Ranting a la Chirac

Blogger and internet problems kept me from posting until today so sorry for the lack of posts last week.

We all know President Bush has a reputation, especially overseas, of being a raving belligerent lunatic, but it seems you have to be a Frenchman to really get it right. Last week, French President Jacques Chirac continued in the grand French tradition of de Gaulle and Mitterrand when it comes to refined bullying. Last I checked Bush has yet to respond to a disagreeable country by telling them they had missed an opportunity to shut up like Chirac did when those ingrate Eastern Europeans had the temerity to support America over France’s EU on Iraq. Bush spent 6 months at the UN trying to get it to enforce its own resolutions with Iraq before dealing with the problem, while Chirac didn’t bother informing the UN, EU, or NATO before he occupied the Ivory Coast to protect French cocoa interests. Even with terror attacks Bush does not rise to the level of Chirac who warned that any country that supported a terror attack on France would face nuclear retaliation. I could go on and on with past examples of Gallic brusqueness but there’s no need to with 2 new examples from just the last week.

The first example is Chirac’s comment that a nuclear Iran is no threat to anyone except maybe Israel (so of course, who cares). He further elaborated that should Iran nuke Israel, Israel would nuke Iran (so again, who cares). I know for many, especially in France, it must be calming to think that big bad scary Iran is only a threat to the Jews, but it isn’t. The effect of a nuclear Iran will be felt by everyone. For example, is Chirac still willing to contemplate any response, much less a nuclear response, to an Iranian backed terror attack in France? Part of the cause of high oil prices is the fear that the next terror attack or round of saber rattling may lead to a major war, the destruction of important oil fields, and/or the closure of the Straits of Hormuz by Iran. What will the price be when an emboldened nuclear Iran can more swiftly bring about each and is more resolute about threatening to do it? This is not to mention when a nuclear Iran takes advantage of this situation and demands tribute from the West. Even if Iran were only a threat to Israel and even if any exchange would result in both being wiped off the face of the planet I can’t imagine why anyone, especially a leader of a nation, would be blasé about that prospect. At the very least we are condemning around 80 million people to live under a nuclear sword of Damocles and at worst millions of them will die should the Ayatollahs be less rational than Chirac expects or should Iranian/Israeli nuclear command and control prove less than 100% reliable. Anyways, whatever the correctness, or not, of the comment, the point remains, Bush has never said oh well if N. Korea goes nuclear, if they nuke Seoul S. Korea will destroy the north. I intended to write a full post about this last week, but due to the aforementioned blogger/internet problems, Chirac was able to correct his statement before I could. He now says it’s not what he really thinks, and he thought he was off record anyhow. I think he initially said what he believes so I’ll stick with that.

Like all masters of their art, Chirac was merely warming up when he took on the little Satan of the Franco-Iranian world view. He was saving his best act for later in the week when he challenged le grande Satan, the United States. America’s economy is a serious threat to France and we aren’t going along with the left’s drive to use hysteria over “global warming” to drive the US economy into an equally uncompetitive position as Europe in general but France in particular. Whoops, I meant “global climate change”, the alarmists had to protect themselves against to their previous charge that we were heading for an ice age (due to man’s pollution of course) and against any future weather changes that may revive the ice age charge. Anyways, so we aren’t going along with the diktats of France’s EU and that won’t do at all for France. So, according to Chirac France will have the EU punish us with a carbon tax on our exports for not accepting their climate imperialism. The fact that France and the rest of Continental Europe have utterly failed to pay the price to live up to their own pollution treaties (newest I could find, EU-15 should be around 8.4 and dropping in 2003, not 8.6 and rising, as usual only the British are making the effort to meet their commitments) further shows that this is economic warfare plain and simple. Whether Chirac has the EU follow through or not is questionable since the already strained Continental economies would not likely take the combination of higher American import prices and reduced exports from the inevitable American retaliatory sanctions very well. Like with Chirac’s other comments, the key thing here is that this is a level of gall that we haven’t seen out of Bush.

While I do sometimes wish Bush would be the raving belligerent lunatic that much of the world imagines him to be, the fact that he isn’t and couldn't be highlights the difference between him and Chirac. Bush is the leader of the most powerful country of the world and Chirac is not. Bush must as the leader of the free world be far more circumspect than leaders of lesser countries who do not share his responsibility. It is easy to say that a nuclear Iran isn’t a big deal when it’s not your problem to deal with. Likewise it is a simple matter to demand your main economic competitor sign on to economy wrecking pollution treaties when you won’t abide by them and you wouldn’t have any impact of global pollution if you did. Bush on the other hand, as leader of the free world, if fully expected and does abide by agreements that we have signed. While it is to be expected that due to his lower position Chirac can get away with worse comments and threats than Bush can, it doesn’t mean Bush should drop to his level nor ignore them. As annoying and counter-productive as his comments may be, the Gallic flare with which Chirac delivers them can still be appreciated.

