Vital that Taiwan gain a seat at United Nations

[...] Taiwan officials said China's successful bid in May to keep Taiwan out of the World Health Organization prevents Taiwan medical teams from fully aiding efforts to counter infectious diseases.

This, they said, could have catastrophic consequences. They gave an example from July whereby the WHO appeared to act as if the island did not exist.

According to a Taiwan statement, the WHO failed to respond to Taiwan officials after they alerted the global health organization about a pair of tuberculosis patients who had travelled by air from Taiwan to Nanjing in China via Hong Kong.

In that case, Taiwan itself sent experts to China to arrange for the patients' return by chartering a small boat, and gaining access to a medical helicopter, the statement said.(1)

Taiwan is pressing ahead for a referendum on another bid to join the United Nations -- and because the referendum will refer to the nation as Taiwan, it will also serve as a plebiscite for a de facto name change, which China vehemently opposes.

Washington is nervous and wishy-washy, as usual, about Taiwan's latest move to join the UN, which elicited a broadside from President Chen Shui-bian. He as much said that Washington needs to grow backbone and strongly support Taiwan's bid.

If there was ever a time for Taiwan and the US to press hard on the UN issue, the months running up to the 2008 Olympics are it. Beijing knows the China Olympics will be a bust if they're pulled into a confrontation with the US over Taiwan.

We don't want to wait until the killer pandemic strikes before deciding that Taiwan needs to be part of the United Nations.

1) Taiwan president turns up the heat on UN bid

Message to Andrew Sullivan and Mr. & Ms. America: War is not business.

This morning I read a piece by Andrew Sullivan in which he excoriates the US war effort in Iraq for its mistakes.

I don't follow Sullivan so was unaware until this morning that he was a big war supporter who at some point turned against the war. It's unfair to analyze a commentator on the basis of a few brief essays. Yet it struck me that Sullivan, like the majority of Americans, is steeped more in the business mindset than any particular political ideology. Perhaps that's why the war has been hard for the majority of Americans to support once the US failures in Iraq piled up.

In business, when a product isn't selling you quickly replace management, ditch a division, or simply recall the product. War is not business, and failures in war are not defective products. Once war is set in motion you can't recall it.

It helps to keep in mind that America did not start this war, that Iraq is just one theater in the war, and that Iraq is where the US foreign office and defense establishment are learning to fight the kind of wars that will characterize the first part of this century.

To quickly intuit how warfare in the new century is shaping up, consider the oil pipeline bombings in Mexico. No standing army arrayed against you, just lethal shadows that vanish when you move toward them.

This morning I also read Marine Gen. Peter Pace's mea culpa. General Pace is retiring as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He acknowledged that he overestimated the ability of the Iraqi army to hold together after the invasion, and as a result underestimated the number of U.S. troops needed for the post-invasion phase in Iraq.

A general with too much hindsight is unforgivable, yet if we removed such generals from history there would be maybe three pages about war.

The truth is that a larger deployment of troops needed to be backed by a new strategy for dealing with the post-invasion phase, and which needed the close cooperation of the Pentagon and State. Both these took time to develop and implement.

In death, Abu Risha could rally Iraqis

The assassination of Sunni Sheikh Abdul Sittar Bezea al-Rishawi, also known as Abu Risha, is a whodunit and might remain so. But those who are crowing over the death of an "American ally" have overlooked that Iraqis greatly need their own heroes at this time. Abu Risha was first and foremost an Iraqi ally. His murderers have created a martyr whose influence in Iraq transcends tribe, ethnicity, and sect.

In a startling development, the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al Sadr strongly condemned the murder:

“Abu Risha was a man who proved that terrorism can be fought and security can be restored even in the most volatile area in Iraq,” said Sheikh Saleh al-Obeidi, al-Sadr’s spokesman in the holy city of Najaf.(1)

It is notable that Al Jazeera and (Saudi-owned) Al Arabiya TV have avoided calling Abu Risha a martyr, but the sheikh is well on his way into Iraq's history books as a martyr for Iraqi freedom and unity. Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, called Abu Risha a martyr. And Maliki's national security adviser Muwaffaq al-Rubaie, who attended the funeral, observed:

“It is a national Iraqi disaster. What Abu Risha did for Iraq, no single man has done in the country's history,” Mr Rubaie told the mourners gathered at the sheikh’s house. “We will support Anbar much more than before. Abu Risha is a national hero."(1)

Iraq's (Kurdish) President, Jalal Talabani, also cited heroism:

Abu Risha's name will be remembered in the pages of Iraqi history alongside the names of those who led the 1920s revolt against British forces, the 1958 coup against the Iraqi monarchy, and "the blessed uprisings against tyranny and oppression."(2)

In death, Abu Risha may do even more for the cause of Iraqi reconciliation than his Awakening did against al Qaeda. Abu Risha wasn't content to run al Qaeda out of Anbar; he was undertaking an ambitious program to free all Iraqis from al Qaeda's oppression:

Most recently, he had sent his men into western neighborhoods of Baghdad that had been taken over by extremists.

“These Qaeda fighters started even to force some families to marry their young daughters to the fighters, otherwise they would kill the entire family,” said Manal Imad, 27, a university student who lives in the far western Baghdad neighborhood of Amariya. “When Abu Risha sent his men to our neighborhood, everyone here welcomed them.”

The extremists had required that women going outside their houses wear long robes and completely cover their hair, Ms. Imad said. Several months ago, she said, not wearing a head scarf “could be fatal to me and to my entire family.”

“Now the neighborhood is very stable and most of the shops are open again. And even girls feel safer wearing what they used to wear during the normal day.”(3)

1) The (London) Times Online

2) Iraq Slogger

3) The New York Times

Zenpundit weighs in on Petraeus-Crocker war trigonometry

I was concerned that my interest in development issues relating to the poorest countries might have caused me to read too much into the ideas sketched by General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker during their testimony before Congress. And I felt very tentative about interpreting their ideas. So I asked Zenpundit Mark Safranski to analyze my Petraeus-Crocker Trigonometry of War post. Mark's reply interspersed his instructive comments with the post. For the sake of clarity I am republishing much of the post and putting Mark's points in boldface. Before starting, a few notes about three of Mark's comments:

> By coincidence I added the SWJ (Small Wars Journal) Blog to the Pundita blogroll yesterday morning. Particularly in light of Mark's comments below, it seems SWJ contributors really understand the modern era of warfare.

> Regarding the trigonometry analogy -- it's not mine. During testimony Crocker said something to the effect that Petraeus was working out the "geometry" of the fighting. I think it was Petraeus who added that Crocker was working out the "trigonometry" of the political end -- or maybe it was Crocker who said it. Anyhow, the trigonometry analogy was an "AhHa!" moment for me. I had been trying to get a handle on the strategy they'd worked out, and suddenly the analogy illuminated the basic idea.

