Who Knows About The Ukraine?

“My ardent desire is, and my aim has been...to comply strictly with all our engagements foreign and domestic; but to keep the U States free from political connections with every other Country. To see that they may be independent of all, and under the influence of none. In a word, I want an American character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced we act for ourselves and not for others; this, in my judgment, is the only way to be respected abroad and happy at home.” George Washington, letter to Patrick Henry — 1795.

On April 13, it was announced that U.S. Army paratroopers were arriving in Poland on as part of a wave of U.S. troops heading to shore up America's Eastern European allies in the face of Russian meddling in Ukraine.

Fox News Reported:

“Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said an initial contingent of about 600 troops will head to four countries across Eastern Europe for military exercises over the next month.

First, about 150 soldiers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team based in Vicenza, Italy, are arriving in Poland.

Additional Army companies will head to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and are expected to arrive by Monday for similar land-based exercises in those countries.

The show of strength comes as the United States, European allies and Ukraine try to ease tensions with Russia and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. All sides struck a diplomatic agreement last week, but it remains unclear whether pro-Russian demonstrators, who took over a series of government buildings in the wake of Russia's annexation of Crimea, will back down.

Under the current plan, U.S. troops would rotate in and out of the four Eastern European countries for additional exercises on a recurring basis.

"We're looking at trying to keep this rotational presence persistent throughout the rest of this year," Kirby told reporters, adding that over time the exercises could expand to other countries.

The exercises are part of an effort announced last week by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel aimed at reassuring NATO allies of America's commitment to the region's defense.

Kirby said the U.S. will likely plan other exercises and will continue to work through NATO on joint measures that could be scheduled in the future.

"It's a very tangible representation of our commitment to our security obligations in Europe, and the message is to the people of those countries and to the alliance that we do take it seriously. And we encourage our NATO partners to likewise look for opportunities of their own to do this same kind of thing for one another," said Kirby. "And I think if there's a message to Moscow, it is the same exact message - that we take our obligations very, very seriously on the continent of Europe."

Armed pro-Russia groups have occupied areas in eastern Ukraine and have refused to leave until the country's acting government resigns. There was a burst of violence Sunday, with three people killed during a shootout at a checkpoint manned by pro-Russian troops. The U.S. has asserted that some of the troops are Russian special operations forces, and officials are pressing Russian to abide by an international accord aimed at stemming the crisis in Ukraine.”

So what does this mean? If you want to know I suggest you read “Command Authority” by Tom Clancy and Mark Greaney. Most of know who Tom Clancy was, but not many know about Mark Greaney. He has a degree in international relations and political science. He is the author of the Gray Man novels, the most recent of which is Dead Eye. In his research for those novels, he has traveled to a dozen countries and trained alongside military and law enforcement in the use of firearms, battlefield medicine, and close-range combat tactics. In essence he is an expert in foreign relations and what is going on in the world, probably as much if not more than the State Department or the CIA.

Over the years Clancy’s books have been somewhat prophetic. His Clear and Present Danger foretold the U.S. involvement in the drug wars in Colombia and his 1994 Debt of Honor predicted an airliner used as a guided missile crashing into the Capital Building — seven years before September 11, 2001.

Over the past few years until Clancy’s death in 2013 Clancy had franchised his novels to several authors The latest and final being Mark Greaney. Most critics believe that the bulk of Command Authority is the work of Greaney and that Clancy had little to do with it except for franchising the characters.

The story first takes us back 30 years, to a meeting between a GRU Special Forces Captain and a special member of the KGB. The purpose of this meeting is not fully revealed until much later as events unfold, piece by piece. Present day finds Jack Ryan Jr in London working on not military or political but financial intelligence - and a case involving Russian intelligence and criminal elements that will ultimately lead him into the upcoming fray. Meanwhile, Ryan Sr. meets with a former foe and now friend (a retired SVR chief) at the White House, who warns the president that the new Russian chief-of-state seeks to return his country to the days of old - just prior to dying due to being poisoned with a radioactive isotope. In Moscow, a Croatian assassin takes the fall after pulling off a devastating bombing that takes out someone in addition to, and much more important than the "targeted" UK finance man (and former British agent) - the current head of the SVR.

The new president of Russia has what most would call skeletons (literally) in his closet and he will do anything - everything - to keep those tucked away and out of sight as he continues executing his plans (and opposition) for what he envisions as Russia's domination. He will stop at nothing to achieve his agenda, including merging the separate FSB (internal) and SVR (foreign) intelligence agencies into one, under the leadership of his chosen man.

In the fictional novel the President of the United States is able to expose the Russian president for the scoundrel he is and curb his incursion into the Ukraine at the Crimea He was able to accomplish this with black ops and Special Forces along with a few bold moves.

Today’s real world is much different. When Vladimir Putin first came to power in 1999, he talked ideologically but acted rationally. He listened to a range of opinions, from liberal economist Alexei Kudrin to political fixer Vladislav Surkov — people willing to tell him hard truths and question groupthink. He may have regarded the collapse of the Soviet Union as the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century, but he knew he couldn't re-create it. Perhaps the best metaphor is that while he brought back the Soviet national anthem, it had new words. There was no thought of returning Russia to the failed Soviet model of the planned economy. And as a self-professed believer who always wears his baptismal cross, Putin encouraged the once-suppressed Russian Orthodox Church.

He was a Russian patriot, but he also was willing to cooperate with the West when it suited his interests. One of the first leaders to offer his condolences after the 9/11 attacks, Putin shared Russian intelligence on al Qaeda with the United States. He did not hesitate to protect Russia's interests against the West -- in 2008 Putin undercut any thought of NATO expansion into Georgia by launching a war against its vehemently pro-Western president, Mikheil Saakashvili — but Putin's challenges were carefully calibrated to minimize repercussions while maximizing gains. He shut off gas to Ukraine, unleashed hackers on Estonia, and, yes, sent troops into Georgia, but he made sure that the costs of asserting regional hegemony were limited, bearable, and short term.

But that was the old Putin. Today, the West faces a rather different Russian leader.

According to Foreign Policy Magazine:

“In Putin's actions at home as well, the Russian president is eschewing the pragmatism that marked his first administration. Instead of being the arbiter, brokering a consensus among various clans and interests, today's Putin is increasingly autocratic. His circle of allies and advisors has shrunk to those who only share his exact ideas. Sober technocrats such as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu played seemingly no role in the decision-making over Crimea and were expected simply to execute the orders from the top.

This has become one of the new themes of Russian politics: the conflation of loyalty to the Kremlin with patriotism. It says much that dissidents at home, from journalists failing to toe the official line to protesters on the streets, are castigated either as outright "foreign agents" (every movement, charity, or organization accepting foreign money must register itself as such) or else as unknowing victims and vectors of external contamination -- contamination, that is, from the West, whose cosmopolitanism and immorality Putin has come to see as an increasing threat to Russia's identity. As a result, Putin's relationship with Russia's elite -- now often foreign-educated, usually well-traveled, and always interested in economic prospects abroad -- has become tortuous. Having provided members of the elite with opportunities during his first presidency, Putin not only mistrusts the elite now, but sees it as unpatriotic. Some $420 billion has flowed out of Russia since 2008, and in 2013, Putin decried those who were "determined to steal and remove capital and who did not link their future to that of the country, the place where they earned their money." In response, he launched a program of "de-offshorization" that has prompted major Russian telecom, metals, and truck-manufacturing companies to announce their return to Russia. And Alexander Bastrykin, the powerful head of the Investigative Committee and one of Putin's closest acolytes, promised a crackdown on schemes designed to transfer money out of the country.

