or do we
give them only "20 cartridges and 2 hand grenades per man" (View, Feb. 15,
2005)? There are pros and cons to such support, and to the possibility of
continued air support when required.
What other changes should we make? Perhaps a permanent
Orange threat level would be in order.
The second, and much broader, topic would include
answers to questions like "what if the folks who supported us have to flee
an al Queda-ruled Iraq"? Would we accept them as refugees, as we did with
the Vietnamese boat people? Al Queda would certainly try to insert their
people into such a flood, to get them inside the USA for future operations.
On the other hand, don't we have a moral obligation to these people? On the
gripping hand, would any other state in the region accept them?
Another question under the second topic is whether we
would see more Khomeini/Taliban type (extremist Islamic/Islamofascist)
regimes pop up if we scuttle out quickly or if we take much longer to draw
down our forces while the IA and Iraqi police forces get better at what they
eventually have to take ownership of - control of their country. The
Kucinich wing of the Democrats asserts that if we just withdraw from the
region entirely and maybe sing a few kumbaya's, the Arab "street" will
embrace us as brothers and the Age of Aquarius will be upon us. This ignores
at least the last 50 years of history and, really, the basic nature of
Isalmic extremism, which nurses grudges centuries old and kills people in
the name of those grudges.
I am hoping that Dr. Cochran and the others who
advocate the "cut and run" policy will address these very real issues. I
believe that Dr. Cochran would agree that there are some bad people out
there who want to destroy the US and who have demonstrated that they have
the ability to at least hurt us very badly. That would seem to form a good
foundation for the discussion.
Bill Hembree
==
Your anonymous correspondent is still being paranoid.
He says "... we will never again have a credible conventional response;"
Never is a long time. And anyway, I think we pretty
credibly removed Saddam, root and branch. You've already pointed out the
lesson future despots will take from that. Anyone likely to be deterred by
the prospect of a "conventional response" will be deterred a lot more
effectively by a rested, re-equipped Army that's not squatting in Baghdad.
And what "follow-on major terrorist attack, even if
accomplished by non-WMD means" would we be exposed to, that we aren't
exposed to already? The President and his people like to imply that the
Occupation in Iraq is preventing terrorist attacks here, but that's
nonsense. If OBL and party had a usable plan for another 9/11 or worse, our
being in Iraq would not stop them from using it.
I think your correspondent is scaring himself with
talk of impeachment. The Republicans made such a cheap farce of the last one
that I don't think it will be tried again for a long time. I think Pelosi
and Reid have a different agenda anyway, one aimed at keeping the cameras on
Administration officials testifying at hearings designed to expose the
President's people as mental and moral flyweights. As for impeachment to pay
back far-left pundits, that's just risible. The Republicans lost Congress
because 1) they put a bunch of crooks in charge, some of whom got caught,
and 2) people started getting sick of hearing, every three months or so,
that the Occupation was going to start turning out just peachy in another
three months or so.
Even though I'm a Democrat, I wasn't too upset by
Kerry losing in '04, and not just because I didn't find Kerry very
inspiring. Had Bush lost then, he would have completely escaped
responsibility for the inevitable debacle in Iraq, and for 30 years we'd be
hearing that W coulda won it, had we just kept him as President. At least
we'll be spared that now.
WS
==
Dr. Pournelle,
Of all the arguments that I have I have heard over
what the US should do about Iraq, one issue that I have heard little about
is the effect on the reputation of the United States as an ally. We
eventually sold out South Vietnam for political convenience. We exited
Somalia after losing a platoon of troops. We encouraged uprisings against
Sadaam, then sat on our hands as they were ruthlessly put down.
If the US exits Iraq now, why would any ally ever take
seriously a US "commitment" to security?
I suppose it doesn't matter to those who believe that
the concept of honor is a quaint and impractical notion.
Steve Chu
==
Subject: Regarding your second point: a heavy cost in
US credibility of commitment
Jerry,
When I read your second point, I found myself
wondering: Who else in the world has any kind of credibility of commitment?
Certainly not our former NATO allies. Leaders and citizens of those liberal,
socialized democracies certainly understand the limits of commitments made
by elected leaders. Communist or formerly communist countries? Authoritarian
governments like those in Egypt, or Pakistan, or Syria? Mostly a treacherous
lot, often ruling without much popular support, and often quite willing to
compromise principle for money or personal advantage. Certainly the
commitments of those countries can only last as long as the dictator that
made the commitment. Any promise is one coup away from being overturned.
