But Wait Once Again, the Canadian Special Operations Forces Pink & Green service uniform. Was Lex Anteinternet: But wait, Captain Crabby, maybe you've missed the ...

Ah, the seductive nature of those Pinks and Greens.

Just yesterday we published this item reconsidering our item of earlier this week criticizing the Army's new re-adoption of the officers uniform for World War Two, to be issued to all ranks:

Lex Anteinternet: But wait, Captain Crabby, maybe you've missed the ...: Signal Corps lieutenant, World War Two. On Monday, I ran this item criticizing, I guess, the Army's adoption of a new Army Green U...

Something I didn't note is that the U.S. Army isn't the only Army that's taken this path recently. . . the Canadian military has, on a very limited basis, as well.

 Canadian soldiers of the Canadian Special Operations Forces marching past sailors and airmen of the Canadian Navy and the Royal Canadian Air Force.  This Canadian Army photo is about the only one available to illustrate the new service uniform of the unit which is distinctly different from the Canadian Army's in cut and color.  It's odd to realize the extent to which an American uniform is adopted here by a military that really doesn't like to be confused with American services as everything about the uniform except for the beret and the insignia recalls an American World War Two item. It's also interesting to note the extent to which World War Two uniform items have been either retained or brought back into use by various armies. . . indeed nearly every army that fought in World War Two.

What the heck?

Yes indeed.

This uniform was adopted solely by the Canadian Special Operations Forces and if it appears to strongly recall The American officers uniform of the World War Two era, it is supposed to.  Indeed, other than the khaki beret, it looks a lot like the Army Service Uniform for the American airborne.

The reason for this is that Canadian armed forces are making an effort to provide for a distinctive uniform for the Canadian Special Operations Forces command, which otherwise would have worn the dress uniform of the Canadian Army.  Having a special dress uniform for a single unit would be a really odd thing in the American Army but not in the Canadian Army in general which is, after all, an heir to the  British tradition, and the troops of the Special Operations Forces aren't actually in the Canadian Army, as odd as that may seem.

In the British Army individual unit uniforms are extremely common and at one time were in fact the rule.  I'm not an expert by any means on British uniforms but I can relate that they followed a somewhat similar path to that of American uniforms in that the British Service Uniform was at one time its field uniform except that the  British wisely never phased it out as a dress uniform and it simply kept on in use in a somewhat modified form as the No. 2 Dress uniform.  It's a sharp looking uniform and its sort of what the U.S. Army is basically trying to get back to.  Be that as it may, where the U.S. Army and the British Army really depart is that the U.S. Army has never liked distinctive uniforms for individual units for their dress uniform and the British have always done that.

The Canadian Army was naturally heavily influenced in every fashion by the British Army and that has reflected in its uniform heritage.  It adopted British Service Dress early in the 20th Century when the British did but it's also traditionally had a lot of individual unit dress uniforms.  When the Canadian military was technically unified (which even some Canadians either don't realize or refuse to actually acknowledge) the Canadian Army somewhat followed the path of the American Army, however, and adopted a new Service Uniform of very dark green. At that time the Canadians were attempting to really break away from their British heritage for some reason in all things.  That made it plain that Canadians weren't British, but it also meant that the new uniform wasn't as good looking as the old one had been.  Indeed, at first glance its really difficult to tell the Canadian Service Uniform from an older shade of the Army Green Uniform, which gives rise to a common complaint in the Canadian Army that they look like the American Army, at any one point, of about twenty years prior.

The Canadian Special Operations Branch is technically a separate branch of the armed forces in the Canadian system which reflects the unified nature of the Canadian Armed Forces.  This is truly odd compared to other militiaries  but it is not wholly illogical.  It prevents Canada from having what the United States, and to a lesser extent the United Kingdom, have in the existence of a multiplicity of special forces. Canada only has one such unit but its technically not in the Army, Navy or Air Force and those in it have transferred into it from any branch of the Canadian military.  Given that, the thought was that it could have its own uniform that expressed its own heritage.

What that heritage is, of course, was a bit problematic. During World War Two Canada fielded its own airborne troops at the battalion level but it didn't field its own Special Air Service or Special Boat Service. At that time, if a Canadian wanted to serve in that capacity he could transfer to the British units.  A special unit was created during the war which included Canadians and Americans jointly, that being the First Special Service Force, however, and that unit was equipped and uniformed by the American Army.  Contrary to what is generally supposed, while that unit saw action in Italy, it was disbanded during the war with its members mostly going to the airborne units of their respective nations, showing the level to which airborne units were regarded as elite at the time.

At any rate, while Canada has occasionally had special forces units since World War Two, its chosen the 1st SSF as its origin point. When the Special Operations Branch was formed in 2006 it wore Canadian Army dress uniforms at first but recently, as it is its own branch, it's won the right to have its own distinctive dress uniform.  As it wishes to recall the 1st SSF in its heritage, it adopted a variant of the dress uniform worn by the officers of that unit, including Corcoran jump boots, as its dress uniform, although the insignia are distinctly Canadian. The headgear adopted is the tan beret which was also adopted by the Rangers of the U.S. Army but Canadians, in a practice that otherwise unintentionally recalls the practice adopted by post war European mercenaries, wear the badges of their former units that they transferred in from.

So what's this say, if anything, about the Pink & Green uniform?

Well, people like the way it looks.  And it also seems that for a lot of nations, ours included, World War Two, while it may have been a giant bloodbath, is looked back upon somewhat fondly.

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Related threads:

Pinks and Greens

But wait, Captain Crabby, maybe you've missed the point. More Pinks & Greens.

Jerusalem surrenders to the British, December 9, 1917

Ottoman forces had withdrawn the day prior, but the town surrendered on December 9, 1917.

The Mayor of Jerusalem with two British sergeants.  It must have been muddy, based on the appearance of everyone's shoes.

The capture of the city marked the hallmark of Gen. Allenby's first campaign in the Middle East, which had seen a lot of dramatic fighting over the past two or so months.  It wouldn't be the culmination of Allenby's efforts by any means, but it was his first indisputable major success.

 

Crowd viewing the entry of British officers near the Jaffa Gate 

It also put the British in a sensitive position which they were never really able to work out, and which in some ways has never been worked out.  Alleby was sensitive to being seen as a crusader by the Arab population of the multi cultural city and strove to avoid that.  Be that as it may, it can't be ignored that an English, Christian, army was entering a mostly Arab, Muslim, town that had been evacuated by a Turkish Muslim leader who claimed to rule a caliphate.

