Are We Safer Or Not? Does It Really Matter?

Dick Cheney affirms that the US is now much less safe from terrorism because President Obama has banned "torture." Obama released the legal memos authorising the use of intensive interrogation techniques and made noises about closing Gitmo. As one the Right stood and did the wave in a paroxysm of agreement with Cheney.

On the other side, assorted people of the Left maintain that the doctrines and practices of the Bush-Cheney years did nothing to assure the US was safe from the tender ministrations of the Islamist jihadists of the world. On top of that, the Thunderers From The Left following the baton of Nancy Pelosi hold that they were lied to repeatedly and effectively by the evil doers of CIA and the crafty minions of the previous administration generally.

Both sides can agree on only one fact. The US has not been directly attacked since the bleak day of 9/11. Beyond that they can agree on nothing. Not even what can, should or must be done to continue the record of the past seven years, eight months and thirteen days.

Some of the considerations raised in the past few days are totally irrelevant to addressing the primary issues. Are we safer or not since the Obama "reforms?" Do the Obama driven changes really matter in looking at the question of immunity from terrorist attack? And, what are the necessities for continuing future freedom from both attack and the enervating fears surrounding potential attack?

On Obama's actions an accurate parsing of effect is easy to do. Releasing the legal memos has no impact on the continuation of our collective safety from terrorist attack. The methods employed were already well known and widely discussed. The knowledge and discussion extended to the assorted Islamist jihadist websites. The release of the legal thinking of the assorted Bush vintage lawyers in no way compromised the American capacity to elicit actionable intelligence from captured enemy combatants.

The release of these memos particularly if eventually accompanied by assessments evaluating the usefulness of the enhanced interrogation methods might serve to show how limited the utility of severe physical pressure actually is. That would ultimately demonstrate that other approaches to acquiring information are not only better but carry no moral baggage.

The President's decision not to release the photos and videos showing prisoner abuse at the hands of US personnel after having initially agreed to do so was well advised. The reasons adduced by Obama for this seeming flip-flop are both well rooted and self evident. The gratuitous release of the photos would only inflame hostile emotions with the result that US personnel, citizens and interests would face greater risks. It is regrettable that the ACLU, Human Rights Watch and similar groups cannot understand this--or that they understand it but are indifferent to the results.

Closing Gitmo is not at all complex. The vitriol and fear provoked by the possibility of closing the facility at Gitmo and relocating the 240 more or less inmates in federal facilities surpasses rational understanding. The initial reason for putting the assorted "illegal enemy combatants" and others suspected of terrorist inclinations at Gitmo was the desire of the Bush-Cheney administration to assure that those detained would not have access to the federal courts. By holding them off shore it would be possible to have the lads available for interrogation while preventing some hypothetical "bleeding heart" federal judge from releasing them.

Beyond that original reason there was a desire for vengeance suitably disguised as justice. After all, these guys were most assuredly enemies of the US who had fostered and facilitated terror attacks on the US. The military commission, particularly when coupled with measures carefully calculated to maximise the potential of conviction, seemed a fine way to get the emotional (and political) rewards of wreaking vengeance while posing as administering justice.

The use of military commissions in and of itself is neither without precedent nor inherently unjust. With reforms such as those mentioned by President Obama, such as the barring of statements obtained under coercion or hearsay testimony, the accusations holding military commissions to be unjust would be undercut.

(The Geek recommends that those who oppose the use of military commissions read the manuals outlining the processes of courts-martial and the military court of appeals as well as the relevant sections of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. If they were do to do so, they might be (pleasantly) surprised to see that the military justice system is remarkably jealous in its protection of the rights of the accused. It is no way a drumhead system--although on occasion it has been perverted by over zealous convening officers.)

Without the justification of keeping enemy combatants (legal or otherwise) and other suspected terrorists out of the reach of the federal courts, there is no real, compelling need to keep the Gitmo slammer running. Howls of public safety such as have been made by assorted Republicans are absurd.

The federal slammers are already holding (typically at the Florence, Colorado supermax) a prime selection of very, very bad guys including the men behind the first attack on the World Trade Center and the Unibomber. As the President pointed and accurately noted, none have escaped. And, none are likely to.

This being the case the risks of closing Gitmo are slim to none. The benefits, as SecDef Gates has commented, are high. Gitmo has become an international symbol of America acting at its worst. This significance may be undeserved, but in the war against Islamist jihadists, symbols and their manipulation are critical.

ATTENTION! There is a thunderstorm approaching and the Geek's solar system must be shut down. So must the satellite. Have to finish this when the weather improves. See you tomorrow, weather permitting.

Learn From The Past--And, Then, Get Over It

Release the "atrocity" pictures! Don't release the "atrocity" pictures! Prosecute the "torturers!" Don't prosecute the "torturers!" Nancy Pelosi is a down-to-the-bone liar! Nancy Pelosi was the innocent victim of CIA misleading obfuscations!

Along with those battling slogans, buried in the midst of the shouts of accusation, is the single most important issue regarding "torture" or "enhanced interrogation techniques" or the commission of "atrocities." Also lost in the fog of accusation, counter-accusation, and tear filled wails over the (mis) conduct of US personnel both military and civilian is a single, unpleasant but very plain truth.

First, the issue which really matters. It is best put as a question: Does the mix of stress filled techniques reportedly used by American interrogators produce better, more accurate, more useful information in a more rapid way than methods which do not rely on physical pressures?

Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who worked the USS Cole bombing case among others, maintains that the measures used by CIA interrogators were inherently ineffective compared with other, less physically stressful means. Former Vice President Cheney vehemently disagrees with this. In the ex-veep's view the robust methods produced vital, life-saving, actionable information when milder techniques failed.

Unless and until the documents demonstrating the accuracy of Mr Cheney's perspective emerge, the Geek, using his direct and vicarious experiences, will have to lean toward the view expressed by Ali Soufan. There is, however, one very important caveat: The Geek never had to deal hands on with a hard-core leadership cadre from an Islamist jihadist group. Nor, has his years of research dealt in sufficient, verifiable detail with the experience of those who have had to interrogate Islamist jihadists.

The historical record coming from such venues as the Algerian War of Independence and the ongoing Israeli counter-terror and counterinsurgency efforts provide a very fuzzy image of mixed results. Indeed, one can find apparent support for both the Cheney position and that of former Special Agent Soufan.

For example, during the Battle of Algiers the French forces used genuine torture on a wide spread basis. The French methods went far, very far beyond those employed by the Americans. Arguably the extreme methods used by French troops did produce actionable intelligence. It is equally to be argued that the consequences of the use of torture outweighed, both politically and psychologically, what ever positive results may have been achieved.

