Gen. McCaffrey Assesses Iraq War

A friend passed on a PDF, an "After Action" report, a recent memorandum assessing the situation in Iraq, written by the former "drug czar" of the U.S. government, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who also teaches at West Point. (I haven't figured out how to link a PDF that has no website. Stay tuned.) It was fascinating and worth reading in its entirety, so I've copied key parts (almost half), and added only minor comments. Here's the prelude:

December 18, 2007 MEMORANDUM FOR: Colonel Michael Meese, Professor and Head Dept of Social Sciences, United States Military Academy CC: Colonel Cindy Jebb,
Professor and Deputy Head Dept of Social Sciences, United States Military
Academy SUBJECT: After Action Report: VISIT IRAQ AND KUWAIT 5-11 DECEMBER 2007

...I added the "From". Just so you can see who it's from, as well as who it's to.

FROM: General Barry R McCaffrey USA (Ret), Adjunct Professor of International Affairs, Department of Social Sciences, USMA, West Point, NY.

1. THE BOTTOM LINE---AN OPERATIONAL ASSESSMENT:
a. VIOLENCE DOWN DRAMATICALLY:
The struggle for stability in the Iraqi Civil War has entered a new phase with
dramatically reduced levels of civilian sectarian violence, political
assassinations, abductions, and small arms/ indirect fire and IED attacks on US
and Iraqi Police and Army Forces.

...which appears true, judging from press accounts I've followed.

General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker have provided brilliant
collective leadership to US Forces and have ably engaged the Iraqi political and
military leadership.

...I guess he likes these guys. Keep in mind McCaffrey teaches "International Affairs" and moves in big circles. Figuratively and literally, occasionally.

b. AL QAEDA TACTICALLY DEFEATED AND TRYING TO REGENERATE:
Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) has been defeated at a tactical and operational level in Baghdad and Anbar Province and is trying to re-constitute in the north and along the Syrian frontier.

...This is a running theme. True or not, get used to it when reading the "report".

The Iraqi people have turned on AQI because it overreached trying to impose an
alien and harsh practice of Islam inconsistent with the more moderate practices
of the Sunni minority. (16% of the population.)

...the more "moderate" practices is a debatable point.

The foreign jihadist elements in AQI (with their enormous hatred of what they
view as the apostate Shia) have alienated the nationalism of the broader Iraqi
population.

I'm trying to figure out what "alienated the nationalism" means, but let's push on:

Foreign intervention across the Syrian frontier has dropped substantially. Most
border-crossers are suicide bombers who are dead within four days while carrying
out largely ineffective attacks on the civilian population and the Iraqi Police.

...The red highlighting is always mine. Ellipses, too.

The senior leaders of AQI have become walking dead men because of the enormous
number of civilian intelligence tips coming directly to US Forces. US and Brit
Special Operations Forces are deadly against AQI leadership. Essentially AQI has
been driven out of Baghdad and is now trying to reconstitute their
capabilities.

...I liked that "walking dead men" part. Remember, this is a memo to a colleague, but it seems clear McCaffrey expected it to become disseminated widely. Wait till the end.

The previously grossly ineffective and corrupt Iraqi Police have been forcefully
retrained and re-equipped. The majority of their formerly sectarian police
leadership has been replaced. The police are now a mixed bag --- but many local
units are now effectively providing security and intelligence penetration of
their neighborhoods.

...Sounds a little optimistic, especially in light of later comments about "mafias", but I'll give him some benefit of the doubt.

The ISF still lacks credibility as a coherent counter-insurgency and deterrent
force. ... It lacks any semblance of an Air Force... [or] a functioning
military medical system... [or] artillery... [or] any serious armor
capability.... In my judgment the Army needs 9000+ wheel and track armored
vehicles for their 13 combat divisions.

...I think the point here (supported by his later comments) is that the U.S. needs to buy these guys a bigger and better military.

There is no functional central Iraqi Government. Incompetence, corruption,
factional paranoia, and political gridlock have paralyzed the state. The
constitution promotes bureaucratic stagnation and factional strife. The
budgetary process cannot provide responsive financial support to the military
and the police---nor local government for health, education, governance,
reconstruction, and transportation.

...I particularly liked this, since it could almost describe the U.S. Government.

Mr. Maliki has no political power base and commands no violent militias who have
direct allegiance to him personally --- making him a non-player in the Iraqi
political struggle...

...Yeah, that's what we need. A national leader commanding violent militias. Where's John Gotti when we need him? You can see why the State Department prevented the U.S. military from killing off Muqtada Al Sadr a few years ago. This was a guy they could respect --- he commanded a violent militia.

However, there is growing evidence of the successful re-constitution of local
and provincial government. Elections for provincial government are vitally
important to creating any possible form of functioning Iraqi state.

...Yadayada. Elections of what? You'll see in this report that the essence of our "success" in Iraq is A.) The U.S. military functions as the defacto government, to hell with Maliki, thank you very much, and B.) the balkanization of the country into a hodge-podge of independent tribes. (Actually, "balkanization" is too strong a term, except for the Kurds. I mean, is Falluja big enough to be a Balkan?)

There are 4 million plus dislocated Iraqis --- possibly one in six citizens.

Ie, one in six have simply gotten the hell out of Dodge. Or dodged hell.

Many of the intelligentsia and professional class have fled to Syria, Jordan, or
abroad. 60,000+ have been murdered or died in the post-invasion violence.

WAY too low a figure. My estimates put it more like 300,000 in the 5 years since the war started. Remember, most deaths aren't even officially reported.

Medical care is primitive. Security and justice for the individual is weak. Many
lack clean water or adequate food and a roof over their family. Anger and hatred
for the cruelties of the ongoing Civil War overwhelm the desire for
reconciliation.

...This is what bodes ill for the survival of Iraq. "Security and justice for the individual are weak". There's a gross understatement. Of course, what does McCaffrey mean by "justice"? He works in a "social sciences" department at West Point, after all. Probably some variant of "social justice". You know, welfare, etc. Yes... Note that his examples of "justice" aren't real individual rights, like life, liberty, property rights, etc, but "medical care", "clean water", food, and "a roof". Give me a break. This guy is a wannabe Norman Rockwell wailing about Roosevelt's "four freedoms".

There is widespread disbelief that the Iraqi government can bring the country
together.

... well, over here, too.

The people (and in particular the women) are sick of the chaotic violence and
want an end to the unpredictable violence and the dislocation of the population.

..."in particular the women"?? Maybe this guy is a closet candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. The violence works to our benefit, I suppose. Let's create chaotic violence and immeasurable suffering whereever our foreign policy takes us and who knows how how high we can go? Wait... that is official State Department policy.

The economy is slowly reviving--- although there is massive 50% or more
unemployment or under-employment.

...Hell, it's 40% in Saudi Arabia. In that part of the world, that's "full employment".

The electrical system is slowly coming back--- but it is being overwhelmed by
huge increases in demand as air conditioners, TV's, and light industry load the
system. The production and distribution of gasoline is increasing but is
incapable of keeping up with a gigantic increase in private vehicle and truck
ownership.

...After 5 years, the electrical system is "slowly coming back". There's success for you. But remember, you get to take the credit. You paid for it. The entire Iraqi electrical grid, that is. Keeping in mind that the Iraqi constitution is a socialist / fascist / theocratic democracy, somehow, I don't see their economy ever "keeping up" on its own once we leave.

The Iraqi currency to everyone's astonishment is very stable and more valued
than the weak US dollar.

...Which is just plain weird. Strangely, I was talking to a guy the other week who was thinking of betting a load of his own money on the Iraqi dinar, when it "goes public" in the near future. (It currently isn't traded on the currency exchanges.) Part of the U.S. Government plan to fund their growing Iraqi economy, no doubt. He was just an average guy I was talking to, so you can bet there's a lot of other people out there thinking of the same thing. When cab drivers start giving investment advice, it's time to get out of the market.

The agricultural system is under-resourced and poorly managed---it potentially
could feed the population and again become a source of export currency earnings.

...Somehow I wouldn't bet on it. Under-resourced, poorly managed and under an inept government? I'd rather bet on a Soviet 5-year plan.

Now we come to the sunshine-up-your-butt section of the memo.

[U.S.] combat forces have become the most effective counter-insurgency (and
forensic police investigative service) in history. LTG Ray Odierno the MNC-I
Commander and his senior commanders have gotten out of their fixed bases and
operate at platoon level in concert with small elements of the Iraqi Army and
Police.

...Which sounds great. I have no sarcasm to add. The U.S. military is the best military on the planet, bar none, and I approve of the "Patton"-like involvement of senior brass getting off their keesters to see what's going on in the field, but...

Their aggressive tactics combined with simply brilliant use of the newly
energized Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT's -- Superb State Department
leadership and participation) for economic development have dramatically changed
the tone of the war.

