Sophia Lee Fastaia

I am pleased to announce that my girlfriend Georgianne has become the mother of a happy, healthy, and adorable baby girl. Sophia Lee Fastaia was born at 8:33pm on Tuesday night, September 25, 2007, at St. Luke's Hospital in San Francisco. Many thanks to friends Emily, Greg, Amanda.

Also special thanks to the nurses Kathleen and Amanda, midwife Emily, doula Annie, and everyone else who helped to make this possible.

Israel, Syria, and Iran

Two weeks after an Israeli airstrike against something or other in Syria, Israeli President Shimon Peres suddenly feels all warm and fuzzy toward the Syrians. Here's Ha'Aretz

"I do believe the nervousness in the relationship between Syria and ourselves is over," Peres told foreign journalists. "Why go back to rumors and speculation when we say clearly we are ready to negotiate directly with the Syrians for peace."

... Meanwhile, another indication that tensions with Syria have quieted somewhat is the fact that the Israel Defense Forces have announced that a round of officer appointments, suspended due to the rise in tensions, would resume. The appointments were halted about a month before the September 6 incident, due to fears of a possible war with Syria during the summer.

Commentary. As you know, I'm not any kind of Middle East expert, so what follows here is my strictly amateur analysis. Now we all know that there's been a lot of talk in the last couple of years about a Syrian/Iranian strategic alliance, which would make sense, because neither of those countries has very many friends left in the Middle East. Consequently, there's been speculation on the US/Israeli side about the desirability of trying to weaken the alliance by making peace overtures to Syria in order to woo it away from the Iranian orbit.

The debate within Israel has been between the camp that says "Iran or no Iran, Syria is our enemy - we'd be nuts to negotiate with them"; and the side that says "One thing at a time - Iran is Public Enemy Number One, and we need to keep them from establishing a beachhead on our borders."

So what has just happened is that Israel has taken Syria to the woodshed and whipped it like a naughty schoolboy. Then, to add insult to injury, they've publicly humiliated the Assad regime by saying, "... Oh, you were saying something about peace talks? Let's talk peace."

I think there's a message for everybody here:

For Syria: You are our bitches.

For Iran: Your so-called allies in Syria are useless to you. We can strike any point in Syria at any time. You are alone.

For the Israelis: This is what we mean when we talk about negotiating from a position of strength. We know you think your government are a bunch of wimps, but we do know what we're doing. When we say "let's negotiate with the Syrians", we're not talking about giving away the farm - so don't take us for fools. Our focus must be on prying Syria away from Iran, and that's what we're doing.

And it might be working. Here's Stratfor:

Most intriguing are the reports we have received from Lebanon claiming that a serious division has opened up in the leadership of Hezbollah over the prospect of Syria working out a peace agreement with Israel. To even hear of a division within Hezbollah over the subject is startling, let alone the fact that the group is taking the possibility of a peace treaty seriously.

Israel periodically raises the possibility of a peace settlement with Syria, usually not all that sincerely, so Peres' comment is not completely strange. The report on Hezbollah taking this seriously is more interesting, but remember that rumors always flow in Lebanon, and this one may not be true -- or Hezbollah is simply getting itself bent out of shape.

The report goes on to speculate on the possible role of Turkey, raising the possibility that something was entering Syria from Turkey "that the Israelis didn't want arriving" and noting that the Turkish government is interested in seeing Syria and Israel negotiate.

Here's a roundup of earlier analysis:

Stratfor - September 17, 2007:

This weekend, the mystery of the Israeli aircraft over northern Syria became more important and even less clear than it was before. The story began Sept. 6 with a report from Syria that an Israeli aircraft had dropped ordnance over northern Syria and had been forced by Syrian air defenses to retreat from Syrian airspace. ...

Then, during a meeting of Syrian and Turkish leaders, the Turkish government reported that two auxiliary fuel tanks from Israeli planes had been found in Turkish territory, close to the Syrian frontier. That would indicate that the Israelis were operating very close to the Turkish border, had been detected by the Syrians, released their fuel tanks and took off. That story left two unsolved mysteries: First, what were the Israelis looking for that close to the Turkish border -- or more precisely, right on the Turkish border? And second, why were the Turks so touchy about some drop tanks that were, after all, left behind by Israel, a country with which Turkey has close military relations? And of course, that takes us back to why the Israelis would be monitoring events on the Turkish-Syrian border themselves instead of just asking the Turks.

Then, this weekend, Washington started leaking, with the media carrying a series of utterly contradictory explanations from unnamed American sources. The Washington Post ran a report by an American "expert on the Middle East" (pedigree unclear, but obviously impressive enough to be used by the Washington Post). The Post report said the target was a Syrian facility officially labeled by Syria as an "agricultural research center." The attack was linked with the arrival of a ship in a Syrian port carrying goods from North Korea labeled as "cement." According to the Post's expert, it wasn't clear what the ship was actually carrying, but the consensus in Israel was that it was delivering nuclear equipment. Meanwhile, an unnamed source in The New York Times said the mission was indeed a reconnaissance flight tracking North Korean nuclear equipment. So, two of the major U.S. newspapers have both had similar leaks. This is clearly the official unofficial position of the U.S. government.

The problem with this theory is not with the idea that a North Korean ship might be carrying nuclear equipment to Syria. The problem is the idea that Syria would have a nuclear research facility smack on its border with Turkey. ...

Another leak, provided by Israel to the London Times, hinted that there were chemical weapons at the site, and that the attack (note that this leak claimed there was an attack and not simply a reconnaissance flight) helped save Israel from an "unpleasant surprise." A sub-leak from the Israelis was that the target destroyed in the raid was a store of chemical weapons. So the Americans are talking about North Korean nuclear technology while the Israelis are talking about chemical weapons. Amos Yadlin, head of Israeli military intelligence, said that he would not discuss the matter, then went on to discuss it by saying that Israel now has the deterrent capability against Hezbollah that it didn't have in 2006. Perhaps the chemical weapons were to be shipped to Hezbollah?

The least credible story of the bunch, which came from the British paper the Observer, was that the raid might have been a dry run for an attack on Iran. That is of course possible, but we are having trouble understanding how flying to the Turkish-Syrian border would constitute a dry run for anything beyond flying to the Turkish-Syrian border.

We do not mean to be flip. We think that this raid or reconnaissance flight, or whatever it was, was important. It's importance was less about U.S.-Syrian relations than about Syrian-Turkish relations. ...

Since when do the Syrians trust the Turks enough to do anything important along the border? Since when do the Israelis have to do reconnaissance flights along the border? The Turks patrol that area pretty intensely. We had thought there was a strong intelligence-sharing program. Perhaps it's no longer a trusted channel? Of course, the Turks somehow might have been complicit in this.

The mystery is deep and we are baffled, but it does not strike us as trivial. Something important happened Sept. 6.

David Horovitz at the Jerusalem Post - September 16, 2007:

Amid reports in the American media that the alleged Israeli raid into Syria 10 days ago targeted a North Korean-Syrian nuclear facility, John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the UN, told The Jerusalem Post over the weekend that "simple logic" suggested North Korea and Iran could have outsourced nuclear development "to a country that is not under suspicion" - namely Syria. Tellingly, he added: "Why would North Korea protest an Israeli strike on Syria?"