British rule would prove to be relatively short, a little over thirty years, but controversial.  Prior to Allenby's entry the British had already extended promises to both the Arab Muslims as well as to the Jews regarding the ultimate fate of Palestine, promises which they were not later successful in reconciling.  The British promises extended to two out of the three major religions that have holy sites in the city, and perhaps tellingly the British, a Christian people not wanting to seem to be Crusaders, but an officially Protestant nation as well, did not seek to make promises of the same type to the minority Orthodox or Catholic populations, although they did of course protect the religious sites of all the religions located there.  The city had, at the time, a Muslim majority.

And as the British did not reflect either of those cultures themselves, their rule grew to be unpopular in various quarters with both.  Prior to World War Two the British would find themselves forced to put down an Arab independence movement and following World War Two it was faced with a Jewish independence movement in its League of Nation's mandate.  That was accompanied by growing Muslim unrest as the Jewish population of the mandate increased by the influx of Jewish refugees caused by World War Two.  Ultimately they simply left, which was probably the only thing they really could do.

 British guard at the Jaffa Gate

Even now, of course, the echoes of 1917 can still be heard.  The city was split between Israel and Jordan until the Six Day War in 1968, at which time Israel occupied the entire city.   Israel proclaimed the city as its capitol as early as 1949 but most nations have not recognized that claim.  The US recognized it in 1995, by Congressional resolution, but also provided that the embassy could only be moved after certain conditions were realized.  The Palestinian National Authority claims the eastern half of the city as its capitol while recognizing the western half of the capitol as the Israeli capitol.

 Turkish prisoners of war.

Just this past week President Trump declared that the American embassy would in fact be moved, fulfilling a campaign promise made by various Presidents before him, as well as by him, but which is guaranteed to be massively unpopular and likely result in violent protests.

And it all started on this day, in 1917.

Veterans Day 2017 (Did you get it off?)

Veterans Day remains November 11, of course, but this year a lot of agencies and some individuals will observe it on Friday, November 10.

I never get Veterans Day off, but that's my own fault.  I could take it off if I wished to, as simply a day off.

How about you?  Did you get the day off?

Blog Mirror: Victims of Communism Centennial Commemoration

A fitting recollection:

Victims of Communism Centennial Commemoration

Truth • Justice • Memory

November 7 - 9, 2017

Washington, DC

On a cold night in Petrograd, one hundred years ago, a small group of Red Guards seized the Winter Palace and installed the world's first communist government. The Bolshevik Revolution marked the beginning of a century in which adherents to communist ideology committed some of the worst and most widespread atrocities known to history. This November, we will gather to honor the memory of the more than 100 million victims of communism, to celebrate liberty where it has triumphed, and to further our pursuit of a world free from communism.

Today is truly the anniversary of one of the blackest days in the 20th Century. . . the beginning of a revolution that would bring mass murder to vast regions of the globe in the name of what is basically an absurd social theory. And yet, even now, that absurdist view of the world retains its adherents.

Red is an appropriate color for it indeed.

The View from the San Jacinto Monument

A live webcam, right on the harbor. 

President Trump's August 21, 2017 Speech on the War In Afghanistan.

"U.S. Army Sgt. Joshua Smith, 82nd Airborne Division’s 2nd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, talks to group of Afghan children during a combined patrol clearing operation in Afghanistan's Ghazni province, April 28, 2012.  U.S. Army Photograph"

While the locals, including myself, were being stunned by the solar eclipse, President Trump was delivering a long speech on the war in Afghanistan. The full text of that speech follows.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Please be seated.

Vice President Pence, Secretary of State Tillerson, members of the Cabinet, General Dunford, Deputy Secretary Shanahan, and Colonel Duggan. Most especially, thank you to the men and women of Fort Myer and every member of the United States military at home and abroad.

We send our thoughts and prayers to the families of our brave sailors who were injured and lost after a tragic collision at sea, as well as to those conducting the search and recovery efforts.

I am here tonight to lay out our path forward in Afghanistan and South Asia. But before I provide the details of our new strategy, I want to say a few words to the service members here with us tonight, to those watching from their posts, and to all Americans listening at home.

Since the founding of our republic, our country has produced a special class of heroes whose selflessness, courage, and resolve is unmatched in human history.

American patriots from every generation have given their last breath on the battlefield for our nation and for our freedom. Through their lives -- and though their lives were cut short, in their deeds they achieved total immortality.

By following the heroic example of those who fought to preserve our republic, we can find the inspiration our country needs to unify, to heal, and to remain one nation under God.

The men and women of our military operate as one team, with one shared mission, and one shared sense of purpose.

They transcend every line of race, ethnicity, creed, and color to serve together -- and sacrifice together -- in absolutely perfect cohesion. That is because all service members are brothers and sisters. They're all part of the same family; it's called the American family. They take the same oath, fight for the same flag, and live according to the same law. They are bound together by common purpose, mutual trust, and selfless devotion to our nation and to each other.

The soldier understands what we, as a nation, too often forget that a wound inflicted upon a single member of our community is a wound inflicted upon us all. When one part of America hurts, we all hurt. And when one citizen suffers an injustice, we all suffer together.

Loyalty to our nation demands loyalty to one another. Love for America requires love for all of its people. When we open our hearts to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice, no place for bigotry, and no tolerance for hate.

The young men and women we send to fight our wars abroad deserve to return to a country that is not at war with itself at home. We cannot remain a force for peace in the world if we are not at peace with each other.

As we send our bravest to defeat our enemies overseas -- and we will always win -- let us find the courage to heal our divisions within. Let us make a simple promise to the men and women we ask to fight in our name that, when they return home from battle, they will find a country that has renewed the sacred bonds of love and loyalty that unite us together as one.

Thanks to the vigilance and skill of the American military and of our many allies throughout the world, horrors on the scale of September 11th -- and nobody can ever forget that -- have not been repeated on our shores.

But we must also acknowledge the reality I am here to talk about tonight: that nearly 16 years after September 11th attacks, after the extraordinary sacrifice of blood and treasure, the American people are weary of war without victory. Nowhere is this more evident than with the war in Afghanistan, the longest war in American history -- 17 years.

