Author: VD

From Dunnigan’s Strategy Page:

IEDs have been around for several generations. The only reason they are getting so much ink in Iraq is because the terrorists are unable to inflict many casualties on American troops any other way. The Sunni Arab fighters in Iraq are, historically, a pretty inept and pathetic bunch. This can be seen in the amazingly low casualty rate of American troops. By comparison, an American soldier serving in Vietnam was over twice as likely to be killed or wounded.

IEDs were used in Vietnam, but caused (with mines and booby traps in general) only 13 percent of the casualties, compared to over 60 percent in Iraq. The reason for this is one that few journalists want to discuss openly. But historians can tell you; Arabs are lousy fighters. Hasn’t always been this way, but for the last century or so, it has. This has more to do with poor leadership, and a culture that simply does not encourage those traits that are needed to produce a superior soldier. In a word, the North Vietnamese soldiers and Viet Cong guerillas were better, and more deadly, fighters. Contributing factors include better training and equipment for American and Coalition troops. But most of the reason for the historically low casualty rates in Iraq have to do with Iraqis who don’t know how to fight effectively.

IEDs are another matter. They are mainly a matter of technology, planning and careful preparation for the attack. These are all things Iraqis are good at. You also suffer a lot fewer casualties by using IEDs, so the weapon is good for the morale of the users. So over the last three years, the IED has been used more and more. While only 5,607 IEDs were placed in 2004, there were 10,953 encountered in 2005. But American troops responded to the threat. In 2004, about a quarter of IEDs actually went off and hurt someone. In 2005, that rate declined to ten percent, and is still falling.

That’s good news, regardless of how skeptical one is regarding the wisdom of playing nation-building. One thing I’ve wondered is if it would make sense to widen the roads most often travelled by US forces to such an extent that anything planted offroad would have to be so large as to be easily detectable. I find it difficult to imagine that the explosives in the IED’s are so powerful that they’d be undetectable if the roads were two or three times as wide.

This seems so obvious as to be hardly worth mentioning, but asphalt and active road crews are surely less expensive than Humvees, military hospitals and long rehabilitations. And perhaps they’ve already been doing this; I doubt the media would see fit to report the fact that Highway Whatever is now thirty feet wider than before.

Representative democracy at work in South Dakota:

As the South Dakota House of Representatives gave final approval today to a bill aimed at banning most abortions and creating a U.S. Supreme Court challenge to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, Gov. Mike Rounds said he’s inclined to sign it.

The House gave final approval to the bill with a 50-18 vote Friday afternoon.

The will of the people of the sovereign state of South Dakota is abundantly clear. It is highly probable that an unknown number of United States Supreme Court justices will disagree, probably a majority.

Now how, I ask, can anyone simultaneously argue that the will of the black robes should triumph, but that we must shed American blood and spend American treasure to establish democracy elsewhere throughout the world?

Res Ispa’s much anticipated debut leads the pack of the latest Voxologisti. There’s not much there yet, but we expect much from the one person that can make us consider rethinking our positions from the mere fact of his opposition.

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Pretty Lady corrects a clumsy suitor:

Pretty Lady had to chastise the Pundit, once upon a time, not so long ago, whilst the Pundit was still single and actively chasing females on Nerve.com. He complained to her, “I get chatting with a woman, and everything seems to be going fine until I give her my phone number. Then things just trail off.”

Hello? Pretty Lady was momentarily speechless…. “Once you give them your phone number?” she inquired.

“Yes, I don’t want to ask for theirs, lest they think I’m stalking them,” the Pundit replied. “That way they can decide whether to call me or not.”

Gentlemen, I respect your delicacy, but listen to me: never do that. Please.

The poor Pundit was falling into a trap made of false liberalism. His motives were pure; unfortunately, too many of the motives of those who went before him were not. Thus I had to explain to him what these women already knew; that a man who gives a woman his phone number is generally either 1) insecure, submissive, passive-aggressive and pathetic; or 2) an arrogant user who sows phone numbers as seeds for booty calls. In effect, such a man is saying, “I don’t want to get entangled, but if you want sex with no strings, give a buzz and I’ll oblige you. If I’m free.”

This is why you have to read things all the way through before jumping in with both feet. I was on the verge of taking exception, as I quite liked the hassle-free, sensitive, New Age equalitarian male approach of giving a promising girl a number and telling her to call, when I hit (2), in much the same manner as Wile E. Coyote encounters a cliff. Ah, well. As usual, the Lady is on target with regards to matters romantic.

