The Army Times reported this week that the 2011 pay raise proposed by Big O is 1.9%. It's the lowest since 1962 (for those playing at home, that was the Kennedy Administration), and will likely be approved by congress.  Considering what our country is asking of the military these days, I don't see this as a particularly gratifying move on the administration's part.

PolitiFact tracks Big O's campaign promises kept.  A left-wing blogger argued with me that Big O actually has a "pretty good" track record on keeping his campaign promises. The point is arguable on several fronts and I won't belabor the point here. I'll leave it up to you good folks to decide that yourself.

As the Army Times (inexplicable playing apparent apologist for the administration) mentioned Big O did promise to "bring military pay more in line with the private sector, as measured by the employment cost index".  Of course as even PolitiFact points out, by law, "the president is required to increase military pay at the rate of the index". They concluded that makes it "essentially a meaningless promise". Except in this case, if he only increases it that much, it's a slap in the face. I suspect military members who took this promise at face value thought - as I am sure this "promise" was designed to imply - that military pay would be increased to be on a par with our civilian counterparts.

Well, it is a change, I suppose.

My sweetie gave me a beautiful set of eyepeices for the telescope, complete
with a set of filters for my birthday! A 6.4mm, 9.7mm, 12.4mm, 15mm, 32mm
and 40mm plus a 2x Barlow, Very cool!

About 1730 got to observe the moon at twilight, waxing, about 50% just
before the clouds obscured everything. The Sea of Serenity was especially
stunning! tried out the new ND filter which made a huge difference
especially on the moon at twilight.

Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan was sent to the soldiers in my unit - and presumably others to read and comment on.  It is an interesting read, and my thoughts are below the cut.  I'd be interested to know what you all think about this.

( Read more... )

 

    

I don't have much time.  I got home tonight at about 2230 and rushed my telescope out to see what I could see.

Although still in need of closer calibration in daylight, and unacclimatized to tonight's cool damp air, I was still able to observe the Great Nebula in Orion; M42 / NGC 1976 and Mars! 

W00t!

I need to start keeping a notebook.

We're hearing a lot about intelligence failures of late. Okay, since 9/11,
actually. There is a lot of blame to go around certainly and much of the
blame does indeed lay at the feet of the IC. But let's be clear about some
things.

First off, 9/11, the underwear bomber, as was Pearl Harbor were indeed
intelligence failures. I personally subscribe to the following definition
of intelligence failure:

*A systemic organizational surprise resulting from incorrect, missing,
discarded, or inadequate hypotheses.*

Contrasted to an error in intelligence:

*Factual inaccuracies resulting from poor or missing data.*

(Definitions paraphrased from Dr. Rob Johnston, Ph.D. in *Analytic Culture
in the United States Intelligence Community: An Ethnographic Study*)

We had the data, but the IC failed either failed to adequately report the
information, or those higher up failed to comprehend the importance of the
intelligence and neglected to even form a hypothesis.

For the record, I was pleased to see Big O finally take responsibility for
something and not pass the blame off to the previous administration, or
someone else. This was indeed his responsibility as President. The
intelligence failures which led up to 9/11 resulted from a lack of analytic
ability in the IC due to the gutting of the community in the 1990's. We had
plenty of collection, but no one to look at the data who could turn it into
a hypothesis, let alone actionable intelligence.

Certainly after 9/11 the IC desperately needed to be reformed. We were in
bad shape, especially in the analytic community. Senior analysts were
cashiered out of the various agencies and services leaving only junior
analysts who tended to specialize and stovepipe information. That said, I
am not entirely convinced that standing up an entire huge bureaucracy behind
the ODNI was the answer. But it is what it is. I am also not a huge fan of
NCTC where much of the blame for the underwear bomber surely rests. The
concept of both the ODNI and the NCTC isn't bad, per se, but the execution
of both could be much better. However:

One must bear in mind the sheer volume of data, reports, and intelligence
produced every day. Hindsight is 20/20 and it is easy for someone to say
all the information was there and the IC should have connected the dots.
But should they have? Really? Intelligence analysis is not an exact
science. You never have all the data. You can never know everything,
especially someone's motivation. You can't be in someone's head and know
what they are thinking.

