Security Weekly: The State of the World: Assessing China's Strategy, March 6, 2012

By George Friedman

Simply put, China has three core strategic interests.

Paramount among them is the maintenance of domestic security. Historically, when China involves itself in global trade, as it did in the 19th and early 20th century, the coastal region prospers, while the interior of China -- which begins about 100 miles from the coast and runs about 1,000 miles to the west -- languishes. Roughly 80 percent of all Chinese citizens currently have household incomes lower than the average household income in Bolivia. Most of China's poor are located west of the richer coastal region; this disparity of wealth time and again has exposed tensions between the interests of the coast and those of the interior. After a failed rising in Shanghai in 1927, Mao Zedong exploited these tensions by undertaking the Long March into the interior, raising a peasant army and ultimately conquering the coastal region. He shut China off from the international trading system, leaving China more united and equal, but extremely poor.

The current government has sought a more wealth-friendly means of achieving stability: buying popular loyalty with mass employment. Plans for industrial expansion are implemented with little thought to markets or margins; instead, maximum employment is the driving goal. Private savings are harnessed to finance the industrial effort, leaving little domestic capital to purchase the output. China must export accordingly.

China's second strategic concern derives from the first. China's industrial base by design produces more than its domestic economy can consume, so China must export goods to the rest of the world while importing raw materials. The Chinese therefore must do everything possible to ensure international demand for their exports. This includes a range of activities, from investing money in the economies of consumer countries to establishing unfettered access to global sea-lanes.

The third strategic interest is in maintaining control over buffer states. The population of the historic Han Chinese heartland is clustered in the eastern third of the country, where ample precipitation distinguishes it from the much more dry and arid central and western thirds. China's physical security therefore depends on controlling the four non-Han Chinese buffer states that surround it: Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet. Securing these regions means China can insulate itself from Russia to the north, any attack from the western steppes, and any attack from India or Southeast Asia.

Controlling the buffer states provides China geographical barriers -- jungles, mountains, steppes and the Siberian wasteland -- that are difficult to surmount and creates a defense in depth that puts any attacker at a grave disadvantage.

Challenged Interests

Today, China faces challenges on all three of these interests. 

The economic downturn in Europe and the United States -- China's two main customers -- has exposed Chinese exports to increased competition and decreased appetite. Meanwhile, China has been unable to appropriately increase domestic demand and guarantee access to global sea-lanes independent of what the U.S. Navy is willing to allow.

Those same economic stresses also challenge China domestically. The wealthier coast depends on trade that is now faltering, and the impoverished interior requires subsidies that are difficult to provide when economic growth is slowing substantially.

In addition, two of China's buffer regions are in flux. Elements within Tibet and Xinjiang adamantly resist Han Chinese occupation. China understands that the loss of these regions could pose severe threats to China's security -- particularly if such losses would draw India north of the Himalayas or create a radical Islamic regime in Xinjiang.

The situation in Tibet is potentially the most troubling. Outright war between India and China -- anything beyond minor skirmishes -- is impossible so long as both are separated by the Himalayas. Neither side could logistically sustain large-scale multi-divisional warfare in that terrain. But China and India could threaten one another if they were to cross the Himalayas and establish a military presence on the either side of the mountain chain. For India, the threat would emerge if Chinese forces entered Pakistan in large numbers. For China, the threat would occur if large numbers of Indian troops entered Tibet.

China therefore constantly postures as if it were going to send large numbers of forces into Pakistan, but in the end, the Pakistanis have no interest in de facto Chinese occupation -- even if the occupation were directed against India. The Chinese likewise are not interested in undertaking security operations in Pakistan. The Indians have little interest in sending forces into Tibet in the event of a Tibetan revolution. For India, an independent Tibet without Chinese forces would be interesting, but a Tibet where the Indians would have to commit significant forces would not be. As much as the Tibetans represent a problem for China, the problem is manageable. Tibetan insurgents might receive some minimal encouragement and support from India, but not to a degree that would threaten Chinese control.

So long as the internal problems in Han China are manageable, so is Chinese domination of the buffer states, albeit with some effort and some damage to China's reputation abroad.

The key for China is maintaining interior stability. If this portion of Han China destabilizes, control of the buffers becomes impossible. Maintaining interior stability requires the transfer of resources, which in turn requires continued robust growth of the Chinese coastal economy to generate the capital to transfer inland. Should exports stop flowing out and raw materials in, incomes in the interior would quickly fall to politically explosive levels. (China today is far from revolution, but social tensions are increasing, and China must use its security apparatus and the People's Liberation Army to control these tensions.)

Maintaining those flows is a considerable challenge. The very model of employment and market share over profitability misallocates scores of resources and breaks the normally self-regulating link between supply and demand. One of the more disruptive results is inflation, which alternatively raises the costs of subsidizing the interior while eroding China's competitiveness with other low-cost global exporters.

For the Chinese, this represents a strategic challenge, a challenge that can only be countered by increasing the profitability on Chinese economic activity. This is nearly impossible for low value-added producers. The solution is to begin manufacturing higher value-added products (fewer shoes, more cars), but this necessitates a different sort of work force, one with years more education and training than the average Chinese coastal inhabitant, much less someone from the interior. It also requires direct competition with the well-established economies of Japan, Germany and the United States. This is the strategic battleground that China must attack if it is to maintain its stability.

A Military Component

Besides the issues with its economic model, China also faces a primarily military problem. China depends on the high seas to survive. The configuration of the South China Sea and the East China Sea render China relatively easy to blockade. The East China Sea is enclosed on a line from Korea to Japan to Taiwan, with a string of islands between Japan and Taiwan. The South China Sea is even more enclosed on a line from Taiwan to the Philippines, and from Indonesia to Singapore. Beijing's single greatest strategic concern is that the United States would impose a blockade on China, not by positioning its 7th Fleet inside the two island barriers but outside them. From there, the United States could compel China to send its naval forces far away from the mainland to force an opening -- and encounter U.S. warships -- and still be able to close off China's exits.

That China does not have a navy capable of challenging the United States compounds the problem. China is still in the process of completing its first aircraft carrier; indeed, its navy is insufficient in size and quality to challenge the United States. But naval hardware is not China's greatest challenge. The United States commissioned its first aircraft carrier in 1922 and has been refining both carrier aviation and battle group tactics ever since. Developing admirals and staffs capable of commanding carrier battle groups takes generations. Since the Chinese have never had a carrier battle group in the first place, they have never had an admiral commanding a carrier battle group.

China understands this problem and has chosen a different strategy to deter a U.S. naval blockade: anti-ship missiles capable of engaging and perhaps penetrating U.S. carrier defensive systems, along with a substantial submarine presence. The United States has no desire to engage the Chinese at all, but were this to change, the Chinese response would be fraught with difficulty.

While China has a robust land-based missile system, a land-based missile system is inherently vulnerable to strikes by cruise missiles, aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles currently in development and other types of attack. China's ability to fight a sustained battle is limited. Moreover, a missile strategy works only with an effective reconnaissance capability. You can't destroy a ship if you don't know where it is. This in turn necessitates space-based systems able to identify U.S. ships and a tightly integrated fire-control system. That raises the question of whether the United States has an anti-satellite capability. We would assume that it does, and if the United States used it, it would leave China blind.

China is therefore supplementing this strategy by acquiring port access in countries in the Indian Ocean and outside the South China Sea box. Beijing has plans to build ports in Myanmar, which is flirting with ending its international isolation, and Pakistan. Beijing already has financed and developed port access to Gwadar in Pakistan, Colombo and Hambantota in Sri Lanka, Chittagong in Bangladesh, and it has hopes for a deepwater port at Sittwe, Myanmar. In order for this strategy to work, China needs transportation infrastructure linking China to the ports. This means extensive rail and road systems. The difficulty of building this in Myanmar, for example, should not be underestimated.

But more important, China needs to maintain political relationships that will allow it to access the ports. Pakistan and Myanmar, for example, have a degree of instability, and China cannot assume that cooperative governments will always be in place in such countries. In Myanmar's case, recent political openings could result in Naypyidaw's falling out of China's sphere of influence. Building a port and roads and finding that a coup or an election has created an anti-Chinese government is a possibility. Given that this is one of China's fundamental strategic interests, Beijing cannot simply assume that building a port will give it unrestricted access to the port. Add to this that roads and rail lines are easily sabotaged by guerrilla forces or destroyed by air or missile attacks.

In order for the ports on the Indian Ocean to prove useful, Beijing must be confident in its ability to control the political situation in the host country for a long time. That sort of extended control can only be guaranteed by having overwhelming power available to force access to the ports and the transportation system. It is important to bear in mind that since the Communists took power, China has undertaken offensive military operations infrequently -- and to undesirable results. Its invasion of Tibet was successful, but it was met with minimal effective resistance. Its intervention in Korea did achieve a stalemate but at horrendous cost to the Chinese, who endured the losses but became very cautious in the future. In 1979 China attacked Vietnam, but suffered a significant defeat. China has managed to project an image of itself as a competent military force, but in reality it has had little experience in force projection, and that experience has not been pleasant.

