Kudlow and Lieberman get it right:
Our last, best hope in Iraq — Gen. David Petraeus — reminded Pentagon reporters this week of a critically important fact long forgotten by most observers: Our real enemy in Iraq, the true source of all the murders, mayhem, and instability, is not sectarian strife. And it’s not the Sunnis or the Shiites, either. The real enemy we face in Iraq is al-Qaida.
According to the top American commander in Iraq, al-Qaida’s No. 1 priority is defeating the United States in Iraq. The general called this organization “public enemy No. 1,” adding that “Iraq is, in fact, the central front of al-Qaida’s global campaign.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid doesn’t understand this. Nor, for that matter, do the other defeatist Democrats carelessly demanding our immediate withdrawal. They fail to grasp that the root of our problems in Iraq — again, the true source of the hostilities — remains al-Qaida. These murderous thugs are fomenting the sectarian strife on both sides of the Iraqi street. Their tactic is the nadir of nihilism.
In contrast to the blind Harry Reid contingent, I’d like to highlight one remarkably clear thinker who does get what’s going on in this war — someone who recognizes the true enemy and is able to articulate his position in breathtaking clarity. I’m talking about Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. Frankly, no public official understands what’s at play better than Lieberman. He set forth his lucid position in Thursday’s Washington Post and brought it alive when I interviewed him on “Kudlow & Company” later that day.
Lieberman forcefully stated that “al-Qaida, after all, isn’t carrying out mass murder against civilians in the streets of Baghdad because it wants a more equitable distribution of oil revenue. Its aim in Iraq isn’t to get a seat at the political table; it wants to blow up the table — along with everyone seated at it.”
As usual in computer science, the hardware team is leaping way ahead of the software team.
Saman Amarasinghe, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT is behind a new data flow-based programming development approach to assist “ordinary sequential programmers” to write efficient parallel code to exploit such as Intel’s new 4-core processors.
StreamIt isn’t a magic bullet, but certainly deserves a careful evaluation. For sure probabilistic debugging is not likely to deliver the high reliability software we are all demanding.
Landsea is a reliable source on hurricane frequency. Chris has a short guest post at Prometheus on the new paper “Increased tropical Atlantic wind shear in model projections of global warming”. Chris writes:
My reading of the paper by Vecchi and Soden is that this is a very important contribution to the understanding of how global warming is affecting hurricane activity. The study thoroughly examines how the wind shear and other parameters that can alter the number and intensity of hurricanes because of manmade global warming. What they found - surprisingly - is that in the Atlantic that the wind shear should increase significantly over a large portion of where hurricanes occur - making it more difficult for hurricanes to form and grow. This was identified in all of the 18 global climate models they examined. (Perhaps it’s not that surprising given that Knutson/Tuleya 2004 showed some of the same signal for the more reliable models back then. Now the signal is in ALL of the CGCMs.) Even the MPI changes in the Atlantic appear mixed, due to the smaller SST increases there (with more uniform upper trop temp changes) compared with the rest of the global tropics/subtropics.
One implication to me is that this further provides evidence that the busy period we’ve seen in the Atlantic hurricanes since 1995 is due to natural cycles, rather than manmade causes. We’ve seen a big reduction in wind shear in the last thirteen hurricane seasons, which is OPPOSITE to the signal that Vecchi and Soden have linked to manmade global warming changes. Another implication is that this paper reconfirms earlier work that suggests that global warming will cause very small changes to Atlantic hurricanes, even several decades from now.
More evidence that the political debate will hopefully graduate to policy options [rather than the need for a policy]:
Ninety percent of Democrats, 80 percent of independents and 60 percent of Republicans said immediate action was required to curb the warming of the atmosphere and deal with its effects on the global climate. Nineteen percent said it was not necessary to act now, and 1 percent said no steps were needed.
Roger Pielke has more on air capture — best to read the whole thing.
Greg Mankiw recommends a new paper by Richard Rogerson and Johanna Wallenius on the response of work effort to taxes. I’ve not read the paper yet, but it definitely looks interesting. Greg’s post concludes:
This paper deserves to be studied carefully by economists at Treasury and CBO. The bottom line: For simulating the effects of alternative tax regimes, one should use much larger compensated labor supply elasticities than are conventionally adopted. This conclusion, if accepted, would profoundly affect tax policy analysis, such as dynamic scoring.