I share the American people’s frustration. I also share their frustration over a foreign policy that has spent too much time, energy, money, and most importantly lives, trying to rebuild countries in our own image, instead of pursuing our security interests above all other considerations.

That is why, shortly after my inauguration, I directed Secretary of Defense Mattis and my national security team to undertake a comprehensive review of all strategic options in Afghanistan and South Asia.

My original instinct was to pull out -- and, historically, I like following my instincts. But all my life I've heard that decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk in the Oval Office; in other words, when you're President of the United States. So I studied Afghanistan in great detail and from every conceivable angle. After many meetings, over many months, we held our final meeting last Friday at Camp David, with my Cabinet and generals, to complete our strategy. I arrived at three fundamental conclusions about America’s core interests in Afghanistan.

First, our nation must seek an honorable and enduring outcome worthy of the tremendous sacrifices that have been made, especially the sacrifices of lives. The men and women who serve our nation in combat deserve a plan for victory. They deserve the tools they need, and the trust they have earned, to fight and to win.

Second, the consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable. 9/11, the worst terrorist attack in our history, was planned and directed from Afghanistan because that country was ruled by a government that gave comfort and shelter to terrorists. A hasty withdrawal would create a vacuum that terrorists, including ISIS and al Qaeda, would instantly fill, just as happened before September 11th.

And, as we know, in 2011, America hastily and mistakenly withdrew from Iraq. As a result, our hard-won gains slipped back into the hands of terrorist enemies. Our soldiers watched as cities they had fought for, and bled to liberate, and won, were occupied by a terrorist group called ISIS. The vacuum we created by leaving too soon gave safe haven for ISIS to spread, to grow, recruit, and l

aunch attacks. We cannot repeat in Afghanistan the mistake our leaders made in Iraq.
Third and finally, I concluded that the security threats we face in Afghanistan and the broader region are immense. Today, 20 U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations are active in Afghanistan and Pakistan -- the highest concentration in any region anywhere in the world.

For its part, Pakistan often gives safe haven to agents of chaos, violence, and terror. The threat is worse because Pakistan and India are two nuclear-armed states whose tense relations threaten to spiral into conflict. And that could happen.

No one denies that we have inherited a challenging and troubling situation in Afghanistan and South Asia, but we do not have the luxury of going back in time and making different or better decisions. When I became President, I was given a bad and very complex hand, but I fully knew what I was getting into: big and intricate problems. But, one way or another, these problems will be solved -- I'm a problem solver -- and, in the end, we will win.

We must address the reality of the world as it exists right now -- the threats we face, and the confronting of all of the problems of today, and extremely predictable consequences of a hasty withdrawal.

We need look no further than last week’s vile, vicious attack in Barcelona to understand that terror groups will stop at nothing to commit the mass murder of innocent men, women and children. You saw it for yourself. Horrible.

As I outlined in my speech in Saudi Arabia three months ago, America and our partners are committed to stripping terrorists of their territory, cutting off their funding, and exposing the false allure of their evil ideology.

Terrorists who slaughter innocent people will find no glory in this life or the next. They are nothing but thugs, and criminals, and predators, and -- that's right -- losers. Working alongside our allies, we will break their will, dry up their recruitment, keep them from crossing our borders, and yes, we will defeat them, and we will defeat them handily.

In Afghanistan and Pakistan, America’s interests are clear: We must stop the resurgence of safe havens that enable terrorists to threaten America, and we must prevent nuclear weapons and materials from coming into the hands of terrorists and being used against us, or anywhere in the world for that matter

But to prosecute this war, we will learn from history. As a result of our comprehensive review, American strategy in Afghanistan and South Asia will change dramatically in the following ways:

A core pillar of our new strategy is a shift from a time-based approach to one based on conditions. I’ve said it many times how counterproductive it is for the United States to announce in advance the dates we intend to begin, or end, military options. We will not talk about numbers of troops or our plans for further military activities.

Conditions on the ground -- not arbitrary timetables -- will guide our strategy from now on. America’s enemies must never know our plans or believe they can wait us out. I will not say when we are going to attack, but attack we will.

Another fundamental pillar of our new strategy is the integration of all instruments of American power -- diplomatic, economic, and military -- toward a successful outcome.

Someday, after an effective military effort, perhaps it will be possible to have a political settlement that includes elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan, but nobody knows if or when that will ever happen. America will continue its support for the Afghan government and the Afghan military as they confront the Taliban in the field.

Ultimately, it is up to the people of Afghanistan to take ownership of their future, to govern their society, and to achieve an everlasting peace. We are a partner and a friend, but we will not dictate to the Afghan people how to live, or how to govern their own complex society. We are not nation-building again. We are killing terrorists.

The next pillar of our new strategy is to change the approach and how to deal with Pakistan. We can no longer be silent about Pakistan’s safe havens for terrorist organizations, the Taliban, and other groups that pose a threat to the region and beyond. Pakistan has much to gain from partnering with our effort in Afghanistan. It has much to lose by continuing to harbor criminals and terrorists.

In the past, Pakistan has been a valued partner. Our militaries have worked together against common enemies. The Pakistani people have suffered greatly from terrorism and extremism. We recognize those contributions and those sacrifices.

But Pakistan has also sheltered the same organizations that try every single day to kill our people. We have been paying Pakistan billions and billions of dollars at the same time they are housing the very terrorists that we are fighting. But that will have to change, and that will change immediately. No partnership can survive a country’s harboring of militants and terrorists who target U.S. service members and officials. It is time for Pakistan to demonstrate its commitment to civilization, order, and to peace.

Another critical part of the South Asia strategy for America is to further develop its strategic partnership with India -- the world’s largest democracy and a key security and economic partner of the United States. We appreciate India’s important contributions to stability in Afghanistan, but India makes billions of dollars in trade with the United States, and we want them to help us more with Afghanistan, especially in the area of economic assistance and development. We are committed to pursuing our shared objectives for peace and security in South Asia and the broader Indo-Pacific region.

Finally, my administration will ensure that you, the brave defenders of the American people, will have the necessary tools and rules of engagement to make this strategy work, and work effectively and work quickly.

