Pentagon promotes idea of 100 year war

A story copied below tells how the Pentagon is promoting the notion of a 100 year war -- to the country at large and anyone willing to listen to their idiotic plan of non-attack:

"The Pentagon's Joint Staff is very secretive but it is coming out of the shadows
to better promote the idea that the global war on terrorism will bea "Long War"
of perhaps 100 years' duration. "

Personally, I give it no more than 10 years, with a possibility of something major happening almost any time. If you live in NY or DC, I recommend you start digging your fallout shelter.

"The briefing states that Al Qaida "has exploited a frustrated
populace, increased communications, and improved tactics to inspire a global
movement committed to establishing extremists domination over much of the
world.""

This is like aligning your gunsights with a bent stick. AQ has exploited incompetence, demonstrated weakness, and very bad philosophy ranging from multiculturalism to raw, undiluted altruism all the way to out and out pacifism, and a plethora of U.S. government policies implementing it. All that other stuff is secondary and like planning to win WWII by winning hearts and minds of the people in Frankfurt with a letter writing campaign. Has the Pentagon ever heard of the concept of "strategic thinking"?

"'The extremists believe that only through total extremists domination can the
Ummah once again be prominent in the world," the briefing states,...[and]
discloses a 20-year Al Qaida plan to create an Islamist extremist homeland in the
Middle East."

Extremist, extremist, extremist. Clueless, clueless, clueless Pentagon "experts". Maybe we could get them to see the light if we ask the CIA to subject them to a "waterboarding" to wash their heads of such notions?Nope, that won't work. You can't clean an empty void. (I wonder how many of the people behind this policy are coming out of academic "thinktanks"?Probably ... most.)

"By 2010, Al Qaida plans on the "Demise of Arab governments." All this
will culminate in an Islamic caliphate in 2013, when Al Qaida and Islamists
gain powerful new allies such as China, and Europe declines into disunity."

Hasn't Europe already declined?

"The "Total Confrontation" period will commence from 2015 to 2020 with
the creation of an Islamic Army that will begin a worldwide fight
against believers and nonbelievers. The "Definitive Victory" will be reached in
2020 when the Islamists will assume power globally."

Clearly, AQ doesn't see a 100 year war. More like 13 years. However, if we put Ethiopia in charge of defeating them, I have no doubt AQ can be defeated in two weeks. (http://www.geostrategy-direct.com/geostrategy-direct/secure/2006/12_27/ba.asp)

Pentagon briefings reveal Al Qaida's 20-year plan, inevitability of 'LongWar'
The Pentagon's Joint Staff is very secretive but it is coming out of the shadows to better promote the idea that the global war on terrorism will bea "Long War" of perhaps 100 years' duration.

A Joint Staff briefing, entitled the "Long War," is given five or six times a week within the Pentagon to various public audiences and as many as 60 times around the country. The goal is to help the American people andleaders better understand the nature of the conflict, the enemy and its actions and the U.S. strategy and tactics for defeating them.

"It is not just about Iraq or Afghanistan. It involves the whole world and it
involves the whole government," said Air Force Brig. Gen. Mark Schissler, deputy
director of the war on terrorism within the Joint Staff J-5 strategy office.

According to the briefing, Al Qaida remains the main threat but it is also changing. The terrorist group is succeeding in making more connections around the globe, especially in Muslim-dominated regions where Islamists seek to re-establish a caliphate. These include North Africa, SouthernEurope, the Middle East, and parts of Central and Southeast Asia.

"We see them reaching out a little more regionally and globally and you
see groups that previously had not favored Al Qaida in some cases joining up with
them now," Schissler said. For example, terrorists in North Africa in the past
had refused to join Al Qaida but recently have started to join forces with the
group headed by Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri.

The briefing states that Al Qaida "has exploited a frustrated populace, increased communications, and improved tactics to inspire a global movement committed to establishing extremists domination over much of the world."

"The extremists believe that only through total extremists domination can the
Ummah once again be prominent in the world," the briefing states, noting that Bin
Laden has boasted that "the pious caliphate will start fromAfghanistan."

The briefing discloses a 20-year Al Qaida plan to create an Islamist extremist homeland in the Middle East. The seven-stage plan began with the September 11 attacks as "The Awakening," "Eye-Opening," in 2003 when U.S.troops took Baghdad. The plan will continue with the "Arising and Standing Up" in 2007 with a new focus on Syria and Turkey, and also more direct confrontations with Israel to try to gain more credibility among Muslims.

By 2010, Al Qaida plans on the "Demise of Arab governments." All this willculminate in an Islamic caliphate in 2013, when Al Qaida and Islamists gain powerful new allies such as China, and Europe declines into disunity.

The "Total Confrontation" period will commence from 2015 to 2020 with the creation of an Islamic Army that will begin a worldwide fight againstbelievers and nonbelievers.

The "Definitive Victory" will be reached in 2020 when the Islamists will assume power globally.

Report: Iran's Oil Exports May Disappear ??

Yesterday there was a rather bizarre story in the NYTimes (AP wire) on Iran(copied below):

"Iran is suffering a staggering decline in revenue from its oil exports, and if
the trend continues income could virtually disappear by 2015, according to an
analysis published Monday in a journal of the National Academy of Sciences."

The "analysis" here is so idiotic seemed to offer only one explanation to me. The clue comes from the author of this "study":

''With an explosive demand at home and poor management, the appeal of nuclear
power, financed by Russia, could fill a real need for production of more
electricity.''

That is, I wondered if the purpose here is to get us used to the idea of Iran becoming a nuclear power. Short of a war, the notion that Iran's oil output will dwindle to zero makes no sense. The study claims all Iranian exports will disappear, leaving only internal consumption. For instance, take a look at the U.S. government's own data (http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/iran.html#Forecasts):

Iran:Reserves: 132.5 billion barrels (http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/oil.html)
Production: 1.45 billion barrels per year. (https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ir.html)
Internal consumption: 0.52 billion barrels per year. (CIA worldfactbook again)

That is, putting aside growth in annual production and discovery of new fields (always underestimated), a straight-line projection (I'm not trying to get into nuances here) says Iran has 91 years worth of oil production in their fields. This shouldn't be so remarkable, cause Iran has the third largest world reserves, behind only Saudi Arabia (264.3 billion barrels) and Canada (178.8).

Currently, Iran uses 1/3 of that production. To use 100% of it by 2015 they would have to have an economic growth rate of 13.7% by my calculation. Current growth rate in GDP in Iran is 6.9% (a rate the study seems to think is "explosive"; ref: CIA World factbook), which would give them about 15 years supply instead of 8.

Assuming no increase in annual production, this is almost feasible if you believe the CIA assessment: "Iran's economy is marked by a bloated, inefficient state sector, over-reliance on the oil sector, and statist policies that create major distortions throughout. Most economic activity is controlled by the state."

So how does the study justify a prediction of Iran's oil output drying up in 8 years? I don't know. Haven't read the NAS report (the Jan 16-20 online "early" edition isn't online yet). But it sure sounds like it's trying to get us used to the idea that Iran needs nuclear power -- either to influence U.S. policy, or as part of it. Says the study author, Roger J. Stern of Johns Hopkins:

"If the United States can ''hold its breath'' for a few years it may find Iran a
much more conciliatory country, he said. And that, Stern said, is good reason to
belay any instinct to take on Iran militarily."

An assertion so bald-faced stupid as to defy further comment. But what's worth a moment's more comment is another online press release on Stern's hypothesis (http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/home06/jan06/mideast.html -- not copied here) that undercuts the conspiracy theory. In it, there's a different take on the whole story. Stern's argument is that

A) "U.S. policy in the Middle East is driven by baseless fears that an "oil weapon" can cut off our fuel supply;"
B) "His review of economic and historical data also shows that untapped oil supplies are abundant, not scarce."

A point of view that the release says has made Stern something of a pariah, cause his research shows that "since 1970 the cost of extracting oil in Saudi Arabia has dropped by more than one-half, a clear sign of abundance."

(Huh? What about technological advances! He would have argue that market *price* has dropped for there to be abundance.) He also argues that Persian Gulf oil prices are being kept artificially high to generate "monopoly profits for these nations". His first conclusion is

C) We should stop appeasing Mid-East countries like Iran,

Which sounds encouraging, but in a typical academic non-sequitur, he then concludes

D) Market forces are the primary threat; and
E) We need to stop using oil, and
F) accept the idea of a Gulf Superpower, ie, Iran.

Maybe the AP and Johns Hopkins and the NAS are seizing on the report for their own conspiratorial reasons, but considering all the foolishness here, I will have to categorize Roger J. Sterns' motives as simply very confused.

(Just found the article "Oil market power and United States national security", http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0503705102v1.pdf. A quick scan confirms the nonsense amidst lots of economic quasi-rational gobbledy-gook. His abstract says, "It is therefore oil market power, not oil per se, that actuates threats." Give me a break. Has this guy never heard of nuclear weapons? Not in the Ivory Tower, I guess.)

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Iran-Oil.html

Report: Iran's Oil Exports May Disappear
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: December 25, 2006
Filed at 8:09 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Iran is suffering a staggering decline in revenue from its oil exports, and if the trend continues income could virtually disappear by 2015, according to an analysis published Monday in a journal of the National Academy of Sciences.

Iran's economic woes could make the country unstable and vulnerable, with its oil industry crippled, Roger Stern, an economic geographer at Johns Hopkins University, said in the report and in an interview.

Iran earns about $50 billion a year in oil exports. The decline is estimated at 10 to 12 percent annually. In less than five years exports could be halved and then disappear by 2015, Stern predicted.

For two decades, the United States has deployed military forces in the region in a strategy to pre-empt emergence of a regional superpower.

Iraq was stopped in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, but a hostile Iran remains a target of U.S. threats.

The U.S. military exercises have not stopped Iran's drive. But the report said the country could be destabilized by declining oil exports, hostility to foreign investment to develop new oil resources and poor state planning, Stern said.