Bolton suggested that Syria, which he said has long sought a range of weapons of mass destruction, might have agreed to provide "facilities for uranium enrichment" on its territory for two allied countries which are being closely watched for nuclear development.

Bolton spoke as American newspapers reported that the alleged IAF raid, over which Israel has maintained official silence, was aimed at a facility in northern Syria close to the Turkish border, and that the strike may have been linked to the recent arrival of a shipment from North Korea, labeled as cement, but believed by Israel to contain nuclear equipment.

According to The Washington Post, Israel had been keeping a watchful eye on the facility, which is officially characterized by the Syrians as an agricultural research center. The offending shipment arrived at the Syrian port of Tartus on September 3, three days before the reported IAF raid.

The IAF strike took place "under such strict operational security that the pilots flying air cover for the attack aircraft did not know details of the mission," The Washington Post said Saturday, quoting a top US expert who it said had interviewed Israeli participants. "The pilots who conducted the attack were briefed only after they were in the air," the paper quoted him as saying.

The Times - September 16, 2007:

IT was just after midnight when the 69th Squadron of Israeli F15Is crossed the Syrian coast-line. On the ground, Syria’s formidable air defences went dead. An audacious raid on a Syrian target 50 miles from the Iraqi border was under way.

At a rendezvous point on the ground, a Shaldag air force commando team was waiting to direct their laser beams at the target for the approaching jets. The team had arrived a day earlier, taking up position near a large underground depot. Soon the bunkers were in flames. ...

Andrew Semmel, a senior US State Department official, said Syria might have obtained nuclear equipment from “secret suppliers”, and added that there were a “number of foreign technicians” in the country.

Asked if they could be North Korean, he replied: “There are North Korean people there. There’s no question about that.” He said a network run by AQ Khan, the disgraced creator of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, could be involved.

But why would nuclear material be in Syria? Known to have chemical weapons, was it seeking to bolster its arsenal with something even more deadly?

Alternatively, could it be hiding equipment for North Korea, enabling Kim Jong-il to pretend to be giving up his nuclear programme in exchange for economic aid? Or was the material bound for Iran, as some authorities in America suggest?

According to Israeli sources, preparations for the attack had been going on since late spring, when Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad, presented Olmert with evidence that Syria was seeking to buy a nuclear device from North Korea.

The Israeli spy chief apparently feared such a device could eventually be installed on North-Korean-made Scud-C missiles.

“This was supposed to be a devastating Syrian surprise for Israel,” said an Israeli source. “We’ve known for a long time that Syria has deadly chemical warheads on its Scuds, but Israel can’t live with a nuclear warhead.”

Strategy Page - September 18, 2007:

September 18, 2007: Israel has still not admitted what it's F-15s were bombing in northern Syria on September 6th. Syria complained bitterly, the media speculated and the government said nothing. This caused a spike in popularity polls for Israeli officials, which may have been the main objective of the operation. There are plenty of targets in Syria, like shipments of weapons for Hizbollah, or new Russian anti-aircraft missile systems. Nuclear weapons were also mentioned. But it's all speculation, and all that Israeli officials will talk about is the Israeli ability to hit their enemies anywhere, at any time.

UPDATE: Israel Matzav - citing, of all people, Josh Landis - believes the evidence favors a chemical rather than a nuclear target. Includes maps.

In from the Cold - September 17, 2007:

Not surprisingly, the raid was cloaked in secrecy and deception--hallmarks of past Israeli military operations. Only three members of the Israeli cabinet knew about the raid in advance --Prime Minister Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister. To deceive the Syrians, Mr. Olmert reduced Israel's troop presence along the Golan Heights in the days before the attacks, suggesting an easing of tensions between the two countries.

Obviously, the Israeli strategy worked; the operation caught Damascus by surprise (there was apparently little reaction from Syria's air defense system); the Israelis inflicted serious damage on the target, and both the F-15I crews and the commandos escaped unscathed. Syria has threatened retaliation, but its options are limited. The odds of Syrian aircraft penetrating Israeli airspace are slim, and a missile strike would invite a devastating response, as would an attack across the Golan Heights.

Still, the Times article leaves a number of questions unanswered. We'll begin with the issue of Israel successfully penetrating Syria's air defense system. While it's happened before, the Syrian air defense network was supposedly re-organized after an embarrassing 2003 Israeli strike against a Palestinian terrorist camp near Damascus. During that raid, the Israelis reportedly exploited confusion over geographic responsibilities within the Syrian defense system. The most recent mission--which involved a much deeper penetration into Syrian territory--suggests that (a) Bashir Assad's air defense network hasn't improved, or (b) the Israelis are using more advanced measures to target the system, and render it impotent.

Then, there's the matter of that commando team. If the Times is correct, those personnel arrived in the target area a day ahead of the fighters, inserted (we'll assume) by Israeli Sea Stallion helicopters. As we've noted before, the successful infiltration of a commando team by helicopter, deep into Syrian territory, is an impressive operational feat, indeed. But getting the commandos (and their choppers) all the way across Syria (and back again), undetected, represents a monumental challenge, even for a state-of-the-art military like the IDF.

That raises another interesting question: where did the commandos and their choppers come from? The target also lies relatively close to Syria's northern border with Turkey, which just happens to have close military ties with Israel. It would be far easier for those Sea Stallions to infiltrate from an airfield or forward operating base in Turkey, rather than making the long trip across Syria. So far, little has been said about a possible Turkish "role" in the enterprise, despite the fact that the IDF has long trained in that country, and members of Turkey's armed forces routinely utilize Israeli military facilities.

There's also the possibility that the commando team staged from a location in Iraq, as suggested by the Times:

According to Israeli sources, American air force codes were given to the Israeli air force attaché in Washington to ensure Israel’s F15Is would not mistakenly attack their US counterparts.

But that's something of a red herring. The "codes" refer to signal transmitted by the Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) transponders carried by all combat aircraft. But in a combat environment, attacking aircraft shut off their IFF before entering hostile airspace. Israeli jets attacking that Syrian "agricultural" complex (presumably) weren't transmitting an IFF "squawk." Moreover, the target is apparently far enough from the border that an accidental "intrusion" into Iraqi airspace--and targeting by U.S. jets--was a remote possibility, at best. And, the Israelis knew that our fighters wouldn't respond to an incident that was clearly within Syrian territory, and posed no threat to our own forces.

So why did the Israelis have our IFF codes? There are several possibilities. First, there's the slimmest of chances that the commando force staged from one of Saddam's old airfields in western Iraq. However, the chances of that happening are virtually non-existent; in today's Middle East environment, the U.S. can't afford to provide direct support to an Israeli strike on a Muslim nation.

On the other hand, there a better chance that the U.S. would allow a crippled Israeli aircraft to land at an airfield in western Iraq that is under our control. Al Asad Airfield, located 180 miles west of Baghdad would be the most likely candidate for a divert base; obviously, an emergency landing at Al Asad or any other U.S.-controlled airfield would be facilitated by transmitting the right IFF squawk, and preventing intercept by our fighters. There's also the possibility that Israel has made "other arrangements" within Iraq, and needed the IFF codes to simply allow transit through U.S.-protected airspace.

