The GOP And A (False) Forced Choice

Congress, more specifically the House of Representatives, and most particularly the GOP members of the House, have twisted their panties over the propriety, or, at least, the legality of the ongoing American operation in Libya.  The knot in the elephant's knickers is, of course, the War Powers Act.  The Republicans have been huffing and puffing mightily over the Obama administration's purported failure to abide by the requirements of this act, an act, it deserves reminding ourselves, the Republicans have often and loudly decried as unconstitutional.

The Nice Young Man From Chicago in no way helped his position when he declared that the US was not engaged in "hostilities" as such might be construed in the context of the War Powers Resolution.  This was an utterly preposterous notion which could only have been conceived by an academic with a potent lust for power.  The president took an unworthy stance.  By so doing he insulted the intelligence not only of the House Republicans but of Americans generally.  As an example of legal pettifoggery, the presidential assertion was on a par with the similar legalistic parsing engaged in by Bill Clinton to prove that getting one's knob polished in the environs of the Oval was not engaging in sexual activity.

Now the hypocrites in Congress are locked in a face off with the hypocrite in the Oval.  Regardless of which prevails in this imitation mano a mano exercise, the loser will be the United States.  What is at stake in this affray is the ability of the US to operate effectively on the global stage in forthcoming years.

The bent-out-of-shape Republicans in the House along with their liberal Democratic colleagues are seeking not simply the humiliation of Obama or the further clipping of the imperial presidency's extensive wingspan or seeking to economize in parlous financial times but rather the forcing of a false choice between an isolationist stance on the part of the US or the continuation of "wars of choice' as defined by the president.

The Republican "deficit hawks" along with their very strange bedfellows, progressive Democrats, are forcing a clear and ongoing limitation on the ability of presidents to wage what has been called "wars of choice."  The House leadership as well as most of the current Republican contenders for the Oval have been channeling the ghost of Robert Taft, the "Mr Republican" of sixty and more years ago.  Senator Robert Taft of Ohio defined more than any other single man the concept of isolationism.  More than other noted congressional proponents of this philosophy of total withdrawal from the political challenges of the world, Taft opposed any and all foreign "entanglements" and "adventures."  In support of his position he advanced economic arguments as well as contending without end that not only would our overseas activities end in failure, they would produce more enemies than friends.

The soi dissant conservatives on the Red side of the aisle have been making the same Taft type contentions.  Our overseas adventures whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, or Libya have ended in failure or will do so unless wound down speedily and completely.  Our overseas adventures have made us far more enemies than they have created friends.  And, certainly neither last nor least, our overseas adventures have been far too costly and can no longer be afforded.

The particular species of overseas adventure which has reigned supreme in the narratives of both progressive Democrat and deficit hawk Republican has been that of "wars of choice."  This is a fine term.  It gives the clear impression that presidents of both parties search the world from time to time looking for a war in which to involve ourselves.  This is a specious notion but like all truly preposterous ideas it contains a small but critical measure of truth.

Considering all of the military interventions in which the US has participated since the Reagan administration there have been some which were clearly optional in the sense the US had no critical national interests at stake in the conflict.  George H.W. Bush's humanitarian intervention in Somalia rests in the "optional" category.  So does his adventure in regime change, Operation Just Cause in Panama.  But the US response to the Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait is of the "mandatory" sort.  Key US national and strategic interests were in play in that war.

Bill Clinton's expansion of the Somalian operation fell in the "war of choice" column.  The same is true with respect to the American operations in former Yugoslavia.  The US had no bull in the herd in Somalia.  The bloody implosion of what had once been the totally artificial state of Yugoslavia was of concern to Europe but not to the US, pace the recently deceased Larry Eagleburger.

The invasion of Afghanistan, if that use of force had been confined to the original mission statement, was mandatory, a justifiable exercise in retaliation to an attack on the US.  However, George W.'s  invasion of Iraq fell clearly in the "war of choice" category.  It was an ideologically driven "build it and they will come" sort which produced if not a debacle certainly a bloody and expensive tragedy for both Americans and Iraqis, people who will be dealing with the aftershocks for decades if not generations to come.

The ideologically propelled "mission leap" in Afghanistan along with the "war of choice" in Iraq are the ghosts at the political banquet now being served over Libya.  There is a delicious irony at the banquet.  That irony resides in the main course of the meal--the War Powers Resolution.

The War Powers Resolution was passed by the Democratic Party controlled Congress as a reaction to the Vietnam War which was seen by the Democrats as having been a "war of choice" waged by imperial presidents.  The Democrats who so loudly demanded limitations be placed on the president's capacity to wage war cheerfully ignored reality as they voted.  The American entrance into the Vietnamese war was seen by both the Democratic presidents (JKF and LBJ) as well as the Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress to have been "mandatory."

If anything the documents show the congressional Democrats were far more willing and eager to go to war then either JFK or LBJ.  The Democrats along with the Republicans understood our commitment to the South Vietnamese to be central to our guarantee of the global status quo during a very frigid period of the cold war. Support for the introduction of combat troops, the commencement of the air war against North Vietnam, and the central decision to escalate our forces in country were all monolithically supported by the Democratic Party.  It was only after the war seemed (incorrectly) to have devolved to an unwinnable stalemate during the administration of the detested Richard Nixon that sentiment on the Blue side shifted so as to produce the War Powers Resolution.

Now the Republicans motivated by their political calculus are willing to invoke both the War Powers Resolution and the power of the purse to limit or end the Obama policy in Libya.  Standing in opposition to the efforts of the deficit hawk Republicans and progressive Democrats to end the minimal American presence in the Libyan "war of choice" is the neocon outfit, The Foreign Policy Initiative," which authored an open letter to the House leadership imploring a rejection of the proposed strictures and urging an expansion of US efforts in the Libyan Affair.

The neocons are no more correct than are the wing clippers in the House.  The answer to the problems of "wars of choice" is to be found in a more effective means of determining the nature of US interests in play in any given potential area of intervention.  The critical difference between "mandatory" and "optional" wars is to be found in the answer to one question: What key national and strategic interests are to be served and to what degree by this proposed intervention?

Had this question been both posed and accurately answered, the US would have not invaded Iraq.  It would not have expanded the mission in Afghanistan to include the impossibility of nation-building.  And, the US would have sat out Libya as it did conflicts even more bloody elsewhere in Africa.  The "wars of choice" all share a common feature--they were driven by ideology.  True, the ideology might have been clothed attractively in American values, norms, aspirations.  The motive might have been expressed in pleasant words regarding democracy, transparency, or the evil nature of repressive regimes.  The matter of refugees might have been adduced in support as well as concealment of the underlying ideological imperatives.

There is only one reason to go to war--when there is no realistic alternative way by which a better state of peace as defined by American national and strategic interests exists.  There is one large reason not to go to war--when the motive is one of ideology, of belief, of personal or collective vision.

How to parse between the two is the only effective way to assure the US does not waste blood and treasure in pursuit of impossible dreams.  And, parsing between the two is the only way to assure that when war in the national interest is necessary, we have the way and will to do so with success.

Of course, Congress being what it is, there is no chance the Deep Thinkers in that body any more than the Great Strategists in and near the Oval will consider this matter, the only matter which genuinely counts for more than a few votes more or less in some future election.

There Was A Time When Wars Were To Be Won

It seems strange now, but once upon a time, long, long time ago, states went to war with the intention of winning.  By winning it was generally understood that the purpose of the war was to impose one state's political will upon another.  By so doing, it was assumed that the victorious state would create a better state of peace--from its perspective at least.

In some wars, World War II being the archetypal example, it was easy to formulate both the political goal and its necessary subordinate, a definition of victory.  Of course, this was easy to accomplish in that for most of the combatants (the US was an exception here), the conflict was existential--a total war of national survival.

But, even lesser wars--the Falkland Islands War, for example--national survival was not at stake.  Even so, the British formulated a clear, unitary political goal with a relevant definition of victory.  The venue was small, the goal limited to the ejection of the invader, and victory was understood to mean the surrender or destruction of the occupying force along with a de facto pledge by the invader not to repeat the effort--at least in the near future.

In other wars--the several Arab-Israeli affrays come to mind--the political context precludes finally and completely bending the loser to the political will and goals of the "victor."  Because the combination of size and international dynamics prevented the existentially threatened Israelis from carrying on the war until all its Arab adversaries admitted defeat and forswore future military attacks, the conflict between Arab and Israeli came quickly to resemble the indecisive, limited wars of Europe during the Eighteenth Century.  No victories, only truces, no better state of peace, only timeouts between bouts.

When looking at the history of war since the end of "The Good War," the US stands out as a driver of the new trajectory--wars without clear political goals, lacking coherent definitions of victory.  In part, this has been the necessary consequence of the American fixation upon collective security either actual, as in the cases of the Korean War and the Gulf War of 1990-91,or fabricated, as in the wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and, most recently, Libya.  The requirements of collective approval automatically assured hazy goals and the lack of any clear cut understanding of the meaning of victory.