Robert Rapier has more problems with Khosla on ethanol:
One thing I noted during my previous debunking of Vinod Khosla’s claims was that he was very careless with information he presented as fact. I have seen numerous incorrect or grossly exaggerated claims in his presentations. Why should I care? As I have stated before, he is free to invest his money into whatever scheme he desires. That’s no skin off my nose. But he has aggressively lobbied the government to fund and support his schemes. And since I believe energy policy is too important to be influenced by false claims, I take exception…
Sorry — I mislaid this post on the 20 April dispatch from Alaa The Messopotamian. My understanding of the Petraeus strategy is very similar to Alaa’s outline. We do not wish to repeat the errors of 2006, of rushing the handoff to the ISF before they are capable of both winning while still creating an independent security force from zero:
This is evidence of what I told you earlier about the very important developments taking place. I have tried to draw attention to the significant change of mood of the people which started in the Anbar province with the creation of the “Anbar Salvation Council”. This movement is spreading to other regions notably in Diala province. Meanwhile the enemy’s ability to launch painful terrorist attacks in Baghdad is mainly due to the fact that the Security Plan is not being enforced in all areas of Baghdad with equal intensity. It is concentrated in the Eastern part (Risafa), while the Western more dangerous and terrorist infested part of Bagdad ( Al-Karkh ), is just not receiving sufficient attention, for reasons which are not altogether quite clear. It is not surprising, therefore, that car bombs and the like can be rigged and dispatched from such areas to launch the kind of attacks that we have witnessed.
Meanwhile, it is evident to me that the security plan, in so far as military strategy is concerned, consists of two essential elements: firstly to regain control of Baghdad and save the city from the sorry state that has virtually paralysed life and caused the massive exodus of the population that the world is witnessing; secondly, to hand the control to Iraqi security forces after they achieve a certain level of development. There is general awareness, by all who care about the people of Iraq that continued U.S. support of the new Order is essential. However, between the extreme course of total withdrawal and the present detailed involvement with daily operations; there is a middle way that few are talking about. Complete abandon and retreat by the Americans would indeed constitute defeat and a victory for the enemy, and would turn the tables completely and ignite a larger conflagration in the region. On the other hand the level of involvement of American and other allied foreign troops with detailed street to street policing, house searches etc. etc. should not continue indefinitely. For apart from the losses and pressures that are endured by the men and women of the MNF, some mistakes and errors can be quite counterproductive. What must be realized is that as long as the U.S. is strategically present, the enemy has no hope of achieving any of his objectives. This enemy knows this only too well; and his prime objective is to bring about this withdrawal and retreat by all means. He pins his hopes on the internal situation in the U.S., and this is his most potent weapon. Therefore most of his actions and attacks are basically publicity stunts aimed primarily at the MSM and American and western public opinion.
Thus a middle course, which seems to me a sensible alternative, is for the U.S. and allied forces to withdraw to secure bases within Iraq and concentrate on providing training, material and strategic support to the Iraqi forces. This of course, hinges on bringing up these Iraqi forces to the required level of ability. But this process will be greatly accelerated by allowing these forces to work and manage on their own more and more, and ASAP. It is like any other training task. If you are teaching somebody to swim, the sooner you can let him float on his own the quicker will he become a swimmer. But of course the trainer must keep a watchful eye.
But I think, in general, the U.S. administration strategists understand all this; however, certain regional concerns seem to interfere with their good judgment at times. For instance, too much emphasis on the Sadrists and Muqtada, loathsome as they maybe; is just deflecting attention from the immediate main threat. I have warned about that before. Indeed, one of the factors that are slowing the new security plan is the preoccupation with Sadr City and similar areas while neglecting the more dangerous hotbeds of Baghdad.
To summarize, I would say that a sensible strategy would be to aim at establishing secure and strategic presence while withdrawing from detailed involvement in day to day and street to street involvement as soon as the Iraqi forces reach sufficient strength, a process which should be accelerated with renewed vigor and in all seriousness. And I think that the present Iraqi Government and political order would be quite receptive to such a strategy; not to mention that the reduction of American and allied losses to negligible figures would go someway towards reassuring the people in the West who are justly outraged and alarmed by the casualties amongst their sons and daughters.
Michael Yon’s email introduces his first dispatch from Basra:
I am still with our British friends in Basra. These excellent soldiers have been fighting harder than I realized. Just some hours ago, I was present when British soldiers honored three of their fallen. We were briefly attacked during the memorial ceremony, when the coffins were carefully carried onto the airplane, but the Brits did not miss a step in bestowing honors on their brethren.
At least three more installments are coming about the Brits, possibly four, depending on communications. I’m able to get more work done with the Brits due to the hefty support they offer. It’s made a tremendous difference and is another reason I will regret leaving the Brits later this week, although I have requested a return later this year.
