0300 GMT November 30, 2005

§ India-US Air Exercises We're not going to comment specifically on the recent exercise at an Eastern Indian air base. The Indian and US Air Forces are falling over each other in extending courtesies and in praising the other side. Clearly they had fun. But as usual we witness the spectacle of uninformed bloggers mouthing off about India's great victory and so on and so forth.The Americans are in India - as they were in an earlier exercise - to learn everything they can about the Indian Air Force, its equipment and tactics while revealing as little of their own important stuff as possible. From all accounts they are succeeding.We'd like to ask our Indian friends a question. Yesterday we wrote about Congressman Randy Cunningham. He and the USAF's Captain Ritchie were the only two American aces of the Vietnam war. The North Vietnamese had - please correct us if we have the figures wrong - more than one dozen aces, including one who shot down 9 US aircraft. Does this mean the Vietnamese were better fighter pilots? If our Indian friends can answer this, they'll see what we mean about the India-US air exercises.India committed its best pilots, and they have done well. Lets leave it at that.

§ Hello, Hello? There's Still A War On - Anyone Remember Iraq? The US military's announcement that it has an approximate timetable for starting withdrawals from Iraq has had exactly the effect the Administration wanted. A heavy sedative has been administered to the American media.

§ Does the Use Of a Key Iraqi Witness's Deathbed Confession Create Troubling Questions? Washington Post seems to think so. You see, the defense wasn't present. So the Post, in all its glory, jumps to the conclusion there are troubling questions about the fairness of using the videotaped confession at Saddam's trial.But if the Post had bothered to inform us that the defense refused to go to the hospital, even after being assured security would be provided, then maybe we'd be less troubled. This one witness alone. though now dead, has provided very damaging evidence against Saddam and one of his brothers. Defense lawyers knew that. So the lawyers decided not to go, and then claim that since they weren't present the evidence cannot be admitted. Or if admitted, it cannot be used. Well, its for the defense to use methods they see best for their client. But it is not the Post's job to do Saddam's propaganda for him

0300 GMT November 29, 2005

• Saddam Trial Adjourned 7 Days to permit new lawyers to replace the two who were murdered.We protest: with 1100 lawyers, how can any two be that important that a trial has to be postponed?The court did enter into the record the videotaped hospital confession of the dying security official sent to wreck retribution on the village where two men tried to kill Saddam as he passed through. 148 locals were killed. There is so much evidence in just this one case that it is the only case the tribunal has brought so far.No coincidence here: Saddam was brought to court by American guards, and made to walk up 4 floors because the elevator was busted. Saddam complained about the Americans and the walk. Poor baby.And dumb fool too, for insisting the Americans shouldn't be guarding him. Doesn't this pathetic excuse for a human being understand only the Americans are keeping him alive? Saddam, says the media, dominated the proceedings with his demands, threats, and complaints. Overall his refrain is he is the legal head of Iraq. Not going to do him much good on the gallows, his spinal cord is going to break the same as any man's when they spring the trap. If he lives to go to the gallows, that is.
• Venezuela Accuses USA of Withholding Spare Parts rendering the 24 F-16 fighters in its air force incapable of combat. The US says it is bound by contract to supply parts as requested and has been so doing.Meanwhile, the US continues to object to Spain's $2-billion sale of 12 transports and 8 patrol vessels to Venezuela, and says it has not granted approval for the sale - the aircraft and ships contain US made/licensed equipment.Spain says it will replace US equipment if approval is refused, but Venezuelanalysis.com says that would adversely affect the price negotiated.Another
• 10,000 Colombia Paramilitaries To Demobilize The Daily Journal On Line of Colombia says another 10,000 paramilitaries have agreed to demobilize, following a similar number having given up war since last November. The government has resettlement programs underway.These are right-wing militia that fight the leftist rebels. Both groups are heavily involved in the drug trade.
• Randy Cunningham was America's first fighter ace of Vietnam War, and the only one who managed all kills with missiles. With his RIO, William Driscoll, flying an F-4J of VF 96 off the USS Constellation, he shot down five PAFVN Migs, including three on a single sortie - at the end of which he and Driscoll were themselves downed by a SAM, barely making it to the South China Sea and rescue. He received a Navy Cross for his victory that day in 1972.Cut to 33 years later. Yesterday Congressman Cunningham, serving his 15th year in the House, was convicted of accepting bribes from defense contractors. He admitted his guilt, was stripped of almost everything he owes, and is heading for jail - sentence yet to be decided.We feel nothing but sorrow for this American hero and his family. Corruption is so widespread in Congress that the US was forced to legalize it: in America with a little ingenuity you can raise any amount of money for your campaigns; the compromise is everything has to be on the books and tax paid if owed. So Representative Cunningham was as clever as some of his colleagues and he got caught. He has taken responsibility; he is paying the price of his mistakes. Unlike the prosecutor, we will not judge him.