These efforts are representative of a broader reconsolidation that requires the West to stay out of Russia's politics and that prevents its ideas and values from perverting Putin's country. In this context, Yanukovych's ouster from the Ukrainian presidency was the inevitable catalyst for a decisive expression of a new imperialism. From the Kremlin's perspective, a Western-influenced and -supported opposition movement in Kiev rose up and toppled a legitimate leader who preferred Russia over the European Union, in the process threatening the liberties and prospects of the ethnic Russian population in Ukraine's east.”

---

“The pragmatic political fixer of the 2000s now genuinely believes that Russian culture is both exceptional and threatened and that he is the man to save it. He does not see himself as aggressively expanding an empire so much as defending a civilization against the "chaotic darkness" that will ensue if he allows Russia to be politically encircled abroad and culturally colonized by Western values at home.

This notion of an empire built on the basis of a civilization is crucial to understanding Putin. There are neighboring countries, such as those in the South Caucasus, that he believes ought to recognize that they are part of Russia's sphere of influence, its defensive perimeter, and its economic hinterland. But, he stops short of wanting forcefully to bring them under direct dominion because they are not ethnically Russian. Even when Moscow separated the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia in 2008, for example, it set them up as independent puppet states; it did not annex them into the Russian Federation.

Putin does insist, however, that Moscow is the protector of Russians worldwide. Where there are Russians and Russian-speakers and where Russian culture and the Russian Orthodox faith hold or held sway, these are nash -- "ours." Despite his mission to "gather the Russian lands" like the 15th-century's Prince Ivan the Great, this does not necessarily mean occupying Crimea today, Donetsk in eastern Ukraine tomorrow, and Russian-settled northern Kazakhstan the day after, but it helps define what he thinks is Russia's birthright. In his defense of the annexation of Crimea, he said that the Soviet Union's collapse left "the Russian nation … one of the biggest, if not the biggest, ethnic group in the world to be divided by borders."

Crimea, after all, is historically, ethnically, and culturally Russian, which is why, after its residents voted in favor of annexation, Putin approvingly noted that "after a long, difficult, exhausting voyage, Crimea and Sevastopol are returning to their native harbor, to their native shores, to their port of permanent registration -- to Russia." By contrast, the case to reach out to Transnistria in Moldova, for example, or even eastern Ukraine, is less clear. The Transnistrian Russians are relatively new colonists, arriving after World War II, and eastern Ukraine has Russian cities, but also a Catholic, Ukrainian countryside.”

But what he once merely frowned upon, Putin now wants to ban. The conservative backlash, with laws against gay "propaganda," the heavy-handed prosecution of members of punk band Pussy Riot after their "blasphemous" performance in a church, and renewed state control of the media, all speak to a new moral agenda -- a nationalist and culturally isolationist one. Just as Putin has been trying to "de-offshorize" the Russian elite, he is now launching what could be called a "moral de-offshorization." His more recent pronouncements have been full of warnings about the "destruction of traditional values," threatening the moral degradation of Russian society.”

The two things that Putin believes in and is doing are the incorporation of all ethnic Russians into a homogeneous empire and the destruction of NATO. Even though the Ukraine is a part of NATO’s Partners for Peace, a paper tiger at best, Putin see any involvement by NATO in the Ukraine as a threat to his plans.

Some 80 years ago another nationalist concerned with the ethnic security of his people had a plan. His plan, like Putin’s, involved expansion of his Third Reich into neighboring countries for the purpose of protecting ethnic German’s from the hordes polyglot populations created by the League of Nations after the end of the First World War. First was the Saarland where a plebiscite was promoted and voted in by the majority of ethnic Germans living there. Then came the Rhineland occupation to liberate more ethnic Germans from the French occupiers while the European powers, Mainly Britain and France looked on. Next was the Sudetenland (a part of Czechoslovakia – and artificial nation created by the League of Nations when the carved up the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This part of Czechoslovakia was one Bohemia- a part of Germany). Then came another “peaceful” takeover when the people of Austria voted to annex themselves to the larger Third Reich. This Anschluss, as it was called, was a vote created by Nazi provocateurs working inside of Austria. Finally ,after promises to Britain and France not to expand anymore, Adolph Hitler’s army tore down the border barriers at the border between Germany and the rest of Czechoslovakia and moved in to annex (take over) the remaining part of the country. Hitler had now consolidated his power over much of Europe without firing a shot while the allied power stood by helpless to stop him. Next came Poland and the beginning of the Second World War.

I am not comparing Putin to Hitler. There are many differences, but the parallels in the strategies do not escape me. Also we have seen feckless actions of NATO in the recent debacle in Libya. The member nations did not even have enough cruise missiles, aircraft, bombs, bullets, or communications to conduct the establishment of the no-fly zones to protect the Libyan rebels from the forces of Coronel Gadhafi.

In realty there is no NATO. What NATO member will risk lives and treasure to protect the Ukraine or Estonia or Latvia and Lithuania? These countries all have substantial numbers of ethnic Russians. Also Germany gets most of its natural gas from Russia and I don’t think they are too anxious to risk Putin turning off that supply so sanctions have will have little effect.

The only nation that can protect the Ukraine or the Baltic states is the United States and I firmly believe that will not happen. There will be blustering and threats from the White House but they will amount to nothing. Putin knows this. The American people will never support military action in Eastern Europe especially after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan and our suffering economy. We can’t even decide to rid ourselves of Middle Eastern oil by building the Keystone Pipeline. Putin holds the winning hand and he knows it. Time is on his side.

All this helps explain the difficulty that Western governments have in understanding and dealing with him, especially this most aggressively cerebral U.S. administration. It seems that much is lost in translation between the Kremlin and the White House. Putin is not a lunatic or even a fanatic. Instead, just as there are believers who become pragmatists in office, he has made the unusual reverse journey. Putin has come to see his role and Russia's destiny as great, unique, and inextricably connected. Even if this is merely an empire of, and in, his mind — with hazy boundaries and dubious intellectual underpinnings — this is the construct with which the rest of the world will have to deal, so long as Putin remains in the Kremlin.

Libya, What Comes Next?

“The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity and humanity, let the Blackguard Paine say what he will." — John Adams

Today President Obama announced from his 28 acre retreat on Martha’s Vineyard that Muammar al-Qaddafi's regime is "coming to an end" but the fighting is "not over yet," as Libyan rebels brought Qaddafi's forces to the brink of collapse.

The president emerged from his vacation in Martha's Vineyard to publicly address the historic developments in Libya, where rebels moved with remarkable speed to capture control of most of Tripoli.

"The future of Libya is in the hands of its people," Obama said. "The celebrations that we've seen in the streets of Libya shows that the pursuit of human dignity is far stronger than any dictator."

Obama noted that there is still "fierce fighting" in some areas, and urged Qaddafi — whose location in unknown — to publicly give up power.

"Although it's clear that Qaddafi's rule is over, he still has the opportunity to reduce further bloodshed by explicitly relinquishing power to the people of Libya and calling for those forces that continue to fight to lay down their arms for the sake of Libya," Obama said.

In addressing the developments, Obama paused to remember all the Americans killed by the regime "in acts of terror in the past." And he touted the combined efforts of the United States and its NATO allies in supporting the anti-Qaddafi rebel movement since March.

Well how important is this in Obama’s mind. After almost eight months of bombing, warfare, and spending well over one billion dollars this event was not important enough for Obama to leave his rich friends in the bastion of liberal elites to return to Washington to make the announcement. I guess he will now have another feather for his political cap — I got bin Laden and now I got Qaddafi.

But what does all of this mean? Who are the so called rebels? What are their fundamental principles? What positions will they take in the Middle East? These are questions for which we have no concrete answers. We have been waging a war against a man, not against a government or an ideology. When the man is gone how will the vacuum be filled? Will it be filled with a democracy, a tribal coalition or an Islamic dictatorship where Sharia rules?

According to The Scribe the draft of Libya’s new constitution by the Transitional National Council states in Part 1, Article 1:

“Islam is the Religion of the State, and the principal source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence (Sharia).”

