Sole Survivor

The Washington Post has a great article about Marcus Luttrell, a man at the center of one of the most chilling battles in the "War on Terror". Luttrell, who was previously only discussed as "The ONE" and definitely has the same wallet as Jules Winnfield, finally gets to step out of the shadows and tell his tale with Patrick Robinson in Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10. The coauthor of Lone Survivor, Patrick Robinson, is my buddies father, so I have been privy to some of the story for a year now. I have little doubt that this is going to be an intense book. Luttrell emerged as the only survivor of Operation Red Wing in Afghanistan, June of 2005.

Remember:
Petty Officer Danny Dietz (SEAL Team 1)
Petty Officer Matthew Axelson (SEAL Team 1)
Navy Lt. Mike Murphy (SEAL Team 1)
Chief Warrant Officer Corey J. Goodnature (pilot, US Army 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment)
Chief Warrant Officer Chris J. Scherkenbach (pilot, US Army 160th SOAR)
Sgt. Kip A. Jacoby (US Army, 160th SOAR)
Sgt. 1st Class Marcus V. Muralles (US Army, 160th SOAR)
Chief Petty Officer Jacques J. Fontan (SEAL Team 10)
Lt. Cmdr. Erik S. Kristensen (SEAL Team 10)
Petty Officer 2nd Class James Suh (SEAL Team 1)
Petty Officer First Class Jeff Taylor (SEAL Team 1 medic)
Master Sgt. Michael Russell (US Army, 160th SOAR)
Maj. Steve Reich (pilot, US Army 160th SOAR)
Sgt. 1st Class James "Tre" Ponder III (US Army, 160th SOAR)
Petty Officer 2nd Class Eric Shane Patton (SEAL Team 1)
U.S. Navy Lt. Michael McGreevy (SEAL Team 10)
Petty Officer Jeffrey Alan Lucas (SEAM Team 10)
Senior Chief Petty Officer Dan Healy (SEAL Team 1)
SSgt. Shamus Goare (US Army, 160th SOAR)

War Readings

Robert Baer - More Bad Intelligence on Iran and Iraq

You would think by now the Bush Administration would have drained the well of bad intelligence on Iraq and Iran. Apparently not.

Michael Scheuer - Al-Qaeda’s Waiting Game: Bush isn’t winning in his battle against our real enemy.

The lack of an al-Qaeda attack inside the United States since 9/11 proves only that there has not been an al-Qaeda attack in the United States since 9/11. That fact is in no way proof that our war on al-Qaeda has destroyed its capacity to hit America at home. The most that should be claimed is that the CIA rendition program may have disrupted and delayed operational planning. Alternatively, bin Laden may have decided that a near-term attack would reunite Americans at a time when our own folly is already sufficient to make the U.S. the second superpower to be defeated by Allah’s mujahedin.

Andrew Bacevich - I Lost My Son to a War I Oppose. We Were Both Doing Our Duty.

Money maintains the Republican/Democratic duopoly of trivialized politics. It confines the debate over U.S. policy to well-hewn channels. It preserves intact the cliches of 1933-45 about isolationism, appeasement and the nation's call to "global leadership." It inhibits any serious accounting of exactly how much our misadventure in Iraq is costing. It ignores completely the question of who actually pays. It negates democracy, rendering free speech little more than a means of recording dissent.

This is not some great conspiracy. It's the way our system works.

William Engdahl - Darfur: Forget genocide, there's oil

No. "It's the oil, stupid."

BBC - Obstacles to peace: Water

The BBC News website is publishing a series of articles about the attempts to achieve peace in the Middle East and the main obstacles. Martin Asser looks at the central issue of water.

Linkage

Lustick -

Comparing Bush's speech to the Cadets in 2007 to the speech he gave there in 2003, the difference is obvious. In 2003 he described al-Qaeda's remnants as being hunted down in a few dark corners of the world. In 2007 he described al-Qaeda as a raging storm, building Iraq as a gigantic base of operations. America, he said, "living in the eye of a storm. All around us, dangerous winds are swirling, and these winds could reach our shores at any moment." Beware of Hurricane Osama! What a sensational story, for the press and for the President--the storm of the century that is always about to hit, and never goes away!

Nate Fick -

The American political system doesn’t always leave much room for people who’d rather vote for policies than for parties. Next November, however, I’ll likely side with the candidate who best articulates a sensible international agenda. There are five items on my foreign policy wish list, shaped both by pride at having served alongside our nation’s flag in Afghanistan and Iraq and by the reality of having buried too many comrades beneath it.

