Bits of nonsense about how ill-prepared the U.S. is for a (we should say another) large scale terrorist attack or any similar major event. The Wa-Po had a zinger of a piece about the deficiencies of U.S. hospitals for handling medical emergencies.

Two Bush administration Cabinet members yesterday acknowledged gaps in the capability of U.S. hospitals to deal with a mass-casualty terrorist attack or other disaster, but they said a congressional effort to block pending Medicaid cuts will not fix the problem.

Testifying before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said lawmakers could target funds at the shortcomings more directly, such as by financing the stockpiling of hospital beds, ventilator units or medicines, if needed.

There’s some sort of disconnect when it comes to this sort of stuff. You can’t plan for emergencies. That’s why they’re freaking emergencies. You can train and drill and plan and plot but it’s a pretty safe bet that real world events aren’t going to conform to the stupid training manuals.

This is precisely the sort of event where LESS management is infinitely preferable to more. The last thing we need is some half-wit on the Potomac second guessing local hospitals on preparedness. In the case of a mass-casualty situation: New York hospitals would need shelters to keep people out of the cold, Florida hospitals would probably need anti-Malarial and Typhoid medications, Arizona hospitals need reliable water supplies - there’s no preparedness blanket to throw over the nation. The competence of local emergency personnel is going to set the tone and tempo for these sorts of events. If they’re on the ball things can and will be handled (reference New York) - if they’re incompetent prepare for things to get ugly (reference New Orleans.)

As one of those horrendous individualists your mother warned you about - the Ballgunner intends on being self-sufficient and prepared for such events, and short of medical emergency threatening life or limb, will be holed up in his Ballgunner Fortress of Laughing at Everyone Else who didn’t think about it. If you would like to build a similar fortress,  there is knowledge aplenty.

The Bacon Report’s Top 100 Items to Disappear in a National Emergency list is a good place to start.

And as food for thought, self-preparations of this sort are often greeted with rolled eyes and snarky comments, but survivalblog.com really had some good perspective on this:

One of the “highly ritualised affectations” that I have is the desire to put food in my stomach at least once per day. This is a deep seated desire. I also have a corresponding deep seated fear of missing too many meals. Clearly, I must be suffering from “anxiety” and have irrational delusions.

There’s been a big stink between Russia and Georgia lately, which is to say Russia is doing what it wants and Georgia is complaining to NATO.

The latest from Reuters:

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Russia’s deployment of extra troops in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia has brought the prospect of war “very close”, a minister of ex-Soviet Georgia said on Tuesday.

Separately, in comments certain to fan rising tension between Moscow and Tbilisi, the “foreign minister” of the breakaway Black Sea region was quoted as saying it was ready to hand over military control to Russia.

“We literally have to avert war,” Temur Iakobashvili, a Georgian State Minister, told reporters in Brussels.

Asked how close to such a war the situation was, he replied: “Very close, because we know Russians very well.”

To start with, Georgia does not go to war against Russia in the same sense that Junior’s pee-wee team does not play football against the New York Giants. Whatever its failings, during the 90s, Vladimir Putin’s reign as president (which ends today) saw the resurgence of the Russian military. The Russians have a military tradition a bit beyond extraordinary, they lost 3 million people in the first World War, then fought a long, bloody civil war, to the tune of 9 million, then lost 20 million people in the second World War and still weren’t giving an inch when the U.S. forces in Europe thought they’d be a push over. When you put 32 million people into the meat grinder in half a century while standing firm on the mat you get your hardcore military culture bona fides. Then to spike the ball, you release a picture of a guy doing this:

and the Ballgunner is really willing to concede that his manhood is measured in fractions, possibly even fractions with decimals.

When you take this and put it against the Georgians, whose military consists of, uh……… Well you get the point. The Georgian military is defensive oriented, but defensive against other military power houses like Azerbaijan, Armenia or possibly the dreaded Ossetians. Georgia vs Russia would not look even remotely like a fight. The Russians tried the touchy feely stuff in Chechnya, and got embarrassed. Then, someone on the command staff realized they had been reading from the American book, they took a big swig of vodka, proclaimed Мы Русский! and put the hammer down. Do you hear of any problems from Chechnya?

When you consider that every country in the former Soviet sphere is chock full of Russian intelligence agents throughout the government and the military, there arises the even more delightful scenario that Georgia might try to assemble the military only to find half of them already lined up on the other side.