Internal Security vs. Power Projection

The reason for this inexperience stems from internal security. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is primarily configured as a domestic security force -- a necessity because of China's history of internal tensions. It is not a question of whether China is currently experiencing such tensions; it is a question of possibility. Prudent strategic planning requires building forces to deal with worst-case situations. Having been designed for internal security, the PLA is doctrinally and logistically disinclined toward offensive operations. Using a force trained for security as a force for offensive operations leads either to defeat or very painful stalemates. And given the size of China's potential internal issues and the challenge of occupying a country like Myanmar, let alone Pakistan, building a secondary force of sufficient capability might not outstrip China's available manpower but would certainly outstrip its command and logistical capabilities. The PLA was built to control China, not to project power outward, and strategies built around the potential need for power projection are risky at best.

It should be noted that since the 1980s the Chinese have been attempting to transfer internal security responsibilities to the People's Armed Police, the border forces and other internal security forces that have been expanded and trained to deal with social instability. But despite this restructuring, there remain enormous limitations on China's ability to project military power on a scale sufficient to challenge the United States directly.

There is a disjuncture between the perception of China as a regional power and the reality. China can control its interior, but its ability to control its neighbors through military force is limited. Indeed, the fear of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is unfounded. It cannot mount an amphibious assault at that distance, let alone sustain extended combat logistically. One option China does have is surrogate guerrilla warfare in places like the Philippines or Indonesia. The problem with such warfare is that China needs to open sea-lanes, and guerrillas -- even guerrillas armed with anti-ship missiles or mines -- can at best close them.

Political Solution

China therefore faces a significant strategic problem. China must base its national security strategy on what the United States is capable of doing, not on what Beijing seems to want at the moment. China cannot counter the United States at sea, and its strategy of building ports in the Indian Ocean suffers from the fact that its costs are huge and the political conditions for access uncertain. The demands of creating a force capable of guaranteeing access runs counter to the security requirements inside China itself.

As long as the United States is the world's dominant naval power, China's strategy must be the political neutralization of the United States. But Beijing must make certain that Washington does not feel so pressured that it chooses blockade as an option. Therefore China must present itself as an essential part of U.S. economic life. But the United States does not necessarily see China's economic activity as beneficial, and it is unclear whether China can maintain its unique position with the United States indefinitely. Other, cheaper alternatives are available. China's official rhetoric and hard-line stances -- designed to generate nationalist support inside the country -- might be useful politically, but strain relations with the United States. It doesn't strain relations to the point of risking military conflict, but given China's weakness, any strain is dangerous. The Chinese feel they know how to walk the line between rhetoric and real danger with the United States. It is still a delicate balance.

There is a perception that China is a rising regional and even global power. It may be rising but it is still far from solving its fundamental strategic problems and further yet from challenging the United States. The tensions within China's strategy are certainly debilitating, if not fatal. All of its options have serious weaknesses. China's real strategy must be to avoid having to make risky strategic choices. China has been fortunate for the past 30 years being able to avoid such decisions, but Beijing utterly lacks the tools required to reshape that environment. Considering how much of China's world is in play right now -- Sudanese energy disputes and Myanmar's political experimentation leap to mind -- this is essentially a policy of blind hope.

The State of the World: Assessing China's Strategy COPYRIGHT STRATFOR.COM

Maybe not the greatest judgement in the history of law enforcement.

But I don't see anything criminal here.

Cops and reporters can be at odds often. Sometimes the cops do something that they shouldn't and get caught. Fair enough, every profession has it's problem children. Now of course a reporter will never leave out important facts in a report, take things out of context, tell only one see of a story. Naa, that never happens.

I don't know much about the original story that made this reporter a not liked person at the St Bernard's Sheriff's Office but this was a results.

Calls for punishment in questionable target practice using Lee Zurik's photo

A local crime watchdog says questionable target practice by some St. Bernard Parish deputies calls for punishment.

The head of the Metropolitan Crime Commission says there are still more questions than answers about why police took aim at Lee Zurik.

It dates back to October 2011. When Zurik questioned why people voted in St. Bernard Parish during the local election, even though they have homestead exemptions elsewhere, things got heated.

The allegations of voter fraud involved regular citizens, as well as some sheriff's deputies, who apparently decided to target the messenger.

FOX 8 made the unsettling discovery in the weeks and months that followed the runoff election.
It shows police in St. Bernard Parish used a photo of Lee Zurik's face as a target during firearms training classes.

Outgoing Sheriff Jack Stephens says, "My understanding is that instructors had pictures posted and deputies used all the pictures. Lee was one of 4 or 5 different pictures posted and all the deputies were taking shots."

Stephens apologized, saying it wasn't meant to be a threat, but he didn't reprimand the deputies involved.

"With regards to any punishment, it's hard to use department policy, the law, or ethical violations as the premise for doing that, but it's in bad taste," says Stephens. "So we've admonished the training officers not to use actual photos of anyone anymore."...

...Sheriff Stephens played it off as gallow's humor, a case of dark satire.

I've had a few disagreements with reporters and I could see taking a few shots at a picture of Wayne Dolcefino. But I have a dark sense of humor. Granted this should not be on a police range but otherwise Mr Zurik etc, don't take yourself too serious.

I for one find this shocking...a Maryland judge finds the 2nd Amendment allows a person to possess a gun!

I am a strict constructionist with looking at the Constitution. I concur with Judge Bork when he said judges should "defer to the legislature where the constitution is silent." As much as having morons like Harry Rein in the Senate scares me, I prefer that to an unaccountable judge. That being said, I love this.

Md. Gun Law Found Unconstitutional


BALTIMORE (AP) — Maryland’s requirement that residents show a “good and substantial reason” to get a handgun permit is unconstitutional, according to a federal judge’s opinion filed Monday.

A "judge's opinion", not a ruling. Kinda funny way to report this. Then again this is AP writing.

States can channel the way their residents exercise their Second Amendment right to bear arms, but because Maryland’s goal was to minimize the number of firearms carried outside homes by limiting the privilege to those who could demonstrate “good reason,” it had turned into a rationing system, infringing upon residents’ rights, U.S. District Judge Benson Everett Legg wrote.


“A citizen may not be required to offer a `good and substantial reason’ why he should be permitted to exercise his rights,” he wrote. “The right’s existence is all the reason he needs.”


Plaintiff Raymond Woollard obtained a handgun permit after fighting with an intruder in his Hampstead home in 2002, but was denied a renewal in 2009 because he could not show he had been subject to “threats occurring beyond his residence.” Woollard appealed, but was rejected by the review board, which found he hadn’t demonstrated a “good and substantial reason” to carry a handgun as a reasonable precaution. The suit filed in 2010 claimed that Maryland didn’t have a reason to deny the renewal and wrongly put the burden on Woollard to show why he still needed to carry a gun.


“People have the right to carry a gun for self-defense and don’t have to prove that there’s a special reason for them to seek the permit,” said his attorney Alan Gura, who has challenged handgun bans in the District of Columbia and Chicago. “We’re not against the idea of a permit process, but the licensing system has to acknowledge that there’s a right to bear arms.”


The lawsuit, which names the state police superintendent and members of the Handgun Permit Review Board, was also filed on behalf of the Bellevue, Wash.-based Second Amendment Foundation....


...Many states require gun permits, but Illinois has a ban and six states, including Maryland, issue permits on a discretionary basis, Gura said. In most of those states, these challenges have not succeeded in U.S. District Courts, but they are being appealed, he said...

The ruling will have to stand up to appeal (a safe assumption with the Maryland government) but this is a step in the right direction.

Another look at hate crimes

Last week I posted on my belief that hate crime legislation is unconstitutional because it treats one group differently in the eyes of the law based on skin color, etc. Now we have an interesting look at the other side of the glass. If a black 13 year old boy had been splashed with gasoline and set afire Jessee, Al etc would be on the scene, Eric Holder would be sending in hundreds of US attorneys and federal investigators to handle the matter. Now I wonder if they will be here.

Teenagers poured gasoline on boy walking home from school and set him on fire: cops - NY Daily News

A 13-year-old boy who police say was doused with gasoline and lit on fire last week while walking home from school is recovering from first-degree burns to his face and head.

The boy was just two blocks from his home in Kansas City Tuesday when two teenagers began to follow him and then attacked him, his mother, Melissa Coon, said.
Police have described the suspects as black 16-year-olds, while the victim is white.

"We were told it's a hate crime," Coon told KTLA.

"They rushed him on the porch as he tried to get the door open," Coon told KMBC. "(One of them) poured the gasoline, then flicked the Bic, and said, 'This is what you deserve. You get what you deserve, white boy.'"

By lighting the gasoline, the second attacker "produced a large fireball burning the face and hair" of the boy, according to a Kansas City Police Department report obtained by KCTV.

"It was pretty bad stuff," Detective Stacey Taylor told the TV station, adding that police are concerned the boy may have suffered damage to his eyes and lungs.

Coon said her son put out the fire with his shirt and called 911 himself. He was rushed to the hospital and was treated for his injuries.

She believes the students also attend East High School with her son, and said he will not be returning to the school. She also told KMBC her traumatized family plans now plans to move.

"My 5-year-old came in and asked me, 'Mom, am I going to get set on fire today?'" Coon said. "I was in tears."

