Bath Time for Baby

While not his first bath, Kari has taken the first pictures of Parker having his bath. I have included those in todays post.

Thomas Ricks in the Washington Post

Thomas Ricks wrote an excellent article in today's Washington Post on the errors the United States made in fighting an increasing insurgent war. The article is entitled, "In Iraq, Military Forgot the Lessons of Vietnam." Mr. Ricks has an excellent history of understanding the situation on the ground in Iraq as he has travelled with US divisions from Baghdad to Anbar province and all around.

I highly suggest you take a moment to read his column for a brutally honest look at our current situation in Iraq.

Fortunately, it seems that civilian and military leadership might finally understand how to be successful in this war. The real question is, "Is it too late?"

Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia

My latest read takes me back to familiar territory. For whatever reason, I seem to have an unhealthy fascination with South and Central Asia. This book is a brief history of the most important events in South Asia starting about 1800 and going to about 1940, from the 3 British Wars in Afghanistan to the British colonization of India and intrigue in Nepal and Tibet.

I must say that I found the first half or so of the book to be most interesting. This is undoubtedly due to our current engagement in Afghanistan and history's guide to how to fight there. The lesson is basically: don't. In fact, it is remarkable how similar previous Afghan wars sound like our current engagement: military rolls through, destroying authority, sets up camp and has to deal with guerillas picking them off in an irregular war. Of course, our current situation does not exactly fit this mold, but it is pretty close.

I didn't find the colonial history of India as interesting. This could be that I am not as interested as I am in Afghanistan, but could also be how it was presented in this book. From what I understand, Peter Hopkirk's, "The Great Game," is better, but I found most of what I was looking for in this book.

I also found the genesis of the issues in Tibet to be quite interesting. It is quite interesting the historical fascination with a small nation within a nation.

My next book takes me back to Afghanistan, in a history professor's walk from Herat to Kabul. I should be reporting back shortly on that.

The Significance of the Death of Shamil Basayev

There are several major terrorist insurgencies raging in this world. In America, we are most familiar with Iraq and Afghanistan, however active battle is also ocurring in the borderland between Pakistan and India called Kashmir, Kyrgistan, China, Somalia, Uzbekistan and the Caucasus, just to name a few.

The battle in the Caucasus has also been one of the media. In 1994, after Russia collapsed and many of its border republics attempted to liberate themselves, Russia determined some were too valuable to lose. So they launched a brutal war in the breakaway republic of Chechnya. Historical perspective is probably important here. Chechnya, Dhagestan, Ingushetia and other republics in the Caucasus have never been willing Russian converts and have literally been fighting for dozens of decades.

So, along comes Russia attempting to recapture Chechnya, and in their infinite wisdom, they determined that mass urban aerial bombardment would be the most effective battle. You can imagine the goodwill that is generated when an imperial power drops enough bombs on a city of 600,000 (Grozny) that they destroy nearly every single building.

While the Chechnyan breakaway was originally a political maneuver, it quickly became a battle for everyones' lives. Enter Shamil Basayev (who took his name from one of the original Islamic warriors fighting Russia in the 1800's, Imam Shamil). He quickly determined that the way to engage the Russians was to make the fighting too painful, classical insurgency.

After the Russians ran out of buildings to bomb and the fighting was continuing, they had to insert ground troops to chase the insurgents up the mountains. The timeframe was ripe for Islamic insurgent operations as the fighting in Bosnia had just halted (temporarily) and al-Qeada was still trying to cut their teeth. So hundreds of Arabs went to fight against Russia in the Caucasus. This led to tens of thousands of deaths and Russia ultimately pulled back from Chechnya.

When Vladamir Putin was "elected" in 1999, he thought it an embarrasment that Russia had withdrawn from Chechnya and stepped up the fighting once again. Basayev also stepped up the fighting, including taking hundreds of hostages in a Russian hospital, taking hundreds of hostages in a Moscow theater (leading to the death of half of them when Russian commandos flooded the theater with some sort of mustard gas chemical weapon), and most recently, the Beslan school hostage crisis, which also lead to the death of hundreds of children and teachers when someone outside the school building decided to storm the booby trapped auditorium.

So, in my opinion, the death of this terrorist is to Russia what the death of al-Zarqawi is to the United States and the people of Iraq. It is also an important lesson on the actions which create terrorist/insurgent leaders. Shamil Basayev, may you also rest in anguish.

This is Not Trick Photography!

Parker has begun to smile, but only when he is sleeping. It certainly could be gas (he has no shortage of that). But he has been doing it for a couple of days and I had to get a shot.



This is the full monty of smiles. Somehow he wasn't too bothered by the flash. I wonder what he was thinking?

Mexico...On the Verge of Collapse?

Last weekend's presidential election in Mexico seemed to be close, but fair. The ruling party's Felipe Calderon by 0.50%. This amounts to about 400,000 votes. This result is in contrast to the "populist" movement otherwise sweeping Latin America.

However, even before the election ocurred, the challenger, Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, declared he would protest the votes if he lost. Consequently, he staged a rally in Mexico City, over which he was mayor, which drew a sizable crowd of about 1/4 million people. About 19 million people live in Mexico City and its suburbs.

The problem is that while the election was close, the monitors from the European Union have not noted any fraud.

Lopez Obrador will not be satisfied with any result, other than victory. Given the close results and the fact that his he has significant support, he and his suppporters could very easily overthrow the winning party, sending the country into chaos. Either way, the burgeoning "populist" movement in Latin America wins. If Lopez Obrador overthrows Calderon, the leftists will be in power. If chaos ensues, it is evidence of the weakness of the conservative platform.

This election may have very profound implicationsd on our own nation's security debates. If a revolution occurs in our neighbor to the South, will there even be a vocal opposition to closing the border?

On to More Serious Matters...

Recently, two very well publicized arrests of terror suspects have ocurred. The first was of a cell in Florida. Fortunately, they seem to have been fairly incompetent. The second happened just this week with the arrest of several alleged participants in a plot to more or less destroy the Holland Tunnel and flood all of Manhattan's financial district. This is certainly the more troubling of the two roll-ups. A computer science professor with grand illusions for the Muslim ummah to recapture Spain (al-Andalusia), was arrested in Lebanon forwarding maps and other communications to as-yet unnamed conspirators around the globe.

What does all of this mean? So far, we can say two things: our counterterror forces are not taking any information for granted; second, as bin-Ladin has stipulated, al-Qaeda is still trying to attack the United States at home. He alluded to as much in his recent eulogy of Abu Mus'ab al Zarqawi. And we also know that the plot they are trying to unleash will make September 11th pale in comparrison (see Ron Suskind's new book, "The One Percent Doctrine," which revealed a plot to gas the NY subways was withdrawn, ostensibly because it wouldn't cause enough damage).

They will be successful as some point in time, we just have to keep working diligently to prevent them.

Grandma and Grandpa Horn Come to Visit

Today, my grandparents were visiting from Coeur d' Alene, on their way to the rodeo near Sweet Home, Oregon. On their way in, they wanted to visit with their great-grandson, Parker. To be honest, I am not sure how many great-grandchildren they have, but it is probably more than 10. At any rate, it may go without saying, I have included pictures of their visit.

Enjoy!

Baby Annoucements

Soon, we will be sending out birth announcements, which Kari has designed. Our camera has had to cool down so that it can stop smoking from all the photos we have snapped recently, but above is the picture that will be on our birth announcemnts.

Otherwise, all is well. Kari is recovering well from her c-section and I have started back to work.