Stern's analysis, which appears in this week's edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, supports U.S. and European suspicions that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons in violation of international understandings. But, Stern says, there could be merit to Iran's assertion that it needs nuclear power for civilian purposes ''as badly as it claims.''

He said oil production is declining and both gas and oil are being sold domestically at highly subsidized rates. At the same time, Iran is neglecting to reinvest in its oil production.

''With an explosive demand at home and poor management, the appeal of nuclear power, financed by Russia, could fill a real need for production of more electricity.''

Iran produces about 3.7 million barrels a day, about 300,000 barrels below the quota set for Iran by the oil cartel, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

The shortfall represents a loss of about $5.5 billion a year, Stern said. In 2004, Iran's oil profits were 65 percent of the government's revenues.

''If we look at that shortfall, and failure to rectify leaks in their refineries, that adds up to a loss of about $10 billion to $11 billion a year,'' he said. ''That is a picture of an industry in collapse.''

If the United States can ''hold its breath'' for a few years it may find Iran a much more conciliatory country, he said. And that, Stern said, is good reason to belay any instinct to take on Iran militarily.

''What they are doing to themselves is much worse than anything we could do,'' he said.

''The one thing that would unite the country right now is to bomb them,'' Stern said. ''Here is one problem that might solve itself.''

Ethiopian Warplanes Attack Somalia, Save Western Civilization

If you haven't read it yet, the story copied below is just too good to pass up. Coincidentally, I was just reading John Lewis's "No Substitute for Victory" article in The Objective Standard (excellent, if you haven't read it--https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2006-winter/no-substitute-for-victory.asp), and reading the news story below I had to laugh out loud -- the Ethiopians are making his case:

"Ethiopian warplanes attacked Somalia today... Ethiopian officials said ...they
had run out of patience with the Islamist leaders, who have declared war on
Ethiopia and vowed to turn Somalia into a recruiting ground for anti-Ethiopian
fighters... "What did you expect us to do?" said Zemedkun Tekle, a spokesman for
Ethiopia's information ministry. "Wait for them to attack our cities?""

Well, the U.S. State Department and the Bush Administration would. They did. They are. But Zemedkun Tekle knows what to do:

""The Ethiopians are blowing things up all over the place," said Mohammed
Hussein Galgal, an Islamist commander... "

**Finally** an Islamic commander who is scared! The SOB has finally encountered some serious military might -- from the mighty world superpower of Ethiopia. If only Bush Jr. (as Andy Bernstein terms him, "the Little Shrub") would back this guy. What's Bush doing instead?

"...western diplomats had been urging Ethiopia to use restraint, ..."

cause we must be prepared to wage a loooonnngg war against the Islamists, Somalian or otherwise. Somehow, restraint always does that. However, Ethiopia's PM has other plans:

"Ethiopia's prime minister recently told American officials that he could wipe
out the Islamists "in one to two weeks."

You got that? Two weeks. Let me say that again: **two weeks**. Let's make this guy President of the United States! Here is a man with hair on his chest. Unlike the hairless Shrub (or Clinton, who couldn't defeat Somalia at all). Bush thinks Somalia and a few other Islamist states will take a few hundred years or so to defeat. (There's some gutsy leadership for you.) In contrast, as demonstration of what a man of action might do

"Ethiopian bombers blew up an Islamist recruitment center, killing several
civilians, and dropped bombs on Islamist troops hiding in the hills."

This Ethiopian PM is not even afraid of civilians! What could he do if we gave him some serious military power to shoot things up with? Single-handedly he could save Western Civilization and bring about the downfall of Islamists the world over -- and I bet it would be in **two weeks**. Without being afraid to say it. Screw "world opinion" or even the fears of the reporter here who opines that "a dreaded regional war has now begun".

This Ethiopian PM has my vote. Does he need authorization to attack from a 'coalition of the willing'? To hell with those waffling Euros, those wankless Frenchies and those nattering nabobs of negativism in our own country. Badges? He dun need no stinkin' badges. He'll just roll in wherever he sees a threat and blow things up all over the place. **Before** they attack our cities. Now that's what I call leadership.

(Anyone ever seen the movie or read "The Mouse That Roared"? From IMDB.com: "The story of how the tiny Duchy of Grand Fenwick waged war on the U.S. - and won." Their goal was to lose -- so they could have foreign aid lavished on their pathetic little country. So they sent a fishing boat with a squad of men armed with bows and arrows into Manhattan -- but everyone is underground during a civil defense drill. Searching for someone to surrender to, they discover a master nuclear scientist with a prototype of the world's most powerful bomb, and take him back to Grand Fenwick. The U.S. sues for peace, etc. The metaphor isn't perfect--yet--but somehow, I sense life is imitating art. Somewhere. Ethiopia, Iraq, Iran, whatever.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/world/africa/24cnd-somalia.html?hp&ex=1167022800&en=7190c64e905ada39&ei=5094&partner=homepageEthiopian

Warplanes Attack Somalia
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
Published: December 24, 2006

ZANZIBAR, TANZANIA, Dec. 24 - Ethiopian warplanes attacked Somalia today, destroying a recruiting center for Islamist fighters and solidifying fears that a dreaded regional war has now begun.

Islamic Forces Expand Attacks and Urge Muslims to Join War on Somalian Government (December 24, 2006) In the Third Day of Fighting in Somalia, Worries of a Sharp Escalation by Ethiopian Forces (December 23, 2006)According to witnesses, the warplanes bombarded several towns while Ethiopian tanks pushed aggressively into territory that had been controlled by Somalia's Islamist forces. That ignited fighting up and down the Somali coast, with Ethiopian troops locked in an escalating battle against Somalia's powerful Islamist movement.

"The Ethiopians are blowing things up all over the place," said Mohammed Hussein Galgal, an Islamist commander in Beledweyne, near the Ethiopian border. "Civilians have been killed, people are fleeing. But don't worry, we won't be defeated."

Ethiopian officials said today that they had run out of patience with the Islamist leaders, who have declared war on Ethiopia and vowed to turn Somalia into a recruiting ground for anti-Ethiopian fighters.

"What did you expect us to do?" said Zemedkun Tekle, a spokesman for Ethiopia's information ministry. "Wait for them to attack our cities?" Mr. Zemedkun said his country had initiated "counter-attack measures in the interests of protecting our sovereignty and stability."

Somalia has two rival governments - the weak, internationally recognized transitional government, marooned in the inland city of Baidoa, and the Islamist forces, a popular grassroots movement that controls much of the country, including the battle-scared seaside capital, Mogadishu.

Since the Islamists came to power in June, Ethiopia has been increasingly involved in internal Somali politics, trying to protect the transitional government from advances by the Islamist forces.

Heavy fighting erupted last week between the two sides, and witnesses said the teenage soldiers of the Islamists were no match for the more professional (and adult) forces of Ethiopia and the transitional government.

Ethiopia has the most powerful military in the region, trained by American advisors and funded by American aid. American officials have acknowledged that they tacitly supported Ethiopia's decision to send troops to Somalia because they felt it was the best way to check the growing power of the Islamists, whom American officials have accused of sheltering Al Qaeda terrorists. Until today, Ethiopian officials denied they had combat forces in Somalia, saying instead that their presence was limited to a few hundred military advisors.

That changed today when witnesses in several towns in Somalia reported seeing Ethiopian fighter planes shoot across the sky.

Residents of Beledweyne, which is controlled by the Islamists, said Ethiopian bombers blew up an Islamist recruitment center, killing several civilians, and dropped bombs on Islamists troops hiding in the hills.

Though western diplomats had been urging Ethiopia to use restraint, Ethiopia's attacks today did not come as a surprise. The question now seems to be if Ethiopia will go into Mogadishu and try to finish off the Islamist military, which many fear could spur a long and ugly insurgency, or simply deal them enough of a blow to force them back to the negotiating table with the transitional government. Ethiopia's prime minister recently told American officials that he could wipe out the Islamists " in one to two weeks."

What complicates the issue is the presence of other foreign troops inside Somalia and the rising potential for Somalia's neighbors to be dragged in. United Nations officials estimate that there are several thousand soldiers from Eritrea, Ethiopia's arch-enemy, fighting for the Islamists, along with a growing number of Muslim mercenaries from Yemen, Egypt, Syria and Libya who want to turn Somalia into the third front of jihad, after Iraq and Afghanistan. On Friday, residents of Mogadishu said they saw boatloads of armed men landing on the city's beaches.

Somalia and Ethiopia have had bad blood between them for years. Ethiopia has a long and storied Christian identity, while Somalia is almost purely Muslim. The two countries fought a costly war in 1977 and 1978, when Somali forces tried to reclaim a border area only to be routed by Ethiopian troops. Since then, Ethiopia has, on several occasions, teamed up with various clans in Somalia's interclan wars. Those wars led to the collapse of the central government in 1991, followed by 15 years of anarchy.

More Evidence Pentagon Clueless about Warfighting

From the Bill Gertz column copied below:

"The American people need to prepare for a long-duration war against
radical Muslims who are set to fight for 50 to 100 years to create an Islamist
state in the region, a top Pentagon strategist in the war on terror says.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Mark O. Schissler said in an interview that the
current strategy for fighting Islamists includes both military and ideological
components that make it similar to the 40-year Cold War against
communism. "You can try and fight the enemy where they are and
where they're attacking you, or prevent them and defend your own homeland," said
Gen. Schissler, deputy director for the war on terrorism within the strategic
plans office of the Pentagon's Joint Staff. "But that's not enough to stop it.
We've got to break the chain, and that's ... the ideology. We really need to
show the errors in Islamist extremist thinking." "

There's so much that's wrong in just this lead-in. We should *not* be prepared to fight a 100 year war, we should have won the damn thing already. The enemy could have been defeated with a single, decisive attack on Iran 5 years ago, and an ultimatum to Pakistan and Saudi to round up their terrorists or face similar obliteration. Even now, the enemy could be defeated in about 5 minutes, if you get the intercontinental drift of my ballistic comments.