Perhaps the most important unintended, perhaps even unforeseen consequence of the French use of torture was the erosion of support for continuing the counterinsurgent campaign in Algeria among the members of the French elite, the country's academic, press and political classes. The emergence of knowledge regarding the methods used by the Paras in Algiers ignited a fire of condemnation which in turn caused a further factionalization of public opinion both in France and throughout the West.

Another, almost as important a consequence, again neither intended nor, perhaps foreseen, was the "free pass" given to the Algerian insurgents, the National Liberation Front, for their use of torture, summary executions and indiscriminate lethal violence against civilians. This Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card looped together with the Algerian Arab Muslim population's increased willingness to side with the National Liberation Front's war of independence.

All in all the French military success in the Battle of Algiers, brought about in large measure through the vigorous use of intelligence obtained in part from the use of torture was more than offset by the loss of political will in France and the increase in political will among the native Algerian people. The Law of Unintended Consequences can assure that battles "won" can result in wars which are well and truely lost.

The former Feeb was, perhaps, warning of this possibility.

The possibility, battles "won" so that wars are lost, would be enhanced significantly by the release of the "atrocity" imagery sought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Human Rights Watch (HRW). The release would serve no useful purpose, despite the beliefs of these groups and others of like mind.

The release would, as SecDef Gates warned weeks ago and President Obama asserted yesterday, would cause an upsurge, quite probably of a dramatic sort, in actions against the US and its troops. Certainly, given the history of such triggering acts as the release of the infamous Abu Ghraib prison photos or even the Danish cartoons, the release of the currently contested images would make the tasks of bringing stability to Afghanistan and Pakistan much more difficult.

As was the case with the French in Algeria, these photos would serve to convince many to overlook the far, far worse violations of human dignity and rights committed on a daily basis by Taliban, al-Qaeda and other Islamist jihadist entities. The use of these photos to infuriate the easily infuriated people who have a desire to lash out at the Great Satan through martyrdom operations would be easy.

The net effect of any release would not only be more American deaths. No. The net effect would be the prolongation, perhaps the expansion of Islamist jihadist actions. This means, quite simply, a hell of a lot more death. A hell of a lot more fear. A hell of a lot more human misery. More deaths, more misery, more fear, more pure human suffering without any redeeming result.

The seekers after their version of Truth should consider these implications. This is particularly the case for outfits such as HRW which proclaim their concern for human rights, since the most basic right of all is the right to be left to live.

While either losing or refraining from exercising the "right" or, better, the desire to embarrass, to humiliate the United States may deny a measure of emotional satisfaction, it would have the benefit of saving lives, lessening fear, reducing misery. And, isn't that a higher goal than getting one's rocks off bashing Uncle Sam?

The sad, underlying reality which rests, unspoken under these photos is that in all wars, at all times, involving the soldiers and para-military forces of all combatants, atrocities have been committed. In all the wars of the Twentieth Century, the memoirs, the combat diaries, the oral histories of those at or near the sharp edge of battle are universally redolent of atrocities. No armed force has been immune to the killing of civilians, the slaughtering of those who have or are trying to surrender. None have failed to mistreat prisoners of war. None have been absolutely scrupulous in their observance of the laws, customs, niceties of war.

US troops have been no different from those of other nations. Yes, times and sensitivities of a culture, a society may change, but the actions of those at war change far less.

During World War II, no one objected to Life magazine having a photo spread which showed among other images, a picture of an attractive young woman writing a letter to her guy over in the Pacific area of operations. On her table was a skull. It was identified as the skull of a Japanese soldier sent to her as a token by the guy "Over There." There were few objections to this clear violation of the American Articles of War (and moral sensitivity.)

During the American effort in Vietnam there were rumors, reports and periodic photos of grunts with trophies. Strings of ears, fingers or other members retrieved from the bodies of dead Viet Cong or North Vietnamese troops were whispered about, talked of and photographed to the revulsion of a few, the anger of some and either indifference or flat out glee to many.

In both of these previous American wars, the atrocities and violations of law were balanced in the public mind by accounts of despicable behaviour by the opposition. It was not so much that two wrongs were seen as making a right so much as that the wrongs committed by Americans were more than overmatched by those committed by the enemy.

From all reports the images in controversy today do not come within long, long cannon range of the photos in Life magazine in WW II. There are none showing grinning grunts with a string of Iraqi body parts held out for the camera like a prize swordfish taken off Florida.

The problem comes in the lack of countervailing imagery. The photos of women disfigured by acid attacks, the mutilated bodies of Americans killed in action--or killed after having been captured by the Islamist jihadists. There are no photos of Iraqi men, now fingerless or (in a couple of cases) lacking lips because they had been caught in the sinful act of smoking.

Again the argument is not that two wrongs make a right. The argument is that war itself is an atrocity rich environment in which American and other Western forces are remarkably restrained even by the (sometimes) absurd standards of today--particularly as held by the Blame America First crowd.

ACLU, HRW and kindred groups want the pictures released to the world not because it will somehow serve truth and justice. It has been acknowledged that Americans who have been proved to have violated the Laws of Land Warfare, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, have been dealt with appropriately. Justice and transparency have been served.

A similar case can be made against the proposal that a "Truth Commission" be established to root through the "torture" allegations and defenses. No truth will nor can emerge from such an exercise. It would inevitably be incomplete since some, (most?) information which might be relevant to an inquiry must of necessity be classified. Without an absolutely, utterly full release of all data and documents, can the conclusions of any "Truth Commission" be evaluated, let alone trusted. (And, who can ever be sure that all relevant documents have been released?)

Any "Truth Commission" no matter how allegedly "non-partisan" would inexorably dissolve into the usual slinging of diatribes between "progressives" and "reactionaries." Only those hostile to the US and the West would benefit from the ensuing search for truth, accountability and transparency (to employ the customary buzz words.)

Embarrassing and humiliating the United States is not a worthy goal. Placing the troops of the US and its allies at greater risk for no reason beyond satisfying emotional needs or political agenda imperatives is not laudable. Provoking more violence, more death, more fear, more misery is not an appropriate activity for groups committed to the protection of human rights.

It is for many (including the Geek) unfortunate to leave the issues of "enhanced interrogation techniques" unaddressed in totality. It may be unpleasant to accept the reality that American troops can, on rare occasions, perpetrate actions which can be seen legitimately as atrocities.

But, it is important, very important, to recognise that US personnel and institutions learn from experience, admit mistakes, try not to repeat them. It is just as important to realise and even celebrate the vast gulf which separates our conduct of and behavior in war from that of the Islamists jihadists we oppose.

Could Cheney Be Right? Say It Ain't So!