> Regarding ignoring Maliki -- the provincial governments must be integrated with the central government, firstly and foremost because Iraq is a command economy heavily dependent on oil revenue. So the bottom-up approach is very limited unless coupled with the top-down approach, which is what Crocker's team is working to accomplish.

Okay, now to Mark's comments:

I read the transcript [of the Petraeus-Crocker testimony] as I could not watch. The transcript is available at the SWJ Blog. (A worthy addition to any blogroll for those interested in counterinsurgency, nation-building and "small wars". Many of the authors of the new Army-Marine handbook blog at SWJ and/or are associated with the Small Wars Journal or magazine in other ways.)

I took notes but many times threw aside my pen in dismay at the level of questions put to the team. General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker and their 'brain trust' of advisors had hammered out a new approach to warfare. The approach integrates economic and political tactics heretofore reserved for the post-conflict phase of war. The approach is so new that nobody -- not the congressionals, not the reporters who later questioned the team at a press conference -- had a lexicon for putting informed questions to the team.

Technically, this warfare is not "new" though it might as well be as far as the senior leadership of the US Army and civilian policymakers are concerned. The ignorance level is high because the "lessons learned" regarding counterinsurgency ("COIN" in Army jargon) in Vietnam were systematically purged from military archives and educational institutions by the Westmoreland clique at the Pentagon in order to practice CYA. For a short history, I strongly recommend reading Lt. Col. John Nagl's Learning to Eat Soup With A Knife; it's excellent.

You are correct, though, that there is a large knowledge gap operating here between Petraeus/Kilcullen/McMaster and Big Media/Congress, though I think about half the time that works in Petraeus's favor.

BTW, if you recall a couple of years ago the back and forth over Tom Barnett's book The Pentagon's New Map - Tom was trying to sound the alarm/offer a new paradigm on the need to integrate economics/intelligence/political agencies with military operations. That's grand strategy (like Containment) rather than COIN (which is operational and tactical), but the two are aiming at the same problem at different levels of policy.

So one had to snatch bits of understanding from examples given by Petraeus or Crocker, and try from these to cobble together a picture of a war like no other. Pundita is also struggling for a lexicon, so I hope the reader will indulge my first attempt to describe what I absorbed from the proceedings.

The core of the new approach is that mechanisms of governance are introduced as a weapon against armed enemies during kinetic (force) operations.

Yes - this is a political war over the legitimacy of the state in the eyes of the populace. Unfortunately, the Iraqi government is incapable of playing ball. We are de-legitimizing AQI far more effectively than we are legitimizing Maliki. A definite improvement but we are not home yet.

One idea behind the military surge in Iraq was to tamp down the insurgency enough to allow the new government to get on its feet. But Petraeus and Crocker found a circular problem in Iraq:

With no means except warfare to influence the government, insurgents would continue fighting unless the 'Carthage solution' was applied -- a solution that would be morally unacceptable to the Coalition. The only other alternative within classic warfare was a troop size of overwhelming proportions, and to leave the troops permanently occupying the country.

Possible only with population "buy-in" - as with Germany and Japan after WWII and the ROK after the Korean War. We won't get that except in Kurdistan, which has the external threats to contemplate.

Then, in a manner of speaking the brain trusts sat down and did trigonometry. Would it be possible to counter every angle of armed resistance with creation of a governance mechanism? A mechanism that provided the insurgents with a more efficient approach to getting what they wanted from government?

Nice metaphor. I'm envious.

The answer was clearly, 'Not in all cases.' There are aspects of the insurgency that are actually classic proxy war masquerading as insurgency.

True. Iran, Syria and KSA (though with different players).

But if people in a province had been shooting for years and still not gotten the authority and funds to build, say, a sewer system, it was possible to go back and forth between government and the shooters to work out mechanisms for (a) putting sewer construction into a budget and (b) mechanisms for carrying out a budget administered by the central government.

Discreetly hire the relatives of the shooters to build the sewers. Either the shooting stops or the sewers get built or both.

So when Petraeus and Crocker spoke at the proceedings about building government from the bottom up and linking this with building government from the top down, that's what they meant. Governance procedures are worked out, in ad hoc fashion, based on demands from Iraqis who previously only had the option of violence to demand their share of power and resources. The procedures are folded into tactics for fighting insurgents.

IMHO: This is a bottom-up to lateral connection effort. The central government has (intentionally) squandered the political capital of democratic elections because that serves the interest of factional leaders running parties like the Dawa. We must humor then ignore Maliki while creating "facts on the ground."

Contrast this with the traditional military approach of overcoming an enemy, then setting a new government in power, and leaving the government to eventually work out procedures for dealing with provinces/tribal regions.

We grew up with the legacy of the omnipresent threat of the Leviathan State, foreign and domestic. A paradigm shift is required for ex-Cold Warrior conservatives ( or liberal doves for that matter) to embrace the threat of the failing state where the state goes through a similar "dynamic collapse" that the economy did during the Great Depression, unable to re-start itself. Like markets, failed governments sometimes do not "clear" for the next social contract to be created.

Sometimes a bad state run by bad people is better than complete anarchy where worse people have free reign. A caution to consider before bombing Iran into the stone age and then potentially seeing a zone of anarchy from the Turkish border running all the way to China and a major oil producer sidelined for five to ten years in an era of rising global demand for oil.

See Martin van Creveld 's The Transformation of War, The Rise and Decline of the State and The Changing Face of War. Also, The Sling and The Stone by Colonel Thomas X. Hammes.

Readers who have leaped ahead might ask whether the new approach has applications for all backward states where outside armed intervention advances or imposes a new government. My answer is my oft-repeated plea to abandon blanket application of any kind of strategy -- whether economic, military, or political.

Agreed. Also, sometimes you have greater leverage with less. Help is then valued more.

Clearly there is a lot of back-and-forth allowable in the Crocker-Petraeus approach because the new government is cooperating in some measure with the US. So the team can go to the shooters and ask, 'What are you upset about today?' Then take the answer back to the government and suggest a governance protocol or system that solves the problem that's causing the shooting.

The approach depends on cooperation from the government that might not always be possible in all countries with backward governance procedures. But the basic idea behind the Petraeus-Crocker approach is very powerful in that it frames armed conflict as a problem of efficiency.

If it's going to take half your town killed to protest lack of clean drinking water; if the government has to get many troops killed to tamp down the violence in your town -- both sides can see the value of approaching the conflict as a failure of the efficiency principle.