The "war" (we aren't really waging one, are we?) has ideological components, alright, and ideology is fundamental, but is it really like the Cold War? Not. For one, the Islamists don't have a nuclear arsenal. Yet. But will, if we keep on pussyfooting around. The self-licking ice cream cone of American foreign policy.

Meanwhile, General Schissler, in an elaboration of the self-evident, misses the implications of his own remark. Yes, we can try and fight the enemy where they are. Let's start, for crying out loud. Iran. Saudi Arabia. Pakistan. Syria. To hell with Iraq, that's a killing field they've drawn us into, while they've motivated and mobilized the entire muslim world against us with the feeling that they are beating us -- materially in Iraq, psychologically, in the successes of their propaganda and psyops.

Schissler:

"Or prevent them and defend your own homeland."

The other half of his strategic oxymoron. He would have done well during the French occupation, after luring his countrymen into a feeling of security behind the Maginot Line. He's suggesting (along with too many other clueless warfighting wannabees in Washington) that defense is on a par with offense in winning war.

Once again, not. The prevailing attitude in Washington is *so* much about holding our position, "defending the homeland", and failing to engage the real enemy. Let's remember the words of a genuine warfighter:

"I don't want to get any messages saying that we are holding our position. We're
not holding anything. Let the Hun do that. We are advancing constantly and we're
not interested in holding onto anything except the enemy. We're going to hold
onto him by the nose and we're going to kick him in the ass. We're going to kick
the hell out of him all the time and we're going to go through him like crap
through a goose."

While the noose of "homeland security" tightens to protect us (is it just me, or does that name have vaguely Nazi overtones?) the fifth column of Muslim immigration proceeds apace. (Get ready for waves of Iraqis when we bail there, just like the waves of Somalis -- 700 airport cab drivers and growing, in Minneapolis, but Allah help you, don't violate the Koran or you won't get a ride -- after Clinton's fiasco there.)

Let's return a moment to ideology and all that "extremist" thinking stuff. I would just *once* like a member of our military, those who are supposed to understand our enemies, actually read a little about our enemy. There is nothing "erroneous" or "extremist" about the Islamic fundamentalists.

They are simply practicing the most literal, correct interpretation of their cult as layed down in the Koran and Hadith. The most cursory examination of these books (I have hundreds of quotes, on request) will show they are as "mainstream" as it gets, and the "peace-loving" muslims are either

A) poor readers,
B) hypocrites or
C) Liars.

We are no more fighting "extreme" muslims than we were fighting extreme Nazis in WWII.

The recognition of this fact would have a significant influence on our warfighting doctrine. We would not appeal to the moderate Nazis -- I mean, muslims. We would not attempt to "reach out" to show the moderate Nazis -- I mean, muslims -- that they can get along with us. We would not foster dialogue with local Nazi -- I mean, muslim -- community groups such as CAIR and every other I could name, who are intricately tied to terrorist organizations the world over, and whose funding and legal activism to prevent "discrimination" against innocent air-traveling Imams (and many others) move in amazing lockstep with the agenda of a few Islamic countries in the MidEast.

(If it walks like an intelligence operation, and talks like an intelligence operation, it probably isn't a duck.)

Without dissecting this story further, I can safely say that if Gen. Schissler (the number two man in the war on terror??) is representative of our military leaders in the "war on terror", we are doomed. Our enemy are "Borg" (see old Star Trek show) who cannot be persuaded to leave us along -- except by decisive force.

If Schissler really wants to win this war, he (and the rest of the Pentagon, and the fools in the White House and Congress, Democrats not excluded) should start by understanding that this is a war we cannot afford to spend the next 100 years fighting. It's much bigger than sustaining public 'will' for the long haul, as he says. In the long haul, we will lose, just as we are losing disastrously right now (and everyone on this list knows I'm not talking about Iraq).

"We really need to show the errors in Islamist extremist thinking", says Schissler.

Yes, but the only way to do that is at the source, a message delivered with decisive impact. A message that should have been delivered a week after 9/11, but which sits in a dead letter box.


http://www.washtimes.com/national/20061213-010657-5560r.htm

General foresees 'generational war' against terrorism
By Bill GertzTHE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 13, 2006

The American people need to prepare for a long-duration war against radical Muslims who are set to fight for 50 to 100 years to create an Islamist state in the region, a top Pentagon strategist in the war on terror says.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Mark O. Schissler said in an interview that the current strategy for fighting Islamists includes both military and ideological components that make it similar to the 40-year Cold War against communism.

"We're in a generational war. You can try and fight the enemy where they are and where they're attacking you, or prevent them and defend your own homeland," said Gen. Schissler, deputy director for the war on terrorism within the strategic plans office of the Pentagon's Joint Staff.

"But that's not enough to stop it. We've got to break the chain, and that's ... the ideology. We really need to show the errors in Islamist extremist thinking."

Gen. Schissler said he is concerned that Washington politics is weakening the will of the nation.

"I don't care about the politics. I care about people understanding the facts of what's our enemy is thinking about, what's our strategy to defeat them, and for [Americans] to understand that it will take a long fight, mostly because our enemy is committed to the long fight," he said. "They're absolutely committed to the 50-, 100-year plan."

"One of my concerns is how to maintain the American will, the public will over that duration," he said.

America's past wars lasted three to four years and sustaining support for longer wars "is very difficult," he said.

A Joint Staff briefing on the long war against terrorism states that since 2001, more than 3,000 al Qaeda terrorists are held in more than 100 nations, including 500 in Pakistan, while two-thirds of al Qaeda leaders are dead or in prison.

More than 17 terrorist attacks were disrupted since 2001, including three in the United States and two in Europe.

Al Qaeda's ultimate goal, the general said, is to set up an extremist "caliphate" stretching from western North Africa through southern Europe and along a path through the Middle East to Central and Southeast Asia.

"We're pretty convinced that the extremists are not ever going to give up the fight," Gen. Schissler said, noting that they are driven by the concept of jihad that makes it a religious duty to wage terrorist war.

The current war on terrorism requires fighting with ideas. In the Cold War, "we didn't beat ...the communists by militarily taking them to the battlefield," he said. "We took them to the intellectual battlefield and beat them against their ideas, the ideology of communism."

One goal is to disrupt al Qaeda efforts to "radicalize" young people ages 19 to 25 through educational efforts. Another objective is to assist moderate Muslims who see extremism as unacceptable.

Ultimately, Muslim scholars, clerics and other religious and government leaders will have to "take a stand," albeit one that carries grave risks because of the extremists' harsh methods, Gen. Schissler said.

Beginning of the end in Iraq

"U.S. intelligence does not quite understand it, but has concluded that an
Iranian-sponsored Iraqi militia has grown to a size that now dwarfs the Iraqi
security forces. Over a two-year period, the Mahdi Army has grown from 10,000 to
more than 300,000 fighters. "

In a rather sad, pathetic way, I had to laugh at this. Here is the final come-uppance of the Bush "forward strategy of freedom" that somehow believed the mere act of voting -- without regard for ideas or individual rights -- was the magic cure-all in Iraq. Three HUNDRED thousand fighters now oppose us, if this is true (and likely is) -- led by a puppet of the Iranians -- who dwarf the Iraqi government forces, and the only thing saving them is our presence over there. And this build-up of the enemy came at a time Rummy was drawing down the size of our own army to something like 500,000 total -- covering the whole world. Is it any wonder Bush has been using National Guardsmen and Reserves as cannon fodder?

And now it was reported today Bush is considering ploughing another bunch of American soldiers into Iraq in the forlorn hope -- his dominant epistemological method -- of turning the tide by "staying the course".

Without going after Iran, et al, this is surely a course headed towards a reef or ocean whirlpool.

Ever read Victor Hugo's "Man Who Laughs"? The U.S. is reprising the role of Gwyneplaine while the House of Lords -- the rest of the world -- is laughing at our frozen smile, the product of putting American foreign policy into the hands of the Comprachicos (see Ayn Rand's brilliant essay on this in "The Return of the Primitive") of altruism and Christian charity.

I keep thinking my disgust with Bush's incompetence can't get any lower, but, well, all I have to do is stay tuned for next week's episode of As the Administration Turns. Same Bat-time, same batty channel.



http://www.geostrategy-direct.com/geostrategy-direct/secure/2006/12_20/me.asp?
Iran-financed recruitment drive has made Mahdi Army dominant presence in Baghdad

U.S. intelligence does not quite understand it, but has concluded that an Iranian-sponsored Iraqi militia has grown to a size that now dwarfs the Iraqi security forces.

Over a two-year period, the Mahdi Army has grown from 10,000 to more than 300,000 fighters. Intelligence has concluded that Mahdi engaged in an enormous recruitment effort in 2006, aided by millions of dollars as well as shipments of weapons from Iran.

In its report last week, the Iraq Study Group said Mahdi has risen to 60,000 operatives. The ISG report did not cite evidence to substantiate the claim.

A U.S. Army report said Mahdi has been recruiting unemployed young Shi'ite men, particularly in the Baghdad area. The intelligence said many of them were being indoctrinated and trained for a confrontation against the Sunnis or the U.S.-led coalition. Much of the training has taken place in Hizbullah camps in Lebanon.

"They're [Mahdi members] everywhere," an intelligence source said. "They're on the streets, they're in government, they're in the police, they're in parliament."

Indeed, Mahdi has become so big that its clerical chief, Moqtada Sadr, no longer controls the entire organization. Many operatives have been organizing separate cells, largely for profit.

The report said Mahdi has been heading the ethnic cleansing effort by the Shi'ites in Baghdad. Mahdi operatives scour Baghdad neighborhoods and paint large red Xs on the sides of houses the militia want vacated.
That mark was the signal that the Sunni occupants have 48 hours to leave. Mahdi has used Baghdad's Sadr City as its headquarters. The teeming area of 2 million people has become literally crime-

Another Rant on Yet Another Rumsfeld Interview

Below, copied a long interview with Donald Rumsfeld that was passed on to me today. Worth reading if you wish to see just how bad this administration is, and how badly this "war" was pre-destined to be prosecuted.