Former Veep and Eternal Prince of Darkness Dick Cheney was on CNN's "State of the Union" show yesterday. He rendered an animadversion.

Specifically he charged the Obama administration with "de-escalating" the American efforts at counter terrorism from the war status it had during the Bush years to one of "law enforcement" such as had obtained during the Clinton period. While the Dick-man was making a particular reference to the more-or-less cosmetic changes introduced by the Obama people such as dropping the term "enemy combatants," Cheney's stance opens the door on a larger issue.

That issue is rather the hippo in the bathroom. It is not simply a matter of definition. No. The issue is one of strategy, tactics, the organisation and deployment of resources. And, it represents how an administration either does or does not effectively develop and maintain political will within We the People.

Put simply the issue is this. When an act of terror occurs or is detected prior to occurrence what does the man in the Oval do? Call the cops? Or, say to cabinet, Congress and public, "You realise this means war."

To put the question a little differently (and more realistically,) what are the criteria for parsing between the two potential responses--call the cops vs send the Marines--when any specific act of actual or intended terror is detected?

There is an axiom implied in these questions. Terror is a tactic so multi-faceted, so open as to goals and methods, so widely available to individuals and entities both foreign and domestic that no one-size-fits-all response is possible. Neither is one desirable. Nor will any universal application response actually be effective.

Herein lies both the flaw and the challenge of Cheney's accusation that the "de-escalation" to "law enforcement" has made the American public more likely to experience another terror attack in the near future.

The reason for this assessment resides in the historical record. (Big surprise there, eh?)

The American experience with "modern" terrorism can be conveniently and accurately dated to the first attack on the World Trade Center in February 1993. The off-shore dimension of this attack was known even before plot turned to the reality of death and fear shortly after noon on 26 February.

The FBI had the services of an undercover operative who had penetrated the terrorist cell long before H-hour. But, in some sort of institutional snit the responsible manager forced the asset to quit his task.

When the Clinton administration took a look at the attack and what was known about the attackers, the Deep Thinkers of the day had sufficient information to justify either the call-the-cops option or the send-the-Marines alternative. It comes as no surprise that the lawyer President and the coterie of lawyers who surrounded him opted for calling the cops, or to err on the side of accuracy, relying upon the FBI and Justice Department to arrest and convict the criminals.

This decision could be and was justified on several grounds. First, the bombing of the WTC was a Federal crime. Second, the FBI had the investigatory background to move quickly and effectively to take down some of the lesser participants. Third, by trivialising the bombing as some sort of street crime, the Administration effectively limited the terror.

Finally there was an unstated justification. Treating the bombing as a criminal matter of concern only to domestic authorities meant there were no foreign policy complications. This was important given that the plot originated in Egypt.

There were some very real disadvantages to the course of action chosen by Clinton. By giving the FBI pride of place the opportunity to fully develop the off-shore links was attenuated to say the least. Also the choice undercut the chance for the US to gain a firmer understanding of the new terror oriented Islamist group, al-Qaeda which was emerging from the haze of the Gulf War. Finally, the decision by the Clinton administration gave up any realistic chance of early, low intensity diplomatic arm twisting on Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and other governments having an involvement with the new threat.

These were not the worst consequences of the Clinton decision. The worst effects were those of precedent. The administration, public opinion molders and We the People alike were encouraged by the misleading success of arresting and convicting some of the participants in the bombing to believe that the law enforcement model was a sovereign remedy for terrorism in all its forms. Americans accepted wholeheartedly the idea that arrest-and-trial was infinitely preferable and more effective in countering terrorism than the alternative of waging war in the Israeli fashion against it.

This comforting notion was reinforced by the "successful" application of arrest-and-trial following the vehicle bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City twenty-six months later. The narrative as presented by the government was simple, straight forward and quite satisfying--as long as it wasn't examined closely.

The narrative? Two of life's total losers, a failed Special Forces wannabe and a equally failed farmer got together in a right wing nut conspiracy and fabricated a highly lethal vehicle bomb which caused some 165 fatalities. End of story.

Like Lee Harvey Oswald, the two OK City bombers were lone wolves without external support who acted out some sort of dark fantasy. That's all, folks, nothing to see. Move along.

To accept this narrative all that is necessary is to ignore a couple of very inconvenient facts. Example? Terry Nichols resembles the sketch of John Doe #2 about as well as Chuck Norris looks like Brittany Spears.

Want more? According to the government's star witness the only time McVeigh tried to make a bomb before 19 April 1995, it fizzled.

Not enough? According to both US and Philippine government records Terry Nichols was in Davao City on Mindinao at the same time as Ramzi Yousef, the man behind the WTC bomb as well as other heavies from al-Qaeda.

While there is no direct evidence of any connection between Nichols or McVeigh and Yousef in the open sources, the record shows reason for further investigation. Suffice it to say that criminal trials are well known to be less than satisfactory venues for uncovering truth--particularly those truths which are either inconvenient or add undesired complexity.

But, high profile trials are fine mechanisms for assuaging public fears and reinforcing the appearance of governmental efficiency. The trials of Ramzi Yousef and others fit the bill perfectly. Again with the caveat that one does not look too closely at the reality behind the arrest-and-trial scenario.

Ramzi Yousef was a brilliant bomb maker. He was equally skilled at operational conceptualization. It was Yousef who designed the bomb and timer combination which would have been employed to drop a dozen US airliners over the Pacific ocean had chance not intervened. It was Yousef's design which may very well have been responsible for the downing of TWA 800 on 17 July 1996. (Pace, NTSB, but there are more holes in your hypothesis of electrical sparks in the center fuel tank than there were in flight 800 after it hit the water.)

Ramzi Yousef finally found himself in US custody as a result of accident, the actions of one determined Filipino cop, the determination of one man at the State Department's Security Service, and the decision of one man to rat out Ramzi. Intrepid spooks and shrewd FBI detective work had nothing to do with it. It was not American law enforcement at its finest, but none of those unpleasant realities were allowed to confuse the government's narrative at the time of Yousef's trial and conviction.

In short, one after another, the failures of the arrest-and-trial model were swept aside, ignored and expunged from public consideration. Instead, all was portrayed as being well in the contest between American justice and foreign terrorists.

The weakness or irrelevancy of the call-the-cops approach was dramatically illustrated on 7 August 1998 when vehicle bombs exploded nearly simultaneously at the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam killing 234 and injuring more than 5,000. An attack on an embassy is the legal equivalent of an attack on home soil.

Even if the Clinton administration could paint the earlier bombing of the Khobar Towers residential facility in Saudi Arabia as an isolated act by Saudis hostile to the continued American presence in the Land of the Two Mosques, it was much harder to pretend that the embassy attacks were other than an act of war. But old habits, a love of seemingly successful precedent, to say nothing of a visceral fear and loathing of matters involving the military and war, kept the Clintonites to the law enforcement model.