I have already lifted restrictions the previous administration placed on our warfighters that prevented the Secretary of Defense and our commanders in the field from fully and swiftly waging battle against the enemy. Micromanagement from Washington, D.C. does not win battles. They are won in the field drawing upon the judgment and expertise of wartime commanders and frontline soldiers acting in real time, with real authority, and with a clear mission to defeat the enemy.

That’s why we will also expand authority for American armed forces to target the terrorist and criminal networks that sow violence and chaos throughout Afghanistan. These killers need to know they have nowhere to hide; that no place is beyond the reach of American might and Americans arms. Retribution will be fast and powerful.

As we lift restrictions and expand authorities in the field, we are already seeing dramatic results in the campaign to defeat ISIS, including the liberation of Mosul in Iraq.

Since my inauguration, we have achieved record-breaking success in that regard. We will also maximize sanctions and other financial and law enforcement actions against these networks to eliminate their ability to export terror. When America commits its warriors to battle, we must ensure they have every weapon to apply swift, decisive, and overwhelming force.

Our troops will fight to win. We will fight to win. From now on, victory will have a clear definition: attacking our enemies, obliterating ISIS, crushing al-Qaeda, preventing the Taliban from taking over Afghanistan, and stopping mass terror attacks against America before they emerge.

We will ask our NATO allies and global partners to support our new strategy with additional troop and funding increases in line with our own. We are confident they will. Since taking office, I have made clear that our allies and partners must contribute much more money to our collective defense, and they have done so.

In this struggle, the heaviest burden will continue to be borne by the good people of Afghanistan and their courageous armed forces. As the prime minister of Afghanistan has promised, we are going to participate in economic development to help defray the cost of this war to us.

Afghanistan is fighting to defend and secure their country against the same enemies who threaten us. The stronger the Afghan security forces become, the less we will have to do. Afghans will secure and build their own nation and define their own future. We want them to succeed.

But we will no longer use American military might to construct democracies in faraway lands, or try to rebuild other countries in our own image. Those days are now over. Instead, we will work with allies and partners to protect our shared interests. We are not asking others to change their way of life, but to pursue common goals that allow our children to live better and safer lives. This principled realism will guide our decisions moving forward.

Military power alone will not bring peace to Afghanistan or stop the terrorist threat arising in that country. But strategically applied force aims to create the conditions for a political process to achieve a lasting peace.

America will work with the Afghan government as long as we see determination and progress. However, our commitment is not unlimited, and our support is not a blank check. The government of Afghanistan must carry their share of the military, political, and economic burden. The American people expect to see real reforms, real progress, and real results. Our patience is not unlimited. We will keep our eyes wide open.

In abiding by the oath I took on January 20th, I will remain steadfast in protecting American lives and American interests. In this effort, we will make common cause with any nation that chooses to stand and fight alongside us against this global threat. Terrorists take heed: America will never let up until you are dealt a lasting defeat.

Under my administration, many billions of dollars more is being spent on our military. And this includes vast amounts being spent on our nuclear arsenal and missile defense.
In every generation, we have faced down evil, and we have always prevailed. We prevailed because we know who we are and what we are fighting for.

Not far from where we are gathered tonight, hundreds of thousands of America’s greatest patriots lay in eternal rest at Arlington National Cemetery. There is more courage, sacrifice, and love in those hallowed grounds than in any other spot on the face of the Earth.

Many of those who have fought and died in Afghanistan enlisted in the months after September 11th, 2001. They volunteered for a simple reason: They loved America, and they were determined to protect her.

Now we must secure the cause for which they gave their lives. We must unite to defend America from its enemies abroad. We must restore the bonds of loyalty among our citizens at home, and we must achieve an honorable and enduring outcome worthy of the enormous price that so many have paid.

Our actions, and in the months to come, all of them will honor the sacrifice of every fallen hero, every family who lost a loved one, and every wounded warrior who shed their blood in defense of our great nation. With our resolve, we will ensure that your service and that your families will bring about the defeat of our enemies and the arrival of peace.

We will push onward to victory with power in our hearts, courage in our souls, and everlasting pride in each and every one of you.

Thank you. May God bless our military. And may God bless the United States of America. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Okay, what about this speech and what it reveals.

It's being interpreted in the punditsphere in various ways. Surprisingly (and I was surprised) the New York Times actually said it might help conditions on the ground in Afghanistan.  Given that the Times has gotten to where whatever Trump says is wrong, that's a pretty interesting comment.

Secondly, about the only real strategic thing in the speech, in terms of military strategy, is that he's indicating that the rules of engagement will be liberalized.  We now know that the US will also commit an additional 4,000 or so troops to the country, but in real terms that's not a large addition of manpower (an American division includes about 15,000 troops).

"Members of Co. C, 1st Bn, 8th Inf, 1st Bde, 4th Inf Div, descend the side of Hill 742, located five miles northwest of Dak To. November 14-17, 1967"  U.S. Army photograph.  The US commitment to the tenuous government of South Vietnam was far more vast than that to the government in Kabul.  At one time up to 500,000 US troops were in the Southeast Asian country, and additional forces were there in our support from numerous other nations.  The South Korean commitment alone number 50,000 troops.

It's very long been the case that troops in the theater have criticized the rules of engagement for Afghanistan.  I don't know how far back it goes, but it goes back a long ways.  Now, rules of engagement exist for a reason and we don't want the war in Afghanistan to become the war in Vietnam in the "burn the huts down" sense.  No matter what those sort of images portray, what that leads to is always bad and in this day and age, and thankfully at that, we don't want to go there and can't either.  We aren't, after all, the French operating in Morocco in 1908 in a news vacuum.  And we don't want to be either.

General Lyautey re-entering Marrakech.  He really did go by automobile, the first one in Morocco.  And it really was equipped with a machinegun  Lyautey's efforts were not marked by overreaction, but earlier French efforts had featured "scatter the tent" type actions.

Shoot, for that matter, even later French actions in the post World War Two environment in North Africa, or US ones for that matter, couldn't operate in any sort of heavy handed fashion long term.

French soldier of unspecified unit, but a paratrooper based on appearance, with suspected Algerian terrorists.  In Algeria the French faced a disunited, but hostile population and a determined guerilla opponent.  Ground efforts waxed and waned in their success with guerilla bands taking refuge in neighboring nations.  A counter guerilla effort that relied on similar terroristic tactics was successful but when its existence became known to the French population it was stopped as the French would not tolerate it.

