No Rants

I have not been inspired lately to compose long diatribes on Things Political and Military.

Partly, that is a lack of time. Between work and home life, there just never seems to be enough time to cover any topic in depth. Besides which, for a lot of things there are folks out there doing better.

For instance, if I wanted to talk about the War on Terror as waged in the Philippines, I would have to do a lot of research and whatnot, or I could just link to The Belmont Club, and snicker about how, outside of the media spotlight, it is simplest just to hand big bundles of cash to informants in order to make life difficult for terrorists. Terrorists who don't enjoy solid support from the populace they operate in (via tribal links, religious links, and/or ideological solidarity) are just like any other form of common thug, easily crushable once you devote the resources to it.

And those links are breakable.

That's why we are winning in Iraq--and today's definition of winning is "handing over larger chunks of Iraq to Iraqis to run as they see fit." Terrorists with a nilhistic outlook and no viable agenda for the future (and for most Iraqis, the Islamic State of Iraq is NOT rpt NOT viable) can be isolated. Of course, that's not what the Mainstream Media tells you. I filled out a survey on blog usage, and a lot of questions were about why I read blogs. How can you read stuff like this from people who are on the ground kicking ass and not prefer it to the pre-digested ideologically correct drivel the New York Times puts out?

Well, excuse me for a moment. Intellectual Honesty time. The New York Times does occasionally put out some half-way decent info. Sort of. And once in a while, someone in their opinion page does say something intelligent. This essay speaks of Vietnam and Iraq in a cogent manner, and points out that,

"Today, in Iraq, there should be no illusion that defeat would come at an acceptable price. George Orwell wrote that the quickest way of ending a war is to lose it. But anyone who thinks an American defeat in Iraq will bring a merciful end to this conflict is deluded. Defeat would produce an explosion of euphoria among all the forces of Islamist extremism, throwing the entire Middle East into even greater upheaval. The likely human and strategic costs are appalling to contemplate. Perhaps that is why so much of the current debate seeks to ignore these consequences."

I have said, time and again, that I would support an end to US involvement in Iraq if there was a plan that did not have appalling human and strategic costs.

No one has come up with one yet.

Minorly amusing trivia:

Sophia has a bit up about her male offspring standing on stuff. It's hysterical, and the first picture she has of her youngster with a hand on his hip is as perfectly stereotypical of "male standing on something" that one would think it staged if one didn't know better. Having spent a lot of time with young males with free time and cameras, I can attest that standing on stuff is a frequent pose. Trucks, dozers, tracks, whatever. Occasionally Mr. Hajji, but we don't put those pictures on the internet.

There's a new Korean tank in development, which looks like a maintenance nightmare--I've driven a vehicle with a hydraulic suspension and it sucks. But it looks cool.


Finally, because SOMEONE had to do it eventually, I located for your viewing amusement, the only Vlad Tepes macro I've ever seen.

Counterinsurgency has come a long way, baby!