Considering that al-Qaeda operators were willing, even eager to embark on suicide operations, the potential of eventual arrest and trial were not at all inhibitory. The lack of fixed, high value physical facilities meant that the sporadic Clinton authorised pretense of a warlike response--a few Tomahawks blowing up mud huts or the odd unused factory in Sudan had neither deterrent nor punitive effect.

The final Clinton adventure in defending the nation through law enforcement came on 12 October 2000. Most people well oriented as to time and place would consider an attack upon a warship to be an act of war. (For the historically challenged, it might be remembered that the ambiguous sinking of the USS Maine in Havana harbor a little over a century earlier had ignited irrepressible war fever in We the People.)

The Clinton administration declined to send the Marines or even the 82nd Airborne. Instead the US dispatched a slew of Feebs under the command of the aggressive and abrasive John O'Neil. Even with this less than robust response to armed and lethal attack on a US Navy ship, the administration did not show internal coherence.

The US Ambassador, Barbara Bodine, (who had earlier opposed the reward program directed at the arrest of Ramzi Yousef) now opposed O'Neil and his Special Agents. Presumably with the knowledge and support of the SecState, Ms Bodine went so far as to deny O'Neil a visa for his return to Yemen following a briefing visit to Washington.

With the (quite reluctant and incomplete) cooperation of Yemeni authorities, several surviving members of the al-Qaeda cell were identified. But that was all. There were no immediate arrests and consequent show trials.

The new administration of Bush and Cheney were no more eager to mount out against al-Qaeda then were the lawyerly types of the Clinton years. The macho bunch surrounding the "Decider Guy" were far more pecker up over anti-ballistic missiles and "shock and awe" oriented improvements in the military than they were about a bunch of scruffy Islamist jihadists lurking in camps in Afghanistan.

With a tunnel vision equalling that of the US civilian and military high command back in the Fall of 1941, the Bush-Cheney administration assumed--that's right, assumed--al-Qaeda et al could and would attack only overseas. The intelligence catch necessary to get a firm grip on reality was all there. What was lacking in the summer of 2001 was what had been absent sixty years earlier. The historically based contextual understanding to realise that both intents and capacities were far more far reaching than was thought.

In 1941 commanders and decision makers alike failed to realise that historically Japan had opened war with a surprise attack on the enemy's center of naval power. In 2001 the commanders and decision makers failed to realise that al-Qaeda had made its intentions clear--an attack on the symbolic centers of American power.

In 1941 the commanders and decision makers had undervalued the Japanese capacities with carrier based aviation despite all available evidence. Sixty years later the people occupying the same seats of power undervalued the capacities of al-Qaeda, again despite all available evidence.

Arguably the overwhelming evidence was not marshaled in a compelling form because of the arrest-and-trial orientation which had prevailed over the previous decade. A law enforcement agency's use of intelligence catch is markedly different from the way in which the same catch is assessed and assembled by a war oriented department.

Bluntly, the law enforcement approach had failed. Failed spectacularly.

To that extent Cheney's characterization of any presumed Obama administration "de-escalation" to the methods of the Clinton years is accurate.

Arguably, the warfighting approach to terrorism undertaken by a non-state actor is correct. But, and this is the usual very big but, the way in which the Bush-Cheney administration elected to wage war was not only wrong, it was completely counterproductive.

"Shock and awe" in Afghanistan has been, as was predicted by specialists in interventionary operations, a text book case of how-not-to-win. It has even been a text for how-to-make-the-enemy-the-unintended-winner.

The war in Iraq regardless of whatever good may have accrued to the Iraqis was a diversion at best. An unnecessary diversion. At worst it served to improve the position of the Islamist jihadists generally.

To put the matter bluntly, warfighting in the wrong way or in the wrong place is even worse than calling the cops. Unless Cheney can bring himself to realise this ground truth, his criticism of the Obama "de-escalation" is fatuous.

Terrorism is both a law enforcement and a warfighting concern. Terrorism which is totally domestic in nature falls in the law enforcement sphere. Terrorism which has any foreign dimension belongs properly in the purview of the warfighters and their cohorts in the foreign intelligence services.

From the opening act in 1993 to the bitter final curtain of 9/11 the events of the first decade of direct US experience with Islamist jihadist terror constituted a period of undeclared, unrecognised war. Unlike earlier acts of terror whether committed by anarchists, white supremacists, or Puerto Rican separatists were domestic acts. They were subject to effective law enforcement.

Those of recent vintage including the Oklahoma City bombing and the questionable crash of TWA 800 were acts of war. We didn't call the cops following Pearl Harbor. We shouldn't have called them after any of the attacks of the Nineties.

Calling It Like It Is

The Geek has to confess that he had trepidations back in 1992 when Her Majesty's Government appointed Stella Rimington as Director of the Security Service (aka MI5.) Despite strong evidence to the contrary, he wondered if Ms Rimington (as she was known back then, she has since become Dame Rimington) had the sort of dark and devious mind needed for success in the grim and duplicitous world of counter-intelligence and counter-espionage.

The record of the next four years showed that she had all the necessary requisites to run an agency which was increasingly necessary and increasingly under a sort of siege from both external and internal political/social forces. She may not have been the most brilliant CI/CE chief ever, but she was up to the task--and more.

The "and more" part of Dame Rimington's mind and character have been more on display in the years since 9/11 and 7/7. She has been a vocal and trenchant critic of the assorted "security" practices and policies activated in both her native UK and elsewhere. The "and elsewhere" includes, even focuses, on the plethora of horribly wrong-headed actions undertaken by the administration of George W. Bush with the full support of a supine Congress.

In an interview with a Spanish outlet, Dame Rimington spoke the two essential truths concerning the overall impact of the spurious security measures introduced in the UK. The same applies to the US and other countries.

Here are her ground truths. The net effect of all the security programs, all the surveillance, all the data collection and archiving, all the new impediments to free movement, the casual erosion of human rights, is the laying of the foundation for a police state. The second of the Rimington Rules is that the result of the hyper-security has been to perpetuate a climate of fear--which is the goal of terrorists.

Unlike the eager exponents of more "security," Dame Rimington apparently remembers the famed aphorism of Lenin: The purpose of terror is to terrorise.

In a larger context, the measures of the Bush administration, most importantly the creation of the category "unlawful enemy combatants," the establishment of military commissions, the building of the Gitmo Kz lager, the use of allies to worm our way around restrictions on torture, have both eroded respect for the rights and dignities of the individual around the world and undercut the moral authority of the US in the ongoing struggle against authoritarian doctrines and regimes. If the US had sought to wound itself, no better job could have been accomplished than that constructed by Congress and President over the years since 9/11.