While the aircraft used on the Syrian raid--the F-15I--is no surprise, the inclusion of a ground team (or, at least their stated purpose) is a bit curious. As we noted last week, Israel's most advanced jet fighters are trained (and equipped) for employment of JDAM, which relies on satellite guidance. In many respects, that weapon would be a better choice for targeting the Syrian storage bunkers, since the guidance kit can be attached to virtually any type of conventional bomb (including penetrators), eliminating the need for ground designation. The presence of that commando team suggests that Israel was concerned about potential GPS jamming, or (more likely) the commando were dispatched to retrieve nuclear material from the site--a claim repeated in the Times' article.

Via Kesher Talk, 4 Mile Creek:

It's King Khalid Military City, most commonly referred to as KKMC. It's not too easy to see (click on picture to enlarge), but there is a nice airfield off to the upper right. Built by Vinnell Corp, and designed to land, re-arm and refuel F-15s. KKMC is in northern Saudi Arabia, and was designed to help protect the northern Saudi border from Iraq incursions. I've been there occasionally on a training missions. It's in the middle of friggin' nowhere, and the airfield is to the southwest of friggin' nowhere (the picture is inverted, north is to the bottom of the picture, add'l picture with a little more detail here).

If the Israelis were to disguise their airplanes, and fly in there sometime around 2000 hrs, then capture the airfield personnel, it would be several hours before anyone knew something was going on. Even with the Royal Saudi Land Forces barracks just down the road in the main part of KKMC, it would be several hours after that before the Royal Saudi forces could mount an attack. With only one easily defended road from KKMC to KKMC airfield, it wouldn't be that hard for the Israelis to beat off an attack. It would then be at least six or seven hours (and more likely 24 hours) after that before any sort of Saudi reserve ground force could be mustered from outside of KKMC and brought to bear. As with the airfield, there is only one road into KKMC proper (it's the road visible coming into KKMC from the left), and it wouldn't be too tough for a light battalion to control that high-speed avenue of approach for at least another several hours. All total, the Israelis would have anywhere from 12 to 24 hours to use a well stocked, well built airfield from which their F-15s would be able to be refueled, re-armed and launched to strike nearly anywhere in Iran. Israeli F-16s could fly CAPs over the airfield to deter any Royal Saudi Air Force response coming up from PSAB, and even if the RSAF did attack, their training is mostly in air-to-air combat, not air-to-dirt bombing in support of a ground attack. Add in a few SHORAD sites around the airfield, and the RSAF would likely not affect much of the fighting on the ground.

After using it for maybe a day, the Israelis could load up and quickly cross into Iraqi airspace and hotfoot it home at low level.

Morning Report: September 16, 2007

Strikes and counter-strikes in the Middle East. The Israelis bombed something in Syria - but what it was, and whose it was, remain a puzzle. Other news items remind us that idiots remain in plentiful supply.

Israel, Syria, Iran, and the US. Rick Moran at American Thinker:

Originally, it was thought the Israeli planes that penetrated deep into Syrian territory didn't drop any ordinance at all. The Syrian response was mild, to say the least.

Then a story leaked that the IAF was targeting a shipment of arms and supplies destined for Hezb'allah. This was eminiently plausiable given Syria's long time support for the terrorist group.

Now the Sunday Times has a story that the real target were bunkers filled with recently acquired nuclear materials and hardware from North Korea:

Ten days after the jets reached home, their mission was the focus of intense speculation this weekend amid claims that Israel believed it had destroyed a cache of nuclear materials from North Korea.

The Israeli government was not saying. “The security sources and IDF [Israeli Defence Forces] soldiers are demonstrating unusual courage,” said Ehud Olmert, the prime minister. “We naturally cannot always show the public our cards.” A tale of two dictatorships: The links between North Korea and Syria The Syrians were also keeping mum. “I cannot reveal the details,” said Farouk al-Sharaa, the vice-president. “All I can say is the military and political echelon is looking into a series of responses as we speak. Results are forthcoming.&rdquo

The official story that the target comprised weapons destined for Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shi’ite group, appeared to be crumbling in the face of widespread scepticism.

So, was it a dry run for Iran? Here's Israel Matzav: 'The London Sunday Observer (al-Guardian's Sunday edition) claims today that the alleged Israeli raid on Syria ten days ago was a dry run for an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. If that's true, it's good news, because, as I have already noted, the Syrians actually had better air defenses than the Iranians have.' Go to Carl's post for the whole thing. Also via Israel Matzav, John Bolton thinks Iran and North Korea outsourced nuclear development to Syria. Also Iran-related, a top US Government official is talking about Iran ... but it's not Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this time, it's Defense Secretary Robert Gates, which ought to tell you something right there.

The Bush administration is committed, for now, to using diplomatic and economic means to counter the potential nuclear threat from Iran, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday.

Speculation has persisted about preparations for a military strike against Iran for its alleged support for terrorism and its nuclear program.

Gates, in a broadcast interview, said he would not discuss "hypotheticals" about what President George W. Bush "may or may not do."

He's talking about those rumors that the US may have selected as many as 2000 (that's two thousand!) targets inside Iran:

Senior American intelligence and defence officials believe that President George W Bush and his inner circle are taking steps to place America on the path to war with Iran, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt.

Pentagon planners have developed a list of up to 2,000 bombing targets in Iran, amid growing fears among serving officers that diplomatic efforts to slow Iran's nuclear weapons programme are doomed to fail.

Pentagon and CIA officers say they believe that the White House has begun a carefully calibrated programme of escalation that could lead to a military showdown with Iran.

Now it has emerged that Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, who has been pushing for a diplomatic solution, is prepared to settle her differences with Vice-President Dick Cheney and sanction military action.

The Telegraph article states that 'A prime target would be the Fajr base run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Quds Force in southern Iran, where Western intelligence agencies say armour-piercing projectiles used against British and US troops are manufactured.' Go to the link for the whole thing.

Iranian-American target of anti-Muslim crime. Fox News: 'MATINECOCK, New York — An Iranian-American nail salon owner was brutalized by robbers who called her a "terrorist" and scrawled anti-Muslim messages on a mirror in her shop, the victim and police said. "I'm in shock," victim Zoreh Assemi told WNBC-TV after the attack Saturday morning, a web of cuts and bruises visible on her face, arms and hands. She said she felt "terrorized ... not by American people, but by a very small group and prejudice. And it hurts." Nassau County police, who were treating the attack as a bias crime, had made no arrests early Sunday and were appealing to the public for tips.'

Iraqi, US forces detain two suspected terrorist leaders. Going after the real terrorists, Iraqi Special Operations forces, aided by US Special Forces, captured two enemy commanders. MNF-Iraq:

Iraqi Special Operations Forces, with U.S. Special Forces as advisers, detained a extremist militant company commander and a cell member Sept. 15 during an operation in Ad Diwaniyah.

During the operation, enemy fighters initiated an attack on Iraqi and U.S. Forces with an improvised explosive device, small arms and machine gun fire. The forces returned well-aimed and proportional fire to eliminate the threat, killing three enemy fighters and wounding several others.

Intelligence indicates the extremist commander leads more than 20 enemy forces, who are responsible for launching improvised explosive device, explosively formed penetrator and indirect fire attacks against Iraqi and Coalition Forces in the area.

On July 5, the group attacked the Coalition base in Ad Diwaniyah with indirect fires. Further intelligence reports that the group has launched more than 450 rocket and mortar attacks on the base during the past four months.

