Lisa Curtis of the Heritage Foundation. COME ON DOWN!

It’s pretty obvious that Lisa doesn’t read the Ball Gunner. In fact, I’m not sure what Lisa reads. But I know what she writes:

Pakistan will have to confront domestic opposition and go back on the military offensive in the tribal areas, working closely with U.S. and NATO forces to control the Afghan-Pakistani border. Although such operations may be unpopular in Pakistan in the short-term, they are necessary if Pakistan wants to limit the chances of future U.S. unilateral military strikes that could lead to long-term destabilization of the country.

Sweet robotic Jesus cakes! This is one prize pig!
Despite the fact that Pakistani VOTERS are quite unhappy with us, they better learn to get with the program or we’re just going to do it regardless — even if doing it is obviously detrimental. And this woman writes for a THINK TANK?!

I encourage anyone and everyone to wade through that piece, or column, or think-tankery; whatever they call it. More than anything fills in the lines of how incredibly deluded people seem to be when it comes to Central Asia and it demonstrates either ignorance or ambivalence that Pakistan is a democracy. There is also profound resentment among Pakistanis about U.S. interference in their country, a resentment that recently welled to the surface in the sound defeat of Pervez Musharaf’s party in Pakistan’s elections.

Losing the unchallenged support of Musharaf was a hard hit to the U.S. influence in the region. The current government is a much harder sell when it comes to marching to our drum. Of course, if we follow Lisa Curtis’ advice we might just find ourselves with a government that is actively hostile.

I realize these posts are becoming rare as hen’s teeth. Bear with me. Between changing systems, learning a new design program, traveling like mad and generally losing an already feeble mind the Ball Gunner is up to his ears in things to do.

But, I also have an exciting announcement: the Ball Gunner has joined the Department of Defense Blogger’s Roundtable. I’ve only participated in one session so far; myself and a dozen or so others got to put Army Col. Thomas McGrath, commander of NATO’s Afghanistan Regional Security Command South, to the rack about recent operations in Afghanistan since the Kandahar prison escape.

This was not some hand-holding venture where soft questions were gently lobbed to waiting arms. These are serious bloggers with good questions. Other attendees included the Long War Journal and Bouhammer.

Because the crowd was big and the time limited the Ball Gunner only got two licks in (note gratuitous Chuck Norris reference):

(full transcript available here)

 My question sort of goes to the size of the attack and the possibles support. We’ve probably all seen the old Chuck Norris movies where, you know, one person goes in and is able to do all this. But it really sounds like this was a pretty large operation that would probably require a good deal of support from surrounding communities.

How is NATO working to secure that these communities aren’t winning
support back from the Taliban?

COL. MCGRATH: Well, the first part: It really wasn’t, in my opinion, that large of an attack.

It didn’t take much to get a truck in there, rig it with explosives and then blow your way through and then have a couple of fighters to do some shooting.

And, you know, the jail’s not like our jails or our prisons. They’re pretty much regular buildings. They can be easily opened up and people can be rushed out. So I’m sure they may have known that something might have been going on. I don’t know, but I don’t give them that much credit for doing some type of commando-style raid. They took advantage of an opportunity and they were successful in it.

As far as the surrounding communities, you know, we have gone through several different programs to train the police up. And I’ve told the other bloggers on previous interviews as to focused district development, where we’re taking the police out and retraining the entire police forces, not only in Kandahar City but for all the other districts in Region South, and that’s been working very successfully. And we’re also doing that to the west, to the north of the cities and pretty much throughout the region.

So we also have the Afghan National Army that’s deployed throughout the area. And so that’s how we’re trying to secure the outlying regions.

So the — it’s difficult, though. It doesn’t take much, you know, to put something like that together and just have people running through the streets in the middle of the night, making a run for it. We were able to track a bunch down in the first couple of hours. We deployed one of the commando battalions from the ANA and they’re very successful in killing about 20 Taliban who we think were from the prison because they assembled in a courthouse and shot at them. So they were able to talk attack very quickly.

So we do have a comprehensive plan to secure the city, both on the army and the police side and assistance from coalition and also in the outlying regions.

And the second:

Q Okay. Bringing all these troops down into the area, I’ve been looking at some ethnographic maps, and you’re pretty firmly in Ghilzai territory there. The Ghilzai have been kind of the historical agitators in Afghanistan. How are they trying to, I guess — or how is NATO trying to adjust for, you know, really bringing in a military that’s going to include Durrani Pashtun, Uzbeks, Tajiks? I mean, is there any worry that that itself will cause friction?

COL. MCGRATH: Well, that’s a good question. Great point. You know, we need more recruits from the south. And the important thing is that we provide the security down here, which is happening, but it has to be long term. It has to be enduring so that people feel safe to join.

No, I’m not too concerned about any conflicts. We have a lot of different tribes and units working together. (Beep heard.) Whoops, still there?

Q I’m still here.

COL. MCGRATH: Oh, okay. I heard something beep. Excuse me.

Yeah, Afghanistan needs to have a national army. They do. The police need to have a national police force. We’re working towards that. And, you know, the country needs to come together. Yeah, the south is a tough place. If you’re going to win the war, you got to win down here. I think part of that is recruiting a large number of people for the army from this area.

And we have recruiting programs. It’s just a matter of time until we get better security in some of the outlying regions so that they can have their sons join up and serve.

Does that answer — help answer –

Q It definitely did. Is there any concern about the cross- border traffic from Pakistan and the roles that it’s played — might have played in the recent prison attack?

COL. MCGRATH: I don’t know if anything from across the border had something to do with the prison attack. But yes, we’re very concerned about what’s coming across the border and the agitation that they’re trying to raise up here.