Freakonomics -

Interview with Nassim Taleb the author of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable.

PhilaLawyer -

Tanuki - Part 1

Succisa Virescit

After a horrible year of injustice, the Duke lacrosse will be playing in the NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Final Four this weekend. The team went 16-2 tearing through their regular season and will face-off against the Cornell Big Red on Saturday.

Good luck to the Blue Devils, both Men’s and Women’s teams are looking to bring home some hardware this season.

9/11, Ron Paul

Rep. Ron Paul kicked up a dust storm last week during the South Carolina GOP primary debate. During the debate he argued that 9/11 and al Qaeda was a result of “blowback”. Blowback is term used at CIA for unintended consequences of covert action; Paul stretched the term to include broader American policy over the past 60 years. One policy mentioned was our containment of Iraq throughout the 90’s whereby we regularly bombed Iraqi targets.

Rudy Giuliani immediately seized on this statement for a cheap political score:

That's an extraordinary statement of someone who lived through the attack of Sept. 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don't think I've ever heard that before and I've heard some pretty absurd explanations for Sept. 11.
(APPLAUSE)
I would ask the congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us that he didn't really mean that.

The only problem is that Ron Paul is largely correct. Containment of Iraq in the 1990’s is an ancillary reason for bin Laden, but illustrative of the policies he is at war with us over. Paul is exactly correct in describing AQ as an unintended consequence of our policies. The combat aircraft that we flew in order to enforce the Iraq’s southern no-fly zone, and contain Saddam, mostly flew out of bases in Saudi Arabia. The presence of American combat forces on the Saudi peninsula is/was Osama’s primary bone of contention, and a major source of anti-Americanism in the Muslim world. This is clear to anyone who takes the time to read bin Laden’s statements.

That Guiliani says “I don't think I've ever heard that before and I've heard some pretty absurd explanations for Sept. 11” is an indictment against his candidacy for Commander in Chief of our nation. This directly contradicts Sun Tzu's maxim from The Art of War:

So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will win hundred times in hundred battles. If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you win one and lose the next. If you do not know yourself or your enemy, you will always lose.

Giuliani does not know our enemy.

Nevertheless talking heads and bloggers are having a field day over this. Some Republican Party officials are demanding Paul be barred from future debates. This is patently absurd. I can understand some of the outrage in response to Ron Paul’s comments. It implies that we had it coming; it is almost blaming the victim.

Such drawn implications should matter little, what should matter is the cold, dispassionate analysis of knowing your enemy. That we as a public, near six years after September 11th are still squabbling over such trite matters is an implication that we are dangerously behind the curve. Put simply--know your enemy to destroy him easier. It is evident that this does not matter to both our political parties.

New Brandon Bird Painting

Brandon Bird released a new painting recently, this one titled Battle of the Heroes.



I was a big fan of Coach growing up.

New War Nerd Column

"Gary Breacher" War Nerd, Fresno's greatest military historian and data entry specialist has a new article out. This one "Who Won Iraq?", seeks to explain ...well, just who won in Iraq. As always its filled with dark humor, rich historical insight, and astute analysis. As always I like it.

Anyway, for those of you collecting War Nerd guidelines, here's what I think are some general rules for "Who wins wars?"

1) In a big bloodbath like the Thirty Years War or WWI, the winner is usually the powers that don't fight, but dabble in spycraft and wet ops, meanwhile consolidating their own economic power.

2) The biggest loser is almost always the country on whose territory the war is fought. (Note: You could argue that America entered WWII fairly early and still came out ahead, but on the European Front up to D-Day our role was supplying materiel to the Russians and letting them do all the bleeding for us. On both fronts we were far away from the action and that allowed us to pick where and when to commit money and troops, so the generalization still holds: the further away you are, the better.)

3) In a regional war, the big winner will be any neighboring states that can stay out of the war and work out supply contracts with the richer combatant (Thailand during Nam, Argentina in WWI, Switzerland in every war since Ur took on Ur South).

4) However, if there's an ethnic spillover, like Turkey has with the Kurds, this relationship can backfire.

5) The worst thing a major power can do is go to war alone for "moral" reasons. This is how medieval France wasted its huge advantages on pointless Middle Eastern crusades that did nothing but revitalize the Muslims and drive down the price of white slaves in the Cairo market.