However, regardless of who calls whom, I can assure you that it is VERY important to remember what name you’ve given out. For some strange reason, the fair sex apparently looks rather askance on a failure to remember the appellation to which one is supposed to answer.

I’ve been in favor of impeaching George Bush and removing him from office for some time now. So, too, has the most lunatic quarter of the Democratic Party, albeit for very different reasons. I find it interesting to see that a sizeable number of Republicans are beginning to agree as well, as one can see in WND’s recent letters to the editor:

“Why would anyone be surprised that Bush is enthusiastically turning over port management to the Arabs? He’s put the Mexicans in charge of our southern border. Is there even a border there anymore? Impeach Bush.”

“I’m confident that the very best thing for our nation would be for President Bush to veto any legislation by Congress that would delay or block the management of ports by the United Arab Emirates. President Bush’s veto would effectively cripple his administration for the next two years and thereby eliminate even the possibility of Congress approving his “guest worker” amnesty treason.”

“Bush threatens veto over the U.S. ports deal? It is now obvious that President Bush has gone insane. I am ashamed to call myself Republican. God help us.”

When even the Three Monkey Republicans are beginning to see just a speck of evil in the man, his time is growing short. It’s amusing to see Three Monkey strongholds like National Review Online flailing about trying to find something, anything to defend, demanding that “cooler heads must prevail” and everyone is “going overboard”. This, from the very people who demand that unless we throw out the Constitution, create a police state and invade every country that looks at us the wrong way, we are COMMITTING NATIONAL SUICIDE!!!!!! But regardless of whether giving Arabs control of our shipping ports will sentence the nation to certain doom or won’t cause any problems at all, the fact that Bush will veto Congressional acts that get in the way of his Arab friends, but not those that violate the Constitution demonstrates to everyone very clearly where his true priorities are.

The man is an oathbreaker, a traitor to the Constitution, to the country and to the American people. He should be impeached and removed from office. If the Republicans don’t do so, they are risking an upset of stunning proportions in 2008, if not 2006. Remember, when a political party or a nation-state appear to be at their most powerful, the next step is a decline, and more often than not, it is a sharp one. And remember also that I have been predicting that the Lizard Queen has been anointed and she will be the next president for over a year now.

She’s been lurking quietly of late, hasn’t she.

Wheeler lauds the Spartans in a discussion of men, women and family:

The Spartans had a Noble culture designed around virtue and excellence and in being a Man. Very different from America—being a banavsos is what defines manhood in America.

And Renee rightly pins down the irony:

W. Lindsay Wheeler, are you aware of the fact that Spartans regularily practiced eugenic forms of infanticide? Were you aware that families only took care of their children until they were around 6, after which they were raised by the state? Were you aware that the women were also rigourously trained in athletics, such as javelin throwing? Oh yes, that sounds exactly like a “noble” society.

What Renee misses despite her correct disdain for what passed for Spartan family life, Wheeler is likewise correct to point to the distinguishing nobility of Spartan culture.

Sparta was the epitome of Greek aristocratic oligarchy, merely expressing a willingness to fight for Sparta on the part of a male not of the Spartiate class was enough to justify a death sentence. And yet, despite its cruelty and its extreme class delineations, Sparta also demonstrated how an aristocracy can be significantly superior to a democracy during the Peloponnesian War, not because it was the victor in that conflict, but because, ironically enough, Sparta reliably demonstrated that she represented the more humane culture.

Athens, too, practiced infanticide. And during the war, it was the democrats who were far more prone to commit mass murder than the oligarchs, as shown by the Athenian massacres at Scione, Melos, and the massacres at Corcyra supported by an Athenian fleet. Furthermore, it was not the oligarchic Spartans who were to blame for the massacre at Plataeus, but the democratic Thebans, who were taking vengeance for the Plataean murder of Theban hostages ten years before.

As late as 410, the total war democrats in Athens were refusing to grant the war-weary Spartans the peace they requested, a foolish decision in light of coming events. Six years later, in victory, noble Sparta showed far more magnanimity than democratic Athens ever had to its defeated foes, despite being urged to justly treat the Athenians as they had the Melians by Thebes and other Lacedaemonian allies. Moreover, a Spartan general could fail without being put on trial, as VDH notes in his new book, an Athenian general either died in battle, was put on trial and executed, or if he was lucky, merely exiled.