Authoritarian Islamic regimes? They seem as treacherous and self serving as
any secular authoritarian regime. So will the rest of the world really be
all that surprised or disappointed to find out that we aren't any better
than they are?
I suppose we all have buried in our psyche some
longing for leaders cut in the mold of the mythical King Arthur: courageous,
wise, and true to their word. But is this a realistic standard, or one that
has been demonstrated that much in the past? The NATO alliance did seem to
hold together pretty well through the cold war, but was that so much the
willingness of countries to stick to commitments, or was it more the
confluence of obvious self interest? Even in the big wars of our own past
(US civil war, WWI, and WWII) I am of the understanding that a lot of effort
went into controlling the reporting of the war so as to maintain public
support for the effort. Even back then, our leaders apparently understood
the limited patience of the public for prolonged war in far away places,
particularly wars that weren't going all that well.
To the rest of the world, the lesson of the US
involvement in Iraq may look like this: piss us off badly enough, and we
will show up and break things with serious purpose. What we do after that
may or may not be very sensible, but in the end we will likely choose the
path that fits our own perceived short-term interest. I think that most
people in the middle east already feel like the US only meddles or breaks
things with a self serving objective in mind. Sticking it out in Iraq
probably won't change that opinion. Neither will leaving a mess behind.
Maybe all we really need going forward is credibility with regard to our
willingness to show up and break things if sufficiently provoked.
CP, Connecticut
Why should we break things and kill people
except in our national interest? Jacobins believe we ought to meddle in
other people's affairs in order to "do good" and "help them".
Democracies historically use military
force only in short campaigns, or else as all out war for survival; in which
case they bring WARRE, fire bombs, nuclear weapons, death and destruction.
We have a small history of small wars with little national interest in the
Caribbean and Philippines. We tried Doing
Good in the Balkans, with at best mixed results. We then decided to go Do
Good in Iraq, with at best mixed results.
The reason one wants credibility should be
obvious: deterrence is impossible without it. Had Clinton been more vigorous
in response to the first World Trade Towers attacks, the Embassy bombings,
the Cole, then states would have been a great deal more reluctant to harbor
our enemies.
Removal of the Taliban in response to 9/11
increased our credibility. The war in Mesopotamia does not seem to have done
so.
==
Jerry:
You may well be correct in pointing out that Iraq is
not a nation. However, I suspect in the world as it exists today, Iraq
cannot long avoid becoming a nation.
The question is, whose?
And whose (for the sake of our and everyone else's
safety) do we want it to be?
.................Karl Lembke
==
Subject: RE A failure in generalship
Jerry,
Mr. Dobbins recently sent in a pointer to an article
on Colonel Yingling. While many of the recommendations in Yingling's article
(http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/05/2635198)
strike me as sound (more Congressional oversight of the promotion process
for flag-ranking officers, including reviews by subordinates and peers in
the review process), this bit of credentialism caught my attention:
"Congress should also modify the officer promotion
system in ways that reward intellectual achievement. The Senate should
examine the education and professional writing of nominees for three- and
four-star billets as part of the confirmation process. The Senate would
never confirm to the Supreme Court a nominee who had neither been to law
school nor written legal opinions. However, it routinely confirms four-star
generals who possess neither graduate education in the social sciences or
humanities nor the capability to speak a foreign language. Senior general
officers must have a vision of what future conflicts will look like and what
capabilities the U.S. requires to prevail in those conflicts. They must
possess the capability to understand and interact with foreign cultures. A
solid record of intellectual achievement and fluency in foreign languages
are effective indicators of an officer's potential for senior leadership."
It makes sense to me that a solid understanding of
nations and realpolitik is essential to a flag-ranked officer, so he's got a
point, but the presumption that a graduate degree in the social sciences is
necessary or sufficient proof of this understanding is somewhat... jarring.
However, the article as a whole is worth reading.
-Max Wilson
-- Be pretty if you are, be witty if you can, But be
cheerful if it kills you.
Everything in Windows is very simple, but the simplest
thing is difficult. -Clausewitz
The notion of the officer corps being
compulsorily subjected to even more of the psychobabble of the Voodoo
Sciences is horrifying; and I can think of nothing that would be more
effective in producing a pro-coup mentality among the warriors. It is a
ghastly notion with absolutely no mitigating advantages.
General officers should be former combat
leaders with the ability to get men to go up the hill.