In a lot of ways this is really fun to watch. Russia was warning the west to leave Serbia alone in the Kosovo matter. But in a monument to hardheadedness, NATO got involved in the Orthodox/Catholic/Muslim debacle that predates every standing government in the world and will still be raging when NATO is listed next to League of Nations and Chechnya in the book of “Ooops!” But the U.S. signed off on Kosovo by playing the ethnicity card, oblivious to the fact that the “area” of Kosovo is about as Serbian as Bunker Hill is American. Now, the Russians are saying, “Look! The poor Abkhazians are ethnically distinct from the Georgians, they should have their own country too! It’s even better that they want their country to join our country!” I’m sure it has nothing to do with those lovely Black Sea shipping lanes that are up for grabs (not that Russia doesn’t already have some, but you can never have too many ports.)

Now, the west really looks silly. They can try the, “No, no. That’s not fair,” routine and wind up looking like hypocrites. Or they can throw Georgia under the bus, at which point an alliance with NATO will be shown as worth less than a big pile of doody. Meanwhile, Russia gets to sit back, enjoy the show and ponder their next move. What about those large Russian populations in the Baltic nations? What about the divided population in Ukraine? There are opportunities aplenty for Russia to thank NATO, the E.U. and the U.S. for stomping on its toes for the last few years.

We’re reminded of one of those people from long ago, when folks seemed to know what they were talking about. That someone was Otto von Bismark, who left us this: “The secret of politics? Make a good treaty with Russia.”

The Israelis blowing something up is hardly news worthy. But when they punched a hole in the paper thin Syrian air defense and leveled something in late September 2007, it became a story because the Israelis seemed to be doing back flips to get it out of the spotlight.

First it was nothing, then an air strike, then the online analysts started putting things together and thinking this was something big. But something big didn’t make sense either; if the Syrians were two rods away from a nuke it only seems logical that the U.S. and Israel would be yelling it from the rooftops.

Instead, we got more stories about the event than the local VFW. Until the other day when President Bush started beating the Syria nuclear drums again. The intelligence was unveiled for a number of really damn odd reasons. “One would be to the North Koreans to make it abundantly clear that we may know more about you than you think,” was the President’s reason du jure. I’m not entirely sure what it is “we know that they don’t know that we know,” but even I know that the fat man from Pyongyang already has  nukes, he made them and tested them in the face of some of the most furious finger-shaking I’ve seen since Catholic school. So we’ve really got nothing explained here.

If the war voices hadn’t been evangelizing Iranian nukes for a year or so I might be able to get a grip on why the lid was kept on the information. It’s not like we’re cozy with the Syrians. We can’t even get them to control their border, which has been a huge entry point into Iraq for various and sundry bad guys since the beginning. So why wouldn’t there be singing and dancing in Washington for a good solid reason to slap Syria around?

When you get down to possible reasoning there’s not a lot of cause to celebrate. We’ve already pretty much figured out that withholding the information doesn’t make any sense. So what are we left with?

One possibility is that Syria had managed to put a nuke program together and almost put together a bomb without anyone noticing. If this is the case it probably qualifies as one of the biggest intelligence blunders in a long, soiled history of intelligence blunders. Given that the intel now claims the Syrians built their stuff using North Korean technology, this really makes the Ballgunner’s head turn backwards. If North Korea, a country we’re supposedly watching like 20 hawks, managed to sneak it’s nuke program out of the country and set it up, right next to a gigantic U.S. theater of operations without anyone noticing then that implies a whole slew of people asleep at an impressive array of switches.

The other possibility, and one the Ballgunner hopes is accurate, is that a story is being cooked up to cover butts from the Potomac River to the Golan Heights. It could be the Israelis acted on bad intel, the Syrians had something they weren’t necessarily supposed to have (doesn’t have to be nukes), maybe a high ranking terror leader popped his head up for a second, who in the world knows? Syria, for its part in the mess, hasn’t exactly been forthcoming with details. They assure us they are the victims just as loud as we assure them they were the aggressors. For all I know it was a wink and a nod at Iran to not get too froggy. But none of these make much sense in the grand scheme.

The Ballgunner is going to be waiting to see what’s next in this field. There are lots of conflicting stories bumping around that only look good right at the surface.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Ballgunner is not going to mince words on this. He’s damn pissed off.

A unit from 82nd Airborne Division recently returned to Fort Bragg., N.C., after 15 months in Afghanistan.

Not only did the Army fail to complete the new barracks, they returned them to a facility that looks more like a rundown Soviet labor camp than a place we should house our returning soldiers.

More information can be found here.

Are you angry?

Well then I’m sure Allen Boyd would love to know. You can E-mail him here. Or you can call him, at (202) 225-5235.

You need to tell him what you think of the living conditions that Charlie Company 2/508th 82nd Airborne Div. found after serving 15 months away from home.