To a greater extent, the American failures to establish a unitary political goal, to define victory, or even to state realistically what might constitute a better state of peace arises organically from the nature and character of domestic politics in the US.  The foundation truth here is simply that Americans are not really comfortable with the idea of interventionary warfare.  We do not cotton up to the notion of getting into someone else's war.

During the long debacle of our intervention in the wars of the Vietnamese, the responsible administrations, the several Congresses, the media and public opinion molders, all were uncertain as to what we sought in the conflict.  There was no agreement as to what our political goal might be beyond the boilerplate of "stopping Communist aggression. or "supporting democracy against armed force from without and subversion from within."  The only idea of what might constitute a better state of peace was a South Vietnam in which the noise level of armed violence was reduced to a level such that the region might not be kept awake all night.  Whether by force or negotiation, the US really did not have a clue as to what might be required of the North Vietnamese or the southern insurgents.

Without stating clearly and understandably what political dictate must be accepted by the other three combatants in the war, it was impossible for the US to establish either a goal or to define victory.  As a result, it was impossible to continue American political will as the years went by and the blood flowed.  It was also impossible to weaken the political will of the North or the southern insurgents.  Finally, the lack made the possibility of bending the Southern government to our will a chimera at best.

The same lacks characterized our invasion of Afghanistan.  Had the domestic political environment allowed it, the US could have mounted a punitive expedition aimed at killing or capturing as many Taliban and al-Qaeda figures as possible so as to destroy both entities.  A simple punitive expedition would have been explicable to other states--including Pakistan--and would have allowed diplomatic arm twisting so as to have the freedom of operation necessary.  In this approach, the challenges of (re)constructing Afghanistan post war would have been left to the Afghan people and whatever international bodies cared to assist.  There would have been no long term "nation-building" commitment by the US.

Iraq was both identical and different.  The difference resided in the inescapable fact that the US had no real reason to invade.  Leaving that non-trivial consideration aside, had the US invaded with the simple, unitary political goal of removing the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein, the definition of victory as well as the task itself would have been easy to state and accomplish.  Again, the post regime removal process would have been assigned to the Iraqi people along with whosoever of the "international community" cared to assist, which might have included the US in a non-occupation role.

In Iraq and Afghanistan alike, the US had no clear, readily apprehended political goal.  There was, as a result, no definition of victory after the capture of Saddam and his major associates.  Other than in glittering generalities of no practical significance, the American administration could not state what our purpose in the country might be or how we might successfully do whatever it was we might think we should do.  Nice sounding words about democracy or rule of law or economic development do not have any real world utility. In order to bend an adversary--whether Sunni or Shiite or secular--to our political will, to our understanding of what constitutes a better state of peace, it is essential to have a narrowly focused, realistically achievable goal which can be transmitted effectively to all involved parties including the American public.

Without the goal it is not possible to define victory.  True, victory can be declared, but it cannot be achieved without the necessary predicate of a goal.  The lack of a realistic, utilitarian goal, coupled with the total absence of any understanding of what might constitute a better state of peace assured not only an unnecessarily prolonged war but one which would end in a quite unsatisfying way.

The inability to articulate a convincing explanation of what might be a better state of peace also complicated the diplomacy of constructing and keeping an alliance, including the very necessary alliance between the indigenous people, their government, and the US.  The inability to share a vision of a better state of peace, to put forth a clear political goal, to know when meaningful victory might be achieved served to worsen the frictions inherent to any alliance as well as to erode the political will of the civilian populations of the interventionary forces.  The longer the lack of a consensually understood goal exists, the more the frictions will grow while domestic opinion turns increasingly against the war.

Now there is Libya.  At the outset, a single US Marine Expeditionary Unit could have removed Gaddafi in a matter of days.  Or, as a senior British officer told Con Coughlin of the Telegraph, a single tank battalion could have done the job in twenty four hours.  Militarily, either proposition is substantially accurate.

The lack of a political goal which was agreeable to the several Western powers favoring the quick removal of the Gaddafi nuisance as well as the existence of only the most vague notions of what might be a better state of peace prevented the focused use of diplomacy and military power to the goal of abating the Gaddafi menace. While excuses might be offered regarding the need for "international community" legitimization of any use of force against the Gaddafi regime, these remain mere excuses.

The difficulties resided not with opposition from Russia or China; nor did they come from the Arab states.  Nor, realistically, was there a basis for the lack of vision in fear of outraging Muslim opinion.  The failure of the several prime Western movers to define a better state of peace or enunciate a political goal emerged from a visceral feeling of oh-no-here-we-go-again!

The bad examples of Iraq and Afghanistan--which we must remember were American adventures in very bad thinking--caused fulminating paralysis of political will in the chanceries of Paris, London, and Washington.  Fear of a rapidly blooming Gaddafi success and all that implied fought with fear of being bogged down in one more Arab/Muslim morass.  The result was worse than doing nothing.

The result was embarking on an intentionally emasculated program of half-measures.  No--make that one-eighth measures.  No objective observer reasonably well grounded in the history and culture of Libya as well as the nature and character of Brother Leader and his coterie could have concluded that the combination of a no-fly zone and civilian protection air strikes would bring favorable or rapid results.  Nor could this observer have concluded that the results would be other than prolonged and bloody stalemate.

Had the Big Three of the West--France, the UK, and the US--mutually determined that the quest for a better state of peace would result only with the removal of the Gaddafi regime, their instruments of diplomacy could have been put to work to assure the tacit acceptance of this decision by other parties both great and small.  With this necessary preliminary being accomplished in private, a joint announcement of goal--the removal of the Gaddfi regime--and definition of victory--the capture or death of the chief members of the regime--could have been made.

The mechanism of accomplishment would have been a short duration ground and air campaign.  The short term nature of the military operation could have been made clear as the first air defense suppression ordinance hit the targets.  The task of the foreign troops would have been restricted to the removal of the obnoxious regime.  The post-removal effort would have been left up to the Libyans and those of the "international community" of a mind (or national interest need) to assist.

In this scenario, the definition of a better state of peace, the political goal, and the metric of victory would have been simple, straightforward, easy to comprehend, unitary--and susceptible to accomplishment in a politically acceptable time frame and at a cost in lives which would be low--certainly for the Libyans far lower than the ongoing agony of internal war.

The public carping by the usual suspects would have taken place.  There would have been the inevitable violent demonstrations by Muslims, or at least those looking for a reason to be outraged.  Nothing new here.

Most importantly, the use of this alternative would have cleansed the West of the ongoing fear of inconclusive war.  Wars are inconclusive only when there is no real and generally acceptable goal for which the war is being fought.  Without an understandable vision of the better state of peace toward which the war is aimed, without a political goal, without a definition of victory, without the use of sufficient and situationally appropriate force, the war must be unnecessarily prolonged or inconclusive.

The hypothetical alternative outlined for Libya would not have made the conflict "a splendid little war," for no war is splendid, but it would have assured the war would have been both little and conclusive.  Even now it not too late to change war horses in mid-stream as a senior British commander has suggested.  It will take ground forces; it will now take more time and lives; it will present a messy problem for diplomats, but failure can still be redeemed.

Far more importantly, given both the situation in Libya and the rush to the exit in Afghanistan, it is now time for decision makers and military planners alike to take a very hard look at the ground truths regarding the conduct of the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It is long past time to reacquaint ourselves with the powerful reality of war, that it is an instrument of policy.  And, a war without a realistic, utilitarian policy behind it is simply a costly exercise in futility.

Our record in costly futility disguised as war is lengthy--Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, (perhaps) Libya.  Isn't it time to break the string?

Getting The Hell Out Of Dodge--Or Kabul

In a perfect world an outside power supporting a host government threatened by insurgency would find itself in complete agreement with the host. On matters ranging from tactics and operations to governance, reform and power sharing with the insurgents, there would be a total meeting of the minds between the heavy hitters inside the Beltway and the local politicos and generals.

The problem comes in that the world is far from perfect. Nothing shows the vast gulf between the perfect universe of theory and the messy complications of reality better than the evolving relations between the US and Afghanistan, between the rhetoric of "nation-building" and the realties of not-losing a war.

When the neocon ninny Deep Thinkers of the Bush/Cheney administration rejected the doable option of a punitive expedition in which the sole goal would be the killing or capturing of the maximum number of al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders (and followers) in a minimum time, it embarked on a mission impossible. Instead of going in, killing the bad guys and getting out, leaving any idiocy of nation-building to the High Minded folks at the UN, the Bush/Cheney crowd decided to engage in the most silly of efforts--creating a modern, western style nation-state from the sow's ear of Afghanistan.

In practice this meant the US and its feckless allies jumped into the morass of Afghan politics of both the armed and unarmed sort. The transformation of American forces from a role of punishment and vengeance to one of counterinsurgency in support of our chosen government in Afghanistan assured that the US would lose influence over the actions, policies, and rhetoric of the Kabul government.

