Human Development

I was looking at some different stuff by following a wiki trail and came across something called the Human Development Index. It is used to rate countries. It has the usual expected countries in the top. The USA comes in at #13 with a .956 score for instance.

What surprised me were the following countries that rated above .900.
#31 Kuwait 0.916
#33 Qatar 0.910
#35 United Arab Emirates 0.903

Compare them to Israel which ranks #27 with a 0.935 score.

So what got me started looking into this? I wanted to know how Iraq was doing. Iraq did not give sufficient information to be HDI rated. But there are some clues. Per capita income on a Purchasing Power Parity scale is $3,655. Not bad. On a strict dollar basis the number is $2,195.

We do know that a GDP per capita of around $3K to $5K a year is the region of transition. The environment becomes a priority. Self government becomes a priority. On a PPP scale Iraq is in the zone. What do they need to get on a solid footing (rather than a shaky footing that being in the transition zone implies)? About 10 years of 10% a year growth. Can it be done? Yes. Will it be done? It all depends on the resoluteness of their American ally. Can America be counted on? South Vietnam still casts a long shadow on that question.

Making Headway

I have been pounding the drum for a while about the likely aftermath of leaving Iraq. There are many bad possibilities and some worse ones. So who comes to support my position? The ever reliably left Los angeles Times.

Congress should not hinder Bush's ability to seek the best possible endgame to this very bad war. The president needs the leeway to threaten, or negotiate with, Sunnis and Shiites and Kurds, Syrians and Iranians and Turks. Congress can find many ways to express its view that U.S. involvement, certainly at this level, must not go on indefinitely, but it must not limit the president's ability to maneuver at this critical juncture.

Not a complete capitulation by the LA Times by any means, but a move in the right direction.

Standing on the edge of a precipice tends to have a sobering effect. Maybe you don't sober up all at once, but you at least take a step or two back and have a look around.

As an activist, I intend to keep hammering at the Vietnam analogies, because I think that is the most recent and clear historical analogy to our current and possible future situatiion.

H/T Q&O

Cross Posted at Classical Values and at The Astute Bloggers

Vietnam - Take #237 - No Exit

The Vietnamese insurgency was defeated during Tet. So says General Giap.

And then there is the aftermath. Totolitarian government and 2 - 3 million murdered in SE Asia. I suppose if Iraq is no worse it will be touted as a success.

The Democrat exit strategy from Iraq is mass murder. A new home (funded by oil) for jihadis and possibly a general Middle East War.

I think a "no exit" strategy is better than the alternative on offer.

Genocide Question

America left South Vietnam to its own devices in 1975, leading to 2 1/2 million deaths and totolitarian governments in Cambodia and Vietnam.

So I assume the anti-war mantra now is: if it turns out no worse than 'Nam every thing will be fine.

Also note that in '75 all the South was asking for was material support and airstrikes against the invading North.

The anti-war folks who constantly scream about genocide now want to enable another one.

OK.

So the question is: if our leaving initiates a genocide in Iraq should we go back to save the people we once promised to protect?

Cross Posted at Classical Values and at The Astute Bloggers

Turning Iraq Into Vietnam

London Calling. The Times Online has an article by the author of "Sideshow", William Shawcross, about how Iraq could turn out like Vietnam. (bolding by your ed.)

At the end of 1975 I went to the Thai-Cambodian border to talk to refugees. Their horrific stories of people with glasses being killed as “intellectuals” and of “bourgeois” babies being beaten to death against trees were being dismissed as CIA propaganda by the antiAmerican Western Left, but it seemed obvious to me that they were true. I wanted to discover how the Khmer Rouge had grown and come to power; I wrote a book called Sideshow, which was very critical of the way in which the United States had brought war to Cambodia while trying to extricate itself from Vietnam.

But horror had engulfed all of Indo-China as a result of the US defeat in 1975. In Vietnam and Laos there was no vast mass murder but the communists created cruel gulags and, from Vietnam in particular, millions of people fled, mostly by boat and mostly to the US. Given the catastrophe of the communist victories, I have always thought that those like myself who were opposed to the American efforts in Indochina should be very humble. I also think it wrong to dismiss the US efforts there as sheer disaster. Lee Kuan Yew, the former longtime Prime Minister of Singapore, has a subtler view. He argues that, although America lost in IndoChina in 1975, the fact that it was there so long meant that other SouthEast Asian countries had time to build up their economies to relieve the poverty of their peasants and thus resist communist encroachment — which they probably could not have done had IndoChina gone communist in the 1960s.

That long view seems to me to be the one that has to be applied to Iraq. I still believe the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was the correct thing to do — and it was something only the United States could have done. For all the horrors that extremist Sunnis and Shias are inflicting on each other today, the US rid the world of the Pol Pot of the Middle East. So long as the vile Saddam family regime remained in power there was no hope of progress in the region. There is still hope — if we do not abandon the Iraqi people.