Q Yes.

COL. MCGRATH: As you know, President Karzai was very concerned about it. He made some comments last week about a few things, what he wanted to do. But there is a problem. It needs to be addressed.

Much thanks to the DoD for extending this opportunity. And look forward to more Ball Gunner updates from the Roundtable.

From:

SEOUL | Extending the tours of U.S. troops serving in South Korea to three years and allowing them to bring their families is overdue, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Monday as he arrived in Seoul.

The change in deployments is caught up in the ongoing transfer of military bases to South Korean control, but Mr. Gates said it’s time to stop the one-year, unaccompanied tours that forces currently serve here because it is considered a war zone.

“As a matter of principle, I think it’s past time” to extend the tours, Mr. Gates told reporters traveling with him on the plane to Seoul. “It communicates that … our view of the reality here is that the Republic of Korea is literally safe enough for our families to be present.”

A year in Korea aint exactly the same as a year in Anbar, so this move really makes a good deal of sense. But, as just about anyone in the military can attest to, the year-long Korea “hardship” tour is sort of known as an unofficial “marriage break.”

Not to say that every married man that goes to Korea winds up running around. But, my best guess from talking to people returning from the tour is that the official Ballgunner estimate is that LOTS do. I never had the pleasure of serving in Korea, but met plenty that did. Most of them had stories, if not first-hand accounts then at least as witnesses. Even Germany (the Ballgunner’s favorite station,) where guys COULD bring their wives, saw a fair bit of relationship cat and mouse.

“Alright PFC Jones, you’re 20 years old, you’ve been married for two years. Now, we’re going to send you to South Korea, where most young women are about 5 feet tall and weigh about 100 pounds. Your wife has to stay here.” 

Once Jones gets on the ground his squad and platoon members welcome him in classic military fashion — by getting hammered. A few glasses of Soju later and Jones is feeling that he is really going to like Korea. Mrs. Jones is a long way away, and the other guys are all talking to girls. Well, who know? It’s not a fluke that gave rise to the Army’s unofficial motto of the Korean tour, “Go there married, come home divorced.”

I’m not saying Secretary Gates, who probably knows almost nothing about enlisted men, has this in mind when he’s proposing his changes. But it is something to think about. The brothels in Seoul are spoken of with awe and reverence in certain Army battalions.

“…As long as there is a reasonable prospect for succeeding in this war then we must not choose to lose it.”

But once prospects become unreasonable then, by all means, lose away.

These bits of optimism are cheery. William Lind once recounted the anecdote of a junior officer in the Wehrmacht who said in 1945 that Berlin was an ideal place for his office, as he would soon be able to take a street car between the two fronts.

That so many people are wolfing down this nonsense about talking to hostile governments as “appeasement,” gives the Ballgunner reassurance that 90% of everyone really hasn’t the slightest inkling of how the world works.

It certainly doesn’t work like this:

 The foreign policy fight between John McCain and Barack Obama flared up again Monday when the candidates jabbed one another over over how to address the threat posed by Iran.

While the two have been feuding since President Bush last week told the Israeli Knesset, or parliament, that a policy of appeasement is a “foolish delusion,” the heated rhetoric rose a notch after Obama said Sunday night that Iran is not an equivalent threat to the Soviet Union.

“Iran, Cuba, Venezuela — these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don’t pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying we’re going to wipe you off the planet,” Obama told voters in Pendleton, Ore.

I’m certainly willing to agree that the elected legions of the federal government are staffed, with few exceptions throughout history, by the utterly feckless legions of smarmy smiles and brainless platitudes. To the grinning elector-ites, this chest-thumptitude is simply capital. It fires up the rubes, warms up the senses of righteous indignity, makes them sound all heroic, and leaves them feeling like they, too, enjoy a good bathroom stance with the manly W-I-D-E stance.

But outside the people polishing their teeth for the next election, and lurking beneath the bureaucratic brontosaurus of the Pentagon, there exist small pocket of competence that are treading water with all their might trying to keep the nation’s head above water.

These people know the score. They realize that politicians are not the tools of affecting change in the world (they are, in fact, mostly tools.) They realize that this is not a world of absolutes; that we do not get to set all the rules, or take our ball and go home if the game isn’t to our liking.

Having gotten themselves this far, they also probably realize that all roads do not lead to Washington. They realize that you don’t move anything in the mid-East by antagonizing Iran. They realize that the Shia population of the world looks to the mullahs in Tehran. They realize that since Shia militias have fought and won two major battles (some items at link NSFW) lately and the chips are moving across the table quicker than many people estimated.

Knowing Iran’s potential, and having seen disturbances across the region, they’ve figured out that Iran’s hand is not nuclear, is probably no where near nuclear, but is still strong. They can pass cards under the table to Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Shia fighters in Iraq. They can pass a few cards at a time or they can start handing whole decks and disrupt the whole game.

These are people who know that talking to Iran is not appeasement, it is a simple fact of life in working in the mid-East. They realize that the talks are the stuff the CNNs and Fox Newses know about, or even want to know about. It might be  that these talks are things neither the president nor the three sock puppets running for office know about.

The U.S. military is a temporary force in Iraq. If it’s there another 50 years that will be a drop in the bucket compared to the entire global history of Persians (Iranians) and Arabs (Iraqis) and Pashtuns (Afghans) who have evolved and grown and fought and conquered and bloodied and allied and married and feuded and carried on like people do for a few good millennium before Europe even entered the global conscious.

It’s politics and sausage and the inevitable dealings with things not as pleasant as we might like.

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.

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.

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

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.