Under this constitution, in other words, Islam is law. That makes other phrases such as “there shall be no crime or penalty except by virtue of the law” and “Judges shall be independent, subject to no other authority but law and conscience” a bit more ominous.

The Libyan Revolution, like all revolutions, is a three act play. Act One is the Fall of the Dictator. Act Two is the Rebels Turn. Act Three is It's a Fluid Situation with lots of players, and anything can happen. This was the story in Iraq and the ongoing story in Afghanistan. In both cases we are engaged in Act Three and it’s not going that well.

Act One: The Fall of the Dictator. Sometimes this act is quick, bloodless and easy, as it was in Egypt when President Mubarak was pushed aside. Libya has taken longer, six months of fighting, with a major and critical assist from NATO forces. In Iraq and Afghanistan it took much longer and cost the lives of thousands of American and coalition allies’ lives.

Act Two: The Rebels Rule. With the Dictator gone, it's the Rebels' turn to try their hand at governing. This is where everything starts to fall apart. The rebels, who had been united in their opposition to the hated Dictator and his gang, now start falling out amongst themselves. All the ancient animosities the Dictator had kept under wraps, are now unleashed in Act Two, as we saw in Iraq and the former Yugoslavia.

The Rebels have never had leadership roles, yet they're now expected to run the country.

In Libya, Qaddafi, his relatives and his tribe, had their hands on all the levers of power for forty years. Now those hands are gone. But can the rebels take their places, and quickly enough to restore order before chaos ensues? This was also the case with Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

Act Two usually ends with everything up for grabs, and it's likely to be the same with Libya.

There no doubt will be fights between the various tribes over whose vision will be imposed on the Libyan people. I cannot resist using the closing scene in the film Lawrence of Arabia where once the united Arab tribes, under the leadership of T.E. Lawrence, had captured Damascus they immediately fell into factions fighting over old slights and insults as he British took control of the city. Who will fill the role of the British in Tripoli? Will it be NATO, the French, or the Muslim Brotherhood as they are doing in Egypt?

Act Three: Where Everything Gets Resolved. Either the rebels find a way to get their act together, unite the country and establish security and order, and get civil society going again.

If they can't, there is civil war, and the well-meaning reformers are thrust aside by the more ruthless, violent, committed group willing to do anything to gain power. That's what happened with Iranian revolution when the Shah of Iran fell in the late 1970. By 1980 the Ayatollahs were in charge and we all know how that turned out.

Today and for the next few days watch these main players in the Libyan drama. The next 72 hours will be crucial in whether this play is ultimately a drama, tragedy or farce. How they respond during the opening scenes of Act Two will determine how this play ends.

And, as the world watches this unfold, don't forget the players. Here's a look

The Rebels: Who are the rebels? Are they Islamists thirsting to establish a strict Sharia state? Are they western-educated secularists who want democracy and self-government? Are they bureaucrats who know how to run things? Are they warriors who love to fight, but don't have a clue what to do when the fighting stops? Or, as is more likely, all of the above?

Will the Rebels stay united? Can they govern? Will they break along tribal, ethnic, and religious fault lines? When things get difficult — and they will — do the rebels start blaming each other? Will they spend their energies settling scores with the remnants of the Qaddafi clan, pushing for justice for the men who murdered their families and friends? Or will they get on with the rather boring business of governing — making sure the streets are safe, the water is running and the electricity works?

In a recent poll on Fox News 81% of the respondents chose “No, there is a lot of tribalism among the rebel groups, this could easily get worse” as their response. Only 4% had an optimistic outlook for Libya.

Clan Qaddafi: Do the extended members of the Qaddafi clan flee or stay and fight? Do they flee abroad? If so, will they be granted a safe haven or be turned over to the International Criminal Court or arrested at home for trial and probable execution, Mubarak-style? Do they go underground, Saddam-style, and lead an insurgency? Do they regroup and come back to fight again, Taliban-style?

NATO: We helped deliver the Libyan rebels a revolution with our drone strikes and behind the scenes special forces. Will we stick around to help them form a government, or breathe a sigh of relief with the fall of Qaddafi and head for the exits?

The main problem of the National Transitional Council is that it’s an umbrella group that brings together several different groups of people, who really only have two things in common. They’re collectively referred to as the Libyan rebels, and they all share a desire to oust Moammar Qaddafi from power. The second you take that common mission away from them, you immediately open the door to in-fighting.

The Council has been based in Benghazi since February and has, for the entire time, professed a desire to relocate its political capital to Tripoli. This won’t be as easy as simply packing up their car and making a 12-hour drive west. When its leaders, almost all of whom have heavy ties to eastern Libya, which is historically distinct from other parts of the country, try to assert their power in the west, it will be met with resistance.

There are a lot of different fronts in the Libyan war manned by different groups from different parts the country. Each of these groups is now going to feel as if it is entitled to a certain share of political authority, economic reward and share of power in the new Libya (just like the Arabs in Lawrence of Arabia). Those who manned the front lines of Brega are the closest geographically to both Benghazi and the bulk of Libya’s oil fields. They will feel as if they were the vanguard of Libyan revolution. Those who staved off the Libyan army in Misurata for so many months feel as if they are the most hardened fighters and therefore worthy of a reward.

The Berbers in the Nafusa Mountains played a critical role in the final push to enter Tripoli, while the Arab rebels who joined them in Zawiya and Zabrata will argue that they actually entered the capital first and therefore drove the dagger into Qaddafi's heart. Finally there are the people of Tripoli itself, a city which makes up about a quarter of Libya’s overall population, who may not be very receptive to the idea of the Benghazi-based National Transitional Council taking the place of the previous regime for very long.

There are also known Islamist militias who’ve been participating in the fighting in the east and who have also been providing security in Benghazi itself. The presence of these militias has caused the National Transitional Council to worry that they may attempt to fill any potential power vacuum that is left by Qaddafi's departure. When you add all these factors together, it’s clear that the Council has a potential problem on its hand, and that, while the Libyan war seems to be nearing an end, it’s possible that the real battle has only just begun.

Will this be Iran redux, where the Carter administration helped push out the Shah but then failed to help the Iranian Revolutionaries form the post-Shah government — and ended up with an radical Islamist government far worse than the Shah's ever was in Iran. Or will NATO and the United States offer technical assistance as Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush did to Eastern Europe when the Iron Curtain came down, and see an entire region become pro-Western and self-governing?

Months ago the Arab spring opened to a sense of wonderment and euphoria. But once the opening night enthusiasms faded, the Arab Spring has had very mixed reviews. Egypt's revolution will likely end in the election of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

Bahrain's revolution is on hold for now, but Iran would like to see it play out again.

Morocco is turning out well so far, with a rapid transition to democratic government, but this is only at the beginning.

Syria is a simply a bloodbath with no real end in sight.

The Arab Spring started out to cheers that the Arab Muslim world was throwing off the shackles of dictatorship and oppression. But as the season has worn on, the initial enthusiasm has given way to a harsher reality. Will the Spring become the Winter of our Discontent? We'll have to stay in our seats 'til the end of the play to know how it turns out.

Will Obama stay the course and oversee the final act or will he become distracted and bored and walk away from the play? Perhaps he will get Hollywood to release a film called “The Fall of Tripoli” by next October. It can run as a double feature with the Killing of bin Laden at a theater in your neighborhood.

Why is NATO like McHale’s Navy?

“NATO was facing collective military irrelevance after years of inadequate defense spending by most of its members.” — Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense, June 10, 2011

On June 10, 2011 Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said before a meeting of Europe security experts in Brussels:

“In March, the alliance unanimously backed the decision to go to war in Libya to protect civilians from forces loyal to Moammar Gaddafi but less than half of NATO's 28 members were participating in the military operation and fewer than a third are conducting airstrikes against ground targets.