0001 GMT November 28, 2005

• Saddam's Lawyers Want 3 Month Delay because they haven't received all the documents they asked for and haven't had time to work on the case because of fears for their security. Look, fellas, we aren't lawyers. But the US is going to be handing Saddam wholly over to the Iraqis pretty soon. So the delays you are seeking to impose are not going to help anyone. Once US security is off the case, there's going to be a "Sorry About That" moment when someone "gets through" the security cordon and does the old boy in.
• Ramsey Clark on Saddam's Defense Team We want to be clear we are not attacking Mr. Clark's right to represent who he wants. America is a free country, and CNN quotes court officials as saying if he makes the proper application, he can represent Saddam, or at least act as a legal advisor to the team.What we are concerned about is Mr. Clark's statement that "A fair trial in this case is absolutely imperative for historical truth to justice obviously". What Mr. Clark, a well-known extreme-left, but peaceful, anti-war proponent who served as President John's attorney general, means by the statement is that he intends to put the US on trial and bring out all the long associations the US had with Saddam before the Big Fat Idiot (now the Big Thin Idiot) invaded Kuwait without getting a clear view on his proposed invasion from someone other than Ms. April Glaspie.Where Mr. Clark is getting confused is that the US hasn't put Saddam on trial. Even if the US had put him on trial, prior US association with Saddam does not absolve him of his crimes. The US and Japan were allies in World War I, for example, ditto US-Italy. So when the WW 2 trials began, no one brought up prior alliances as justification for present crimes.This defense becomes even more irrelevant when one considers Saddam is being tried by his own people for crimes he has committed against his own people. The US does not figure in any way. As such, all Mr. Clark is attempting to do is get publicity for himself by maligning America and adding nothing to Saddam's defense.It is entirely true that America saw Saddam as an ally through the 1980s because Saddam, very secular, was beating up on the Iranians, very Islamofascist. But you cannot put a country on trial when that country has decided as a matter of foreign policy that allying with someone is beneficial for its interests.You may as well out the US on trial for having allied with the Soviet Union in World War 2. After all, US aid and alliance saved the Soviet Union and permitted it to continue oppressing its people - and the people of Eastern Europe - for 50  more years. We don't see Mr. Clark going down that route. Isn't it important for history and justice to also talk about the millions, perhaps tens of millions who died under the Soviet boot 1942-1992 as a direct consequence of US aid and alliance?
• From Walter Wallis "One of my biggest disappointments in this war has been the failure of Brass to stand between the troops and the Feather Merchants. Go find a cat dead 3 days in the sun, put it on your desk, then go about your daily business. Play whack-a-mole where the mole whacks back and try to give the mole the benefit of the doubt. Stand in the middle of the road waving at a car to stop, and just stand there when it does not even slow. This is akin to what some demand of our troops. When the first reaction to any accusation of troop misdeed is to make a conditional condemnation of the soldier, command influence to the soldier's detriment has already been exercised. Bad Brass.· We could not agree more. The way the brass has been letting troops take the latrine contents rather than face up to the media, Congress, whoever, has been nothing short of shameful and dishonorable. We'd like to add to Mr. Wallis's letter by asking: why are the soldiers who burned the bodies of Afghan insurgents, for reason of public health, being reprimanded? Oh, we see, they didn't know about Muslim customs. Our reaction: put every officer involved in the chain of reprimand in the latrines, upside down. Let them wallow in the stuff themselves rather than throw it on men under their command.· Equally shameful is how no Congressman has come forward to reprimand the Pentagon for letting the brass betray their own men and women.
• From Mike Thompson Could a reason or reasons for reluctance to draw down in Iraq be Iran and Syria? Bashar Assad isn't "cooperating" because all of a sudden he's a fine and upstanding human being. Hes got 100,000 veteran battle tested veterans on his doorstep, hours away from Damascus. Likewise with Iran, a massive ground force that could cross the Iranian frontiers a genuine threat as well as a bluff. If you're playing poker do you throw away your best cards and keep the stinkers ?? Iraq was supposed to have been the prelim with Iran the main event, and with Sharon trying to unify the govt and country behind him ( a necessary step before attacking Irans nukes ??) why withdraw the force when they will be sent right back with another extended buildup time allowing Iran more time, much like the buildup to Gulf 2 ?? Rummy might have botched up the tactical situation, but strategically he's still the author of "draining the swamp", and the deep ends of the swamp are Iran and Syria.

0300 GMT November 27, 2005

• Saddam's Lawyers Too Busy on Designated Court Date or so they tell CNN. They have to travel all over the country on other work. So they want a postponement. More time is also required because some of the lawyers are not familiar with the law.Good thing Saddy is not being tried in America. If his lawyers gave that as an excuse for not appearing in what has to be the most important case they have, they'd be in trouble. With 1100 lawyers one would assume at least 1 was not busy and that at least 1 was familiar with the law.
• US Soldiers Who Burned Afghani Insurgents Bodies did so for hygiene reasons and committed no crime - the bodies were decomposing in 33C temperatures. Nonetheless, two soldiers have been reprimanded for showing unfamiliarity with Muslims traditions. Two more who taunted insurgents using the dead bodies are also reprimanded. We wonder how US soldiers find time to actually fight given this politically correct nonsense they have to go through.
• Somalia Piracy: Action at Last A private company will undertake anti-piracy operations off Somalia and set up 5 coast guard stations, under a deal with the transitional government.
• Al-Jazeera A Legitimate Military Target says Frank Gaffney, a former US defense official, because it calls for suicide bombings and attacks on US forces.We don't follow Al-Jazz, and if it has been calling for such attacks, that makes them enemy symps, and its off with their heads as far as we are concerned.Isn't it just wonderfully coincidental how the American establishment uses propaganda? On the one hand Administration is saying "don't be absurd" when Al-Jazz says the US may be targeting it. And of course the notion the US would bomb an ally - Bahrain - to get back at Al-Jazz is absurd. But just as Al-Jazz is getting a bit less paranoid, along comes a former top Pentagon official saying Al-Jazz needs to be attacked. The Administration, if challenged, will say Mr. Gaffney is now a private individual. This will be done with a wink wink nod nod because everyone knows people go in and out of the government all the time. The wink wink nod nod will be done in a way that Al Jazz notices, and it will be back to big-time paranoia.

0400 GMT November 26, 2005

· Withdrawing from Iraq Is A Victory for America We are honestly not clear why so many patriotic Americans feel their country is cutting and running in Iraq. America wants – we all want – the Iraqis to rule themselves. America has been giving the Iraqis the means to do just that, including training their forces. There are now ten Iraqi divisions. So why shouldn’t America withdraw the equivalent of two divisions? Not to do so would be a vote of non-confidence in the Iraqis. Given the excellent progress they are making, such a vote would not be fair or right.

· To start withdrawing would be confound America’s enemies, who insisted that America came to appropriate Iraqi oil and to colonize the country.

· It would also seem to be necessary now that all three Iraqi ethnic groups have asked the US to set a date for withdrawal. How can America say to the Iraqis “this is your country, your are the boss, but we aren’t leaving till we say so”? All ethnic groups understand America is a stabilizing force; they may not like the idea of American troops in Iraq but they uniformly see no alternative. Till now. Now they feel confident enough to ask for timetables.

· We have to trust their judgment. That’s what democracy means: the people decide. Sometimes they decide wrong. But it has to be their decision. If things go wrong they will ask the Americans to slow down or even to reverse withdrawal. After all, which other country will come in to help them without taking undue advantage of them?

· Remember Lawrence of Arabia’s Words. To those who worry the Iraqi forces are not ready: lets be frank, folks. Are they ever going to be ready by American standards? This is the Middle East. People do things differently.

· Lawrence, who had some slight experience of raising and training Arab armies, used to say that it is much better the locals do the job, however badly, than the British do it for them, however well. This as true now as it was 90 years ago

· Former Canadian Defense Minister Says ET Are Here This is kind of embarrassing, so we are not going to name names, but Mike Thompson sends a piece which has a former Canadian Defense Minister saying not just that extra terrestrials are amongst us, but that the US is using these nice people to get super weapons technology which the US will use for intergalactic wars. The US return to the moon program is simply intended as an outpost to keep watch for ET people, though the minister does not explain why. Is it to grab them and get weapons tech out of them before anyone else does? Is to it kill them dead before they take over the earth? It’s very strange. Your editor, an ET from Mars, came to earth for work and stayed on because the chocolate is better than what we get on Mars. Hershey’s Milk Chocolate to be specific. He has no weapons technology to give anyway, unless you consider an unfailing ability to drive wives away. No, he cannot share this with you if you want to drive your wife or husband away: he didn’t mean to drive any wife away.