Ironically, none of these extraordinary measures were necessary. Had the US treated the people captured in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere as prisoners of war, we would have been able to hold them until the termination of hostilities. Given the nature of the war between the US and al-Qaeda and Taliban, that termination would have been determined by the US. In short, we could have held the captured combatants of whatsoever nationality until the infernal regions experienced glaciation.

As prisoners of war these individuals would still have been subject under the relevant international agreements to which the US is a party to trial for crimes which they may have committed. That includes the actions and conspiracies which fall under the rubric of "terrorism."

Further, the US would have been able to lawfully interrogate any and all prisoners of war. True, there would have been restrictions on the means employed during these interrogations, but the historical record shows that overly robust means of questioning produce results of dubious utility.

Gitmo, military commissions, black prisons, were not necessary. They are not justifiable in terms of either utility or the deterrence of future acts of terror. In short, they provide no real security to the US or other potential target nations. Dame Rimington recognises this and has been outspoken about it.

While she has been silent on the implication of this, it is nonetheless self-evident. The US and other Western nations are in a war without compromise with a totalitarian ideology which has limitless goals and aspirations. It is first and foremost a war of values, worldview and ethical imperatives. Insofar as the US or any other Western country takes actions which run counter to or undercut the long-standing core of Western principles, the cause is weakened. Ground is ceded to the enemy.

Chief among the traditions and values of the US and other countries including Dame Rimington's native land are the right of the individual citizen to be left alone by the government. Ranking along with this unstated but pervasive right to quiet enjoyment of life are such features as the right of movement, the freedom of expression, the right of voluntary assembly. Importantly, none of these specifics lives without the first right--that of being left alone by government and all its assorted minions of security.

As a person who ran a security service with responsibilities to protect the realm against secret attempts at espionage, improper influence of government, sabotage and terror, Dame Rimington well understands both the need for and the dangers of government surveillance and monitoring. She well understands that government databanks contain information which has no relevance to any legitimate security need.

More, she has the experience based cynicism which appreciates accurately that information held by a government will eventually be misused by that government. It will be used not to protect society but to suppress inconvenient individuals within that society. She knows that there are no guardrails on the slippery slope of government surveillance, monitoring and dossier collection.

Apologists both here and in the UK offer the "if you are doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear" defense of pervasive and intrusive government "security" activities. This is bunk.

In truth, as Dame Rimington implies, a person has everything to fear because he will never know when the government will decide that what he has been doing is now somehow "wrong." Blown by the winds of political fad and powered only by the need to hold and, if possible, expand authority, governments are unpredictable as to what will be defined as "wrong" at some future date.

One will never know when or if a particular political or social affiliation will be found "harmful" to the interests of government. One will never know if the words one has written or spoken today or the causes which one has supported yesterday will somehow, someway and for some hazy justification of "national security" be deemed injurious or even felonious at some tomorrow yet to come.

The US and other countries have been through this sort of phenomenon before. In the US frenzies of politically driven "national security" campaigns during World War I and in the decade following World War II saw individuals hauled before courts and other tribunals--including that of public opinion--for "offenses" of word, association or movement which occurred perhaps decades previously.

To suggest that the US or other states have learned from the mistakes of previous, pre-electronic age persecutions under the flag of "security" is to argue fantasy. Even more fantastic is the notion of trusting the government, the controllers of surveillance, the compilers of dossiers.

Of course, this is what HMG argued in response to Dame Rimington's critique. A Home Office spokesman using the bland tones to which all bureaucrats resort when placating the hoi polloi said, "The government has been clear that, where surveillance or data collection will impact on privacy, they should only be used where it is necessary and proportionate."

Right. For sure, Dude. Whatever those honey coated words might mean.

At least the polished faceless civil servant at the Home Office was not as offensively fear mongering as was former Vice-President Cheney in a recent interview. According to the ever-defiant, "What? Me Admit Error?" Cheney, without the Patriot Act, without Gitmo, absent waterboarding, lacking the other features of Security-American-Style, the US would have been nuked by al-Qaeda, bio-attacked by Taliban many times over. To Cheney and others like him who have never met an expansion of government power they did not love, the equation is simple: Repression equals security.

There can be and is perfect security for the individuals confined to a Federal "super-max" penitentiary. But, who among us wants to move there?

The Powell Endorsement

The Geek was neither surprised nor disappointed in former SecState Colin Powell's support of Senator Obama. Given the way in which Powell was manipulated, lied to, humiliated and ultimately rejected by the war-loving neocon ninnies of the Cheney camp, his disenchantment with the Republican Party is fully justifiable. Given the effort General Powell has given in recent years to the cause of black youth in America, there is nothing shocking about his view of Obama as a "transformational figure."

It is simply unfortunate that the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and very able Secretary of State is now so tragically wrong. Worse, the tragedy is not so much personal as it is national.

Colin Powell is wrong in his view that the McCain campaign is somehow transgressing the rules of civilized politics by correctly pointing out the strong personal and ideological linkage between Obama and the unrepentant co-founder of the Weather Underground, Bill Ayers. Back when the Weathermen were up and running, Powell was insulated within the military from the winds of deep and abiding hatred for the United States and its government which blew through the minds of many young or youngish Americans.

Powell was still insulated from the realities of the ongoing actions of the direct descendants of the Weather Underground in the early 1980s. His position in the inner circle of the national security community would have been too lofty to be at all aware that the legacy of the Sixties was still alive and well in New York City.

To put it bluntly, Colin Powell is and was ignorant about Ayers and his ongoing hatred of the US. He is also ignorant of the potential, the very real and high order of probability potential of ideological affinity between Ayers and Senator Obama.

Ignorance may be blissful but it is not helpful in political decision making.

The former Secretary also indicates dismay with McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as Veep. The Geek agrees with Powell that the Alaska governor is inexperienced and would not be up to the task of being president should McCain turn toes up in the first year or two after taking office. While it is improbable in the extreme that John McCain will emulate William Henry Harrison in short tenure of office, anxiety over Palin's readiness is justifiable, but scarcely critical.

In any event the Geek would expect that former Secretary Powell would be more suspicious of a very experienced person in the Vice Presidency. After all it was Dick Cheney, a vastly experienced and viciously effective knife fighter in bureaucratic rivalries who was Powell's bete noir. Frankly the nation is better off with an inexperienced person serving as VP if the Cheney paradigm is any indication.

In so far as Colin Powell's perception that the McCain campaign's tactic of late is somehow divisive or underhanded, all that is necessary to recall is that Powell acknowledged in his memoirs that his presidential thoughts were aborted by the potential down-in-the-gutter nature of much political campaigning.