We had traveled that road before. In South Vietnam the decision by the Johnson administration to use air and later ground combat forces in direct action against the insurgent Viet Cong and their presumed sponsors in North Vietnam effectively told the Saigon government that the US was fighting a war of its own choosing for its own goals. The subtext was simply that the regime in power on any given day could ignore American advice, guidance, demands, and threats with impunity as the US had no choice but to ride the tiger it had mounted until it could dismount safely on the day of victory.

No matter how much American politicians and military commanders may blather about "partnering" with the Afghan government and military, the reality from Afghan eyes is that the US and the other foreigners are fighting a war which they must win for their own reasons. As a consequence the locals can stand back, do the minimum, and ignore (or, politely, simply pay no attention to) the demands, advice, counsel, and threats coming from time to time from Washington.

The only way to avoid this emasculation is to possess a credible capacity to decommit from the "joint" effort against the insurgents. The only way to assure that advice, guidance, and demands will not be met with silence at best and noisy rejection more commonly is having the believable political will to pull the troops out and cut losses.

Not until the final months of the war between South Vietnam and both the insurgents and the North did the US have a capacity to get the hell out of Saigon. Only then, confronted with the "date certain" actions of the Democrats in Congress did the South Vietnamese government and military start functioning effectively and efficiently. But, by then, it was too late.

The conundrum for the US has been that of creating a credible capacity to decommit from the Karzai government so as to gain the leverage necessary to reduce the probability of losing while not simultaneously encouraging the Taliban. We have not solved this conundrum. At least we have not solved it in an effective way.

There are (no surprise here) correct and incorrect ways to maintain a credible capacity to leave without benefiting the enemy at the same time. That means the Obama administration had a fifty-fifty chance of getting it right.

The tragedy is that they got it wrong.

The right way to create or maintain a believable capacity to end interventionary support for an insurgency threatened host government is the setting of specific, mission, and context relevant milestones. These milestones should focus on two broad areas: the capacity and will of the local forces to enter into effective combat against the insurgents; the capacity and will of the government to expand its perceived functional legitimacy in the estimate of the uncommitted majority of the population. A third set of milestones would be of value. These should measure the will and ability of the government to settle for operational dominance rather than unquestioned authority over the insurgents.

The difficulty for Americans in the use of these types of milestones resides in the difficulties of assessing achievement. The most critical milestones are subjective. They deal with political will. They focus on perceptions. Very few are susceptible to the mathematical measurements so loved by bureaucrats both in and out of uniform. Being admittedly imprecise, these milestones are open to interpretation, inspire uncertainty, and allow a very large error bar.

Nonetheless, an examination of both armed domestic political turbulence and the role of outsiders shows these forms of assessment provide the best guide as to the progress made by the host in meeting both the military and perception challenges presented by insurgents. In short, sloppy and uncertain as these features might be, they are the most reliable way to assess when and how the outsider might leave with goals achieved.

The use of milestones which focus sharply, even solely, on the host government's will and ability to provide security, enhance its perceived legitimacy, and share power assures that the war will remained "owned" by the host regime and not the outside supporters. The host government is reminded constantly of two critical truths. The war is its sole property. The outsider will leave if the government does not meet the milestones.

The second crucial truth allows the intervenor to leave at a time and in a way of its own choosing. Should the host regime meet the milestones, the consequent success in countering the insurgency allows the intervenor to leave with a light heart, a happy smile, and a "mission accomplished!" banner held high. Should the host regime fail to meet the milestones, then the intervenor must leave before defeat is too apparent. No smiles this time, but rather the grim certainty that the host government was responsible for and owns the failure.

So much for the correct way. Now for the incorrect way, also known as the Obama Way.

In this simple, emotionally satisfying, politically expedient approach, the president of the United States simply announces a "date certain" on which the withdrawal of American troops will commence. The president's "progressive" political base (this is the group who sincerely believes the US has never been in a war which it did not deserve to lose) will cheer. The opposition will shake their collective heads in disbelief.

Other stakeholders will respond in their own unique fashions.

The host government will respond with shock, frustration, and bitterness. At least one senior US commander will dissent publicly, asserting the "date certain" will encourage the opposition by giving them hope that hanging on for a little bit longer will result in victory.

The dissent is well founded, even if Taliban has not yet taken a specific open stance. The weight of evidence shows the insurgents have a great degree of both patience and unexhausted political will.

At this point it is worth recalling two ground truths about insurgency. At root insurgency is a contest of political wills and not military forces per se. Secondly, the side with the greater ability to take casualties and expend time will be the side which wins.

Those two points are in explicit play with the Obama Pronouncement. No matter what qualifiers may be introduced later, the governing reality is the "date certain." Once announced, that date will encourage the insurgents to believe that there is a light visible from their end of the tunnel. On the other side there is a belief that unless the war has been won, absolutely and without any chance of mistake, by that "date certain," it will be lost beyond any shadow of a doubt. The "date certain" becomes by its very existence a form of self-fulfilling prophecy.

For ideological reasons the Bush/Cheney administration condemned the US and its allies to an expedition without realistic goal. Now Mr Obama, again for ideological reasons alone, has compounded the felonious blunder by waving the white flag.

The last time a president waved the banner of surrender it was on 31 March 1968 when LBJ walked away from his war on national television. It took several more years and tens of thousands of American deaths for his act of capitulation to involve the entire country, but this was akin to the time lag between the infection and consequent death.

Mr Obama probably did not intend to announce a forthcoming American defeat. Quite the contrary, he was most likely trying ineptly to give the American public a reason to hope the war in Afghanistan would come to an end if only we could hang on for a little while longer.

But, as the old cliche has it, "the road to hell (or defeat) is paved with good intentions." Good intentions are not enough to ensure success; they are more than enough to ensure defeat.

ADMIT NOTE: The Geek invites, welcomes and will post all on-topic comments. But having been hit with spam comments defensive measures have been instituted. The Geek apologizes for any frustration.

A Covenant With Death--And "Winning"

There is a brutal, unstated, and universal reality which applies to all warriors. Whether or not any particular individual recognizes this reality, whether or not any particular individual articulates this reality does not matter. The reality is still there; it still governs.

The reality? The ground truth which controls all aspects of a warrior's existence?

The warrior, each and every one, has signed a personal covenant with death. The agreement stipulates that the warrior will use his brain and body, his skills and abilities, his every fiber of mind and muscle to stay alive. The agreement also provides that no matter how able and motivated, how skilled and able, how fast of reflex and quick of mind, there can be no immunity from death.

In the fabled French Foreign Legion the covenant was once summarized in a brilliantly brutal and succinct way: "Legionnaires! You are in the Legion to die. The Legion will send you to where you will die."

The Covenant With Death is offset in a very small way by a belief held by many (but not all) warriors. This belief is also held by many of those associated with the warrior: buddies, family, lovers. The belief gives some slight measure of comfort to those who survive the warrior's death, or who suffer with him after he has copped a major league clobber, the kind of clobber which in a blasting small part of a second takes away swaths of the warrior's body or mind.

The belief?

That the warrior's life will not be sacrificed for any end of lesser goal than that of "winning." It is hoped and believed that the body, mind, life of the warrior will not be wasted in the pursuit of a false goal, thrown away on some obscure purpose of state, lost in the ego driven strivings of a superior officer or political leader. All warriors at the least secretly hope that if death claims its share of the covenant, the reason will not be shallow, superficial, transient, or of no lasting purpose.

In the warrior's world the goal is--must be--winning. Even should the warrior die, the victory is secured. It may be the smallest and most intimate of victories, the survival of a buddy. It may fall in the endless midrange of winning, the objective which is taken, the hill cleared, the village secured, the battle ended with the enemy in full flight. Or, it may be victory of the greatest sort, the obliteration of the enemy force and state.

However, and here is the rub, "winning" or "victory" are slippery, protean concepts. A clear and decisive "winning" is rare, particularly when the "victory" is sought on the largest scale.

This is why, for Americans, World War II has been so long and so often characterized as "the good war." Really it was the perfect war. When the guns fell silent two enemies had been destroyed, obliterated, conquered.

For the US the war had been one of a total nature, a total war for national survival. When it ended each of the two major enemies, each of the two regimes seen as being both implacably hostile to the US as well as comprising existential threats, had been utterly and completely defeated. The victory was seen as having such a complete and final nature that it fully justified each and every American warrior claimed by Death's Covenant.

Total wars of national survival are rare in modern history. Far more common are small, often intentionally inconclusive wars on the far frontiers conducted for reasons of state. Also far more common are interventionary wars, nasty conflicts where warriors are killed and maimed but where "winning" is either impossible or illusionary.

The Korean War has become the paradigm for Americans in defining the limited war in support of policy, the cruel little war undertaken for reasons of state in which conclusive victory is either impossible or, at the least, undesirable or unachievable. The warriors die in droves, are maimed in their multitudes, but all that hangs in the air is an anguished question, "For what?"