· Another Expert on America Speaks Reader Henry Cobb sends this from a discussion board: “Mr. Ishihara said U.S. ground forces, with the
exception of the Marines, are "extremely incompetent" and would be
unable to stem a Chinese conventional attack. Indeed, he asserted that
China would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons against Asian and
American cities-even at the risk of a massive U.S. retaliation. The governor said the U.S. military could not counter a wave of millions of Chinese soldiers prepared to die in any onslaught against U.S. forces. After 2,000 casualties, he said, the
U.S. military would be forced to withdraw.”

• We have no clue who Mr. Ishiwara is, apparently he’s a governor, of what? Okinawa, perhaps? Now, we don’t hold it against him that’s he’s an ass, and perhaps he hasn’t gotten over the events of 60 years ago when he lost his island to the extremely incompetent Americans. Its no crime being an ass, lots of people think your editor is one, and they may well be right.

· No. What we have against Mr. Ishiwara is he is an incompetent ass. In case you are waiting for us to blast him on what he has said about US ground forces – surprise, we’re not. That would be wasting everyone’s time.

· We assume he is talking about the coming PRC attack on Taiwan. What we don’t understand is why people like Mr. Ishiwara don’t understand they are absolutely right when they say the US wont fight for Taiwan, but fail to see the US doesn’t have to fight for Taiwan. The reason Taiwan doesn’t have a few hundred nuclear warheads sitting around today is because of the US and the US only. When the US is convinced PRC really means to invade Taiwan, the US will step aside and you will suddenly find Taiwan with a few warheads within a year, tens within two years.

· If PRC decides its going to take Taiwan at the risk of losing all its major coastal cities to nuclear attack, then all we have to say is, the PRC is run by lunatics and they need to be nuked now, before they can cause more trouble down the road. You’ll recall the Soviets thought so but the US would neither join them nor promise to stand aside in the event the Soviets decided to act. And these things are not so easily done: right up to the late 1950s the US could have destroyed the Soviet Union and shot down every Soviet bomber that happened to make its way past Iceland – look at the staggering array of assets the US put into air defense in the 1950s and you’ll see what we mean. But America didn’t do it, even though the Soviets were America’s mortal enemy, because it’s not so easy to condemn 100 million people to die even when you don’t fear retaliation, it’s a gazillion times harder when you know the other guy is going to get in a few solid blows.

· So clearly we don’t believe lunatics run the PRC; indeed, a more cautious bunch of people its difficult to find. PRC’s military buildup against Taiwan is intended simply to dishearten those who might think of declaring independence. PRC’s plan is to have Taiwan rejoin under negotiated conditions, with a majority of Taiwanese voting to rejoin. US cant stop that, and frankly, if a majority of Taiwanese voted to rejoin, the US would be the best man at the wedding.

· We don’t want to raise the temperature for no reason by attacking PRC for remarks it hasn’t made, but reader Hale Cullom does have a point when he talks about millions of Chinese willing to die to fight the Americans and says, “didn’t we go through this 55 years ago?” This is 2005, there are no millions of Chinese willing to die for any cause: they’re just like everyone else, just trying to get by to make a million dollars.


0030 GMT November 25, 2005

Very little news today, presumably news reporters are off eating the Thanksgiving Turkey, though why non-American reporters should be doing this is unclear. Your editor celebrated by eating the Thanksgiving Donut, an original American tradition that has somehow gotten lost in the last few hundred years.

• Heavenly Leader Visits the Troops for the sixth time this month, says Tass of Russia, indicating that something is afoot in DPRK.

• Saddam Lawyers to Attend Court next week. Some arrangement for security seems to to have been worked out, presumably only for the top lawyers.

0230 GMT November 24, 2005

• Ohmygosh, Hugo Has Done It Massachusetts has signed a deal with Venezuela for the latter to supply 45 million liters of heating oil at 40% below market price. Congratulations to Mr. Chavez: very wily, and he's succeeded. This is going to look terrible for Mr. Bush, on the lines of: "Our own President cant do anything for his own citizens too poor to afford heating oil this winter, but a foreign president whom Mr. Bush hates has been generous."Okay, well and good. Now your editor is going to berate Massachusetts: he has a right to, as he grew up in Connecticut and Massachusetts, and in his American persona considers himself a New England Yankee. The day Yankees start accepting charity, and foreign charity at that, is the day they start diminishing themselves.Before anyone from New England starts pelting the editor with rotten potatoes (technically pah-tate-ohs) let him declare to all and sundry he too is facing a big heating problem this years due to changes income. He's turned down the thermostat to 50F for the night, and 55F for the day. Nothing like a bit of cold to remind oneself that one is alive and be grateful for what one does have.The Yankee ethic was: "You dont have it, do without. You have it, don't waste it." For some citizens of Massachusetts the ethic seems to have become: "Stick out your hand and see what money you can collect."Oh yes, please: no letters about how the elderly and the sick cant take the cold etc. The state of Massachusetts doesn't have money to subsidize heating oil this winter for those who really need help?

• You Heard It Here First We've been saying for months now that the US is going to start withdrawing troops from Iraq, and yesterday the newspapers carried details of the first withdrawals, which will take place assuming the Iraq situation does not take a turn for the worse. Seeing as how seriously the insurgents and their leaders are being whacked left and right, and seeing as the insurgents failed to disrupt the constitutional election, we may reasonably assume things are unlikely to take a turn for the worse.In that case, three brigades planned to rotate to Iraq in early spring 2006 will not go. One of the three might be posted to Kuwait, to provide a quick-reinforcement if needed. The US has 18 brigades in Iraq, including one that has been extended for the elections, so presumably the first benchmark will leave 14 brigades in Iraq, with another 4 leaving at intervals through the year.