But the rules have, according to the soldiers fighting the war, been far too restrictive.  This seems like a good tactical change, depending upon how its actually implemented.

It should be noted, however, that the present situation didn't come about solely due to the rules of engagement by any means.  Early tactical errors caused it also, and now they are difficult to repair.  Afghanistan was the central locus of the enemy that launched the September 11, 2001 attack upon the United States and therefore the US had to engage in some sort of military intervention in the nation.  The extent of that action can be debated, but a full scale invasion, which is what we did, was not irrational.

It was not sound, however, to so quickly refocus the nation's attention on Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11. Saddam Hussein was a nuisance, to be sure, but its now quite clear that the invasion of that country so hard on the heels of Afghanistan used a great deal of military resources that would have been better spent in Afghanistan.  The thesis in Afghanistan was that we could win the war on the cheap.  That thesis was proven wholly incorrect.  We did push out the existing quasi government but we did not destroy the opponent, which perhaps we could have done, and if we were going to enter the nation, should have done.  Doing it now will have a completely different psychological sense to the native population than doing it in 2001 would have.  We have to keep that unfortunately in mind.  We will not be the vengeful justified wounded in 2017 as we would have been in 2001.

 "Members of an Iraqi Concerned Citizens group discuss a checkpoint with coalition forces in Haswa, Iraq, Sept. 22, 2007. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Justin K. Thomas)".  U.S. troops in Iraq ten years ago.  There too our invasion didn't result in peace, but in a second war, that's now given way to a third.

Beyond that, it seems we're turning up the heat on Pakistan, which is a good thing as that country has been far too conciliatory to the forces we're fighting.  It seems we might be cozying up to India, which is a bad thing as we have no dog in the Pakistan v. India fight, and that will unfortunately suggest that we do, or even cause us to have one.

So what beyond that?

We can't really tell.

Other than that we're not getting out.

"U.S. Army National Guard Spc. Timothy Shout, a native of Austin, Texas, scans the nearby ridgeline along with other members of the Provincial Reconstruction Team Kunar Security Force element, following an engagement with anti-Afghan forces. Shout is deployed from Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 143rd Infantry (Airborne) out of Austin, Texas. The unit took small-arms fire from a nearby mountain top during a routine patrol, and was able to suppress the enemy with the assistance of local Afghan National Security Forces."  U.S. Army photograph.

Trump had suggested to some degree that we might get out. And plenty of Americans would like for us to get out. For one thing, this war has been incredibly long, sixteen years.  But the comment in the speech about what happens if we get out is right.  It goes back to being a training ground for Islamic Caliphatist terrorist, and perhaps a worse one than it was before.

Now, it should be noted, that some would suggest that this could in fact be addressed even with us still withdrawing by using what I'll call the Israeli option.

 IIsraeli airborne officers of the Paratrooper Battalion 890 in 1955 with Moshe Dayan

It's often noted that Israel has maintained its independence since 1948 surrounded by more or less hostile neighbors (some a lot more hostile than others), and that they've won several wars against those neighbors.  What's rarely noted, however is that all of its victories have been partial.  Israel has never achieved a total victory over anyone neighbor and frankly it's leadership has been to smart, given its strategic situation, to try for one.  Israel can't occupy an entire Arab neighbor for any prolonged basis and even attempting to do so would be some sort of strategic nightmare.  This should give Israel's neighbors a sense of security, for good or ill, even if nothing else does. But what this has meant is that Israel has had to be prepared to act on a greater or lessor basis continually for seventy years.  Most of its wars, if we reconsider them in the long term sense, other than the 1948 war for independence, where giant raids.  In between those giant raids have been a lot of smaller raids, some big in raid terms, and some very small.  We don't hear about most of them, but we do about hte bigger ones.

So, if we got out, and this is what those proposing we get out have sometimes suggested, in Afghanistan what we have to do is be prepared to raid on a nearly continual basis.  And some of those raids would be really big, from time to time.  It's an option, but a distasteful one.  Particularly as we have sixteen years in now.  Who knows how long that would go on?

But for that matter, we don't know how long this will go on either.  It's amazing to think that starting this year or next we will have enlistees in the services who were born the year this all started, and then the following year people who were born after it started.

 

  US Troops fighting in Vietnam.

I recall that when the US withdrew from Vietnam in 1973 my mother was relieved as it meant that there was no chance I'd have to go to Vietnam.  Heck, I was ten.  That struck me as absurd then, but looking at it now, she had a keen sense of history and she was not an American by birth.  Growing up in an era in which the British Empire was a strong thing and still supported greatly by her native country, Canada, a war lasting twenty or more years in some far off pile of bush no doubt didn't seem that long to her.  How long, after all, had the British, with Australian, New Zealander, and Rhodesian help, fought in  southeast Asia after World War Two.  Longer than that, really.  How long will this go on, and how long will we be prepared to tolerate it going on?

I can't answer those things, but I suspect that this effort will bring some renewed success on the ground but ultimately any long term solution means un-doing what the Soviets did in 1979 when they entered the country and wrecked its culture.  Contrary to the way we imagine it now, Afghanistan wasn't always 100% wild Islamist combatants.  It's always partially been that, but it was once a country of large cities, farming, and country villas.  It's proof that civilization can in fact retreat, and retreat enormously.  Had the country continued to develop in the fashion it was in 1970, which is no certainty, it may have been a shining light of quasi democracy in the region today.  A lessor Turkey, perhaps (although Turkey now has its own problems).  Now its a mess.

Cleaning up that mess is going to be really hard.  How can it be done?  I frankly have no idea, and it seems nobody else has much of one either.  But do we have any other choice?

It might do us well to remember the lessons of history in regards to this.  While I don't like the term "post colonial wars" very much, that term is perhaps useful here.  Almost none of the Western efforts after the Second World War in the Third World have been militarily successful.  The French failed in Indochina and Algeria, although the nature of those wars is not really analogous here.   We failed in Indochina as well, although a good case can be made that we were successful, and had won the war on the ground, following a fifteen year effort, only to loose it shortly there after when we lost our political will and abandoned the South Vietnamese government.  The Rhodesian Bush War, which pitted a white English government against two black insurgent armies was also not successful, although its not very analogous either.  Wars in Angola, Chad, and the like are too dissimilar to provide useful examples.  The Soviet Union certainly failed in Afghanistan.  Only the Malayan Emergency stands out as a successful Western, in that case Commonwealth, example of Western nations clearly defeating an indigenous guerilla foe.