If the "For What?" question is central to understanding the limited war in support of policy such as that waged in the cold and snow of the Korean mountains, how much more is it apropos when considering the interventionary operation (or, to use currently fashionable circumlocution,) the overseas contingency operation? The survivors, those who have buried their dead comrades, mourned their dead lovers, sons, fathers, brothers, can wail even louder the question, "For what did they die?"

The fine words, "winning" and "victory" have little, if any, relevance in any absolute sense to the outcomes of interventionary operations, of the grim and savage war of insurgent against counter insurgent. True, on the micro level, on the level of the individual warrior who has survived more or less intact in both body and mind, it is possible to say, "I won, damn it! I'm still here." It is possible to assert in the midrange that "We accomplished our mission. The hill was taken. The town was secured. We did bring peace to our valley."

But, on the largest level, the level of states and their policies, the terms, "winning" and "victory" have no genuine applicability. The best which can be said with honesty is, "We achieved our policy goals--more or less."

And, bucko, this ground truth is very, very thin comfort for those who bury and mourn the dead warriors. It is equally thin payback to the warrior claimed by Death's Covenant.

Which brings us to another brutal reality: It is the only reward for being true to the Covenant. It is the only comfort to the survivors. It is the only balm for those who have been cruelly maimed by the battle and the policy which brought the battle.

A policy success--usually of the less complete sort--and the military accomplishment of achieving the minimum strategic need of "not-losing" is the only reward which can be expected in the waging of interventionary war, particularly one of the counterinsurgent sort. At the end, no insurgency is marked by the obliteration of the enemy.

There are no victory parades when the counterinsurgent succeeds. There will be no photo-ops surrounding the defeated insurgent signing a surrender document. There will be no glorious upsurge of national pride as the victorious counterinsurgent forces come home to a grateful public.

Insurgencies do not end with a bang. They don't even end with a whimper. They simply fade out. The noise of battle, of bomb and gun, fades away to the silence of politics. One morning the counterinsurgent wakes to find there is no more war. He stretches, looks around, listens to the silence--and goes home.

Or, in the alternative, the noise continues but the counterinsurgent simply goes home. The war goes on, but the outsider is now a major non-participant. He is absent with leave from the fighting and the dying. The warrior is given permission by his government, by the folks back home to come home.

In short, under this alternative, he is defeated. The warrior may be happy or, at least, greatly relieved to be exempted from Death's Covenant. He may be happy, or, at least, greatly relieved to be spared the fear of impending combat, of death being present at one's shoulder night after day after night after day.

This does not offset the reality that he has been defeated. Even if "victorious" in the field in battle after battle, skirmish after skirmish, the counterinsurgent warrior nonetheless has been defeated. So also has the policy, the government, the country which sent him.

And, as history shows time after time in century upon century, defeat always brings consequences, the majority of which are bad. Countries, particularly those which have aspired to and achieved Great Power status, do not long survive major defeats.

Signing the Covenant With Death is not enjoyable. Neither is facing the reality of death night and day seemingly without end. No warrior can be blamed for doing all in his power to stack the odds in his favor. It is human to seek every advantage against death, to use all the means, all the technology to save one's only skin. It is expectable that no additional risks will be undertaken by the warrior without a very compelling reason.

As a result it has come as no surprise that many of the American and other ISAF troops in Afghanistan were angered by the "courageous restraint" doctrine put into effect by General Stanley McChrystal. It is totally without shock that one reads of the resentment felt against the doctrine felt by so many under McChrystal's command as well as the relief felt with the promise by General Petraeus to review (and, at least, by inference) change it so as to reduce the perceived risk to the troops.

Courageous restraint did bring a rapid and extreme lowering of casualties inflicted by US and other ISAF forces upon Afghan civilians and Afghan National Forces personnel. An indication of what is to be expected should the McChrystal doctrine of courageous restraint be modified significantly--or at all--has occurred within the past twenty-four hours.

An air strike was called upon a contingent of Afghan National Forces when someone didn't interpret the imagery correctly. Five Afghan troops were killed by precision guided munitions. The Afghan government is hopping mad. The same may be presumed, but is not mentioned in the media with respect to the Afghan forces generally and at least some civilians.

On the US/NATO/ISAF side of the fence, the reaction has been pure pre-McChrystal. There was no immediate hospital visit to the injured survivors by the commander in theater; there was no immediate and compelling statement from the highest command levels of dismay, sincere apologies; rather an investigation was ordered. This back-to-business-at-the-old-location is a lot of yadda-yadda in the ears of the Afghans.

So, why the hell should we care?

We should care about this incident as well as the context of modifying the courageous restraint doctrine because it matters greatly as to whether this insurgency ends in a way favorable to American interests or in an American military defeat. The only way in which the US and its allies have even a slight chance of achieving the minimum strategic goal of "not-losing" is by fighting in a way which puts our warriors at greater risk but provides greater physical security to the Afghans.

The only way in which the war will simply fade away allowing our warriors to come home without dragging the can of defeat behind them is by placing a greater burden of risk and fear on our warriors, by insisting that more, perhaps many more, be claimed by Death's Covenant. The only way in which we can justify the deaths of those already killed, or the physical and psychic damage done to so many others is by forcing the war to a conclusion which is favorable to our standing and influence in the world. Then and only then will the deaths be given meaning.

The US government--and We the People--decided to cut and run from our war in Southeast Asia. The US government--and We the People--concluded to pack up and leave, resigning the South Vietnamese to whatever fate might have store.

By this decision the US government--and We the People--declared that all those Americans, more than sixty thousand, who had been taken by Death's Covenant, had been killed for nothing. The US government--and We the People--cancelled even the thin comfort of the deaths having not been without meaning or positive effect.

While the defeat in South Vietnam did not damage the US in its long term national and strategic interests, it did damage us at our core. No nation can write off the lives of thousands of its young men without doing damage to its central values, its belief in itself, or its confidence in its own worth.

A defeat in Afghanistan, no matter how concealed or how colored, will do the same to our national soul as did the self-inflicted loss in Vietnam. Beyond that, a defeat in Afghanistan unlike that in Vietnam will impair our long term national and strategic interests by emboldening those who espouse violent political Islam around the world.

What this means today is simple and unpleasant in the extreme. There must be no backsliding from the doctrine of courageous restraint for to do so is to seek defeat. More American warriors must, perforce, be placed in harm's way, made to hold Death's hand, feel Death's eternally cold breath on their necks.

Only by showing a will to die rather than to risk killing the wrong Afghans can we sanctify the losses of our warriors. Ironically, we cannot kill our way to "victory" in Afghanistan, but we can restrain our killing capacities and achieve all that can be achieved in this kind of war, an incomplete policy success and, more critically, 'not-losing."

The "War" Behind The War

The real conflict is being fought not in Afghanistan but rather over Afghanistan. The war behind the war is the one over how the US should fight in Afghanistan. It is a war between opponents even more bitter in their opposition than is the ISAF and Taliban.

The semi-covert war behind the overt one in Afghanistan is waged between conventional soldiers and the special operators. This war started long before Osama bin Laden came to realize that Allah or someone was calling upon him to wage jihad against the "Crusaders." It is a war which has been fought with greater and lesser vigor ever since the first conventional forces were sent to a predictable failure in Vietnam. It is likely to continue long after the last American boot has shaken the soil of Afghanistan from its sole.

The conduct and outcome of the war behind the war will do much to determine the degree to which the US succeeds or fails to achieve the minimum necessary strategic goal of "not-losing" in Afghanistan. The process of the war behind the war will also do much to dictate not only if the US will have to stage a rematch of the Civilized World versus the Islamists but also whether or not it will succeed or fail the next time around.

The firing of General McChrystal was one small skirmish in the war behind the war. McChrystal was the very definition of special operator. His entire active career was in special operations. McChrystal's intellectual focus was on the requirements for success in the most difficult of unconventional military operations, those of an interventionary nature, the wars of insurgency and its counter.

The astute observer would have counted McChrystal's days as numbered the moment he released his operational doctrine with its curtailment of American usage of artillery and air delivered firepower. With his reorientation on protecting civilian lives even at the cost of placing more Americans at greater risk, General McChrystal directly challenged a definer of the uniquely American way of war which has existed nearly long as the doctrine of civilian supremacy. The American way of war gelled in the aftermath of the War Between the States and its overwhelmingly high butcher's bill.

Ever since the Civil War, the sine qua non of US military operations has been the curtailment of American losses. Over the years and through the many, many wars which have occurred since 1865, the US has spent much time, much money, and a very great deal of industrial and technological innovation on the challenge of replacing loss of blood with the expenditure of munitions.

The defining profligacy of American firepower has been commented upon repeatedly by our allies and adversaries alike. During World War II, where either the British or the Germans would have sent a patrol, the Americans heaved tons of munitions downrange from artillery tubes almost beyond counting and aircraft formations which darkened the noon sky. The lavish expenditure of munitions went a very long way to assuring that American troops came home on their own two legs and not on a stretcher or in a body bag.