...Ie, massive welfare, paid for by you-know-who. McCaffrey, if you remember his drug-fighting days, is something of a statist at heart. And with his schooling in International Relations, you will soon see that he *loves* the State Department.

US Forces have now unilaterally constituted some 60,000+ armed "Iraqi Concerned
Local Citizen Groups" to the consternation of the Maliki Government. These CLC
Groups have added immeasurably to the security of the local populations -- as
well as giving a paycheck to unemployed males to support their families.

...In other words (like I said previously) the U.S. military is the defacto government over there.

The US battalion and brigade commanders have grown up in combat with near
continuous operations in the past 20 years in the Balkans, Desert Storm,
Afghanistan, and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Many of the Army combat forces are now beginning their 4th round of year+ combat tours in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Many of the Marine units are now on their 5th tour of seven month combat
deployments. The troops and their leaders are simply fearless---despite 34,000
US killed and wounded.

...Gives you some idea of the cost. We're sitting right now at over 3800 dead (not counting civilians and private contractors and soldiers in Afghanistan), so that leaves over 30,000 wounded. Explains all those veterans I keep seeing on plane flights who are missing legs, arms, etc. But whatever else I say here, I do respect the hell out of them.

The US company and battalion commanders now operate as the de facto low-level
government of the Iraqi state -- schools, health, roads, police, education,
governance.

...As I said, the "democratically elected government of Iraq" is a joke. What's working in Iraq is the extent to which we act like an occupation army, like in Japan after WWII. But Bush's 21st century international welfare program and the "democratically elected" Iraqi constitution ain't doing it.

The Iraqis tend to defer to US company and battalion commanders based on their
respect for their counterparts' energy, integrity, and the assurance of some
level of security.

No surprise they defer to an occupying force, even one that our government pretends isn't occupying.

These US combat units have enormous discretion to use CRP Funds to jump start
local urban and rural economic and social reconstruction. They are rapidly
mentoring and empowering local Iraqi civilian and police leadership.

..."jump start", ie, the military "peace corp" in action, doling out our bucks. Now, why again did the Japanese occupation work so well? We gave them law and order, we mandated their constitution, we kept the peace, and the people picked themselves up and built a world-class economy -- without any welfare.

Direct intelligence cooperation has sky-rocketed. The civilian population
provides, by name, identification of criminal leadership. They point out IED's.
They directly interactwith US forces at low level in much of the country. (There
are still 3000+ attacks on US Forces each month -- this is still a Civil War.)

...ties into that earlier comment about how everyone over there is sick to death of getting killed, but undermines his previous assessment of the "dramatically reduced levels of violence". Remember, it's a relative thing.

The Sunnis Arabs have stopped seeing the US as the enemy and are now cooperating
to eliminate AQI -- and to position themselves for the next phase of the Civil
War when the US Forces withdraw.

...that "next phase" part is rich. When we withdraw, this place is going to collapse into utter chaos unless these people learn to stand on their own two left feet. How do they do that with a completely dysfunctional socialist government that protects no rights?

...Mr. Sadr lost great credibility when his forces violently intervened in the
Holy City of Najaf --- and were videoed on national TV and throughout the Arab
world carrying out criminal acts against the pilgrims and protectors of the Shia
population.

...just a setup for his punch line:

Sadr himself is an enigma. He is not a puppet of the Iranians and may lack their
real support. His command and control of his own forces appears weak. He
personally lacks the theological gravitas of a true Shia Islamic scholar like
the venerable Sistani.

"Venerable"? I guess McCaffrey finds him so.

He may be personally fearful of being killed or captured by ISF special
operations forces if he is visibly leading inside Iraq -- hence his frequent
absences to Iran at the sufferance of that government.

...This is the first I've heard Sadr is no puppet of the Iranians, though somewhat believable from many accounts that picture him as nothing but an opportunistic thug --- except for his "frequent absences to Iran". But McCaffrey is contradicting himself and clearly rationalizing his assessment of this "non-puppet". I mean, "hence his absences to Iran". Give me a break.

There is no clear emerging nation-wide Shia leadership for their 60% of the
Iraqi population. It is difficult to separate either Shia or Sunni political
factions from Mafia criminal elements -- with a primary focus on looting the
government financial system and oil wealth of the nation.

...But, as he said, the economy is looking up. Remember, it's a relative thing. If you are seeing by the light of a campfire, a single lightbulb looks good.

In many cases neighborhoods are dominated by gangs of armed thugs who loosely
legitimize their arbitrary violence by implying allegiance to a higher level
militia.

...I think Al Qaeda does this, too -- they're higher militia is God. Now recall that "next phase" part, where we leave and the Iraqi's stand on their own:

The Iraqi justice system --- courts, prosecutors, defense attorneys, police
investigators, jails for pre-trial confinement, prisons for sentences, integrity
of public institutions --- does not yet exist.

...You can see how the "next phase" will work itself out when we depart. *If* we depart, that is. More on that shortly.

Vengeance is the only operative law of the land. The situation is starting
to change. The Iraqi Police will be in charge of most neighborhoods by the
end of next year.

...I'm looking forward to the neighborhood watch program. Find me a real estate agent. But maybe a better bet is to the north:

The Kurds are a successful separate autonomous state---with a functioning and
rapidly growing economy, a strong military (both existing Pesh Merga Forces and
nominally Iraqi-Kurdish Army divisions), a free press, relative security,
significant foreign investment, and a growing tourist industry which serves as a
neutral and safe meeting place for separated and terrified Sunni and Shia Arab
families from the south. There are Five Star hotels, airline connections to
Europe, a functioning telephone system, strong trade relations with Syria,
enormous mutually beneficial trade relations with Turkey, religious tolerance, a
functional justice system, and an apparently enduring cease-fire between the
traditional Kurdish warring factions.

...if you can believe it. Haven't been to Club Kurd myself, but I'll take his word that there is a ray of hope here. That is, until

...The war-after-next will be the war of the Iraqi Arabs against the Kurds ---
when Mosul as well as Kirkuk and its giant oil basin (and an even greater
Kurdish claimed buffer zone to the south) is finally and inevitably absorbed
(IAW the existing Constitution) by the nascent Kurdish state.

...in other words, all the cutthroats and thieves to the south want what the Kurd's got.

The only real solution to this dread inevitability is patient US diplomacy to
continually defer the fateful Kurdish decision ad infinitum.

Patient US diplomacy is likely to work here as well as it does anywhere else we apply it. That is, almost not at all.

Okay, now we get to some really scary stuff. What does the U.S. do next, he asks?

2. THE WAY AHEAD:
a. THE CENTRAL US MILITARY PURPOSE MUST BE TO CREATE
ADEQUATE IRAQI SECURITY FORCES:
The Iraqis are the key variable. The center of our military effort must be the creation of well-equipped, trained, and adequately supported Iraqi Police and Army Forces with an operational Air Force and Navy.

Variables funded by yours truly. Of course if that's ALL we did, and deep-sixed the peace corp mission, I'd have a shred of sympathy. But wait -- then there's that awful, dysfunctionally useless democratic socialist theocractic government these Iraqi forces will be securing. Which, after we leave, will collapse, and god knows what will take over.

We have rapidly decreasing political leverage on the Iraqi factional leadership.

Ie, none at all. Our only leverage is the power of a 500 pound bomb.

It is evident that the American people have no continued political commitment to
solving the Iraqi Civil War.

Through massive welfare handouts by our government and the devaluation of our currency, among the many side effects. The cost of the Iraq war, by the way, is now $450 billion and counting. (Google "iraq war cost". Plenty of sites.) Probably understated, too. I like this comment from http://zfacts.com/p/447.html:

The US budget for Iraq in FY 2006 comes to $3,749/Iraqi. This is more than
double their per person GDP. It's like spending $91,000 per person in the US.
Why not just bribe the whole country?

The same thought had occurred to me a few years ago. But back to LTG McCaffrey:

The US Armed Forces cannot for much longer impose an internal skeleton of
governance and security on 27 million warring people.

...Christ, it's a lot worse than I thought. The entire 27 million are warring, not counting the 1 in 6 who left Dodge. Whether you war or skip town, it has something to do with that "independence" thing. You've got to be it to have it.

The US must achieve our real political objectives to withdraw most US combat
forces in the coming 36 months, leaving in place:
1st: A stable Iraqi government.
2nd: A strong and responsive Iraqi security force.
3rd: A functioning economy.
4th: Some form of accountable, law-based government.
5th: A government with active diplomatic and security ties to its six neighboring states.