Israel Offers Many Important Lessons, We Should Pay Attention

Strategypage.com has a story about how Israeli tanks performed against Hezbollah last summer in Lebanon. That the Israeli tanks generally performed well despite a few hiccups is as I expected at the time (and can be seen in my July/August posts about the conflict), and isn’t really anything noteworthy. However, I think this story conveniently ties together three other common themes of this blog along with an important point. The first is the conversion of Western media outlets into propaganda way stations for the Islamists. The next is the importance of properly funding militaries so they can deal with both counter-insurgency and conventional operations. The third theme is the importance of learning from history, even very recent history, and other countries. Lastly, this further reinforces the fact that the tank is far from dead on the modern battlefield.

From the beginning of this war the media has to at least some extent been a propaganda organ for the Islamists. Even prior to the Afghan invasion we were fed a constant series of stories about the “Graveyard of Empires”, the “Invincible Afghan Super-Tribesman”, the “Ferocious Afghan Winter”, etc (all of which is highly inaccurate by the way). The media could contain its collective glee for all of three weeks before jumping to label the operation a “quagmire”. It is not then unexpected that the media leapt at the opportunity to do some cheerleading for the Islamists last summer. Hardly a news story was written that didn’t include some item about Hezbollah “gutting” the Israeli Defense Force or “unexpected/exceptional Hezbollah resistance”. We have a media today that takes the Islamist line about Hezbollah supermen who with their novel tactics and wonder missiles were destroying the IDF and runs with it without bothering with such a trifle thing as checking its veracity. Now it is becoming clearer as many like myself said last summer that Israeli thrashed Hezbollah militarily. As I pointed out in a post, despite Hezbollah having better training and weapons than past Arab opponents, excellent fortified defensive terrain, and a hamstrung IDF that wasn’t as ready as it should have been, Hezbollah still did no better than past Arab armies. During World War II the media did not fall for the similar German propaganda about the “Nazi Supermen” or with “Nazi Wonder Weapons”. The media ignored it even though it was technically correct if inflated. Many divisions of the Waffen-SS, along with some regular army divisions (the Paras, Groess Deutschland, Panzer Lehr, etc.) were a head and shoulders above any allied division in capability. Germany also had superior weapons in many areas like Panther and Tiger tanks, Me-262 jet fighter, V-2 rockets, SG-44 assault rifles and so on. Somehow the media managed to resist propagandizing this to the home front for the Nazis. Our media by comparison cannot muster the same strength (I know it takes a lot) to ignore the flat-out false propaganda of the enemy. Had the World War II media fallen for Nazi propaganda it would have been a tragedy, but the media falling for Islamist propaganda is simply a farce; one we could well do without.

Another problem this report reveals is what happens when a military is forced to fight a long counter-insurgency operation without a requisite increase in defense spending. Many of Israel's problems can be traced to the IDF simply being unfit for conventional operations due to years of reduced funding for training. Tank crews were utilized as security soldiers for Palestinian areas and thus were not riding around practicing in their tanks. According to the CIA World Factbooks, from 1999 (prior to the second intifadah) to 2003 Israeli military spending declined from 9.4% to 8.75% of GDP despite increased military operations. Between 2003 and 2005, as the intifadah was largely suppressed, defense spending declined much more rapidly from 8.75% to 7.7%. A shrinking defense share of the economy, increased operational tempo, and a focus on counter-insurgency combined to create a situation where the Israelis were not as ready as they should have been for Hezbollah’s challenge. The price for that was paid last summer, is being paid in the large increases now required in defense spending, and will be paid when a revamped Hezbollah returns (possibly controlling Lebanon). A further lesson being taught is that when you elect a leftist to run your country they will not take national security seriously. The rank military incompetence displayed during the actual fighting by Israeli Prime Minister Olmert is continuing after the war. Despite the obvious need to increase the defense budget following last summer's war, Olmert has decided against properly funding the IDF. The soldiers dying to keep Israel safe and free won’t get the extra money they need but the education colleges have had their cuts reduced (note how protective the Labor MK is over education spending, if only they were as concerned with mending the damage low budgets have done to the IDF). Despite claims by the leftist politicians that they take defense issues seriously, when it comes to defense or social spending they will always go for the latter regardless the situation.

A favorite theme of mine is the importance of learning from historical and current mistakes of other countries. Otto von Bismarck made one of my favorite quotes regarding this, “fools learn from their own mistakes, I learn from others’ mistakes.” It’s not like we haven’t ignored Israeli's dearly paid for lessons before. Prior to the Iraq war, if I recall correctly, Israeli officers went to the Pentagon to teach us what they learned about modern counter-insurgency operations. I had expected this since Israel had mountains of information to share and we would need it in post-war Iraq. The program was ended and we didn’t adopt any of Israel's tactics in Iraq since as one of Fox News’ rent-a-generals so astutely counseled, "we’ll rightly ignore the Israelis, we don’t want to turn Iraq into the West Bank" (I paraphrase). A year and a half and scores of dead Americans later we were rushing to learn about the use of armored bulldozers, shoulder fired rockets, house clearing techniques and so forth from Israel. We improved these tactics and used them to great effect in cities like Fallujah, Ramadi, and Tal Afar (the Israelis repaid the favor and didn’t pay attention to our lessons when they attacked Bent Jbail). This story is a very important one indeed for Americans as the Democrat Congress races to repeat Israel’s mistake regarding defense spending. As of right now the military is managing somewhat to pay for both counter-insurgency operations while also maintaining its conventional war fighting capacity. There is a debate brewing over the need to fund both counter-insurgency and conventional capabilities at this time (here's an example, and my view regarding the Air Force at least). The argument for the Israeli-style policy is that the only fighting at the moment is counter-insurgency so that’s all we need to worry about. The fact that we won’t always be fighting counter-insurgencies and that the money being pledged today will take effect years from now when the world situation may be different are disregarded. The Democrats will likely find the billions they could free up for domestic spending by eliminating conventional weapons programs and training too appealing to pass up (my pre-election concern can be seen here). Like Israel, we will find it easier to do this for many years. Also like Israel the price of this policy will far outweigh the benefits and will have to be paid eventually.

