Got Power To Take It Won't Have Power To Keep It
Shyness for weakness, silence for snobbery...
Mike Farrell, Veteran's Today Columnist
One of the benefits of being a Dylan fan who's checked out at various points in our mutual journey is that you keep discovering treasures. As I was driving home this afternoon, I heard these lyrics on Steven Van Zandt's Underground Garage:
Put your hand on my head, baby, do I have a temperature?
I see people who are supposed to know better standin' around like furniture.
There's a wall between you and what you want and you got to leap it,
Tonight you got the power to take it, tomorrow you won't have the power to
keep it.
West of the Jordan, east of the Rock of Gibraltar,
I see the burning of the stage, Curtain risin' on a new age,
See the groom still waitin' at the altar.
Cities on fire, phones out of order,
They're killing nuns and soldiers, there's fighting on the border.
What can I say about Claudette?
Ain't seen her since January,
She could be respectably married or running a whorehouse in Buenos Aires.
West of the Jordan, west of the Rock of Gibraltar,
I see the burning of the stage,
Curtain risin' on a new age,
See the groom still waitin' at the altar. --Dylan, Groom's Still Waiting at the Altar, 1981
I've been getting more and more frustrated with the silliness in the national media about the Syria-Iraq-ISIL kerfuffle. There are plenty of random issues abounding of course -- nice to hear that Israel claims to have shot down a Syrian fighter for some reason besides they can. Seems that Bibi really can't stand the news from the region to be all about him and his macho government. Certainly makes you long for the days when Israel had adult leadership.
I'm not interested in the argument about the Islamic State being a false flag operation; a False Flag needs to be part of some truth's bodyguard of lies and I don't see it in this case. Be that as it may, we have some serious issues popping up, and it's getting harder and harder as a citizen to take our government seriously. That's a dangerous place to be, by the way.
We have a guy jump the fence at the White House and sprint across the lawn and through an open door where he's stopped. He's tracked the whole way by snipers and who knows what else, and they make a judgment call not to waste him. In other words, the White House Cops show reasonable restraint and use necessary force to subdue, capture and detain. Exactly what they are supposed to do. Building isn't on fire, no blood on the floor, nobody's dead --sounds like a successful mission to me.
However, to listen to the bleating, this shows the weakness of the Secret Service, the Civil Service and for all I know, the State Dining Room Service.
If instead of the President this was Pope Francis, he'd have already visited the guy in jail and forgiven him. Instead, lots of dithering abounds and the search for blame continues. Oh, the guy was carrying a folding knife with a three inch blade. Most soldiers, sailor, marines and airmen carry a folding knife or a Leatherman tool a good deal of the time. It's standard stuff that goes in the pockets -- wallet, keys, change, cellphone, knife. Did they think he was going to suddenly burst into the door and pull out a three-inch folder to take on people with guns?
OK, moving on. This is somehow part of the larger story of the failure to adequately deal with ISIL. Or something. The guy in DC was a PTSD-affected sniper from Iraq so obviously it's Obama's fault that he's screwed up...which leads to further discussion of the failure of the Congress to actually do anything in it's oversight role except to kind of rubber stamp the President's actions on ISIL. Now, in fairness the Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddows of the world would be as upset if the President was a Republican. Certainly, the congress has been AWOL on its responsibilities on matters of National Defense. But, it's an election year; if it's not an election year, next year will be an election year. It's never a convenient time politically to step up and do what they're supposed to do - Intelligently debate, argue, compromise and respond to the White House's action and recommendations
. It would be in character for the House to demand cuts to social programs to pay for "Son of Iraq's Son War Part II" but they were in a hurry. Money to raise, babies to kiss, media figures to bribe...our congresscritters are busy beavers and can't really be bothered to do what we've elected them to do because they have to campaign for re-election to do what we elect them to do, which they won't. Somewhere, Madison, Franklin, Jefferson and Hamilton have said "Screw it!" and are off chasing babes and sucking down rum punch and ale to forget the whole disaster.
Then we have the strategy. "The American people are unwilling to have boots on the ground!" The American people are sick to death of doing stupid stuff, and we know that strategic bombing doesn't work. When John- Lindsay- Graham-McCain-Wolfowitz-Bolton start babbling I tend to ignore it. But, when people like Colin Powell and Jack Jacobs start saying it, I listen. I also am not a great fan of air power as solving all the problems and never have been.I don't think anyone has been since Goering and Curtis LeMay. So, the president keeps saying no boots on the ground; the American people support the policy, want US intervention, but don't think it will do any good. Why? Because no boots on the ground...but the American people want no boots on the ground. Hell.