"Frankly, many of those allies sitting on the sidelines do so not because they do not want to participate, but simply because they cannot, the military capabilities simply aren't there."

You can read more by clicking here

Anyone old enough remembers the 60s sitcoms Gomer Pyle -USMC, F Troop, and McHale's Navy. A review of DVDs of those fine, funny shows of yore should be high on anyone's list who's been following NATO's misadventure in Libya. Incoming Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta may want to take a look-see. After watching a few episodes of each show, you'd swear Gomer Pyle is leading McHale's zanies and F Troop fumblers across Libya's desert sands in side-slapping futility — all set to laugh track guffaws.

Okay, NATO doesn't have boots on the ground in Libya, so Gomer and his goofs aren't zigzagging across North Africa. NATO, you see, can't make up its collective mind to put boots on the ground. NATO can't make up its collective mind to dispatch Muammar Gaddafi, either. One day the irascible Muammar is on NATO's hit list, the next day he's off — sort of. It's all high, humorous, and deadly incompetence, this game of whack-a-dictator that NATO is playing with Gaddafi.

Gaddafi pops his head up in some hamlet or village and NATO launches a barrage of missiles or drones or whatever's left in its dwindling munitions stockpile. Gaddafi escapes but some poor fellahin who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time gets a one-way ticket to paradise to meet some virgins.

NATO's Libyan adventure is premised on a lie — or, at least, a semi-lie. The lie is that NATO has intervened in Libya to protect innocents from Gaddafi's ghoulish depravity. NATO's leaders — so-called — might as well have declared that they're in Libya for the chil'ren's sake. "The chil'ren" is the all-purpose throwaway line that progressives use to justify any and every use or expansion of government, so why not use it to justify war?

The truth is that the Europeans who conceived the Libyan mess are a more cynical lot; they're using a humanitarian cover to protect vital Western European oil interests in the Middle East, but they're doing very poorly. You see, national self-interest is long out of vogue among progressives — European and American. Oil is too practical and tawdry a concern. The West must be about upholding selfless ideals. Hence, the need for Florence Nightingale to ride into Libya on the back of a Tomahawk missile or in the cockpit of an F-16 Fighting Falcon.

Though NATO's dithering incompetence in the Libyan fight might make for a few laughs for us observers, it's far less humorous and more instructive to NATO's and America's enemies (Opps — competitors; we must be scrupulously PC).

The Chinese, Russians, and Iranians — chief among the world's black hats — are watching avidly as NATO stumbles and bumbles in Libya — or never gets to Libya with troops in the first place, since the Great Libyan Humanitarian Intervention of 2011 is being run by committee (you know, committees, those wonderful collections of human beings tasked with designing elephants but concocting camels instead).

The military brass in China, Russia, and Iran must be licking their chops and taking copious notes. The once-mighty NATO can't make quick work of Gaddafi and his tiny semi-professional army. The United States — the world's remaining superpower, for the time being, anyway — and the NATO member capable of galvanizing resolve and leading the coalition to a swift victory in Libya is sitting on the sidelines — kind of. The U.S. is helping out, but halfheartedly. President Barack Obama, a thoroughly Kool-Aid drinking progressive, says the U.S. is weary of being the world's leader; let NATO's Barney Fifes figure out how to shoot straight and beat the bad guys.

Let's not forget that the Brits and Americans have had tougher fights in North Africa. Generals Montgomery and Patton drove Rommel and the tough-as-nails Germans out of North Africa during World War II. Are the Michael Jackson lookalike Muammar Gaddafi and his AK-47 wielding thugs tougher than Rommel and his Panzer divisions?

No one is suggesting that Libya is America's fight. There is no discernible vital American interest at stake in the overthrow of Gaddafi and the establishment of a new government there. Yeah, Gaddafi is a bad guy; everyone remembers Lockerbie, and most everyone knows that Gaddafi has given a helping hand to terrorists (militants for Islam - PC again). There are ways of exacting revenge for Gaddafi's deadly gambits like taking the guy out surgically and covertly without full-blown war. If we did it to Osama bin Laden we could do it to Gaddafi.

Or perhaps we could send in three or our four jeep teams with four SAS types and a .50 caliber Browning attached to each jeep like the 60’s series The Rat Patrol.

Yet, you can bet your bottom ruble that Putin and his gangster-cohorts are gaming moves to make against a weak and wavering Western Europe in light of NATO's impotent Libyan performance. Empire is in every Russian's DNA; Putin is certainly no exception. And Russians have a very Asian sensibility; they'll wait for exploitable opportunities, even if that's years down the road.

The Chinese are aggressively building blue water navy, and not to provide humanitarian relief in far-flung corners of the world, but to dominate the Asian Pacific region — and, perhaps, one day, say, the Indian Ocean. Mr. Obama's shoulder shrugs and masked hostility to U.S. global leadership is on full display in the NATO-Libyan imbroglio. The Chinese aren't dopes.

Chinese Leader Hu Jintao and Generals Liang Guanglie and Chen Bingde must be wondering if Mr. Obama's "We are the World — not Leaders" oath marks a permanent departure for the U.S. in global affairs, especially those involving military elements. A less assertive U.S. makes China's strategic and tactical moves — backed up by a strong military and the will to use it — much easier in the coming years.

And Iran? Despite the “marvelous” European and American team effort to shutdown Iran's nuclear weapons program, Iran's mullahs and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continue to intrepidly push ahead. The Iranians have already drawn a bead on Western impotence. The Libyan comedy starring NATO can only affirm that the Iranians need only finish making the bombs that they hope to kill Israelis with while cowing Europeans and Americans in the process.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are gambling men, and from their perspective, NATO's Libyan bog is a green light to keep rolling the dice. Can you say mushroom clouds over Tel Aviv? If so it will be a tribute to the Europeans and Americans.

Consequences? Not always a pleasant word in global affairs. Even with an eventual victory in Libya, NATO has already botched it. NATO's enemies have a predator's keen eye and instincts. NATO's Libyan pratfalls and tail-chasing have been fully registered in Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran. The consequences longer term can't be good — and that goes for the U.S., too.

As Michelle Bachmann said in last night’s GOP debate:

“Our policy in Libya is substantially flawed. It's interesting. President Obama's own people said that he was leading from behind. The United States doesn't lead from behind. As commander in chief, I would not lead from behind.

We are the head. We are not the tail. The president was wrong. All we have to know is the president deferred leadership in Libya to France. That's all we need to know. The president was not leading when it came to Libya.”

NATO Is Failing In Libya And The U.S.Is Paying The Bill

"It is a happy circumstance in human affairs that evils which are not cured in one way will cure themselves in some other." — Thomas Jefferson

Today Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) walked out of a secret behind closed doors briefing to the United States Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs where he is the chairman and announced that NATO has seriously degraded Coronel Muammar Gaddafi’s ability to survive and that the rebels are winning he fight against his loyalist troops.

Leahy’s committee is responsible for recommending the level of appropriations for the continuation of our involvement with NATO’s efforts to oust Gaddafi from Libya. Leahy’s comments are in direct contradiction to the latest reports coming out Libya and those of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates at yesterday’s SDA meeting in Brussels.

Fox News reported today that more than 20 were killed as Gaddafi’s forces shelled the rebel-held town of Misrata. Their report states:

“A hospital physician in Misrata says Libyan government forces are pounding the outskirts of the rebel-held city and have so far killed at least 22 people.

The doctor at Hikma Hospital, who would only give his first name, Ayman, said Muammar al-Qaddafi's forces were using tanks, artillery and incendiary rockets in the bombardment of Dafniya, about 18 miles west of Misrata. He said at least 61 people were wounded. The attacks began about 10 a.m. local time Friday.

Rebels tell Reuters that pro-Qaddafi forces shelled their positions in the Western Mountains region.

"They are shelling Zintan with Grad missiles. There have been no NATO air strikes for a week," a rebel spokesman told Reuters.