Add to this the fact that (as I am fond of telling my analysts),
intelligence analysis does not happen in a vacuum. it is a collaborative
effort regardless of what level that analysis is performed at. It is also
not an exact science. Intelligence analysis is as much art as it is
science. There is no button one can press to make an intelligence. It
simply does not work that way.

Should we have seen the underwear bomber ahead of time? Maybe. But the
real question should be; should we have been looking for Abdulmutallab at
all, and on that flight, on that day? I am certain that the individual
analysts a the various three-letter agencies did their jobs well and
reported what they had. Did any of them see a need to connect dots?
Unlikely. Why would they? Some things you simply cannot predict.

So here's the next question: How much intelligence should we collect at the
tactical level? i.e. should we impose a limit on "civil liberties" and
compromise people's so-called "right" to privacy and subject people to a
virtual strip-search? Here's your options:

- Maintain people's theoretical "right" to privacy (find that right in the
Constitution and we'll talk), their dignity and civil liberties people think
they are entitled to and continue with the current security standards. This
is a viable option if you are okay with the occasional bombing on an
airplane.

- Admit that people do not have a right to fly on an airplane, don't have a
right to privacy, and do what is needed to attempt to secure these forms of
transportation. This option will almost certainly result in the "scan of
the day" appearing on YouTube as well as a type of arms race between airport
security and terrorists. These security measures will certainly miss a few
hits as no system is perfect, but using these systems will drive refinement
of the systems. The more difficult you make it for the terrorists, the less
likely they are to attempt such methods, and in experimenting with new
methods to defeat security will, from time to time, result in failure ending
in the apprehension of terrorists caught in the act.

Deployments are good for some things.  My travel pay finally came through a little while back, and today, the fruits of that travel pay arrived.

I will be able to get back into my first real childhood love of astronomy.  My brand-new Meade 10" LX 90-ACF telescope arrived today!  w00t!  Everything seems in perfect order except that I forgot to buy batteries for the star finder.  Also it seems to have shipped without the mounting bracket for the finder scope.  Awkward, but (once I get batteries), the finder scope is handy, but not absolutely required.  I am so looking forward to many, many nights of getting re-acquainted with the sky.

We had a great long holiday weekend. It started on Wednesday when I picked
up the future son-in-law at Dulles for a visit. He's on leave between
returning from Korea and going to Ft. Sill, OK. Their plans are to have a
quick civil marriage in February during our DD's mid-tour leave so she can
actually get stationed with him when she comes back to the states this
summer. They want to have the actual ceremony at that time with my DW and I
officiating.

Anyway, the future SIL is a good kid. We had a great visit with him. I'm
glad we had a chance to meet him before they actually got married, and we
were able to get to him without our daughter there!

Anyway, Thursday we went to Stacey's for New Year's Eve. She invites us
every year and usually we are working, or I am downrange. This was the
first year we were actually able to go. Stacey's DH always has a good
bonfire (petrochemicals are usually involved) and fireworks at midnight.
We've been at their house for 4th of July, but never for New Year's before
this.

We reconnected with their friends as well. We don't get to see them very
often, and it was really good to see them again. Though I have to admit, it
has been so long since I have seen any of them, and especially their young
kids, that it took me a few minutes to sort them all out. Especially the
kids (and I am still not too sure about them). Stacey's boys shocked me, as
I haven't really seen them for at least a year and, though I had seen
photos, I hadn't realized how much they had grown in that time. The rest of
the kids I realized had been around three years since I had seen them, so I
was completely lost there. One of the other fun side-effects of being
deployed, I guess.

Other news, my laptop finally croaked completely. A hard drive reader is on
the way so I can recover my files. I ordered a new netbook so I can get
email while I am away from home. We played a lot of WoW and finally got one
of the other computers to load WoW so the future SIL could play as well.
Had some terrific Thai food Saturday as well as my DW's wonderful schnitzels
(there's leftovers if you stop by). We talked to our DD in Korea on New
Year's Day, and got the future SIL back to the airport on time Sunday.

Wedding planning continues.

Barnes & Noble wrote back about the advantages of the nook over the Kindle.
They sent me to what is essentially a FAQ page. Fair enough, they feel that
they have answered this question at length already. The link is below and
doesn't actually hold many surprises, except that their comparison is
slightly out-of-date as far as the Kindle is concerned. Also
understandable. Their answer was not "realistic and practical" as I had
asked, but I can't really fault them for directing me to a list of features.