The efficiency principle goes out the window if the government is rogue; e.g., if it's no more than a gang protecting smuggling routes and contraband trade. But yes, on a carefully chosen individual basis, there are applications for the Crocker-Petraeus trigonometry in other countries with backward governance systems.

With every case of possible intervention, going back to the drawing board is always an option of first resort. Again, see Nagl on the Malayan Emergency.

But is the approach really working in Iraq? That's what Petraeus and Crocker traveled to Washington to explain: yes, it's working but the ad hoc, case-by-case basis is slow and prone to setbacks. The biggest problem for the US is that Iraqis who have agreed to try the approach are insisting on using the US military as a stand-in for parliamentary representatives.

As Ambassador Crocker explained, Iraq is still a traumatized country. Iraqis don't trust the mechanisms of representative government. They still see government as a phenomenon of rulers rather than systems. They greatly distrust the central government, which oversees a command economy.

They trust their primary loyalties - kith and kin, tribe and sect. Neighbors there are often relatives. Whom would you trust - your cousin, some distant official of a different ethnicity or a foreign soldier pointing a gun at your wife and children? Part of COIN is to stop doing the latter.

Meanwhile, the central government's faith in ethno-sectarian quotas to administer the country has collapsed -- so much so that Maliki visited Sistani earlier this month to discuss abandoning the quotas in favor of a merit-based Cabinet makeup. Sistani's answer was not made public, but Maliki remains convinced by events that only a "technocratic Cabinet" can earn the trust of the provinces.

Will Iran support the creation of a meritocracy in Iraq's central government? Not if they have their way. But Crocker pointed out that because of historical and ethnic reasons Iran is quite limited in their ability to influence politics in Iraq. And Tehran is fast wearing out their welcome among many Iraqi Shiites. That leaves Iran to influence through force of arms, so the struggle for the Coalition is to expose the approach as a very inefficient one for Iraqis.

Iraqi Shiites are also nationalists. We may not know the difference between an Iranian and a Shiite Arab but the Shiite Arabs certainly do.

As the congressional proceedings on Monday and Tuesday emphasized, all this struggle is costing the USA about 9 billion dollars and 60 casualties every month. Will the American people muster the determination to continue supporting a new approach to warfare? The trouble is that for years Americans have shown much patience and determination.

Somewhere I hear laughter. I suppose it's Clausewitz's ghost. But if war is mostly a game of chance, there are steps to improve odds. One step would be for General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker to give up hope that news media and think tanks can explain the Iraq campaign to the American people.

I think they have - and the frustration index of MoveOn.org and related fellow travelers is telling evidence.

The team needs to take into account the newness and complexity of their approach. [...]

Petraeus-Crocker Trigonometry of War

Pundita missed 2-1/2 hours of the Petraeus-Crocker testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee but I watched the rest of proceedings until testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee wrapped up around 7:00 PM. This was on top of watching the previous day's proceedings of the House joint committee, which ran almost six hours.

I took notes but many times threw aside my pen in dismay at the level of questions put to the team. General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker and their 'brain trust' of advisors had hammered out a new approach to warfare. The approach integrates economic and political tactics heretofore reserved for the post-conflict phase of war. The approach is so new that nobody -- not the congressionals, not the reporters who later questioned the team at a press conference -- had a lexicon for putting informed questions to the team.

So one had to snatch bits of understanding from examples given by Petraeus or Crocker, and try from these to cobble together a picture of a war like no other. Pundita is also struggling for a lexicon, so I hope the reader will indulge my first attempt to describe what I absorbed from the proceedings.

The core of the new approach is that mechanisms of governance are introduced as a weapon against armed enemies during kinetic (force) operations.

One idea behind the military surge in Iraq was to tamp down the insurgency enough to allow the new government to get on its feet. But Petraeus and Crocker found a circular problem in Iraq:

With no means except warfare to influence the government, insurgents would continue fighting unless the 'Carthage solution' was applied -- a solution that would be morally unacceptable to the Coalition. The only other alternative within classic warfare was a troop size of overwhelming proportions, and to leave the troops permanently occupying the country.

Then, in a manner of speaking the brain trusts sat down and did trigonometry. Would it be possible to counter every angle of armed resistance with creation of a governance mechanism? A mechanism that provided the insurgents with a more efficient approach to getting what they wanted from government?

The answer was clearly, 'Not in all cases.' There are aspects of the insurgency that are actually classic proxy war masquerading as insurgency. But if people in a province had been shooting for years and still not gotten the authority and funds to build, say, a sewer system, it was possible to go back and forth between government and the shooters to work out mechanisms for (a) putting sewer construction into a budget and (b) mechanisms for carrying out a budget administered by the central government.

So when Petraeus and Crocker spoke at the proceedings about building government from the bottom up and linking this with building government from the top down, that's what they meant. Governance procedures are worked out, in ad hoc fashion, based on demands from Iraqis who previously only had the option of violence to demand their share of power and resources. The procedures are folded into tactics for fighting insurgents.

Contrast this with the traditional military approach of overcoming an enemy, then setting a new government in power, and leaving the government to eventually work out procedures for dealing with provinces/tribal regions.

Readers who have leaped ahead might ask whether the new approach has applications for all backward states where outside armed intervention advances or imposes a new government. My answer is my oft-repeated plea to abandon blanket application of any kind of strategy -- whether economic, military, or political.

Clearly there is a lot of back-and-forth allowable in the Crocker-Petraeus approach because the new government is cooperating in some measure with the US. So the team can go to the shooters and ask, 'What are you upset about today?' Then take the answer back to the government and suggest a governance protocol or system that solves the problem that's causing the shooting.

The approach depends on cooperation from the government that might not always be possible in all countries with backward governance procedures. But the basic idea behind the Petraeus-Crocker approach is very powerful in that it frames armed conflict as a problem of efficiency.

If it's going to take half your town killed to protest lack of clean drinking water; if the government has to get many troops killed to tamp down the violence in your town -- both sides can see the value of approaching the conflict as a failure of the efficiency principle.

The efficiency principle goes out the window if the government is rogue; e.g., if it's no more than a gang protecting smuggling routes and contraband trade. But yes, on a carefully chosen individual basis, there are applications for the Crocker-Petraeus trigonometry in other countries with backward governance systems.

But is the approach really working in Iraq? That's what Petraeus and Crocker traveled to Washington to explain: yes, it's working but the ad hoc, case-by-case basis is slow and prone to setbacks. The biggest problem for the US is that Iraqis who have agreed to try the approach are insisting on using the US military as a stand-in for parliamentary representatives.

As Ambassador Crocker explained, Iraq is still a traumatized country. Iraqis don't trust the mechanisms of representative government. They still see government as a phenomenon of rulers rather than systems. They greatly distrust the central government, which oversees a command economy.

