tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20372724.post4507204732734813361..comments2023-09-01T09:38:54.262-04:00Comments on Dumb Looks Still Free: That 20% of victory smells like defeat to Sen. ReidA Jacksonianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07607888697879327120noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20372724.post-26399617348734072542007-04-27T07:20:00.000-04:002007-04-27T07:20:00.000-04:00Mr. Z - Thank you!Blogger finally decided it coul...Mr. Z - Thank you!<BR/><BR/>Blogger finally decided it could transition me and I prepared for that as best I could with my previous partial transition on the other two blogs.<BR/><BR/>I was getting to the point of thinking I was going to just hand-code a template, but the features I wanted showed up, so here we are. I am probably not going to go back over the 390 some posts and put tags on them. Metadata encoding is far too wearying to do by hand. There are a couple of programs that might be able to do that automagically, but that still requires review and edit time.<BR/><BR/>So they stay untagged.<BR/><BR/>A few other things to clean up side-bar wise, but this is good to go for a good long while.<BR/><BR/>In general Blogger gets a B- from me for their overall handling of transition and the limitations on what can and cannot be easily encoded in templates. Still examining moving to a different site/platform... if health and time hold up.A Jacksonianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07607888697879327120noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20372724.post-36633291693834920272007-04-26T23:46:00.000-04:002007-04-26T23:46:00.000-04:00BTW, really like the look of your blog!BZBTW, really like the look of your blog!<BR/><BR/>BZBloviating Zeppelinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01359816456769157176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20372724.post-49900630102866653582007-04-26T16:42:00.000-04:002007-04-26T16:42:00.000-04:00Mr. Z - I *worked* in one of those areas... and lo...Mr. Z - I *worked* in one of those areas... and lovely experience it wasn't, to say the least. A couple of exits down from the Capitol building exit and you are in the roughest parts of DC. Right there in the Navy Yards... the only way Federal workers can be protected is by fenced off *everything* topped with barbed wire, security cameras and bright lights. Even the half-block from the Metro Station was none too pleasant, not to speak of where one had to park.<BR/><BR/>So Sen. Reid can go take a hike as DC should be a 'showcase' of the Federal Government, and yet has some of the worst and most endemic crime problems mere blocks from the seat of government. Tell you what, as soon as Congress gets DC cleaned up, I will believe they might be able to handle something a bit larger... which ought to take them about 30 years or so. And Sen. Reid pointed out that Congress was not up to even securing a few blocks... 30 years is being generous to them.<BR/><BR/>The Defeatocrats in both parties can stuff it, as far as I am concerned. They have failed the Nation and big time. Now they complain about the things they have failed at and seek to blame it on others. Unfortunately I can read the Constitution and see their job description.<BR/><BR/>I am *not* amused.A Jacksonianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07607888697879327120noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20372724.post-61223488164515011492007-04-26T16:16:00.000-04:002007-04-26T16:16:00.000-04:00AJ: glad to see you're becoming a tad upset with t...AJ: glad to see you're becoming a tad upset with the whole thing. And yes, having visited and then worked briefly in DC, one can travel a mere 1.5 blocks east of the SCOTUS building and be in the deepest pits of trouble. Reid is the kind of defeatist who will not understand until he is personally affected by, oh, say, a homicide bomber adjacent his own armored limousine.<BR/><BR/>BZBloviating Zeppelinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01359816456769157176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20372724.post-80725998763395449882007-04-25T08:10:00.000-04:002007-04-25T08:10:00.000-04:00Harrison - Yes, that poor Constitution in Sen. Re...Harrison - Yes, that poor Constitution in Sen. Reid's jacket has probably been cleaned and scoured until its original type is gone.<BR/><BR/>Gen. Petraeus is doing something that one could look at as the Giuliani Police Dictum: spread out, take care of the small stuff and you will then get a handle on the bigger problems. In a mere 3 years the entire US Armed Forces have recapitulated almost two decades of the evolution of policing. From squad cars and drive-by policing of the '70s to neighborhood policing of the present, all of that comes from the 'good sense' of COIN work.