There are ugly aspects to aristocracy, to be sure. It too is often an enemy of freedom. But regardless, don’t be misled into thinking the history of democracy is anything but one of merciless and total war, an inevitable decline into imperialism and mass slaughter.

Fear of an ancient beaver:

The discovery of a furry, beaver-like animal that lived at the time of dinosaurs has overturned more than a century of scientific thinking about Jurassic mammals….For over a century, the stereotype of mammals living in that era has been of tiny, shrew-like creatures scurrying about in the underbrush trying to avoid the giant creatures that dominated the planet, Luo commented.

Now, a research team that included Luo has found that 164 million years ago, the newly discovered mammal with a flat, scaly tail like a beaver, vertebra like an otter and teeth like a seal was swimming in lakes and eating fish.

I’m just looking forward to the day when they find a human skeleton in the stomach of an Allosaurus or something. That will be some good humor, especially listening to the die-hard evolutionists explain how it’s a freak accident of geological layering or something.

I already have part of a short story written to that effect… somehow I doubt the editors at Asimov’s will be enthusiastic about publishing it.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you are not paying attention to the continuing comedy that is Isiah Thomas: New York Knicks GM.

“Isiah just brought Stevie Franchise to the Knicks. Has Isiah reached the point where we can’t make fun of him anymore because it is too easy? I think he has joined “Brokeback Mountain,” two-man luge, Tori Spelling, Dr. Scholl’s Gellin’ commercials, and Tom Cruise in an elitely pathetic group. Should there be a hall of fame for such people?”

“There is no logical explanation for what he is doing. Is Stern just sitting in his office laughing his head off every time he sees a Knicks trade, or is he somehow involved with Isiah in a plot to destroy the game of basketball in New York City? MC Hammer, even in his prime, was more fiscally conservative than Isiah, yet he is currently unemployed. I demand a reality show involving Robert Downey Jr, Tom Sizemore, Kate Moss, and Gary Busey, among others, just to prove that no matter how many drugs you consume, you are still capable of outperforming Isiah as a GM.”

“Is it possible that what Isiah Thomas is doing to the Knicks right now is really some kind of sick revenge that goes back to his playing days with the Pistons?”

I haven’t watched an NBA basketball game in three or four years. About my only exposure to NBA basketball is from reading the Sports Guy’s column. But even I know that putting Steve Francis and Stephon Marbury in the same backcourt is asking for trouble of the most spectacular kind. I mean, Isiah was a point guard, presumably he knows that basketball is played with just one ball at a time.

Seriously, he may be the worst GM in any professional sport of all time. This is like the Michael Jordan era, except it’s off the court and represents the perfect Yin to the Yang of excellence. Don’t miss it!

PS – how great would it be if that last guy’s theory was correct!

PC also takes exception:

While are usually right on target and use logic to an extent I find amazing in most of your writing, I cannot agree with your analysis regarding air power and it’s use (2-20-06). In fact you remind me of the arguments used agains Gen. Billy Mitchell an advocate of air power who consistently proved his critics wrong. Do not confuse advanced analytical ability with pragmatical military assesments of who can be killed or destroyed by airpower!

First, our military is stretched thin, and the base closings and military cutbacks suggest something more sinister than what is being acknowledged, this is something you should examine more closely.

I have wondered if there is a desire to stretch the US military thin and exhaust it, especially considering the help provided to the Chinese military by some of those responsible for the aforementioned stretching.

Secondly, historically Arab and Persian armies have never been consistently viewed as sucessful against determined and well-armed western armies.

Never is too strong a word there. Arab armies conquered Spain, Suleiman I conquered Hungary in 1526 and very nearly took Vienna in 1529. And while the US military is certainly well-armed, I don’t think it can be described as “determined” given how casualty-shy it is. Certainly the American people are far from determined; most don’t consider that there is a war going on judging by the way they live.

Thirdly, your under-evaluation of airpower is selectively untrue. Your historical examples are one sided and do not support the facts. Goering could not bomb England into submission as Germany never had a operational “heavy” bomber.

That didn’t stop him from claiming he could. One might as easily say that the USAF can’t bomb Iran into submission because it lacks an operational [fill-in-the-blank]. It is entirely possible – I would say highly probable – that those who say that it can are making the same mistake Goering did.

Fourthly, North Vietnam lost three and a half million people primarily to bombing not counting seriously maimed and wounded. This hardly can be described as “not retarding their economic development”. Somebody BS’ed you!