Terrorizing a five year old. Great. OK Mr. Attorney General, have you sent your Civil Rights Division down to handle this? We're waiting for an answer.

HBO's Game Change. More like same stuff, different day.

I subscribed to HBO from the early 2000s till 2008 for one man, Tony Soprano. The Sopranos was an excellent series with serious plots, excellent writing and character development. It was a bad day when they whet off. But I drew the line when they kept Bill Maher after his obscene attacks on Sarah Palin among other.

The more things change the more they city the same. A review of the HBO propaganda piece Game Change.

'GAME CHANGE' REVIEW: HBO'S IN-KIND CONTRIBUTION TO BARACK OBAMA


by John Nolte


The only surprise that came with my screening of "Game Change" was in the realization that HBO chose to remake the sci-fi/horror film "The Hidden." For those of you who haven't seen this 1987 cult classic, it's about a dangerous alien who comes to Earth determined to become president of the United States. The alien is crass (it loves red sports cars), unsophisticated (it loves heavy metal) and it speaks in single, bewildered syllables because it doesn't understand the world around it. But while the alien might not be educated, its ruthless survival instincts manage to get it within grasp of its insidious goal, thanks to a senator seeking the presidency.


There is one difference between the two films. "Game Change" ends a little sooner -- at that bone-chilling moment when the audience is made aware of the terrible fact that the terrible alien (Governor Palin) has successfully put itself within reach of the presidency.


Fade to black.


Shudder.


Vote for Barack Obama.


"The Hidden," however, ends with our hero rushing in to save the world … with a flamethrower. The alien is engulfed in fire, falls to the ground, exposes its true, ugly self and explodes into a million slimy pieces. And I think it's pretty obvious that HBO, producer Tom Hanks, director Jay Roach and screenwriter Danny Strong, see themselves as this hero, and their flamethrower is a little something called "Game Change."


To understand just what a heinous piece of propaganda HBO has produced on behalf of President Obama, we have to go back in time to paint a complete contextual picture. HBO announced "Game Change" in early March of last year. This was after a difficult year for the president, when his approval ratings were in worse shape than they are now. This was also a time when many believed, including myself, that Governor Palin would enter the 2012 race to challenge Obama.


In other words, it's just a fact that when HBO decided to pull the trigger, the possibility was very real that Palin could become president of the United States. So what did HBO choose to do as a response? Here are the facts:

1. HBO chose to adapt into a feature film the 10 percent of a 350-plus page book that focused on a vice presidential candidate.


2. HBO chose not to adapt into a feature film that portion of the book focusing on what might have given us some insight into the man currently residing in the Oval Office. 


3. HBO chose a book written by two men who were not on the campaign trail with Governor Palin, who made a conscious choice of their own to tell only the side of the story coming from those who refused to go on the record. Those willing to go on the record, those willing to stake their reputations on their side of the story, were all but ignored by these authors.


4. HBO chose to give left-wing partisans, who openly support Obama, millions of dollars to bring their vision of his likely challenger to life.


5. HBO chose as a release date (their absurdly dishonest protests aside) the Saturday after Super Tuesday. Think about this: If it's March of 2011, and you're remaking "The Hidden," and you're thinking ahead to the most likely day the alien might be one step away from obtaining power, what better day to rush in with your flamethrower than the Saturday after Super Tuesday?

The five points I've listed above are not opinions; they are facts. They are conscious choices made during the political reality of the time by multi-millionaires like Hanks, Roach and Strong backed by one of the most powerful multi-national corporations on the planet. If there was any justice in the world, HBO would now have to register as a super PAC, and the corrupt mainstream media would treat it with the same contempt and foreboding it does any super PAC backing Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich...


...(Julianne) Moore portrays Palin as a Manchurian Candidate for the extreme right who is activated by a phone call from the McCain campaign. Like a hypnotized spy, she's humorless, incapable of any kind of emotional connection with anyone, bewildered by circumstance and absolutely determined to meet the goal she's been programmed to complete. She's cold, snippy, power-hungry and cruel. Yes, she's dangerously ignorant of the simplest ways by which the world works, but it's her calculating political instincts (and we rubes who fall for her beauty, simplicity and venomous hate for Obama) that see her through to triumph.


HBO informs us that Palin speaks in tongues. Moreover, we're asked to believe that a self-made governor -- an honor student who put herself through college, is "flipping" fascinated to discover Germany was our enemy during the world wars. We're told that the very same woman who gave this interview in 2008 had no idea in 2008 that England has a prime minister. We're instructed that the engaged governor, who wrote these emails and who sent her son to war and who understands the complexities of harvesting and trading energy like few others, is shocked to learn Saddam Hussein wasn't behind 9/11, needs a flashcard to memorize what NAFTA is and has never heard of the Federal Reserve.

...Her hypnotic, unnerving lack of a core is always right below the surface. No matter what the situation, there's always a dark, calculating vacancy somewhere in this alien's eyes. And the reasons for this are obvious. HBO and Moore found it imperative to deconstruct Palin's strengths - her warmth, charisma and extraordinary ability to connect with everyday Americans.


Another way HBO does that is to turn the flamethrower on us - on  you, me and anyone who dares support this alien. You see, we must also be exposed by fire, and that fire reveals us as so full of rage and ignorance that we can be manipulated by this alien - manipulated into screaming "Kill him!" at the sound of Obama's name.


HBO's message is simple: you’re either with the cool, smart, classy, sophisticated kids who stand against Palin, or you’re with The Mob, the rubes, the snake handlers, the s4:s-kickers.


Now that I've actually had a chance to screen HBO's "Game Change," I can tell you without any hesitation that if you've seen the trailer, you've seen the movie. The film is nothing more than an extended version of those 107 seconds; for around two hours, Governor Palin is demonized, dehumanized, slandered and maliciously morphed into something unrecognizable - a petty, joyless, snippy, unstable, moronic political mercenary...

I don't see getting HBO anytime soon...I can't wait for the Osama bin Laden movie just before the election showing B Hussein Obama personally popping a cap into OBl.

It begins...the vetting of B Hussein Obama

Last week I mentioned how in death Andrew Breitbart would actually do what the major media refused to do in 2008 (and continues to not do), vet B Hussein Obama's qualifications for the Presidency.

It has started.

From the Big Government, a poster of a Alinsky love movie with a post movie discussion featuring such moderates as Studds Terkel and get ready, Senator Barrack Obama.

Now why wasn't this shown in 07/08? Hey Mrs Clinton, maybe you should have tried this and you might have gotten the nomination.

You know, let's do our own version of the Rather hit piece from 04, where Danny boy tried to say Bush wasn't doing his National Guard duty. Or the late hit piece in 2000 about a 25 year old DWI where they had the information for months but for some reason choose the best time to release it was days from the election.

I have no doubt more is coming and I pray they have saved the best for last. Thanks Andrew...RIP and I know you're gonna enjoy this like us.

Really...a hydration station

If it's Mrs B Hussein Obama and nutrition you know it's BS. It's bad enough that federal agents are policing Pre K kid lunches, now this lawyer with no expertise in nutrition is going after soldiers.

Army Dietitian Touts Warning Labels for Desserts and Fried Foods at Mess Halls | CNSNews.com

The healthy eating campaign has the U.S. military in its sights.

During a panel discussion Thursday on how government can promote healthy eating habits, the U.S. Army touted its mess hall labeling system that places warning on desserts and fried foods.

The event, held at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, saw Lt. Col. Sonya Cable highlight the “Go for Green” program, which labels healthy foods green, moderate foods amber, and high calorie foods red.

The nutrition education program alerts soldiers that “red” foods like bacon and apple pie should only be eaten rarely, with a warning: “limit intake.” Foods labeled green, however, such as mustard greens, are deemed “premium fuel for the soldier athlete,” “fresh and flavorful” and “nutrient dense.” Soldiers are advised to eat these frequently.

Cable represents the U.S. Army Soldier Fueling Initiative, which is remaking dining facilities at Initial Military Training sites across the country. She currently serves as a dietitian and the Chief of the Human Dimensions Division within the Initial Military Training Center of Excellence.

During the panel discussion she advised using the “red, amber, green” system in public schools too.

“My eyes got opened very quickly that it really is a community,” she said, about her visit to Fort Jackson, S.C. seven years ago to observe its dining facilities.  “We talk about a village that raises a child.  Well a community develops a brand new soldier, too. And that’s what we found there.”

“When I got there our dining facilities were typical dining facility type styles, you know, the fried foods, salad bars existed,” Cable continued.

“We had soda machines and the pastries were, you know, typical cookies, cake, cakes, pies, all of those types of things.  Well, then we had the challenge of, okay, now we’re taking former civilians, now developing into soldiers and trying to develop them,” she said.  This was the beginning of the Soldier Fueling Initiative and Cable’s efforts to influence the behavior of new recruits.

If you walk into a basic training cafeteria today you will find far fewer fried foods and soda machines have been replaced with “hydration stations,” she explained.

“In the military we all kind of know red means, ‘uh oh, there’s problems,’” Cable said.  “Amber, middle of the road, we’re doing okay.  And green is good to go, all is right. We took that same concept and we applied it to our menus.”