So, the plan is to arm the Vetted-Syrian Rebels. OK, that should be easy. We can dispatch McCain and Graham and W to look in their eyes and see their souls...seriously. This is a debacle awaiting a plan so it can be really screwed up. At present, our arming the rebels isn't working -- the Covert Military Industrial Complex at it's best. According to FP, all aid has been channeled through something called the Military Operations Committee or "MOC" that seems to be largely there for stamping pieces of paper and counting toilet paper. For example:
"There are now 10 groups fighting north of Aleppo, near the town of Mare, but the U.S. and its allies “offered very little ammunition support, no information, no air cover, and no collaboration in military plans and tactics – nothing,” said Col. Hassan Hamadi, who defected from the Syrian army and now heads the newly formed umbrella group Legion 5. “I’ve gotten a little ammunition, but I don’t have enough to continue our presence at the front line,” said Col. Jemil Radoon, a defected Syrian army officer who dispatched 55 fighters from his Sukhur al Ghab brigade to join battle with the Islamic State. Like others among the dozen or so rebel commanders who’ve been approved to receive covert U.S. aid, Radoon and Hamadi visit this Turkish border town regularly to seek support from CIA officials and representatives of other nations that staff the Military Operations Center here.“Our problem with them,” Radoon said of the MOC, as it’s known, is that it “walks like a turtle, and things on the ground go like a rabbit.”
...The commanders bitterly criticized the Military Operations Center, saying it plays no part in coordinating rebel forces but instead operates as a service bureau for commanders who arrive with plans in hand. Even after the Islamic State captured Mosul in early June and swept through northern Iraq and then Syria, the MOC did not attempt to organize a joint offensive against the extremists, using the thousands of rebel troops benefiting from the aid it distributes in Syria, commanders said.
The MOC did not even ask the advice of commanders, said Capt. Ma’amun al Swed, the commander of the Haq Front. Those running the operation “asked us about the existence of Daash and its spread, but didn’t say we were going to work against it,” he said, using the pejorative Arabic nickname for the Islamic State...Commanders said it was clear to them that the MOC wasn’t designed to conduct military operations. It’s staffed by representatives of the CIA and of the major countries backing the rebels, but it has never held a joint meeting of rebel groups.
“The persons we deal with are employees,” Radoon said. “They are responsible for reporting our opinions and our ideas, but they are not the ones who will make the decisions. The decisions are in the hands of the White House.”The commanders said they don’t know what to expect. “We don’t know what is in their heads,” said Hamadi. “It seems that there is a timetable, and at this time it is not in their interests to put an end to the Syrian crisis. They don’t take the lead. I don’t know what their strategy is.” (Emphasis added)
It's worth pointing out that having some echelon above God figure out who's going to get what and how much is pretty patently absurd. Anybody who can get a few AKs, some RPGs, a Toyota Truck and enough gas to drive toward the enemy with a couple of cases of ammo and grenades can declare Jihad against Assad, ISIL, and the Minnesota Twins. This is not an organized neat bureaucratic battlefield. This is a dirty boots, busted knuckle battlefield and saying that the White House is making tactical decisions does not fill me with thoughts of success.
Then there's our Grand Alliance -- the US, France (France? Oh, yeah, they screwed up Syria and Lebanon), maybe England, Turkey and the various Gulf and regional Islamic countries who happen to be Sunni. That actually is very helpful, since ISIL is a Sunni organization. However, Iran which has a great chance her to gain some rapprochement with the US gets hyper because we didn't coordinate the attacks with Assad. Oddly, Assad then announces that he's cool with it, anyone shooting at terrorists is OK with him. You would think that Iraq with one virtual client state involved would get on board with whatever that client state was thinking. They just don't make client states like they used to. Or Satraps. Tamerlane the Conqueror would have don it better...
Or not. My morning Foreign Policy Situation Report brought the news that our Arab "allies" are now wanting to take out Assad. Now, if we take out ISIL and we take out Assad, are they planning on making Syria a parking lot for Lebanon and Israel? Maybe a mid-eastern version of Disneyland? It would have a beach...and lots of ruins. Crusader Ruins, Phoenician Ruins, Philistine Ruins, Assad Ruins. The A-Plan is starting to look a lot like the old "Bomb 'em back to the stone age, shoot them down and sort them out." I guess the B-plan is Blackwater or whatever they're calling it these days.
I'm not eager to see US Forces patrolling the outskirts of Damascus, but the non-ISIL forces aren't capable of winning on the ground against either Assad or ISIL. The bitter lesson we thought we'd learned in Vietnam, that until the enemy has a boot on it's chest and a bayonet at his throat, you haven't won anything seems forgotten.
In the end, this will be a war of good intentions fought poorly because the powerful don't understand that combat has it's own calculus. You don't control it, you respond to it. And if the enemy is fighting a different war than you are, it's pretty certain that unless you're willing to reduce the enemy to empty fields of nuclear-volcanic glass, you're probably not going to win.
It's kind of amazing that this most intellectual and historically minded of recent presidents doesn't get this. It's amazing how dumb a great nation can be.
The late Colonel Harry Summers who wrote On Strategy: The Vietnam War in Context, was assigned to liaison role with the North Vietnamese in 1975, and had a famous exchange with his counterpart, a Colonel Tu. Summers reminded him, " You know, you never beat us on the battlefield." Tu responded "That may be so but it is also irrelevant."
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