No argument on 1 and 2, apart from having to pay for it. Number 3 would be nice, but It's Not My Problem. Let them eat cake. By baking their own. Number 4 would also be nice, if I get to say what kind of government, but that doesn't seem to be an option presented me.
Number 5 is, pure and simple, a joke, so let's move on to this next interesting section of the unofficial report:

b. THE US ARMY IS TOO SMALL AND POORLY RESOURCED TO CONTINUE SUCCESSFUL COUNTER-INSURGENCY OPERATIONS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN AT THE CURRENT LEVEL:

An active counter-insurgency campaign in Iraq could probably
succeed in the coming decade with twenty-five US Brigade Combat Teams.
(Afghanistan probably needs two more US combat brigades for a total of four in
the coming 15 year campaign to create an operational state --- given more robust
NATO Forces and ROE). We can probably sustain a force in Iraq indefinitely
(given adequate funding) of some 10+ brigades. However, the US Army is starting
to unravel.

You got that? He's talking about the next decade, in Iraq, and 15 years in Afghanistan. How's that working for us? Even LTG McCaffrey says our Army is "unraveling".

Our recruiting campaign is bringing into the Army thousands of new soldiers
(perhaps 10% of the annual input) who should not be in uniform. (Criminal
records, drug use, moral waivers, non-high school graduates, pregnant from Basic
Training and therefore non-deployable, lowest mental category, etc.)

Now you know why some of our soldiers are charged with murders of Iraqis, etc. On the other side of the quality equation,

We are losing our combat experienced mid-career NCOs and Captains at an
excessive rate. (ROTC DMG's, West Pointers, Officers with engineering and
business degrees, etc.) Their morale is high, they are proud of their service,
they have enormous personal courage---however, they see a nation of 300 million
people with only an under resourced Armed Forces at war. The US Army at 400,000 troops is too small to carry out the current military strategy.

No mystery here. No question Bush is keeping the Army too small if you're fighting 15 years of wars all over the place.

The National Guard and Reserves are too small, are inadequately resourced, their
equipment is broken or deployed, they are beginning their second involuntary
combat deployments, and they did not sign up to be a regular war-fighting force.
They have done a superb job in combat but are now in peril of not being ready
for serious homeland security missions or deployment to a major shooting war
such as Korea.

Generally, I agree. Why they hell are we using Guard and Reserves so much? Cause Bush could never have got the support to double the size of the Army to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, once he defeated them.

The modernization of our high technology US Air Force and Navy is imperiled by
inadequate Congressional support. Support has focused primarily on the ground
war and homeland security with $400 Billion+. We are digging a strategic hole
for the US as we mono-focus on counter-insurgency capabilities --- while China
inevitably emerges in the coming 15 years as a global military power.

Mono-focusing personally, I can tell you that a *lot* of military R&D has gone by the way-side to fund more prosaic things like protecting troops from IEDs. Which is good, if you're in a war, but we're jeopardizing our military for other threats at the same time. That's what you get with a 15-year (or 100-year) war that costs a half-trillion (or more) dollars. Everything gets drained and sacrificed. Hell, half the Army's equipment has been worn out or already outright given to build the Iraqi "security force" as we speak.

Okay, I know this short note seems endless, but now my buddy addresses the touch-feely stuff. It gets really weird. If you can stomach it, read the whole thing:

c. HEALING THE MORAL FISSURES IN THE ARMED FORCES:
The leadership of Secretary Bob Gates in DOD has produced a dramatic transformation of our national security effort which under the Rumsfeld leadership was characterized by: a failing under-resourced counter-insurgency strategy; illegal DOD orders on the abuse of human rights; disrespect for the media and the Congress and the other departments of government; massive self-denial on wartime intelligence; and an internal civilian-imposed integrity problem in the Armed Forces--- that punished candor, de-centralized operations, and commanders initiative.

Rumsfeld can surely be criticized, but McCaffrey's love affair with Gates, who to every account I've ever read, is the consummate brown-nosing yes-man without an ounce of talent, is bizarre.

Admiral Mullen as CJCS and Admiral Fallon as CENTCOM Commander bring hardnosed realism and integrity of decision-making to an open and collaborative process which re-emerged as Mr. Rumsfeld left office. (Mr. Rumsfeld was an American patriot, of great personal talent, energy, experience, bureaucratic cleverness, and charisma---who operated with personal arrogance, intimidation and disrespect for the military, lack of forthright candor, avoidance of personal
responsibility, and fundamental bad judgment.)

Revenge is sweet, I guess. Poor Rummy.

Secretary Gates has turned the situation around with little drama in a
remarkable display of wisdom, integrity, and effective senior leadership of a
very complex and powerful organization. General Petraeus now has the complete
latitude and trust in his own Departmental senior civilian leadership to have
successfully changed the command climate in the combat force in Iraq. His
commanders now are empowered to act in concert with strategic guidance. They can
frankly level with the media and external visitors. I heard this from many
senior leaders -- from three star General to Captain Company commanders.

Birds sing, rainbows come out, moral fissures close... Healing them in the Armed Forces means essentially, to him, sucking up big-time to the guys in office right now, and trashing the hell out of the guys out of office who they don't like. You can see how McCaffrey got to three stars and why his "private" memo is circulating widely. Fishing for that new job, I suspect. With hand grenades.

3. THE END GAME:
It is too late to decide on the Iraqi exit strategy with the current Administration.

Well, that didn't take long. He's an equal opportunity kiss-ass. This administration, that administration, any administration, they're all fine with him. Just give him a chance.

However, the Secretary of Defense and CENTCOM can set the next Administration up for success by getting down to 12 + Brigade Combat teams before January of 2009---and by massively resourcing the creation of an adequate Iraqi Security Force.

...A man who knows what to do! With enough money he'll massively resource the creation, enable the Second Coming (of what I'm not sure), and achieve who knows what other heavenly outcomes. All he needs is that job offer.

We also need to make the case to Congress that significant US financial
resources are needed to get the Iraqi economy going. ($3 billion per year for
five years.) The nationbuilding process is the key to a successful US Military
withdrawal---and will save enormous money and grief in the long run to avoid a
failed Iraqi state.

Give me a break. $3B a year? Not in my lifetime. From that "Zfacts" webpage (which I neither endorse nor attest to the accuracy thereof):

...The Pentagon's estimate of their monthly "burn rate" is about $6.8 B/month
now, but it excludes funds for military equipment etc.

Sounds like we're running more like $100B/year, which I've read from other sources.

Now we get to some more major-league sucking up:

Clearly we must continue the current sensible approach by Secretary of State
Rice to open dialog with Syria, Turkey, and the Iranians --- and to focus Arab
attention with Saudi leadership on a US diplomatic offensive to mitigate the
confrontation between Israel and the Arab states. We must also build a coalition
to mitigate the dangers of a nuclear armed Iran.

Yeah, how's that working for us? You can see the consequences of promoting generals who rise through the ranks via advanced degrees in left-wing dominated schools of international relations. Well, maybe I'm being too hard on him. I don't know that it was his international relations schooling that got him the stars. But it apparently got him an influential job at West Point.

The dysfunctional central government of Iraq, the warring Shia/Sunni/Kurdish
factions, and the unworkable Iraqi constitution will only be put right by the
Iraqis in their own time --- and in their own way.

Relativism in action. I'm surprised he didn't quote the "Prime Directive" from the "Star Trek" series. In his own way.

It is entirely credible that a functioning Iraqi state will slowly emerge
from the bottom up -- with a small US military and diplomatic presence holding
together in loose fashion the central government. The US must also hold at bay
Iraq's neighbors from the desperate mischief they might cause that could lead to
all out Civil War with regional involvement.

Well, it's also entirely credible the U.S. will emerge bottom-up from the next nuclear war caused by this sort of mischief. I'd rather not count on something as incredible as McCaffrey's apparent reliance on "hope" as our main instrument of foreign policy.

US Government Certified as Insane

In a bizarre front-page story, the NYTimes reports today that every single agency of the U.S. government has suddenly decided that Iran is *not* developing nuclear weapons, and hasn't even been trying since 2003. Even more amazingly, they do it with "high confidence". Take a look at the attached summary of the National Intelligence Estimate that was linked on the NYTimes. Lot's of boilerplate in the preface to make Noam Chomsky happy about the meaning of the word "is", as well as the meaning of "high confidence", but one key conclusion:

Our assessment that Iran halted the program in 2003 primarily in response to
international pressure indicates Tehran’s decisions are guided by a cost-benefit
approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic,
and military costs. This, in turn, suggests that some combination of threats of
intensified international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for
Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in
other ways, might—if perceived by Iran’s leaders as credible—prompt Tehran to
extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons program. It is difficult to
specify what such a combination might be.