"DR: We're in an environment where we have to fight and win a war where the
enemy is in countries we are not at war with. "

Here is the meaning of ignoring Aristotle's statement that "A cannot be non-A" or, better yet, Ayn Rand's corollary that "A is A". A thing is itself. A country supporting your enemy is your enemy. Contradictions can't exist. If you pursue them, if you believe you can fight a war and not be enemies with the country you are fighting against; if you believe you can fight a war and never declare you are fighting it -- then you are setting yourself up for a disastrous fiasco. Exhibit A: Bush's "War on Terror". Rumsfeld then adds,

"DR: That is a very complicated thing to do. "

Well, yes, it's complicated to pursue contradictions and to try and make them real. I'm often reminded of Leonard Peikoff's talk long ago on how so many of the intellectuals today (most) hold a sort of "complexity worship" because they refuse to accept the role of principles in clarifying and simplifying our understanding of myriad complexities.

"DR: I don't think I would have called it the war on terror. I don't mean to be
critical of those who have. Certainly, I have used the phrase frequently.Why do
I say that? Because the word 'war' conjures up World War II more than it does
the Cold War. It creates a level of expectation of victory and an ending within
30 or 60 minutes of a soap opera. "

Yes, don't call it what it is -- a war -- and maybe it won't be... A is non-A. Let's pretend we can continue to work with all our "friends" who secretly try to undermine us.(Aka "sponsors of state terrorism", "allies in the war on terror", "nations who need their behavior modified", "governments who have not been particularly cooperative", etc -- aka, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, Yemen, , etc., etc.). Let's pretend we can have a catastrophic attack on the U.S. without defeating them. Let's pretend the world economy won't get hurt. Ad infinitum. Let's play pretend.

Forgive me for such a backward, naive mode of thought, but what the hell is wrong with an expectation of victory? Given the nature of our pathetic enemies, why shouldn't it take 30 minutes?

"DR: I've worked to reduce the extent to which that (label) is used and
increased the extent to which we understand it more as a long war, or a
struggle, or a conflict, not against terrorism, but against a relatively small
number of terribly dangerous and violent extremists. "

Here is the real confession -- for all the talk about this being a "war of ideas", he just doesn't get it. The ideas are the entire ideology of the Koran, and while we shouldn't attack any country that has terrorists in it, we damn sure should declare war -- in that old, outdated WWII sense -- against those countries who we *know* harbor, support, fund, train and foment terrorists -- ie, enemy fighters -- against us.

I shudder to think of the convoluted process of non-thought that went on in this administration after 9/11 to try and pretend that they didn't have to deal with the real sources of terrorism (aka, Iran, Syria, Pakistan, and especially that old Bush family friend, the Saudis, but let's not forget almost every other Arab sheikdom, either).

You'll notice if you read this long and illuminating interview, Rumsfeld's obsession with the term "extremist". Not that you haven't heard it before, but it gets discussed at length. "Extremist" this, extremist that, extremist, extremist, extremist. *Anything* to pretend that mainstream Islam is *not* the threat that it really is. Anything to pretend that A is non-A.

By the way, Rumsfeld also remarks,

"DR: There are people in the world who are determined to destabilize modern Muslim regimes..."

Let me get this right... "modern muslim regimes". Name one. Turkey? Maybe. Except now under the rule of a quasi-muslim fanatic who is leading them back in time to the good old days when men were men, women were scared, despots were despicable and sheep were... well, you get the drift.

Egypt? The land of graft and torture and the homeland of the Muslim Brotherhood, the founding organization behind so much terrorism today, including Al Qaeda. Pakistan? Protectorate of Osama bin Laden and Zawahiri, and home of the ISI, who work hand in hand with the Taliban. Indonesia? Give me a break. Former home of dictator Suharto, and now currently in a state of quasi-anarchy with a police and military who openly work night-shift jobs as pirates preying on shipping passing through the Malacca and Singapore Straights. I'm still trying to think of one.... trying.... trying....... "modern muslim state"? There's an oxymoron for you. Almost like "principled statesman".

"DR: People who argue for more, more, more, as I would in a conventional
conflict, fail to recognize that it can have exactly the opposite effect. It can
increase recruiting for extremists."

More, more, more. Like we're some kind of children who want too much candy. The great irony -- the real children are those who play "let's pretend". Well, no, more/more/more won't increase enemy recruiting, if you do it right. If you get my intercontinental drift, that is. Hell, you don't even need nukes. Just go after your enemies the old-fashioned way. Just... go after them. Period. Something he doesn't want to consider.

"DR: The more troops you have, the greater the risk that you will be seen as an
occupier and that you will feed an insurgency. "

Again, not if you wage the war properly. But dammit, we *should* be an occupier if we are going to attack a country and move into it. This notion of Bush and Rummie that we should blast the hell out of the most backwards part of the world, roll in with a couple hundred thousand troops, and pretend we aren't "occupying" it (remember right after we rolled in when U.S. troops were ordered to take down the American flag?), is the notion of a child or congenital idiot. I mean, who, except a deluded fool, could convince themselves that those simple honest folk in the Mesopotamian Paradise of the Prophet will just straighten up and fly right if just make sure the poor devils can **vote**???

Give me a break. While they still cling to a culture from 1300 years ago and ideas from One Million B.C.? A time when heads and hands were hacked off (they still are), when women and wives and daughters were beaten, murdered, enslaved and kept in absolute ignorance(they still are)? What fantasyland are they living in?

DR: "Simultaneously, you have the problem here at home. ...If part of the center
of gravity is back here in the United States and they constantly see more
Americans getting killed, they ask, 'Where are the victories?' 'Where's the land
warfare victory?' 'Where's the sea victory?' 'Where's the air victory?''Where's
the body count?' 'How many of these people are we killing?' 'How many are we
capturing?' 'How do we know if we're winning or losing?' The more people you put
in, the more you're going to get killed. The argument has been unimpressive, not
terribly thoughtful (or) multidimensional and a bit narrow in this regard. "

Sigh. What to say to this? That we *aren't* supposed to want victory? This, again, is the modern wannabe intellectual clinging to his fantasy world where A is non-A, where victory grows in the land of Oz, where no one gets hurt, where we all skip off into the sunset, hand in hand. As the the great philosopher Rodney King once said, "can't we all just get along?"
Let's follow his reasoning... "The more people you put in, the more you're going to get killed". Therefore, we shouldn't put any in. Right? There's a formula for victory. But we have to defeat our enemy, right? Well, no. We shouldn't ask for victory. So we don't want to defeat him. We should just kiss and make up?

That he regards concepts such as victory as "unimpressive, not terribly thoughtful, multidimensional and a bit narrow" should frighten the hell out of anyone in this country (especially if you have kids in the military), cause, even if he's no longer defense secretary, a significant portion of our defense leadership as well as the entire Administration, believes it. There's the meaning of contradictory premises and complexity worship.

I wanted to end my rant at this point, but reading on, I encountered,

"DR: When we came in (2001), the president wanted to proceed with missile
defense. Even the proponents didn't agree with each other. Some wanted land,
some wanted sea. And the opponents were viscerally against it. It was called
national missile defense so our allies were against it. To the extent we were
successful in defending ourselves, they felt they would no longer be protected.
So we had many meetings. We ended up calling it missile defense and not national
missile defense and our goal was not to separate ourselves from our allies and
friends. "

Do you get that?? These morons (sorry, I'm beside myself at this point, but "moron", is actually the correct word, meaning: 'A person of mild mental retardation having a mental age of from 7 to 12 years and generally having communication and social skills enabling some degree of academic or vocational education' -- ie, a correct description of someone unable to grasp principles and who clings to his wishes, hopes and contradictions despite his own imminent danger) actually sat around and seriously debated the importance of calling it the more androgenous "missile defense" instead of being gutsy enough to admit they'd like to defend our country with something that had more hair on its chest, like... "national missile defense".
I submit that this alone would have been basis for concluding Bush & Co. would make a complete botch of defending this country in the so-called "war on terror". If you don't even have the courage to tell people you're for *national* defense, how can you have to courage to actually defend the nation?

The real cashing-in of this interview is at the very end:

"DR: I read where someone was saying this is longer than World War II. Germany
didn't even have a government until 1949, as I recall. And you were dealing with
a very different environment in Western Europe than you are here. "

This drops just too much context, admits so much ignorance of what happened. Yes, we were dealing with a very different environment... WE DEFEATED OUR ENEMY. Decisively, and left them no hope for victory. This is *not* what Rumsfeld and Bush have done. They have done everything *but* defeat our enemy. We've done the equivalent of defeating fascist Italy (after dropping CARE packages on them along with leaflets wishing them a happy holiday) while leaving the Germans and Japanese in place, with the German government continuing to propagandize and spread Nazi ideology, and while our government engages them in "dialogue" on Al Jazeera -- I mean, the Hitler Youth Channel.

DR: "...People said the Japanese could never have a democracy. It didn't fit
their culture, they said. Well, the Japanese are doing pretty well with the
second biggest economy on Earth. "

Again, the context-dropping leaves me breathless. Where's my oxygen bottle? The Japanese, as everyone on the "To:" portion of this list knows, were defeated decisively, their militarist fascist schools of thought were shut down and prohibited by MacArthur, and they were forced to confront the consequences of their actions, rebuild on their own, led by our *occupation* force. Our government, today, refuses to even have an "occupying force" -- we roll in there and pretend the children occupying the place can vote themselves bread and circuses (ie, a government of fascist / socialist theocracy). We get a large-scale re-enactment of "Lord of the Flies" and wonder why it's all going wrong?

I read a lot of news (and get very little from TV). For a long time I looked for anything that would provide deeper insight into Rumsfeld -- who appears generally intelligent and perceptive and, early on, principled -- to differentiate his views from Bush's incompetence. A defense secretary serves the President, and, I said to myself, I can't assume Rummy is the rummy he appears to be if he's just doing the President's bidding. I guess I was wrong. This interview proves it.

