Attack Politics From the Right

In a recent Republican Presidential debate, Rep Ron Paul (R-TX), who is ostensibly running for the Republican presidential nomination made the point that America's foreign policy is behind this country being attacked on 9/11 and numerous other attacks around the world by Islamic terrorists.

With the debates in South Carolina, Rep Paul was the subject of cat calls from the audience and was all but booed. The other candidates took it upon themselves to distance themselves from the statement, including Rudy Guliani, who went so far as to call the explanation one of the most bizarre he had ever heard. Really, Rudy?

Moral support swarmed the President and the nation following the attacks of September 11, as well it should. It also should have, however, prompted a debate about why this group of individuals attacked us and had been attacking us for nearly 20 years.

When people tried to proffer this question, they were beaten down by people who thought they were trying to sympathize with the terrorists. This, however, is not about sympathizing with the terrorists, but rather a "lessons learned." And I am sure we did do it, after all former CIA analysts released books detailing this kind of thinking. But as a general public, we didn't learn any lessons, did we?

Of course, Rep Paul was correct. Our foreign policy decisions led to this attack. Did we deserve it? Of course not, but our decisions led directly to this outcome. What decisions are these? How about providing the country of Egypt with billions of dollars in military aid (fighter jets, tanks, guns, etc.) while Egypt tortures and oppresses its people. How about billions in military and foreign aid to Saudi Arabia, who does the same and is incidentally the largest supplier of oil to the world. How about funding both sides of the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980's? What about the 10 years of enforcing UN sanctions against Iraq through flying thousands of sorties in the north and south of the country? Or, the real bugaboo in the eyes of the Arabs: what about the tens of billions of dollars in military and economic aid to Israel, which has forced the Palestinians into refugee camps and attacked its neighbors such as Lebanon and Syria.

Of course, there is no mention of the reasons for any of these decisions or the alternatives, but that doesn't negate the fact that these are actual policy decisions which the United States has made in the Middle East. In fact, the West at large has played a significant role in the Middle East for decades, with many more examples of similar actions.

The real debate then is not why does the Middle East hate Britnet Spears or freedom or apple pie, but do these foreign policy decisions we make, predominantly for stability in the largest oil producing region in the world make sense? This is what Rep Paul was arguing, not did we deserve this.

One more Tooth

You may be able to see Parker's 5th tooth poking through in these pictures. What you probably can't see is his 6th tooth which is also coming in on top on the other side.

Enjoy!

Easter Toy

For Easter, Kari's sister, Kim got Parker a new stuffed toy. As of this last weekend, it has become his best friend.

May 10th, 2007 in Portland, Oregon

Today was an absolutely beautiful day in Portland. When I went into work this morning, the sky was clear and the air was brisk. As the day progressed, temperatures crept into the low 70's. Kari decided to take Parker for a walk since the weather was so nice.

Parker's First Birthday is Rapidly Approaching

With Parker's 1st birthday rapidly approaching, now is as good a time as any to add some more pics for the most photographed baby in the common era, and update his comings and goings for those who are interested.

Parker can now crawl the 40 yard dash in just over 4.6 seconds. Now only if we can get him to be able to catch a tight spiral, he has a place as a tight-end in the NFL. He now has 6 teeth. He is constantly pulling himself up on just about anything that is semi-immobile. His most recent actions are clapping, which started about 2 weeks ago and strumming his lip, both of which he can do on command. He even claps when he does things he shouldn't, which of course presents a dilemma. Does he associate his clapping (approval) with the naughty thing he just did (feeding the dogs all the crackers on his tray)? Who knows.

And speaking of food, Parker is still eating baby food (fruits and vegetables) and drinking formula. He has also supplemented this with a helping of Cheerios, which he is eating in the top picture, Cheese-Its (his Mother's favorite) and other baby crackers and dried corn kernals.

For the most part, he is extremely happy. He usually gets to sleep by 8:30 or 9:00 p.m. He has been waking up once a night typically and wakes up in the morning about this time (8:00 a.m.). He can stay awake until 11:00 to 12:00 p.m. and takes a nap for 2-3 hours. He usually takes one afternoon nap for about 30-60 minutes around 5:00 p.m. and has his bath around 7:30 to 8:00 p.m.

That's all for now.

I've Said it Before, and Now I'll Write it Down For the Sake of Prosperity

I believe that the 2008 Democratic candidate for President will be Barack Obama. I do not believe this because of his policy views or experience, nor his youthful good looks. However, unlike any candidate since President John Kennedy, Obama brings his vision of hope, his underdog status (underdog insofar as he would be the first black President versus Kennedy being the first Catholic candidate) and his youth to the table. These attributes appeal to alot of voters, especially those in my generation (X) and the younger generation (echo boom or Y), which vastly outnumber us.

In fact, one needs only read this article to see how serious this is:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1752381.ece

The essence of the article is that even many Republicans are defecting to the Obama camp. Of course, I am not sure Senator Obama will win the national election, but I think he has a good shot. And after briefly watching the Republican debates, I'd say it is better than 50/50.

This, of course, does not mean I will be voting for him. It is important that I agree with most of a candidate's policy stances, which I do not. Further, it would violate my recently adopted more of only voting for candidates with which I agree that don't have a chance in hell at winning. Of course, if the candidate passes the first objective (I agree with most of his/her policy stances), then s/he likely also has the second (absolutely, positively no chance to win).

But to those who doubt an Obama candidacy, I say do so at your own peril.

The Sling and the Stone by USMC Col Thomas X Hammes

"The Sling and the Stone" details the 4 generations of warfare from the use of the rifle to modern insurgent warfare, which the author details as 4th generation. It is not new, however. Col. Hammes traces the beginning of 4th generation warfare back to Mao Tse Tung.

As opposed to our involvement in World Wars I or II, 4th generation warfare is not about killing as many opposing forces as possible. In fact, it may not be about killing at all, but rather some political outcome the insurgent is fighting for. The insurgent knows that his military might, at least at present, is unable to match up with the counterinsurgent force. So the insurgent must do things that change the behavior of the decision makers for the counterinsurgent. This has more often than not, been voters.

4th generation wars are typically measured in decades, not months or years as a prior generation of warfare might have been. The bottom line is can the insurgent force wait out the counterinsurgent? Each situation is different, but one thing is for sure:

Any insurgent with half a brain will look at warfare over the past century and determine that counterinsurgencies are very difficult to fight and are the only way a small force can "defeat" a larger one, particularly with the technological advantage the United States maintains over nearly every potential threat. Furthermore, as long as the insurgent has more patience, the counterinsurgent will soon leave and allow the insurgent to make his political gains.

I believe that the primary message of this book is that our future enemies are not the large states we have fought in the past. While these are possible, we are far more likely to engage insurgencies. Unfortunately, our military establishment has been arming our forces not for counterinsurgency, but for high-technology conventional warfare. In other words, we are attempting to fight the last war, rather than trying to fight the next war. This can have devestating implications for our soldiers. For while there is a significant constituency for fighting the last war, namely the military industrial complex, and numerous billion dollar war fighting machines which can employ alot of Americans, the most important constituency we have as a nation is the tip of the spear, or the young men and women who put their lives on the line to fight out our politicians' battles.

I thought the book was fascinating and should be read by all policy makers before sending our soldiers into battle. After all, this is the kind of warfare we are likely to face for decades to come.