Iraqi surge against Al-Qaeda. Gateway Pundit, as always, is on top of things:

Thousands of Sunni Arabs in Iraq's Anbar province vowed on Friday to avenge the death of Reesha, a key US ally who was killed in a suspected Al-Qaeda bomb attack.(AFP)

The New York Sun wrote that the actions of Abu Risha taught Al Qaeda that its barbarity would only earn greater enmity from their new Sunni foes. That looks to be correct even more so after Abu Risha's murder by Al Qaeda.

In response, Al-Qaeda of Iraq declared war on the Sunnis on Saturday. ...

Commentary. Here's The Long War Journal on the Iraqi surge:

Camp Victory, Baghdad Province: With the surge in full swing in southern Baghdad province, the increase in US forces has been matched with an unexpected surge in Iraqi forces – local Iraqi residents who have organized to defend their communities from al Qaeda in Iraq and Shia extremist groups such as the Mahdi Army and the Special Groups.

In southern Baghdad province, the establishment of the Concerned Citizens, also referred to as Iraqi Police Volunteers, began to take hold in late spring. Initiated by tribal connections from Anbar province, the movement mimicked the rise of the Anbar Salvation Council in some respects, but differed in many ways. This bottom up process of local reconciliation consists of both Sunni and Shia tribes wishing to restore a measure of peace to the war torn regions south of Baghdad.

To adjust to the growing, grass roots movement spurred by the Anbar Awakening, Multinational Division Baghdad, under the command of Major General Rick Lynch, established a Reconciliation and Engagement Cell in early May. The cell is tasked with devising strategies to get the local communities to provide for their security and become part of the reconciliation process, then to see these strategies through at the tactical level.

The cell, which is comprised of three officers, Lieutenant Colonel Gloria Rincon, Major David Waldron, and Major Scott Matey, work long hours putting together the pieces of a complex puzzle, which includes learning the tribal relationships and influential sheikhs, demarking the geographic and sectarian boundaries. The region is crisscrossed with “sectarian fault lines,” where often a road or canal literally divides communities. To do its job, the reconciliation cell works closely with the intelligence, plans, operations, and economic development sections of Multinational Forces Central, as well as the line companies in the field. ...

This is great news for everybody except the terrorists and their sympathizers. Big Pharaoh reports that the Daily Kos has hit a new low, even for them:

Stupidity gets on my nerves but my blood really boils when this stupidity is mired by ugliness. This is what Daily Kos does to me. These guys simply make me want to vomit.

The last things I expected is them gleeing over the death of Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, the Anbar tribal leader who was killed by Al-Qaeda for leading the region’s oppositon to these mass murderers. These people at Daily Kos just make me sick. Isn’t so hard to differentiate between their hatred to George Bush and a man who lost his life simply because he doesn’t want Al-Qaeda to rule his area. What did you want Risha to do? Join Al-Qaeda and kill American soldiers?

Well, yes, obviously.

Scott Thomas Beauchamp and Source Biases

Except for linking to Greyhawk's post, I've put off commenting on the business of Scott Thomas Beauchamp's article "Shock Troops" at The New Republic, because I wanted to wait until I had a good clear picture of the incident. Now that TNR has issued its response to the various questions raised about the article, I think it's time to offer a few thoughts of my own.

1. How do you determine a source's biases? That's the topic of a popular post that appeared here at DiL last year. I think the Scott Thomas Beauchamp affair is a good opportunity to review some of the ideas I presented there.

First, there's the business of anonymous (or in the case of "Scott Thomas", pseudonymous) sources. Neo cited a 2003 Poynter report - written by 18 prominent journalists in the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal - offering some suggestions for improving credibility when citing anonymous sources. Here are the Poynter report's recommendations on "attribution and sourcing", in the report's own words:

Our responsibility to the reader is to make clear where we got our information.

We focused on two areas: anonymous sources and attribution in narrative reconstructions.

The use of anonymous sources should be a last resort when the story is of compelling public interest and the information is not available any other way. A supervising editor must know the source’s identity.

We also agreed that:

• Anonymous sources should be encouraged to go on the record.

• We should weigh the source’s reliability and disclose to readers the source’s potential biases.

• The more specific we can be in describing the source in the story, the better.

• Anonymous sources should not be used for personal attacks, accusations of illegal activity, or merely to add color.

• The source must have first-hand knowledge.

• Journalists should not lie in a story to protect a source.

Journalists may not be able to avoid the use of anonymous sources in such places as Washington, D.C., but they should constantly challenge their use. The use of anonymous sources should never be routine.

News wire services should share their standards for the use of anonymous sources and aspire to the ones articulated above.

Narratives are a form of vicarious experience and put readers at the scene. We admire the power of this technique but remain concerned about making clear to the reader where the information comes from. Use deft textual attribution, detailed editor’s notes, or the newspaper equivalent of "footnotes."

The attribution in the narrative should ensure the reader knows the information is verifiable.

Well, I don't think there's really anything for me to add here, do you? In my post on source biases, I went on to suggest some factors to consider; these included:

- the source's ideological orientation
- the source's financial interests
- debts and favors
- role of the publisher or broadcaster
- the source's experiences and perceptions
- psychological factors

I also listed some factors that I think are important in determining the reliability of a piece of information:

- internal consistency
- external consistency
- insider details
- dialog and dissent
- nuance
- the human voice

For full explanations of what I mean by these terms, please go to How can you determine a source's biases? And keep them in mind as you read the rest of this post, and as you continue following the Scott Thomas Beauchamp / TNR affair.

2. Beauchamp wasn't twisted by war - he was twisted to begin with. We've already established that Scott Thomas Beauchamp is an asshole. In fact, he should probably be listed in the Wikipedia article on "asshole" ("this article may require cleanup"), but that's outside the scope of this discussion.

What is important, though, is TNR's admission that the famous (or infamous) story of Beauchamp mocking the burned and disfigured woman - with which Beauchamp begins his article - did not take place in Iraq, but in Kuwait:

The recollections of these three soldiers differ from Beauchamp's on one significant detail (the only fact in the piece that we have determined to be inaccurate): They say the conversation occurred at Camp Buehring, in Kuwait, prior to the unit's arrival in Iraq. When presented with this important discrepancy, Beauchamp acknowledged his error. We sincerely regret this mistake.

So "Beauchamp acknowledged his error," did he? Well that was mighty damn brave of him. "When presented with this important discrepancy, Beauchamp acknowledged his error." Those ten little words just tell such a story, don't they? Oh, but I'm ranting. Let's move on.

The point is, this isn't a minor detail, it's the focal point of the article. Here, I'll let TNR tell it:

Beauchamp's latest, a Diarist headlined "Shock Troops," was about the morally and emotionally distorting effects of war.

And again, that's right out of the magazine's own statement on the controversy. But the incident with the burned woman in the mess hall didn't have anything to do with "the morally and emotionally distorting effects of war", did it? Because no such "effects" could be present in someone who had not, as yet, been exposed to war.

Here's Michael Goldfarb at the Weekly Standard:

So just to be clear, the first line of the original piece stated that Beauchamp "saw her nearly every time I went to dinner in the chow hall at my base in Iraq." That turns out now to be a blatant lie--and one that Beauchamp stuck with after THE WEEKLY STANDARD first asked Foer to reveal the base at which this incident occurred. Further, TNR says in this new statement that "Shock Troops" "was about the morally and emotionally distorting effects of war." But now we find out that Beauchamp hadn't even gotten to Iraq when this incident allegedly took place. He was, in fact, a morally stunted sadist before he ever set foot in Iraq.