That is pretty much the key.

We must not abandon the Iraqi people the way we abandoned the people of South East Asia. I supported the abandonment at the time because I believed John Kerry, the Communists, and their American supporters. So I get the humble bit. In fact it is a stain on my soul. The best I can do now is never forget.

H/T Powerline via Instapundit

And for my e-mail buddy linearthinker who thinks this is very important. It is. It may be that the Revisionism of Vietnam is finally going to get revised. About time.

Cross Posted at Classical Values and at The Astute Bloggers

War Stories

The subject of John Kerry and his war stories has come up again. Some of the people at the above link started in with their war stories. So naturally I had to tell one or two of my own. Some one was talking about Danag. So I piped up.

I remember Danag early '66.

My ship, DLGN-25 The Bainbridge, got within a couple of miles of the shore and the arty was going steady. Sounded a lot like July 4.

That was the closest I got to real combat, although I did get a few months of combat pay.

Everybody on my ship wanted to get closer to the combat to collect the $50. I think 5 days in the combat zone was the requirement.

Kerry's testimony in Congress did it for me. Except I didn't wise up til '80 or so. Ever since I have hated that man with a passion.

I was heavily invovled in the Swift Boat discussions being somewhat impecunious at the time. I did every thing I could to defeat that man.

Posted by: M. Simon | March 01, 2007 at 09:54 AM

So then some guy pipes up and asks if I have BSD.

Do you mean BDS (Bush DerrangementSyndrome)?

I'm not sure that applies. Our lack of support for South Vietnam led to the death of something like 350,000 Vietnamese and the Death of 2 million Cambodians. I based my non-support of South Vietnam on Kerry's testimony in Congress.

I believed that man and it led to the death of millions. I deeply regret my decision. It is a stain on my soul. As I believe today that our withdrawal from Iraq would lead to the death of millions.

Once was enough for me. Kerry wishes to repeat the exercise. Thus my hatred for a man unable to learn from experience.

Posted by: M. Simon | March 01, 2007 at 10:38 AM

Well I decided to set the proper mood.

Man I'm putting the Doors on the boom box and lighting up the incense.

The war that never ends.

Posted by: M. Simon | March 01, 2007 at 10:42 AM

As I type the Doors are still on and the incense is going strong.

Then the death and destruction tales started. Vets talking about disasters they have seen. What I had to contribute was not much of a disaster. Just a major equipment failure.

I have no death and destruction war tales.

I do have a reactor scram of the only running reactor and a hot restart (dangerous, done only in emergencies) of the reactor in a war zone. My job was to check the DG (diesel generator) to make sure it automatically started so we had electrical power in the control room. I also got to help with the hot restart calculations. They were computed by hand in those days and had to be triple checked before yanking the rods. So three guys did the calculations until they all came up with the same number.

Thank the Maker it wasn't me on the board. just thinking of the dressing down and the paperwork is enough for a moment or two of vicarious depression, even these days.

We never fired a shot in anger. We did go searching for a downed Enterprise pilot one night. No one ever found him. Watching carrier ops even from a distance is something. I loved going on deck for breaks and watching.

Posted by: M. Simon | March 01, 2007 at 11:06 AM

H/T Instapundit

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Noble Deed

The American Thinker has published an anonymous letter from Kuwait. The author points out the failure of oil socialism in Kuwait. He (?) also points out what a noble deed Americans did liberating Kuwait in 1991 and Iraq in 2003.

But the most important point I want to make is this: America did a wonderful, a noble deed, laugh if you will at this language. Americans were attacked. And they liberated the Iraqi people, who played a large part in attacking them. If you don’t believe the Iraqis had WMDs, a nuclear program and had a close working relationship with Al Qaeda, I’ve got some beachfront property in Arizona, I’d like to sell you. The evidence is there. People refuse to access it, read it and acknowledge it. But it’s there. I am constantly amazed at the denail of this evidence. But I suppose we see what we want to see. Those who were in Kuwait during the occupation witnessed the brutality. Do you know what it is like to live in fear? Lving next door to a brutal dictator makes these connections seem more plausible.

I was in Kuwait as soon as you could go back after the liberation. As an American I was shocked when I heard Kuwaiti students say they rented the American army…and since they had paid, what need had they to feel grateful to Americans? I was saddened to learn that this is a typical attitude. The outpouring of genuine gratutide and friendship after the Gulf War was very brief and I can’t understand why except I know that Kuwaitis wanted to remain a part of the Gulf Arab “family.” Or later to read of a “sheika” (princess) complaining about the inconvenience of having American troops in Kuwait…it made it difficult for her to get to her grandmother’s chalet (beach house). (The American presence here is almost invisible. Troops are hidden away.)