I've noted these comparisons in the preceding posts, but it is good to have
the points straight from B&N as well. The main points B&N makes about the
nook over the Kindle is basically threefold:

- WiFi access with the nook, which is free at B&N. A nice feature, but is
only useful for shopping B&N books, since the nook has no browser. The
Kindle has a browser and surfs via 3G network about as good as an iPhone.

- The FAQ mentions "More than a million titles available" and "More than
500,000 free eBooks" as if they are two separate things. As I wrote
earlier, the only reason B&N claims "more than a million titles" be because
of the "More than 500,000 free eBooks". The free eBooks are also available
on the Kindle. Amazon currently lists over 400,000 Amazon titles
available. If you add in the "More than 500,000 free eBooks" that B&N
counts, the numbers are comparable.

- B&N also lists their "Color Touch Screen - 3.5" TFT Color LCD" which
replaces the Kindle's physical keypad. This is a great way to browse your
nook library by book cover. Nice feature, but that is all it does. It
does not do anything else. To me, while this is a nice feature, it's hardly
a Kindle-killer.

I've already talked about the other features such as SD Card use and all in
practical terms previously, so I won't re-hash all of that here. These are
just the high points as I see them. Something not mentioned in any one's
comparison however is Amazon's ease of e-publishing. A lot of writers now
publish via Amazon Kindle exclusively which gets a lot of unknown writers'
work out there where it might not otherwise be seen. Also Amazon publishes
blogs (like this one) for free, so there is the potential for more exposure
that way as well. Why would someone pay to read an otherwise free blog?
Well, a lot of us like to browse our favorite blogs while disconnected from
the collective, like while commuting. It's worth $0.99 a month to do this.

None of this to me is terribly compelling, and certainly not convincing
enough to E-Bay my Kindle and buy a nook. And taking into account the
instability of the nook/Android marriage, as well as other 1.0 issues with
the nook, I'll stick with my Kindle.

Here's the emails in question:

Dear Victor,

Thank you for your inquiry regarding nook, the worlds most advanced
eReader!

Please visit the following link to view the comparison between nook and
Kindle 2.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/compare/?cds2Pid=30195

We hope this information is helpful and we look forward to your next
visit

Sincerely,

Samantha
Customer Service Representative
Barnes and Noble
http://www.bn.com/

Original Message Follows:

These are some amazing photos.  We would have given anything for these photos during the Cold War.  Amazing stuff.



I found these on the abandonedplaces  community.  

Many more images on the Engligh Russia website.

I understand now that all this cold weather and such is the result of Global
Warming, and The Coming Ice
Age<http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/the_coming_ice_age.html>is
simply a symptom of overall "higher temperatures". I get it.

So when somebody meets all the red flag indicators of buying a ticket at the
last minute with cash, no luggage, is on watchlists and terrorist databases, comes out
of Yemen, boards a plane with explosives in his shorts, then only fails to
successfully execute his terrorist attack on the US due to technical
difficulties with his bomb, the system "worked", right? The attack was
"thwarted", wasn't it?

And Big O played golf.

No response yet from B&N on my question, but let me attempt to answer a
couple of questions myself. I should note also that there is a very fair
comparaison review on Kindle Nation Daily that I will post here also when I
can get to it. Unfortunately, the firewall here blocks my access to such
things, and I can't plug my Kindle in to the computer here to off-load the
article.

This is a pretty good comparison from
http://ireaderreview.com/2009/10/20/kindle-nook-comparison/ with some
comments of my own in brackes. As a Kindle owner, I have a clear bias of
course, which I readilly admit:


Let’s jump into a Kindle Vs Nook Review. Since the announcement of the Nook,
Kindle PDF support has been added, Kindle for PC has been released, and
Amazon have made other enhancements.

- Note: The Nook has sold out for Christmas. It won’t ship till February
1st so if you can’t delay gratification get the Kindle
now<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/b00154jdai?ie=utf8&tag=thrshoguideaa-20&linkcode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeasin=b00154jdai>.