This latest violence comes as Norway says it will scale down its fighter jet contribution in Libya from six to four planes and withdraw completely from the NATO-led operation by Aug. 1.

Defense Minister Grete Faremo said she expects understanding from NATO allies because Norway has a small air force and cannot "maintain a large fighter jet contribution during a long time."

The Scandinavian country's air force says Norwegian F-16 jets have carried out about 10 percent of the NATO airstrikes in Libya since March 31.

The parties in the center-left coalition government had been at odds over whether to extend the Norwegian mission, which was scheduled to expire June 24. The most leftist faction in the government, the Socialist Left Party, opposed an extension but a compromise was reached to stay in the operation until Aug. 1 with fewer planes.

"It is wise to end the Norwegian fighter jet contribution. Now Norway should apply its efforts to find a peaceful solution in Libya," Socialist Left Party lawmaker Baard Vegar Solhjell said.

While Norway announces the end of its involvement in Libya, the Dutch government extended its forces' role in the NATO campaign of air strikes in Libya until the end of the three month extension the alliance recently announced.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates this week urged NATO allies including the Netherlands to do more in Libya to share the burden with France and Britain, which are carrying out most of the air strikes.

The Dutch government, however, is still refusing to let its six F-16 fighter jets involved in the mission to carry out airstrikes. Instead they will continue to enforce the no-fly-zone above Libya.

In addition, the government announced Friday it will send experts in psychological operations and legal affairs to join the mission.”

The Obama administration is struggling to keep Congress on board as it appeals for patience in Libya, with lawmakers in both chambers moving to check the president's war powers as the cost of the operation rises.

The Senate fired a warning shot on Wednesday with a bipartisan-backed resolution chiding President Obama for failing to provide a "compelling rationale" for the mission. The measure is similar to one that passed the House last week — however; this one is tougher in that it calls for the president to seek permission from Congress to remain in Libya.

The challenge of selling Libya got even harder Thursday as a Financial Times report claimed the Pentagon is pegging the monthly cost of the operation at about $60 million, as opposed to the $40 million a month officials had estimated earlier. A Pentagon official told Fox News that $40 million a month is still the working projection but said the number could rise.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last month the operation could cost $750 million through the end of September — it's now clear that unless the mission ends soon, it will cost at least $90 million more than that even if the cost remains at $40 million each month.

According to the Financial Times:

“Although it is working under NATO, the U.S. is by far the largest contributor to operation “Unified Protector”. As of mid-May it was conducting 70 per cent of reconnaissance missions, over 75 per cent of refueling flights and 27 per cent of all air sorties.

The U.S. has about 75 aircraft, including drones, involved in the operations and since the end of March has conducted about 2,600 aircraft sorties and about 600 combat sorties. In addition the U.S. military can call on a number of naval assets in the Mediterranean.

As well as its contribution to the NATO operation, US spending on Libya includes its twelve day operation Odyssey Dawn that took place before NATO took over.

In total the US military has fired about 228 missiles as of mid-May. For comparison the US Navy plans to buy 196 or so missiles this year for about $300m or about $1.5m each, according to U.S. budget documents.”

If this is leading from behind as Obama claims that I wonder what the costs would be if we were leading from the front. What is the contribution from the French, Italians and British? It is no doubt nowhere near the money we have spent and it’s their war!

Fox News reported today:

“In the face of mounting discontent, administration officials are pledging to work with Congress while insisting U.S. forces stay until the job is done — without defining exactly what the endpoint would look like.

"We have seen the regime weaken significantly. We have seen the opposition make gains both in the East and the West," CIA Director Leon Panetta, Obama's pick to replace Gates, told a Senate panel Thursday. "I think there are some signs that if we continue the pressure, if we stick with it, that ultimately (Muammar) Qaddafi will step down."

Gates told NATO on Thursday that "we're in this thing with our allies to the finish."

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney also said the president will "endeavor to answer" all the questions about the mission the House posed to the White House with its resolution last week.

But while claiming consultations with Congress have been "extensive and constant," he also described the Senate's latest resolution as unhelpful.

The Senate resolution, like the House resolution, makes a blunt threat in stating Congress has the "constitutional prerogative to withhold funding for any unauthorized use of the United States Armed Forces." It also calls on the White House to provide information on 21 separate issues within 14 days of enactment.

It's unclear whether and under what conditions Congress would start to use funding as leverage.

Christopher Preble, foreign policy analyst with the Cato Institute, noted that it would be "rare" for Congress to follow through on a threat to cut off funding for military operations -- and he said the Pentagon budget is so large the military could potentially shuffle money around to keep the mission going.

He described the congressional debate as a "principled argument," but one worth having.

A key concern of lawmakers is that the president has flouted the War Powers Resolution, which requires the president to seek congressional authorization for military intervention within 60 days.

More than 80 days into the mission, resolution co-sponsor Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., said the president has "clearly" violated that provision. He expressed concern that the White House is setting a risky precedent.

"We're faced, in my view, with the prospect of a very troubling, if not downright odd, historical precedent that has the potential to haunt us for decades," Webb said on the floor of the Senate.

"The issue for us to consider is whether a president, any president, can unilaterally begin and continue a military campaign for reasons that he alone has defined as meeting the demanding standards of a vital national interest worthy of risking American lives and expending billions of dollars of our taxpayers' money."

As Webb and his colleagues push their resolution, the Senate apparently has put on hold a separate resolution meant to express support for the mission. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had intended to work on the measure Thursday, but with discontent bubbling to the surface he has postponed the action likely to next week, according to a panel member.

Some lawmakers are urging the United States to step up its military effort with the express goal of forcing Qaddafi from power. And they caution against the move to rein in the president.

"In Libya, there are signs that Qaddafi may be starting to crack. But the odds of a stalemate remain far too high. I believe U.S. strategy should be to reduce those odds as much as possible and quickly force Qaddafi to leave power rather than hoping we achieve that objective with minimal effort," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Thursday at the Panetta hearing.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., at the same committee hearing asked Panetta about the consequences of Qaddafi remaining in power.

Panetta said that outcome would send a "terrible signal" and indicate that the United States' "word isn't worth very much."

Graham agreed with Panetta, and said he couldn't wait to vote for him.”

According to the Pew Research Organization more Americans blame wars than domestic spending or tax cuts for nation's debt:

“Far more Americans say that the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has contributed a great deal to the nation's debt than say that about increased domestic spending or the tax cuts enacted over the past decade.

Six-in-ten (60%) say the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has contributed a great deal to the size of the debt. About four-in-ten (42%) say the same about the condition of the national economy.

By comparison, just 24% say increased spending on domestic problems has contributed greatly to the nation's debt and even fewer (19%) cite the tax cuts enacted over the past decade. While half or more say spending and the tax cuts contributed at least a fair amount to the debt, 31% say increased domestic spending did little or nothing to increase the debt and 38% say the same about the tax cuts.

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted May 25-30 among 1,509 adults, finds widespread opposition to number of proposals aimed at reducing the deficit and the national debt, including reducing funding for the states for education and roads (73% disapprove) and gradually raising the Social Security retirement age (59%).”

In another report from Pew Americans say they remain wary of global engagement:

“Major events in the Middle East -- including tensions between the U.S. and Israel, growing political unrest in many Arab countries, and the death of Osama bin Laden -- have had little effect on public attitudes toward the region.

Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, far more Americans continue to say they sympathize with Israel rather than the Palestinians (by 48% to 11%). These opinions are little changed from recent years.

A plurality (50%) says Barack Obama is striking the right balance in the Middle East situation, while 21% say he favors the Palestinians too much. There has also been no change in these views over the past year; in April 2010, 47% said Obama struck the right balance and 21% said he favored the Palestinians too much.

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted May 25-30 among 1,509 adults, finds that the public continues to cast a wary eye on the turmoil sweeping the Middle East.

