Lurching Through The Swamp(s)

The first swamp is, no surprise here, Afghanistan. The early reports (they're all over the web, no real need for links) have it that President Obama, after only three months of study and palaver, and distractions over the "credibility" of Karzai's election, has finally opted for the least worst course of action. This means that another 34,000 US troops will hit the ground over and above the 22,000 already tabbed by the President for service there.

If the early reports are right (and the Geek hopes they are), the mission of the new increment will be against the Taliban strongholds in the Kandahar and Helmand areas. The goal will be the suppression of the Islamist jihadists both soft and hard core. The intent is the creation of an area which is quiet enough for the Afghan national forces to take over and the Afghan government (if any) to provide essential services and establish both functional and existential legitimacy.

By implication at least, the US military is officially out of the nation-building game. If correct, that is a move that is long overdue. While there is much a military force can and should do to provide assistance to local civilians, the top job is restoring sufficient quiet that purely civilian efforts can build a nation--from the base on up to the pinnacle. To date, the building efforts have been in the reverse and thus doomed to fail.

President Obama is to be congratulated for having listened to such advisors as SecDef Gates rather than those such as Vice President Biden--or even National Security Advisor Jones, who was apparently overly traumatized by his service as a junior combat leader in Vietnam to take a fully mature view of the ways in which the effort in Afghanistan differ from the debacle in Vietnam.

The strict focus on suppressing Taliban as an effective combat force coupled with an eye to the exit emphasizes the difference between the approach currently and belatedly underway in Afghanistan and the long delayed and poorly executed "Vietnamization" exercise during the Nixon administration. Now, if Congress does not play the spoiler role it had during the Vietnam endgame, there is a chance the US and its allies will achieve the minimum necessary strategic goal of "not losing."

In Afghanistan, as in Iraq, "not-losing" is the best that can be hoped for in the real world. As the Korean War paradigm shows, "not-losing" is not really fully satisfying but it is enough. It works imperfectly but it works.

The Iranian swamp has grown both deeper and more murky with the mullahs' men announcing that the country would construct another ten enrichment centers while Russia indicated it would not stand in the way of any new sanctions consensus. In a way both announcements merit a mere "well, la-de-dah and humma-humma."

The threat from Tehran to proliferate centrifuges at an awesome rate of knots was a completely expectable response to the IAEA Board of Governors smiting the regime on the hand for its previous actions in that area. If the Iranian regime expected any other action such as a mea culpa from the body for having ever suspected the mullahs of any motives other than the most lofty and humanitarian, they must have been sampling too much of the cargo surreptitiously brought across the border from Afghanistan.

The Russian protestations of solidarity with the sanction oriented West is nice and might have a symbolic value but is nullified in actual effect by the probable blockage from the Chinese. The Gnomes of Beijing have too much invested in Iran and too much need for its oil to move to support sanctions. This means there is no real consensus for the Russians to join or to block. They can, in effect, put the caviar on both sides of their cracker.

Another ship has been sunk in the pirate swamp of Somalia. This time the jolly raiders of the region snatched a tanker bound from Saudi Arabia to the US with about twenty megabucks of cargo on board. Nine men in a skiff took over the thirty man crew of the VLCC without any mention of a struggle, resistance, or the arrival of the naval cavalry.

With the ending of the monsoon which flattened the seas north of the Seychelles, the pirates have been out in full and effective force while the large multi-national naval presence has driven their boats around with little effective impact on the piracy business. As usual many of the MSM (look them up yourself, it isn't hard to find the usual suspects) characterized the pirates as "unemployed fishermen." This is akin to calling the thugs of Al Capone's Chicago Outfit, "unemployed beer delivermen."

There are few effective ways of draining the Somali pirate swamp. And, worse from the soft and sentimental Western perspective, all the ways which would have any effect whatsoever involve both violence and the potential of "innocent" lives being snuffed out.

Unless and until two actions are taken, the pirate swamp will continue to suck in hapless victims. The two actions are easy to describe and easy to take--if political will exists. The first is to require convoying of all vessels transiting the dangerous waters. This could be enforced by the insurance industry--but only if the navies involved drafted and implemented a convoy system.

The second action is to use lethal force. Both security details onboard ships and the naval vessels should have "shoot to kill" authority. Period. Yes, mistakes might be made. "Hold harmless" clauses must therefore exist to immunize ship owners, crews, and security details from either civil or criminal liability.

It would also be of great use if the UN would create another one of those special courts of which it is so fond to deal with pirates captured on the job. The current ad hoc ways of dealing with pirates are both unworkable and unjust. Even better would be an acknowledgement by the UN that ever since Julius Caesar cleared the Mediterranean Sea of pirates, members of that sub species of brigand have been the common enemy of mankind whenever and wherever they have done their dirty deeds.

The final swamp du jour is that of Islam in Western Europe. The Swiss in a referendum have banned by a 57.5 percent margin the construction of minarets. The Swiss government was against the idea. The UN has (of course) deplored the vote's result. And, (again no shock) most published Arab and Muslim opinion is dead against it as well.

While the elites of Europe bemoan this lack of cross cultural sensitivity, the hoi polloi have voted for keeping their little part of Europe, well, European. It is hard if not impossible to accuse the Swiss of prejudice or racism given the way in which their tidy nation has allowed for complete sectarian peace for over five hundred years, but the accusations will--and are--being made nonetheless.

The Muslim press of the Mideast has made the charge that the Swiss and, therefore, by implication all Europeans are practicing a double standard in that they uphold the freedom of speech but oppose cultural items such as minarets and burquas. Of course, the difference between the two matters is palpable.

Then there is the unpleasant and equally uncommented upon reality that Muslim states prohibit the construction of churches, or other non-Muslim religious structures. They fail to note that the Swiss have not banned the building or use of mosques, merely towering minarets. Likewise the critics fail to note all the Muslim countries including some which purport to be democracies prohibit even the use of public buildings for purposes of worship.

The double standard swamp seems to be located more in the Mideast than in Europe. Not that this ground truth will inhibit the same countries from seeking to limit global freedom of expression in the name of protecting religion from criticism.

There it is. One more day of mucking about in the mud of the world, trying to keep one's head above the cloying waters. Will tomorrow be any different? Any better? Any more filled with firm ground and dry boots? Not in this lifetime, bucko.