Meanwhile, the central government's faith in ethno-sectarian quotas to administer the country has collapsed -- so much so that Maliki visited Sistani earlier this month to discuss abandoning the quotas in favor of a merit-based Cabinet makeup. Sistani's answer was not made public, but Maliki remains convinced by events that only a "technocratic Cabinet" can earn the trust of the provinces.

Will Iran support the creation of a meritocracy in Iraq's central government? Not if they have their way. But Crocker pointed out that because of historical and ethnic reasons Iran is quite limited in their ability to influence politics in Iraq. And Tehran is fast wearing out their welcome among many Iraqi Shiites. That leaves Iran to influence through force of arms, so the struggle for the Coalition is to expose the approach as a very inefficient one for Iraqis.

As the congressional proceedings on Monday and Tuesday emphasized, all this struggle is costing the USA about 9 billion dollars and 60 casualties every month. Will the American people muster the determination to continue supporting a new approach to warfare? The trouble is that for years Americans have shown much patience and determination.

Somewhere I hear laughter. I suppose it's Clausewitz's ghost. But if war is mostly a game of chance, there are steps to improve odds. One step would be for General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker to give up hope that news media and think tanks can explain the Iraq campaign to the American people. The team needs to take into account the newness and complexity of their approach. They should visit Washington at least once every three months and repeat the grueling exercise of personally updating the Congress.

I will close by repeating an observation I made about the first day's proceedings:

[...] Ambassador Ryan Crocker said that Iraqi provincial governments had discovered the Supplemental. The remark would have been funny if not for the shattering implications. We always knew in a vague way that things were really bad under Saddam Hussein's regime. But what was never clear, until Crocker's testimony, is that under Saddam there were no absolutely no political and economic mechanisms for connecting the provinces with the central government in Baghdad -- none. The provincial governments didn't even have a budget.

Petraeus and Crocker to Congress: We took Iraq from civil war to social revolution in just three months; be satisfied with that for now.

That was the message to emerge from testimony by the ambassador and the general at yesterday's joint session of the Armed Services/Foreign Affairs committees. They didn't put it quite as bluntly as Pundita, but there were seconds during their testimony when they came close to a stark assessment of the scope of the mess they inherited.

For Pundita, there were two great moments in the six hours of the session -- much of that time given to speeches by committee members. The first came when General Petraeus broke from his very careful demeanor and asked sarcastically, "What are you going to do with an army of 11,000 Sunni generals?"

At that moment it became painfully clear that for all the reports their aides digest for them, many members of Congress still don't understand much about what's been going on in Iraq.

David Petraeus made the comment in the course of defending the initial order to de-Baathify the Iraqi army. He was trying to convey the scope of problems with the old Iraqi army and why it had to be rebuilt from the ground up.

Pundita didn't know either that there were 11,000 generals in Saddam's army, and along with several congressionals I had been harshly critical of de-Baathification. Petraeus's observation underscored that little is cut and dried when it comes to analyzing the situation in Iraq as we found it, and as it changed since 2003.

The second moment came when Ambassador Ryan Crocker said that Iraqi provincial governments had discovered the Supplemental. The remark would have been funny if not for the shattering implications. We always knew in a vague way that things were really bad under Saddam Hussein's regime. But what was never clear, until Crocker's testimony, is that under Saddam there were no absolutely no political and economic mechanisms for connecting the provinces with the central government in Baghdad -- none. The provincial governments didn't even have a budget.

Iraq as we found it was never actually a nation by any modern concept of nationhood; it was a collection of tribes that depended on patronage from Saddam Hussein. Crocker brought home the point by saying that Iraq is "undergoing a revolution, not just regime change" and that the country has to be rebuilt almost from scratch.

The revolution is moving forward now that some security has been restored, and further progress is dependent on security holding and building. "We're seeing the center and provinces begin to knit together on a political and economic basis." And at the same time, Crocker explained, Iraqis are now ready to tackle the question of federalism and realizing that central government is not a panacea.

Again and again, Crocker made the point that neither the Iraqis nor the Americans had understood the complexity of the technical and political problems reflected in the benchmarks set by Congress.

He also made the point that while key benchmarks for Iraq have not been made into legislation they have been implemented on the ground. He amplified on the point during his interview with Bret Hume on Fox news Monday night, and gave a couple examples:

> The central government is getting resources to the provinces, even without revenue distribution legislation.

> Even without legislation overturning de-Baathification, the central government is accommodating the return of ex-Baathists to government jobs.

Did the congressionals gathered to hear testimony really give a fig about all the complexities? I think when they have time to chew it over, they will confront the subtext to the wealth of detail provided by Petraeus and Crocker. The subtext goes like this:

Once upon a time the United States toppled a regime in Iraq and found a real big mess there. Then the United States made every mistake in the book and some that were never in the book. The mess got bigger and bigger until al Qaeda scored a huge victory by bombing the Golden Dome Mosque, which set off civil war.

Then Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus were sent in with a surge of troops in an effort to do something. Then they were stopped even though they were making progress because Congress was too scared to explain to their constituents that once you make a big mess, it takes time to work your way out of it. And if you don't want that to be the legacy for the US adventure in Iraq, find a way to explain the complexities to those who put you in office.

How's the weather up there on the moon, Admiral Fallon?

A pox on military commanders who do not understand the meaning of war. Hello, Admiral, we're fighting a war in Iraq right now, not the projected war someplace else. If you don't like General Petraeus, if he bothers you for some reason, please don't take it out on the US troops fighting in Iraq. Please allow them all the help possible.

Oh, Lord! What a war, where our worst enemies have come from within!

Last week Iraq Slogger announced they were providing a free subscription to all State Department employees. That's great news. Just imagine! Foggy Bottom able to follow events in Iraq! I'm hoping Slogger will extend the free offer to Pentagon employees. If not, will someone donate a subscription to Admiral Fallon -- the CENTCOM Commander?

According to today's Washington Post, Fallon wants a lower troop level in Iraq on his supposition that the US soldiers should accept more risk in Iraq; this, because he wants to free up more US troops for any future war that could materialize anywhere around the world.

If he read Iraq Slogger, Fallon would know that the military is already taking a huge risk with the current troop level in Iraq, which is still not enough to give the US a clear victory in Iraq.

He should read the announcement by Mookie's spokesperson that if the US tries to enter Basra the Mahdi Army will fight them. And while the spokesperson doesn't say, it's certain that Iran would join the fray. So there's a projected conflict, and one which is very plausible and serious.

Why haven't CENTCOM commanders wanted to accord the Iraq conflict the seriousness it deserves? I have asked the question a thousand times, and never found an answer.