Apparently Powell's view was that war is preferable to presidential politics. War, at least, has some semblance of rules, of means to lessen the barbarism. Politics doesn't. Cheney proved that Powell was right.

Parsing the former Secretary's endorsement one is struck by the absence of any real reason for the statement of support. It appears that beyond being "transformational" and having some mystical power to be "inclusive," the junior Senator from Illinois meets some undefined minimal standard of suitability for the highest political office in this country.

Unless Colin Powell is actually some sort of closet Western European Democratic Socialist, one can only conclude that he has been blinded to reality by the Senator's beguiling smile or, less flatteringly, some other aspect of the Senator's physiognomy.

Or, perhaps, Powell is like many who watched the Supreme Court's decision as to the outcome of the Florida vote with trepidation barely moderated by clinging to the hope that the grinning shrub from Texas would be surrounded by a dependable coterie of adult supervisors who would make up for his obvious deficiencies.

We hoped back then. Nearly eight years ago. We hoped. We got Cheney and his neocon ninnies.

GOP Does The Wrong Thing--For The Wrong Reason

In an action ignored by the MSM in the tidal wave of financial crisis and bail out bill votes, Senate Republicans blocked an enhanced Iranian economic sanctions bill for the second time in roughly a month. The bill which had already been passed by the House was a melding of two previous bills (one "authored" by Senator Obama) would have both taken action against companies doing business with Iran's banking and energy sectors and encouraged divestment in foreign companies commercially involved with the mullahocracy.

On 2 October Sen Wayne Allard of Colorado exercised his "prerogative" to stall passage.

Unsurprisingly Senate Majority Leader Reid accused the Republicans of playing politics with the legislation because of Obama's connection with it. No doubt that is part of the story.

But, only part.

The rest of the story revolves around the word, "prerogative."

How's that?

Earlier attempts to pass the components of the bill as two separate enactments were resolutely opposed by the White House. The opposition came not because the Cheney-Bush Administration had suddenly gone soft on Iran. No. Nothing like that at all.

The opposition came, not because the neocon ninnies of the Current Administration hated Iran less, but because they love the "prerogatives" of the Presidency more.

Of all the sins committed by the Current Administration--and they are legion--none has been greater than its single minded fixation upon elevating the power of the Presidency to heights undreamed of by such "imperial" presidents as Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan or Franklin Roosevelt. The goal pursued so diligently by the neocon theoreticians under the direction of Dick Cheney was to exalt the power of the President to a level surpassing that advanced by Alexander Hamilton.

As Vice President Cheney made clear and public more than seven years ago, well before 9/11, the Administration had the intent of permanently "strengthening" the Offices of the President and Vice President. He put it in terms of regaining power lost to the Congress since Watergate and its aftershocks. But, it was clear that his vision was not limited to simple restoration of authority.

He wanted more. Much more.

Along with his personal legal counsel, David Addington, Cheney used the Office of Legal Counsel, which serves as a sort of in-house Supreme Court for the Administration, as well as his close personal relationship with George W. Bush to pursue the end of firmly installing the Unitary Presidency Theory as the axis mundi of American government.

The pursuit of secrecy along with the invocation of executive privilege were part of the process. So also was the constant reiteration of the discredited notion of "inherent powers" deriving from the President's role as Commander-in-Chief.

Brilliant but warped young neocon lawyers exemplified by John Yoo cranked out the necessary opinions from the bowels of the OLC which made "legal" reprehensible actions such as the use of waterboarding and other mechanisms of "intensified interrogation." Or, the unending confinement of "unlawful enemy combatants."

The neocon views of Yoo and Company justified the President's action of unilaterally abrogating the ABM Treaty with Russia (OK, to err on the side of accuracy, the Soviet Union.) The notion that the Senate having ratified the treaty and thus, under something called "the Constitution," giving it the force of Federal law should ratify the abrogation was brushed aside as an unnecessary and Constitution eroding infringement on the President's sole "prerogative" to conduct foreign policy.

Cheney, Yoo and all the other neocon ninnies overlooked then, as they have more recently, the slight consideration of historical fact.

During the run-up to and the waging of the War of Independence, much patriotic vitriol was poured on the idea of the British monarch's "royal prerogative." During the writing of the Constitution and the campaign to see it ratified, the proponents of the new US organic document took great pains to show how the American president would not have any shadow of the much hated "prerogative." (Take a look at Federalist 69 for a good example of this. Madison at his most incisive.)

The President as Commander-in-Chief is "First General" of the US military. He has the authority to conduct the war. He does not have the authority to decide to have a war so that he might conduct it.

Congress is given the sole power to decide when the US is going to wage a war. Then the President, not the Congress, conducts it.

In a similar way, the President conducts foreign policy. He does not have the "prerogative" to define it on his own authority. Neither does he have the sole capacity to formulate it.

Given that the Constitution is silent on the precise distribution of authority to formulate and define the foreign policy of the US, it stands to reason that Congress and Executive must engage in the messy game of conflict-and-consensus.

When Congress wants to take the lead in foreign policy, particularly when it considers legislation which places it in the role of not simply formulating policy but directing a specific mechanism of implementation, the Executive has both the right and obligation to inform Congress as to its stance on the proposed act. If Congress passes legislation which the Executive finds unacceptable in the conduct of foreign policy, then the correct course of action is to veto the bill.

Claiming "prerogative" is not the right thing to do.

But, at least the claim was consistent with the Current Administration's multi year campaign to manufacture the-all-powerful-presidency from the gossamer of historical distortion and legal logic rooted only in a will-to-power.

The Past Is The Future--In Russia

Since August seventh when Russia went on a rampage in Georgia (proving a good, really big guy can beat a small, not-so-good one), the hawks in the current US administration headed by Dick (let's-kick-the Russkies-again) Cheney have been in the ascendant. With the same single-minded, to-hell-with-reality! determination which was previously exhibited with regard to our Great Adventure in Regime Change in Iraq, the bring-on-the-apocalypse-now! crowd has been successfully restoring the Cold War, at least in miniature.

The handful of realpolitikers such as SecDef Robert (PhD in Russian studies) Gates have been on the defensive as they seek to retain necessary channels of communication open. Caught in the middle is SecState Condy (PhD in Soviet studies) Rice.

Time to go to the videotape of history. This is important--no, central--to understanding the source of contemporary Russian behavior and the challenges for American policy makers.

Why? You ask.

Because history may be a simple case of the dead past for Americans but it is a living hand at the back of every educated Russian (and even those who are not so educated.)