After the Iraq war, I read the blogs, and sure enough I found Iraqis sneering (as Kuwaitis had) “oh, we would have overthrown Saddam if we had enough time”. Now this is what the Arabs call a “mentality”-it’s a way of thinking. To counter-act that mentaility our troops and contract workers have worked hardunder the leadership and policy of George W. Bush-to turn that victim and blame mentaility into a take-responsibility mentality. To make people see that taking responsbility gets results. If we had done as the writer of the articler suggested and made a client state, we would have seething resentment, anger and victim mentality and another problem to solve down the road. It might have looked something like the Palestinian “state”. A stubborn refusal to cooperate, a fatalistic victim outlook.

I do believe Bush has done about as well as could be expected given what he has to work with.

It will be interesting to see if the Democrats can do any better. If not look for a Republican landslide in '08.

None the less anon is bitter:

But the real reason Republicans lost is Americans still believe they are invincible and the threat isn’t real. The war is “over there”. Terrorists are like pesky mosquitos. It’s not close to home. Except for a brief period when one of those airplane bomb scares almost happens. Americans have invented the technology that can destroy them but they don’t realize it. It’s like 9-11 never happened.

I hope the American soldiers go home right away. I don’t want to see them die for nothing anymore since the terrorists are right that we aren’t long term strategists like they are. I can’t believe that Americans would elect Democrats when the terrorists said before the election that’s what the wanted.-when the terrorists said Americans won’t staywe know they won’t stay-just wait, you’ll see. When the President of Iran congratulated the Democrats on their victory because now the problem will be resolved. Please let me know what answer the Democrats are giving to that endorsement. Particularly John Murtha. I really would be interested if you featured that as one of the little items on your home page: John Murtha’s reply to the terrorists. How are Dems responding to the happiness of terrorists? How is withdrawing from Iraq not in algnment with terrorist objectives?

We win wars spectacularly and then snatch defeat from the jaws of victory because of a lack of patience, fortitude. and knowledge. It’s deja vu al over again—just like the Gulf War.

Actually it got started in Korea and reached its peak in Vietnam.

Man it is just like the 60s all over again. The music is mostly the same and I do not party quite as hardy and I have switched sides (cut and run is no longer music to my ears), but otherwise as a famous yogi once said and repeated by anon above "It’s deja vu all over again."

Betraying Our Allies

Captain's Quarters is discussing the Vanity Fair hit job on a group of neo-cons whose views on the war were completely misrepresented.

Michael Rubin's views are particularly apt.

Washington’s word must mean something. Leadership is about responsibility, not just politics. We cannot go around the world betraying our allies — in this case Iraqis who believed in us or allied with us — just because of short-term political expediency.

After we left Viet Nam with our tail between our legs a lot of smaller countries felt that America was not a good ally if it was not a vital American interest.

In this case a viable independent Iraqi representative government is in America's vital interest. Most of the country is relatively secure.

This insurgency is handicapped by having to move in the cities prematurely. i.e. from the start. Insurgencies in cities are difficult because operational security is always threatened. Eyes are everywhere and there is money for secrets. Operational security can be preserved better in the mountains. Lines of approach are limited. The reason for the premature move to the cities is that the Kurds control the mountains. They have been an American proctectrate for the last 12 years and have developed a thriving democratic civil society. Should we abandon success?

Or how about the reflooding of the Iraqi marshes which Saddam dried out in revenge for the Marsh Arab Revolt revolt, which was encouraged and then not supported by Bush I?

We have the biggest problem squeezed to the Baghdad area. We can get the upper hand in the intel battle over time. Sources take time to develop. They also represent an operational security probem for our side since they are a point of contact between both sides. So trust must be developed.

Eventually, as the Israelis have found out, enough networks can be developed to provide a fair to good early warning system. With that you start going after central figures. Engineers (for bombings), planners, squad leaders. Keep killing or capturing brains and experience.

All this could take as much as five years. It might take as much as two years to start seeing results. I think some more patience is in order.

Update: 07 Nov '06 2048z

Winds of Change gives this topic good coverage.

Winds of Change in their coverage posted this link to what the troops think

Kerry is Unpopular

It appears that John Kerry is unpopular with Democrats.

DES MOINES, Iowa A Democratic Congressional candidate from Iowa is canceling a campaign event later this week with Senator John Kerry.
Brucy Braley says Kerry's recent comments about the Iraq war were inappropriate.

Braley is running against Republican Mike Whalen in Iowa's First District congressional race. It's a contest considered to be one of the most competitive House races in the country.

Braley's decision to distance himself from Kerry came as a furor grew from comments Kerry made about the Iraq War during a campaign stop in California on Monday.

Even Hillary says he needs to clean up his act.

