December 03, 2009

WHAT IF?

Diana West asks an interesting question (via Amritas):

[W]hat if WWII had been fought as a "counterinsurgency"?

What if, instead of firebombing every important German city and killing tens of thousands of civilians from Hamburg to Dresden, and instead of firebombing Tokyo and nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki and tens of  thousands of Japanese in the all-out effort to defeat the Axis powers and End All Fighting, the Allies had sought instead to win hearts and minds?

What if Gen. Eisenhower, like Gen. McChrystal today in Afghanistan, wandered through German towns, asking das volk, "What do you need?

Posted by: Sarah at 02:02 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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December 02, 2009

TERRORISM THAT'S PERSONAL

When I was 21, a boy asked me to marry him.  He wasn't the right person for me, and I had to politely decline the surprising offer.  I'm sure it hurt his feelings, but that was the extent of it.

And that's what I thought of when I saw Terrorism That's Personal.  (Warning: graphic content that will make you cry.)  No one threw acid on me or tried to kill me.

I was allowed to not marry him.

Many women in this world are not allowed to make that choice.  Or when they do make that choice, they must live with the consequences of wanting some control over their own lives.  Blindness, disfigurement, even death.

My heart is sick for these women.

(via Cass)

Posted by: Sarah at 07:50 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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December 01, 2009

"LOOK AT YOUR MAP"

Last night I was interviewed for an article called "Families Await News From Afghanistan." I only played a small role in the article, probably because I wasn't sure exactly what was expected of me. Truthfully, I felt that giving my opinion before Pres Obama's speech was a waste of time, because the specifics of what he'd say is what really means something. Who cares what I think the night before I know what's going on? The reporter -- who was very nice and professional and quoted me accurately (except that I know for a fact I always called him "President Obama" and not just "Obama," as I was quoted as saying. Out of respect for the office of the presidency, I make a point of never calling him just by his last name.) -- asked me what I thought of the proposed additional 30,000 troops and what I thought about the inclusion of an exit strategy. And my answer, which is not conducive to news articles, is that it depends.

What I answered was that it depends on what the 30,000 will be used for. Will they be sent to urban or rural areas? Will they be doing counter-insurgency or counter-terrorism? And as far as an exit goes, I said it depends on whether Pres Obama announces what the end game is. Will he state concrete goals? Will he announce a victory strategy? It makes no sense to denote an arbitrary end to a war based on running out the clock; what does victory look like to the Obama administration?

And I obviously over-thought the substance of the article, because I was apparently over-expectant on the substance of the speech.

I wanted details. I can't form any opinions on whether we're making the right move if I don't know the specifics. And I feel like I didn't learn anything new from listening to Pres Obama's speech tonight than what I already knew from what got leaked ahead of time. (Except I learned there is something called a "tool of mass destruction." Which sounds more like a witty insult than something serious.)

What I wanted was Perot or Beck-style charts and graphs. I wanted another version of FDR's fireside chat On the Progess of the War.

That is the reason why I have asked you to take out and spread before you (the) a map of the whole earth, and to follow with me in the references which I shall make to the world-encircling battle lines of this war.
[...]
Look at your map.
[...]
Heavy bombers can fly under their own power from here to the southwest Pacific, either way, but the smaller planes cannot. Therefore, these lighter planes have to be packed in crates and sent on board cargo ships. Look at your map again; and you will see that the route is long – and at many places perilous – either across the South Atlantic all the way (a)round South Africa and the Cape of Good Hope, or from California to the East Indies direct. A vessel can make a round trip by either route in about four months, or only three round trips in a whole year.

In spite of the length, (and) in spite of the difficulties of this transportation, I can tell you that in two and a half months we already have a large number of bombers and pursuit planes, manned by American pilots and crews, which are now in daily contact with the enemy in the Southwest Pacific. And thousands of American troops are today in that area engaged in operations not only in the air but on the ground as well.