-----Original Message-----

In Farewell, Rumsfeld Warns Weakness Is ‘Provocative’
Donald Rumfeld w/ Cal Thomas:
Transcript By Cal Thomas
Monday, December 11, 2006

(Editor's note: Donald Rumsfeld, in his first interview since announcing in early November his resignation as secretary of defense, discussed his conduct of the Iraq War and other world defense issues with Cal Thomas, the most widely syndicated political columnist in the U.S. Secretary Rumsfeld's last day in office is Dec. 15. His successor, Robert Gates, is scheduled to be sworn is as the new secretary of defense on Dec. 18.)

Cal Thomas: We meet on the 65th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. People compare wars - Vietnam to Iraq - but there were lessons that came out of World War II. If you were to compare the public's attitude during World War II and the public's attitude over Iraq, how would they compare?

Secretary Rumsfeld: It's dramatic. In World War II, the attack on PearlHarbor was stunning, but it followed a long series of (events) in Europe, and even in Asia, that were not stunning to the American people. The threat that was anticipated on the West Coast was real and palpable. The mobilization of the country, and declaring war, moved us to the next step.The large number of people who went to serve from almost every community in the nation, was an example of the extent to which people were engaged.

I can remember having a victory garden. I can remember buying war bonds for $18.75. If you held them long enough, they'd be worth $25. You could buy them in coupons until you had a whole (book); I remember collecting paper,collecting old rubber; collecting hangers and metal to be recycled into war materials. We were all engaged.

Furthermore, the movie industry was mobilized to support the war. They(filmmakers) wanted us to win, which was an important factor. The situation today, the success that has been achieved in not having another attack on this country in the last five years, has allowed the perception of a threat to diminish, even though the threat has clearly not diminished and, indeed,is real and lethal and dangerous to the safety of the American people.

The fact that it's the first war of the 21st century and notably different from World War I and World War II, is also a problem in the sense that it is unfamiliar ground. There are not big armies, navies and air forces contesting against each other with visible results and unambiguous outcomes.We have, without question, the finest military on the face of the Earth and,indeed, in the history of the world. We can't lose a battle. And we haven't,and we won't.

But the military, given the nature of this conflict, can't win alone. There is no way the military can prevail, because what we are engaged in, in a very real sense, is a battle of ideas (and) a struggle within the Muslim faith between the overwhelming majority of mainstream Muslims and a relatively small minority of violent extremists who have access to all the modern technology - off-the-shelf stuff, very lethal weapons, increasingly lethal and dangerous weapons - and all the technologies of wire transfers and e-mail and the Internet to communicate with each other. So the absence of a good, clear, readily understandable and, indeed, visible war, through photographs and images, creates a notably different environment.
Second, all of the changes in the media in the 21st century. Not only is this the first war of the 21st century from a military and technology standpoint; it's also the first war of the 21st century in terms of the media realities - 24-hour news and bloggers and digital cameras - all the things that can be used and manipulated by the other side, which they do very skillfully.

CT: You've read the Iraq Study Group Report.

DR: I haven't. I've read reports of it and gone through the executive summary.

CT: From what you've read, what is the good, the bad and the ridiculous in the ISG Report?

DR: All I'm going to say about it is what the president said. He has cooperated with it; he has met with them (the ISG) and received their recommendations. Every six to eight weeks he meets with a cluster of people.He has listened to the advice and counsel he gets from Generals Abizaid and Casey and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In the period immediately ahead, he will be making some judgments.

It's fair to say that he is faced ­ the country is faced ­ with a situation in which, because of the nature of the struggle and the fact that it is not well understood by the American people, the president has the task of managing and maintaining sufficient support for the things he believes are necessary for our country's safety. He has to take into account the reality that, only if we persevere, do we have an opportunity to succeed. The penalties and consequences of failure are so dire for the country that he has to recognize the center of gravity of this struggle while, to some extent is in the Middle East, is (also), in a very real sense, here in the United States of America. He has to take that into account in reviewing and considering the variety of proposals and suggestions he has received.

We have been working with the military and the joint chiefs and the Central Command. Some time back, I drafted a memo that took into account a variety of suggestions offered by various people inside the (Defense) Department and elsewhere and I asked Gen. Pace to use it as a discussion piece with the chiefs, which he has done as a way of stimulating their thinking. They have been interacting and plan to report to the president in two (meetings).

I personally believe that the consequences of allowing the situation in Iraq to be turned over to terrorists would be so severe ­ not simply because of Iraq's oil, water, wealth and geographic position, population size and history ­ but also because Iraq would become a haven to plan attacks on the moderate countries in the region and the United States. (It would diminish)the ability of the United States to provide protection for the American people.

CT: Dr. Gates, (Robert Gates, Rumsfeld's replacement as secretary ofdefense) in his confirmation hearings, answered Sen. Carl Levin's question,'Are we winning in Iraq?' with a 'No.' Later on he added, 'We're not losing either.' This question seems to fit into the template feeding the withdrawal syndrome.

DR: I didn't see his testimony and don't want to comment on it at all, but if you ask me my view, it is that the military can't lose, but the military can't win alone. It requires political solutions. They've got to have reconciliation. They simply have to take a series of steps that they've not yet sufficiently taken. Set aside World War I and set aside World War II.Think more of the Cold War.

At any given moment during the Cold War, which lasted 50 years, you couldn't say if you were winning or losing. The Civil War, as well. There aren't straight and smooth paths. There are bumpy roads. It's difficult. The enemy has a brain. They're constantly making adjustments. Think of the faces of the Cold War when Euro-communism was in vogue, and people were demonstrating by the millions against the United States, not against the Soviet Union. And yet, over time, people found the will - both political parties and Western European countries - to persist in a way that ultimately led to victory.

The circumstance we are in today is more like that than it is like World WarII. People are going to have to get more familiar with that idea. It's not ahappy prospect. There are people in the world who are determined to destabilize modern Muslim regimes and re-establish a caliphate across the globe and anyone who wants to know about it can go on the Internet and read their own words and what their intent is. They're deadly. They're not going to surrender. They're going to have to be captured or killed. They're going to have to be dissuaded, people are going to have to be dissuaded from supporting them, from financing them and assisting in their recruitment, providing havens for them.

We're in an environment where we have to fight and win a war where the enemy is in countries we are not at war with. That is a very complicated thing to do. It doesn't happen fast. It means you have to invest the time, effort and ability. We don't have the institutions, we don't have the organization and we haven't had the training, as a society, to rapidly develop the skill sets so that the countries that are cooperative with us develop the capacity to develop their own real estate, which they don't have.

CT: With what you know now, what might you have done differently in Iraq?

DR: I don't think I would have called it the war on terror. I don't mean to be critical of those who have. Certainly, I have used the phrase frequently.Why do I say that? Because the word 'war' conjures up World War II more than it does the Cold War. It creates a level of expectation of victory and an ending within 30 or 60 minutes of a soap opera. It isn't going to happen that way. Furthermore, it is not a 'war on terror.' Terror is a weapon of choice for extremists who are trying to destabilize regimes and (through) a small group of clerics, impose their dark vision on all the people they can control. So 'war on terror' is a problem for me.

I've worked to reduce the extent to which that (label) is used and increased the extent to which we understand it more as a long war, or a struggle, or a conflict, not against terrorism, but against a relatively small number of terribly dangerous and violent extremists. I say violent extremists because an extremist who goes off in a closet is extreme, but he's not bothering people. An extremist who has those views and insists on imposing them on free people strikes at the heart of who free people are. There are people who want to be able to get up in the morning and go where they want, do what they want and that is exactly the opposite of the vision of violent extremists.

People who argue for more troops are often thinking World War II and the Weinberger Doctrine, which is valid in a conflict between armies, navies and air forces. The problem with it, in the context of a struggle against extremists, is that the greater your presence, the more it plays into extremist lies that you're there to take their oil, to occupy their nation,stay and not leave; that you're against Islam, as opposed to being against violent extremists.

People who argue for more, more, more, as I would in a conventional conflict, fail to recognize that it can have exactly the opposite effect. It can increase recruiting for extremists. It can increase financing for extremists. It can make more persuasive the lies of the extremists that we are there for the oil and water and want to take over their country. There is no guidebook, no map that says to Gen. Abizaid or Gen. Casey what they should recommend to the secretary of defense or the president as to numbers. It is a fact, whether or not it flies in the face of the popular media, that the level of forces we have had going into Iraq, and every month thereafter, are the number of troops the commanding generals have recommended. I have not increased them or decreased them over the objections of any general who is in a position of authority with respect to that decision.

Is it the right number? I don't know. Do I have a heckuva lot of confidence in those two folks? Yes. Do I think it's probably right? You bet, or I would have overruled it, or made a different recommendation to the president. But they have to walk that line; they have to find that balance.
There are two centers of gravity. One is in Iraq and the region; the other is here. The more troops you have, the greater the risk that you will be seen as an occupier and that you will feed an insurgency. The more troops you have - particularly American troops, who are so darn good at what they do, the more they will do things and the more dependent the Iraqis will become and the less independent they will become. If there's a ditch to be dug, an American does not want to sit down and teach an Iraqi how to dig the ditch. He'll go dig the dad burn ditch. But that is not what the task is.The task is to get the Iraqis to dig the ditches.

On the one hand, you don't want to feed the insurgency and on the other you don't want to create dependency. So at some point, you've got to take your hand off the bicycle seat. You've got the bicycle going down the street.You're pushing and holding it up, and you go from four fingers, to threefingers, to two and you know if you let go they might fall. You also know if you don't let go, you'll end up with a 40-year-old who can't ride a bike. Now that's not a happy prospect.