Maliki hangs on, for now

Amer Moshen reports for Iraq Slogger that according to today's London-based Al-Hayat newspaper, the Sadrist MP Baha al-Araji denied that his party "participated in any discussions to unseat Nuri al-Maliki."

If the MP is indeed speaking for the entire Sadrist bloc in Parliament, this could be a knockout punch to Ayad Allawi's campaign to build a powerful coalition against Maliki.

Amer observes, "Without Sadr's 30 parliamentary seats ... attempts to remove Maliki would be near impossible."

A straw to clutch at might be that Sadrists were miffed that Allawi has been blabbing about negotiations with opposition parties.

CNN breaking news re Petraeus recommendation about troop cuts

CNN's Wolf Blitzer reported on today's 5:00 PM EDT segment that sources in touch with General David Petraeus say he will not call for any troop cut, even a token one, when he testifies before Congress next week. According to CNN, Petraeus says that he needs every brigade right now.

Wolf said this flies in the face of reports in today's New York Times and Washington Post that Petraeus could call for a minor troop cut. CNN reported that according to a military source close to Petraeus the press reports are nonsense.

Of course there has been a blizzard of speculation about what Petraeus will recommend to Congress next week, so add the CNN report to the snowdrifts -- but the report did seem well sourced. The story is not yet posted on the CNN website.

America as Annie Sullivan

Michael Wright: How are you feeling?

Pundita: Exhausted. The Battle of the Beltway is the political equivalent of the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Michael Wright: Rest up this weekend. Next week Petraeus and Crocker will bring a squealing pig to the Hill and slap lipstick on it.

Pundita: I wish you hadn't put that image in my mind.

Michael Wright: Even bin Laden is getting into the act.

Pundita: You mean one of his body doubles. As long as Qaeda sticks to talking and doesn't launch an attack to get in their two cent's worth, why not? Everybody and his uncle is trying to influence Congress about Iraq.

Michael Wright: Do you ever have doubts? About whether we should stay, whether we should have invaded?

Pundita: About two months ago I had a dream that shocked me. I hauled off and with all my might slapped President Bush in the face.

Michael Wright: How did he react?

Pundita: He took it on the chin, didn't say anything. That was the entire dream. What shocked me is that I didn't realize I was very angry with him. I guess my anger built up and finally surfaced in a dream.

Michael Wright: I thought you liked Bush.

Pundita: I do.

Michael Wright: Maybe you weren't angry; maybe you were trying to jar him awake.

Pundita: Huh?

Michael Wright: Being stubborn is one thing but with Bush he can get so upset he mentally folds his arms. That's a bad posture for fighting. Like trying to dig in your heels when a big wave comes at you instead of swimming like hell.

Pundita: Well, Michael, that's an interesting take on the dream. But Bush has certainly not stood back from the fray during the run-up to next week's showdown. Yes I have doubts, and I'm always struggling against despair about all the mistakes the US has made in the post-invasion phase.

Something I've never doubted is that the USA has to stop following in the footsteps of the Europeans in how we deal with peoples in the Middle East. The Arabs and Persians were treated like children and pawns, and the US went along with that. The upshot was that we never really communicated our way of doing things. There is always a lot of pain when you get serious about teaching people ideas that can dynamite their ordered view of things.

Michael Wright: America plays Annie Sullivan.

Pundita: I don't think that's far off the mark. If you only know repression and don't have any idea of how democratic government should work, it's a kind of blindness. So, yeah, you could say we're trying to play Annie Sullivan to the Middle East's Helen Keller.

I don't want to put it in such lofty terms, though. It's just that instead of treating them like pawns or children, we're trying to treat them as we treat Americans. That's because we can't really imagine what it's like to endure under someone like Saddam Hussein. So we're saying in essence, 'Here's what Americans would do to insure we wouldn't live under despotic rule.'

There's a lot of mistakes with that approach and a lot gets lost in translation. Yet not to try is -- it's not American not to try. The Europeans can laugh at our mistakes in Iraq or shake their heads all they want, but we're no longer doing an imitation of Europe in the Middle East.

Michael Wright: Unless you count Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, and --

Pundita: One thing at a time. Iraq is where we're making our stand. We got used to having the UN come into a country, and the World Bank. We were left pretty much alone to stumble through in Iraq. So we found ourselves with a crying need to teach.

Michael Wright: You can't want things for people more than they want them. Many Iraqis don't want to know what the Americans can teach.

Pundita: Then why bring up the analogy of Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan?

Michael Wright: I think you brought up the comparison first, a long time ago --

Pundita: Really? I don't remember. Look, Keller didn't want language. Annie Sullivan had to fight and fail repeatedly until Keller made some cognitive connections. Then Keller wanted to speak.

Michael Wright: That kind of effort is more than teaching.

Pundita: It's determination. Annie Sullivan was herself almost completely blind during her childhood. You can develop so much empathy that you see yourself in the student, so then thought of failure is replaced with sheer determination. It's taken time for empathy to grow among Americans who work with Iraqis, of course, and vice versa. And as always, those who most want to live in freedom are the ones who apply themselves to learning what the Americans have to offer.

Michael Wright: All this takes a tremendous amount of time, and money, and blood. Pundita, the United States of America is not in the teaching profession. It's not our job.

Pundita: Awwww. Americans are having to learn first-hand what the World Bank went through all these decades? Where is my Kleenex box?

Michael Wright: I don't recall thousands of Bank employees dying and wounded in battle.

Pundita: The age of using governments as pawns needs to draw to a close because untold suffering arises from it. When you remove manipulation from your dealings with a government in the developing world, you've got collapse of the government or return to ways that are not adequate to deal with this era. So what else is left but teaching? When turning away is not an option?

Yet there are smart ways to teach, and learning to teach in smart fashion has been America's biggest lesson in Iraq.

Iran: the war at hand vs two in the bush

"TEHRAN, Sept. 2 -- Iran's president said Sunday that his country is now running 3,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium for its nuclear program, reaching a goal that could spur efforts to impose new U.N. sanctions on the Islamic republic."

"They're running 3,000 piles of junk."
-- John Loftus on John Batchelor show, Sept 2

"Hi Pundita!
It was great to hear John Batchelor and friends again. Let's hope he can work out a regular deal soon. (Note to WABC: Bob Grant is not the answer.)

In case you haven't heard, JB regular John Loftus has a radio show on another station(s) Monday-Wednesday 11 PM -12 Midnight. In New York the station is 620 AM.

So far, I've heard conflicting views about Iran: Nuke capability is progressing/not progressing. We're getting ready to hit Iran/just making noise. Any insights?