For instance, the program’s Recipe Nutrition Analysis lists pies, cookies, cakes, éclairs, and banana splits as “red” foods – highest in calories and lowest in vitamins and minerals.

Posters and placards encourage soldiers to opt instead for such “green” desserts as baked bananas and fruit cups.

“All the foods are labeled throughout the serving line so that our soldiers would be informed as to making choices related to their performance goals,” Cable said.

“I had some folks say to me, ‘Well, why on earth did you even include the red ones to begin with?’  Two reasons – one, we’ve got soldiers who have racehorse metabolisms that they needed every calorie I could get into them.  And by taking off the ‘red’ we just found that we couldn’t get enough calories in them.”

The second reason for including “red” foods, Cable said, was “so they could learn what contributed positively and maybe what contributed negatively. Not to say that every food is bad, it’s just how they fit into your performance goals.”

On the breakfast menu oven-fried bacon, sausage gravy, butter, sugary cereal and egg, sausage and cheese sandwiches earn a red label. Assorted low-fat yogurt, oven-fried Canadian bacon, broccoli quiche and cholesterol-free scrambled eggs are deemed “high performance” foods.

For lunch and dinner, soldiers are coaxed into choosing hamburger yakisoba over grilled cheeseburgers.

Allright...what the hell is hamburger yakisoba and what moron thinks a hungry as hell soldier will take this over a real burger?

When I was mobalized in 03 we started to have a restaurant bring in meals because there was no mess hall available. I mentioned the budget would allow us to provide steak every day and one of the budget guys (a retired Army major) made a good point, “Mike, we did that within a week they would want burgers and chicken...” He was right.

I might also point out to this group when they tried a similar program in the LA school district the results was a massive waste of money and food and the development of a black market for junk food.

Salisbury steak, BBQ spareribs, grilled pork chops, Yankee pot roast and turkey gravy are discouraged, while baked tuna and noodles, Brussels sprouts, spinach, turkey meatloaf, peas and carrots are “premium fuel for the soldier athlete” that should be chosen frequently.

Cable, who gave a tour of the dining facilities at Ft. Jackson to First Lady Michelle Obama in January, said the program started with basic combat training sites and now is used in all training facilities.

Overs involved in the panel included Ned Holland, Assistant Secretary for Administration at Health and Human Services; Dr. Joel Kimmons of the Division of Nutrition and Physical Activity at the Centers for Disease Control; and Jeff Mills, Food Services Director for D.C. public schools. Panelists discussed their efforts to curb unhealthy eating habits in various branches of government....

I remember as a 23 year old lieutenant in Korea we had a Coke machine with one the choices as Budweiser beer. I said before I have serious heartburn when we tell adults "you're old enough to vote, get married, sign a contract, and die for your country but you cannot have a beer..." Now the Army bureaucracy is telling these troops "your too stupid to decide what to eat."

One problem I see is this Lt. Col. and the other people listed seem to confuse the nutritional requirements for relative inactive student (yes, there are exceptions for the jocks) and soldiers who do physical training and other calorie burning activities daily.

Again, I'm glad I'm now my title is now Major, USAR, Retired.

Again, they find another way to abuse the traveling public....

Anyone who reads this blog knows I have little regard for the TSA and the facade of a job they do. There have been multiple cases of abuse of children, elderly and disabled persons. Yet there has never been a documented case of this harassment stopping any terrorist act. Another classic example.

TSA asks woman to prove her breast pump is real at Lihue Airport

Lihue, HI (KITV) -- A Hawaiian mom says she was humiliated when asked to prove her breast pump was real at an airport.

The woman says she was flagged for additional screening at the Lihue Airport Wednesday because of her electric breast feeding pump.

She claims agents told her she couldn't take the pump on the plane because the bottles in her carry-on were empty.

"I asked him if there was a private place I could pump and he said no, you can go in the women's bathroom. I had to stand in front of the mirrors and the sinks and pump my breast in front of every tourist that walked into that bathroom. I was embarrassed and humiliated and then angry that I was treated this way.

When the bottles were full, she was allowed back on the plane.

The TSA is apologizing, saying the agent made a mistake...

How many billions have we wasted on this legalized harassment. Please Republicans, rip this organized grouping of innocent people from the budget.

I can get behind this campaign!

Thanks Legal Insurrection for the link!

Somewhere up there Breitbart is smiling.....

Reading this morning's Houston Chronicle, the AP on the death of Mr Breitbart.

Andrew Breitbart used the Internet relentlessly to ignite political scandal and expose what he saw as media bias, even if he sometimes had to edit the facts to do it...

The Associated Press is complaining about someone editing the facts. This is the same AP that wrote in news article, not an opinion piece the following:

President Barack Obama is reaping political benefits from the country’s brighter economic mood. A new poll shows that Republicans and Democrats alike are increasingly saying the nation is heading in the right direction and most independents now approve the way he’s addressing the nation’s post-recession period

OK. Does anyone out there think the economy is improved since January 2009? Or this editing the facts?

Here is another one.

WASHINGTON - (AP) -- Most Americans don't share Rick Santorum's absolutist take on abortion. He's out of step on women in combat. He questions the values of the two-thirds of mothers who work. He's even troubled by something as commonplace as birth control -- for married couples. Even among a Republican presidential field eager to please religious conservatives, Santorum's ideas stand out...

Again, this is the start of a news article, not an opinion piece.

I read on one of the articles about him in the last 24 hours he would start many days with reading Internet post criticizing him. Said if he was getting them to react he must be doing something right.

RIP Andrew. Even in death you will do something AP refused to do. Actually vet B Hussein Obama and his qualifications for the highest office in the land.

A different way to handle someone who's had a few too many...

I've booked countless drunks in my time on the streets and I gotta say this is an index worth looking at. From this morning's Houston Chronicle

City planning sobering center for drunks

The city plans to open a sobering center at the Star of Hope mission downtown later this year, an 84-bed facility where police would bring detainees whose only offense is drunkenness instead of booking them into jail.

Police arrest 19,000 people a year for public intoxication who account for an estimated $4 million to $6 million in jail costs annually.

People brought to the sobering center would have no arrest on their records and would be released once they’re sober...

...”I think it’s a much more cost-effective way of doing business. It’s much more effective in terms of police officers not being tied up with an arrest on a busy weekend for a simple charge of p.i. (public intoxication) that’s a non-violent crime.”...

...The city will pay for the $3 million in renovations needed to the warehouse from the proceeds of voter-approved public safety bonds. The city’s annual costs to lease, pay for staffing and cover utilities for the facility is estimated at $1.5 million.

“Incarcerating individuals whose only criminal behavior is public intoxication diverts law enforcement from more serious or life-threatening crimes,” said Mayor Annise Parker in a released statement. “Sobering centers in other cities have proven to be time savers for patrol officers, allowing them to quickly return to their assigned duties to deal with more serious crimes.”

Gotta say I like this.

Security Weekly: Detection Points in the Terrorist Attack Cycle, March 1, 2012

By Scott Stewart

Last week's Security Weekly discussed the fact that terrorism is a tactic used by many different classes of actors and that, while the perpetrators and tactics of terrorism may change in response to shifts in larger geopolitical cycles, these changes will never result in the end of terrorism. Since that analysis was written, there have been jihadist-related attacks in Afghanistan, Nigeria, Yemen and Pakistan, an assassination attempt against the president of Abkhazia, and a failed timed-incendiary attack against the Athens subway. (The latter incident, which militant anarchists claimed, reinforces that jihadists are not the only ones who practice terrorism.)

But while terrorism is a continuing concern, it can be understood, and measures can be taken to thwart terrorist plots and mitigate the effects of attacks. Perhaps the most important and fundamental point to understand about terrorism is that attacks do not appear out of nowhere. Individuals planning a terrorist attack follow a discernable cycle -- and that cycle and the behaviors associated with it can be observed if they are being looked for. We refer to these points where terrorism-related behavior can be most readily observed as vulnerabilities in the terrorist attack cycle.

The Attack Cycle

Many different actors can commit terrorist attacks, including sophisticated transnational terrorist groups like al Qaeda; regional militant groups like India's Maoist Naxalites; small, independent cells like the anarchists in Greece; and lone wolves like Oslo attacker Anders Breivik. There can be great variance in attack motives and in the time and process required to radicalize these different actors to the point that they decide to conduct a terrorist attack. But once any of these actors decides to launch an attack, there is remarkable similarity in the planning process.

First, there is the process of selecting or identifying a target. Often an actor will come up with a list of potential targets and then select one to focus on. In some cases, the actor has preselected a method of attack, such as a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device, and wants to find a target that would be vulnerable to that specific type of attack. In other cases, the actor will pick a target and then devise a method of attack based on that target's characteristics and vulnerabilities. Simply put, the execution of these steps can be somewhat fluid; some degree of planning or preparation can come before target selection, and sometimes target selection will be altered during the planning process. The time required to execute these steps can also vary considerably. Some attacks can be planned and executed within hours or days, while more complex plans, such as those used in the 9/11 or Mumbai attacks, may take months or even years to complete.