*Kindle Vs Nook – Where Nook Wins*

1. Lending Books with LendMe – You can lend out your Nook ebook to a
friend for up to 14 days. They can read it on their iPhone, computer or
Nook. Publishers have the option to turn this off. *[actually, not all
publishers are on board with this. B&N also does not tell you that you
cannot use the book yourself while it is on loan, and there is a limited
number of times you can loan a book]*
2. The Nook to Nook lending feature is really cool if it means you can
share with another Nook owner.
3. Nook works with Overdrive Library eBooks (range of eBooks at Libraries
is usually limited). Use Adobe Digital Editions to transfer to Nook.
4. 3.5″ Color Touchscreen to browse covers and navigate. *[but that is
all the color touchscreen is for. Cool, but not really all that useful]*
5. WiFi 802.11 b/g and Free WiFi in Barnes and Noble Stores – There is no
browser though.
6. Micro SD memory expansion slot. *[True, but I have 15 pages of stuff
on my Kindle TOC and I have never run into the memory limit. K1 has an SD
slot and I really didn't need that either. You can re-download contenet you
have bought from Amazon, so there is no real need to keep 1500 titles on
your Kindle]*
7. ePub Support.
8. BlackBerry, Mac Support. *[Also available on the Kindle]*
9. Custom Screensavers and other personalization like back covers.
10. Replaceable Battery.

B&N took their time and cherry picked common Kindle owner complaints i.e.
memory card, replaceable battery, and lending.

The big negative for B&N is that their main value proposition was the LendMe
feature and Publishers limited the feature.

Android has a lot of potential - However, the videos don’t show any special
use of Android. *[Also there have been many complaints of Android locking up
frequently on the Nook. Presumably they will stablize the OS at some point]
*

*Kindle Vs Nook – Where they Tie*

1. eInk Screen – They both have the exact same screen.
2. PDF Support – Kindle added PDF support on Nov 24th, 2009.
3. $9.99 Price on Bestsellers – Impressive that B&N matched this. Guess
they realize this is one of Amazon’s huge advantages. Note that apart
from the bestsellers Kindle prices are generally cheaper. So check the
prices for books you intend to buy at both Kindle Store and B&N eBooks
store.
4. $259 Price – Again, matching a significant Amazon Kindle
strength. Note: Amazon has consolidated Kindles into the International
Kindle and cut its price to $259.
5. Will Nook have frequent free book offers like Kindle does? It seems so
since the list of titles they are promoting includes books like Maximum Ride
that Kindle had for free.
6. PC Support – Kindle for PC has arrived with multi-touch goodness and
XP, Vista, and Windows 7 Support.

*Kindle Vs Nook – Updated Items*

1. You will be able to browse complete ebooks at B&N stores – 1 hour per
book per 24 hour period.
2. B&N’s claim of over 1 million books - most of these are free public
domain books from Google. *[This claim is extremely misleading from B&N.
It's not a million B&N titles. As stated, most of the million titles
are available free on the Internet as equally available on the Kindle and
are so common, Amazon doesn't even mention them] *
3. Battery Life of Nook is shorter - especially now that Kindle 2
International battery life with wireless on has been boosted 75%.
4. The Nook is more compact but the Kindle is thinner and lighter - Not a
very significant difference.
5. Audiobooks – Nook doesn’t support Audible audiobooks (only mp3s).
6. One Handed Use – The dual screens and the touchscreen makes one-handed
use a bit tougher – not enough to create a clear Kindle advantage.
7. Nook has covers from Kate Spade, Jonathan Adler, Tahari while Amazon
has Cole Haan. *[There are also a ton of very good third-party Kindle
covers listed on Amazon]*
8. Sharing of up to 6 Kindles on an account. Nook will also allow
multiple Nooks on one account – exact number is not specified.
9. Nook supports Sony Store eBooks – Not significant as Sony eBook Store
has high prices.

Not sure how much of a difference B&N’s retail presence will mean. They do
have 1,300 stores – You have to think that people will go online and read up
on the Kindle before deciding.