Which suggests to me this is all a gigantic excuse for the administration to avoid attacking Iran and continue "negotiations". Unless it's all an excuse to fool Iran into thinking we *won't* attack (there are currently reports of buildups of our ships and reserves of fuel near Iran), but truthfully, I won't put a plugged nickel into that theory.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/03/world/middleeast/03cnd-iran.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

U.S. Says Iran Ended Atomic Arms Work
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
By MARK MAZZETTI
Published: December 3, 2007

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 — A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting judgment two years ago that Tehran was working relentlessly toward building a nuclear bomb.
The conclusions of the new assessment are likely to reshape the final year of the Bush administration, which has made halting Iran’s nuclear program a cornerstone of its foreign policy.

The assessment, a National Intelligence Estimate that represents the consensus view of all 16 American spy agencies, states that Tehran is likely keeping its options open with respect to building a weapon, but that intelligence agencies “do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.”

Iran is continuing to produce enriched uranium, a program that the Tehran government has said is designed for civilian purposes. The new estimate says that enrichment program could still provide Iran with enough raw material to produce a nuclear weapon sometime by the middle of next decade, a timetable essentially unchanged from previous estimates.

But the new estimate declares with “high confidence” that a military-run Iranian program intended to transform that raw material into a nuclear weapon has been shut down since 2003, and also says with high confidence that the halt “was directed primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure.”

The estimate does not say when American intelligence agencies learned that the weapons program had been halted, but a statement issued by Donald Kerr, the principal director of national intelligence, said the document was being made public “since our understanding of Iran’s capabilities has changed.”

Rather than painting Iran as a rogue, irrational nation determined to join the club of nations with the bomb, the estimate states Iran’s “decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs.” The administration called new attention to the threat posed by Iran earlier this year when President Bush had suggested in October that a nuclear-armed Iran could lead to “World War III” and Vice President Dick Cheney promised “serious consequences” if the government in Tehran did not abandon its nuclear program.

Yet at the same time officials were airing these dire warnings about the Iranian threat, analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency were secretly concluding that Iran’s nuclear weapons work halted years ago and that international pressure on the Islamic regime in Tehran was working.

Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, portrayed the assessment as “directly challenging some of this administration’s alarming rhetoric about the threat posed by Iran.” He said he hoped the administration “appropriately adjusts its rhetoric and policy,” and called for a “a diplomatic surge necessary to effectively address the challenges posed by Iran.”
But the national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, quickly issued a statement describing the N.I.E. as containing positive news rather than reflecting intelligence mistakes.

“It confirms that we were right to be worried about Iran seeking to develop nuclear weapons,” Mr. Hadley said. “It tells us that we have made progress in trying to ensure that this does not happen. But the intelligence also tells us that the risk of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon remains a very serious problem.”

“The estimate offers grounds for hope that the problem can be solved diplomatically — without the use of force — as the administration has been trying to do,” Mr. Hadley said.

The new report comes out just over five years after a deeply flawed N.I.E. concluded that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons programs and was determined to restart its nuclear program — an estimate that led to congressional authorization for a military invasion of Iraq, although most of the report’s conclusions turned out to be wrong.

Intelligence officials said that the specter of the botched 2002 N.I.E. hung over their deliberations over the Iran assessment, leading them to treat the document with particular caution.

“We felt that we needed to scrub all the assessments and sources to make sure we weren’t misleading ourselves,” said one senior intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

America Annexes Canada as 51st State

The Bush administration appears to have annexed a major Canadian landmark as part of a slick new campaign to promote U.S. tourism... A Disney-produced promotional video released last week by the departments of State and Homeland Security ...backed by a soaring orchestral soundtrack... [treats viewers] to the impressive sight and sound of water roaring over Niagara Falls. ...filmmakers, however, chose the Horseshoe Falls, the only one of Niagara's three waterfalls to lie almost entirely on the Canadian side of the border...

Don't blame me! I want to see NO Al Canook terrorism squads chasing after me with a hockey stick.

Actually, I think it's just part of Bush's Forward Strategy of Freedom. Be ready for some withering largesse to help all you folks from the Great White North rebuild from the next attack wave. I think the plan is to turn the Edmonton Mall into the Green Zone as we recruit Inuits for the counter-insurgency operations.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Canada.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Video Puts Canadian Part of Falls in US
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: October 28, 2007
Filed at 3:11 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Oh, Canada! The USA is closer than ever.

The Bush administration appears to have annexed a major Canadian landmark as part of a slick new campaign to promote U.S. tourism and welcome foreign visitors to America.

A Disney-produced promotional video released last week by the departments of State and Homeland Security highlights majestic American landscapes, from New England's colorful fall foliage and the Grand Canyon to the Rocky Mountains and Hawaii's pounding surf.

Backed by a soaring orchestral soundtrack, shots of those attractions are interspersed with the smiling images of people of all creeds and colors. The video, ''Welcome: Portraits of America,'' is to be played at select airports in the United States -- starting at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C., and George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston -- and at U.S. embassies abroad.

About four minutes into the seven-minute production, viewers are treated to the impressive sight and sound of water roaring over Niagara Falls before the screen shifts to the Lincoln Memorial.

In showing the natural wonder, Disney's filmmakers, however, chose the Horseshoe Falls, the only one of Niagara's three waterfalls to lie almost entirely on the Canadian side of the border separating western New York state from southern Ontario province.

Making matters worse, a visitor to the U.S. would not even be able to get the same view of the falls in the video because the scene was shot from a vantage point in Canada, according to Paul Gromosiak, a Niagara Falls, N.Y., historian and author.

Also, he said the video leaves out the two cascades that actually are on U.S. territory, the American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls.

''This is not the United States, this is 100 percent Canada, shot from the Canadian side,'' Gromosiak said after reviewing the video at the request of The Associated Press. ''This is an insult.''

Although brief, the appearance of the Horseshoe Falls in a U.S. tourism promotion effort is likely to also vex Canadians, who long have fought to distinguish themselves from their larger and more powerful neighbor to the South.

The political boundary is not marked with a line through the Niagara River that divides the two countries and connects Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. The distinction, however, is clear to most who have visited the Falls looking for a picture postcard photo to take home.

But it seems to have escaped the notice of the producers and those at the State Department and
Homeland Security Department's Customs and Border Protection agency who presumably vetted the video before endorsing it and posting it to their Web sites.

In a separate ''making of'' video, Jay Rasulo, the chairman of Disney Parks and Resorts, speaks over the falls footage about the importance of showing would-be tourists ''the great sites, the great vistas that they dream about all their lives when they dream about America.''

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack could not speak to the scenery in the short film. But he stressed that Niagara Falls ''is a shared natural wonder, a gateway for both our countries and anyone looking at the video will understand how proud America is to share it with Canada.''
Karen Hughes, the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, said in a posting to the department's blog Thursday that the production has the administration's blessing.

''This video clearly says: 'We want you to come to America, you will be most welcome,''' she said.

Hughes said she commissioned the work, which Disney shot and produced at no charge and donated, to overcome the pervasive post-Sept. 11 perception abroad that America is hostile to foreigners. She said the video is to be given maximum exposure.

''We have already sent the video and associated posters to embassies and consular offices across the world, where it will greet aspiring visitors long before they arrive on our shores,'' Hughes said.

''We're going to play it in waiting rooms and at embassy events -- and we hope it will inspire many who otherwise might not have thought about traveling to America to come and see it for themselves.'' she wrote.
Or maybe Canada.

Maritime Strategy Meets Mother Teresa

The decline in the warfighting ability of the U.S. -- which includes the will to fight -- is so precipitous under Bush (even though he didn't initiate it, just accelerated it) it is frightening.

"In the first major revision of U.S. naval strategy in two decades, maritime officials said Wednesday they plan to focus more on humanitarian missions and improving international cooperation as a way to prevent conflicts."

''Credible combat power will be continuously posted in
the Western Pacific and the Arabian Gulf/Indian Ocean to protect our vital interests, assure our friends ... and deter and dissuade potential adversaries,'' the strategy document said.

In what way is combat power "credible" when A.) the Navy is shrinking to the smallest number of ships since before WWII (something like 275 if memory serves me), and B.) every act of our government these days is to prove that our armed forces wouldn't attack a rubber duckie?

Defense Secretary Robert Gates hinted at the cooperative strategy during his recent five-country swing through Central and South America. Pointing to the recent tour of the Navy hospital ship, the USNS Comfort, which delivered medical care to people in 12 Latin American countries, Gates said such aid is critical to solidifying U.S. bonds with other nations.

Adm. Mike Mullen -- who just left his job as head of the Navy to
become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- has said he sees the Navy's humanitarian work as key to the effort to defeat terrorism by winning hearts and minds.

There was another story earlier this week from Gen. Sanchez (formerly leading the Iraq war) echoing similar tripe. Read the story below (it's short) and you'll see more of this idiocy. Truly, and I mean this, we need to make it death to the careers of general officers if they get degrees in international relations instead of in warfighting. Almost all these guys now get advanced degrees in peace-making nonsense from Ivy league schools to help their promotion chances. Time for it to end.