Frequently, those planning an attack will conduct detailed surveillance of potential targets to determine what security measures are in place around the target and to gauge whether they have the ability to successfully attack it. If the target is too difficult to attack -- commonly known as a hard target -- the attack planners will typically move on to their next target, which may prove easier to attack. (When they do continue with attacks against targets whose security measures exceed the attackers' capabilities, those attacks fail.) We refer to this stage as preoperational surveillance, which means surveillance that is conducted before the operation is fully planned.

After the target has been selected, a second round of surveillance is conducted. This round will be far more detailed and is intended to provide all the details necessary for planning the attack. For example, if the attack is being planned against a static facility, this round of surveillance will generally try to obtain a detailed description of the target's physical security features and security force procedures. It will also focus on establishing a baseline understanding of the activity that can be expected around the facility at the time of day the attack is anticipated.

If the target of the attack is an individual, the individual's residence, office and other places the individual frequents will be surveilled. Additionally, the surveillance team will look for patterns and routines that the target follows between these known locations. The team will often analyze the target's usual routes looking for choke points, or places the target must pass to get from one point to another. If the surveillance team identifies a choke point that the target passes through predictably, it will then try to determine whether that point will allow the attackers to deploy in secret, permit them to spot and control the target, and provide them with good escape routes. If it does, this point will frequently be chosen as the attack site.

In the case of large organizations, different groups or individuals may conduct different phases of the surveillance. Many organizations use specialized operatives for surveillance, though the operational planner will often attempt to get eyes on the target to help with the planning process. For instance, it is known from court testimony in the Mumbai case that David Headley made five extended trips to Mumbai as those attacks were being planned. The repeated trips were required because the operational commanders in Pakistan considered India a hostile environment and the operational planners could not go there to conduct the surveillance themselves. As a result, Headley was sent to observe and report on specific things as planning for the attacks progressed.

During the planning phase, the personnel to be used in the attacks are identified and trained in any special skills they may require for the mission, including languages, marksmanship, hand-to-hand combat, small-boat handling or land navigation. To protect operational security, the operatives may not be briefed in any great detail about the target of their operation until they are very close to being deployed.

Many times the planning phase will end with a dry run, as the preparation did for the 9/11 attacks, when some of the hijackers took their assigned flights in August 2001. While conducting a dry run, the attackers will generally be unarmed to ensure they do not needlessly bring law enforcement attention to themselves.

Sometimes an attacker will have acquired weapons for the attack before the planning phase. Other times the concept of the operation will be constrained by the weapons and money available. But quite frequently, the weapons for the attack will be acquired during the planning phase, after the target has been selected and the means of attack have been established.

Once planning, training and weapons acquisition are complete, the attack team can be deployed. The attack team frequently will again conduct surveillance of the target, especially if the target is mobile and the attack team is deployed and waiting at a predetermined attack site.

If it was properly planned, an attack is very likely to succeed once it has moved to the operational phase. Sometimes attacks do fail because of mistakes or bad luck, but by and large there is no way to stop an attack once it has been set in motion.

At the attack's conclusion, the attackers will seek to escape the scene. The exception is suicide attacks or when, like Breivik, the attacker intends to be captured as part of the media exploitation phase, the final step in the cycle.

Regardless of whether the attack is a suicide attack against a church in Nigeria or a timed-incendiary attack against a subway in Athens, the same attack cycle is followed. With an eye toward averting future attacks, a thoughtful observer can use the attack cycle model to understand how an attack was planned and executed.

Vulnerabilities

While plots are occasionally thwarted at the last second, for the most part law enforcement and security personnel must detect and interdict the plot before it gets to the attack phase to have any chance of stopping it. Once the bullets fly or the explosive device is detonated, there is little security forces can do but initiate their immediate action drills in an effort to reduce the body count. This means that an emphasis must be placed on identifying attackers earlier in the process, well before they are in a position to strike.

Unless security forces have a source inside the group that is planning the attack or manage to intercept the group's communications, the only way to identify attack planners is by noting their actions. This is especially true of a lone wolf attack, where no external communication occurs. The earliest point in the attack cycle that the attackers can be identified by their actions is during the preoperational surveillance required for target identification.

There is a widely held conception that terrorist surveillance is generally sophisticated and almost invisible, but when viewed in hindsight, it is frequently discovered that individuals who conduct terrorist surveillance tend to be quite sloppy and even amateurish in their surveillance tradecraft. We will discuss what bad surveillance looks like, and how to recognize it, in more detail next week, but for now it is sufficient to say that poor surveillance tradecraft is a significant vulnerability in the terrorist attack cycle.

As noted above, additional surveillance is often conducted at later stages of the attack cycle, such as in the planning stage and even sometimes in the attack stage, as the attackers track the target from a known location to the attack site. Each instance of surveillance provides an additional opportunity for the assailants to be identified and the attack to be prevented.

During the planning phase and as the operatives prepare to deploy, communication between and movement of group members often increases. Additionally, group members may engage in outside training that can attract attention, such as playing paintball, visiting the firing range or, as was the case with the 9/11 pilots, attending flight schools. This increase in activity, which also might include money transfers, leaves signs that could tip off the authorities.

Another significant vulnerability during the attack cycle is weapons acquisition. This vulnerability is especially pronounced when dealing with inexperienced grassroots operatives, who tend to aspire to conduct spectacular attacks that are far beyond their capabilities. For example, they may decide they want to conduct a bombing attack even though they do not know how to make improvised explosive devices. It is also not uncommon for such individuals to try to acquire Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, automatic firearms or hand grenades. When confronted by this gap between their capability and their aspirations, grassroots operatives will often reach out to someone for help with their attack instead of settling on an attack that is within their ability. Increasingly, the people such would-be attackers are encountering when they reach out are police or domestic security agency informants.

As far back as 2010, jihadist leaders such as Nasir al-Wahayshi of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula recognized this problem and began to encourage grassroots jihadists to focus on conducting simple attacks against soft targets. Nevertheless, grassroots jihadists are consistently drawn toward spectacular attacks, as seen in the Feb. 17 arrest near the U.S. Capitol of a Moroccan man who thought his handler, who was in fact an FBI informant, had equipped him for a suicide attack. Unlike most jihadists, other types of grassroots militants, such as anarchists, are far more comfortable conducting simple attacks with readily available items.

Personality traits and psychological profiles aside, anyone desiring to plan a terrorist attack must follow the attack planning cycle, which at certain stages will necessarily open them up to detection.

Detection Points in the Terrorist Attack Cycle COPYRIGHT STRATFOR.COM

Motorcycle gangs....

Got this article on the capture of a Hell's Angle in California. The article is pretty straight forward but one of the comments caught my eye.

Add caption

Note the "Filthy Few" patch on his cut, learn these patches brothers, they could save your life. These guys are the more violent of the Hells Angels. The patches on their cuts are not handed out to just anyone, they are earned and each one means a specific thing. I worked UC in the biker world during my younger and dumber days, these guys live in their own world and if you don`t understand the basics of the rules they live by, you will come up short everytime. Outstanding work by the LE that tracked him down, truth be known, he was running from his own as well as LE. A patched brother doesn`t kill another patched brother without the "knod" from above. Especially at the funeral of a chapter president. That comes from way up the ladder. Might be alittle more to the story.

Good to know...I'll say it I would have never know it.

Here is the full article from the AP:

Hells Angels member arrested in funeral shooting 

Steve Ruiz surrendered Saturday evening after San Jose police surrounded his motel in Fremont 

SAN FRANCISCO — Police have arrested a Hells Angel gang member several months after he was suspected of fatally shooting a fellow member at a funeral for the regional leader of the motorcycle gang. 

Steve Ruiz surrendered Saturday evening after San Jose police surrounded his motel in Fremont, police Sgt. Jason Dwyer said Sunday. 

Ruiz, 38, had been the subject of a widespread manhunt since Steve Tausan was shot and killed during memorial services for Jeffrey "Jethro" Pettigrew on Oct. 15. Police believe that Ruiz shot Tausan when a fight broke out at the San Jose funeral, which was monitored by police... 

...Tausan, 52, was one of 4,000 people attending services for Pettigrew, the president of the Hells Angels' San Jose chapter. Pettigrew was slain during a brawl with a rival biker gang in a Nevada casino on Sept. 23. 

A week after Tausan was killed, police stormed a house in Stockton but came up empty. Investigators also said in December that they had "credible evidence" that Ruiz, a former San Jose resident, had been seen in the city....

Is anyone surprised with this news.....

I for one am not.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Rodney King has been sentenced to 20 days of house arrest and fined $500 for misdemeanor reckless driving in Southern California.

King is the black motorist whose beating by white Los Angeles police officers was videotaped in 1991. Four officers were acquitted of charges in state court a year later, leading to rioting in Los Angeles.

The 46-year-old King was arrested in Moreno Valley seven months ago for investigation of drunken driving.

But Riverside County prosecutors say his blood-alcohol reading was 0.06 percent, which is below the 0.08 legal threshold. He also had a trace of marijuana in his system.

The Riverside Press-Enterprise (http://bit.ly/wvr5GN ) says King, through his attorney, pleaded to a lesser so-called "wet reckless" driving charge on Monday.

King also was placed on three years' probation.

Now these Occupy punks are really peaceful....

From the Cereal State, California.