None of this would have come to light, of course, without the pressure and scrutiny of the military blogging community. This post at the Standard has a roundup of some of the important ones. Better yet, just go to Michael Goldfarb's main page (or his July 2007 archives) for links to the milbloggers. Kudos to Goldfarb for the hard work he's been putting into this - and of course, kudos to the milblogging community for knowing what questions to ask.

And it was the milbloggers who pinned down STB and TNR on the disfigured woman in the messhall incident. When presented with this important discrepancy, TNR acknowledged its error.

UPDATE: Right now there are a couple of new threads emerging which - if they pan out - look very bad for STB and TNR. But I haven't got anything I consider solid enough to post about yet. I'll write a new post when I've got something.

Military Progress Unwelcome at Yearly Kos

Ezra Klein at The American Prospect blog:

AN ODD CLOSE. As the Military and Progressives panel came to an end, a young man in uniform stood up to argue that the surge was working, and cutting down on Iraqi casualties. The moderator largely freaked out. When other members of the panel tried to answer his question, he demanded they "stand down." He demanded the questioner give his name, the name of his commander, and the name of his unit. And then he closed the panel, no answer offered or allowed, and stalked off the stage,

Wes Clark took the mic and tried to explain what had just occurred: The argument appears to be that you're not allowed to participate in politics while wearing a uniform, or at least that you shouldn't, and that the questioner was engaging in a sort of moral blackmail, not to mention a violation of the rules, by doing so. Knowing fairly little about the army, I can't speak to any of that. But it was an uncomfortable few moments, and seemed fairly contrary to the spirit of the panel to roar down the member of the military who tried to speak with a contrary voice.

In the Comments, a response to JoeCHI produces this memorable quote:

"Since when is it a progressive principle to act as the "thought police"?"

Shut up, troll. you have become tiresome.

Lethal and Non-Lethal Action

Psyop Cop at OpFor:

World War Two was won through sheer industrial might and brute force. It was the conventional warrior’s wet dream and something that will probably never be seen again (and thank God for it).

The War on Terror is something entirely different. Inasmuch lethal action has a role to play (because, as they say, “some men you just can’t reach”), non-lethal action has to be the driving force in this war. Otherwise, logic demands that you must wipe out vast swaths of population to convince them they’re wrong and we’re right (essentially the driving strategy behind WW2). ...

What's on Psyop's mind? This article -
Ahmed al-Shayea renounces terrorism:

The last time Ahmed al-Shayea was in the news, he was in the hospital at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, being treated for severe burns from the truck bomb he had driven into the Iraqi capital on Christmas Day, 2004.

Today, he says, he has changed his mind about waging jihad, or holy war, and wants other young Muslims to know it. He wants them to see his disfigured face and fingerless hands, to hear how he was tricked into driving the truck on a fatal mission, to believe his contrition over having put his family through the agony of believing he was dead.

At 22, the new Ahmed Al-Shayea is the product of a concerted Saudi government effort to counter the ideology that nurtured the 9/11 hijackers and that has lured Saudis in droves to the Iraq insurgency. ...

Ahmed concluded that “There is no jihad. We are just instruments of death.”

Psyop continues:

The trouble is that, in the Arab world, you cannot communicate with another person without referencing Islam. It is as much a part of those people’s culture and mindset as oil is a part of the ground there. And, by simply refusing to play, the Army allows the extremists to dominate the field and convince the fence-sitters that Allah commands them to go and kill Americans and those who support them. Without another opinion to listen to on the matter, the issue is pretty much decided for them.

A low literacy rate contributes to this. It is not unlike the Catholic church in Europe during the Middle Ages. Liturgy was in Latin only, as was the Bible. Because the local priest was the only man who could speak or write Latin, he could pretty much tell the people whatever he wanted and, because it was the “church” speaking, it was the truth. Burn a heretic, send your kids on a crusade, give me money… you get the idea. Imams in many of the towns and villages across the Arab world have that same power.

Convincing detainees (or EPWs or whatever you want to call them) of the wrongness of their actions can be done. This story proves it. However, it has to be done through the venue of Islam and Arab culture, not the progressive, western, Christian way of doing things.

Instead of locking ‘em up and throwing away the key, which will ultimately NOT pass a Constitutional litmus test, they could be turned and then let loose to spread their new ideology.

Meanwhile, another battle on the ideological front goes down in Britain, reports the Counterterrorism Blog:

In yet another landmark legal case in the United Kingdom regarding Internet-based terrorism, a judge in London has sentenced a group of five British-born youngsters to a total of 13 years in prison for conspiring to use the web in order to accumulate vast amounts of terrorist propaganda in hopes of eventually traveling to Pakistan and joining Al-Qaida's forces there. The convicted defendants--Mohammed Irfan Raja, Usman Malik, Aitzaz Zafar, Awaab Iqbal, and Akbar Butt--were all between the ages of 17-21 and had made contact with each other through an Internet chatroom. In explaining his decision, Judge Peter Beaumont admonished the defendants: "Each of you is British. You were born here, your families lived here, you went to school and university here, you hold British passports. You live under the protection of its laws, which give you freedom of speech and religious observance, yet each of you were prepared to break its laws. Why? Because in my judgment you were intoxicated by the extremist nature of the material each one of you collected - the songs, images and the language of violent jihad - and so carried away by that material were you that each of you crossed the line. That is exactly what the people that peddle this material want to achieve and exactly what you did... To stop them and you and to protect this country and its citizens abroad, a message has to be sent."

Speaking of messages, M. Zhuhdi Jasser of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy will be on the air in Arizona tonight. Here's the release:

M. Zuhdi Jasser, AIFD Chairman will be a guest today with William Wolf on "Middle East Radio Forum" on KKNT 960AM from 12PM-1PM PST. They will discuss Islam vs Islamists. Topics will include the controversial PBS documentary (see www.freethefilm.net ) which is set to appear locally on Channel 8 KAET on August 14, 2007 at 10 PM and other national and global issues related to the topic of Islam and Islamism.

For those outside Arizona, the program can be heard online at:

http://www.middleeastradioforum.org

Jasser sounds a cautionary note in this NRO symposium on the apparent erosion of support for suicide terrorism in the Muslim world:

This week’s Pew study results are dangerously oversimplified. Improvements in economics and moods in the developing world are in no way reason enough for the sharp decline in support for suicide bombing. The recent 45-doctor plot in London and Glasgow told us that much. For now, it is not only too early, but downright irresponsible to have a collective sigh of relief.

As we have often seen, Pew avoids the why. In their latest report, they again ignore the most central global question: Islamism and its conflict with America and the West.

What if, in fact, the general support for the tactic of terror was decreasing simply because the Islamist enemy was beginning to achieve their ideological goals in their native countries? What if the Islamists were actually sensing a general global retreat of the uniquely American ideologies of pluralism?

Terror is only a means to the ends of political Islam. If political Islam is on the rise, doesn’t it stand to reason that apologetics for terrorism may then actually decrease?

Certainly freer markets, economic growth, and education may ultimately drive Muslim populations away from autocracy and corruption. But to where will it drive them? What alternative Muslim narratives are available in this war of ideas? With the current American mainstream-media (MSM) distractions, Islamists are free to control Arab and Muslim media alongside their dictators and monarchs and spread political Islam in the Middle East and in the West.