<BR/><BR/>In my look at the <A HREF="http://ajacksonian.blogspot.com/2007/01/building-mosaic-of-iraq.html" REL="nofollow">mosaic of Iraq</A> what comes across from the Sunni side is the readiness of killers to join *any one* that will let them kill. Starting out as Ba'athists they merged with al Qaeda and now the remnants that are Nationalist are realizing that they have made a grave and possibly fatal error in embracing al Qaeda.<BR/><BR/>The Shia 'militias' have to be seen as the willing accomplices of Iran, taking pay and equipment from Iran and following its orders... right up until the point that they have their own ideas about what to do.<BR/><BR/>Criminal organizations and corrupt individuals put in-place by the previous Ba'athist regime in the infrastructure, along with kidnap/ransom, smuggling, and plain old 'thug for hire' is empowering *all* insurgents and the money flow is causing splintering of all insurgent and militias as they look for alternative funding sources.<BR/><BR/>The steps to curb *those* can be helped by advisers from the MNF, but it is Iraqis that will be and have been trained in countering them that are vital. Corruption is the long-term nemesis of everything and is endemic across the Middle East, Israel excluded. New Iraqi Army and the Security Forces on the National side are going after *that* and reading, time and again, of Iraqi Army and Security Forces that are TRUSTED by locals, Sunni/Shia/Arab/Kurd/Turkomen/Assyrian.... that all points to a future for Iraq that is better than the rest of their neighbors. Local police may be the hardest thing to stand up and keep corruption out of it. Basra is a problem area and one of the worst spots that needs a thorough steel wool scrub brush taken to it. Getting a trustworthy Internal Affairs unit set up for police organizations is critical, and even then if they can keep it down to *just* levels seen in NOLA or Detroit they will be doing far better than anyone else in the region.<BR/><BR/>Sen. Reid needs to go: he is unable to comprehend his job and stick to his job description. He has noted that the US Senate is incapable of securing <A HREF="http://ajacksonian.blogspot.com/2007/04/sen-reid-admits-to-not-doing-his-job.html" REL="nofollow">a couple of blocks of DC</A> which really should show him how *able* the Senate is on something like Iraq. By the prism of his ideology Sen. Reid is now blind to his job, his Nation and the true problems besetting us. And that bodes very ill, indeed.A Jacksonianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07607888697879327120noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20372724.post-61685474527545514932007-04-25T01:39:00.000-04:002007-04-25T01:39:00.000-04:00The insurgents certainly are a mix of some that ar...<I>The insurgents certainly are a mix of some that are just literally religious extremists who will never reconcile with the kind of government that--that and society that Iraqis are--are striving to forge.</I><BR/><BR/>It is of great relief that Patraeus managed to outline that clearly for all to see: the problem of defining what is and what isn't possible, especially 'reconciliation' - a word that is being bandied about as if it were a panacea to all problems, akin to the 'why can't they all just get along' argument - which should be ruled out for a select few groups within the insurgency. <BR/><BR/>Shiite militias should not be regarded as relatively more amenable to reconciliation than Sunni insurgents - the opposite is probably widely assumed to be the case. But think about it: the more convinced they are that Maliki needs their cooperation in ensuring Iraqi security - or at least an implicit promise not to ravage it - the more they will push for concessions and thus exhibit increasing propensity for coercion and intimidation to get their way.<BR/><BR/>Heartened by Patraeus' choice in using "also" to link the symbiotic relationship between criminal activity and insurgent operations. Perhaps they are beginning to see what you have already expounded on in several articles before.<BR/><BR/>The anti-military establishment and its advocates absolutely have no patience, refusing to factor in time as a major consideration in revamping the military and its doctrines, procedures and protocol. What they love to do at their convenience is to look at the institutional level and bewail the inflexibility of the system - all because it ultimately serves their demagogic purposes and political expediencies.<BR/><BR/>I thought about the possibility of his jacket going to the cleaners, and him leaving the Constitution in it as well.Harrisonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17688001023588334672noreply@blogger.com