The basis for this story is a 16 page tract (attached) published by these wanna-bes who lay out their mission statement for saving the world with kindness. I figured it worth a look. That's the nature of forensic pathology.

(Apologies for the size of the attachment -- it takes the Department of Defense to turn a 16 page text document into a 1 megabyte PDF file. Do you know the definition of an elephant? A mouse built to government specifications. The elephant in this case is a lot of pictures of ships and planes and children and laughing people in foreign lands, all working in harmony with Our Guys. )

For instance, the conclusion of this mini-tome of bureaucratese and management jargon,

"The strategy focuses on opportunities - not threats; on optimism - not fear; and on confidence - not doubt. It recognizes the challenges imposed by the uncertain conditions in a time of rapid change and makes the case for the necessity of U.S. seapower in the 21st Century."

You get the idea. The upshot is that there's a lot of ocean out there, a lot of people nearby, and all the human suffering near the sea needs peace corp volunteers on Navy ships:

"Mass communications will highlight the drama of human suffering, and disadvantaged populations will be ever more painfully aware and less tolerant of their conditions. Extremist ideologies will become increasingly attractive to those in despair and bereft of opportunity. Criminal elements will also exploit this social instability."

Essentially, this policy statement is institutionalizing (well, it's one example of how it is being institutionalized) the notion that the *cause* of conflicts, like ours with countries of the Middle East or North Korea (don't forget how much grain and nuclear technology we have given the North, even as we let them devalue the dollar by printing billions every year in counterfeit currency), is unhappiness, suffering, misery, yadayada:

"A key to fostering such relationships is development of sufficient cultural, historical, and linguistic expertise among our Sailors, Marines and Coast Guardsmen to nurture effective interaction with diverse international partners."

Now I ask you, would you want these fools leading you into battle? That is, some graduate of a college for kindergarten teachers who puts "nurturing abilities" on a par with warfighting?

"Building and reinvigorating these relationships through Theater Security Cooperation requires an increased focus on capacity-building, humanitarian assistance, regional frameworks for improving maritime governance, and cooperation in enforcing the rule of law in the maritime domain."

I think that "capacity building" part is how we're training the Iraqi police and armed forces to be useful allies of Iran -- and think Somalia for the humanitarian assistance part. Come to think of it, recall the story yesterday about how piracy attacks off the coast of Somalia and other places (even several hundred miles at sea) surged to an all-time high this year. There's the "rule of law in the maritime domain" part of this mission statement. Our need to cooperate with the U.N. has left us paralyzed to actually deal with even a few tribesman in wooden boats. But Our Guys even have the gall to add,

"To this end, the Global Maritime Partnerships initiative seeks a cooperative approach to maritime security, promoting the rule of law by countering piracy, ..."

How's that working for you? Go ride a small ship or boat off the Horn of Africa sometime. You'll learn the "law of the sea", arrrhh. Shiver me timbers.

Our wannabe saints then ramble on in a state of Christian rapture suitable for Joan of Arc,

"When natural or manmade disasters strike, our maritime forces can provide humanitarian assistance and relief, joining with interagency and non-governmental partners."

You can see their eyes looking up to heaven past the brim of their service hats. Here's where they really start speaking in tongues:

"Building on relationships forged in times of calm, we will continue to mitigate human suffering as the vanguard of interagency and multinational efforts, both in a deliberate, proactive fashion and in response to crises. Human suffering
moves us to act, and the expeditionary character of maritime forces uniquely positions them to provide assistance."

Makes me ill to think these yahoos are supposed to defend us, but I really feel sorry for the poor devils under them.

They say that to be a saint you have to perform at least three (or five, depending on the time and storyteller) miracles. I'm thinking our Admirals and Generals who got promoted based on a warfighting philosophy of pacifism and Christian charity and kindness performed one miracle, but I don't see any more coming along. They better forget about preparing those acceptance speeches at the Vatican.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Maritime-Strategy.html
Preventing War Leads New Naval Strategy
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: October 17, 2007
Filed at 1:40 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In the first major revision of U.S. naval strategy in two decades, maritime officials said Wednesday they plan to focus more on humanitarian missions and improving international cooperation as a way to prevent conflicts.

''We believe that preventing wars is as important as winning wars,'' said the new strategy announced by the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard.

The strategy reflects a broader Defense Department effort to use aid, training and other cooperative efforts to encourage stability in fledgling democracies and create relationships around the globe that can be leveraged if a crisis does break out in a region.

''Although our forces can surge when necessary to respond to crises, trust and cooperation cannot be surged,'' says the 16-page document entitled ''A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower.''

It also says forces will be concentrated ''where tensions are high or where we wish to demonstrate to our friends and allies our commitment to security'' -- something the U.S. did earlier this year in sending an additional aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf region as a show of force toward Iran.
''Credible combat power will be continuously posted in the Western Pacific and the Arabian Gulf/Indian Ocean to protect our vital interests, assure our friends ... and deter and dissuade potential adversaries,'' the strategy document said.

The strategy was unveiled before naval representatives of 100 countries who are attending an international symposium on the seas at the Naval War College in Rhode Island. It was described to them by Navy Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations; Gen. James T. Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps, and Adm. Thad W. Allen, commandant of the Coast Guard.

Roughead said the Navy completed a two-year study to create the new strategy.

''What came through was that our security and our prosperity is completely linked to the security and prosperity of other nations throughout the world,'' he said.

It represents the first time the Navy, the Marine Corps and the Coast Guard have collaborated on a single, common strategy for defending the U.S. homeland and protecting U.S. interests overseas.

The Sept. 11 terror attacks demonstrated how the Navy's last major strategy, released publicly in 1986, had become irrelevant, Navy Cmdr. Bryan McGrath said. Drafted during the Cold War, the old plan focused on countering Soviet naval power across the globe.

''It was a war plan at its heart,'' McGrath said. ''When the Soviet Union fell, there was a lack of a big blue competitor.''

Defense Secretary Robert Gates hinted at the cooperative strategy during his recent five-country swing through Central and South America. Pointing to the recent tour of the Navy hospital ship, the USNS Comfort, which delivered medical care to people in 12 Latin American countries, Gates said such aid is critical to solidifying U.S. bonds with other nations. The USS Peleliu amphibious ship recently returned from a four-month tour in the Pacific and the USS Fort McHenry is heading this week for a seven-month mission along the west coast of Africa.

Conway said the Marine Corps supported the strategy, but was more focused on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Marines now most closely resemble the Army, he said.

''We are an expeditionary force by our nature. We go down to the sea in ships, but right now, we are very much taking on a profile as a second land army,'' Conway said.

Adm. Mike Mullen -- who just left his job as head of the Navy to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- has said he sees the Navy's humanitarian work as key to the effort to defeat terrorism by winning hearts and minds.

When Roughead succeeded Mullen at the Navy last week, he called in a speech for more international partnerships to make the Navy a ''force for good'' around the globe.

------
Associated Press reporter Lolita Baldor contributed to this report from Washington and reporter Ray Henry contributed from Newport, R.I.

Dot-com or bust

Anyone concerned about the little things affecting the economy, like the sub-prime mortgage crisis, the real estate crisis, the explosion in personal bankruptcies, the ballooning of federal spending, the decline in the dollar, the wild speculation in Chinese and Indian markets, the Japanese and Chinese exodus from the dollar, the potential for major wars in the world, and the like, might add to their list of things to consider the NYTimes story copied below:

This month, eBay conceded it had grossly overpaid for Skype by about $1.43 billion...“We are almost going back to year 2000 types of errors,” said Aaron Kessler, an Internet analyst at Piper Jaffray. Internet companies “are buying users instead of revenue and profitability,” he said. ...in the first dot-com gold rush, Internet companies did not have to make money to acquire serious investments dollars. Now that once again is true.

Twitter, a company in San Francisco that lets users alert friends to what they are doing at any given moment over their mobile phones, recently raised an undisclosed amount of financing. Its co-founder and creative director, Biz Stone, says that the company was not currently focused on making money and that no one in the company was even working on how to do so....

Mr. O’Kelley, formerly of Right Media, said other entrepreneurs had begun to think that the financing game is best played by avoiding actual revenues — since that only limits the imagination of investors. “It’s a screwed-up incentive structure, just like you had in the first bubble,” he said.

...Venture capitalists are flush with cash from institutional investors, eager for Internet-style returns on their money. “The upward valuations pressure is the result of decisions being made by people wearing suits in cities like New York and Boston who would never ever meet with start-ups,” Mr. Andreessen said in an interview. “If that ever goes away, it will have consequences. But it doesn’t look like they will change their minds.”