Our private and governmental resources have yet to hardly focus on the anti-Islamists and anti-Wahhabist Muslims. The Bush administration and MSM would similarly rather avoid any critical ideological engagement of Islamist movements around the world. Our public diplomacy has actually turned into “Islamist facilitation.”

Manifestations of Islamist fascism (i.e. terrorism) may wax and wane depending upon how threatened the Islamist ideologues are with extinction. The underlying disease — political Islam— however, will never go away without a direct ideological counter-jihad and counter-Islamism from within the faith. ...

Muslim reformer Irshad Manji is doing her part. Here's an excerpt from an e-mail conversation:

"I'm an Iraqi agnostic that lives in the UAE. I was part of an online community where everybody was free to share his ideas. Until I started talking about the Israeli-Arab conflict. I said that Arabs were making a lot of massacres, as well as the other side. I was insulted and kicked out.

After that, a lot of users asked me make another free Arab forum. The forum is now in the design phase. I have a handful of thinkers, believers and non-believers. I am now looking for Arab Israelis who can give their side. I grant full freedom of speech, providing that everything is supplied with evidence. Looking forward your help, Irshad." - The Free Arab

NOTE: Irshad put The Free Arab in touch with with another Arab dissident, who wrote this to him:

"In agreement with what you said, here are only some examples of Arab/Muslim atrocities committed against our own which we are too proud to admit:
Pakistan’s General Yahya Khan slaughtering Bengali Muslims in 1971.
Iraq’s Saddam Hussein slaughtering the Kurds and Iranians using chemical weapons.
The Taliban slaughtering Shi'a Hazaras, committing war crimes comparable to the Serbs killing the Bosnians.
Jordan’s King Hussein and Pakistan’s General Zia ul Haq slaughtering Palestinians during Black September.
Syria’s President Hafez al-Assad slaughtering 40,000 Muslims and leveling the city of Hama.
The Amman bombings of November 2005 when Zarqawi even proudly claimed responsibility for the attacks.
On-going ethnic cleansing in Darfur...

Remarks. Some men you just can't reach. But there are some people who can be reached, and that's where the real action is in this war.

Mark Daily: Why I Joined the Army

Lt. Mark Daily (1983-2007):

About me:

Why I Joined: This question has been asked of me so many times in so many different contexts that I thought it would be best if I wrote my reasons for joining the Army on my page for all to see. First, the more accurate question is why I volunteered to go to Iraq. After all, I joined the Army a week after we declared war on Saddam's government with the intention of going to Iraq. Now, after years of training and preparation, I am finally here.

Much has changed in the last three years. The criminal Ba'ath regime has been replaced by an insurgency fueled by Iraq's neighbors who hope to partition Iraq for their own ends. This is coupled with the ever present transnational militant Islamist movement which has seized upon Iraq as the greatest way to kill Americans, along with anyone else they happen to be standing near. What was once a paralyzed state of fear is now the staging ground for one of the largest transformations of power and ideology the Middle East has experienced since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Thanks to Iran, Syria, and other enlightened local actors, this transformation will be plagued by interregional hatred and genocide. And I am now in the center of this. Is this why I joined? Yes.

Much has been said about America's intentions in overthrowing Saddam Hussein and seeking to establish a new state based upon political representation and individual rights. Many have framed the paradigm through which they view the conflict around one-word explanations such as "oil" or "terrorism," favoring the one which best serves their political persuasion. I did the same thing, and anyone who knew me before I joined knows that I am quite aware and at times sympathetic to the arguments against the war in Iraq. If you think the only way a person could bring themselves to volunteer for this war is through sheer desperation or blind obedience then consider me the exception (though there are countless like me). I joined the fight because it occurred to me that many modern day "humanists" who claim to possess a genuine concern for human beings throughout the world are in fact quite content to allow their fellow "global citizens" to suffer under the most hideous state apparatuses and conditions.

Their excuses used to be my excuses. When asked why we shouldn't confront the Ba'ath party, the Taliban or the various other tyrannies throughout this world, my answers would allude to vague notions of cultural tolerance (forcing women to wear a veil and stay indoors is such a quaint cultural tradition), the sanctity of national sovereignty (how eager we internationalists are to throw up borders to defend dictatorships!) or even a creeping suspicion of America's intentions. When all else failed, I would retreat to my fragile moral ecosystem that years of living in peace and liberty had provided me. I would write off war because civilian casualties were guaranteed, or temporary alliances with illiberal forces would be made, or tank fuel was toxic for the environment. My fellow "humanists" and I would relish contently in our self righteous declaration of opposition against all military campaigns against dictatorships, congratulating one another for refusing to taint that aforementioned fragile moral ecosystem that many still cradle with all the revolutionary tenacity of the members of Rage Against the Machine and Greenday.

Others would point to America's historical support of Saddam Hussein, sighting it as hypocritical that we would now vilify him as a thug and a tyrant. Upon explaining that we did so to ward off the fiercely Islamist Iran, which was correctly identified as the greater threat at the time, eyes are rolled and hypocrisy is declared. Forgetting that America sided with Stalin to defeat Hitler, who was promptly confronted once the Nazis were destroyed, America's initial engagement with Saddam and other regional actors is identified as the ultimate argument against America's moral crusade. And maybe it is. Maybe the reality of politics makes all political action inherently crude and immoral. Or maybe it is these adventures in philosophical masturbation that prevent people from ever taking any kind of effective action against men like Saddam Hussein.

One thing is for certain, as disagreeable or as confusing as my decision to enter the fray may be, consider what peace vigils against genocide have accomplished lately. Consider that there are 19 year old soldiers from the Midwest who have never touched a college campus or a protest who have done more to uphold the universal legitimacy of representative government and individual rights by placing themselves between Iraqi voting lines and homicidal religious fanatics. Often times it is less about how clean your actions are and more about how pure your intentions are. So that is why I joined.

In the time it took for you to read this explanation, innocent people your age have suffered under the crushing misery of tyranny. Every tool of philosophical advancement and communication that we use to develop our opinions about this war are denied to countless human beings on this planet, many of whom live under the regimes that have, in my opinion, been legitimately targeted for destruction. Some have allowed their resentment of the President to stir silent applause for setbacks in Iraq. Others have ironically decried the war because it has tied up our forces and prevented them from confronting criminal regimes in Sudan, Uganda, and elsewhere. I simply decided that the time for candid discussions of the oppressed was over, and I joined.

In digesting this posting, please remember that America's commitment to overthrow Saddam Hussein and his sons existed before the current administration and would exist into our future children's lives had we not acted. Please remember that the problems that plague Iraq today were set in motion centuries ago and were up until now held back by the most cruel of cages. Don't forget that human beings have a responsibility to one another and that Americans will always have a responsibility to the oppressed. Don't overlook the obvious reasons to disagree with the war but don't cheapen the moral aspects either. Assisting a formerly oppressed population in converting their torn society into a plural, democratic one is dangerous and difficult business, especially when being attacked and sabotaged from literally every direction. So if you have anything to say to me at the end of this reading, let it at least include "Good Luck"
- Mark Daily

Who I'd like to meet:
MUQTADA aL-SADR: CLICK CLICK BOOM

Remarks. 2nd Lieutenant Mark Daily was killed in action in Iraq on January 15, 2007. This posting - written shortly before his death - is a little old, but I think it's worth re-posting now.