WASHINGTON - Democrats cut and ran from Sen. John Kerry Wednesday, forcing him to apologize for bungling a joke that ended up insulting U.S. troops in Iraq.

The Democratic senator from Massachusetts issued a mea culpa for a botched punch line that it's the uneducated who "get stuck in Iraq."

But the apology didn't come until Democrats, including potential 2008 rival Sen. Hillary Clinton, joined a chorus of Republicans dumping on the flubbed one-liner that was apparently meant to insult President Bush.

"What Sen. Kerry said was inappropriate," said Clinton, D-N.Y., on the campaign trail Wednesday.

Even Kerry's friend, radio host Dom Imus, told him he'd bungled it and could hurt Democrats' chances of taking back the House and Senate in next week's elections.

"Stop talking. Go home, get on the bike, go windsurfing, anything," Imus said. "Stop it. You are going to ruin this."

Too late.

What is in a man's heart is never far from his mouth.

BTW Good Morning America is keeping the story alive and well, including showing this photo of troops in Iraq making fun of Kerry.

Ever since my post Vietnam awakening I have detested the man. He hasn't improved with age.

The Defeated Commit Suicide

Commenter linearthinker has suggested this companion piece by Dr. Sanity to go with my recent Honor Can Not Be Purchased In A Bazaar.

Dr. Sanity is discussing suicide bombing.

But this tactic is not, I suggest, a product of Islam. Rather, it is a product of the bruised Arab psyche. Remember that the Japanese also turned to suicide tactics in WWII to evade the humiliation of defeat. Though their religion was Shinto rather than Muslim, they too constituted a paradigm shame/honor culture, and defeat brought about, as with the Arabs, a furiously suicidal/homicidal response. After their armies had been defeated, their fleets sunk, their cities set aflame, and their home islands invaded, they launched the kamikaze bomber offensive, thereby committing a hi-tech form of hara-kiri, their usual remedy against intolerable shame. It is in this way that the modern Arab world resembles the Japan of World War II. In both cases it is not religions but psychic wounds, the wounds inflicted by defeat and evident inferiority, that inspire suicide bombers.

As long as we do not surrender ala Vietnam I believe victory is assured. That does not mean it will be easy, painless, or quick.

Learning the Vietnam Lesson

The vote on the new constitution is completed in Iraq. It has been a great success. Attacks were way down compared to the vote in January. 13 vs 347. Roger Simon has a roundup as does Instapundit and Gateway Pundit.

I think our military and political leaders have taken the lessons of Vietnam to heart. We had won that war, but it took too long. From '65 to '73. Public sentiment against became too deeply entrenched.

With better tools and plans we have cut the time considerably.

Attacks are down by 96%.

That is astounding. When an army (even an insurgent army) loses that kind of effectiveness (especially considering that the attacks did not meet their goals even in the instance of greater combat capability) the end is nigh.

Guerilla wars don't end. They just peter out. Looks like we have reached the petering stage.

As some one pointed out in the comments at Roger Simon's, victory will have a thousand fathers. Fortunately we have the e-mails and Google cache to show who was steadfast and those who magnified the doubts. Well that is OK. Often converts to a religion are its most steadfast supporters.

Update: 16 Oct '05 0730z

Number of attacks last January corrected.

Vietnam * Iraq * Iraqi Constitution

Uncle Faust is Telling Jokes

My friend Faust is telling military jokes over at the Al Bawaba Forum. He is in fine form.

Here is a good one. Go and read the rest.

The teacher gave her fifth grade class an assignment: get their parents to tell them a story with a moral at the end of it. The next day the kids came back and one by one began to tell their stories.

Kathy said, "My father's a farmer and we have a lot of egg-laying hens. One time we were taking our eggs to market in a basket an the front seat of the pickup when we hit a bump in the road and the eggs went flying and broke and made a mess."
"And what's the moral of the story?" asked the teacher.

"Don't put all your eggs in one basket!"

"Very good," said the teacher. "Now, Lucy?"

"Our family are farmers too. But we raise chickens for the meat market. We had a dozen eggs one time, but when they hatched we only got ten live chicks. And the moral to this story is, don't count your chickens before they're hatched."

"That's a fine story Lucy," she continued. "Johnny, do you have a story to share?"

"Yes ma'am, my daddy told me this story about my Uncle Faust. Uncle Faust was a Marine in Vietnam and his helicopter got hit. He had to crash land in enemy territory and all he had was a bottle of whiskey, a machine gun and a machete. He drank the whiskey on the way down so it wouldn't break and then he landed right in the middle of 100 enemy troops. He killed seventy with the machine gun until he ran out of bullets, then he killed twenty more with with the machete till the blade broke and then killed the last ten with his bare hands."

"Good heavens," said the teacher, "What kind of moral did your daddy tell you from that horrible story?"

"Don't @!#$ with Uncle Faust when he's been drinking."