Simultaneously, you have the problem here at home. The more troops you have there, the more force protection you need, the more food you need, the more water you need, the more convoys you need, the more airplanes you need, the more people get killed, the more targets there are. If part of the center of gravity is back here in the United States and they constantly see more Americans getting killed, they ask, 'Where are the victories?' 'Where's the land warfare victory?' 'Where's the sea victory?' 'Where's the air victory?''Where's the body count?' 'How many of these people are we killing?' 'How many are we capturing?' 'How do we know if we're winning or losing?' The more people you put in, the more you're going to get killed.
The argument has been unimpressive, not terribly thoughtful (or) multidimensional and a bit narrow in this regard. Do I know that the right number is there? No. Do I think it is? Yes. Is there anyone who is smart enough to prove it is or isn't? No.

CT: Where are we on missile defense? We have rogue nations like North Korea and now Iraq threatening with possible nuclear missiles.

DR: When we came in (2001), the president wanted to proceed with missile defense. Even the proponents didn't agree with each other. Some wanted land,some wanted sea. And the opponents were viscerally against it. It was called national missile defense so our allies were against it. To the extent we were successful in defending ourselves, they felt they would no longer be protected. So we had many meetings. We ended up calling it missile defense and not national missile defense and our goal was not to separate ourselves from our allies and friends.

Second, it meant the concept of a perfect shield, which is the way President Reagan's proposals were characterized by people who wanted to be dismissive. We decided to say that the reality is that this was in an early stage. We wanted to do the developmental work to see what was possible and what made sense and what kinds of capabilities might be developed. That required getting out of the ballistic missile treaty, which the president stepped up and did, to his great credit. That permitted us to do the necessary research and development. We have been proceeding to do that.
I've always believed the way you get something is not by sitting around trying to develop it full blown before you put it out there, but you test it, use it, play with it, evolve it, and that's what we've been doing. We have evolved to the point where we have an initial missile capability to shoot down a missile from a rogue state. We've not had to do it yet, but we are prepared to. Each month that goes by, additional elements add to that capability; whether it's an additional radar here, or a sensor there, an additional interceptor, or a ship that can help triangulate and add information, or whether it's the development of information about the capabilities of others- all of that adds to a growing body of knowledge that gives us increasing confidence we will continue to evolve this capability at a pace we believe is appropriate to the threat.

You'd like things faster, I suppose, but the North Koreans put that Taepodong-2 (missile) on there and it didn't work. What we have to do is recognize there is a threat to our country and there will be a growing threat to our country and we have to invest and evolve this capability, as we have been doing. We're now discussing things with European countries as to ways we could add radars and interceptors and various sensors that would improve the capability to intercept an Iranian rogue missile.

CT: What are you most proud of in this, your latest, service in Washington and what is your biggest disappointment?

(Rumsfeld's aide handed me a stack of papers, in which Rumsfeld outlined his career high points, which included the liberation of 50 million people in Afghanistan and Iraq, which led to elections in Afghanistan and Iraq,capturing, killing the senior leadership of America's enemies, the shaping of forces for asymmetric warfare and humanitarian efforts, such as assistance for victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the modernization offorces, organizational transformation, and moving toward a more agile institution.)

DR: We've achieved a number of accomplishments and a number of initiatives.We face risks down the road from things like cyber attacks, given our high degree of vulnerability. Given our free way of life, we face risks from chemical, biological as well as nuclear devices.

CT: Biggest disappointment?

DR: It's the inability to help the free people of the world to understand that this new century and the struggle we're engaged in is real, is terribly dangerous to their safety and regrettably, it is not going to be as easily seen in terms of pitched battles.

CT: Will it take another 9/11 to make people wake up?

DR: There are people who have written that this administration is a victim of its success, due to the fact that there hasn't been another attack inside the United States. I remember shortly after Sept. 11, I met with the Sultan of Oman in a tent. It must have been 150 degrees. We were perspiring through every piece of clothing we had on. He said this terrible thing that's happened might be a blessing in disguise. It may be the thing that will wakeup the world to the danger these extremists pose, before those people get their hands on chemical, or biological or nuclear weapons where they could kill many multiples of what they were able to kill on Sept. 11.
This was a man sitting in a tent in the desert with that perspective and understanding of the dangers of extremists. It did for a short while, but then that threat diminished in their minds, whereas it not only has not diminished in reality, it has grown because of the advances in technologies. Look at the Johns Hopkins exercise with small pox called Dark Winter. It was put in three airports in America. Something between 800,000 and 1 million people 'died' in some number of months, or a year, from a disease people are no longer vaccinated against. So there are things that can be done. There's a tendency for a lot of people to be dismissive of this and to ridicule it.

Churchill's phrase about the gathering storm - there was a storm gathering, but there were people in Europe who didn't believe it and who didn't take the periodic storm clouds and the squalls as a real threat. They thought they were transitory and, of course, paid an enormous penalty in treasure and life for their failure to understand the nature of that threat. I worry we are in a gathering storm and we do not, as a society, accept it. Many of the elites of our society, the key opinion leaders, are unwilling or unable to accept what an awful lot of people believe to be the case. The penalty for being wrong can be enormous.

CT: Gen. MacArthur said, 'old soldiers never die, they just fade away.' What about old secretaries of defense? A book?

DR: I don't know. I haven't given any thought to it. There are a lot ofpeople who think I should write a book and I may very well. Life's been good and we feel very, very fortunate to have been able to be here and to be involved in something as important as this. Its' been an enormously challenging time for the country. I feel so fortunate to have had this very intimate relationship with these amazing people in uniform - the young men and women who volunteer - who represent the best led, the best equipped, the best trained, the most capable military in the world. They're motivated. They're proud. The people who are dismissive of them don't understand what's going on in our society.

These are terrific people and they are doing a superb job. The fact that it's tough; the fact that it's long; the fact that it's hard; the fact that it can be ugly at times should take nothing away from what they're doing.They're doing everything a military can do.

Health care for Iraqis and Afghanis and prisons for criminals is not the job of the military, all of those things are the tasks of other elements of our government and coalition partners and they take time. I read where someone was saying this is longer than World War II. Germany didn't even have a government until 1949, as I recall. And you were dealing with a very different environment in Western Europe than you are here. So the progresst hat's been made in these countries, when the uniform personnel look back five, 10 or 15 years from now, they're going to know that they helped liberate 50 million people. That is a big thing. It is historic. They're going to know they've given these folks an opportunity to succeed in an environment that is not a repressive political system, but a free political system.

Is it easy to get from where they were to that? No, it's hard. It's darn hard. But is it worth it? You bet. People said the Japanese could never have a democracy. It didn't fit their culture, they said. Well, the Japanese are doing pretty well with the second biggest economy on Earth. I feel these folks can be darn proud of what they've done and what they're doing. Fortunately, the history won't be written by the local reporters who are looking for bad news to report because it's newsworthy. It will be written by history over time and with perspective.

Instructive article on how to analyse Globaldegook 'stories'

Copied below, a webpage passed on to me by a friend, on media bias and how it promotes global warming. Analyzes how reporters et al manipulate to propagandize. Most interesting to me, was

" ‘Neither the [Washington] Post nor Watson [Robb: "Robert Watson, chairman of
the IPCC and former Clinton science advisor, is quoted as saying ‘ -- the same
scientist, who in 1992, predicted an imminent ozone hole in the Northern
Hemisphere; The ozone hole never appeared.."] mentions that this forecast
of extreme warming is the result of a computer model: “It is a product of the
most extreme climate model [emphasis added by Robb] run under the most extreme set of future emission scenarios. In other words, it’s not a model based upon
present trends; it’s a MODEL OF A MODEL [emphasis the author]! ... it treats the
world largely as a uniform entity, one devoid of ocean currents, without
mountains, and with no thunderstorms. ...The ‘toy model’ the [Washington] Post
and Watson rushed to report upon has an unrealistic value of 110F [for global
warming] because in it the sulfate aerosols have been removed. That’s right:
What previously was used to ‘fix’ the computer models now has been taken out’. "

As low as my opinion of the global warming scientists is, the lack of scientific rigor here is somewhat breathtaking. If you read below, it points out the climate models have been consistently inaccurate in predicting temperatures historically -- ie, we know what the temperatures were for the last hundred years -- so they've been modifying them artificially, tweaking their models with factually wrong assumptions to make them accurate. But the extreme model cited above took out the tweaks, and the global warming temperature prediction ballooned (heated up, ignited, achieved stable thermonuclear fusion, choose your metaphor). Add in the lack of oceans, etc, and this is what you call true junk science. (Note: I wouldn't class this as so much a "model of a model" as the author does below. I would just call it extremely bad "science", and very dishonest.)

-----Original Message-----
.......full text at
http://www.frontline-online.com/story.cfm?articleid=10

A recent news article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch addressed the effects of Global Warming. It carried a national by-line “Knight Ridder Newspapers”, but no individual authorship. To see how a news article can be used to primarily persuade the reader of a particular point of view rather than report in a balanced fashion, it is helpful to look at the article itself.

Good Writing
Good writing usually follows the rules of asking, and then answering, the “Five W’s” : Who, What, When, Where and Why. In examining the Feb 19, 2001 article titled “Global warming effects are seen now, likely to worsen, panel says,” (1) we find that the Who is not identified until the third paragraph and then still in a general sense, not as individuals with names and lives. Nowhere in the entire article is the reader given a real person’s name as being involved in the panel. Only one name appears in the entire seventeen paragraph article, and that occurs in paragraph twelve when President G.W. Bush is mentioned with a negative implication: “While most scientists agree that global warming is real, human-caused and a threat, President George W. Bush’s administration is not so sure.”

Who Are the Experts?
Instead of real live persons, the article uses such words as “panel of the world’s top environmental scientists,” “U.N.-sponsored panel,” “scientists predict,” and “they.” Who are these “world’s top” scientists? No names are given. They are called “scientists” seven times, “panelists” four times, “they” four times, and “their report” once. We are not told anything about the make-up of the panel, nor who their spokesman was. However, the author conveys their importance with the words in paragraph two, “a panel of the world’s top environmental scientists.”