In this battle area, Japan has had an obvious initial advantage. For she could fly even her short-range planes to the points of attack by using many stepping stones open to – her bases in a multitude of Pacific islands and also bases on the China coast, Indo-China coast, and in Thailand and Malaya (coasts). Japanese troop transports could go south from Japan and from China through the narrow China Sea, which can be protected by Japanese planes throughout its whole length.

I ask you to look at your maps again, particularly at that portion of the Pacific Ocean lying west of Hawaii. Before this war even started, the Philippine Islands were already surrounded on three sides by Japanese power. On the west, the China side, the Japanese were in possession of the coast of China and the coast of Indo-China which had been yielded to them by the Vichy French. On the North are the islands of Japan themselves, reaching down almost to northern Luzon. On the east, are the Mandated Islands – which Japan had occupied exclusively, and had fortified in absolute violation of her written word.

Read that and imagine any recent president talking to us citizens this way. Imagine being treated like you have a brain in your head, and that you're a part of what's taking place. Imagine your president asking you to follow his complex speech on a map or with pen and paper.

Instead, we got "We will not target other people...because their faith or ethnicity is different from ours." And praise for teachers, community organizers, and "Peace Corps volunteers who spread hope abroad."

That's all well and good, but I wanted details about Afghanistan.

I don't know why I expected I would get that.

MORE:

Vodkapundit drunkblogged.

he’s decided to send an additional 30,000 troops for 30 months. That’s not a strategic decision. That’s a new-car warranty.

Bad writing. Lame delivery. Tepid response — from cadets ORDERED to be nice. And a strategic vision equal parts High School Essay Content and low-rent public relations.

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GLOBAL WARMING FLOW CHARTS

There's a good post at The Devil's Kitchen (via The Corner) with flow charts explaining how we ought to make decisions on global warming vs how we do. I have debated this with real-world friends and have always tried to steer it towards the Ought flow chart, but it always ends up skipping right ahead to the "We're all going to die" box. Laymen, especially quasi-treehuggers, don't want to talk about cost-benefit analysis; I've been told that we need to err on the side of caution and try to prevent climate change from happening no matter the cost because it's For The Childrenâ„¢.  And even when I try to play Bjorn Lomborg, as I've said I always try to do to concede some ground in the debate, and say that there are things we can do to save The Children right now instead of in 100 years, it never seems to have much effect.

If anything, Climategate can at least give me another talking point to get us off the bozo flow chart and back onto the Ought one.  The science is most certainly not settled, so any decisions you make For The Children based on the "consensus" are flawed.

But what do I know, I don't even recycle.

UPDATE:

Slightly related, I enjoyed this comment on Althouse's post (via Boxenhorn).

He easily could've made an argument that Republicans are sceptical of anything which tries to paint Capitalism in as bad a light as possible, or that we are not idealistic so much as pragmatic, and realise that academia (who fired the first AGW volleys) are mostly left-wingers intent on hounding corporations for their multiple "crimes".

But no, he goes for the "Republicans are dumb and don't like science [read, because they are religious and therefore are all creationists]".

We're even better at making their arguments for them!

And here's a great summary of Climategate itself.  (I just discovered that the link doesn't go directly to the comment, so I am reposting it here.)

The reason why people say it has warmed at all in the last 100 years is because the CRU told them so. How did CRU come to that conclusion? Well, NASA gave the raw temperature readings for however many years such things existed. CRU then proceeded to "adjust" those readings. Clearly, some adjustment and almalgamation was needed to get the proper global temperature measurements. But were CRU's adjustments done correctly?

Understand, this is a really hard question. We don't know what the actual global temperature is. We are supposed to figure that out by looking at the temperature data and adjusting it accordingly. But if you don't know the final answer how do you know the adjustments are correct? That is a hard question.

But we will never know if the adjustments were done properly because the CRU destroyed the raw temperature readings. They only have their adjusted or "value added" readings. But there is no way to tell now if those readings are correct.

The whole proposition that the world warmed over the last 100 years is now in question. For all we know, the world could be cooler now than it was in 1900. We have only CRU's word and adjustments to go on. And CRU has been revealed to be a complete fraud. Basically, climate science has to start over from square one.

Posted by: Sarah at 08:08 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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