Mike Miller in New York"

Dear Mike:
For readers who did not catch Batchelor's show for Drudge on Sept 2, John Loftus said that the depth that the new US "super bunker buster" bomb can reach is classified, but it's a 30,000 pound bomb. And he quoted Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney (USAF Ret.) as saying that "there is no place deep enough" in Iran for Ahmadinejad to hide -- meaning that the super bomb can reach the depth of the tunnels Iran has dug for their nuke weapons development program.

As for the 3,000 centrifuges that Maddy claims are running, clearly Loftus thinks they're not up to task. But Maddy's announcement certainly stabbed the IAEA in the back.

So Ahmadinejad has switched tactics; he's taken a very aggressive posture ahead of the September UNSC meeting to determine whether more sanctions should be piled on. Maddy has in effect said 'Sticks and stones can hurt my bones but sanctions will never hurt me.'

Under any other circumstances, one could interpret Maddy's bluster as inviting a naval blockade of Iran. However, the circumstances we're involved in right now are Iran's actions in Iraq and US urgency to tamp down the violence in Iraq.

Under guise of shelling Iranian Kurdish insurgents, Iran is doing a land clearing operation in a part of northern Iraq. One insurgent leader observed that they're not shelling where the insurgents are located, in the mountains. So to what end is Iran acting? It seems the goal is to replace the villagers with Iranian military and al Qaeda fighters working with the military.

In the south, Iranian guerilla warfare has forced the British to a retreat to a more secure location, thereby putting more pressure on the US to defend Basra's critical supply route for US troops.

Pardon Pundita's limited knowledge of war strategy, but I think even a chipmunk could read the combined actions in the north and south as a pincer movement.

In any case, we already have a war going with Iran, and that's the one we need to be focused on at this time. The observation holds true, no matter how much or little progress Iran is making toward a nuclear weapon. I think US policy, including the decision to open talks with Iran about Iraq, is starting to acknowledge that stark reality.

Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the people inside Washington who were most focused on Iran's nuclear threat have been unwilling to view Iraq as the center of things. I remember not long after the US toppled Saddam's regime, John Batchelor said, "Iraq is in the rear view mirror." I think the statement characterized the view of the Pentagon under Donald Rumsfeld. Yet that view completely discounted Iran's strategic interest in Iraq.

There was really not much that could be done to overturn the view until Rumsfeld left and General Petraeus launched a counterinsurgency. His strategy has made a lot of trouble for Iran's military because it's created a situation in southern Iraq that is chaotic. Iran simply can't control all the armed groups that have spun off from the Mahdi army. When that became evident, Pundita called for an about-face in US policy toward Iran. I advised that the US open talks with Iran; this on the theory that the US finally has something to bargain with.

So while I don't have a clear idea of where Iran's nuclear program stands today, I have done with trying to play clairvoyant. In Iraq, we have a clear and present situation with regard to Iran, and that's what should condition US war policy at this time. Diplomacy should follow suit. To attempt to build US policy toward Iran on their nuclear threat is akin to reading tea leaves about when the world is coming to an end while a tornado is bearing down on you.

As for piling more sanctions against Iran -- does anybody really believe that people who send their youngest children to run across mine fields to clear the way for tanks, as the Iranians did during the war with Iraq, will be deterred by economic hardships? No, we'd have to bomb them into submission. But that's not today, and not tomorrow. We need to stay with the present.

The US has placed too much emphasis on air power and neglected old-fashioned ground war -- which happens to be where Iran excels. We should have learned the lesson by watching Hezbollah's defense last year against Israel.

Iran's new plan in Lebanon: so much for squeezing the Pasdaran financially

Pundita considers the following analysis at Ya Libnan to be so important that I'm republishing it in its entirety. Note the military implications of Iran's land grab in Lebanon.

Analysis - Iran's covert plan in Lebanon
Wednesday, 5 September, 2007
By Amir Taheri

Beirut / Tehran - While being squeezed out of the global markets because of sanctions imposed by the UN, Iran's banks have landed new business opportunities in Lebanon.

Operating through front men and companies, they are financing land purchases that could, in time, redraw Lebanon's complex ethnic and religious map.

Soon after last year's war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Islamic Republic set up a "Lebanon Committee" ostensibly to rebuild Shi'ite areas damaged during the fighting. This started with a $250 million "Islamic gift", distributed by Hezbollah among its supporters. However, those who received the cash did not use it to rebuild their homes in Shi'ite villages south of the Litani River. When I visited the former war zone last spring, I was surprised to see that there was very little reconstruction work in Shi'ite villages close to the Israeli border.

Is Tehran developing a new strategy in which Lebanon south of the Litani would serve as a buffer zone in a future war against Israel? Until last year's war, the area was Hezbollah's stronghold and host to more than 90 per cent of its arsenal, including thousands of rockets and missiles. Now, however, Hezbollah, though still present, is not allowed to bear arms south of the Litani. More importantly, from Tehran's point of view, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) is no longer able to maintain a presence there. Today, some 12,000 UN troops and almost as many men from the Lebanese regular army control the area.

It is against that background that Tehran's new strategy makes sense.

The strategy pursues three goals.

First, it aims at creating a string of bases north of the Litani from which rocket and missiles could be launched against Israel. It would also enable the Revolutionary Guards and its Hezbollah allies to cut the route through which the central government in Beirut and/or the UN might send reinforcements to the south.

Second, acquiring land and building new villages in non-Shi'ite areas north of the Litani will provide territorial contiguity for the portion of the Shi'ite community loyal to Hezbollah and thus to the Islamic Republic. Tehran would be able to ferry aid and arms to its Lebanese allies through the Syrian border without having to cross areas controlled by other Lebanese sects. The state-owned Iranian Telecommunication Corporations is already building fibre-optic lines for internet, television and telephone networks out of control by the Lebanese government.

Finally, the new strategy could cut off part of the warrior-like Druze minority, some five per cent of Lebanon's population and currently the most dedicated supporters of democratization, from its traditional stronghold in Wadi Al Taym. The Christian community could also be divided, with its traditional Greek Orthodox stronghold, Marj Ayoun, cut off from Maronite and Orthodox villages in southern Beka'a Valley.

That this may be one aim of Tehran's strategy is corroborated by the fact that most of the land bought with Iranian money in recent months has been sold by Christian and Druze families, often at prices too attractive to refuse.

The Iranian-financed land grab could also isolate the Sunni Muslim population in the disputed She'eba'a Farms, still under Israeli occupation.

If the scheme is fully implemented, Lebanon's Shi'ite could end up as the only one of the country's 18 communities to have a contiguous area of their own from the Syrian border to the frontier with Israel, and passing by southern Beirut. That would give the Hezbollah, considered as a state within the Lebanese state, a clear territorial expression as well.

A chunk of Lebanon controlled by Hezbollah plus Gaza under Hamas control would form the two arms of a pincer that the Islamic Republic could use against Israel in case of a broader conflict in the region.