I go back to a hypothesis I've long had, that errors of this kind are philosophical in nature, but in particular, that a key middle-man in this madness has to be nonsense being taught in schools of business. A generation or two of graduates who neither understand nor care about the correct principles of valuation of a business has acquired the psychological traits of gamblers and witch doctors. (Not that in any generation there aren't plenty of investors with those traits, but there's got to be some percentage who know what they are doing to provide the necessary feedback for corrections to prevent a major crash.)

FYI, I'm not a doom-and-gloomer. There are positive trends, and there can be valid reasons for investing large amounts in companies with no immediate revenue, but it has to be based on real revenue projections based on realistic growth, not idle hope. There seems to be too little due diligence for many of these companies, and that puts the investment in the ranks of gambling and snake-healing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/17/business/media/17bubble.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
October 17, 2007
Silicon Valley Start-Ups Awash in Dollars, Again
By BRAD STONE and MATT RICHTEL

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 16 — Silicon Valley’s math is getting fuzzy again.
Internet companies with funny names, little revenue and few customers are commanding high prices. And investors, having seemingly forgotten the pain of the first dot-com bust, are displaying symptoms of the disorder known as irrational exuberance.

Consider Facebook, the popular but financially unproven social network, which is reportedly being valued by investors at up to $15 billion. That is nearly half the value of Yahoo, a company with 38 times the number of employees and, based on estimates of Facebook’s income, 32 times the revenue.

Google, which recently surged past $600 a share, is now worth more than I.B.M., a company with eight times the revenue.

More broadly, Internet start-ups are drawing investment based on their ability to build an audience, not bring in revenue — the very alchemy that many say led to the inflation and bursting of the dot-com bubble.
The surge in the perceived value of some start-ups has even surprised some entrepreneurs who are benefiting from it.

A year ago, Yahoo invested in Right Media, a New York-based company developing an online advertising network. Yahoo’s investment valued the firm at $200 million. Six months later, when Yahoo acquired Right Media outright, the purchase price had swelled to $850 million.

What changed? According to Right Media’s chief technology officer, Brian O’Kelley, very little, except that Yahoo’s rivals, Microsoft and Google, were writing billion-dollar checks to buy online advertising networks, and Yahoo thought it needed to pay any price to keep up.

“I have to say I giggled,” Mr. O’Kelley, 30, said of the deal that earned him millions. He has since left Right Media and is starting another company.

“There is no way we quadrupled the value of the company in six months.”
The trend is described as a return to madness (by skeptics) or as a rational approach to unlimited opportunities presented by the Internet (by true believers). Greed, fear and a desperate rush to pick the next big winner are all adding fuel to the fire that is Silicon Valley’s resurgence.

“There’s definitely a lot of betting going on, and it’s not rational,” said Tim O’Reilly, a technology conference promoter and book publisher.

Mr. O’Reilly is credited with coining the phrase “Web 2.0,” which refers to a new generation of Web sites that encourage users to contribute material. His Web 2.0 conference, which begins Wednesday in San Francisco, has become a nexus for the optimism around the latest set of society-changing online tools. But that has not stopped Mr. O’Reilly from worrying that the industry is minting too many copycat companies, half-baked business plans and overpriced buyouts.

When the bubble inevitably pops, he said, “there are going to be a lot of people out of work again.”

Putting a value on start-ups has always been a mix of science and speculation. But as in the first dot-com boom and the recent surge in housing, seasoned financial professionals are seeming to indulge in some strange instinct to turn away from the science and lean instead on the speculation.

This time around, people indulging in that optimistic thinking are not mom-and-pop investors or day traders but venture capitalists whose coffers are overflowing with money from university endowments and hedge funds. Many of those financial professionals say that this time, everything is different.

More than 1.3 billion people around the world use the Internet, many with speedy broadband connections and a willingness to immerse themselves in digital culture. The flood of advertising dollars to the Web has become an indomitable trend and a proven way for these start-ups to make money, while the revenue models of the dot-coms of yesteryear were often little more than sleight of hand.

“The environmental factors are much different than they were eight years ago,” said Roelof Botha, a partner at Sequoia Capital and an early backer of YouTube. “The cost of doing business has declined dramatically, and traditional media companies have also woken up to the opportunities of the Web.

“That does open up the aperture for a different outcome this time,” he said.
Some trace the start of the new bubble to eBay’s $3.1 billion acquisition of the Internet telephone start-up Skype in 2005. EBay’s chief executive, Meg Whitman, reportedly outbid Google for the company. This month, eBay conceded it had grossly overpaid for Skype by about $1.43 billion, and announced that Niklas Zennstrom, a Skype co-founder, had left the company.

Google’s acquisition of YouTube last year for $1.65 billion, under similarly competitive bidding, might have accelerated the transition to loftier values. Google executives and many analysts argued that YouTube was well worth the price tag if it became the next entertainment juggernaut.

It still might. More than 205 million people visit YouTube each month, according to the research firm comScore. Still, Citigroup estimated that YouTube would bring in $135 million in revenue next year. At that rate, YouTube would have to grow considerably to account for just 5 percent of Google’s annual revenue of nearly $12 billion.

“We are almost going back to year 2000 types of errors,” said Aaron Kessler, an Internet analyst at Piper Jaffray. Internet companies “are buying users instead of revenue and profitability,” he said.

The Skype and YouTube windfalls helped to give the newest batch of Internet entrepreneurs dreams of improbable wealth. They also brought back practices that had seemingly been discredited during the first boom. For example, in the first dot-com gold rush, Internet companies did not have to make money to acquire serious investments dollars. Now that once again is true.

Twitter, a company in San Francisco that lets users alert friends to what they are doing at any given moment over their mobile phones, recently raised an undisclosed amount of financing. Its co-founder and creative director, Biz Stone, says that the company was not currently focused on making money and that no one in the company was even working on how to do so.

“At the moment, we’re focused on growing our network and our user experience,” he said. “When you have a lot of traffic, there’s always a clear business model.”

That is not necessarily illogical in the current climate. A European competitor, Jaiku, which is similarly devoid of a mature business model, was acquired last week by Google for an undisclosed sum. With the competitive logic that prevails at the major Internet companies, the deal might have further raised Twitter’s appeal to Google’s rivals.

The high value placed on many start-ups and minimal requirements for financial performance are raising expectations of other entrepreneurs. Sharon Wienbar, managing director of Scale Ventures Partners, an investment firm, cited the $100 million valuation that investors gave to the Internet genealogy site Geni.com, founded last year in Los Angeles by a veteran of PayPal.

“Now every entrepreneur thinks he should get that,” Ms. Wienbar said. “I have a feeling a lot of entrepreneurs are secretly meeting for beers on the Peninsula, saying, ‘Hey, look what I got.’”

Mr. O’Kelley, formerly of Right Media, said other entrepreneurs had begun to think that the financing game is best played by avoiding actual revenues — since that only limits the imagination of investors. “It’s a screwed-up incentive structure, just like you had in the first bubble,” he said.

Another company benefiting from the exuberance is Ning, which allows users to create their own MySpace-style ad-supported social networks. It was recently valued by investors at more than $200 million, mainly because its main backer and founder, Marc Andreessen, has a successful history with the Internet hits Netscape and Opsware.

Mr. Andreessen argues on his blog that there is no bubble and that the high prices represent a rational desire to stake a claim in the potentially huge markets of the future. But he acknowledges that a seemingly inexhaustible flood of capital into Silicon Valley is helping to power the boom. Venture capitalists are flush with cash from institutional investors, eager for Internet-style returns on their money.

“The upward valuations pressure is the result of decisions being made by people wearing suits in cities like New York and Boston who would never ever meet with start-ups,” Mr. Andreessen said in an interview. “If that ever goes away, it will have consequences. But it doesn’t look like they will change their minds.”

Food for gumming

State-run health care at its best. Where will it end next? People taking out their own appendi? Self-help books on performing open heart surgery on family members? Brain surgery for dummies?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071015/wl_uk_afp/britainhealthdentists

English 'pull own teeth' as dental service decays
Mon Oct 15, 7:19 AM ET
LONDON (AFP) - Falling numbers of state dentists in England has led to some people taking extreme measures, including extracting their own teeth, according to a new study released Monday.

Falling numbers of state dentists in England has led to some people taking extreme measures, including extracting their own teeth, according to a new study released Monday.

Others have used superglue to stick crowns back on, rather than stumping up for private treatment, said the study. One person spoke of carrying out 14 separate extractions on himself with pliers.

More typically, a lack of publicly-funded dentists means that growing numbers go private: 78 percent of private patients said they were there because they could not find a National Health Service (NHS) dentist, and only 15 percent because of better treatment.

"This is an uncomfortable read for all of us, and poses serious questions to politicians from patients," said Sharon Grant of the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health.

Overall, six percent of patients had resorted to self-treatment, according to the survey of 5,000 patients in England, which found that one in five had decided against dental work because of the cost.

One researcher involved in compiling the study -- carried out by members of England's Patient and Public Involvement Forums -- came across three people in one morning who had pulled out teeth themselves.