*Kindle Vs Nook – Where Kindle W**ins*

1. Cheaper Books – Books at B&N are often more expensive than in the
Kindle Store.
2. Free Internet. The Nook doesn’t even have a browser.
3. Speed – The Nook is sluggish as the Android 1.5 hasn’t been optimized.
This is the main disadvantage Nook reviews have pointed out. B&N have said a
fix for Nook’s speed issue will be released in January 2010.
4. Availability – Kindle is available now, Nook not till mid January.
5. Wikipedia Access. All over the world.
6. Read To Me Text To Speech Feature. *[This is actually a pretty cool
feature, more so than it sounds. Think if you are reading a book and need
to set down the Kindle to stir a pot or feed the baby. You can turn this on
and the Kindle will read to you. Male and female voices are available,
though they are a bit robotic.]*
7. Ease of Use. The switching between screens doesn’t seem that easy and
the font change menus were terrible looking.
8. International Availability – Kindle ships to 176 countries. 81
countries have WhisperNet and free Wikipedia.
9. A physical keyboard for people who prefer it over a touchscreen
keyboard.
10. More newspapers and magazines on the Kindle.
11. Nook has a 14 day return period and charges a 10% restocking fee.
Kindle has a 30 day return period and no restocking fee.* [How do you
restock an eBook anyway? And why would you charge for it? You can also get
free samples of all Amazon books - typically the first chapter or so.]*
12. *[I don't know if this is the same on the Nook, but you also get 14
days free trial for newspapers, blogs and magazines from Amazon.]*
13. *[I also don't know if this is the same, but it is not mentioned
here. Although the Kindle uses Whispernet - a free service from Amazon, and
I don't remember if B&N charges for its 3G - you can also use your computer
and download to the Kindle via cable if no Whispernet is avaialable.]*

With the International Kindle you can buy books outside of the US. With Nook
you cannot buy ebooks when outside the US. Newspapers and Magazines you can
– they are delivered free if you can find WiFi for your Nook.

*Conclusion – Kindle Vs Nook is exceedingly close, with Kindle a bit ahead*

If you need an eReader for Christmas the Kindle wins - Kindle at $259 with
Free Internet<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/b00154jdai?ie=utf8&tag=thrshoguideaa-20&linkcode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeasin=b00154jdai>is
an incredible value proposition.

Nook is sold out till Feb 1st and if you can wait till January – consider
which device suits your needs better and pick one.

- If Cheaper eBooks or Faster User Interface or Free Internet or the Read
To Me feature or International WhisperNet and Wikipedia is important to you,
then the Kindle is a clear winner.
- The Nook has memory extensibility, ePub support, WiFi, a replaceable
battery, Library eBook Support, and Mac and Blackberry support – making it
better for some people.

My review originally said -

We’ll just have to see Amazon’s next move. If they add PDF support they get
back their lead.

Well, Kindle did add PDF support.

- They also boosted battery life and added a manual screen rotation
feature.
- They also added Kindle for PC, and announced Kindle for Mac and
announced Kindle Folders.

That means the Kindle has narrowly edged ahead of the Nook. Check out my
painfully detailed Nook Vs Kindle
Review<http://ireaderreview.com/2009/11/24/nook-vs-kindle-review/> for
more
insights.

*Strategically – *

*Nook made a fatal mistake by announcing themselves so early. You finally
get an eReader that’s a real Kindle rival and you give Amazon a month and a
half to catch up? *

At the moment Kindle Vs Nook is extremely close with the Kindle holding the
edge. Do consider what factors are important to you and choose whichever
suits you better.

We made our way out of the house this weekend to Charlottesville.  Stopped in Barnes and Noble to buy, well, more than a few books.  It turns out they had a Nook e-book reader display.  I talked to the salesman a bit, but since we are a 3-Kindle family, we were not inclined to buy a Nook.  Still, he suggested I E-Bay my Kindle and buy a Nook.  I didn't want to get into which one was better, since I knew the answer and the store was crowded.  Besides, I believe that competition is a good thing.  Still, I felt that I should have asked him why I should switch, and I didn't.

So I signed on to the Barnes and Noble site this morning and emailed them to ask what, in real and practical terms were the advantages of the Nook over the Kindle.  So far, no response from B&N, but will let you know!

Snowed in today appropriately enough on the eve of the Winter Solstice.  We got about twenty inches of snow yesterday.  Wonderful, fluffy powder.  Beautiful, if only there was not so much of it.  Our driveway is such that we really can't shovel it, so when it snows like this, we are really stuck in the house even with 4WD vehicles.  No worries, we have the big survivalist pantry and Internet, so we are good-to-go.