In Russia as in so many other countries the past is never really past, never actually dead, buried and of interest only to narrow specialists in history. Events of nearly a thousand years ago (think Mongol conquest and occupation) as well as of the past century (think German invasion in 1941 or the international respect accorded Russia during the Cold War) are alive and well in the minds of Russians.

In simple but not oversimplified terms, the collective mind of Russia is colored by both a sense of inferiority compared to the West and paranoia regarding Russian susceptibility to invasion from both West and East. This combination is assured to make Russian leaders feel both threatened and insecure, as getting no respect from the political elites of other major powers.

One result of this insecurity over the centuries has been a Russian fixation on gaining a protective territorial belt surrounding and buffering the Russian heartland against the ambitions of foreign powers be they European, Asian or in recent decades, American. Originally this protective belt, this buffer area on which future battles would be waged, consisted of those territories coterminous with Russia. The territories of the "Near Abroad" in Russian terminology such as the Ukraine, Georgia, the Central Asian Republics, the Baltic states.

As the Big Three (Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt) met at Yalta in the closing days of World War II in Europe, the Russian jefe made it clear that the Kremlin's definition of a necessary protective belt had expanded. Churchill, being a fine example of the 19th Century British statesman, understood the concept "sphere of influence" and accepted that wherever Red Army tanks sat at war's end would be the Russian sphere of influence.

While Roosevelt may not have accepted the concept of a Russian sphere of influence with equanimity, he both understood the idea and recognised the limits of American military power in April 1945 with half a war yet to be won. He bowed to the power of realism and accepted the facts on the ground (much to the dismay and future political advantage of numerous Republicans.)

A sphere of influence in which Russian interests receive the utmost of regard is one which warms the innermost chambers of the insecure Russian heart. The sphere assures that security is enhanced. The sphere provides a basis for international respect.

For the long decades of the Cold War the sphere formally known as the Warsaw Pact together with the Near Abroad gave the Kremlin material and psychic comfort. The Soviet semi-empire provided a balm for both inferiority feelings and barely suppressed fears of imminent attack.

The empire also made for caution. The Russians had something to lose. The primary goal of all Russian diplomatic and military effort during the Soviet period generally and the Cold War years in particular was conservative. The conduct of the denizens of the Kremlin was as cautious as their rhetoric was bellicose and radical.

The Kremlin kept the tightest of holds on the national Communist parties throughout the world lest they forget their purpose in life--protecting Russia. The assorted Communist parties did not have the purpose of spreading worldwide workers' revolutions. They did not have the goal of establishing global communism. Both of those ideas died along with Trotsky.

The purpose, the goal of Communism throughout the world, was profoundly conservative--protect and guard Russia. Period.

On the rare occasion when the Kremlin was incautious, adventurist as in seeking to base nuclear capable missiles in Cuba, it backed down quickly in the face of a resolute response. Even after the debacle in Vietnam caused the crisis of American confidence, the Kremlin moved with the utmost of caution as in Africa. The Russians tested the waters. When there was no American response they went ahead. But, even so they remained circumspect, using proxy forces from Cuba and other clients rather than their own.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the concomitant loss of both the WarPact and Near Abroad buffer, the Russian insecurity reemerged. For a decade or so the insecurity and conviction of inferiority were submerged in public perception by the extreme economic and social turbulence brought about by the Communist collapse.

The US provided, as correctly noted by Secretary Rice in her speech last week at the German Marshall Society, both material and political aid during the years of privation and upheaval. But, it must be noted that this assistance was provided with a hefty dose of condescension, paternalism and well-intended hectoring.

Members of the Russian political elite remember all too well the attitudes which accompanied the aid more than the aid itself. The feelings of inferiority and insecurity were stoked.

As the Russian economic and social house came more and more to order and a measure of prosperity under the regime of Vladimir Putin, the need to address the feelings of inferiority and insecurity grew. It was up to the US to both take cognizance of these feelings and effectively meet the underlying needs.

We didn't.

We repeatedly refused to acknowledge that the Russians saw Russia as a Great Power. We brushed aside their concerns in Kosovo. We blew off their ill-founded objections regarding the deployment of a small ABM capability in the Czech Republic and Poland. We bashed the Kremlin for opposing our Iraq adventure. In short, we treated the Russians in a way which communicated to the Kremlin that we saw Russia as a lesser power regardless of how we talked.

Objectively our role in the run-up to the Georgian border war was unconstructive. We gave too much public support to the current Georgian government as though it constituted the greatest monument to democracy since the Federalist Papers. We pushed too hard for Georgian (and Ukrainian) membership in NATO, ignoring that the one time Cold War alliance would thereby gain a presence in the Near Abroad.

From the Kremlin's perspective, colored by Russian history as it must be, our actions were both disrespectful and hostile. Far from mitigating Russian inferiority and insecurity, we enhanced them. There can be no surprise that the Russians pulled the several-months-in-preparation plan for war in South Ossetia out of the drawer and implemented it.

That action is every bit as unsurprising as the earlier Russian dusting off of long obsolete bombers and sending them on patrol over US naval forces and near US territory just like in the old days of the Cold War.

We have to get a grip on a simple fact. We need the Russians. We need their cooperation on a wide range of international interests. We need their cooperation on nuclear non-proliferation. We need their cooperation in counter terrorism.

This means we have to take the Russians on their own, historically determined terms. We have to treat them like the Great Power they believe themselves to be. We have to honestly consult with the Kremlin, not have meetings where we talk past each other. We need, horrors on the right, to bow to their interests from time to time.

Or we can go the Dick Cheney way. We can ignore them. Refuse to have high level meetings. Restore some of the more obnoxious features of the Cold War.

None of that will alter Russian behavior. They can take isolation. It makes for inventiveness of diplomacy and political operations.

Let's see, muses the Geek thinking himself in the Kremlin, we are a major oil exporting country. What is the name of that bunch, you know the one our new best friend in the Western Hemisphere, Venezuela belongs to? Oh, yeah, Organization of Patroleum Exporting Countries. Maybe I should give those boys a ring.

Turkey, Iraq, PKK, Iran, Cheney and Twelve Captains

Turkey is ready, raring and probably able to go into Iraqi Kurdistan in one more attempt to abate the nuisance called the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK).

Not surprisingly, this development has heaved Baghdad into a full blown state of panic.

Equally unsurprisingly, the Turkish move is deplored by the current administration.

Ever since the fall of the Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago, the Kurds have been a thorn in the paw of every would be Lion of the Upper Tigris and Euphrates. Ataturk pretended the Kurds didn't really exist. The British, as part of the sporadic Empire Policing Scheme, tried to bomb them into submission.