There is no doubt that in a peer-to-peer conflict, the American way of war is both effective and easily justified by its results. Even in a limited war in support of policy such as the Korean War, the American way of war limited costs to mere dollars and not lives. Nonetheless, the US did have to spill blood at meaningless terrain features such as Pork Chop Hill so as to convince the Chinese that we had the political will to fight on regardless of loss.

Hostile observers have long concluded that the American unwillingness to shed the blood of its troops constituted a fatal weakness. When this reluctance was linked (as it inevitably has been) to our equal distaste for expending time on something so wasteful as a war, some adversaries have become convinced that the sovereign counter to the US was to be found in combining the infliction of casualties upon us with the prolongation of the war.

The second part of the How To Defeat The Americans Theory has been called into question by the evident willingness of two presidents to keep on keeping on regardless of the prospect of "victory" or the growing unpopularity of the war with We the People. However, the first part, the more important part of the Recipe For Defeating the American Infidels, is still operative, still to be placed to a full and effective test.

Insofar as General McChrystal's operational concept of "courageous restraint" provided a real change in the views held by Afghan civilians toward the Americans, it was an operational and tactical success. A comparative consideration of enemy initiated versus friendly initiated and meeting engagements covering the months before and after the McChrystal ordered change shows the balance was shifting decisively in favor of the foreigners.

Not to put too sharp a point on the matter, the McChrystal doctrine turned the battlefield and political tides from the negative to the positive. McChrystal's sound understanding of the political and psychological nature of the insurgent-counterinsurgent conflict with its emphasis upon protecting the uncommitted majority from the harm of battle was paying off.

Ironically the successes, preliminary and incomplete as they were, had no impact upon the majority of the troops, particularly the officers, carrying out the new order of battle. To the men on the sharp end of the stick, the new rules of engagement were tantamount to fighting while leaving our best, most lethal, weapons left back at base.

No man, as the Geek well knows, likes the idea of taking more risks than the minimum necessary. The nature of operations in Afghanistan assures there are risks enough without seeming to add to them by limiting the use of artillery and air support. There is no surprise that the McChrystal approach would result in more than a little bit of bitching and moaning--particularly as the operational tempo ticked up with casualties doing the same.

The degree of complaint was far greater, however, than could easily be justified by actual combat losses, which showed no undue increase given the enhanced tempo of operations. But, the McChrystal approach did more than simply enhance the perceived (as distinguished from actual) risks on the battlefield, it called into question the entire "find, fix, and destroy" doctrine which has governed US military doctrine since before World War II.

Despite the fact that the "firepower kills and killing equals victory" approach to war was proven massively irrelevant in the Vietnam War, it was followed both in Iraq and Afghanistan far too long.

In Iraq, the change in American fortunes came with the "surge" but not because of the "surge." Rather the increase in American success came with a decrease in US inflicted Iraqi casualties. It came because the Marines and some Army units went from the "shoot-move-communicate" understanding of war to one which emphasized the human factors, the reality that the battleground which mattered was the perceptions and attitudes of the uncommitted majority of the Iraqi population coupled with constant pressure on the hard core of insurgent true believers.

General McChrystal's special forces played a very key role in the successes in Iraq attributed in the media and on the Hill to General Petraeus. McChrystal carried the lessons of Iraq along with the broader lessons of counterinsurgency with him to Afghanistan.

The mere fact that McChrystal, a lifelong member of the Special Forces, the red-headed stepchild of the Army, was jumped to command in Afghanistan was a major irritant to the conventional soldiers. McChrystal's predecessors were all good conventional troops, distinguished treadheads in the main. Nonetheless, they had lost control of the battlefield to the enemy.

When McChrystal's new approach bore immediate positive results, the irritation grew to overwhelming proportions. Making the irritation all the worse was SecDef Gate's view that the US would be facing asymmetrical conflicts and not peer-to-peer wars in the near- and mid-term future. If McChrystal's new doctrine were to succeed, the future for the treadheads and big bore tube meisters of the conventional army would be grim to say the least.

With that as context it isn't surprising that no voices were raised in defense of McChrystal's ill-advised words in Rolling Stone. It isn't surprising that all ran for cover behind the spurious notion that the outspoken spec-ops guy was an out of control rogue. Nor is it shocking that he was speedily replaced by a man, General Petraeus, who is a good, conventional man at heart.

Petraeus' dedication to the "firepower kills and killing brings victory" notion became evident during his confirmation hearings when he promised to "review" the limitations imposed on artillery and air delivered firepower. He will conduct the review and, in highest probability, slacken the restrictions.

Any slackening, any backing off from "courageous restraint" will inevitably result in collateral civilian causalities. With the best of intents, the closest of command and control, big guns and fast movers will kill non-combatants. As a result, the uncommitted majority of the Afghan population will once again swing toward Taliban and away from the US and ISAF. The situation will return to the status quo ante McChrystal.

At the same time, responsibility for the American failure will be offloaded to the Afghan government and security forces. There is much reason to do so. The Karzai government has a very laid back attitude toward the massive corruption which is and always has been a component of Afghan political life. The Karzai government is given to the notion of a separate peace with Taliban as such is in its own best interests given the conviction that the Americans will not stay the course and lack both the will and ability to defeat Taliban et al militarily.

While it matters only slightly to the US what sort of government rules in Afghanistan, it is a matter of key national importance as to whether or not the future government of the place thinks it is safe in offering safe haven to Islamist entities planning harm to the US and its interests or those of its allies. It is a matter of great national importance if other Islamist groups around the world are emboldened by the perception of an American military failure in Afghanistan.

However, it appears that these larger, longer term potentials resident in an American military failure is of far less concern to the conventional soldiers of the high ranks. Their lodestone is the superiority of the treads, tubes, and gunships of the "real" Army. Their hope is that another "incomplete policy success" in Afghanistan such as that experienced in Vietnam will end any consideration of future US involvement in these nasty little wars of intervention.

"No more Afghanistans" will join "No more Vietnams" as a way of allowing the generals and other budgeteers to get on with the real mission of preparing for wars the US is less likely rather than more to be fighting in the years to come. The "peace at any price" and "blame America first" contingents of the American political and media elite will embrace the same two slogans in their never ending campaign to assure the US drops to the second tier of nation-states.

The Downside Of A Professional Military

Forty years ago, as the traumatic debacle of the Vietnam War was reaching its penultimate stage, two waves ripped and later roared through the American public and the government. The first of these was of lesser importance--the replacement of the complex and easily abused system of classification and deferments which had made the Selective Service System a model of abuse with the far more fair in appearance lottery. The second, the wave which broke to great applause as the last American troops were leaving Vietnam, was the replacement of the conscript army by an "all volunteer force."

The senior echelons of the American military were all in favor of doing away with the draft. The prevailing view was--and is--that large, relatively low skilled forces were obsolete. Rather, the changes in military technology required and allowed smaller forces of much better trained, longer service troops.

The politicians in D.C. were also enamored with the notion of an "all volunteer" armed force. The denizens inside the Beltway had learned during the long years of Vietnam that the political will of the American public was inversely proportional to the number of "boys next door" who came home in fiberglass boxes. A similar equation was seen to have existed regarding opposition to the war: The draft, and only the draft, bred opposition by both potential draftees and their families to the war which required conscription.

As long as the country was at peace, or, worst case, fought only very short and low casualty wars, the "all volunteer" force in practice seemed to provide all the advantages predicted in principle. The Army and Marine Corps became organizations of people who wanted to be there. The changes in all forms of military technology assured that these (relatively speaking) manpower light forces had combat power aplenty. Lean, mean, and equipped very well to move, shoot, and communicate, the ground combat forces of the US were proportionately far more potent than their much larger predecessors had been only a couple of decades earlier.

At the time of discussion and implementation, there were a few voices opposed to the return to the old American concept of a vocational armed force, particularly a vocational ground army. This negative view focused primarily upon the probable consequence of an army which was increasingly divorced from the society which gave it birth and whose political institutions told it whom to fight, how to fight, and where to fight.

Among the critics of the "all volunteer" idea were those who argued that such a "mercenary" force would make it easier for presidents to send the troops and for congresses to support their dispatch. Analogies were constantly drawn between the "all volunteer" force and the old frontier army or the colonial forces of the US in the Philippines or Great Britain throughout the world. Critics of this school argued that the US would be in search of enemies, preferably small but possessed of critical resources. This position has some merit as events of the past twenty or so years have shown.

A far more trenchant criticism was offered by analysts who foresaw protracted interventionary wars. Given the small size of any affordable American ground combat force (a term which includes both the Army and Marine Corps) and the nature of interventionary operations, particularly those of a predominantly counterinsurgent character, the same units, the same men, the same officers would be cycled through the area of operations repeatedly.