We're not really doing anything special this year for the Solstice.  We're still pretty much on sabbatical anyway and are re-charging our own energies.  We expect to start back in having private rituals probably about Imbolc once our lives settle down a little more.

Speaking of which, we finally cleared up one mystery.  Our dd jrprongs is getting married!  She is currently stationed in Korea, and we received a phone call from her last weekend that they were on their way to the consulate in Seoul to get married - and that was the last we heard from her until last night.  It turns out the consulate does not do marriages on weekends, so they didn't get married, and her fiance' is already back in the states.  So they plan to do a civil ceremony on her mid-tour leave in February, then have the actual wedding when she rotates back to the states later next year.  So, not only do we get to go to our daughter's wedding next year, we're also officiating.  How cool!

That's about all the news that is fit to print today.  The snow was quite pretty, but has served its purpose.  Someone can now haul it off.

After much frustration, tears, pain and so on, DFAS finally settled my
travel from my Afghan mobilization. The mobilization was concluded in July
and all they were really settling was Meals and Incidental Expenses (M&IE)
from March-July at Ft. Meade. But they had a problem with my orders which
took me to and from Afghanistan. It seems that to DFAS, the orders were not
valid since two of the signature blocks did not have the title of the
signator on it. According to DFAS; "since the orders are not valid, it is
as if the travel never happened, so we can't settle the part after the
travel". So even though the orders did not actually relate directly to my
travel claim (and were apparently good enough to get me on a plane to
Afghanistan and back), if I never (in the universe DFAS exists in) actually
went to Afghanistan, DFAS can't settle a period after the deployment if said
deployment did not, in fact, occur.

Confused yet? I'll wait for you to go get a Tylenol.

Anyway, despite two other members of my team who had similar circumstances
and identical orders not having problems, leave it to me to have a
goobered-up experience with DFAS. I finally got the orders re-issued with
signatures acceptable to DFAS, and guess what? *They actually settled my
voucher!* The money is in the bank! Who would have thought?

Happy Solstice, one and all!

During my tour in Iraq in '06-'07, due to the ridiculous ROE, the lack of commitment back home, etc. it became painfully obvious to me that we, as a nation, were no longer in the war to win. We were in it not to lose. There is an important distinction there.

I made a somewhat cynical assessment at the time that all the Taliban and al-Qaeda needed to do to win the war was to simply cease operations for about ninety days. With the rampant apathy and indifference of the American people, they would be screaming for us to quit the war and come home.

Now we have given our enemies the motivation to do just that. The lie doggo until we pull out in 18 months. The 18 months is either chiseled in stone, or more like a guideline and is based on the situation on the ground, depending who in the Administration you are talking to. But given the superficial nature of politics, especially today where hope and appearances are more important than actual substance, if our enemies cease operations for 18 months, that means we won, right? Well, it means we didn't lose at least, um...right?

But the Taliban and al-Qaeda would declare victory, and would be unambiguous about it. And they'd be right. They will have won.

Victor Davis Hanson makes some very good points in his column. Not the least of which is the advice: "Talk always of winning, never leaving or quitting a war." To a warrior, there is only victory or defeat. One does not quit a war. "President Obama talked of many things in his recent Afghanistan speech. But he never once mentioned the words "victory" and "win." All that may seem like an out-of-date idea to postmodern Americans. But it is still a very real one to the premodern Taliban."

Opinion: Victor Davis Hanson: Americans deserve straight talk about war

By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted: 12/10/2009 12:00:00 AM PST