 Royal Australian Air Force Avro Lincoln dropping bombs on insurgents during the Malaysian Emergency.

In that example we find that the British lead effort took twelve years, a long time, but it was treated more as a police action, supported by the military, than the other way around. Does that teach us something?  Perhaps. The British were patient, but they also simply treated the foe as an illegal criminal organization, recasting a guerilla war as a civil emergency.  Perhaps there are lessons to be learned there.  The country is over half Islamic, although of the relaxed Southeast Asian variety, and a functioning democracy today.  It tolerates other religions.  It is a federation with more than one ethnicity.  The British effort was a success.

Of course, Malaysia is not Afghanistan.  Nor is the British effort, which was fairly coherent from the start and even back into the Second World War, is not the American one.  Perhaps it provides lessons, but perhaps those lessons come a little too late? Perhaps not?

Perhaps the best that can be done is to give the government in Kabul the high side of the fight and then get out, hoping for the best.  That's not a grand victory, but it might be the best we can hope for.  But it's going to take, bare minimum, a few years to do that.

Casper Eclipse Festival: August 19-21, 2017. And...

Casper Eclipse Festival: August 19-21, 2017. And a note on the Eclipse in general.

 Newly opened Casper bar, The Gaslight Social.

As Casper was right in the center of the 2017 Solar Eclipse, it took advantage of the situation and had a three day festival to commemorate it.  The festival featured the openings, basically, of three new bars (or one bar/restaurant reopening, one new bar/restaurant and one new bar) and a new city feature, a downtown plaza.  It was well attended.

 Downtown revelers and a carriage.  Casper, unlike Fort Collins or even, occasionally, Denver, generally doesn't have horse drawn carriages downtown.

There were wildly varying predictions for the eclipse.  Frankly, I doubted some of them.  But maybe more of them came true than I would have guessed.

 Map
showing where people had come from to view the eclipse.  Some of the
locations were so surprising, I wonder if they were really true.

Over 1,000,000 people, according to the Star Tribune, entered the state during the eclipse.  Assuming that's correct, that means that the state's population tripled yesterday.  Having said that, it didn't appear to be the case that Casper's population more than doubled, as had been predicted.  I know that not all of the camping spots filled that had been predicted to, although perhaps many did.  I also know that people were camping right in the neighborhood, in front of people's houses that they knew.

This doesn't do this map justice.  There were visitors, according to the map, from Greenland, Ascension Island, and North Korea.  All quite surprising, if true.

Europe seemed pretty well represented.  I met one Irish visitor who had just left the Wonder Bar, which has a nice restaurant.  Apparently he hadn't realized that as he asked me and my son for directions to "a pub" so he could get something to eat.  He was surprised when I directed him back to the Wonder Bar.

 New downtown plaza.  I was skeptical that this would be complete on time.

It's not everyday you see a municipal judge on the guitar.

New downtown Rotary sidewalk clock.

 Picking up my trailer, which I had loaned out to friends

I'm included amongst those that had camping visitors.  Some good friends of mine were in town for the eclipse. They'd planned on staying in Gillette and driving down, but I loaned them my camp trailer and let them camp near our garden land. That became three couples by the time of the eclipse.  This land has never had residents, although the neighboring land does and has for quite some time, so I suppose its population increased from 0 to six.

Another old friend of mine drove up from Salt Lake to Riverton, where they also experienced an influx.  And I guess the Jackson Hole Airport received a huge  corporate jet boost.

Interesting event.

Well I have to admit. . .

the eclipse was awesome.

Echoes of political disruption near and far

And, after just coming into office, Gen. Kelly engineered the canning of Anthony "The Mooch" Scaramucci.

Well, good riddance in my view, if for no other reason than that he's yet another graduate of Harvard Law School, which he credits with his success in business.  Harvard (and Yale) law schools seem to be the golden ticket, which they should not be. Graduate from a law school and you ought to be required to try at least a dozen small claims cases.  If you haven't, the bread line for you.

While having gone to Harvard Law School is reason enough, in my view, to get the axe, an additional reason centered on his volatile personality and in particular the language he used in an interview with a New Yorker reporter.  That latter event unfortunately says something about the nature of a lot of language in the law, I fear, as lawyers are pretty bad about using off color language amongst themselves.  Of course, American speech has coarsened enormously over recent years anyhow, so this is yet another example of how the public tends to be shocked by language used in one camp that they may very well, in some circumstances, use themselves.  There was a lot of "we can't even repeat this" in the press, but quite frankly language of that type, no matter how disgustingly vulgar, is pretty common.

Not that the wealthy Scaramucci is destined for the breadline.

Of interest, the Italian American Scaramucci was raised in a Catholic family but has been married twice.  His second wife Deidre Ball. filed for divorce from Scaramucci after a few years of marriage and having one child with him, and while being second with another, citing her dislike of Donald Trump as a reason.

Closer to home Cindy Hill resurfaced on the front page of the local paper again when her defamation suit against Tim Stubson was dismissed. That it would be dismissed was widely regarded as inevitable by anyone with a legal background so that's no surprise.  She, however, was not taking it gracefully as she was complaining in print about the judge who rendered the decision and indicating in a less than graceful way that she'd appeal the decision to the  Wyoming Supreme Court.  No doubt she will, where the decision of the lower court will be affirmed.

Stubson's comments, which appeared on Facebook related to his reasons and that of those in his camp regarding the bill that was found unconstitutional that basically deprived her of power. That bill was at the center of a full scale war in the GOP between what we might term the old guard and radical tea partyers.  That war seems to have died down and the tea party camp basically lost, or at least they've been fairly quiet for some time.  Stubson would be Congressman now but for LeLand Christensen, or put another way LeLand Christensen would be Congressman now but for Stubson, as they split the majority of the GOP vote, Christensen taking 22% and Stubson 17.7%.  That opened the door to Liz Cheney getting the nomination with 39% of the vote. That presumes, of course, that which ever, Stubson or Christensen, would have picked up the balance if the other had not been there, but I suspect that they would have.  Cheney, of course, having one will basically be Congressman for life and Wyoming never turns out an incumbent in Congress or in the Governor's seat.

