21 October 2011 –

One point to expand from yesterday: The U.S. and NATO achieved vital objectives by limited engagement in the civil war in Libya. I stressed that yesterday. We did not “lead from behind” in our NATO operations. We also did not do what many seem to think the term “leading” entails. We did not take over the operations of someone else’s civil war as if we, the superpower, should dominate everything we may tangentially touch. Many liberals and conservatives alike think that the only leadership worth exhibiting is when we take over everything. No. We actually achieved our vital objectives with minimum effort and with a minimum effect on the Libyan people, who would turn on us tomorrow if we were to have a permanent ground or air presence in or above Libya. That is not “leading from behind”. That is judicious and targeted use of American power to achieve limited and obtainable objectives. Now, NATO is meeting today to determine if air operations will continue until Libyan interim government forces have firm control over the country. I certainly hope that the success of our limited campaign will not seduce us this late in the drama into doing more than we can or should. You gotta know when to dance off the stage. If you stay too long, applause turns to tomatoes. In that theater, the tomatoes are primed to fly.

20 October 2011 –

Mohamar Qadafi is dead. A better way to say it is in the active tense. Libyan rebels pulled Qadafi out of a concrete culvert near Misrate where he was hiding after a recent NATO air attack. They dragged him for a distance, and then shot him in the head and chest, killing the 69 year old dictator. A cell phone video graphically shows the blood, gore, and dead body. Ain’t modern communication grand? Almost as brutal as a video game.

There are several good circumstances in Libya right now:

1) A bad guy is gone. Justice is served, bloodily and definitively served. Many say that killing a bad guy like Qadafi doesn’t do much because there are plenty of bad guys ready to take his place. I say that killing this bad guy gives the newly formed interim government, the interim Prime Minister, Mahmoud Jabril, some authority with which to govern for the near future. How long the new government can maintain that authority depends on how well it prioritizes its efforts to accomplish its interim, medium, and long term objectives.

2) Libya’s small population, about 6.3 million people, is about 88% urban, well educated by Arab standards, and is fairly young, with 30% under the age of 14. A 2.7 fertility rate will sustain a modest rise in the population, and the life expectancy is over 74 years of age. Consistent with the reporting in many Arab Moslem countries, the official ratio of men to women is about 107 to 100. The ethnic make-up is somewhat diverse, mainly with Tuaregs in the west and south and Berbers elsewhere. But, these differences are not nearly the same implacable problems one finds in Iraq and Afghanistan. None of these numbers is a ticking time bomb that the new leaders will have to deal with along with creating a new governance structure. For all the problems Qadafi caused in his country, the demographics still could eventually support the emergence of a first world country.

3) Libya’s transportation, communications, and oil production infrastructure is well established, if not all that new. What is important is that the war did not destroy much of it. Oil flow can start again fairly quickly, to ready customers across the Mediterranean. Revenues for the government and employment for most of the population may not be a crisis situation for long. This will help immensely because, unlike places like Darfur, Somalia, and Haiti, Libya can avoid being corrupted by the West’s propensity for well-intentioned, massive influxes of charity missions, etc. The Arab Spring may have a chance here to blossom on its own.

4) The U.S./NATO did not kill Qadafi! That is a good thing, for the U.S., for Europe, and for the new Libyan rulers. The new Libyan government now more than ever before in the conflict bears responsibility for the future: They did the deed; they take the lead. Therefore, the criticism that will surely come in the war’s aftermath should be directed to the Libyan leaders and not to the U.S. This is critically important for pundits and do-gooders to remember when they want to double down on their temporary successes. Even though the Arab League completely abdicated its responsibility to direct any military campaigns in support of the rebels, the U.S./NATO’s stepping in did not give us legitimacy in the eyes of most of the Arab Moslem world. We protected our interests by helping get rid of Qadafi; let us not seduce ourselves into thinking that the Arab Moslem world—most Libyans included—will praise or embrace us for our efforts. It is time to declare victory, stop our military involvement, and wait for the oil to be pumped to our tankers.

5) This crisis gave the U.S. and other willing NATO countries a chance to conduct a great training exercise, to try out new command and control techniques, and to test new equipment and munitions. In the end, despite the criticism from hawkish pundits who wanted a more violent campaing on our part, these last few months of deliberate, measured air operations may have benefitted NATO far more than a shorter, more robust air campaign to kill Qadafi would have. Certainly, leading from behind didn’t improve the President’s reputation among his critics, or our soft power in the world, but it did improve NATO’s operational capability. It is just as good to be lucky as it is to be brilliant, I guess.

19 October 2011 –

I was going to quit writing on my blog. About two weeks ago, the thought came to me that nothing I had to say was worth reading. One less blog to surf wouldn’t hurt anybody and would allow me to not think about what is happening beyond the edge of my grass. It was a magnificent effort to last two weeks.

President Obama’s administration announced last week that the U.S. has put uniformed, military advisors in Uganda to help the Ugandan military find and destroy the Lord’s Resistance Army. The President said that it would further U.S. interests in the region to do so. To get the compassionate on his side, the President said that it would rid the region of a terrible monster, Joseph Kony, who has been raping, pillaging, and torturing people for the advancement of his cause—whatever that is beyond his own twisted version of power. And, don’t forget the impressment of child soldiers into his 400-500 man group of guys with guns. Mention child soldiers and you get all sorts of support from both sides of the political spectrum for any crusade you want to lead into the center of Africa. Wow, we are hacking off huge parts of our military funding and President Obama wants to put soldiers into harm’s way in yet another pest hole of the world. This is a bad movie.