Just (23%) say the changes occurring in the Middle East will be good for the United States; about as many (26%) say the changes will be bad and 35% say they will not have much effect.

There also is considerable skepticism that people in the Middle East will benefit from the protests and calls for change: 45% say these actions will not lead to lasting improvements for the people living in these countries while 37% say they will lead to lasting improvements. In early April, the public was split over whether the protests and calls for change would lead to lasting improvements for people in the region (42% will lead to lasting improvements, 43% will not).”

While foreign wars have cost us billions they are not the main cause for our $1.65 trillion deficit or the $15 trillion dollar national debt. The public is not seeing things as they really are. They are victims of the old cognitive dissonance syndrome — ignoring facts in order to keep their closely held beliefs.

Our involvement is Libya was not directly addressed in the Pew polls, but I would guess that the public opinion would run about the same as it does for Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East on the whole.

Obama has not made a convincing case for our involvement Libya. We are carrying the bulk of NATO’s water in Libya with no clear mission or exit strategy. I the American public could not buy George Bush’s reason for getting rid of Sadam Hussein I cannot see them buying the reason for eventually spending a billion dollars to rid the world of Muammar Gaddafi.

Gates Blasts NATO

"An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry." — Thomas Jefferson

I have written several blog posts on the ineffectiveness of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and that the alliance has pasted its useful shelf life. Today I feel vindicated by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

The ongoing involvement in Libya and the inability of the NATO members to mount a unified campaign against Muammar Gaddafi has proven to be the death knell of the 62 year old alliance.

The Treaty of Brussels, signed on March 17, 1948 by Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, and the United Kingdom is considered the precursor to the NATO agreement. The treaty and the Soviet Berlin Blockade led to the creation of the Western European Union's Defense Organization in September 1948. However, participation of the United States was thought necessary in order to counter the military power of the USSR, and therefore talks for a new military alliance began almost immediately.

These talks resulted in the North Atlantic Treaty, which was signed in Washington, D.C. on 4 April 1949. It included the five Treaty of Brussels states, as well as the United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland. Popular support for the Treaty was not unanimous; some Icelanders commenced a pro-neutrality, anti-membership riot in March 1949. The NATO mission statement was as follows:

“The Parties of NATO agreed that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America^[ shall be considered an attack against them all. Consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense will assist the Party or Parties being attacked, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”

“Such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force" does not necessarily mean that other member states will respond with military action against the aggressor(s). Rather they are obliged to respond, but maintain the freedom to choose how they will respond. This differs from Article IV of the Treaty of Brussels (which founded the Western European Union) which clearly states that the response will be military in nature. However, it is often assumed that NATO members will aid the attacked member militarily. Further, the North Atlantic Treaty limits the organization's scope to regions above the Tropic of Cancer, which explains why the Falklands War did not result in NATO involvement.

Greece and Turkey also joined the alliance in 1952, forcing a series of controversial negotiations, in which the United States and Britain were the primary disputants, over how to bring the two countries into the military command structure. The incorporation of West Germany into the organization on May 9, 1955 was described as "a decisive turning point in the history of our continent" by Halvard Lange, Foreign Minister of Norway at the time. A major reason for Germany's entry into the alliance was that without German manpower, it would have been impossible to field enough conventional forces to resist a Soviet invasion. Indeed, one of its immediate results was the creation of the Warsaw Pact, signed on May 14, 1955 by the Soviet Union, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, and East Germany, as a formal response to this event, thereby delineating the two opposing sides of the Cold War.

The unity of NATO was breached early in its history, with a crisis occurring during Charles de Gaulle's presidency of France from 1958 onwards. De Gaulle protested at the United States' strong role in the organization and what he perceived as a special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom. In a memorandum sent to President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan on September 17, 1958, he argued for the creation of a tripartite directorate that would put France on an equal footing with the United States and the United Kingdom, and also for the expansion of NATO's coverage to include geographical areas of interest to France, most notably French Algeria, where France was waging a counter-insurgency and sought NATO assistance.

Considering the response given to be unsatisfactory, de Gaulle began to build an independent defense for his country. He also wanted to give France, in the event of an East German incursion into West Germany, the option of coming to a separate peace with the Eastern bloc instead of being drawn into a NATO-Warsaw Pact global war. On March 11, 1959, France withdrew its Mediterranean Fleet from NATO command; three months later, in June 1959, de Gaulle banned the stationing of foreign nuclear weapons on French soil. This caused the United States to transfer two hundred military aircraft out of France and return control of the ten major air force bases that had operated in France since 1950 to the French by 1967.

Though France showed solidarity with the rest of NATO during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, de Gaulle continued his pursuit of an independent defense by removing France's Atlantic and Channel fleets from NATO command. In 1966, all French armed forces were removed from NATO's integrated military command, and all non-French NATO troops were asked to leave France. This withdrawal forced the relocation of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) from Rocquencourt, near Paris, to Casteau, north of Mons, Belgium, by October 16, 1967. France remained a member of the alliance, and committed to the defense of Europe from possible Communist attack with its own forces stationed in the Federal Republic of Germany throughout the Cold War. A series of secret accords between U.S. and French officials, the Lemnitzer-Ailleret Agreements, detailed how French forces would dovetail back into NATO's command structure should East-West hostilities break out.

Over the years NATO thwarted the advances of the Soviet Union into Western Europe and Turkey. The alliance first began to crack when not every member became involved in the crisis in the former Yugoslavia and he bombing war of Kosovo. Neither had posed a direct threat to the security of the NATO nations.

By the time the United States became involved in Afghanistan in 2012 not every NATO member put troops into the field yet Afghanistan’s role by harboring the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, was considered an attack against the United States. Countries such as Spain, Greece, and Turkey refused to engage in combat operations against the Taliban with Germany offering only non-combat logistical support.

By the time France and Italy convinced the United States to support their “No Fly Zone” and bombings in Libya less than half of the Alliance members were participating. Germany out rightly refused to participate in any way and Turkey was strong-armed by France and Italy to provide some logistical support.

Over the ensuing years the role of the United States increased to the point where by the beginning of 2012 the U.S. was paying 40% of the bill for NATO.

Yesterday Secretary of Defense Robert Gates gave his final speech to the Security and Defense Agenda think tank in Brussels by saying, “NATO was facing collective military irrelevance after years of inadequate defense spending by most of its members.”

The Los Angeles Times reports:

“In one of his last major addresses before his retirement this month, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Friday that NATO's sometimes shaky air campaign in Libya had "laid bare" the shortcomings of the alliance, which he said was facing "collective military irrelevance" after years of inadequate defense spending by most of its members.

In March, the alliance unanimously backed the decision to go to war in Libya to protect civilians from forces loyal to Moammar Kadafi,[sic] but Gates noted that less than half of NATO's 28 members were participating in the military operation and fewer than a third are conducting airstrikes against ground targets.

"Frankly, many of those allies sitting on the sidelines do so not because they do not want to participate, but simply because they cannot," Gates said. "The military capabilities simply aren't there."

The assessment of NATO's capabilities came at the end of an 11-day around-the-world trip that included stops in Asia and in Afghanistan, during which Gates said goodbye to U.S. troops after four and a half years in office. A former CIA analyst, Gates has used the trip to review America's place in the world, including the state of the transatlantic security relationship that has been at the center of his four-decade long career in government.”

The Los Angeles Times report continues:

“In recent weeks, the U.S. has stepped up its involvement by providing nine additional aerial refueling aircraft, according to the senior American official. Overall, U.S. aircraft are flying roughly 75 percent of the sorties, Gates said.

Gates praised the role in Libya of Norway and Denmark, which he said had provided 12 percent of the strike aircraft for the operation but had carried out one-third of the airstrikes.

Even after years of public and private pressure by Washington on NATO allies to increase military spending, Gates conceded that there was little prospect of that happening, especially with the intense fiscal pressure many governments in Europe now face.