As a result these individuals, particularly senior NCOs and officers who might see four or more tours of duty at ever higher rank, would begin to feel quite proprietary about "their" war, would have an increasing sense of what might be called entitlement regarding the war and how best to fight and win it. Coupled with the automatic separation of members of the ground combat force from the civilian society, these interlocking notions of "ownership" and "entitlement" would lead inexorably to increasingly tense relations between the military command structure, particularly the one in theater, and the larger civilian leadership echelon.

The tendencies of isolation, ownership, and entitlement would, if anything, be intensified within the special operations communities. At the same time, it would be the special operators who possessed the mindset, the experience, the operational imagination best suited for interventionary operations generally and counterinsurgency more specifically. The nature of the wars of the future (seen from the perspective of the 1980s) dictated that the Big Army of tanks, artillery, fast sweeping maneuvers would be irrelevant to the realities of what we now term "asymmetrical warfare."

The men needed in the future (again from the perspective of the Reagan days) would be those of the special operations forces, the most isolated, most indoctrinated, most committed members of the vocational army. As a result, there would be greater and greater friction between the professionals of the "Small Army" forces and both the diplomats and political leaders.

All of what was predicted by the second group of critics thirty years ago has come true during the long years of the Afghan and Iraqi wars. The "Big Army" professionals, the treadheads, the big gun guys, the men who reigned supreme during the short, sharp, and inconclusive days of Desert Storm were not the right people to run the war Afghanistan.

In a real sense the current flap of the McChrystal Comments is the necessary product of the "all volunteer" force as well as the necessary reliance upon the hard and idealistic minds formed almost automatically in the special operations community. As was prognosticated by a handful of critical observers of the coming "all volunteer" force, the combination of duration and small numbers assured the same units, the same men, most importantly, the same officers, would cycle through the AOs repeatedly.

First important fact: Where multiple tours, particularly more than three, were unusual in the Vietnam period, they have become the norm since the invasion of Afghanistan.

Second important fact: Not until the spec ops officers drifted to the top of the command structure in sufficient numbers did a "winning" theory of victory emerge.

Third important fact: The forecast sense of "ownership" and "entitlement" in a context of "isolation" has emerged with concomitant frictions or at the least fissures between the civilians and the military.

Fourth important fact: The conduct of the wars by the civilian leadership of two successive administrations has not and does not inspire confidence on the part of the commanders responsible for both the lives of those under their command as well as avoiding a disastrous defeat at the hands of a highly motivated enemy.

Fifth important fact: The supremacy of civilian command is fundamental to the American way of understanding and waging war. Whenever this bedrock principle seems to be called into question or challenged--whether by an improvident comment as was the case sixty plus years go when General George S. Patton, Jr suggested arming his German POWs and marching on to Moscow or the clear insubordination of General Douglas MacArthur in 1951--the balloon goes up, fast and hard.

In his comments to the reporter for Rolling Stone, General Stanley McChrystal appears to be challenging his civilian lords and masters. And, in a way he was. However, more to the point, General McChrystal was expressing the net effect of the first four important facts. His remarks and the context which gave rise to them are the consequence of waging war, long and frustrating war for reasons of state, by an "all volunteer" force.

Arguably, had the troops been what they were during Vietnam, the "boys next door," both We the People" and the government would have been more engaged with the conduct of the war and willing to think better about the goals of the war(s) as well as the methods used in fighting. With equal plausibility it can be argued that a conscript army would have assured no disconnect between the troops on the ground and the society which gave rise to them--and issued their marching orders.

In many respects conscript armies are both larger and less efficient than vocational ones. The same may be said of democracies, at least as far as inefficiency is concerned. Countering this accurate accusation is an affirmative defense. Democracies are best served by armed forces which fully and completely represent them as to makeup, values, and tight integration.

Even a man such as General McChrystal, the most complete and professional man of war the Geek has ever met, could and probably would agree that an administration as well as a military command structure would have to think longer, harder, and better before committing the US to war if it was fought in large part by civilians temporarily in uniform--draftees rather than by "volunteers." Probably the general would also agree that having draftees under his command would go a long way to assuring that he thought better, explained more completely, and elicited the cooperation and support of those over him as well as those under his command.

It is easy to understand the frustrations and stresses which caused General McChrystal and his staff to blurt out the intemperate remarks attributed to them. It is even easier to understand the well intended desire to remake the US forces into an "all volunteer" form with the untended consequences embodied in the first four important facts.

Quoting Bugs Bunny, "What A Maroon!"

With admitted difficulty, the Geek has chosen three entities deserving the Bugs Bunny Memorial "Maroon" prize today. They are, in no particular order, professors of international law who have no clue what sort of neighborhood the Mideast really is, hand-wringing pundits who still insist on comparing Afghanistan with the American war in Vietnam (now that the 104 month of combat has come in the Land Of Deadly Hills), and, a surprise here, the Tea Party Movement.

Since Israel stopped the IHH "aid flotilla," the MSM both here and abroad have run to the Rolodex files seeking appropriate comment from genuine, bottled in bond, professors of international law, particularly those who assert a special competence in the laws governing blockades and maritime operations. The comments given in appropriately solemn words and in all probability accompanied by grave looks of disapproval universally condemn the Jewish state for both the action against the "aid flotilla" specifically and the blockade of the Gaza Strip generally.

In almost all cases the learned professors give Hamas a pass on all its actions by averring the terrorist entity is not a government. Many of the questioned professors use this reasoning to brand the Israeli blockade as "illegal," as the object of the blockade is not a legal government and Gaza is, perforce, not a "state."

Wow! Ain't the legal mind wonderful! All it takes to (literally) get away with acts of aggression, murder, kidnapping, and generally antisocial behavior in the international arena is to be a "non-state actor." What a concept! By this rationale Israel has no real right of self-defense since Hamas is not a real deal government.

Of course, ever since Hamas shot its way into power three years ago it has been acting as if it constituted a genuine government. It behaves as if it was a government, doing such governmental things as waging (undeclared) war, issuing passports, spending beyond its means, procuring weapons, executing evil doers. All the usual governmental attributes, don't you agree?

The duck test applies. Hamas passes it. Whether the professors like it or not, Hamas is a government and the Gaza strip is the state it governs. The blockade is rational and, by any rational standard, legal.

The maritime aspect of the blockade has been answered, at least in history. Distant blockades have been recognized internationally ever since Great Britain invoked the radical new doctrine under the pressures of real life during World War I. The employment of unrestricted submarine warfare against Imperial Japan by the US was executed under the color of being a distant blockade. No one seemed to mind--other than the Japanese.

Later, President Kennedy employed a distant blockade of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He called it by a different name, but the use of the US Navy was in all respects identical to the use by Israel of its naval forces in its blockade of Gaza. Had the Soviets tested the American political will as the Turks did the Israeli, the results would have been much the same but on a far vaster scale.

Perhaps the learned members of the legal professorate simply are not aware of the Kennedy blockade or they have been baffled by the unusual terminology the Man From Camelot employed. In any event the precedent is there, and not even a full half-century old.

Attention pundits! The war we are waging in Afghanistan in no way mirrors the debacle we created for ourselves in Vietnam. Other than length of combat operations, there is only one similarity between the two. In Vietnam we used the wrong doctrine (theory of victory) for the totality of the war; in Afghanistan that sorry condition has ended with the appointment of General McChrystal to command and the promulgation of of his operational concepts.

The differences are far more striking. The single most important distinction between the war in Vietnam and that in Afghanistan--at least for Americans who are naturally aversive to battle losses--is the very low body count. Only recently has the total butcher's bill hit the one thousand level. It must be remembered that there were weeks, that's right, weeks, when the US lost a thousand or more KIA or DOW.

Another important difference between the two interventionary wars is the reality that in Afghanistan unlike Vietnam we have not sought a change of government every time the local panjandrum perturbed us. We have been willing to fly with Karzai no matter how irritating he can be. That was not the case in Vietnam with results which crippled fatally the development of an effective central government and South Vietnamese political will.

A third distinction between Vietnam and Afghanistan is that during the former war the US and its client South Vietnamese forces rarely had the initiative, and even when we did possess that most critical of battlefield commodities, we did not use it well. Over the past several months it is clear that the US and its allies do have the initiative in Afghanistan as measured by a critical indicator--who initiates contact.

While Taliban and al-Qaeda can still pull off PR spectaculars, the quotidian realities show the US, ISAF, and Afghan National Force hold the initiative. With the advent of more UAVs and the development of real time links to forces on the ground, even the most dreaded threat, the greatest causer of casualties, the roadside bomb, has been all but neutralized.

The road in Afghanistan remains long. It is still a winding one. But, there is no realistic probability it will end in a frank American defeat. And, remember pundits one and all, the minimum necessary strategic goal for the US and its allies is that of "not-losing."

The final, and surprising, Maroon Award winner is the Tea Party Movement. For all their laudable goals, putting the central government on a fiscal diet, ramming the DC monster back into the Constitutional Box, the Tea Partiers seem to believe the US is an island onto itself, disconnected from the rest of the world. A perusal of all the major Tea Party websites, a list too long to provide links to, shows no mention of foreign and national security policy worthy of the name.