My last point is a small one and is only generally related to the others. We have seen yet again that the tank still has a vital role on the modern battlefield. Relearning this is nothing new as the tank has been discounted since its inception in 1916. Part of the reason France and Britain did not focus on tank warfare prior to WWII was because they had learned the wrong lesson from the Spanish Civil War, that the tank was very limited since it could easily be destroyed by anti-tank guns. Then the light tank-destroyer was supposed to kill the tank, then the anti-tank guided missile, and then more advanced anti-tank missiles. Various advanced militaries around the world have at various times proposed getting rid of tanks. The US military did under Gen. Eric Shinseki and then briefly under Rumsfeld. The Canadian military tried at one point to get rid of its few tank units. Britain is presently on a Shinseki-style craze to transform her army into a hi-tech medium weight peacekeeping force without tanks. Even Israel has been reducing her tank fleet for some time. With the exception of Britain, each country has learned through combat operations that the tank is still very valuable. It is true that we have to watch that we don’t allow generals and politicians to hold onto their relics from prior wars, but we also have to see that they don’t get rid of valuable weapons because they incorrectly view them as “relics”.

Typically impeccable media coverage

This is just one small example of the news media showing off its limited faculties. There is a report from a Japanese newspaper that North Korea aimed its ill-fated missile at Hawaii. Aside from the wider implications of that decision, the question arises, why would North Korea target Hawaii? After noting real reasons like North Korea wanting to show up the United States by landing a missile next to its main Pacific naval base, this Reuters story goes on to say,

“An alternative explanation might be that a missile could accidentally hit land if fired towards Alaska”

Really!!?? So this reporter is completely unaware that there are thousands of miles of empty ocean between Alaska and Hawaii where the missile wouldn't "accidentally" hit anything (assuming it could make it past the Sea of Japan of course)? That should be instantly obvious to anyone, especially a college educated reporter. Or is this the only map reporters have seen? The other problem with that statement is the tone it sets. It takes an extremely hostile action by the North Koreans and changes it to the North Koreans doing us a favor. It’s as if we should thank them for doing us a solid by targeting small Hawaii and not big Alaska. This is complete idiocy. At least a map can be purchased, common sense cannot.

The Equivalency Game

One of the major reasons I long ago gave up on the mainstream media is their inability to understand the differences between the U.S. and our enemies. The recent torture and mutilation of two American soldiers is case in point. Where is the outrage in the media at this very clear barbaric violation of the Geneva rights of our soldiers? To the extent it is mentioned, it is claimed to be tit-for-tat, with tat being the unspeakable horror of making an Iraqi prisoner wear panties for a head dressing. Since the media cannot tell the difference, here is a game devised (or at least it's the first place I heard about it) by radio talk show host Glenn Beck that determines whether something is equivalent.

There are two lines and you must decide to get in one. If you can easily pick one then they are not equivalent, if you cannot, then they are.

First Line: You have to get naked, put panties on your head, wear a dog leash, and get on all fours while a hillbilly chick holds the leash and takes pictures.
Second Line: You will be brutally tortured, after which a dull machete will be utilized to cut off your head while the Arabs around you chant “Allah Akbar” and film it.
Answer: First line, not equivalent.

First Line: You will be interrogated by means including sleep depravation, being made to stand next to an AC for long periods, having to hear John Kerry spend a week trying to explain the simplicity of his Iraq plan, and maybe even having a female guard get a little “too” close.
Second Line: You will be strapped to a wall in a terrorist safe house for several weeks, starved, beaten, burned, electrocuted, and otherwise tortured.
Answer: First Line, not equivalent.

First Line: You will be shipped to a Soviet Gulag where you will be starved, beaten, and either worked to death or shot.
Second Line: You will be shipped to a Nazi concentration camp where you will be starved, beaten, and either worked to death or gassed.
Answer: Neither, equivalent.

First Line: You will be shipped to Guantanamo Bay, where you will be fed three squares a day, given religious articles and time, and be otherwise treated well so long as you behave.
Second Line: The Gulag or concentration camp again.
Answer: First Line, not equivalent.

First Line: You will move to whatever the latest leftwing country is considered a paradise by the media and the left, be it Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, France, etc.
Second Line: You will live in the United States of America.
Answer: Second Line, not equivalent (as can be seen by how long the real life second line is compared to the first).