He called instead on NATO countries to allocate their limited military budgets more wisely, on weapons and other capabilities that complement, rather than duplicate, spending by other members of the alliance.

Gates said that the U.S. share of NATO military spending has risen to more than 75 percent, while there were only four other members of the alliance -- Britain, France, Greece, and Albania -- whose military spending now exceeds 4 percent, the target set by NATO.

As a generation of American leaders whose outlooks were not formed during the Cold War come to the fore, Gates warned that there would be "dwindling appetite and patience" for the U.S to expend the funds on nations "apparently willing and eager for American taxpayers to assume the growing security burden left by reduction in European defense budgets."

Gates has made no secret of his frustration with NATO bureaucracy and the huge restrictions many European governments placed on their military participation in the Afghanistan war. He ruffled NATO feathers early in his tenure with a direct challenge to contribute more front-line troops that yielded few contributions.

Even so, Gates' assessment Friday that NATO is falling down on its obligations and foisting too much of the hard work on the U.S. was unusually harsh and unvarnished. He said both of NATO's main military operations now — Afghanistan and Libya — point up weaknesses and failures within the alliance.

"The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the U.S. Congress — and in the American body politic writ large — to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense," Gates said.

Without naming names, he blasted allies who are "willing and eager for American taxpayers to assume the growing security burden left by reductions in European defense budgets."

The U.S. has tens of thousands of troops based in Europe, not to stand guard against invasion but to train with European forces and promote what for decades has been lacking: the ability of the Europeans to go to war alongside the U.S. in a coherent way.

The war in Afghanistan, which is being conducted under NATO auspices, is a prime example of U.S. frustration at European inability to provide the required resources.

"Despite more than 2 million troops in uniform, not counting the U.S. military, NATO has struggled, at times desperately, to sustain a deployment of 25,000 to 45,000 troops, not just in boots on the ground, but in crucial support assets such as helicopters, transport aircraft, maintenance, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and much more," Gates said.

For many Americans, NATO is a vague concept tied to a bygone era, a time when the world feared a Soviet land invasion of Europe that could have escalated to nuclear war. But with the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO's reason for being came into question. It has remained intact — and even expanded from 16 members at the conclusion of the Cold War to 28 today.

But reluctance of some European nations to expand defense budgets and take on direct combat has created what amounts to a two-tier alliance: the U.S. military at one level and the rest of NATO on a lower, almost irrelevant plane.

On a political level, the problem of alliance purpose in Libya is even more troubling, he said.

"While every alliance member voted for the Libya mission, less than half have participated, and fewer than a third have been willing to participate in the strike mission," he said. "Frankly, many of those allies sitting on the sidelines do so not because they do not want to participate, but simply because they can't. The military capabilities simply aren't there."

Afghanistan is another example of NATO falling short despite a determined effort, Gates said.

He recalled the history of NATO's involvement in the Afghan war — and the mistaken impression some allied governments held of what it would require of them.

"I suspect many allies assumed that the mission would be primarily peacekeeping, reconstruction and development assistance - more akin to the Balkans," he said, referring to NATO peacekeeping efforts there since the late 1990s. "Instead, NATO found itself in a tough fight against a determined and resurgent Taliban returning in force from its sanctuaries in Pakistan."

He also offered praise and sympathy, noting that more than 850 troops from non-U.S. NATO members have died in Afghanistan. For many allied nations these were their first military casualties since World War II.

For years NATO has been a paper tiger and it was only the threat of the use of nuclear weapons that kept the Soviet Union at bay throughout the Cold War. I can recall many conversations with my German friends from 1985 through 1998 while traveling in Germany and doing business. Not one of them was committed to NATO. They did not want to spend the required 4% of GP on defense and many were committed to pacifism. The believed they were doing “good” in Bosnia-Herzegovina as they perceived they were preserving the peace in Europe, yet reluctant to use troops in combat for any reason.

Today’s Eurocrats have no stomach for defense or the money to pay for it. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union Western Europe has been spending its “peace dividend” on their social welfare programs — a peace dividend they got by living under the security umbrella of the United States for 62 years. It’s time for the U.S. Congress to come to its senses and reexamine in role in Europe’s defense and let them spend their own money to fight their battles and exert their influence, Just as we should with the United Nations it’s time for Uncle Sugar to pull the plug and defend our national interests with our troops and our money. If the Canadians and Brits want to come along, fine, but they will need to pull their share of the wagon.

Libya, NATO, and Afghanistan

"How could a readiness for war in time of peace be safely prohibited, unless we could prohibit, in like manner, the preparations and establishments of every hostile nation?" — James Madison

Today, this Monday after Easter I thought of so many things I would like to blog about that I couldn’t decide on anyone topic. Instead I am taking a page out of Matt Drudge’s and Adriana Huffington’s book and practice some aggregation.

Iraq: “Two suicide car bombs were detonated outside the perimeter of the former Green Zone in Baghdad on Monday, killing five and wounding as many as three times that. Recent militant activity in the country has been on the upswing but one of the most important dynamics is the looming withdrawal of the remaining American military forces by the end of the year.

The current Status of Forces Agreement between Washington and Baghdad stipulates the remaining nearly 50,000American troops still in country must be withdrawn by the end of the year. The United States has expressed some interest in extending this deadline, including during the visit sending U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to Baghdad earlier this month. However, all such overtures thus far have been rejected by the Iraqi government. The numbers being discussed go as high as 20,000 American troops, and Washington has attempted to emphasize the capabilities the United States provides Iraq that the Iraqi military is not yet capable of providing for itself — everything from the defense of Iraqi airspace, to more sophisticated capabilities in planning, logistics, maintenance and intelligence. U.S. officials have also reportedly emphasized to Baghdad that once the withdrawal of American combat forces is complete, that it will be much more difficult for the United States to come to Iraq’s aid militarily in the future.

At the heart of this discussion is the fundamental importance of the U.S. military in counterbalancing Iranian power in Iraq and in the wider region. The large American military presence in Iraq has been the single most important element of American power in Iraq and in the region since the U.S. invasion in 2003. But it is far from clear how Washington is going to balance resurgent Iranian power in Iraq and in the wider region once those forces withdraw. It is not clear whether a new agreement or an extension can be negotiated between Washington and Baghdad — the U.S. has signaled the ball is in Iraq’s court. But an increasingly rapid withdrawal will have to begin no later than late summer or early fall, this quarter and the next are of pivotal importance not only for the United States and Iraq, but for Iranian power and the wider region.” [Stratfor]

Libya: “The African Union and the Turkish government are both trying to negotiate a cease-fire in Libya. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has already given the green light to an African Union proposal led by South African President Jacob Zuma on the condition that NATO first cease its airstrikes. The rebels in the east have rejected the terms of the cease-fire, sticking to their demand that Gadhafi first step down. Meanwhile, NATO forces maintained that they will continue launching airstrikes as long as Libyan civilians in the east are threatened.

Clearly, the cease-fire negotiations are fraught with complications. But as time wears on, it’s looking increasingly likely that the current stalemate in Libya could give way to a de facto partition between east and west. This may not be the ideal scenario for many, but it could allow the United States to avoid another costly nation-building exercise in the Islamic world, while allowing Gadhafi to remain in power, however tenuously. Each party in this conflict — whether you’re talking about the eastern rebels, Gadhafi’s forces or NATO forces — are facing considerable dilemmas in how to proceed in this military campaign.

The eastern rebels have made clear that they’re not content with holding onto the east and ceding the west to Gadhafi’s forces. The problem with the rebel forces it that they are severely ill-trained and ill-equipped. And if you take a look at the battles that have been taking place in the energy-critical areas of (Marsa el) Brega, Ras Lanuf, Zawiya and the port of Sidra, show just how difficult of a time the rebels are having in trying to push Gadhafi’s forces back. And the more Gadhafi’s forces deliberately pull back into built-up urban strongholds in the west, the less likely NATO forces are to provide air cover for fear of causing mass civilian casualties. Simply put, the rebels do not have the fighting power to advance westward to Tripoli.