It’s the big news that the heap-big “Surge” doctor is going to be taking over at Central Command (CENTCOM) and the number two in Iraq (slightly less heap-big ) Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno is getting promoted to full-bore “heap big.” Stars and Stripes had a glowing article about how the nomination means the military is going to “embrace counterinsurgency” and that the move is “…part of a shift in the military’s warfighting philosophy to the counterinsurgency tactics that both men embrace.”

But let’s take this pill with a bit of realism.

The last CENTCOM commander just got patted on the head and shuffled off somewhere nice and quiet and away from the media for being rather blunt about his disagreements with the Heap-Biggest in Chief who resides in the White Teepee in DC. Admiral William Fallon didn’t mince many words about the powers rooting for attacking Iran when he said ”This constant drum beat of conflict is what strikes me which is not helpful and not useful. […] I expect that there will be no war and that is what we ought to be working for.” (USA Today) This didn’t sit to well with the democr-issars, partly because rumors have been floating around for some time that either we’re already set for a bombing strike into Iran or we’re already set to act shocked when the Israelis execute a bombing strike into Iran.

Given CENTCOM’s dirty laundry flapping gently in the breeze for the world to enjoy, President Bush nominating his shining champion of Iraq to take up the banner is about as shocking as sand on the beach. But this also represents a pretty big tossup for the big military command. Petraeus made his bread and butter during the surge. Everyone’s lined up to pat him on the back, but the long and short is we don’t know if the tree is going to bear good fruit or just those crappy apples the squirrels knock down before they’re ripe. If Iraq winds up good to go as the Surge forces decline (not looking likely as agitations continue in Basra and Sadr City) then our new CENTCOM commander can ride is as the hero who saved the day. But if Iraq continues circling the bowl we’re going to be dealing with a powerful military commander whose face has been thoroughly egged.

If the latter turns out to be the case it will likely appear that Bush the Junior (just like Clinton the Male-er) packed up a military full of administration-friendly commanders. The military can afford infighting in the post-November maelstrom like I can afford a Ferrari.

Petraeus’ legacy as a counter-insurgent strategist won’t be fully played out for a few year. But as the chief of CENTCOM his ability at politicking will be judged much quicker.

He might find that he enjoyed Iraq better, if you lose there, all they cut off is your head.

After getting a goodly number of back pats and butt kicks the Ballgunner has squared his jaw and decided to continue the battle.

To borrow the 1918 line from Marine Maj. Lloyd Williams “Retreat!? Hell, we just got here!”

It doesn’t appear that too many people care about the Ballgunner’s ramblings. This doesn’t bother me too much, because I enjoy writing about this sort of stuff. But, if nobody is reading it, perhaps I shouldn’t be doing it on the corporate nickel.

I could say that big media’s coverage of military matters is bad, but that does not quite do justice to the severity of the situation. Your CNNs, Foxes, et al generally haven’t any idea what they’re talking about. There are exceptions, but they are few indeed. The Ballgunner’s honest efforts are intended to get neck deep in the bilge and explain the situation. Either A) I’m doing a lousy job (on par) or B) no one gives a badger’s evaluator. At any rate, it’s time for the Ballgunner to consider freeing up space on the server.

Fear not, my devoted… uh… fan, the Ballgunner will not be abandoning his post entirely, but, if he casts off this company coil, will only resurface again, probably with more pictures and fouler language.

If the Ballgunner does disembark from the News Herald he will post an alternate link, which will hopefully garner at least a click or two to the less glamorous blog of his own choosing.

Yours in the madness,

The Ballgunner

There’s a choice bit of newsy cotton-candy at the Washington Post about how the U.S. and Iraqi forces are back in Sadr City. This would be extraordinary news if they had asked why this trip into Sadr-ville as opposed to the bajillion other trips.

Always fans of glorious military battles, the American public, aided by news services that really are ignorant about war, like to think these forays into guerrilla territory are some sort of frenzied armored lozenge rammed down the throat of hell where snarling demons chomp at the heels of soldiers.

The truth (always more mundane than reality) is that when the superheroes barreled into Sadr City they probably found……
barbers, shop keeps, mechanics, children, bums, restaurants, tailors, etc…

These sorts of wars make for boring reporting, atrocious fiction and movies like “Jarhead,” which four whole people went to see. We love to think of the military charging bravely through the Ardennes Forest during the Battle of the Bulge because it sounds exciting and we get to ignore the grimmer details. But, these grand “decisive battles” just aren’t happening in Iraq. No matter who wishes it were so.

To get a better idea, a friend of mine who spent time in Vietnam described the experience as “months of boredom followed by a few minutes of sheer terror.” Unfortunately, guerrillas are very, very, good at using those few minutes to kill lots of people.