I managed to miss. . .

some of the Administration drama of this past week.  I had no idea that Reince Priebus was outsted this past Friday.  I had a really busy day this past week, and I just didn't know that until I listed to the Sunday morning shows while mowing the lawn.

Nor did I know, therefore, that he'd been replaced by Homeland Security Secretary, retired Army General John Kelly.  And I don't know what I think of that.  I guess, in a way, that stands to make Kelly to Trump what Haig was to Reagan, except that Reagan's administration didn't have the appearance of utter chaos.

I heard one comment, concerning the number of former military officers surrounding Trump, that it is a "war cabinet".  It certainly looks like one, although I don't think we can take that too far.  But the degree to which its military top heavy is a bit odd, suggesting that Trump simply likes former servicemen for their leadership style, or that the service has become too corporate for its own good.  We'll see, I suppose, if these former generals are able to arrest the general chaos.

If it is a war cabinet, perhaps the time is right as we had another North Korean ICBM launch and the North Koreans are now capable of hitting any state in the union except for Florida with an ICBM. The only saving grace to that is that they are not capable of placing a nuclear warhead on one.  One commentator blandly commented that the North Koreans would, of course, not use a nuclear missile on the basis that simply wouldn't be rational.

Well, keeping a state locked in Stalinist 1939 isn't very rational either, particular for a leader educated in Switzerland.  Grabbing women from various places to be the forced spouses of captives isn't either.  Running an economy that is demonstrably completely broken, when simply opening the border would solve a lot of the problem, isn't rational either.  Strapping a general to an antiaircraft gun and setting it off for execution purposes, if it has any rationality to it all, is style manifestly evil.  Assuming rational  actions out of North Korea imposes a rather large assumption on the lives of millions.

And for that reason, I'm convinced that war with North Korean is now inevitable.  Indeed, if North Korea was a Middle Eastern state, Israel would have already launched a preemptive strike.  We are going to.  It's only a matter of time.  And not much time.

I guess, therefore, at least Trump is surrounded by folks who have some military experience when that comes.  Not that he's listening to them.

In terms of not listening, he better be listening to the Republicans in Congress defending Jeff Sessions. Whether you like Sessions or not, he's under fire for doing the right thing.  Trump doesn't seem to quite grasp that being President of the United States isn't the same as being CEO of a family business.  Should Sessions be fired, a GOP revolt in the Senate will follow.

Oddly, all of this might be something that only fans of politics follow.  Out in the general public, it seems, quite a few feel that low gas prices and pretty good employment rates right now. . .well.. . . trump all these concerns. It would seem that at some point chickens of chaos come home to create a messy roost.  But until, and unless, that occurs, maybe much of this doesn't matter, or seem to, for a lot of Ameicans.

The moment at which war with North Korea likely became inevitable.

This past weekend, it is now confirmed, North Korea successfully tested an ICBM. 

If intelligence reports are correct, the missile is not yet capable of hauling a nuclear warhead, but it soon will be, at which point there will be no place in the United States, China, Russia, South Korea, or Japan, that will be free from the threat of North Korean nuclear strikes.  Of course, Japan and South Korea, and parts of Russia and China, are already so exposed.

It's likely a safe assumption that the US now has to act before nuclear warheads top those missiles.  The only question is when, and if there can be some solution to stave off an armed strike against North Korea first.

I very much doubt that.

While at least one headline today proclaims this to be Donald Trump's fault, it isn't. The US has been trying the carrot and stick approach with the bizarre Stalinist theme park of North Korea since the Clinton Administration.  Nothing has worked, and no US administration has been able to make serious inroads into real progress with the North.  Likewise successive South Korean Administrations, some aggressive some less so, have failed to push North Korea towards rationality.  Everything has failed.

I've long thought that China would ultimately push the bizarre family dictatorship in the north out.  China''s no longer really a communist country, even though it is not a democratic one.  But time is now running out for that, if it hasn't already.  Of course, China well knows that, making the situation all the more dangerous for all, if we keep in mind that the US and China came to blows during the first US led effort to push the Communist out, but it also may mean that China will now feel compelled to act.

Anyway we look at it, this is a dangerous new situation.  War, I suspect, is more likely than not.

The Solar Eclipse of June 19, 1917

This isn't, as we have noted, the "one hundred years ago today blog" or the "This Day In 1917 Blog".  Those blogs may of course exist (I don't know) but this isn't it.

Still, I note quite a few things that are exactly a century past in the context of this blog, some in the context of things that have changed and some in the context of things that have stayed the same.  In that context, I was surprised by this partial solar eclipse that occurred on date in 1917.

I was mostly surprised, fwiw, as we're having a total eclipse on August 21 here, and this town is in the dead center of its path.

That's neat enough, I guess, but we've been hearing for months that thousands of people are expected to be here for it.  Some people I know are expecting guests.  A lawyer I spoke to last week, who lives in Denver, told me that he had rented a pontoon boat and plans to be on Glendo for the event.

I don't get it.

I either have too little imagination, or perhaps too much, but it gets dark every night.  I don't see why people would travel thousands of miles to experience something for a couple of minutes that the experience for hours every night.

The Casper Record for June 19, 1917. Changing standards. . . an advertisement you are unlikely to see today

How about a suit for the 4th?

Hmmm. . . . I'll bet you aren't planning on wearing a suit for the 4th, nor are you planning on buying one, are you?

Commentary on the British Terrorist Attacks

I started this post prior to Theresa May calling an election and taking a pounding in it.  Given that, I thought about not posting it at all, but as it was nearly already done, I will.

It's been interesting to hear American commentary on the terrorist attacks in the United Kingdom.  Indeed listening to them sort of emphasizes that we're pretty much clueless here on what the British should do. We feel, as do they, that they need to do something, but it doesn't take much to reach that conclusion.

Some of our commentary has been surprisingly muted.  One thing that hasn't come up is a discussion on firearms, which did come up a bit in regard to the attacks in Belgium and France.  The reason it hasn't come up is that the attacks haven't involved firearms. They've involved explosives, knives and automobiles, but not firearms.  In the UK, that is.