Dentists are also concerned about the trend.

Fifty-eight percent said new dentists' contracts introduced last year had made the quality of care worse, while 84 percent thought they had failed to make it easier for patients to find care.

Almost half of all dentists -- 45 percent -- said they no longer take NHS patients, while 41 percent said they had an "excessive" workload. Twenty-nine percent said their clinic had problems recruiting or retaining dentists.
"These findings indicate that the NHS dental system is letting many patients down very badly," said Grant.

"It appears many are being forced to go private because they don't want to lose their current trusted and respected dentist or because they just can't find a local NHS dentist."

Ahmadinejad and Islam - Things don't look good

I've noticed that a lot of "senior statesmen", back in January (Kissinger, Schultz, Perry, Nunn, etc), predated Obama's call (yesterday's news) for eliminating all nukes in the U.S. arsenal. (He wants everybody to give up their nukes, actually, but this sort of foreign policy would leave the U.S. the main one standing in this game of musical chairs.)

"In setting a goal of eliminating nuclear weapons in the world, Mr. Obama is endorsing a call for “urgent new actions” to prevent a new nuclear era that was laid out in January in a commentary in The Wall Street Journal written by several former government officials. The authors of the article were George P. Shultz, secretary of state in the Reagan administration; Henry Kissinger, secretary of state in the Nixon and Ford administrations; William J. Perry, secretary of defense in the Clinton administration; and Sam Nunn, a former chairman of the Senate Armed Services
Committee. "

Have you noticed that when a lot of people get older they often renounce the opinions of their "youth" and decide they want to get on a moral soapbox embracing stupid ideas? There for you is the ultimate resolution between the philosophy of pragmatism and the morality of altruism. The pragmatists, unable to morally defend their philosophy (or even identify it as such), even over such a "minor" thing as defending the nation, choose to embrace the lunacy of ideas such as pacifism. It is scary.

Among the "reformed" one might include the loons who "get religion" in their later years. Bush and a zillion other formerly debauched who embrace Jesus and turn the other cheek. I might include today's obsession with non-violence towards civilians in enemy countries. But now we're broadening this small observation into including all the loony manifestations of altruism, self-sacrifice and sacrifice as such as methods of non-accounting of values. (That is, accountants measure earthly values relative to net gain; sacrifice demands you measure value against a non-earthly standard, so all the earthly values come out as net losses.)
Robb

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/us/politics/02obama.html?ei=5090&en=4a51a9a9cb0279f0&ex=1348977600&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
October 2, 2007
Obama to Urge Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
By JEFF ZELENY

WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 — Senator Barack Obama will propose on Tuesday setting a goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons in the world, saying the United States should greatly reduce its stockpiles to lower the threat of nuclear terrorism, aides say.

In a speech at DePaul University in Chicago, Mr. Obama will add his voice to a plan endorsed earlier this year by a bipartisan group of former government officials from the cold war era who say the United States must begin building a global consensus to reverse a reliance on nuclear weapons that have become “increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective.”
Mr. Obama, according to details provided by his campaign Monday, also will call for pursuing vigorous diplomatic efforts aimed at a global ban on the development, production and deployment of intermediate-range missiles.

“In 2009, we will have a window of opportunity to renew our global leadership and bring our nation together,” Mr. Obama is planning to say, according to an excerpt of remarks provided by his aides. “If we don’t seize that moment, we may not get another.”

His speech was to come one day after an announcement by the Bush administration that it had tripled the rate of dismantling nuclear weapons over the last year, putting the United States on track to reducing its stockpile of weapons by half by 2012.

The exact number of weapons being dismantled, like the overall stockpile, is secret, but officials said Monday that with the planned reductions, the total number of American nuclear weapons would be at the lowest levels since Dwight D. Eisenhower was president.

Under a 2002 treaty, the United States and Russia agreed to limit the number of operational nuclear weapons in their arsenals to between 1,700 and 2,200 by 2012, though that agreement did not address weapons in reserve stockpiles.

Mr. Obama, Democrat of Illinois, is seeking to draw attention to his foreign policy views with the approach of the fifth anniversary of the Congressional vote authorizing military action in Iraq. He is highlighting his early opposition to the war, which he argues is a sign of judgment that is more important than the number of years served in Washington.

Mr. Obama, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, often tells voters that the Iraq war has consumed American foreign policy to the detriment of its ability to address other threats facing the nation. In his speech on Tuesday, aides said, Mr. Obama will assert, as he has before, that the United States should not threaten terrorist training camps with nuclear weapons.

If elected, Mr. Obama plans to say, he will lead a global effort to secure nuclear weapons and material at vulnerable sites within four years. He also will pledge to end production of fissile material for weapons, agree not to build new weapons and remove any remaining nuclear weapons from hair-trigger alert.

In his speech, according to a campaign briefing paper, Mr. Obama also will call for using a combination of diplomacy and pressure to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs. Aides did not say what Mr. Obama intended to do if diplomacy and sanctions failed.

In setting a goal of eliminating nuclear weapons in the world, Mr. Obama is endorsing a call for “urgent new actions” to prevent a new nuclear era that was laid out in January in a commentary in The Wall Street Journal written by several former government officials. The authors of the article were George P. Shultz, secretary of state in the Reagan administration; Henry Kissinger, secretary of state in the Nixon and Ford administrations; William J. Perry, secretary of defense in the Clinton administration; and Sam Nunn, a former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

David E. Sanger and Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting.

Bush Dismantles Nuclear Arsenal

Note that while the pace of dismantling U.S. nuclear warheads is going three times faster than planned,

"The House stripped away money for the replacement warhead program from the Energy Department's upcoming budget, while the Senate agreed to only partially fund the program. A final budget has yet to be approved in Congress."

In other words, George "Woodrow Wilson" Bush could well be leaving the U.S. with few warheads at all if there are no replacements authorized by the Dems, who must love this.

I've read elsewhere that the nuclear weapon reduction, even with replacements, is supposed to leave the U.S. with only 2000 warheads. (At the peak of the Cold War, we had 27,000 warheads.) Israel itself is reported to have at least 1000 warheads. How many does China have now? How many will they have in 10 years? I do think there is negotiating power in relative numbers, and if you're the U.S. with many less than China, or an alliance of convenience of China, Iran, Soviet Union, you look weak.

Now, granted that we wouldn't likely use even 2000 warheads in a major war. There is still deterrent value in more of them, and you certainly have to anticipate a lot of losses in a first strike -- nuclear storage bunkers and subs are likely high priority targets, especially since we no longer fly nukes. (The brouhaha a couple weeks ago about a B-52 transporting SRAMs for dismantling proves that.) Subs are not nearly so stealthy a deterrent as they used to be (I've heard the Chinese and Russians can track our Trident's reasonably well), and Bush has also been converting Trident missile subs (probably our best deterrent in the cold war, and even in a future conflict with China, even if they can be tracked) to carry conventional warheads.


http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Nuclear-Warheads.html
U.S. Makes Gains in Dismantling Warheads
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: October 1, 2007
Filed at 12:09 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. is dismantling unneeded nuclear warheads at a faster pace than forecast as it substantially reduces its atomic arsenal under terms of an arms control treaty with Russia, government officials said Sunday.

The Bush administration planned to announce Monday that it has taken apart three times as many reserve warheads in the just-completed budget year than it had projected and expects the rapid pace of dismantlement to continue.

At the same time, a report by an independent science advisory group has concluded that ''substantial work remains'' before a new generation of warheads will be fit for certification without underground nuclear testing.
The findings are expected to provide congressional opponents of the warhead program with additional reasons to hold back money for the project. The administration views development of the replacement warhead as essential for keeping a secure and more easily maintained nuclear stockpile as warheads age.

The National Nuclear Security Administration, part of the Energy Department, reports a 146 percent increase in dismantled nuclear warheads during the 2007 budget year, which ended Sunday. That is triple the agency's original goal.

The agency is believed to be dismantling thousands of warheads, taking out their plutonium, uranium and non-nuclear high explosive components. The agency did not said how many warheads it had taken apart, nor how many remain to be worked on because the numbers are classified.

The progress ''sends a clear message to the world that this administration remains committed to reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the U.S. nuclear stockpile,'' said the agency's administrator, Thomas D'Agostino.
The government will not provide any numbers on the overall size of the nuclear stockpile, but there are believed to be nearly 6,000 warheads that either are deployed or in active reserve.

Under the 2002 treaty with Russia, the U.S. is committed to reducing the number of deployed warheads to between 1,700 and 2200 by 2012.
Three years ago, President Bush said he wanted the overall stockpile reduced to half of what it was in the 1950s, or to a level of about one-quarter of its size at the end of the Cold War.