Iran's "buy Lebanon" drive affects other sectors of the economy. Pro-Iranian groups already own five of the eight television stations and two of the four top-selling newspapers in Lebanon.

Add to this Hezbollah's rebuilt military machine, including some 2,000 new fighters, and the "state-within-the-state" would look like a fully-fledged state controlled by Tehran.

New strategy

Tehran's new strategy is strengthened by the fact that Shi'ites represent the fastest growing community in Lebanon. Most estimates indicate that Shi'ites, accounting for at least 35 per cent of the population and already the largest community in Lebanon, may achieve a demographic majority within the next decade.

Encouraged by special funds set up by Tehran, Shiite families produce more children than other Lebanese communities. At the same time, Shi'ites represent the only community gaining in numbers because of expatriates returning home, often from West Africa. Lebanon's other big communities, the Maronites and Sunni Muslims, are losing numbers due to smaller families and rising immigration. While giving the impression that a war against the United States may be imminent, Tehran appears to have assumed that President George W. Bush's administration, sailing towards the sunset, is in no position to take action. This, Tehran strategists believe, gives them time to fortify Iran's positions in Gaza and Lebanon as bridgeheads against Israel. The assumption is that, faced with the possibility of massive losses of life in Israel, no future US president would think of attacking Iran.

Having invested some $20 billion in Lebanon since the 1980s, Tehran appears to have opted for a long-term strategy there. This may help calm things down, especially as Lebanon moves towards a potentially explosive presidential election this month.

There is, however, one big question: Will Syria, Iran's indispensable ally in the region, also have an interest in calming things down in Lebanon?

Traditionally, Syria has pursued a policy aimed at presenting itself as the only power capable of imposing stability on a chaotic Lebanon. If Tehran decides to buy Lebanon rather than grab it by the force of arms, Syria might find itself marginalized. That, in turn, might persuade the Syrians to reassess their ties to Tehran. But, that is another story.

Better to look like a polar bear from Outer Space than to look cute: Pundita's take on Eason Jordan's Safety First advice.

"Pundita:
[Regarding Pundita post CBS, not US military, decided what Katie Couric would see in Iraq]:

I know how it works [in Iraq] because I've been there many times. Yes, you can ask to go to certain places on embeds, and that happens. In Couric's case, however, she asked to accompany commanders, rather than asking to go to specific places, and those commanders agreed and picked where they'd go together.

Even Katie asked Petraeus about some criticizing her for being on a dog-and-pony show, and he said something to the effect of what's wrong with showing your accomplishments here. No big deal. Nothing sinister here.
Eason Jordan
Iraq Slogger "

Dear Eason:
Thank you for the clarification. I am making an issue only because what Couric said on Face the Nation has been used as ammo by those who claim the US military won't let high-profile visitors see what's really going on in Iraq.

So, okay, Couric asked to accompany certain commanders; she didn't deliver an itinerary as the Spiegel reporter did. Yet from what you wrote I think my point still holds. Couric implied on Face the Nation that she had no choice about what she saw on her tour of Iraq.

What was to prevent her from telling the commanders where she wanted to go? Of course, if they didn't want to visit those areas, she might claim the military controlled what she saw. Yet that would be hairsplitting. It seems it was higher on her list to interview certain commanders than to see for herself how things were going in certain regions of Iraq.

Enough of that issue. Pundita was blown away by your article on the importance of safety gear for journalists in Iraq:

Because a staggering number of journalists and media workers have been killed over the past four years in Iraq -- more than 200 by some counts -- journalists have become smarter about protecting themselves, including wearing at least some protective gear.

Yet many journalists in Iraq don't have a full kit of protective gear, don't know what what protective gear they should ask for, don't wear all the protective gear they should, occasionally wear what gear they have incorrectly, and at times refuse to wear body armor even in dangerous areas. [...]

While there's no guarantee all the right protective gear will keep journalists in Iraq alive, it will greatly heighten their odds of survival, and I know of no case in Iraq in which a journalist wearing a complete kit of protective gear was killed.

That last observation might be known in war journalism circles but it is news to me, and I think it should be headline news.

Not wearing appropriate safety gear while bouncing around Iraq as a reporter is akin to driving a race car at top speed without wearing a crash helmet and seatbelt -- and yet, despite the stunning facts you cite, it's done. Back to your report:

When ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff anchor was badly wounded in an IED attack while embedded with US forces he nearly bled to death because shrapnel and debris pierced his neck. He was not wearing protective gear around his neck -- standard issue for US troops.

What also got to me was the photograph you published of Katie Couric in Iraq wearing a "Use Me For Target Practice" orange blouse, and whose only protective gear was a wrongly-fitted vest -- that while she strolled along with two soldiers suited to their eyeballs in protective gear!

That photo reminds me of Monica Crowley's explanation for why she wore Gucci flats to an outpost at the edge of the Golan. The Israeli unit protecting her (and John Batchelor) took incoming fire. Monica told John's radio audience, "I figured if I was going to get shot at, I wanted to look cute."

I think, I hope, Trooper Monica was joking but it's no joke if one walks into a conflict zone with the assumption that death can only come from a silver bullet. So I think your 'When in Rome' advice is good: if you see the soldiers escorting you wearing full protective gear, don't be an idiot; also don the full kit.

"Justice Served"

If you need a laugh along with your PM coffee break, read Dan Riehl's short take:

You kidnap 23 South Koreans, then you die. :::sniffle::: No doubt liberal media is already scouring the scene for civilian causalities.

Here's the rest of the paragraph

CBS, not the US military, decided what Katie Couric would see in Iraq

Much has been made of a statement by CBS news anchor Katie Couric on this Sunday's Face the Nation:

"... you do see signs of life [in Iraq] that seem to be normal. Of course, that’s what the U.S. military wants me to see, so you have to keep that in mind as well."

The obvious implication has been seized upon by commentators who are anxious to see the US out of Iraq: that CBS had no choice but to go along with the US military's itinerary for Couric when they sent her to Iraq.

So then how was Germany's premier newspaper, Der Spiegel, able to write their own itinerary for the US military, when they sent their reporter to do an in-depth story on Iraq?

To review the statement by Der Spiegel reporter Ullrich Fichtner:

Research for this story took me on a three-week journey throughout the country, my fourth trip to Iraq in as many years. Under the protection of the US military, it led us to the northern city of Mosul and its suburbs, to Ramadi and to Baghdad. The military did not choose our destinations, SPIEGEL did. Apart from a few technical and strategic details, nothing was censored.