We used to say that if you do not trust an
officer with troops you put him in intelligence, and if he mucks that up
entirely you give him public relations. There is some truth in that old
maxim. Sending officers to sensitivity training and social science certainly
does not increase his ability to handle troops.
==
Subject: Kurds and way
Dear Jerry:
It is the Kurds themselves who say they have no
friends. A difficult people, but a practical one. If we could find a way to
perpetuate the current situation, sans the suicide bombers, we might be able
to base a permanent force there much as we did in Germany. Not so much as an
occupation force as a presence.
The Pesmerga might form the basis of a constabulary
acceptable to Sunnis and Shia alike, much like the Sikh policeman I saw when
I was In Kuala Lumpur. He was not of there, but everyone respected his
authority simply because he was so alien. If "Kurdistan" acquires a status
much like Taiwan, as a balance point between adversaries, then peace might
yet prevail. As long as Kurdish independence is not formally acknowleged,
the Turks will go along. It would be up to the Kurds to accept this reality
as preferable to yet another war and subsume their nationalism to real
progress.
Sincerely,
Francis Hamit
The Athenians used slave archers from the
Steppes as domestic police. The Israelis used to employ the Druze as police
and security forces, with considerable success, before the policies changed.
And of course Saladin the Great was a
Kurd, and united the Arab world against the Third Crusade.
==
" a) if conventional warfare program in Iraq fails, we
will have to face the political consequences of having our foreign policy
dictated by the Islamofascists, or of using the nuclear threat for triflings,
since we will never again have a credible conventional response; and that
(b) some parts of a balkanized US might be easy pickings for them after we
tear ourselves apart. "
None of this makes any sense at all. First, about that
bit about our foreign policy being dictated by the Islamofascists.. Now
exactly how is that supposed to happen? Let's suppose that Bin Laden
smuggles a tape out of the Northwest Provinces of Pakistan tell us that we
have to change our border policy, or revalue our currency, or pull troops
out of Dubai.... whatever Why would we have to do what he said? I'm
genuinely puzzled as to why you think this. There's aren't many people who
could be described as Islamofascists - and the few that exist have hardly
any power. Less power than Burkina Faso, a country you've never even heard
of, and that's not just a joke. Yet they keep you from sleeping at night -
why? I hate to be harsh about this, but it makes you seem like a nut.
And, for your information, there are lots of
conventional responses other than long-term infantry occupation. .. although
it's hardly clear what it is you think we need to respond to. We have an Air
Force: maybe you didn't know that? We have absolute air superiority and
JDAMS: we can blow up up about any visible above-ground target you care to
mention. That doesn't solve every problem but the option is certainly
available.
As for impeachment - I'm a sixth generation
straight-ticket Republican - and I think it's a wonderful idea. I think
there's more chance of it happening that people think - mainly because of
likely side effects of various unraveling scandals. For example, there's a
real chance that we'll find out who had those Niger-uranium documents
forged: there's a reasonable chance that the trail will lead to Cheney, and
that'd be more fun than I deserve. Bush couldn't have caused us more trouble
if he were an enemy agent. Judge them by their fruits, I say. He's injured
the country - casually, carelessly. That's unforgivable.
As for tearing ourselves apart - last I looked, Bush
had a 28% approval rating. I would say that he has more opposition among
competent national security professionals than any previous President. There
is a reason that none of his own hand-picked Joint Chiefs agreed with the
'surge'. There is a _reason_ that the War College has repeatedly argued that
the Iraq War was and is ridiculous.. Batiste refused the number-two job in
Iraq for a _reason_. There is a _reason_ that all five retired four-star
generals who were offered the War Czar position refused it - imagine,
refusing a theater command.
Gregory Cochran
============
Smoking Gun found in Hurricane Alley
Sometimes we forget that in addition to being a
thousand times denser than air, water has an equally disproportionate heat
capacity. Since hurricanes are heat engines par excellence, the water
temperature of their tracks is a major determinant of how their danger
evolves.
A new kind of hyperspectral satellite image , graphing
the composite product of water temperature and- get this-- sea surface
elevation due to warm water buoyancy -- all too vividly reveals the answer
to why, apart from the Doc d'Orleans dubious taste in development property,
the Big Easy went went glug glug:
http://adamant.typepad.com/seitz/2007/05/a_wet_affair_in.html
<http://adamant.typepad.com/seitz/2007/05/a_wet_affair_in.html>
Russell Seitz
TOP
CURRENT VIEW Tuesday |