Meanwhile, Gadhafi’s forces remain largely in control of the main energy-producing regions running alongside the dividing line of the country and the Gulf of Sidra region. These forces reach as far as Ajdabiya, just below the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. Though a number of Gadhafi’s tanks are being eliminated by NATO airstrikes, his forces have been able to rely on much less resource-intensive and highly mobile civilian vehicles and technicals to move their forces around and push the rebels back. Gadhafi’s forces are facing heavy constraints in resupply as long as NATO forces are patrolling the seas and the skies over Libya. All in all, though, Gadhafi would be negotiating from a relative position of strength in any cease-fire negotiation. Even if Gadhafi himself is eliminated, there do appear to be enough forces loyal to him that could step in and reassert control from the west.

This obviously puts NATO in a very difficult spot. As long as Gadhafi’s forces have the option of pulling back into well built-up urban strongholds, NATO will face very heavy constraints in trying to avoid the risk of blowback in causing civilian casualties. This gives Gadhafi undeniable staying power. Meanwhile, the United States is facing much more pressing and strategic concerns more eastward in the region in the Persian Gulf region, where Iran is waiting to fill a power vacuum in Iraq as U.S. forces are drawing down there. The U.S. then may be resigning itself to the idea that it may not be getting much beyond a stalemate in Libya, and that forcing a power vacuum in the country may be a lot more trouble than it’s worth.” [Stratfor]

"Obama's ideology tethers him to the idea that the central government should be the primary engine of economic growth and the super-arbiter of the winners and losers in our economy. He cannot countenance the possibility that Keynesian stimulus spending does not appreciably stimulate and probably does just the opposite; never mind that we can't afford it. He can't process that we cannot tax ourselves into prosperity or out of debt. He is viscerally unwilling to restructure the programs that have us committed to $88 trillion in unfunded liabilities. And he either cannot comprehend or is morally hardened to the evil and ineffectiveness involved in the government's making command-control decisions rather than free people through the invisible hand of the market, especially in health care. He cannot understand or is rebellious against the truth that capitalism is morally superior to and produces greater prosperity across the board than any other economic system, bar none. ... Obama, captured in his maximum-security class warfare prison mindset, has proposed even higher taxes on the already overburdened producers, which would further smother the economy and prevent economic recovery, growth and abatement of the national debt. His only real remedy for Medicare is to empower the Independent Payment Advisory Board to ration health care according to its one-size-fits-all lunacy. ... There can be no workable compromise with Obama because his plan could not work to retire the debt and avert our national crisis. The only solution is to retire him." — columnist David Limbaugh.

Afghanistan: Real life imitated art in Afghanistan's troubled Kandahar province as the Taliban took a page out of Steve McQueen's playbook, dug a tunnel underneath an Afghan prison where hundreds of high value detainees were being held, and 478 prisoners waltzed out of jail — free men due to the incompetence of Afghan security forces.

“Hundreds of prisoners escaped from a jail in Afghanistan's south on Monday through a tunnel dug by Taliban insurgents, officials said, a "disaster" for the Afghan government and a setback for foreign forces planning to start a gradual withdrawal within months.

“Tooryalai Wesa, governor of volatile southern Kandahar province, told Reuters 488 prisoners escaped due to the negligence of Afghan security forces at the province's main jail. He said the tunnel led to a nearby house.

The Taliban said in a statement that 541 prisoners escaped through the tunnel, which took months to construct, and were later moved in vehicles to safer locations. The prison, touted as one of the most secure in Afghanistan, is located on the outskirts of Kandahar city.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's chief spokesman told a news conference that the incident, in which many Taliban commanders were said to have escaped, exposed serious vulnerabilities in the Afghan government.

"This is a blow, it is something that should not have happened. We are looking into finding out ... what exactly happened and what is being done to compensate for the disaster that happened in the prison," spokesman Waheed Omer said.

General Ghulam Dastgir, the governor in charge of the jail, said the prisoners had all escaped through the tunnel.

"No one managed to escape through the main gate, everybody went out through the tunnel. The insurgents worked on it for some seven months," Dastgir said.

"The Taliban have planted bombs inside the tunnel and it is hard to investigate until the explosives are removed," he said.

Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban, has been the focus of the U.S.-led military campaign over the past year, with tens of thousands of U.S. and Afghan troops launching offensives around Kandahar city.

In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Colonel David Lapan said it is too early to tell what impact the escape will have on plans to hand over other prisons to Afghan security control.

A U.S. State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, indicated that the push to transfer more security responsibilities to Afghan officials will continue.

"This escape is a serious issue which the Afghan authorities are working to address," the official said, adding that both U.S. and Canadian advisors helped train and mentor Afghan Central Prisons Directorate staff at the prison.

Twenty-six prisoners were recaptured and two killed in a gunfight with security forces, Wesa said.

Lieutenant Colonel Elizabeth Robbins, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said Afghan officials had not officially asked for help in recapturing the prisoners but NATO "personnel who patrol the area are aware of the situation and will assist the Afghan authorities in responding as needed."

Reporters were taken into the prison after the jailbreak to view the opening of the tunnel in one of the cell blocks.

Reuters photographs showed a hole, several feet deep, cut into the concrete floor of one of the cells. The hole, big enough to allow one man to climb down at a time, appeared to be connected to a tunnel.

A large carpet in the cell looked to have been folded back to expose the hole. Police told reporters the insurgents had used car jacks to break through the concrete floor, which was several centimeters thick.

The Taliban said the prisoners escaped over a four-and-a-half hour period during the night, meaning more than 100 prisoners an hour would have had to crawl out through a tunnel barely large enough to fit one man.

"Mujahideen started digging a 320-meter (1,049 feet) tunnel to the prison from the south side, which was completed after a five-month period, bypassing enemy checkposts and the Kandahar-Kabul main highway leading directly to the political prison," the Taliban statement said.

"They moved people in several groups. They had a comfortable period of time to move that many people. It's obviously very worrying with the timing around fighting season," said a foreign official in Kandahar with knowledge of the incident.

Wesa said of the 488 who had escaped, 13 were ordinary criminals and the rest were insurgents. [Reuters]

The Steve McQueen movie – The Great Escape – was a dramatized account of allied POW's digging a tunnel to freedom for 76 men - most of whom were eventually recaptured (50 escapees were murdered by the Gestapo.) The Taliban had considerably more success and few of the prisoners will probably be recaptured.

It is even money that the prisoners had help from some in the Afghan army who were guarding them. That kind of corruption is common place in a country that continues to show it is unworthy of the expenditure of treasure and blood by the US military.

NATO in Libya: "The official Pentagon estimate is that the war in Libya cost us $608 million for the first 17 days. Some think that is a laughable underestimate, however, except that nobody is laughing. Forbes reported at the end of March that 'what looks like an inexpensive military operation in Libya is actually costing taxpayers about $2 billion per day.' Remember how Democrats and Republicans in Congress wrestled back and forth recently, nearly shutting down the government over a lousy $38 billion? Heck, we've already burned through that in Libya and Muammar Gadhafi is still thumbing his nose at us from Tripoli. Technically, the air war in Libya is being fought by NATO. But the United States, in addition to paying for our own forces, pays about a quarter of NATO's budget [25.2%]. The numbers get kind of dazzling, but according to the Fiscal Times: The United States now pays NATO $90.2 million for its civil budget, $462.5 million for its military budget and $259 million for NATO's Security Investment Program, which covers radar bases, airfields, fuel pipelines, etc. That is about $811.7 million per year. And how is NATO doing in Libya, by the way? Not all that well." [columnist Roger Simon]