• The Chocolate Snatch Affair: More Sordid Details Emerge. We now learn that President Bush talked about snatching the Orbat.com editor's chocolate bar with Mr. Tony Blair. Two people present said that the President was only joking, as is his wont; the other says the President was dead serious. Only a full revelation of confidential documents from the meeting between the two leaders will resolve the issue, we say.And we are asking no more than Al Jazzera is asking. So if you think the editor is being absurd, where does that leave Al Jazzera?Clue for the Clueless at Al Jazzera: Mr. Bush is a preppie. Preppies of his and previous generations often display what's called the British sense of humor. This sense of humor requires one to deliver the most absurd statements in a dead-pan serious manner. Thus, if Mr. Bush said: "Darn, Al Jazz is getting on my last nerve, we'd better bomb their HQ in Bahrain," this is a joke. if Mr. Bush had been laughing uproariously when he said that, Al Jazz could start counting down the minutes of mortal life its staffer had. This is so incredibly subtle we think Al Jazzera might not get it.

• Hebron Arabs Ask Jews For Help Reader marcopetroni sends a news item from Israelnationnews.com which says that members of the International Solidarity Movement, an anarchist organization, have been arriving in the area  ostensibly to help the local Arabs in their struggles with the Jews, but actually to create confrontations between the Jews and the Arabs. The foreigners know at worst they will be deported and so risk nothing. Accordingly, the local Arabs have asked their Jewish neighbors to help control these uninvited guests. Discussions are going on to see what can be done.US Navy To Relocate Sardinia-based SSNs If we relocate right, there is an SSN division (3 boats) forward based at Sardinia and the US Navy has decided its time to relocate its boats. This has been greeted with much enthusiasm in Sardinia, with the locals saying they appreciated what the Americans had done for them, but they are happy to see the SSNs gone. A more radical lot of radicals is saying they'll see it when they believe it (slip intentional, Orbat.com's interpretation of radicals' statements) because they don't trust the Americans or the Italian government. Next, they say, they want Italian installations off the island, and restitution for damage done to the island by US military installations.That's fair enough; maybe these locals can also make restitution to the US for all the jobs the US created, and also for protecting them against the Soviets. These radicals may have been all for the Soviet Union, but if the Soviets had actually attacked and occupied Sardinia, they first lot to the guillotines would have been the local radicals. Understandably, the Soviets had no time for idealist leftists.

• Yet More on Representative Murtha We know no one has any interest in the Murtha affair, but we erred and need to set the record straight. It wasn't Mr. Cheney who called Mr. Murtha a coward, it was a freshman Congressperson, and this was a double insult as Mr. Murtha also happens to be one of the longest-serving representatives. Mr. Cheney added fuel to the fire before proclaiming Mr. Murtha's fine patriotic Americanism. Mr. Murtha served also in the Korean War, not just in Vietnam as we had implied.

0230 GMT November 23, 2005

• Urgent: the US President Must Prove to Orbat.com’s Editor that the disappearance of the editor’s chocolate bar is not an American plot. The editor has heard that the President specifically targeted the said chocolate bar, which disappeared from the editor’s ‘fridge last Friday. The editor guards his chocolate bars with fiendish cunning: only the CIA has the resources to steal the bar from the editor’s ‘fridge given the editor never left the house that day. Mere denials will not cut it, Mr. President. The editor wants proof, with all documentation, hearings, and impeachment if you are lying, that you did not order the bar snatched, did not talk about having the bar snatched, and did not, for even a moment, think silently to yourself, gee, it would be nice the Orbat editor’s chocolate bar.

• Whoa, whoa, you say, we know the editor is crazy, but if he is this crazy he needs to be put away. Insisting the President prove he did NOT take the chocolate bar? Come-on, folks, this is past la la land, this is 911 the White Coats with the horse tranquilizer filled syringes, and now.

• Your editor completely agrees. And is happy to step aside and say Al Jazzera needs the treatment before they harm themselves, as they have lost their already frail grip on reality.

• Al Jazz, which had of late been going respectable, now suddenly wants the US to prove the US was not planning on bombing Al Jazz’s HQ in Qatar, after the US got angry about the news channel’s coverage of Fallujah April 2004.

• How ridiculous can these people make themselves? It’s at times like these we need an Ozzie friend of ours, who seemed to know only two words when he was angry. One concerned the urinary function; the other was a suggestion so gross it cannot even be alluded to in metaphorical fashion.

• UK Telegraph Says US was Careful to Ensure no civilians were present before it used white phosphorus in Fallujah. The correspondent was with US troops.

• We’ve said earlier that when the US has said it is going to attack Place XYZ, and its giving all civilians a chance to get out, and spends a month encouraging people to leave, then please excuse us, those that remained behind deserved what they got.

• Moreover, white phosphorous has been used fore 100 years, and its employment in warfare is not banned.

• Soldiers have every right to protect their lives by any means necessary. There may be a political calculation that some weapons cost too much for the lives they save. That is another matter. During the Vietnam War, your editor was a firm believer in the idea that the Red River dykes needed to be blown. It would have caused a terrible loss of civilian life, and potential starvation. But it would have hurt the Hochis where it counted. It didn’t seem to bother the so-called brilliant general Giap and the Hanoi politburo that they sent two million of their own soldiers to their death. It was not the US’s business to care more for the lives of North Vietnamese than the North Vietnamese leaders cared.

• Its not a coincidence Hanoi finally sat down to talk when the B-52s went for Hanoi and Haiphong, and the harbors were mined – measures that should have been taken at the start of the war, not the end. Though what good the talks did is not clear: the NVA in any case could not mount another offensive after the failure of the 1972 Easter offensive until it built a new army. It did so by 1975 and attacked again.

• If the US was looking to save face before cutting and running, it could have declared the war won and pulled out. But the war continued, and American soldiers and airmen kept dying to save the face of a bunch of fetid, repulsive, gas bags in Washington.

• If WP is what takes to kill insurgents, our reaction is, “knock yourself out, fellahs. But why did you stop with WP? Trundle out a few score Mother of All Bombs out the rear doors of C-130, and end it right there.

• The US’s reaction to the WP charges has been pathetic. Needed is a robust statement: “The lives of our men are more important to us than the lives of a bunch of baby-killers. We regret not that we used WP, but we stopped there. Next time no Mr. Nice Guy. Get ready for Paradise.” Now, of course, that is the stance the military is taking. But we need the Administration and the Pentagon to say the same thing.

• Oh, yes, of course the world will hate us more if we take such a tough stand. Like we can all really, really feel the love right now, can’t we, folks?

• In World War II, the US had one motto, one aim: to say to America’s enemies, “Bye Bye, You Die Now”. Ditto Gulf I and II, the military part. Anyone notice something odd? The US won those wars. It did not win Korea and Vietnam.