The group of scientists who regularly advise the government on nuclear weapons matters has told Congress that the proposed replacement warhead will require further development and experiments to assure against possible failure, absent actual underground testing.

''Substantial work remains on the physical understanding'' of the mechanisms involved to assure the warhead will perform reliably, according to a report to Congress on Friday.

Officials at the nuclear agency said they were gratified that the report supported the idea that the replacement warhead can be developed without actually detonating a device in an underground test. That has been an important criteria for moving forward with the program if Congress provides money.

D'Agostino says the warhead is necessary to make the nuclear arsenal more secure, safer and reliable in the future.

''We embrace the ideas of continued study and peer review,'' he said in a statement in response to the report.

Last May, the agency chose a research effort at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California for the replacement warhead. The administration hopes to develop a clearer timetable and cost estimate for the project in the next year, but so far some members of Congress have been skeptical about the program.

The House stripped away money for the replacement warhead program from the Energy Department's upcoming budget, while the Senate agreed to only partially fund the program. A final budget has yet to be approved in Congress.

------
On the Net:
National Nuclear Security Administration: http://www.nnsa.doe.gov/

Religious Right hasn't given up

26 Nov 2006

"Brownback, speaking on ABC's ''This Week,'' said there
was both room and a need among Republicans ''to develop some new plays,
particularly on the compassionate conservative agenda.''

Recall the recent Objective Standard article on the real meaning of the neocons (www.theobjectivestandard.com). This next election will surely be an interesting ride.

I'm reminded of a sci-fi story by Heinlein ("If This Goes On"), written in the 40's, about the religious takeover of the U.S., circa year 2000. From the perspective of a revolution around 2075, after 75 years of rule by,ironically, a series of "prophets", though not of the Muslim kind,Washington DC then being called "New Jerusalem". (The "First Prophet" being the Holy Reverend Nehemiah Scudder, straight from the bible belt around Kansas, who rises from the dead every year to appear on TV for the faithful.)

No, I don't think that's happening in 2008, but it sure is interesting what kind of roaches are being flushed from the water closet right now. (Which is a weird metaphor, I know. A product of my subconscious.)
Robb

Drug Doubles Endurance, extends lifespan 30%

26 Nov 2006
One of the most interesting stories of this type I've ever come across:

A drug that prolongs life, averts degenerative disease and, on top of all that, makes you into a champion athlete -- at least if you are a mouse -- sounds almost too good to be true.

They also have a reduced heart rate and energy-charged muscles, just as trained athletes do,

Dr. Auwerx attributes this change in large part to the significantly increased number of mitochondria he detected in the muscle cells of treated mice.

Their rationale for testing resveratrol was evidence obtained three years ago that it could activate a genetic mechanism known to protect mice against the degenerative diseases of aging and to prolong their lifespan by 30 percent.

much more moderate doses of resveratrol protected mice from the metabolic effects of a high-calorie diet. Though his mice did not lose weight, they lived far longer than undosed mice that were fed the same high-calorie diet...

...it is rare that we identify orally active molecules, especially natural molecules, that have such a broad-based, positive effect on a problem as widespread in society as metabolic disease.

Dr. Sinclair has said that he has been swallowing resveratrol capsules for three years, and that his parents and half his lab staff do the same. So does Dr. Tomas Prolla at the University of Wisconsin. "The fact that investigators in the field are taking it is a good sign there is something there." He and his colleagues said the same mechanism seems likely to operate in humans... "

And, as always, we should be interested in the investment angle:

Resveratrol is now available in capsules that contain extracts of red wine and giant knotweed, a plant found in China. One manufacturer of such capsules is Longevinex, whose president, Bill Sardi, said today that demand for the product had increased by a factor of 2400 since Nov. 1.

Which, had they stock trading on the markets, would translate to a 2400:1 increase in share price. But I think we might reasonably assume that the good doctors involved in this study either have, or will have, business opportunities in the works. Maybe a large pharmaceutical company or three, or a startup...

Blog Inauguration

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to stop being nagged to set up a blog, it behooves me to remove the chains of female verbal bondage and just set the fricking thing up. This is it. I am now famous. My words are enshrined on the web for all future generations to be in awe of, to ruminate over, to pass on to future generations my pithy, yet prolix wisdom. Here you are.

Another triumph of the....

Another triumph of Bush's policy of promoting democracy, protecting national sovereignty of a country we invaded, and respecting cultural sensitivities...

"A man sentenced to death in Kuwait for the 1983 bombings of the U.S. and French embassies now sits in Iraq's parliament as a member of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's ruling coalition, according to U.S. military intelligence. ...A Kuwaiti court sentenced Jamal Jafaar Mohammed to death in 1984 in the car bombings of the U.S. and French embassies ...He had fled the country before the trial. ...Jamal Jafaar Mohammed's position gives him prosecutorial immunity ... He supports Shiite insurgents and acts as an Iranian agent in Iraq, [Washington] says "

Can't we all just get along? No, more seriously, how stupid can our government be in allowing this guy one microsecond after we discover who he is, before we arrest or kill him? Think about it ... our government has known for at least a couple *years*, probably, who this guy is, and in the name of pretending we aren't occupying Iraq, and in the name of showing respect for the Iraqi "government" -- which *we* prop up and protect and flood with our money -- we leave this killer alone and allow him to continue working with Iranians to kill our troops. If there's any greater demonstration of Bush's utter incompetence, I don't know what it is. But wait a day or two. I'm sure we'll hear something new, soon enough. Maybe he'll dispatch deranged Space Shuttle astronauts in diapers as diplomatic liasons to Iran. Something is sure to turn up. Give it time.


U.S. military: Iraqi lawmaker is U.S. Embassy bomber
POSTED: 5:31 a.m. EST, February 6, 2007 POSTED: 5:31 a.m. EST, February 6, 2007
Story Highlights• Iraqi Parliament member convicted of bombing U.S., French embassies in '83• Jamal Jafaar Mohammed's position gives him prosecutorial immunity• He supports Shiite insurgents and acts as an Iranian agent in Iraq, D.C. says• Mohammed is also accused of attempting to kill a Kuwaiti prince

From CNN Correspondent Michael Ware
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A man sentenced to death in Kuwait for the 1983 bombings of the U.S. and French embassies now sits in Iraq's parliament as a member of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's ruling coalition, according to U.S. military intelligence.

Jamal Jafaar Mohammed's seat in parliament gives him immunity from prosecution. Washington says he supports Shiite insurgents and acts as an Iranian agent in Iraq.

U.S. military intelligence in Iraq has approached al-Maliki's government with the allegations against Jamal Jafaar Mohammed, whom it says assists Iranian special forces in Iraq as "a conduit for weapons and political influence."

Repeated efforts by CNN to reach Jamal Jafaar Mohammed for comment through the parliament, through the ruling Shiite Muslim coalition and the Badr Organization -- the Iranian-backed paramilitary organization he once led -- have been unsuccessful. (Watch how a convicted terrorist became an Iraqi lawmaker.)

A Kuwaiti court sentenced Jamal Jafaar Mohammed to death in 1984 in the car bombings of the U.S. and French embassies the previous December. Five people died in the attacks and 86 were wounded.

He had fled the country before the trial.

Western intelligence agencies also accuse Jamal Jafaar Mohammed of involvement in the hijacking of a Kuwaiti airliner in 1984 and the attempted assassination of a Kuwaiti prince.

Jamal Jafaar Mohammed won a seat in Iraq's Council of Representatives in the U.S.-backed elections of December 2005. He represents Babil province, south of Baghdad, in parliament.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman said officials are actively pursuing Jamal Jafaar Mohammed's case with Iraqi officials. Al-Maliki has urged American intelligence officials to share their information with Iraqi lawmakers, who could strip Jamal Jafaar Mohammed of his parliamentary immunity.

"We don't want parliament to be a shelter for outlaws and wanted people," al-Maliki told CNN. "This is the government's view, but the parliament is responsible. I don't think parliament will accept having people like [him] or others currently in the parliament."

Al-Maliki's political party, Dawa, claimed responsibility for the Kuwait bombings at the time but now disavows them. The Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim party was forced into exile under former dictator Saddam Hussein, who was executed in December.

The prime minister says the situation is embarrassing -- not only to his government but to a U.S. administration that holds up Iraq's government as a democratic model for the region.

Top U.S. officials, including President Bush, have accused Iran of meddling in Iraq by fomenting sectarian violence and providing arms to illegal militias. Bush has authorized U.S. troops to use deadly force against Iranian agents in Iraq to defend American or allied forces, and the administration's increasingly tough warnings to Tehran have raised concerns that the four-year-old Iraq war could spread.

Al-Maliki told CNN last week that the United States and Iran should stop using his country as a proxy battleground, accusing Iran of targeting U.S. troops in Iraq but saying he doesn't want U.S. forces to use Iraq as a base to attack Iraq's neighbors.