Yet Spiegel was known to the US military as always very strongly critical about the US military effort in Iraq. And Der Spiegel has infinitely greater influence on European opinion -- and in Washington diplomatic and defense circles -- than CBS could ever hope to achieve in the USA. So if there was ever a time for the US military to take control of a reporter's itinerary in Iraq, Der Spiegel's visit was it. And yet the military allowed Spiegel to write their own tour.

So what's really going on with CBS? I think their insurance company, even more than their news producers, decided on their lead anchor's itinerary in Iraq. Ms. Couric is a $15 million property of CBS. So what we're really talking about is risk aversion, not military propaganda.

The same holds true for US politicians who complain that the US military feeds them rosy propaganda when they drop into Iraq on a fact-finding tour. If you want to hang out in the Green Zone, you're going to get the military's Power Point tour of Iraq, no doubt about it.

But if you want a comprehensive view of the situation in Iraq, and want to risk your life to get it, the US military will oblige. Just ask independent reporter Michael J. Totten; The New York Times military reporter Michael Gordon; and a long list of other reporters, including Ullrich Fichtner, who have been willing to stick their neck out to learn what's really going on in Iraq.

I interject that the above should not be read as criticism of Katie Couric's reporting from Iraq, which will be aired on CBS evening news all this week. Whatever reporters' limitations, any sincere effort to tell the public what they've seen in Iraq is better than no effort. Not having seen her reports, I'll give Couric's sincerity the benefit of the doubt.

However, when it comes to truth in journalism, the question is why the US mainstream media ignored Der Spiegel's August 10 report. The report made a big splash in Europe because Spiegel, while still full of criticism for the US, found notable progress in Iraq -- and that the US effort there was worth pursuing.

Again, Der Spiegel had always been an unwavering opponent of the US in Iraq. So it was big news when Spiegel came out in support of a continued US effort there. Then what to make of the US mainstream media silence on the Spiegel report? I'd say that the media should look in the mirror, before they charge that the military won't allow them to bring an objective view of Iraq to the American public.

Pundita calling State

The (London) Times Online delivers an appropriately hard-headed analysis of North Korea's agreement to make a full declaration of its nuclear programs and disable them by the end of the year.

However, the biggest news is that the US Department of State has not confirmed or denied Pyongyang's announcement that in return for compliance, the US will lift sanctions on North Korea and remove it from their list of terror-sponsoring nations.

This opens a tactical move aimed at Iran's moderates, who've been unable to convince hardliners in their government that the US will make significant concessions if Iran pulls back from their nuclear program. The move could be in play whether or not North Korea carries out an approximation of their agreement by year's end.

11:15 AM EDT Update
Bloomberg reports that Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator on North Korea, said today that Pyongyang still had much work to do before Washington was willing to delist North Korea as a sponsor of terrorism.

"There are additional steps that need to be taken and they know this. To begin the process of removing it [from the list of terrorism sponsors] would depend on further denuclearization."

Yes, Pyongyang knows about the necessary steps but I repeat State has not confirmed or denied that they floated delisting during the latest round of negotiations with North Korea. Let's not turn this into a who-said-what argument; the important point is that with an eye to negotiations with Iran, State should not try to deny encouraging North Korea to the idea that delisting would accompany compliance.

LAFAYETTE LEAVES FOR THE COLONIES, WASHINGTON'S ARMY BOGGED DOWN, AMERICAN REVOLUTION A DISASTER

John Batchelor has a genius for transporting his personality back in time and taking the listener along with him. Many commentators have tried to explain historic events in modern terms, but with Batchelor you're just there: a thoroughly modern person trying to figure out what's going on during your brief time travel, so you can report back.

Batchelor showed his genius again last night during his interview with James R. Gaines, author of For Liberty and Glory: Washington, Lafayette, and Their Revolutions, which chronicles the friendship of generals Washington and Lafayette.

Batchelor's effort to get the dope on Lafayette got Gaines laughing -- and not just a titter for the benefit of the host but real laughter from surprise and delight -- and he got me laughing, the kind of laughter that starts in your chest and shakes your whole body.

When the station break plopped me from Batchelor's time capsule, I looked at big news events of today with a calmer mind and clearer eye.

And that's Batchelor's genius, which is actually impossible to describe to someone who's never heard him because there's never been anyone like John Batchelor in the electronic media.

None of the above speaks to John's analysis of the big news of the day, which has the same way of concentrating the mind as his time travel.

You can hear Batchelor and his guests analyze Iraq, Iran, and Washington politics, as well as the Gaines interview, on last night's Drudge Show via podcast from the Drudge radio archive.

Once you've heard the Gaines interview, I'm sure you'll join me (and John) in wishing Lafayette a very happy 250th birthday.

John Batchelor's appearance on Drudge available on MP3

If you missed John's show last night, you can download the podcast of him filling in for Matt Drudge.

John Batchelor guest hosts on Matt Drudge tonight

Sept 3 Update
If you missed Batchelor's stint last night, you can download the MP3 of him filling in for Matt Drudge at:
http://drudgepodcast.com/

* * * * * * * *

The Matt Drudge show, which airs 10:00 PM - 1:00 AM EDT on WMAL 630 AM in the Greater Washington, DC area, can be also be heard on the Internet at the WMAL website and, I assume, on websites for stations around the nation that carry Matt's show and feature online listening.

From World Net Daily: John will interview WND Jerusalem bureau chief Aaron Klein beginning at 10:15 p.m. EDT nationally. But for listeners on WABC 770 AM in New York, Klein will be featured starting 9:30 p.m. EDT.

Here are some other stations that carry Drudge's show (H/T WND):

WFLA Tampa
WCMB Baltimore
WGST Atlanta
WJR Detroit
WKRC Cincinnati
WNIS Norfolk
KPRC Houston
WTIC Hartford
KMBZ Kansas City
WIBA Madison
WHAM Rochester
WPGB Pittsburgh
WROW Albany
KTOK Oklahoma City
KFYI Phoenix
WISN Milwaukee
WIBC Indianapolis

Plausible deniability no longer easy for terrorists and their apologists

Jeffrey Breinholt writes for The Counterterrorism Blog about the Investigate Project on Terrorism launch of their new free website:

Anyone with access to the Internet can now see and hear audio and video recordings of Islamic American leaders making statements that have frequently been denied.

[...] those legally charged with the responsibility of “due diligence” and knowing the details of the Islamic threat to our institutions – journalists, academics, bankers, and government officials - will no longer be able to claim plausible deniability. Steve Emerson and his staff, led by Michael Fechter, have performed an amazing public service.

The website is an absolute boom for those of us involved in public commentary and education about counterterrorism. Now, we can finally get beyond debates over whether someone actually said or wrote something to the more interesting question of the implications. I expect the debates to get sharper, and the analysis more refined, since there will no longer be disagreements over basic facts.