But this is where people foul up. There isn’t and won’t be any excitement in Sadr City. Guerrillas don’t fight when they’re outnumbered. Instead, the U.S. and Iraqi forces will go in there and make a lot of noise, they’ll probably rough some people up, somebody in a tank will accidentally smash grandma’s falafel stand, someone will impose a curfew, then lift it, then impose it again, they’ll bottle up an area of 2 million people and set up one entrance and exit point making it hard to bring in supplies or food. Then, to claim success, they’ll snatch up about 20 people that the press releases will call senior leaders and scram.

Once they leave, the Mahdi Army will help rebuild grandma falafel stand, they’ll deliver food and medical supplies, and once the U.S. and Iraqi forces shove off and leave a mess, the local guys will wind up looking like the Eagle Scouts.

I realize the Petraeus policy has been a sensible form of counter insurgency looking to avoid just this sort of scenario. But a platoon of infantry in the heart of Sadr City doesn’t have time for that touchy-feely crap. They’re well aware that a good number of eyes on them aren’t friendly.

Thing is, the Mahdi Army knows that, too. In fact, they’re probably counting on it.

Gen. David Petraeus and Iraq ambassador Ryan Crocker are getting ginned up for this weeks Iraq report and the signs leading up to the event are really pointing to the country diving head first off of a very high cliff with very sharp rocks at the bottom.

The Washington Post article, The Next Campaign Stop: Iraq Hearings , pretty much bashes the nail firmly on it’s sloping criminal head. Chances are, we aren’t going to be served a fair and honest assessment of Iraq. What is likely to be found on the unwashed plate, is political grandstanding with the requisite harumping, hooping and hollering about this and that and blar, blar, blar and someone will call so and so a “defeatist” and then someone else will be called a “warmonger” and then the blogs will come in and next thing you know the whole country is divided into either cowardly communists or blood drinking baby killers. I simply can’t wait.

These sorts of meeting translate poorly into elective politics, because the issues at hand are inherently nuanced and complex; in other words, there’s a paucity of campaign slogans to be found. Certainly John McCain and most of the Republicans have already decided that “we’re winning” and would hold to that belief if Gen. Petraeus said by tomorrow every Iraqi insurgent will be transformed into an unstoppable ninja killing machine. Similarly, the Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama and most of the democrats would bang the “we’re losing” drum if every sectarian group in Iraq had a spur of the moment conversion to boundless tolerance and representative democracy.

We really don’t need a legislative side show on this issue, not with November fast approaching. We’re looking at essentially two options for deciding post-election Iraq policy: a democratic White House and Congress will make the calls oblivious to the numerous protests of the republicans, or a McCain White House and heavily democratic (if most predictions hold true) Congress will reach political gridlock on the issue. The idea that the electorate will hand the White House and Congress back to the Republican Party is a possibility on par with electing a unicorn to the White House. Public opinion on Iraq is cratering, and that venture is being laid at the feet of the GOP.

If this plays out like I think it will, the coming testimony will be a monument to political idiocy at a time when clarity and decisiveness is what the nation desperately needs. But expecting such a feat from the mongrels in Congress is the height of wishful thinking.

The chief chair-warmer in the White House is getting spun up for the big NATO conference in Bucharest, Romania, and the event is already interesting to nerds like me. The main event, is Bush going head to head with the two powerhouses of Europe, France and Germany, over NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia, and Russia has made it very, very clear that this is not an option that would behoove anyone.

White House press secretary Dana Perino, has espoused what is either boat loads of moxie or thundering ignorance by saying , “The last time we checked, Russia didn’t get a vote. And this is a NATO discussion, a NATO exercise, and it will be a NATO decision.”

This blithe little statement is nothing short of the White House saying to Russia and West Europe, “Let’s you and him fight.” America might be more or less insulated and isolated from the geopolitics in Europe, but France and Germany don’t have that claim. It gets bloody cold up on that fertile plain, and a whole lot of Russian fuel goes into heating German and French homes.

Russia is also likely hedging bets that Europe wouldn’t like to see the simmering conflict in Serbia and the faux-state of Kosovo blow up. Kosovo, being primarily Muslim, is really and truly an outlier in the European world, which for the last long stretch of history has been divided into Orthodox (east) and Catholic/protestant (west). Russia has the gasoline to pour on the Orthodox fires in Serbia, and given the general instability that lingers in the Balkans, no one is willing to write off a reignition of the ethnic fires of the 1990s.

This dolts at the cable news, of course, are missing the broader picture here. Bush is making an unprecedented attempt to redraw the political lines of Europe, and his failure or success is going to be important for generations.