We are never told that the spokesman was Robert Watson, Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and former Clinton science advisor. Nowhere in the article are we informed that there exists thousands of eminent scientists world-wide who oppose the conclusions given in the news article. If we were told that the scientists were named Newton, Currie, or Einstein, we would have been impressed. However, had they been named Archie Bunker, Forrest Gump, or Mrs Howell from Gilligan’s Island, we would have just ignored the story. By leaving the names blank, we were able to take the word “scientist” which carries status and authority and give it a favorable slant.

Another major rule in journalism is to put the most important information in the front and the least important in the back of the article. In this case, the unidentified author used the first two paragraphs to persuade the reader that, as the subtitle stated, “probable consequence [of Global Warming] is millions [of] deaths over [the next] century;” In fact, the first paragraph states, “The effects of global warming are here already and are likely to get far worse, killing millions of people and displacing tens of millions more over the next century.” Had you read no further, you would have filed that statement away in your mind as fact.

Propaganda or News?
If we look at the “what” of the article, we find a whole host of horrors. With the exception of several sentences the articles focuses on the list of horrors: “killing millions”, “displacing tens of millions”, “rising seas”, crop failures, famines, acute water shortages, “effects far worse than one thought”, more tropical diseases, droughts, floods, severe weather, deaths from heat waves, global warming a threat; Latin America - flooding of low-lying areas; Southern Europe - farmland deteriorates; Asia - deserts increase, more serious monsoon rains, “Africa - deserts increase, crops fail, hydroelectric power production to fall”. The only benefits listed are “more northerly areas will experience warmer weather, richer farmland and higher crop production.” (Paragraph four) Several paragraphs later the article states, “gains in crops will be tempered by more droughts,” and “fewer people will die of the cold, but some diseases now considered tropical like encephalitis, dengue fever, and malaria are likely to push their way north.”

Another Viewpoint
Finally, we are never given any balance in the article. It is as if Global Warming was as real as the seasons. Yet, to see how far off balance this newspaper article is, let’s consider the following one-page article from the Heartland Institute’s Environment and Climate News (2) by Dr. Patrick J. Michaels. According to Nature magazine Michaels is probably the nation’s most popular lecturer on the subject of climate change. He is an Environmental Sciences professor at the University of Virginia, and is author of The Satanic Gases: Clearing the Air About Global Warming. Following is a condensed version of that article.

”GLOBAL WARMING: Watson Indulges in Scare Tactics, Again.By Patrick J. Michaels,
PH.D. .”In early January, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
stepped up its campaign to coerce regulatory action from the United States by
releasing the Summary for Policymakers from the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report
(TAR). Word from the IPCC meeting in Shanghai is that the upper range of
temperature rise during the next 100 years is nearly 110F. “This adds impetus
for governments of the world to find ways to live up to their commitments to
reduce emissions of greenhouse gases,” Robert Watson, chairman of the IPCC and
former Clinton science advisor, is quoted as saying. Watson is the same
scientist, who in 1992, predicted an imminent ozone hole in the Northern
Hemisphere [T]he ozone hole never appeared”.

A Model of a Model
Neither the [Washington] Post nor Watson mentions that this forecast of extreme warming is the result of a computer model. It is a product of the most extreme climate model run under the most extreme set of future emission scenarios. In other words, it’s not a model based upon present trends; it’s a MODEL OF A MODEL! (Emphasis added.) Putting a fine point on it, this particular result was produced by one (that’s right, one) of 245 models the modelers ran.

This is called a “toy model” because it treats the world largely as a uniform entity, one devoid of ocean currents, without mountains, and with no thunderstorms. Ocean currents, mountains, and thunderstorms just happen to be the three things that are the major movers of heat around our planet. They generally keep the Earth’s surface temperature cooler than it otherwise would be. Other computer models [are] available. There were nearly 20 different sophisticated, but still flawed, models tested in the IPCC’s TAR . The average [temperature] for those models was a rise of only 3.80F.

Trouble with Models
Those models assume an increased rate in greenhouse gases that have been acknowledged to be much larger than it has been for decades. [They are] probable overestimates. The “toy models” and the GCMs have been artificially “cooled” with sulfate aerosols for 10 years now to account for the fact they predict too much warming. There’s no sulfate aerosol, per se, in the model.

There was such a clamor about the models that include only greenhouse gas increases and their inability to accurately simulate the climate as we know it to have been over the last 100 years (they warmed things up much too quickly) that the modelers added another factor, sulfate aerosols, in order to offset a large amount of the CO2-induced warming. The IPCC itself admitted this fact in its Second Assessment report (1996). The toy model the [Washington] Post and Watson rushed to report upon has an unrealistic value of 110F because in it the sulfate aerosols have been removed.

That’s right: What previously was used to “fix” the computer models now has been taken out. Actually, according to the IPCC, the influence of sulfate aerosols, both direct and indirect, on Earth’s temperature is the most uncertain of the factors considered. Their net global effect on surface temperature (according to the IPCC) is about twice the total observed change in temperature for the last one hundred years! Why so much uncertainty? Their net cooling (or warming) of global surface temperature has never been measured. This gives rise to a huge uncertainty, through which a careful manipulation of numbers at the extreme ranges of the uncertainty can produce a large warming. This is precisely the exercise the IPCC carried out in this report, and Watson’s emphasis of this result is scare tactic, pure and simple.

Conclusion
America’s freedom depends upon an informed citizenry. Journalists who seriously work to provide all the information to the public, so that decisions may rationally and intelligently be made are to be commended. Americans however, must learn to sort out journalists and news sources by asking such questions as: Is the article balanced and factual? Who are the “experts” that are quoted? What is the track record of the reporter? Is he biased, and is that bias reflected in his articles? Only by seeking out reliable and factual news sources will we keep our nation free.

Editor’s note: Additional information on Global Warming can be obtained from the George C. Marshall Institute, 1730 K Street, NW, Suite 905, Washington DC 20006-3868, phone 202-296-9655.

1 Knight-Ridder Newspapers “Global warming effects are seen now, likely to worsen, panel says,” February 19, 2001, St. Louis Post Dispatch, 900 Tucker Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63101, p. A5.

2 Michaels, Dr. Patrick J., Environment & Climate News, March 2001, The Heartland Institute, 19 South LaSalle #903, Chicago, IL 60603, p. 6.

In Farewell, Rumsfeld Warns Weakness Is ‘Prooovocative’

“Today, it should be clear that not only is weakness provocative,” Mr. Rumsfeld
said, standing at a lectern with President Bush...

From the NY Times story copied below. Recall previous missives from me highlighting the Administration's and the Pentagon's belief that "ideology" is the main factor behind this "war" -- such as it is -- undeclared or otherwise, and their cluelessness of how important ideology actually is (or even what it is).

This latest comment from Rumsfeld himself just underscores how completely clueless (definition: not having any clue whatsover) he, Bush and unfortunately too many military leaders in the Pentagon are -- an organization that ostensibly is devoted to warfighting and which now believes pacifist nonsense such as "winning the peace" is a mantra for victory.

(Put aside the Democrats -- they're just too often treasonously arrogant or stupid.)

They should all be given mandatory lessons on WWII and specifically MacArthur's approach to pacifying Japan, which was as militant a culture as the Islamic one. (See Dr. John Lewis's previous remarks, essays and future book on this topic.)

Is weakness provocative? HELL YES. But the Administration doesn't have a clue how completely, utterly weak they've projected the United States of America to be over the last few years by failing to promote the correct ideas (ie, individual rights instead of "democracy", which has only led to a quasi-socialist theocracy in a soon-to-be Iranian puppet state), by failing to bomb mosques after being fired on from them (sacrificing our soldiers to the "religious sensibilities" of the very ideology we are fighting and proving we hold their religion more valuable than our own people), and by failing to stomp the enemy into dust when the so-called "insurgency" started. Ie, by flattening Fallujah, killing Muqtada Al Sadr, bombing Al Jazeera's offices, and above all, taking the war to the real instigators, Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.

Hell, no. Instead, the clueless fools in the Administration actually believe they've fought this "war" in an aggressive manner. They don't even have the first concept of what "aggressive" warfighting is. Aggressive means -- kill the enemy at his root. Defeat the bastards by destroying their supply lines, their lines of ideas, and the leaders who promote them.

Ie, if Iran and Syria or Pakistan want to send fighters in to Iraq, we *had* to go into Iran and Syria and Pakistan, or those places would fight us. As they have.

If the Saudis want to play a song and dance with us while continuing to fund our enemy, we had to depose that 7th century sheikdom, take over their country, and shut down the ideology machine that spends millions and millions every year to promote 7th century barbarism around the world.

If any of these places want to wage a propaganda war to foment enemies worldwide against us and undercut our resolve at home, we *had* to go in, cut off and kill their propaganda machines, their specious "news" organizations, and shut down the schools teaching an entire generation lies and evil ideology so they can become our future enemy.

If our enemies, whereever they may reside, insist on believing their ideology is a righteous cause, we had to go in to destroy their moral righteousness and undercut their certainty in that evil ideology. Make them doubt the ideas that led to this war. Blast their supporters into paradise and **make the survivors grovel** for permission to exist and the crime of having waged war against us.

Make them admit *they were wrong* simply by confronting them with the reality of their unreal ideas. That is how you keep from making "weakness provocative", how you combat evil ideology (at least, one that has morphed into actual killers) and how you win a war quickly -- with far less loss of life for either you or your enemy -- and permanently eliminate the threat.

Yet we did none of that. Those machines keep on churning out ideologues and fighters who battle us. That is why we are losing.

Instead, **every single action** of this clueless Administration has been to prove to our enemy that we are weak, vacillating, to be manipulated, to made fools of (for sure Ahmadinejad goes to bed laughing at us every night), that we have no confidence in ourselves, our own ideas. Every action of the Bush Administration has been to prove we **can be defeated**.

That is why we are losing everywhere in this war, not just in Iraq. They just don't get it, as demonstrated by Rummy's comment in the story below, and the last quote there:

"“This is a time of great consequence,” he said. “It may well be comforting to
some to consider graceful exits from the agonies and, indeed, the ugliness of
combat. But the enemy thinks differently.”"