Later the Shah, Saddam, Assam, and the mullahocracy periodically mounted punitive expeditions against them. The body count varied from minimal to massive, but in the end the Kurds were still there--and still unacceptably uppity from the perspective of Tehran, Baghdad, or Damascus.

In comparison, the Turks were remarkably easy going in the face of PKK provocation. While Ankara's estimate of thirty thousand Turks killed in the past twenty or so years by PKK attacks may err on the side of exaggeration, PKK has inflicted unacceptable damage to the Turkish society, polity, and economy.

Since the American sponsored "regime change" in Iraq and the virtual independence of the Kurdish Autonomous Region (KAR) in that country, PKK has been on the attack with a vengeance. Months ago (with an arguable amount of justification) the Turkish government pointed a finger at the United States as having a (major) share of the responsibility for the rapidly deteriorating situation in southeastern Turkey along the Iraqi border.

The current administration did not make an effective reply. The (covert, so don't say a word about it) introduction of a handful of Special Forces teams into Turkey to work with the local forces in detecting and interdicting PKK squads along with the promise of an investigation to find how weapons transferred by the US to Iraqi security units ended up in the (dead) hands of PKK guerrillas were the main features of the totally ineffectual American response.

The PKK attacks escalated. Finally, they went one bomb over the line. The Turkish Army howled. Given the current internal politics of Turkey with the recent, hotly contested election of a perhaps Islamist leaning president, the protests of the army could not be ignored.

Neither could the implied humiliation of the Turkish government by the brazen PKK strikes. When coupled with the pathetically misguided and mistimed effort on the part of Sten Hoyer, Nancy Pelosi, and other Democrats in the House, which was in itself a perceived insult, the vote in the Turkish parliament to authorize raids of undefined size into northern Iraq was drearily predictable.

US military officials on the ground in Iraq as well as in Washington are correct when they aver any Turkish incursion will destabilize the most peaceful portion of Iraq. The band in Baghdad which claims it is the government of Iraq is right when members state (off the record, of course) that the writ of Baghdad does not run to the Kurdish Autonomous Region.

Time to get a grip.

There is not much the US can do about the situation in the KAR. There is not much we can do to stop the PKK using the rugged border territory as a sanctuary. There is not much we can do to enhance stability there or in the rest of Iraq if any Turkish incursion stimulates an uptick in the anti-Occupier, anti-government violence.

There isn't much the US can do to dissuade the Turks from mounting attacks into the KAR. Right now, we need them a lot more than they need us. We are not alone in the lack of influence upon Ankara--particularly if PKK makes another high visibility, high body count hit. In that case, even the EU with its potential for denying Turkey membership in the Union may find that threat insufficient to deter.

Why the impotence?

The short answer is one word long. Iraq.

The long answer isn't all that lengthier. There are not enough boots on the ground in Iraq to deal with the KAR along with all the rest of Iraq.

Grunting and groaning at great economic and greater political cost, the US could, in principle, put enough additional manpower on the ground to provide the necessary combat muscle to stop PKK and assure stability in the KAR. That would take time. Six months would be wildly optimistic. Eight months slightly less so.

The PKK won't wait that long. Neither will the American election cycle.

Imagine for a moment what the effect of adding fifty thousand US personnel to the Iraq TOE would be on the American electorate. Can we say, Republicans go the way of the dinosaur?

The continued effects of the current administration's blundering miscalculations regarding the aftermath of ejecting Saddam Hussein continue to come home to roost. Right now, a bunch of very determined guerrillas and their equally determined opponent have the US caught in the painful vise of reality.

The current administration, which so loudly proclaimed the doctrine of preventative war, unilateralism, and the existence of the US as the world's only Great Power, is utterly dependent upon the good will of a very reluctant ally and the forbearance of a guerrilla entity, which has no history of forbearance. Ironic. heh?

Amazingly, this lesson in impotence has been lost upon Vice President Dick Cheney. Yesterday, he announced to a (small) friendly audience at a think tank in Virginia that the US would not allow Iran to gain a nuclear weapons capability. (It should be noted that he added, presumably sotto voce, other nations in the world agreed with us.)

Get a grip, Veep!

You and the Commander Guy with his World War III comment are in a race with the Iranians for Most Lost In Space Award for overblown rhetoric.

When a mere brigadier in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps boasts of sending "eleven thousand missiles" in the first minute of the war against us, and "grinding (US) noses in the dirt," that is the excusable overstatement of a dude ready to wet his pants.

Better is expected from the President and Vice-President of the United States. Presumably, they have access to both information and expert advice. Presumably, they talk to the realpolitiker, SecDef Gates, even though he is off right now on a damage limitation mission.

If nothing else, they might read the Washington Post.

The other day, midway between the Commander Guy's warning of World War III waiting for the globe in the deserts and ambitions of Iran and the Veep's virtual ultimatum, a letter appeared in the WaPo with a thin, unpleasant, and unheard voice of worst-case realism.

Signed by twelve company grade officers with combat experience in Iraq, the letter maintained correctly that the US had not employed sufficient manpower on the ground to assure an absence of defeat in the country. The letter went on to indicate that there were three options.

The first option was to grind on as we have been with the hope that the apparent progress seen to date would continue. (And, that US combat fatalities would continue to drop.)

The second option was to get out now. Cut our losses. Accept the consequences of our failure. Repent and swear never to do something so half-arsed and foolishly planned again.

The third option was simply to activate the draft. That action would provide a sufficiently large manpower pool to support the necessary greater force presence on the ground in Iraq.

The officers preferred the second option. (The Geek as has been argued in previous posts prefers the first with modifications.)

The invocation of the most feared five letter word in the military vocabulary is the most important part of the letter from twelve captains. It points in a very unpleasant direction.

The direction?

The limits of American military power and what would need to be done to expand those limits. As President Dwight Eisenhower (a man who knew more than most presidents about the requirements of waging war) warned more than a half century ago, (to paraphrase slightly)there is no such thing as absolute security without the odious paraphernalia of the garrison state.

The Geek would add in light of threats which now exist and were undreamed of in Ike's day, "And not even then."

Still, the message is clear. If the US wishes to transmogrify the war of words with Iran into a shooting war, it will need not only to re-institute the draft. It will need to put many of the nasty aspects of total war into effect.

Gas rationing. Price controls. Raw material priority assignments. New "homeland security" procedures. A partial list to be sure, but you get the drift.

Oh. There is one more thing.

The tax cuts for the upper couple of percent of the American public would have to be repealed. Maybe, even the microscopic tax cuts bestowed on all of us unwealthy will have to be revoked as well.

Tax hikes! You gotta be kidding!

No. The Geek never kids. Welcome to the real war, Mac.

Just that the neocon ninnes of the current administration have never fought a real war. They have simply talked about it.