The things that are wrong-headed with doing this:

1) There is no compelling strategic interest that is met by putting U.S. soldiers into Uganda, in whatever limited role they may start with. Let me put it in another way: There is no strategic imperative for the U.S. to risk the lives of U.S. servicemen in order to help a corrupt and incompetent Ugandan military get rid of the Lord’s Resistance Army and its evil, crackpot, vicious leader, Joseph Kony. Let me put it in another way: There is no crisis in the U.S. that will be resolved by trying to rid central Africa of Joseph Kony and his brigands. Nothing whatever in the region merits the commitment of U.S. soldiers, uniformed advisors.

2) Trying to save the region from the excesses of its internal problems with such a munificent expression of American intervention stupidly misreads the problems of the area and their possible resolution. Aid and assistance from the outside rarely resolve the internal problems of failed or struggling, multiethnic states with artificial and imposed borders. In fact, such assistance usually only exacerbates the horrific effects of the struggle among corrupt factions, including the local government, who want to control the country/region/people for their own aggrandizement. Another way to put it: nobody in that region of the world wears a white hat. There is no George Washington galvanizing the peoples’ support into a noble cause, a cause that outside aid can succor. No substantial amelioration of the basic problems in the region comes from outside forces trying to get rid of the Lord’s Resistance Army, as vile a movement as the latter is.

3) It gives the U.S. military, Africa Command, a no-win mission. Advisors to corrupt and ill-trained military forces do little but put themselves in a sniper’s crosshairs. If Joseph Kony is destroyed, a doubtful outcome since many in Uganda’s government and military benefit from his presence, the mission will probably mutate into some sort of nation-building in an attempt to salvage the situation by doubling down on the original, foolish bet. The President’s vague commitment to furthering U.S. interests in the region—aka no firm vision, strategy, objectives, or exit criteria—will easily encompass new, equally tempting missions in a region ill-prepared to benefit from them. What about mission creep don’t the President and his advisors, including his uniformed advisors, understand? Recent history is replete with examples of unsuccessful and extremely expensive mission creep after a successful, limited military action is bogged down in the lack of a lasting peace. Recent history shows a dismal paucity of success in creating stable societies ready to embrace the rule of law and representative government. The risk is too great for the potential gain, and neither the President nor his advisors shows the courage to pass on the bet.

4) My career in the military showed me that there are many uniformed leaders who succumb to the temptation to take on a foolhardy mission because it is something cool to do. After all, paraphrasing Madeleine Albright, why have such a good military if we can’t use it once in a while? Such arrogance is not confined to great thinkers in suits from other parts of the government who may look at the military as a list of assets to dispense to get something else. Indeed, according to many uniformed thinkers, the best way to get a new organization such as Africa Command on the map is to take it on and get it done—whatever it may be. Another way to say it: We need a success to justify our existence, and by golly, this can be it. This pull is a powerful one. From all our recent failures of military intervention/advising/nation building—from Vietnam to Afghanistan—not one uniformed leader has thrown his stars on the Secretary of Defense’s desk, risked discipline, and said that he would not do such a foolish thing. Sending advisors into Uganda is simply another way to spend a lot of money, political good-will, and soldiers’ blood on a fool’s errand.

4 October 2011 –

I have been quite busy with family these past two weeks. I have not been taking grandchildren to the park to cavort with the ducks. No, I have been traveling to Montana and back, speaking at a funeral, talking with family about how to shape the future for the benefit of those who may need support, and talking with family and friends, some of whom I have not seen in forty years. As Rudy Guiliani said; “Weddings are optional; funerals are mandatory”.

Fortunately, the harsh inevitability of the “TMB” (too many birthdays) syndrome was somewhat offset by the incredible beauty of the Montana Fall weather and scenery. The boulevarded streets of my home town were arched cathedrals of elm, ash, and box elder leaves in full color of the season. The skies, as they always do in the Big Sky State, reflected that we live on the bottom of heaven and not on the top of mortal earth. The sunlight had already waned from it intensity of summer; it brightly beamed, but did not burn. The water on the rivers and streams was brilliant blue, the river and stream bottom quaking aspens were as brilliantly displayed as those on the city streets. The mountains…ah, the Big Belts, the Crazies, the Absarokas, the Pioneers, the Tobacco Roots—all local praises to the backbone of the universe: The Rocky Mountains. They were stunning in their majesty. Their bright yellow prairies grass contrasted the deep green of the ridges covered with ponderosa and lodgepole pines. My goodness.

I grew up seeing this beauty around me, and I have never tired of it. After seeing the sights of nearly eighty countries on six continents, I still find no equal to my home state. I invite everyone to visit Montana. Do it in the Fall, and fall in love with it. Then, visit her again in January when the temperature in mid-day is 30 below zero, the sun has light but no warmth, and the wind blows ice crystals all night against anything that sticks up on the prairie. I don’t want you to live in heaven; I just want you to say that you have seen it and spent some tourist money there.

Switching subjects now. To comment on the incredibly long presidential election saga is too painful. In fact, it matters little until January when the primaries and caucuses begin. It matters little now unless someone does something incredibly stupid between now and 2012 on the Republic side and alters the dynamics of the race. Even then, the real commentary matters only next year.

One thing that will force whoever is elected in 2012 to make difficult decisions has been happening for quite some time. The concept has been at the center of at least two of the U.S.’s ongoing political and international struggles: the effects of our porous, southern border on the security and governance of the United States, and the defining and resolving of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Both of these issues are emotional to all players. Both may indeed render impotent long-established definitions of sovereignty. Sovereignty as we in the West defined it in the 1600s and have benefited from it since then must be understood before we redefine it through the neglect of the majority and the design of the minority. It is worth a look at what constitutes sovereignty. More on that later.