At least 2 officers injured at Calif. 'Occupy' protest
1 hurt by rock thrown while escorting members of other protest group

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — At least two law enforcement officers were injured Monday during a clash with members of the Occupy movement who were at the state Capitol to counter a rally by a group protesting violence by blacks against whites in South Africa.

The clash erupted in the afternoon as California Highway Patrol and Sacramento police officers were escorting about 35 members of the South Africa Project to a parking garage following their protest outside the Capitol building.

About 50 members of Occupy Oakland began throwing cans and bottles at the South Africa group and at the officers. The Occupy members then rushed the officers as people with the pro-whites group hurried into the parking garage.

CHP spokeswoman Fran Clader said the two officers suffered minor injuries and were taken to a hospital. The CHP arrested three Occupy members on suspicion of disobeying and officer.

One CHP officer was injured when a member of the Occupy group jumped on him, and another was hurt after being struck by an object...

...Many of the Occupy protesters, some wearing hoods or masks, said they came from the San Francisco Bay area to counter what they called a racist group affiliated with former Louisiana Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.

Occupy protesters had been cursing at the South Africa Project rally and at officers keeping the two sides apart.

Ryan Stark, 26, who said he is part of Occupy Sacramento, said he joined the protesters challenging the South Africa Project protesters because there needed to be a showdown.

"I didn't throw anything ... but these sorts of demonstrations need to happen," he said, referring to the counter protest. "They do have the right to say what they want, but we're not going to let it fly."

I love this quote, "but we're not going to let it fly." Can we taxpaying job holiding citizens use that on you moron?

...Earlier in the day, a teenage girl with Occupy Oakland was taken to Juvenile Hall after she became combative and assaulted an officer who asked her to pick up litter, California Highway Patrol Officer Sean Kennedy said. He did not have her age or city of residence...

Good to know the teenagers out there start young.

Security Weekly: The State of the World: Explaining U.S. Strategy, February 28, 2012

By George Friedman

The fall of the Soviet Union ended the European epoch, the period in which European power dominated the world. It left the United States as the only global power, something for which it was culturally and institutionally unprepared. Since the end of World War II, the United States had defined its foreign policy in terms of its confrontation with the Soviet Union. Virtually everything it did around the world in some fashion related to this confrontation. The fall of the Soviet Union simultaneously freed the United States from a dangerous confrontation and eliminated the focus of its foreign policy.

In the course of a century, the United States had gone from marginal to world power. It had waged war or Cold War from 1917 until 1991, with roughly 20 years of peace between the two wars dominated by the Great Depression and numerous interventions in Latin America. Accordingly, the 20th century was a time of conflict and crisis for the United States. It entered the century without well-developed governmental institutions for managing its foreign policy. It built its foreign policy apparatus to deal with war and the threat of war; the sudden absence of an adversary inevitably left the United States off balance.

After the Cold War

The post-Cold War period can be divided into three parts. A simultaneous optimism and uncertainty marked the first, which lasted from 1992 until 2001. On one hand, the fall of the Soviet Union promised a period in which economic development supplanted war. On the other, American institutions were born in battle, so to speak, so transforming them for a time of apparently extended peace was not easy. Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton both pursued a policy built around economic growth, with periodic and not fully predictable military interventions in places such as Panama, Somalia, Haiti and Kosovo.

These interventions were not seen as critical to U.S. national security. In some cases, they were seen as solving a marginal problem, such as Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega's drug trafficking. Alternatively, they were explained as primarily humanitarian missions. Some have sought a pattern or logic to these varied interventions; in fact, they were as random as they appeared, driven more by domestic politics and alliance pressures than any clear national purpose. U.S. power was so overwhelming that these interventions cost relatively little and risked even less.

The period where indulgences could be tolerated ended on Sept. 11, 2001. At that point, the United States faced a situation congruent with its strategic culture. It had a real, if unconventional, enemy that posed a genuine threat to the homeland. The institutions built up during and after World War II could function again effectively. In an odd and tragic way, the United States was back in its comfort zone, fighting a war it saw as imposed on it.

The period from 2001 until about 2007 consisted of a series of wars in the Islamic world. Like all wars, they involved brilliant successes and abject failures. They can be judged one of two ways. First, if the wars were intended to prevent al Qaeda from ever attacking the United States again in the fashion of 9/11, they succeeded. Even if it is difficult to see how the war in Iraq meshes with this goal, all wars involve dubious operations; the measure of war is success. If, however, the purpose of these wars was to create a sphere of pro-U.S. regimes, stable and emulating American values, they clearly failed.

By 2007 and the surge in Iraq, U.S. foreign policy moved into its present phase. No longer was the primary goal to dominate the region. Rather, it was to withdraw from the region while attempting to sustain regimes able to defend themselves and not hostile to the United States. The withdrawal from Iraq did not achieve this goal; the withdrawal from Afghanistan probably will not either. Having withdrawn from Iraq, the United States will withdraw from Afghanistan regardless of the aftermath. The United States will not end its involvement in the region, and the primary goal of defeating al Qaeda will no longer be the centerpiece.

President Barack Obama continued the strategy his predecessor, George W. Bush, set in Iraq after 2007. While Obama increased forces beyond what Bush did in Afghanistan, he nevertheless accepted the concept of a surge -- the increase of forces designed to facilitate withdrawal. For Obama, the core strategic problem was not the wars but rather the problem of the 1990s -- namely, how to accommodate the United States and its institutions to a world without major enemies.

The Failure of Reset

The reset button Hillary Clinton gave to the Russians symbolized Obama's strategy. Obama wanted to reset U.S. foreign policy to the period before 9/11, a period when U.S. interventions, although frequent, were minor and could be justified as humanitarian. Economic issues dominated the period, and the primary issue was managing prosperity. It also was a period in which U.S.-European and U.S.-Chinese relations fell into alignment, and when U.S.-Russian relations were stable. Obama thus sought a return to a period when the international system was stable, pro-American and prosperous. While understandable from an American point of view, Russia, for example, considers the 1990s an unmitigated disaster to which it must never return.

The problem in this strategy was that it was impossible to reset the international system. The prosperity of the 1990s had turned into the difficulties of the post-2008 financial crisis. This obviously created preoccupations with managing the domestic economy, but as we saw in our first installment, the financial crisis redefined the way the rest of the world operated. The Europe, China and Russia of the 1990s no longer existed, and the Middle East had been transformed as well.

During the 1990s, it was possible to speak of Europe as a single entity with the expectation that European unity would intensify. That was no longer the case by 2010. The European financial crisis had torn apart the unity that had existed in the 1990s, putting European institutions under intense pressure along with trans-Atlantic institutions such as NATO. In many ways, the United States was irrelevant to the issues the European Union faced. The Europeans might have wanted money from the Americans, but they did not want 1990s-style leadership.

China had also changed. Unease about the state of its economy had replaced the self-confidence of the elite that had dominated during the 1990s in China. Its exports were under heavy pressure, and concerns about social stability had increased. China also had become increasingly repressive and hostile, at least rhetorically, in its foreign policy.

In the Middle East, there was little receptivity to Obama's public diplomacy. In practical terms, the expansion of Iranian power was substantial. Given Israeli fears over Iranian nuclear weapons, Obama found himself walking a fine line between possible conflict with Iran and allowing events to take their own course.

Limiting Intervention

This emerged as the foundation of U.S. foreign policy. Where previously the United States saw itself as having an imperative to try to manage events, Obama clearly saw that as a problem. As seen in this strategy, the United States has limited resources that have been overly strained during the wars. Rather than attempting to manage foreign events, Obama is shifting U.S. strategy toward limiting intervention and allowing events to proceed on their own.

Strategy in Europe clearly reflects this. Washington has avoided any attempt to lead the Europeans to a solution even though the United States has provided massive assistance via the Federal Reserve. This strategy is designed to stabilize rather than to manage. With the Russians, who clearly have reached a point of self-confidence, the failure of an attempt to reset relations resulted in a withdrawal of U.S. focus and attention in the Russian periphery and a willingness by Washington to stand by and allow the Russians to evolve as they will. Similarly, whatever the rhetoric of China and U.S. discussions of redeployment to deal with the Chinese threat, U.S. policy remains passive and accepting.

It is in Iran that we see this most clearly. Apart from nuclear weapons, Iran is becoming a major regional power with a substantial sphere of influence. Rather than attempt to block the Iranians directly, the United States has chosen to stand by and allow the game to play out, making it clear to the Israelis that it prefers diplomacy over military action, which in practical terms means allowing events to take their own course.

This is not necessarily a foolish policy. The entire notion of the balance of power is built on the assumption that regional challengers confront regional opponents who will counterbalance them. Balance-of-power theory assumes the leading power intervenes only when an imbalance occurs. Since no intervention is practical in China, Europe or Russia, a degree of passivity makes sense. In the case of Iran, where military action against its conventional forces is difficult and against its nuclear facilities risky, the same logic applies.

In this strategy, Obama has not returned to the 1990s. Rather, he is attempting to stake out new ground. It is not isolationism in its classic sense, as the United States is now the only global power. He appears to be engineering a new strategy, acknowledging that many outcomes in most of the world are acceptable to the United States and that no one outcome is inherently superior or possible to achieve. The U.S. interest lies in resuming its own prosperity; the arrangements the rest of the world makes are, within very broad limits, acceptable.