Why Liberals Should Love the Iraq War

Bryan at Hot Air:

The truth is, liberals should love the war in Iraq, since it’s being fought to a great extent along notions of soft power over hard power. It’s much less about firepower than it is about the power of basic services to bring about peace. It’s about bringing “good government” and civil liberties and human rights to war torn Baghdad, a city that has seen none of those things in decades, if ever. At least half the war’s most vital action takes place in meetings like this one in Al Salam to discuss works projects, school re-buildings and urban renewal. It’s all part of the complex mission in Iraq, a mission that morphed from the defeat of an entrenched dictatorship to one focused on building a civil society that will survive after the Americans leave. CPT Bare and the rest of the US military are trying to build a nation that Saddam Hussein broke, both by keeping the Iraqi people under his boot heel for 35 years and by leading it into needless wars to establish himself as a latter-day Nebuchadnezzar. In Saddam’s rule by fear, the basic idea of taking care of one’s own community broke down in favor of the daily need to survive by avoiding attracting the Baathist government’s attention. The Americans have to remove the fear that built up over decades, restore hope and help the Iraqis rebuild their lives and nation. Hard power may clear and hold Baghdad’s rough streets, but it will be CPT Bare’s relentless application of soft power that will win the war.

This is how the conflict in Iraq will be won, or lost. There won’t be an Iwo Jima flag raising to signal that the fight has turned in our favor for good. The American people will have to understand and accept that little things like a neighborhood council finding a contract garbage collector, and the re-opening of an elementary school, represent the end state of a community’s recovery and therefore signal battlefield victory. Our leaders in Washington need to teach us that that’s what victory in Iraq looks like. Our press needs to show us that that’s what our troops are doing in between the brief and often bloody firefights, but instead it’s busy picking up where the insurgencies leave off in delegitimizing the US mission and the Iraqi government. Peaceful, secure communities have no interest in the militias and despise the al Qaeda terrorists and insurgents. Beyond the fighting of Haifa Street, the war in Iraq will be won or lost by injecting good government in place of Saddam’s republic of fear. Which is why liberals, if they understood the ground realities of the war in Iraq, should embrace it instead of incessantly demanding retreat and defeat.

HT: Wizbang.

Now It Can Be Told

[When this post first appeared, I failed to give proper attribution for the photographs. That omission is hereby corrected. Many thanks to Katja.]

This week I'm getting estimates from movers for my upcoming move to San Francisco, which should be completed within the next two or three weeks. I'm looking forward to spending more time with my son - who's ten and a half now, and who lives with his mom (my ex) in SF - and to catching up with some very old and dear friends who live in The City. But my most immediate reason is a relationship with a woman I've known since we were in high school - and who was my sister's best friend. Here's the story.

My sister and I grew up in a liberal, intellectual family in suburban Connecticut. Stephanie was a year and a half younger than me, and extremely gifted as a writer of poetry and prose. We were very close and hung out with a group of nerdy friends.

Among Stephanie's friends was a girl named Georgianne, who was Stephanie's age and attended school in the neighboring town. They graduated in 1982. I never really got to know Georgianne but I secretly had a mad crush on her. She and Stephanie soon became best friends, and were roommates in San Francisco from 1985 until Stephanie's death in 1992. (A brief chronology of Stephanie's life may be found here.)

Last Thanksgiving weekend, Georgianne - who's now making a living as an artist in San Francisco - contacted me about an idea I'd mentioned to her a couple of years earlier, that is, getting together to do a tribute site for Stephanie. We did, and Stephanie Online is the result.

But the new site wasn't the only result. As we got to know each other, we hit it off and found we had a lot in common. In a moment of romantic abandon last April, I threw caution to the wind and penned an old-fashioned love letter. And the result of that, dear reader, is that we are now lovers.

So now you know, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story. I won't bore you with any more details, but I can tell you that this wonderful woman was worth the wait.

Here are a couple of pictures of us on my most recent visit to San Francisco. Thanks to Katja Leibenath for these wonderful photos. (The pretty one is Georgianne. I'm the one with facial hair.)





It's been fifteen years since Stephanie left us. Georgianne and I talk of her often; I like to think her spirit is still present with us now.

I am ridiculously happy.

The Children's Room - Georgianne Fastaia

Bay Area artist Georgianne Fastaia will be at the opening reception tonight for her new show at I Spy Gallery in San Francisco. (Full disclosure: the artist is a very special person in my life.) Georgianne's new show "The Children's Room" is - as the title suggests - children-themed and reflects her love of children. Here, I'll let the release tell the rest:

I SPY GALLERY presents The Children's Room, a solo exhibition of mixed media oil paintings by Georgianne Fastaia, inspired by the upcoming birth of the artists' first child. In these beautiful paintings, Georgianne has collaged wallpaper onto the canvas, to create texture and abstract the visual plane.

OPENING RECEPTION Friday July 13 6:30-9:30
I SPY GALLERY 1845 Market @ Guerrero

The Children's Room runs from July 10th-August 11th

Come to the show if you can possibly make it. Her work really is amazingly beautiful. To learn more about Georgianne and her art, pay a visit to her homepage: Georgianne Fastaia - Badfishstudios.

Mad In America (Independence Day post)

"They keep sending our jobs away."

Here's a great song from the brother of an old friend of mine.

Troubled by the rising tied of offshoring around the country musician and CSEA Local 2001 member Steve Dube put pen to paper and wrote an anthem called “Mad in America” for his band ETX.

[Dube]: The song was written as a protest basically, just because of all of the engineering and IT jobs going away.

Dube is now trying to bring that protest via song to music lovers everywhere by landing on ITunes top 100 on July 4. How? Dube is calling on everyone to log into their ITunes player on the Independence Day holiday and download the song. If enough people do it, the song should hypothetically find a place among the Avril Lavignes and Fall Out Boys of the world.

[Dube2]: We’d like to just get a grassroots effort going where the song could become like an anthem for American workers just to show Washington in an election year that we don’t want the middle class to go away and we want jobs in the United States.

I've just downloaded the song to iTunes and I can personally and enthusiastically recommend it. "Mad in America" raises important questions about globalization and the outsourcing of American jobs. And it's a great song, too.

My friend Chuck comes from a family of patriots and is also a musician, having performed with Leigh Gregory. Go have a listen to Mad in America by ETx - and you can download the whole thing for just 99 cents.

Terrorists: Stupid or desperate?

The latest round of arrests of terrorist wannabes has turned up several well-educated doctors among the suspects; Michelle Malkin is among many offering comments. As a number of folks on the anti-jihad side have said, this should, once and for all, put to rest the leftist claim that terrorists are underprivileged victims who act out of economic desperation.

But intellectual honesty demands that we also re-examine the claim, made by Michael Ledeen and many others, that

the British terrorists don't seem very smart. Or technologically ept. They failed to blow themselves up in London, despite having lots of martyrdom gear. They failed to crash through barricades at Glasgow Airport, and you'd think they might have noticed the obstacles. Beloved Allahpundit remarks, in response to stories suggesting that the failed terrorists came from al Qaeda and received guidance from Iran, that "a joint AQ-Iran operation would have run a lot more smoothly and packed a considerably bigger wallop that these attacks did."

Did you really expect high-I.Q. martyrs? Maybe clever killers, but somebody should have pointed out--long since--that it isn't very smart to blow yourself up. And for the most part, the martyrs haven't come from the best-educated sectors of the population.