Has war been reinvented in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Sometimes it seems so, with the confusion that has come with the instant communication offered by the Internet, YouTube and satellite television — along with the new arts of precision destruction via high-tech weapons like drones and GPS-guided weapons.
In Afghanistan and Iraq, soldiers don't quite disappear into distant theaters abroad. Instead, they can e-mail or call their spouses from halfway across the world — often minutes before and after battle.
Nonetheless, many of the old rules still apply amid the modern fog of war.
Human nature, after all, does not change. And since the beginning of civilization the point of war has always been for one side through the use of force to make the other accept its political will.
We should remember that and get back to basics in Afghanistan.
Our leaders must remind us that war always offers only two choices — bad and worse.
We certainly could leave Afghanistan. That would allow the Taliban to return to power and host more radical Islamic terrorists.
Or we can persist in a dirty business of trying to stabilize a consensual government that will fight terrorism.
Both are dangerous enterprises: Withdrawal has long-term risks; staying may become hellish in the short-term.
We should also carefully define the enemy. Who exactly are we ultimately fighting in Afghanistan?
What unites al-Qaida and the Taliban is a shared murderous radical Islamic ideology, one antithetical to our own. Americans should hear that without politically correct euphemisms.
The president must explain what victory in Afghanistan means. Are we there until we destroy the viability of the Taliban and their terrorist allies — by fostering an elected government that will eventually secure the country? If so, we need to hear exactly that.
If not, the president can instead talk of deadlines, troop withdrawals, cruise-missile attacks and Predator-drone bombings — all efforts to now and then bother, but not end, the Taliban and al-Qaida.
War typically concludes when one side cannot fulfill its political objectives. Sometimes both sides quit, as in the Korean War.
But usually, as in Vietnam or the Balkans, violence ceases when one side is tired of losing more than it hopes to gain — and admits defeat.
If our leaders today could consult great generals like the Roman Scipio Africanus or William Tecumseh Sherman — who won what were once near-hopeless wars — they might receive the following advice:

· Prepare the public to shoulder human and financial costs.

· Be candid about why enduring the horrors of war now is preferable to risking even costlier violence later.

· Talk always of winning, never leaving or quitting a war.

· Have no apologies for crushing the enemy. The quicker the enemy loses, the fewer get killed on both sides.

· Inform the public of the other side's losses just as you do your own.

· And be magnanimous to the defeated — after the war, not during the fighting.

Nation-building may be fine and even necessary. But war always involves "a military solution."
How can there be economic prosperity or political stability if civilians are afraid of getting killed by enemy terrorists?
President Obama talked of many things in his recent Afghanistan speech.
But he never once mentioned the words "victory" and "win." All that may seem like an out-of-date idea to postmodern Americans.
But it is still a very real one to the premodern Taliban, who seem to understand the ageless nature of war far better than we do.


Victor Davis Hanson is a columnist affiliated with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Most of the decorations for Yule are up, b_anderson 's Paladin made 40th level, and I think I have caught up on some sleep this weekend. Tomorrow I start the whole thing over again. I hope the weather holds out this week.

Otherwise it's been pretty slow. I was interested to see how the Big O was going to spin justifying a war into a Nobel Lecture. The man is still quite the politician. Sadly, so many people still believe in him.

One of which is to post something soon. My new job with it's terribly long commute, blocks LJ at the firewall, so I cannot update during the week - I get home in time to go to bed usually.

However, I expect to have something to write about this weekend. Thanks for hanging in there.

Time Magazine this weeks has as its cover story Obama's speech at West Point. I haven't had a chance to read it yet as it came in over the weekend, and this was a Drill Weekend.

The cover states: It's His War Now as if to say now that he has made a decision, it is now his responsibility. I have news for Time. It was officially Obama's war in January. History will note, as will the memory of those who died while waiting for him to stop dithering, that a lack of decision is also a decision.

As to Drill Weekend: We don't know how the surge will affect us yet, but the Reserve Op-Tempo has been high and is expected to get higher. More on that later, but we all expect more deployments for MI soldiers in our immediate future. Woo hoo.

Unfortunately, the parallels are just too many. I am glad that someone is reporting that Gen McChrystal actually asked for 60,000, unlike what is reported in the mainstream media that he is "getting the numbers he asked for". Gen McChrystal I am certain was told what he could ask for in his meeting on Air Force One.

And when Der Spiegel isn't even on your side anymore, "Never before has a speech by President Barack Obama felt as false as his Tuesday address announcing America's new strategy for Afghanistan" you know something is terribly, terribly wrong in the liberal camps:

Lyndon Baines Obama takes Afghan reins | Washington Examiner

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I truly dislike dithering. Especially dithering only to decide on half-measures.

If you wanted a parallel to Viet Nam, you now have it.

And when you even lose the resolve of the Brits in the process...