Put differently, unable to return U.S. foreign policy to the 1990s and unwilling and unable to continue the post-9/11 strategy, Obama is pursuing a policy of acquiescence. He is decreasing the use of military force and, having limited economic leverage, allowing the system to evolve on its own.

Implicit in this strategy is the existence of overwhelming military force, particularly naval power.

Europe is not manageable through military force, and it poses the most serious long-term threat. As Europe frays, Germany's interests may be better served in a relationship with Russia. Germany needs Russian energy, and Russia needs German technology. Neither is happy with American power, and together they may limit it. Indeed, an entente between Germany and Russia was a founding fear of U.S. foreign policy from World War I until the Cold War. This is the only combination that could conceivably threaten the United States. The American counter here is to support Poland, which physically divides the two, along with other key allies in Europe, and the United States is doing this with a high degree of caution.

China is highly vulnerable to naval force because of the configuration of its coastal waters, which provides choke points for access to its shores. The ultimate Chinese fear is an American blockade, which the weak Chinese navy would be unable to counter, but this is a distant fear. Still, it is the ultimate American advantage.

Russia's vulnerability lies in the ability of its former fellow members of the Soviet Union, which it is trying to organize into a Eurasian Union, to undermine its post-Soviet agenda. The United States has not interfered in this process significantly, but it has economic incentives and covert influence it could use to undermine or at least challenge Russia. Russia is aware of these capabilities and that the United States has not yet used them.

The same strategy is in place with Iran. Sanctions on Iran are unlikely to work, as they are too porous and China and Russia will not honor them. Still, the United States pursues them not for what they will achieve but for what they will avoid -- namely, direct action. The assumption underlying U.S. quiescence, rhetoric aside, is that regional forces, the Turks in particular, will be forced to deal with the Iranians themselves, and that patience will allow a balance of power to emerge.

The Risks of Inaction

U.S. strategy under Obama is classic in the sense that it allows the system to evolve as it will, thereby allowing the United States to reduce its efforts. On the other hand, U.S. military power is sufficient that should the situation evolve unsatisfactorily, intervention and reversal is still possible. Obama has to fight the foreign policy establishment, particularly the U.S. Defense Department and intelligence community, to resist older temptations. He is trying to rebuild the foreign policy architecture away from the World War II-Cold War model, and that takes time.

The weakness in Obama's strategy is that the situation in many regions could suddenly and unexpectedly move in undesirable directions. Unlike the Cold War system, which tended to react too soon to problems, it is not clear that the current system won't take too long to react. Strategies create psychological frameworks that in turn shape decisions, and Obama has created a situation wherein the United States may not react quickly enough if the passive approach were to collapse suddenly.

It is difficult to see the current strategy as a permanent model. Before balances of power are created, great powers must ensure that a balance is possible. In Europe, within China, against Russia and in the Persian Gulf, it is not clear what the balance consists of. It is not obvious that the regional balance will contain emerging powers. Therefore, this is not a classic balance-of-power strategy. Rather it is an ad hoc strategy imposed by the financial crisis and its impact on psychology and by war-weariness. These issues cannot be ignored, but they do not provide a stable foundation for a long-term policy, which will likely replace the one Obama is pursuing now.

The State of the World: Explaining U.S. Strategy COPYRIGHT STRATFOR.COM

After all these years I still like Ike

I've often got into debates with conservatives and liberals alike over the administration of Dwight D Eisenhower. I have great admiration of him as a general and as a President, even though some on my side of the aisle say "all he did was play golf".

Let's see.

1. Led the country through a post war boom. Granted America was in a position to dominate the world economically because the destruction of Europe and Asia after WWII, but he kept up going.

2. Ended the Korean War. Unlike the current occupant of the White House no one questioned the word of Ike. After visiting Korea he let the Chinese and North Koreans know he would use nuclear weapons to end the war and no one doubted he would. The result, a cease fire months into his administration.

3. What many people drive on daily, the Interstate Highway System was his dream. It's properly called The Eisenhower Interstate Highway System. A major named Eisenhower had to get a convoy across the US in 1939 and the lack of connected roadways cause this simple act to take two weeks. After seeing the Autobahns in Germany he envisioned a similar network for the US. And think how that transformed this nation's economy and society for the better.

4. Ike started the integration of the southern schools including federalizing the Arkansas National Guard in direct opposition of the Democratic governor there.

5. Kept the peace while a maniac was pounding his shoe at the UN. I would say this could be enough but damed, don't you remember fondly when America had the adults in the room.

That's off the top of my head. Oh, he did this while having two heart attacks and quitting a four pack a day smoking habit cold turkey. Hey Barrack, try that.

Now we can look at the statue being put up for the man. From this Sunday's New York Puke:

The concept monument

The Greatness of Ike

By ROSS DOUTHAT

THIS year, two decisions will be made with long-term implications for how we think about the presidency. In November, voters will decide whether to give Barack Obama a second term in office. And sometime before then, the National Capital Planning Commission will decide whether to go forward with Frank Gehry’s plan for a Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial.

The Gehry design is, well, Gehry-esque: it reimagines the traditional monumental form, using huge metal screens to depict the landscape of Eisenhower’s Kansan childhood while devoting far less space to his accomplishments in World War II and the White House. (The only significant statue will portray Eisenhower as a barefoot boy, rather than a war leader or president.)

The design has been widely criticized — by the Eisenhower family, by architectural traditionalists and by right-of-center columnists like George Will and David Frum. Some of the critiques are purely aesthetic, but the most important ones are substantive: as planned, the critics argue, the memorial sells the supreme allied commander’s greatness short.

What’s interesting, though, is that by emphasizing Eisenhower’s ordinariness rather than his heroism, Gehry is arguably being conventional rather than radical. As conceived, his memorial would ratify Eisenhower’s current place in our national memory, not revise it.

Gehry’s vision, as The Washington Post’s Philip Kennicott writes, implies that while “Eisenhower was a great man ... there were other Eisenhowers right behind him, other men who could have done what he did.” Far from being a bold reimagining, this is a near-perfect summary of the way many Americans already regard their 34th president.

Sorry but Adlai Stevenson could not hold a hankie to Ike. Yes, there were many capable men out there qualified to hold the office. But at the time there was no one as seasoned, trained, experienced and knowledgable as Ike to lead the nation in the post war years.

...But he is not nearly as beloved as many of his midcentury contemporaries. He’s overshadowed as a war leader both by F.D.R. and by his many colorful subordinates, and his two-term presidency has attracted little of the posthumous enthusiasm that made his “give ’em hell” predecessor a folk hero and his martyred successor an icon.

In a 2011 Gallup poll on the greatest president, Eisenhower came in a lame 12th, in a tie with Jimmy Carter. He performs solidly in scholarly surveys, but he’s frequently ranked behind his prominent 20th-century rivals.

I don’t know the details on this poll but I wonder if these were the same morons who put Obama in the top ten. Ike definitely belongs there. Obama belongs at the other

...ultimately Eisenhower is underrated because his White House leadership didn’t fit the template of “greatness” that too many Americans pine for from their presidents. He was not a man for grand projects, bold crusades or world-historical gambles. There was no “Ike revolution” in American politics, no Eisen-mania among activists and intellectuals, no Eisenhower realignment.

Instead, his greatness was manifested in the crises he defused and the mistakes he did not make. He did not create unaffordable entitlement programs, embrace implausible economic theories, or hand on unsustainable deficits to his successors. He ended a stalemated conflict in Korea, kept America out of war in Southeast Asia, and avoided the kind of nuclear brinkmanship that his feckless successor stumbled into. He did not allow a series of Middle Eastern crises to draw American into an Iraq-style intervention. He did not risk his presidency with third-rate burglaries or sexual adventurism. He was decisive when necessary, but his successes — prosperity, peace, steady progress on civil rights — were just as often the fruit of strategic caution and masterly inaction....

Again an ability to act when needed, the judgement to not go when not needed and the wisdom to know the difference.

I visited the Eisenhower Center in 1986 and the impression you get (like the Truman Library and the Reagan Center) is how a simple man from America’s heartland can being himself up to the leadership of the greatest nation on earth.

RIP Ike...when you were needed you always were there for this country. Now hopefully your country builds a worthy monument to you.

An interesting look at the law....

I am not supportive of hate crime statues. If someone kills a black man or Hispanic woman while screaming epithets the crime is not his words but the act of violence. And it in blatenly unconstitutional to say if someone assaults a minority it's a hate crime with enhanced penalties but if the same assault occurs to a while man there is a lesser penalty.

Having said all this, I find this amusing.

Lawyer: Lesbians’ assault on gay man can’t be hate crime


Three women identified by their lawyers as lesbians were arraigned yesterday on a hate crime charge for allegedly beating a gay man at the Forest Hills T station in an unusual case that experts say exposes the law’s flawed logic.


“My guess is that no sane jury would convict them under those circumstances, but what this really demonstrates is the idiocy of the hate-crime legislation,” said civil liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate. “If you beat someone up, you’re guilty of assault and battery of a human being. Period. The idea of trying to break down human beings into categories is doomed to failure.”