• Okay, that’s no way to fight an insurgency. But Fallujah was not an insurgent action. It was a straight conventional battle, that the enemy was sure it would win because the same tactics had cost the Russians very heavily in Grozny. No need to pull punches next time there is a Fallujah

• More on Representative John Murtha After attacking Representative Murtha for calling for an Iraq withdrawal, Vice President Cheney is now making nice. Mr. Murtha has, after all, served 37 years in the Marines on active duty and as a reservist, and went to Vietnam, whereas Mr. Cheney’s patriotic credentials are somewhat mysterious. One senses, nonetheless, that Mr. Cheney is being made to make nice, sort of like when your attack dog has lunged at your boss and now you are choking your dog till he wags his tail. The intriguing part is, who has forced Mr. Cheney to backtrack on Mr. Murtha?

• Mr. Cheney is famously known for not taking instructions from anyone, and for his absolute refusal to apologize to anyone or admit he is wrong. He has nothing to lose: he’s not running for President in 2008, his heart may give out at any time, he has socked away a few tens of millions, and after 2008 elections will go back to the corporate sector and sock away a few hundreds of millions if he lives long enough. He doesn’t particularly care for the Republican Party, and – one suspects – not even for the President.

• So whoever has made him eat his words on Mr. Murtha mst have real power over him, and we just cannot imagine who.

• Meantime, Mike Thompson reminds us that the US withdrawal from Somalia was the work of Mr. Murtha: he convinced President Clinton to withdraw. As we all known, it was the withdrawal that convinced Mr. Basket Case Laden that the US was a paper tiger.

• Can we hold Bin Laden against Mr. Murtha? We think not. The US did not go to Somalia to fight Mr. Bin Laden, it went to feed Somalis. Thanks to mission creep, the US decided to get involved in local politics, messed up on Adid, and decided to withdraw – rebuilding Somalia was not what the US had come for.

• Can we blame the US for withdrawing? Suppose the US had stayed to build a new Somalia. We know from the Balkans this is a 20 year process, perhaps even a 30-50 year process. Would the American people have accepted the mission? We, at least, are positive it would not have done so.

• Mr. Reagan withdrew from Lebanon after the Marine Barracks bombing. No one has called him a coward for doing so. He decided Lebanon was not America’s fight, and got out.

• 0530 GMT November 22, 20051. Bill Roggio Reports on Iraq From Kuwait City During the raid on the al-Qaeda safe house in Mosul, 8 terrorists shot each other or blew themselves up to escape capture. Orbat.com comments that we can reasonably infer the terrorists did not think much of their chances of getting Tender Loving Care from the Iraqis had they surrendered.2. No word yet on if Zarqawi was at the safe house, says Mr. Roggio. He is, however, quick to note the words of an American commander he had reported earlier: Zarqawi’s death with change nothing, it will simply be another step in a long insurgency.3. Ramadi Area Attacks Down by 60% Mr. Roggio tells us, as US/Iraq forces continue to to squeeze insurgents in the Euphrates Valley. Another operation is under way, involving just 500 US/Iraq troops, to root out insurgents in northern Ramadi. The pressure is to be kept on, with Iraq forces occupying each area after it has been cleared.4. US, EU Wimp Out On Iran – Again and are to postpone referring Iran to the Security Council to give more time for a compromise. Iran, of course, is refusing any compromise. Now, while the US is talking instead of fighting because it has no fighting options at this time, there is one good outcome of the US joining the Wimp Brigade – we hope temporarily. At the rate things are going, a couple of years from now no one will be able to accuse the US of not giving negotiations a chance or of acting without consulting allies.5. Be Careful What You Wish For We’d been moaning and whining about the lack of serious news on Russia/CIS in Pravda, and then we discovered the old Tass, now ITAR-Tass and wish we hadn’t. The site is so boring it will make strong women weep. We’ve been reading the site for a week now and there is not one item worth reporting. Give us Pravda with its stories about Martians and the White Slave Trade any day.

  0230 GMT November 21, 2005Deadly for whom? Reporting, CNN Style "Gunmen launch deadly ambush against Marine convoy" says the CNN headline. One Marine and 8 insurgents killed, says the story. So the ambush was deadly for whom? This is world-renown CNN. This is American media reporting today.US Doubts Zarqawi killed in Friday attack US is identifying bodies from an attack against an insurgent house in Mosul last Friday, but says it doubts Zarqawi was killed. The attack order was given before US knew Zarqawi was/had visiting/visited the house.Iran Replies to EU/Russia Make Nice Efforts Over N-Concerns 183 of 197 Iranian lawmakers present approved a parliamentary bill requiring Iran to block all IAEA inspection of nuclear facilities.The vote comes 4 days before IAEA is to take up question of referring Tehran to UN Security Council for violation of the NPT. So much for EU/Russia continuing to make nice to avoid confrontation with Iran.Orbat.com Position on Iran N-Program Under no conditions will Iran voluntarily give up its N-program. Without the program, Iran may as well tell the US: "Please come and walk all over us, at your pleasure". Iran will not have a workable bomb till 2010. That leaves 5 years to find a solution. The solution will have to be destruction of Iran's N-program and regime change. Contrary to what is being said, US does not have to attack 300 facilities to kill the program. It has to attack less than 10. But destruction is only a stop-gap solution till the real problem is addressed, which is the Iran mullahs have to go in order for the US to advance its interests. No ifs and buts, no candy and nuts, and it isn't going to be Christmas all year long. The present administration's credibility for major foreign interventions is down in the septic tank, it can't get any lower. The intervention will have to be left to the new administration, which gives it a 1-2 year window in which to act.  The present administration can help by starting the tedious process of consensus building needed for another major intervention after the Iraq fiasco.Another official fingers the Vice President for Torture An aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell says the torture instructions came directly from the Vice President, and were implemented. He has no knowledge of what is happening now, but sees no reason to believe that torture is still continuing. The official charges Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld ran a cabal that excluded senior bureaucrats. They genuinely did not know about the official sanction of torture. Official rhetorically asks if the President knew. Official says he voted for President and would like to believe that Mr. Bush was also kept out of the loop.The Fantasies of Mr. Robert Mugabe  Mr. Mugabe says uranium has been discovered in Zimbabwe will build nuclear power reactors to meet its energy shortage. Its plain the old dictator is losing his mind. You dont need uranium deposits to build nuclear reactors. Uranium for power reactors is available in plenty from many sources. Announce you will pay for a reactor, and all the industrialized nations will be at your door, kissing your left big toe, to bid for the job. All you need is about 2 billion bucks a gigawatt, and a minimum of 10 years, preferably 15, for project completion. The question is, where's the money? Zimbabwe cant spare the minimum $50 million required to get the planning done. Hopefully the doctors will change Mr. Mugabe's medication and he will get back to some version of reality.