Excerpt from Michael’s Basra dispatch:
…Lieutenant Colonel Justin Maciejewski MBE, the Battle Group Operations Commander (equivalent to an American Battalion Commander), allowed this writer unprecedented access to the planning details of Operation Arezzo, part of three simultaneous strike and arrest operations in the al Quibla district of Basra, designed in part to bait the enemy into attacking British forces.
In all, 13 platoons would partake, and I’d accompany 5 Platoon. LTC Maciejewski further permitted me to record both video and still camera images during the operation, and to get as close to the combat as I dare. 5 Platoon has seen a lot of fighting in recent months, and had already taken me on several minor missions. For Operation Arezzo, they adopted me as one of their own.
The plan for Operation Arezzo was cleverly contrived. While Americans count on helicopter support for deliberate high-intensity combat here, the Brits were going into extremely hostile terrain, outnumbered, without helicopter support, relying instead upon timing, terrain, maneuverability, firepower, and sheer audacity.
The selective leakers are getting the full support of almost all the media. Fortunately the Wall Street Journal continues to provide critical missing perspective:
One of the most revealing subplots in the European coup attempt against World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz is who is coming to the American’s defense. The rich European donor countries want him to resign, while the Africans who are the bank’s major clients are encouraging him to stay.
You wouldn’t know this from the press coverage, which continues to report selective leaks from the bank staff and European sources who started this political putsch. The latest “news” is that the European Parliament has asked Mr. Wolfowitz to resign, thus sustaining that body’s reputation for irrelevant but politically correct gestures. If Mr. Wolfowitz leaves, no doubt some of the europols will angle for the job.
The more telling story is the support for the bank president from reform-minded Africans. At a press conference during this month’s World Bank-IMF meetings in Washington, four of the more progressive African finance ministers were asked about the Wolfowitz flap. Here’s how Antoinette Sayeh, Liberia’s finance minister, responded:
“I would say that Wolfowitz’s performance over the last several years and his leadership on African issues should certainly feature prominently in the discussions . . . . In the Liberian case and the case of many forgotten post-conflict fragile countries, he has been a visionary. He has been absolutely supportive, responsive, there for us . . . . We think that he has done a lot to bring Africa in general . . . into the limelight and has certainly championed our cause over the last two years of his leadership, and we look forward to it continuing.”
The deputy prime minister for Mauritius, Rama Krishna Sithanen, then piped in that “he has been supportive of reforms in our country . . . . We think that he has done a good job. More specifically, he has apologized for what has happened.”
Sub-Saharan Africa is the world’s poorest region, and Mr. Wolfowitz has appropriately made it his top priority. On his first day on the job, he met with a large group of African ambassadors and advocates. His first trip as bank president was a swing through Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Rwanda and South Africa. He also recruited two African-born women vice presidents, a rarity at the bank.
If you’re surprised by that last fact, then you don’t appreciate that the World Bank has always been a sinecure for developed-world politicians. They get handsome salaries, tax free, and their performance is measured not by how much poverty they cure but by how much money they disperse.
Mr. Wolfowitz has upset this sweetheart status quo by focusing more on results, and especially on the corruption that undermines development and squanders foreign aid. Yet many of the poor countries themselves welcome such intervention. At the same April 14 press conference, Zambian Finance Minister N’Gandu Peter Magande endorsed the anticorruption agenda:
“We should keep positive that whatever happens to the president, if, for example, he was to leave, I think whoever comes, we insist that he continues where we have been left, in particular on this issue of anticorruption. That is a cancer that has seen quite a lot of our countries lose development and has seen the poverty continuing in our countries. And therefore . . . we want to live up to what [Wolfowitz] made us believe” that “it is important for ourselves to keep to those high standards.”
…
The noisy leaking and staff protests are aimed at getting Mr. Wolfowitz to make their life easy by resigning. But that would only validate their campaign to oust him for giving his girlfriend a raise that the bank’s own ethics committee advised him to deliver after he had tried to recuse himself. Since our editorial reported on all of these “ethics” details two weeks ago, no one has even tried to dispute our facts. The critics have shifted to a new line that, because his “credibility” has been damaged by these selective smears, Mr. Wolfowitz must now resign “for the good of the bank.”
Let’s hope the White House doesn’t fall for this rot, and, by the way, it’s about time Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson spent some of his political capital and defended Mr. Wolfowitz. He’d be in good company among Africa’s progressive leaders.
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