Nobody should take false comfort on that, fwiw. The UK endured a decades running IRA campaign in Northern Ireland and on Great Britain which involved plenty of firearms.  So the fact that the British have strict firearms laws probably doesn't fully explain the lack of arms.  We probably don't really know what does other than a lack of organization and the ad hoc nature of the attacks we're seeing.

Which probably points out that the attacks are ISIL inspired, but not really ISIL controlled.

Before we look at that, its really clear that British police should be armed and the fact they aren't is just stupid.  I know that its a tradition that they be unarmed but its a dumb one.  Facing a domestic terrorist campaign, they need to be armed and all the time.  Probably more people than just that do, although I do not intend to launch into a general discussion on firearms and British society.  I will note that during World War Two British soldiers took their arms home with them while on leave (British firearms control laws, fwiw, were much less restrictive at the time in any event).  That made sense because if something bad happened while they were on leave, they were armed.  And the British issued a lot of long arms to members of the Home Guard.

British Home Guard Stand Down Parade.  That isn't "Dad's Army".  Those are soldiers.

Again, as I'm not British and it doesn't directly relate to what I'm trying to say, I'm not going to use this as a springboard for a 2nd Amendment discussion.  Rather, I think maybe the British need to think at this point about having more official folks carrying, both openly and concealed.

I am going to make this a 1st Amendment conversation, however.

One thing that has come out since the second attack is that the current British government wants to clamp down on the transfer of information via the net.  They argue, not without merit, that ISIL inspires and conspires with domestic Muslims to cause these things to happen.

That may be true, but as an American I gasp at the suggesiton that clamping down on information is ever a good idea.  I think you combat it, but preventing its transfer is dicey in my view.  NOt that we haven't done it ourselves.  In wartime we have, but this would require a global effort and its one we can't participate in.  Beyond that, plenty of hte world's governments are already all too keen on restructuring information and that seems to encourage that sort of behavior when I don't know that we should be doing that.

This gets into an interesting aspect of a debate like this that we don't hear in the United States very much because the 1st Amendment is regarded as so untoubable, principally by hte Press, that disucssions like this just don't come up. Are you willing to restrict information if it saves lives?

We do hear that in regards to the 2nd Amendment (okay, I can't help but touch on it some), but not the 1st.  I.e, are you willing to impose restrictions on the 2nd Amendment to save lives.  It's a question most people don't want to answer who are 2nd Amendement supporters (and I'm one, and it makes me uncomfortable.  But are you willing to restrict free speech if it saves lives.

Most people are during wartime, that's clear.  But what about to counter a terrorist campaign that goes on for years, maybe for decades? That comes close to a different type of censorship than we're generally comfortable with in the US.

And, quite frankly, if the US doesn't participate in the effort, it isn't going to work.

So, are you so comfortable?

I'm not terribly comfortable with arguments in this area that have the warm squishy feel of oatmeal to them, and there's a few of those around.

John Kerry offered one that has a definate element of truth to it, but which is far too simplisitic, but which is an example of what we tend to hear all too often in this area.  Again, having said that, there's an element of truth to it.  His is the economic and social argument.

Basically, what he said (and he wasn't the first one to offer this explanation over the past week, is that the British in particular and the Europeans in general have done a fairly poor job of integrating Islamic populations both economically and socially. That's quite true.

Indeed, this entire aspect of this story fits into an odd "how bad are you doing" story regarding race, class and religion.  It's likely that Brits hearing this from us would stammer back that we're hardly in a position to lecture them on integration of any kind when we had slavery as late as 1865 and segregation all the way up into the 1960s.  And they'd really have a point.

Indeed, expanding this out a bit, the French (who have the same problem noted above, along with the Belgians) were much better about integrating our black troops (but not theirs) as early as World War One and the British were, to their credit, fairly horrified by the US having segregated units during World War Two and on how badly black Americans were treated.  Having said that, it's difficult to credit that too much when the British and the French had major empires from which they recruited foreign nations to fight for them during those wars.  That is, how much more benevolent are you really in this situation?  Not much.  There's plenty of finger pointing that could go on back and forth on both sides of the Atlantic, on  history, on this one.

But importantly the US has made enormous strides in this area since 1900 and in particular since 1945.  The Europeans, to include the British, really haven't.  That seems to be a cultural thing as European populations simply don't mix very much where as Americans famously do, even if not perfectly by any means.

So now we do have all over Europe populations of ghettoized Muslims, and that's a bad deal by any measure (much less noted, on the continent, we also have a Muslim population that's taking up a lot of conservative traditional European culture more aggressively than Europeans have maintained it).    They're ethnically distinct and kept poor, to some extent, which is not good at all.

But the story is a lot more complicated than that.  Most of these groups are very recent arrivals having come onto the continent only since 1945 and a lot of them only since 1970.  Given that, they managed to arrive just as much of meaningful European culture disintegrated post 1968 and became apatite based, something we here in the US have done as well.  Their cultures, however, remained conservative and were religiously based quite often.  Indeed this has been so much the case that its sparked some conversion, particularly by European and British women, to the immigrant religion as its clearly centered, whether you think it right or not, and based on something other than materialistic and hedonistic pleasure.

In that situation its clear that a certain massive culture shock is going to occur. Added to that, the immigrant religion has a strong call to forced conversion and licensees violence in some circumstances. That's a fact, not propoganda, although modern Westerners are so schooled in thinkign the opposite they are loathe to admit that.  Those who heed ISIL's call aren't irrational by any means, they're thinking and fairly devout.

Of course, ISIL is added to this mix as a motivating force and this brings in other elements.  ISIL isn't crazy.  Looking at the world they way they do, they're acting in a rational fashion.  This may be due to a plethora of external forces and its highly likely to be overcome by developments in culture, technology and economics, but that it would struggle for a Caliphate at this moment, and that some Muslims in the US and Europe would heed the call, makes quite a bit of sense.  That's a lot more complicated story than simply assuming that a terrorist could never get his dream job of being an actuary.

Both the US and the UK used versions of this poster during World War Two. Today, the same poster would likely be regarded as culturally insensitive.

And part of that means reexamining ourselves, or I guess the British reexamining themselves (and the Europeans, and us too).  That doesn't mean that ISIL is right and we need to surrender to an Islamic Caliphate, but it might mean that some aspects of our culture that have decayed may need to reassessed.  The Europeans should be able to grasp that, as should we, as we've done it before.