  0130 GMT November 20, 2005 HACKED BY A MICHAEL MOORE SUPPORTER! Reader Stephen Commer emailed us to ask if we knew the site had been hacked: there was peculiar code all over the place and links that led to Mr. Moore's sites. Your editor was, as usual, clueless, but pretty chuffed about the whole thing. He felt Orbat.com was finally being taken seriously. After the initial euphoria, however, your editor is forced to concede that being hacked by a Moore supporter is pretty pathetic, given Mr. Moore is pretty pathetic. Moreover, there's nothing we can do: one of our black programmers offered to implement our choice of several degrees of retaliation all the way to the nuclear option; alas, attacking people's websites is illegal - as well as violative of the right of free speech, so we regretfully had to turn down the offer.US ARMY PRESENTS IRAQ PULL-OUT PLAN Our problem here is that people are going to say the recent escalating  pressure back home forced the US government to prepare and present a withdrawal plan from Iraq, and we don't see that the debate at home has much to do with the proposed pull-out. The military has been pushing for a start to withdrawal for several months on purely military grounds: the Iraqis will not learn to stand on their own feet as long as the US is holding their hands; US troops are becoming the problem rather than the solution because they are attracting needless fire and avoidable hatred from Iraqis; and, most important, how long can the force continue operations at this pace?Case in point: a captain from our area who has been killed in Iraq was on his fourth tour in four years. This is not right, and it is not fair that a small part of America has to bear all the burden of the Terror War. The Army understands perfectly if this pace of deployment keeps up, come another three years, there will be no army left because people will not join, or if they join, they will not reenlist.The Army was told to shut up about the withdrawal for the present because, it was said, specific pull-out dates would encourage the insurgents.Au contraire, Pierre. This is yet another example of "obvious" but incorrect assumptions that have bedeviled the Iraq venture from the start. The insurgents will not be encouraged by concrete withdraw plans, they will be afraid. For the simple reason everywhere the Iraqis take over, there isn't going to be a Mr. Nice Guy to see that the locals and insurgents get their rights. Sure, the Iraqis are a lot less efficient at the military end of CI. But they are very efficient of making people talk, and talkative people are the key to beating an insurgency, not firepower, technology, and massed manpower.In fact, the only thing standing between Saddam and the lynch mob right now is the Americans. Ditto other regime members in custody.Well, now the Army is free to talk about the withdrawal again because President Bush needs something to save his party in 2006. If he can show a marked decrease in troops, Americans will be mollified, and the nice thing is - as we said above - for purely military reasons the US needs to reduce its footprint.One reason: the troops have to come back to they can resume conventional war training for the next target.So the plan is to bring 2000 troops at a time home, with no formal deadline except that 40,000 have to be back by end 2006. We dont count the extra 30,000 in Iraq right now for the elections, because after December 15 they are due back anyway. If things are going well, increments of 2000 will come home rapidly. If they are not going well, the increments will come back more slowly. But, whatever happens, on the first Tuesday of November 2006, there will be less than 100,000 US troops in Iraq.The press is talking of "the magic number" of 100,000. Well, we don't know where they go for their magic, because less than 100,000 is tolerable politically only if that too is being drawn to 60,000. Below 60,000 you have a bit of leeway timewise till you go down below 40,000 and less than 300 a year killed. In our humble opinion, that represents a ceiling the American people will accept for some years.In case we at Orbat.com  haven't been clear enough: by refusing to set deadlines, the US will feed the insurgency. The insurgents have been saying the Americans plan never to leave, and President Bush has been thoughtfully playing right into their hands.In Vietnam the greatest single problem was that the Americans simply spent no time at all looking at things from the enemy's viewpoint; the few that did were marked as mavericks and discredited. There are two parties to every war. Your job is to impose your will on your adversary. But if you dont even bother asking where he's coming from, all you're doing is the elephant dance: Dance Crush Dance Crush, and hope that you re big enough and bad enough you will simply squash the adversary dead.This worked beautifully in World War II. It did not work in Korea or in Vietnam. It worked beautifully in Gulf I and II. It would have failed in post Baghdad 2003 but did not because a remarkably well-educated Army managed enough leeway in the field that it could be innovative, despite the "Nuke 'em" approach initially used.READER WALTER WALLIS DISAGREES with our saying Senator John Murta is a patriot and has a right to be oppose the war without being called a traitor. Mr. Wallis, who served in Korea during that forgotten war, says Mr. Murta has disgraced his uniform and country by going public with cheap shots against the President's Iraq policy.We understand perfectly Mr. Wallis's viewpoint, which is why we emphasized that as far as we are concerned, everyone has the right to question the tactics/strategy being employed in Iraq on its own merits. In fact, when the government is using wrong approaches, it is our patriotic duty to disagree.Mr. Wallis has a point about going public. The problem here is that Senator Murtha, who to start was a firm supporter of the war, has been trying to get Mr. Bush and other prominent Republicans to listen to concerns raised by conservative Democrats like himself - and by many Republicans. He has, however, been brushed off with the "My President, Right or Wrong" line. He is angry, understandably so. One thing the Republicans have not learned - and have caused unnecessary pain for themselves - is that you do not assume the Divine has anointed you because you won the election with 22-23% of voters voting for you. You have to work with the opposition, and with differing factions in your own party. If you don't, and if you squash even your own loyalists, they will take it out on you somewhere else where you cannot accuse them of being anti-national. Perhaps it might have occurred to Mr. Bush's inner circle that this is one reason in his second term he just cannot seem to get anything passed?And in any case you do not wage war on a partisan basis, you wage it by consensus.This said, we understand it galls a man of Mr. Wallis's principles and beliefs that Senator Murta is saying things the hated left Democrats and even more hated press is saying. But look at this way: why have we on the right let the left hijack this debate? Why are we on the defensive and not them? Because we have let the left frame the terms of debate - that means you are dead in the water from the word go, without having fired a shot.And we've let the left frame the debate because we didn't want to appear unpatriotic by attacking the President. Yet, we've all got the remember: the President is not America. He is a partisan politician the same as the war's opponents. Personally, your editor likes Mr. Bush a lot. But we have to face up to the reality that the day of American giants is gone. Surely, Lincoln and Roosevelt were politicians too. But they thought first about America, and only secondarily of their own advantage.This is the age of Aquarius, of the Boomers, of the Me First, Last, and Only generation, the believers in anything is justified because, you see, I'm special - by definition if I want it, it has to be right for everyone, and if they don't see it, they are stupid.Incidentally, your editor STILL runs into people - Americans and foreigners - who say: "How can those people who voted for Bush be so stupid?" Fellows, here's a big secret that will make you better people: people voted for Mr. Bush because they got tired of your Clintons, Gores, and Kerrys putting down us plain folks who know we aint got genius brains, and don't know much, but we do know you geniuses seem to get America into ever more trouble in every way. Bush is one of us: he's - dare we say it? - an average Joe - just like we are.ENCOURAGING NEWS FROM FRANCE We thank reader Mike Thompson's for his constant efforts to cheer up the editor. November's been rough: we're near to losing 3 weeks on the darn CWA 2006, and while we exceeded our October sales targets, November's look like a total mess because your editor has been fire-fighting on account of systems going down. To say nothing of the usual shenanigans with Mrs. Rikhye, failing Calculus because we're not putting enough work into it - yes, AGAIN - and the usual threats by graduate school to expel one - again for not doing enough work - and how are we expected to do any work when for 18 days we've been spending 14-16 hours a day trying to keep Orbat.com together.The first bit of cheery news Mr. Thompson sends is that the French police have announced with a straight face that yes, they CAN say the situation in France is now normal because only 100 cars a day are being burned, because that IS normal for France. Let's see: the US’s population is 5 times that of France, and the number of cars per capita is - lets guess - 1.5 times as much. So that's equal to 750 cars a day being burned in America.Hey, this is one of those times Americans can be grateful we're freaks and not normal: because 750 cars burned a day would definitely NOT be considered normal in America! Sheesh! The second bit of good news is that performance personality Johnny Depp is leaving his mansion and estate in France. He no longer feels safe. Mr. Thompson suggests Mr. Depp's modest manse would make a good retirement spot for your editor.Thank you, Mr. Thompson. We were thrilled for a minute till it hit us. Till this French thing, we dont think many people in America knew 100 cars a day burned is normal in France. Now what else are the French hiding from us in the name of normality? Like maybe burning 100 houses a day in France is normal?So on second thoughts your editor has decided to stay on in America. True his metro area has one of the highest murder rates in the world, civilized or otherwise. The thing is, unless you are  dealing drugs, or  part of a gang, or inclined to shoot your wife because she's sleeping with your best friend, Washington Metro is one of the safest places in the world to live in. Our county recently went over 20 murders a year for near on 1.5 million people - and most of those were for love, honor or gangs - and people are freaking out. Since your editor has no love, lost his honor years ago, and no gang wants him, he's safer right where he is.