Where there is any noting that the US inhabits a globe filled with other countries, some of which are quite hostile to us, it consists of (A) glittering generalities which might have emerged from the quick, facile lips of President Obama, or (B) the same sort of ever-so-muscular tough talk of the Cheney/Rumsfeld years. Get a grip, people!

The reality is the American defense budget has to be constrained as Eisenhower warned a half century ago. Today, his prescient words are more apropos than when he delivered them in his Farewell Address. At the same time the threats to our national interests and security are growing almost by the hour and certainly by the year.

The "international community" is a comforting fiction for the ever-so-sophisticated folks of the domestic hoi oligoi. The dysfunctional nature of international institutions including but not limited to the UN and its subordinate entities is self-evident. American diplomatic influence has whithered with the rapidity of a puddle in the hot sun of the Sonoran Desert. To put it bluntly, we aren't heard when we speak softly (or even loudly) because we lack the stick of self-confidence, faith in ourselves, our institutions.

It is that faith which counts for more than armed strength since absent faith and confidence in what we stand for, what limits we place on the behavior of other states, there is no reason for any to believe we will put our military in harm's way. States which have been pliable or simply inconsequential have taken advantage of our loss of faith to exert their own bounding belief in themselves to thwart the US at most if not every turn.

The Tea Party Movement may have properly read the mood of Americans buffeted by unemployment, economic uncertainty, sourness with the capacity and competence of the central government to do anything beneficial and effective, but it and We the People alike can never forget that we live in a complex world with enemies. Like Phil Esterhazy used to caution at the opening of every episode of Hill Street Blues, "Be careful out there."

Words to heed. Words to survive by.

Who Are We? And, Who Is The Enemy?

Major Hasan, the Fort Hood mass killer, has reawakened the slumbering pseudo-debate about the nature of (A) terror, (B) the role of Islam, and (C) how does the US respond to the threat posed by (A) and (B). Further fuel has been added to the "new" controversy by the decision to put KSM and others of equal ill-fame on trial in a Federal criminal court in lieu of one before a military commission.

Additional impetus has come from the political game surrounding the "strategic review" over the course of the "war of necessity" (per President Obama) and the potential deployment of another large chunk of American troops. This feature gives additional force to the need to finally settle just what we are fighting for--and against. It just is not right either ethically or politically to expect people to put their one and only ass on the line for unknown reasons and unknowable goals.

In past confrontations, in previous wars, on those occasions such as World War I, World War II and, at least at their outsets, the Korean War and the American War in Vietnam, We the People had a reasonable consensus as to both the goal of our fighting and the nature of our enemy. In the cases of the two world wars, the consensus held until after the shooting stopped. With the other two wars, both limited wars in support of policy, the consensus did not hold. As a necessary consequence, We the People (or at least a large, vocal segment) lost political will to continue the effort, the sacrifice.

The First World War consensus was predicated upon a nifty combination of Allied (that is to say, British) propaganda, news management, and perception manipulation with the domestic ideals so well expressed by President Woodrow Wilson of "the victory of democracy" and a "war to end war." The Second World War saw consensus built from diversity in the blinding humiliation and destruction of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The first casualty of the Japanese bombs was the very large, vocal, and politically potent isolationist movement in the US.

The Korean War achieved an almost instant but not universal consensus because the invasion of the South by the North was so blatant, so evident, and so aggrandizing in the estimate of American public opinion molders that a response by the US was virtually guaranteed. The shrewd use by President Truman of the UN (made possible only by the Soviet self-inflicted absence from the Security Council) comforted Americans in their love of multi-lateral action based on the World War II alliance structure.

In a very real sense the consensus on the sending of troops to fight in the Vietnamese Wars was an artifact. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was a ready-made, fill-in-the-blank exploitation of the expectable North Vietnamese response to the provocative actions under MarOps 34A and the twin ELINT collection by US destroyers. Waving the red flag of expansionist Communism was both possible and justifiable given the internal political dynamics of the day. (It might be noted that the documents of the day show the leaders of both parties in both houses of Congress were far more hawkish than the administration and far, far more pawing the ground for war than President Johnson.)

The consensus held remarkably well. Even in the closing days of the Johnson administration and the first term of President Nixon, public support for the war effort at its lowest was higher by far than the nadir of support for the earlier Korean conflict. In part this was the effect of the body count--in war the dead often dictate policy. In part the continued support for the war was a response by the "silent majority" to the actions and rhetoric of both the anti-war movement and the counterculture generally.

In any event there was no time during the Korean and Vietnamese wars that We the People had any doubt as to just who we were and what we stood for. Nor was there any doubt as to who the enemy was and what the enemy was all about.

True, in the cold light of history practiced with the utmost of human objectivity, We the People might have been as wrong as a soup sandwich about both us and them, but that didn't matter at the time. Nor, practically does it matter after the fact.

On 9/12 We the People were One. We lusted to strike back against those who had struck not at some far away naval base but in the heart of our greatest city and the center of our nation's capital. Worse, this new enemy had not used military ships and aircraft, soldiers and sailors, but had seized civilian aircraft and turned our own fellows into weapons against us.

The attacks were acts of war. Of that We the People were certain. In the main most still do. A very confusing factor for We the People and the government alike was simply the nature of the attackers. In all of our previous experiences, attacks had been leveled by states, by governments, by soldiers, airmen, sailors. This time the attackers were of no specific nation, no government, no armed force.

It is hard to muster and focus a consensus for war when there is no easily named enemy. Sure, Afghanistan was a convenient and justifiable target given the nature of its government and the total unwillingness of that government to turn over the ultimate architects of the outrage to the US. The invasion of Afghanistan was plausible. It might even be described without undue inaccuracy as having been a "necessity."

But, attacking Afghanistan, overthrowing Taliban, ejecting al-Qaeda to Pakistan did not constitute a blow against the enemy. It may not have been a dangerous diversion as was the later great adventure in regime change in Iraq, but neither was it an effective strike against the real enemy, the (to use another piece of fine old Soviet terminology) "main" enemy.

Eight years ago as today the US government and the vast majority of the chattering, academic, and political classes made and make a bright and shining distinction between Islam and whatever and whomever the "enemy" might be. There were those eight years ago as there are those today who maintain that the "enemy" isn't some Muslim other but We the People and our government.

Despite the well intentioned and tactically justifiable attempt to put great swaths of daylight between acts of "terror" and Islam qua Islam, it is long past time to blow a whistle on the play.

"Wait one, Geek! Don't tell us you're becoming one of them there "Islamophobes."

Not hardly, bucko. Ole Doc Geek isn't a man of the cloth. Neither is he given to the fine details of theological disputations. To the Geekmo, all religions are created equal. They all deserve their time in the public square. None inspire any more "phobia" in the Geekmeister's mind than any other.

Even given the diversity of commitment and belief which must reside in the minds of one and a half billion human beings, there are some very salient, quite clear, and horribly unmistakable facts which have been growing since long before that bright September day in 2001. These are the ground truths which have not been given proper respect in the ever-so-polite, ever-so-sensitive, neverendingly tolerant chambers of the chattering, academic, and political classes in the US (OK, and elsewhere as well).

The first of these never-to-be-spoken brutal truths is simply that the vast majority of "terrorist" acts perpetrated over the past twenty years have been conducted by people who purport themselves to be Muslims. It doesn't matter who the keeper of the numbers is or has been--the US government, the UN, independent organizations, individual students of the phenomenon--the total comes out the same.

The second of these foundation realities is simply that the acts of the suicide bombers, the rocket launchers, the trigger pullers have been and are justified, even sanctified in the sacred writings of Islam. It matters not that the majority of Muslims may not act according to these strictures and requirements or even consider them germane to their lives today. The fact remains that the sacred literature, much (though admittedly far from all) Islamic jurisprudence historically and contemporaneously supports or even compels the actions taken by the bombers and their ilk.

The third basic also comes directly from Islam. The religion is totalistic in nature. It admits of no separation between politics and belief, jurisprudence and faith, the society and the community of believers. Additionally, Islam draws a line between the House of Peace--Islam--and the House of War--everybody else on the planet. The distinction coupled with assorted strictures as well as the record of the life of the Perfect Man, Mohammad, provides the basis to carry war both defensive and offensive against the unbelievers and apostates.

Again, it is irrelevant to aver that these factors play no real role in the lives of most Muslims most places most of the time. It may be a true assertion, but it doesn't matter.

The fourth leg of the table of reality is to be found in the West generally and the US in particular. Neither the West nor, most specifically, the US can avoid being the target of those within the Islamic faith who seek to put the greatest vitality into their beliefs. By its very existence, its size, its geographic reach, its characteristics and values, the US must draw the greatest hatred, the greatest loathing.