Ledeen's statement may be right "for the most part", but clearly the latest batch of martyrs did come from "the best-educated sectors of the population".

So let me point out a couple of obvious facts from daily life: (1) There are different kinds of smart. (2) Smart people can do stupid things. Now, armed with this pair of truisms, I'm going to offer a couple of comments on the recent UK bomb attacks.

First, the general IQ and education level of a terrorist is immaterial. What matters from an operational standpoint is his effectiveness as a terrorist. And by all accounts, the latest British terror plot was hopelessly inept. A couple of recent articles at Stratfor (subscription) give an idea of just how many things these folks did wrong:

Because propane tanks were also used in these attempts, some media sources have suggested the devices were similar to those employed by Iraqi insurgents. While propane is sometimes used in IEDs in Iraq, the devices deployed in the United Kingdom have little in common with Iraq's powerful car bombs, which always involve the use of high explosives. The use of gasoline rather than high explosives to ignite the propane also suggests that the plotters had little experience in designing effective IEDs. [A commenter on a Strategy Page forum notes that propane tanks are equipped with a safety valve to prevent them from exploding.] ...

The bombers likely had no access to explosives or the precursors needed to make improvised explosives such as TATP, which suicide bombers used against London's transportation system July 7, 2005. As a result of the long struggle with Irish Republican Army bombers and the 2005 London bombings, British authorities tightly control the sale of precursor chemicals that can be used to manufacture improvised explosives, and require that nitrogen in fertilizers be diluted. These measures, combined with stepped-up vigilance and public consciousness regarding bulk sales of acetone and peroxide -- two ingredients in TATP -- might have frustrated the latest attackers' efforts to acquire such materials.

Plus, it's hard to blow up your intended target with a car bomb when the car gets towed. But that's another story.

What I am getting from these reports is that the bombers may or may not have been the sharpest tacks in the drawer, but they didn't know jack diddly about making bombs. That's the part that counts. And they were inept because the talent pool of the jihadis has been seriously depleted.

That's the good news; the bad news, of course, is that we can't rest on our laurels. Michael at ThreatsWatch ties it all together:

-The aspiration for large attacks continues unabated. This is knowledge that is readily shared and easily available, and while desire still appears to exceed expertise, the learning curve is flattening and recall that blind squirrels still find nuts.
-Again: Their words resonate. The latest reports indicate that at least in Glasgow the perpetrators are not downtrodden who are acting out in response to real or perceived oppression. If the professional-class is beginning to join in the fight, the learning curve for truly deadly action flattens even more.
-Surveillance is not a failsafe. Domestic intelligence and security in the UK can be tough; tougher in some ways than we can implement here. Yet indications are that the perpetrators were already under scrutiny and were able to move freely even after the first attack. Restricting the liberty of the malicious is a much lesser evil than relieving life from the innocent.
-Their motives are clear. The second bomb in London was reportedly placed to target first responders; a tactic employed by those we are fighting “over there” is moving steadily westward. Now would be a good time to start sharing battlefield lessons-learned with the defenders of our respective homelands.

I've been talking here about the jihadist enemy and about the nuts-and-bolts business of bombmaking. On another front, The Belmont Club has some wisdom on the danger of underestimating the enemy:

The political elite of the West, like the last Manchus, may be have become so blinkered by the long assumption of guaranteed superiority that they have become slower than their supposed inferiors at grasping the possibilities of the 21st century warfare. Methods like cyberattacks and a networked insurgency are pitted against limited pacifist and diplomatic responses often with great effectiveness. Putin's audacity may be vile, but it displays an imagination and a willingness to step outside the beaten track so rare among Western leaders. Just as courtiers in Beijing once thought the Chinese emperor had the right to rule 'all under heaven', today the Eurocrats may believe "International Law" composed in Brussels actually governs the fate of nations and trumps all national political decisions. They forgot what the authority to rule 'all under heaven' was actually based upon though Putin has not.

What does this mean for the future? In From the Cold weighs in on coming attractions.

The idea that Al Qaida wants to stage another 9-11-style "spectacular" is hardly new. A number of analysts who focus on the terrorist organization have long held that Al Qaida needs another, large-scale success, for a variety of reasons. As Strategy Page recently observed, the organization is hardly on a roll; the number of operations tied to the group has declined, and the U.S. troop surge in Iraq is forcing Al Qaida to devote even more resources to that battle--resources that might otherwise be allocated to attacks in western Europe and the United States.

But the bad news doesn't end there. The loss of Al-Anbar Province as a logistical and operations base was a devastating set-back for Al Qaida. Recent clearing operations in Dialya are having a similar effect, and American troops are now moving into terrorist safe-havens in the Baghdad security belts. While the battle for Iraq is far from won, Al Qaida finds itself increasingly on the defensive, in areas that were once terrorist sanctuaries. ...

Collectively, these defeats suggest a terrorist network that has--at best--achieved a bloody stalemate with the U.S. and its allies. And, that lack of progress affects other, critical aspects of terrorism, most notably fund-raising. Successful tracking and prosecution of Al Qaida's financial networks has made it more difficult for sympathizers to give money to the cause, and with the lack of apparent progress in Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa and elsewhere, some donors may be re-thinking their contributions.

In short, Al Qaida is in something of a squeeze, and needs to prove that it's still capable of large-scale, "spectacular" attacks on the enemy's home soil.

Wretchard points out that 'By bringing to the forces of radical Islam to battle, the US has achieved two things. First, as American critics have pointed out, it has allowed al-Qaeda to generate recruits to fight America. But secondly -- and this is the neglected half of the equation -- al-Qaeda's operations have allowed America to get recruits to fight them. The Anbar tribes are a good example. But from the Horn of Africa to France -- Sarkozy's election being another example -- al-Qaeda's activities have generated a backlash of their own.' In other words, the West may be learning the lessons of the Manchus after all - at least on some fronts. But let's get back to the business of our suicide doctors:

Al-Qaeda's attack cell in Britain consists of 3 or more medical doctors. Using doctors as suicide bombers, as one of the Glasgow attackers appeared to be, especially when they are "cleanskins" is an incredibly wasteful given their potential as sleeper agents or leaders. There cannot be so many al-Qaeda agents that they can afford to use neurologists as hit men. This suggests a certain level of eagerness to make a big publicity splash that is inconsistent with confident strength.

What emerges from all this is that it is not the terrorist pawns who are "driven by desperation", but their masters. They may have started out rich, but they're ending up poor. They may dream of domination, but they are awakening to a fight for survival. They may wish to be "top dog", but ... well, I'll let Strategy Page tell it:

Al Qaeda is having some success in the Western media, and among Moslems living in Europe. But those expatriate Moslems are handicapped by many of their brethren who are not enthusiastic about Islamic terrorism. The police get tips, make arrests, and al Qaeda losses a few more true believers. Al Qaeda is desperate for another highly visible attack in the West. Many such operations are apparently being planned, but by amateurs who can get no help from al Qaeda experts. Most of al Qaedas traveling experts are dead or in prison. Inspiring amateurs to attempt poorly planned attacks, like the recent ones in Britain, only discourage recruits. That's because another bunch of wannabes get sent away for long prison terms. This is a fate worse than death for Islamic terrorists. There are no 72 virgins in Western prisons, unless you consider the fact that you may be turned into one.