They certainly do. But so do our own leaders, who simply can't grasp (or are too afraid to grasp) how ugly and aggressive and wide in scope the combat really needs to get if we are to win -- and how quickly war needs to be fought if we are to win at all. The tired litany from this Administration about how this war will take a lifetime to win is the clueless stuff of those who don't understand the necessity of ferocious attack, of those afraid to engage the enemy, and of those who would sign our death warrants and wait for 7th century barbarians to wear us down. (Ask the Romans.)

Because of that, this war is only going to get worse with time, instead of being over 5 years ago, as it could have been, and we will all be poorer cause of it.


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/16/washington/16prexy.html
In Farewell, Rumsfeld Warns Weakness Is ‘Provocative’

Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
By JIM RUTENBERG
Published: December 16, 2006

WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 — Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld bade farewell to the Pentagon on Friday with a combative valedictory speech in which he warned against hoping for “graceful exits” from Iraq and said it would be wrong to regard the lack of new attacks on American soil as a sign that the nation is safe from terrorism.

“Today, it should be clear that not only is weakness provocative,” Mr. Rumsfeld said, standing at a lectern with President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney at his side, “but the perception of weakness on our part can be provocative as well.”

It was a clear parting shot at those considering a withdrawal from war that would define his legacy and perhaps that of the president.

“A conclusion by our enemies that the United States lacks the will or the resolve to carry out missions that demand sacrifice and demand patience is every bit as dangerous as an imbalance of conventional military power,” Mr. Rumsfeld said in a buoyant but sometimes emotional speech.

Mr. Rumsfeld resigned in November after an election in which Democrats won control of Congress by promising to force change in Iraq. His successor, Robert M. Gates, takes over on Monday.

Mr. Rumsfeld spoke after receiving full honors on the Pentagon grounds on his last day of work there. The ceremonies began with a 19-gun salute before he walked the grounds to inspect the representatives from all the service branches gathered in formation and in full dress.

Present in the crowd were some of the former administration hawks with whom he planned the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq: Paul D. Wolfowitz, his former deputy, and Douglas J. Feith, his under secretary for defense policy. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, his frequent rival in Mr. Bush’s cabinet, did not attend.

The ceremony brought to a close perhaps the most controversial tenure for a secretary of defense since that of Robert McNamara, whose record tenure in the job bested Mr. Rumsfeld’s by a mere 10 days. Like Mr. McNamara, Mr. Rumsfeld leaves a war he helped conceive in the hands of others.

And like Mr. McNamara, his record is likely to be dissected and debated for years after his resignation.

Yet for all of its pomp, there was little talk at the ceremony about Mr. Rumsfeld’s famously combative style or the controversies he tended to provoke.

In opening remarks, Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did refer indirectly to the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, which Mr. Rumsfeld has called the low mark of his tenure. But General Pace did so in complimenting Mr. Rumsfeld for ultimately taking the blame for prisoner abuses for which the general placed blame on others down the chain of command.

Mr. Cheney’s declaration that “Don Rumsfeld is the finest secretary of defense the nation has ever had,” was more in keeping with the tone of the event.

With Mr. Rumsfeld’s resignation — forced by Mr. Bush as he seeks a new approach in Iraq — Mr. Cheney is losing one of his closest allies in the administration.

Mr. Rumsfeld hired Mr. Cheney to work in the Ford administration. Both men served as White House chief of staff, in the House of Representatives and as secretary of defense. (Mr. Rumsfeld has been secretary of defense twice, the first time for President Ford.)

And their shared post-Sept. 11 conviction that the United States must use strength as a deterrent and pre-emptively strike at those who plan to attack the nation has remained unbowed in the face of setbacks in Iraq.

“In this hour of transition every member of our military, and every person at the Pentagon, can be certain that America will stay on the offensive,” Mr. Cheney said. “We will stay in the fight until this threat is defeated and our children and grandchildren can live in a safer world.”

Mr. Rumsfeld leaves the Pentagon having overseen two wars, an attack on the Pentagon itself and what he called a “transformation” in the use of force. That involved a switch to smaller fighting units that he said would be nimbler and more effective than larger ones favored in the past — an approach that saw early success in Afghanistan but has faced a more severe test in Iraq.

Mr. Bush was known to have appreciated Mr. Rumsfeld’s efforts, even as calls for the defense secretary’s resignation grew louder, and he indicated as much on Friday. “There has been more profound change at the Department of Defense over the past six years than at any time since the department’s creation in the late 1940s,” Mr. Bush said. “These changes were not easy, but because of Don Rumsfeld’s determination and leadership, America has the best equipped, the best trained, and most experienced armed forces in the history of the world.”

Mr. Rumsfeld had the last words of the day, using them to warn against backing down in Iraq. “This is a time of great consequence,” he said. “It may well be comforting to some to consider graceful exits from the agonies and, indeed, the ugliness of combat. But the enemy thinks differently.”

Worlds Most Outrageous Global Warming Theory

Let me cut to the chase and sum up the most ridiculous global warming doomsday scenario ever (story copied below):

The National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder (your federal tax dollars at work) is claiming that the latest threat from global warming is space junk. Not because the sky is falling on us, but because it *isn't* falling on us. That is, if we don't stop global warming, we run the risk of running into old satellites, rocket boosters, etc, that aren't burning up in the atmosphere. Global warming is going to make rocketing into space really, really dangerous. Something we're all very concerned about, cause of our busy interplanetary travel schedules. But don't get your space diapers in a bunch just yet. We're safe in the "near term". However, forward thinking people must consider future hazards:

"Solomon said that a less dense outer atmosphere should not affect launches in
the near term, but that it could be problematic in the future with the increase
of space litter."

Which isn't quite a correct use of the word "problematic", but you can see the imminent danger. Keep in mind, the density of "space litter" is not exactly like rush hour on Madison Avenue (for New Yorkers) or The 405 in LA. We're talking about a few thousand bits of brick-a-brack in this orbit or that, with a likelihood of about 1 in a million trillion of hitting one of them if you aren't looking where you're going. But this fellow Solomon is suggesting that space litter will grow to such threatening levels those odds could increase to maybe 1 in a half million trillion). If we don't do something to keep CO2 levels down. Cause too much CO2 is causing global warming which is causing the global *cooling*.

In the upper atmosphere. Yes, that's for real what they are saying. All our dozens of annual rocket launches are someday going to lead to a fender bender in space, and if you happen to be riding that rocket, your rocket insurance may go up -- in a "near term" that I would conservatively estimate as sometime in the next one million years. For this we must eviscerate the Western economies.

"Using a computer model, Solomon and his colleagues estimated that the air
density of the outer atmosphere declined about 5 percent over the past three
decades and could decrease 40 percent by the end of the century."

There it is -- proof! A computer model. I guess I shouldn't have been so hasty in saying a million trillion years. There's other hazards. Imminent asphyxiation. As you'll note, the rate of disappearance in the atmosphere is high enough that in only 250 years (40 percent each century) global warming will have completely eliminated the atmosphere. We will cease breathing just as we reach total global cooling. So we must act. Now. Send those donations to....

(The more refined scientists in this audience will object that the decline is not linear, but likely follows an exponential decay that halves atmospheric pressure every 184 years, which will lead to a 90% decline in the atmosphere in 423.7 years. I insist that this is still life threatening, and must be halted for the sake of future generations. In only 205 years the air pressure at sea level will be reduced to 4.8 psi, the pressure at the top of Mount Everest, which I think most reasonable people will agree is the lowest pressure any human should be expected to breathe. Though hypoxia sets in for some of us at a pressure of 9.6psi (at an altitude as low as 11,000 feet).

That pressure will be found a sea level in only 78 years. Thus, purely on the grounds that we must consider the atmospherically challenged among us, the threat is even more imminent. Of course, contrarians may argue that everyone at sea level will have long since drowned by then from the rise in sea levels caused by melted antarctic ice caps. I have no argument to refute this, except to say, the apparent absence of a threat does not mean a threat is absent, and more research money is needed to test the veracity of it.)


http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Climate-Change.html

CO2 Could Extend Life of Space Junk
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: December 12, 2006
Filed at 10:50 p.m. ET

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Carbon dioxide emissions from global warming are cooling and shrinking the outermost atmosphere, keeping orbiting spacecraft airborne longer but also increasing the threat that space junk poses to satellites, scientists reported Monday.

In a signal of the wide-ranging impacts of climate change, the thinning of the thermosphere, which begins about 60 miles above Earth and extends up to 400 miles, reduces the drag on orbiting spacecraft but also extends the lifespan of space junk -- leftovers from space missions, old satellites, items astronauts lose during spacewalks and the like.

''It's a bit of a two-edged sword,'' said Stanley Solomon, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, who presented the new results at an American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

Using a computer model, Solomon and his colleagues estimated that the air density of the outer atmosphere declined about 5 percent over the past three decades and could decrease 40 percent by the end of the century.

Knowledge of how the outer atmosphere responds to carbon dioxide levels could help NASA and international space agencies time their spacecraft launches and calculate their fuel needs.

Solomon said that a less dense outer atmosphere should not affect launches in the near term, but that it could be problematic in the future with the increase of space litter.

''In the long haul, it means we have to be even more assiduous about not letting miscellaneous pieces of metal float around,'' Solomon said.

Researchers have long predicted that carbon dioxide, produced when fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas are burned, would cool the outer atmosphere. Solomon's conclusions mirror previous research that predicted similar effects, including recent observations that measured the drag of satellites over time.

Robert Dickinson, a pioneer in the field and a professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, said the latest work is unique because it looks at the effects of solar activity on the atmosphere. An active solar cycle could spawn magnetic storms that will be more severe and disruptive to communication systems.

''We're getting a more detailed description,'' said Dickinson, who had no role in the new study.

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On the Net:
American Geophysical Union: http://www.agu.org/