  0100 GMT November 19, 20051. AMERICA WANTS OUT OF THE EMPIRE BUSINESS The Pew Charitable Trusts, one of the most impartial of American polling organizations, say Americans want to reduce involvement overseas by margins that equal post Vietnam and the end of the Cold War.OPINION2. UNSOLICITED ADVICE FOR MR.BUSH Lately, Sir, you have been getting into a whole lot of trouble because you are not controlling your advisors, including your Vice President. May we suggest you exercise your prerogative as president and start running the country?3. We’re going to comment on just one issue: the manner in which your advisors have attacked Senator John Murtah, a staunch patriot, veteran, and previous supporter of the Iraq War, is going to boomerang on you. Mr. Murtah is not saying anything his voters are not telling him, and unless you start listening to what the country is trying to say, you are going to bring disaster on your party next November. Similarly, if you don’t stop Mr. Cheney from attacking the patriotism of people like Admiral Stansfield Turner – who has an infinitely better record as a patriot than Mr. Cheney – you are going to expose yourself to growing ridicule.4. A RESTATEMENT OF ORBAT.COM’s POSITION ON IRAQ We support the effort to build democracy in Iraq, and to us it is immaterial the government seized on this as an objective after making as a big a mess of things by invading Iraq as it did and in the aftermath. Good things can come out of bad decisions, this is an example.5. At the same time, speaking as an expert who spent two decades explaining American global strategy to foreigners, and who has some slight expertise in the matter, and who also has some slight expertise in military matters, your editor says without equivocation US grand strategy in Iraq is deeply flawed, and the government is forcing the military to pay the price for the flawed strategy.6. This has had consequences that are directly undercutting American interests. Iraq has drained US resources for no purpose, diverted attention from the crusade against Islamic fundamentalism in a dozen major areas, and hobbled the US in its drive against tyranny.

  A SIMPLE STRATEGY FOR CRUSADE AND WORLD EMPIRE

  The government is wasting American blood and gold in its King Canute approach to Iraq. Iraq is going to break up no matter what the US does, and in any case a tripartite Iraq is to America’s interest. The : for example, it  interestwhile a unified Iraq is not. America should be managing the transition of Iraq to 3 independent states, not trying to maintain the last vestiges of the Ottoman Empire. An orderly transition should begin now and it will permit the reduction of US forces in Iraq to below 60,000 by next November.Next, expand the ground forces by at least 50%. The government’s policy on force levels is stupid belong belief, and unfortunately, some very powerful generals are throwing their weight behind the Administration’s idiocy.Third, the government is ready to keep saying we're engaged in a hundred years war, but it is expending resources as if we're in a two year war. America needs to either up defense spending to 6% of GNP - not an unrealistic level in pour opinion, but politically impossible - or it needs to adjust to spending smaller sums of money more efficiently. Example: America has essentially taken over Africa - bet most of our readers didn't even realize this had happened - on an expenditure equal to tens of millions of dollars a year for about 15 years. The job is by no means done. But the American lives lost have been nil, except in accidents, and the money spent is pocket change. Obviously not all problems can be solved by such lower expenditures. But spending $100 billion a year on terror operations in two countries is also not the way to go about things.Four, start building up the consensus at home. You will never have 100% agreement, but anything about 65% is more than sufficient. The government can no longer run around waving the flag and expect Americans to automatically rally to the flag. Americans' loyalty is to the flag as a symbol, not to whatever morons happen to be running the government at any given time. The post-9/11 consensus is gone, wasted by a bunch of profiteers who made their money, attained their purposes, and have gone on to better things, or are simply sitting quiet - or perhaps not so quiet as shown by Mr. Cheney, aided and abetted by incompetent bureaucrats and political generals.Five, keep in mind that to much of the world, America's moral superiority in the crusade is not an automatic given. What's striking about the crusade is how little other countries want to have to do with it - even countries that are under attack, like France, the Netherlands, India, the Philippines and Indonesia, who should be America's natural allies in this battle, not allies by brute force. Why this situation is so is something we can discuss another time, but we warn our conservative readers will not be happy with the answer.The issue is no longer is the military war in Iraq winnable. It is being won right now. The issue is if the current approach is worth the cost - and clearly it is not, and if, while winning the war in Iraq on the back of the military, the government is not losing the war at home. ------------------