It seems that you didn’t read the study, which looked at the economic development of those regions that were bombed compared to those which weren’t. It was surprising to find that there was no difference, except that in some cases, those areas that were bombed heavily were actually somewhat ahead of areas that were left unharmed. Since North Vietnam was not a consumer-driven economy, the loss of potential consumers clearly didn’t affect them too much… and of course, they weren’t exactly at the top of the development curve in the first place.

Fifthly, you are correct about German aircraft industry increasing throughout the war, primarily due to underground factories. Too bad there was no gas to fly them with, or experienced pilots to fly them! That was due to allied bombing. If you do not believe allied bombing in WWII was effective, interview a survivor of Dresden, if you can find one! Conversely, Japan’s aircraft industry was destroyed, along with it’s cities! Talk to the old bomber crews who could smell the burning human flesh at 20,000 feet above!

Dresden killed a lot of people, it didn’t make one bit of difference with regards to ending the war. Hitler shooting himself, on the other hand, did. As for the lack of gas, the complete naval blockade by the Royal Navy had rather more to do with that. The Allied Air Forces were tasked with destroying German military production – you can read the estimates of their ability to do so in AWPD-1 and AWPD-42 – and they completely failed in their objectives. While the air force did do an excellent job of establishing air supremacy, that was the fighter jocks shooting them down one-by-one, it was not the strategic bombing campaign.

I believe that a precision bombing campaign against Iran’s nuclear facilities would only be partially successful. Some are underground I believe. Others are hidden. This calls for “boots on the ground” (something most Americans may be against).

I agree. That’s pretty much my point, actually. I would add that “partially successful” is the best we could hope for, and that we’d be opening a can of worms in doing so.

However, Terhan Valley is particularly well suited to the use of a very large and dirty hydrogen warhead. Things are probably still on the table. Your assesments on this particular matter are shallow to say the least, regarding bombing capabilities. Your military knowledge is below par, compared to your brilliant analysis in other areas. When you rush, you get sloppy. I would say, slow down and talk to some good mainline military analysts before drawing intellectual conclusions on badly selected
paradiams. McNamara used to do that all the time in Vietnam! Generally, I really like your column.

What makes you think I haven’t? Of course, most of my sources are in the USMC and the US Navy, so it’s hardly surprising that I would look on the advocates of air power and their claims with a somewhat jaundiced eye. But, as I have repeatedly stated, the gap between air power claims and air power results is very, very big if you take the time to examine the pre-war claims and the measurable post-war results. Cherrypicking the past objectives and applying a little bait-and-switch in hindsight are only confusing to those unfamiliar with the pre-war claims.

MH runs away with his tail between his legs:

No mistake was made about intelligent design since I never attributed the view to you, but suggested it is a topic because of its current status in our culture. Furthermore, I made no claim about familiarity with your “work.”

I certainly believe that religion in the past was among the major causes of wars in Europe and some strife elsewhere and that is a well worn topic that I see no need to revisit. I don’t think religion plays a significant role, per se, in wars of the 20th or 21st century.

However, I don’t think I need to be “corrected” by you on any of my statements (you should try to read them a little more carefully before you respond) or what can be inferred from them. Furthermore, I prefer not to engage any further. I have plenty on my plate with my professional duties and especially with an upcoming philosophy conference.

Regardless of what he thinks, he obviously does need to be corrected. It’s a piss-poor teacher of logic that believes the following quotes are compatible:

1. your site has served of some use in providing more real life versions of fallacies to employ in my critical thinking courses

2. I made no claim about familiarity with your “work.”

And then, of course, there’s this probable contradiction:

1. I didn’t know your view on intelligent design. I suggested it because of the popularity among conservatives and especially among Southern Baptists, since the convention assumed an official fundamentalist position some years ago, our benighted president seems to endorse its teaching in our schools, and the recent legal battles over its status.

2. No mistake was made about intelligent design since I never attributed the view to you, but suggested it is a topic because of its current status in our culture.

Given that the context was to “argue” (the title of his initial emails to me), there is a very high probability that MH believed that because I am a Southern Baptist and and (he wrongly assumed) I am a conservative, I would be a defender of intelligent design. He most likely felt confident that this would be comfortable ground on which to engage; once it turned out that there was no disagreement there, he suddenly became unwilling to argue about other matters, even those on which he admits we disagree.

No wonder he’s teaching at community college. You see, MH, that’s actually what I do. It’s kind of like kicking you in the groin after knocking you down… but even an expert in logic should be able to see that the fact one was unfairly kicked in the groin doesn’t mean that one didn’t get decked in the first place.