Prosecutors and the ACLU of Massachusetts said no matter the defendants’ sexual orientation, they can still face the crime of assault and battery with intent to intimidate, which carries up to a 10-year prison sentence, by using hateful language.


“Someone who is Jewish can be anti-Semitic,” said ACLU staff attorney Sarah Wunsch. “The mere fact that someone is a member of the same class doesn’t mean they could not be motivated by hatred for their very own group.”


But Carolyn Euell, 38, mother of two of the defendants, Erika Stroud, 21, of Dorchester and Felicia Stroud, 18, West Roxbury, told reporters the alleged attack “can’t be hateful” because both her daughters are lesbians.


Prosecutor Lindsey Weinstein said the two sisters and one of their domestic partners, Lydia Sanford, also a defendant, viciously beat the man Sunday, repeatedly punching and kicking him after he bumped them with his backpack on a stairwell.


She said the victim, who suffered a broken nose, told cops he believed the attack was “motivated as a crime because of his sexual orientation” since the three women “called him insulting homophobic slurs.”


But attorney Helene Tomlinson, who represented Sanford, told the judge her client is “openly identified as a lesbian ... so any homophobic (conduct) is unwarranted.” She said the alleged victim was the aggressor and used racial slurs: “He provoked them.”


Felicia Stroud’s attorney, C. Harold Krasnow, said, “They don’t know what his sexual orientation is, just like he doesn’t know what theirs is.”


...But Jake Wark, a spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, said prosecutors will have no problem proving the women committed a hate crime, even if they are lesbians.


“The defendants’ particular orientation or alleged orientations have no bearing on our ability to prosecute for allegedly targeting a person who they believe to be different from them,” he said.

Again how much more effort is being put into a case of assault here that should not be put in. These three ladies assaulted (allegedly) this man and if guilty they should pay. In the People's Republic of Massachusetts assault probably means probation. But again we are treating differently people in a different fashion in the eyes of the law. Then there is one simple question to ask. When is the last time a black, Hispanic or gay person been charged with a hate crime against a white? Would anyone believe there has not been a case when a minority suspect has assaulted a white person because of race?  If so, then why are we treating the punishment differently based just on the color of the skin of the criminal?

I think we've gotten a long way from a dream of judging people on the content of their character and not the color of their skin.

IMHO the Supreme Court got it seriously wrong in Wisconsin v. Mitchell. Hopefully after seeing the problems caused by this they will revisit the issue in the future.

Another sign of the decline of the family....

On patrol when I catch a juvenile for curfew violation or another issue where I only give them a ticket, I mail a copy of it addressed to "The Parents/Guardian" of Little Johnny. They can't fix it unless they know it's broke and the kid may forget to mention to Mom or Dad (aka Parental Units One and Two) that he was busted.

Now there is a lot wrong in this story. One is the kids are doing it, but let's be honest alcohol use is often a bit of growing up. A more serious issue is this guy is selling booze to kids and seems to not care. Hopefully DC handles him. But the reaction of some of the parents in this article is beyond the pale.

Here is the original story:



Here is the results:

TV Reporter Returns After Backlash from Teen Drinking Investigation

(from CBSDC.com) WASHINGTON - A CBS news reporter whose on-air coverage of teenage drinking led to threats against her children, a backlash across social media and her brief leave from reporting is now back at work and speaking out about the alcohol problem affecting Washington DC’s community.

Andrea McCarren, a reporter for WUSA-TV since 1991, investigated a report from a local parent that a store in northwest Washington DC was allegedly selling liquor to teenagers below the legal buying age.

“We watched and videotaped dozens of teenagers buying alcohol at Town Square Market in northwest Washington without being asked for identification,” reported McCarren in the story that was broadcast on Feb. 2.

Following the story, teens flooded the station’s Facebook page with angry messages such as “…you’re now the most hated woman in the dc (sic) metro area.” A follow-up report by McCarren about a police raid on an underage drinking party brought out further anger on social media against the reporter. In addition, parents of teens being arrested by police at the scene became upset with WUSA-TV’s coverage and questioned police as to why law enforcement was granting video access to the raid.

After her children were threatened at school, McCarren took herself off the air and reporter Derek McGinty continued the series of reports on the issue. McCarren said parents at the scene of the police raid also threatened to sue police and WUSA-TV.

In an interview Thursday on CBS This Morning, McCarren spoke about the backlash and its affect on her three children.

“At first I was frightened and then I became angry,” said McCarren. “It felt like an orchestrated Facebook and Twitter campaign of hate. People put my home address on the internet. There were calls for revenge and retaliation against my family. I’m now in about my 27th year as a reporter and I have never seen anything like this.”

WUSA-TV said 99 percent of the feedback they had received from the public had been positive about their investigation, and supportive comments on the station’s Facebook page have been growing.

“Shame on the parents for being angry because their child was caught drinking under age,” posted one user. “One parent actually said, why didn’t you run. We ask why this generation has less morals and respect.”

Couldn't have put it better. Another sign of the decline of the family. Years ago the parents would be the ones going to the cops demanding this place be shut down. Now they are mad their kid got caught. Then again the parents were't raised so why do we think they can handle raising children.

I really love the moron parents saying they will sue the cops and the TV station. If anyone you should be suing guys it's the liquor store owner for selling to your kids. We all know how stupid kids are without booze. And I'm not gonna say they will not get it. Given enough motivation they will get it (take it from their families, get an older friend/relative to buy for them, find another easy store). But this is a criminal act that can led to extremely serious criminal acts. I wonder is that piece of s%^& store owner will feel any regret if he sells vodka to a kid on a Friday night and later on the kid kills someone in an accident? Gee parents, will you be upset about your kid not running them?

BTY you can't sue. It was in a public place and they didn't show the kids face. Good luck with that you money grubbing waste. I don't know what is more pathetic, the fact you would think of trying to make money one you child doing this or the face you are responsible for this kid's upbringing.

Ms McCarren, I'm to say the least a critic of the media, more national than local. Local does actually do some good work in exposing issues like this. And I for one am glad you did it. Thank you. If you saved one kid from getting injured or killed in a DWI accident you did a hell of a lot more for the people of DC than John King ever did.

Please, keep up the good work.

Thanks again to Darren at RotLC for the link.

Almost as bad as a Lieutenant with a map and compass

Hope you have a great week!

This is a real insult to Jar Jar

Unlike the creature on the left he serves a useful purpose in life!

There is a house in Charming, they call The Rising Son...

And it’s been the ruin of many a poor girl, and me, I know, I’m one.

It’s Beth, Elmer and I in the bedroom tonight. Plus 12 other girls in the house. Katie turned 17 and she has all her friends oven. I got to BBQ some burgers and after they retired, Beth, Elmer and I watched the final three episodes of Sons of Anarchy.

I first heard of the series from of all things The American Spectator and an article comparing it to the life in The Godfather. In his time people who take their request of justice to others outside the civil authorities. At the beginning of The Godfather an undertaker takes his quest to Don Corleone. In SOA they go to SAMCRO.

After spending months using DVDs I finally got the forth season on download from Amazon. For those of you who don’t know the protagonist is Jax Teller, the VP of the club (and it’s a club, not a gang ;<) ). Jax is the step son of his chief antagonist Clay Morrow, the club (and don’t call it a gang) President. Over the last few seasons things have boiled over and now Jax has become the president. I won’t spoil the show completely but this is an awesome series. Not family entertainment but there is great characters, great stories and classic nobility in evil people. Jax, Clay and the other members of the club are not people you want as your neighbors but you would want them when the chips were down.  There is honor among the thieves.

An awesome finish to season four but that leaves one bad thing. Now we got to wait till September for the next season. Damned.

Meet friends for breakfast tomorrow, other friends for lunch. Hope you’re have a great weekend.

That's my Daddy holding a gun and he uses it to chase burglars and monsters away

I don't know who needs his ass kicked more. The principle who started this crap or the cops who need to get their head out of the asses.

I thought such stupidity was only from loony bins like California!


Police arrested a Kitchener, Ont., father outside his daughter's school because the four-year-old

Police arrested a Kitchener, Ont., father outside his daughter's school because the four-year-old drew a picture of him holding a gun.


Jessie Sansone told the Record newspaper that he was in shock when he was arrested Wednesday and taken to a police station for questioning over the drawing. He was also strip-searched.


"This is completely insane. My daughter drew a gun on a piece of paper at school," he said.


Officials told the newspaper the move was necessary to ensure there were no guns accessible by children in the family's home. They also said comments by Sansone's daughter, Neaveh, that the man holding the gun in the picture was her dad and "he uses it to shoot bad guys and monsters," was concerning.


Police also searched Sansone's home while he was in custody. His wife and three children were taken to the police station, and the children were interviewed by Family and Children's Services...


...Several hours later, Sansone was released without charges.

To say a bureaucracy has gotten out of control is not strong enough. How many cops, school bureaucrats and CPS workers flew off the handle for this? I thank God I don’t have to worry about this yet in Texas. And it’s another good reason for not living anywhere near New York, California or DC.

Hopefully this doesn’t trickle down to the states.

Thanks Darren at RotLC for the story.