Samuel Huntington was right whether any of us like it or not. (Be assured, the Geek does not.) The world is engaged in a "clash of civilizations." The US and the West are in a battle to the death not with Islam per se, but with those within Islam who subscribe to "political Islam" or Islamism. More to the point today we are in a battle to the end with those Muslims who accept armed political Islam (Islamist jihadism) as their duty to and under the faith.

Perhaps this seems to be too fine a parsing to be made by politicians, pundits, and academics. Perhaps these elevated minds believe it is too fine a distinction to be understood by the great unwashed of the hoi polloi who are, after all, the majority of We the People.

In either case the unwillingness or inability of the public opinion molders of the US to make the necessary, properly and historically very well based distinction between Islam and Islamist jihadism assures two outcomes. The first has become very evident with the slow but recently accelerating public disenchantment with the war in Afghanistan.

The American consensus on the "global war on terror" has gone. Period. It will not return unless and until the necessary distinctions are made clearly, repeatedly, and convincingly. We the People must be persuaded that we have a real enemy. And that the enemy is not some amorphous tactic called "terror" but a very real political ideology rooted in specific aspects of Islam which can be distinguished from other features of Islam.

The second outcome of the persistent lack of a proper definition of the enemy is a growing uncertainty as to what positive outcome we might be fighting for. This loops to a growing unease within We the People as to just what we are all about, just what our beliefs might be, our values, the sort of future (beyond material comfort and stability) we might be seeking.

Events in both Iraq and Afghanistan prove beyond a doubt that the old magic words, "democracy," "freedom," "free enterprise" and so forth to the point of projectile vomit are no longer possessed of the charm they held in past wars. Nor, can it be claimed that a victory here or there will "make the world safe for democracy" or "end war."

It may be the case that the Islamist jihadists are both collectivist (as is Islam itself) and certainly addicted to actions such as stonings, amputations, and other delights of Shariah which heap insult and indignity upon the individual. In the past the cause of the individual, the rights and dignities of every single person, have been used quite successfully to mobilize and maintain a consensus within We the People.

It may be that this set of core values is the best, the only means available today to keep We the People grimly dedicated to bear the sacrifices necessary to keep fighting against the denegrators of the individual waging war under the banner of Islam. The Islamist jihadists desire more than anything else to impose their dystopian vision upon us and the rest of the "infidel" world. They want us to submit to the religion of submission and will use any and all means available to achieve this end.

The grim robot warriors of Islamist jihad can be stopped only if We the People are willing to keep on manning the lonely ramparts. We face with the Islamist martyrdom seekers an enemy far more determined and perhaps more numerous than any we faced during the great and lesser wars of the Twentieth Century, including the Cold War.

No doubt. Fighting wears thin. Fast. We the People have already fought way too many wars against all too many collectivist enemies flying many different flags. It is tempting to say, "Enough, already! Been there. Done it. Have the scars to prove it."

In a just and fair world we would be allowed to drop the fight. Put down the burden. To take a well earned and deserved rest.

But this is not a world which is fair or just. It falls to us, the unwilling, led by the inept, to do the impossible. We have stood against German expansionism (twice), Japanese aggression, the Crimson Tide of the Kremlin, Pyongyang, Beijing, Hanoi. And, we won.

We won because we knew what we were fighting against. And, fighting for.

We can do the same today and into endless tomorrows. But, only if we have leaders both in and out of government who can tell it like it really is. Leaders with the intellectual and moral courage to say without equivocation who we are, what we fight for, and what we are fighting against.

Well, it's an idea.

A Really, Really Cheesy Mousetrap

There has never been any secret about the distaste held by "progressive" members of the Democratic Party for either the war in Iraq--or the so-called "good war," the "war of necessity" in Afghanistan. Similarly there is no secret that these same "progressives" have piled up the federal deficit to numbers with which only astronomers--and "progressives" are comfortable.

Also not to be found in the Secret category is the oft-repeated pledge of then campaigner Obama to the effect that there would be no "middle class tax increase" on his watch.

Now in one of the most sleazy efforts to mousetrap a president that the Geek has either witnessed directly or studied as history, the leaders of the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives are talking tax increase on the middle class if President Obama makes the toughest (and least incorrect) choice to deploy additional US troops to the war he described a few months back as being of "necessity." House Ways and Means chairman Rangel has been making the noises to this effect.

Rangel, compared to whom Hugo Chavez is a near-conservative, is being backed in this ploy by the new head of the Democratic Party caucus, John Larson, (who is almost to the left of Daniel Ortega.) Both are described as being close political associates of Lady Botox, House Speaker Pelosi.

The notion is being touted as a "pay as you fight" method to assure that the increased costs attendant upon the deployment of more troops would not add to the federal deficit. Suddenly, miraculously, congressional worthies such as Mr Obey and Mr Frank care, they who have been utterly silent as the tsunami of red flooded from the stimulus package, the bailout measures and--soon to come--the Great New Health Care Millennium. The billions and billions just added up during the silence of Messrs Rangel, Larson, Obey, and Frank until now.

There couldn't possibly be a linkage in timing, could there? No. These public spirited representatives of the vox populi (according to their ears at least) have just now noted that wars cost money--and, golly, we just don't want the war to be a burden on our grandchildren.

They have put a potent political gun to the head of their fellow Democrat and fellow "progressive," the President. Send more troops and we will violate your pledge to the American people.

This sort of ideological games playing has no place in a matter as serious as the conduct of the war in Afghanistan. While the war was fought as wrong as a mountain lion chirping for the totality of the Bush/Cheney years, the US has finally made at least some of the right moves in the past six months. These moves, if continued and reinforced, can assure that the US and its allies can achieve the minimum necessary strategic goal of "not-losing."

The reason for needing to attain this minimum goal is simple. So simple that even the mentioned Congress-wallahs can understand it. We need to inflict an obvious military defeat upon Taliban and al-Qaeda so that these as well as Islamist jihadists generally conclude that attacks on the US or its allies constitute a very poor option.

If the Islamist jihadists of whatsoever stripe or whatever name come to a different conclusion, their attacks will come again at some future date. The attacks might well be on a larger, more destructive, more lethal scale than those of 9/11.

Or, in the alternative, the US and the rest of the West might simply accommodate themselves to a new global reality. That reality would feature an American, a Western, retreat from those areas of the world of greatest centrality to the Islamist jihadists. It might also mean adjusting long standing Western and American political, social, cultural values, and customs so as not to offend the most touchy of Muslims lest they call on their stalwart advocates--the suicide bombers, the middle of the night assassins, the wielders of knives, guns, bombs, and, at some future date, nuclear or radiological equivalents.

To "progressives" such as those mentioned, these sorts of dystopian futures have no relevance. Driven by the seductive appeals of ideology, of elitist certainty as to the correctness, the efficacy, the brilliance of their vision of tomorrow, these individuals are willing to impose great risks on their country's future, their fellow citizens' lives.

In terms of ethics, the middle-class-tax-increase ploy against the war is even more reprehensible, more underhanded, more duplicitous than was the "date certain" approach taken by an earlier generation of Democratic Party "progressives" to end the US involvement in the Wars of the Vietnamese. At least that bunch had the decency to wait until the grunts had come back to the world, the famed "decent interval."

Yes, the Democrats then stood by with stony faces and folded arms to watch the defeat of the South Vietnamese Army we had trained, equipped, and promised to support and supply when the final North Vietnamese push came. The ideologically driven indifference of the Democratic "progressives" did assure that the South was defeated even though that was not objectively necessary. These past congressional figures created a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Now, Rangel, Frank, and the rest want to force the President not to do the right, least incorrect thing. They want to force him to choose between his own falling political stock and the war. Choose between his future in office and the future safety of the nation.

And, they want to do that while the grunts are still grunting and fighting, bashing the mountain sides, going cross eyed looking for IEDs. Killing and dying.

The last time something equal to the action the "progressives" in the House want Mr Obama to take occurred it was on 31 March 68. That was the day Lyndon Johnson said he would not seek reelection. The day the Commander-in-Chief walked away from his troops in the field.

The record shows clearly that the prime effect was in Vietnam. On the guys on the ground. The record shows that in the wake of LBJs collapse of political will both morale and combat efficiency in country dropped fast and hard. Drug use went up. Contact with the enemy declined. The number of fragging incidents went up. Will to fight went the other way.

Sure, back then, in those bad old days, the Army was conscript. Now it is mercenary--whoops! Bad Geek! He meant to write "volunteer." But that difference is in no way directly related to the matters of morale, will to combat, a willingness to keep on going out, facing bad odds even with technology on your side, and taking lumps while hopefully giving more. Pushing on until someone, somewhere can say with honesty, "Mission accomplished. Well done to all hands."

Mr Obama may escape the baited trap. Saner heads in the Democratic Party may prevail. A more suitable target for deficit reduction may emerge. A more rational approach to revenue raising may be discovered.

Even if any or all of these were to happen, the ground truth remains: The "progressives" have shown themselves so ideologically blinded that they were ready, willing, and eager to place their country and all of us who live there at greater risk for decades to come--all for a little bit of belief.