  0330 GMT November 17, 20051. FRANCE, DAY WHATEVER Following from Reuters via CNN says it all: “Violence has fallen sharply in the past week, and police said Monday only 215 vehicles had been destroyed overnight, an "almost normal" level.”2.      Your editor has cancelled plans to retire to France. He bought a sub-compact 7 years ago, managed to pay it off after 5, has kept it in immaculate condition so he won’t have to buy another car for as long as he can drive. He simply can’t afford to lose the car – its replacement value is $1200, which will not buy even a Vespa. Nothing personal, we know our French friends will understand, with 215 burned cars being almost normal and all that.3. WHITE PHOSPHOROUS Reader Conor Savoy writes to say artillery illumination rounds do not necessarily have to be parachute retarded; we apologize, the only ones we’ve seen are mortar-fired illumination rounds. He adds the US does use illumination rounds against personnel. We will leave it to others better qualified – we were assuming if the DOD says it doesn’t, that ends the matter because DOD would not want to be caught out.4.      Mr. John Pike at

  www.globalsecurity.com

  makes the point that if white phosphorus has been used, bodies will not have unburned clothes. Obvious; we didn’t know the bodies the Italian TV channel cited were in unburned clothing. That in itself should end any discussion on the TV channel’s credibility, whatever else may be out there.5. US PRESENTS IRAN N-PLAN EVIDENCE The US has presented to IAEA and others 1000 pages of documents on Iran’s N-plans; the documents are said to have come from a laptop that was smuggled out of Iran.6.      An unnamed European official says the documents are impressive, but the material is such the papers could have been forged. The problem is after the Iraq WMD fiasco the standard of proof others will require before believing the US has become very high indeed.7. IRAQ: OPERATION STEEL CURTAIN Over the weekend US reported 40 insurgents had been killed in the ongoing offensive up the Euphrates Valley on the Syrian border. Monday US reports another 30 killed in Obedi, another border town US/Iraq forces have advanced on.8.      In the earlier phases of Steel Curtain, which is now into its 13^th day, the insurgents did not stand and fight – a reasonable strategy for the weaker side. If they are now standing and fighting, it is because they have been surrounded and have nowhere to go.9.      That in turn indicates the US/Iraq strategy of pacifying the Euphrates Valley is working.10.  Some insurgents were caught as they sought to escape hidden among a flock of sheep. 11.  Now a man has to do what he needs to do to stay alive, but the insurgents should have known this worked for Ulysses and his men when they were trapped in the Cyclops’ cave only because the Cyclops, a giant, had giant sheep. So giant, in fact, that the Greeks got away by grasping the wool on the belly of the sheep even though the Cyclops carefully felt each sheep before letting them out for the day. Having been blinded by Ulysses, the Cyclops had to use touch to try and catch the Greeks. 12.  These sheep must have been as big as tanks and we would for sure not like to meet them on a dark street at midnight.

  0230 GMT November 16, 20051. HUGO OVEREACHES Our favorite villain, President Hug Chavez of Venezuela, made a rare error by calling the respected Mexican president Senor Vincente Fox a puppy dog for US imperialism. Both sides have recalled ambassadors.2.      Mr. Chavez gains nothing by insulting one of the two most leaders in Latin America. Does he think he will earn points with the Mexican people or other Latin leaders?3. ITALIAN TV CHANNEL STANDS BY ALLEGATIONS US USED CHEMICAL WARFARE IN FALLUJAH [Thanks to reader marcopetroni for keeping track of this story.] We didn’t bother reporting the allegations when they first surfaced, because the story was both silly and pointless. The TV channel said the US had used napalm in Fallujah, as well as white phosphorus bombs.4.      US replied it had long since destroyed its napalm stocks, and white phosphorous is used only for illumination, a functioned permitted under chemical warfare treaties.5.      So, we can’t really blame the TV channel for doing what seems to be instinctive with media of any political persuasion, which is to grandly assert it stands by its claims and has evidence.6. If the channel has evidence the US has used napalm, then it should be sharing the evidence with HR groups and European courts.7.      Now let’s talk about white phosphorous. We have no reason to doubt that the TV channel can produce some people burned by this item. That still doesn’t mean the US used the item as an anti-personnel incendiary, and we are resentful this TV channel is making us waste our valuable time in explaining stuff any schoolboy enthusiasts knows.8. Illumination rounds descend by parachute. The idea is to keep the round up in the air as long as possible, so that it provides illumination for as long as possible. 9.      Okay. So parachutes can fail, and rounds can arrive on the ground without having fully burned. Someone with the misfortune of being in the wrong place is going to get very badly burned.10.  The TV channel says it has witnesses who saw bodies with strange burns. Well, we’re not experts at this sort of thing, but have the TV’s experts considered you can get strange burns if oil is involved in an explosion or fire. The oil sticks to your skin and makes the fire much, much worse. You see this kind of burn all the time in armored warfare and sea battles. The results are not pretty.11.  We feel for the TV channel, but as far as we know, death in battle is not a particularly pretty affair. We doubt someone at the wrong end of a JDAM thinks to himself, in the last milli-seconds of his life, “Gee, I am soooo lucky I’m not being killed by white phosphorous or napalm”.12. JORDAN WOMAN BOMBER’S MOTIVES All four of the Jordan hotel bombers are/were Iraqis. The woman whose explosive belt failed and who was captured alive has lost a brother-in-law and two brothers to the Americans. One was a bomb-maker; one was Zarqawi’s right hand man. So she wanted revenge.13.  We have a question to ask of her. Wouldn’t it have been simpler if in the first place your family not gone to war for the basest of motives, that of restoring Saddam to power?14. 1100 SADDAM LAWYERS RESIGN because of concern for their own safety. The Iraqi tribunal is not impressed. The trial will go on, it says.15. Even in his last days Saddam remains a megalomaniac. Eleven hundred lawyers? The man is lucky they’ve resigned, think what a mess so many could have created. 0130 GMT November 14, 20051. MEDIA CENSORSHIP IN FORCE IN FRANCE, BELGIUM Seems irrefutable that media censorship is in force in France, where we are still seeing hundreds of cars a day torched, and in Belgium, which has also been hit, though the number of daily incidents is in the single digits,2. Orbat.com has no problem with media censorship effected with the intention of defusing the situation, and of cutting off Islamofacist and Islamophobic groups from rallying followers.3.      If, however, it is true that in France the censorship is intended to avoid switching voters to the right, then all we can say is, the French media is asking for trouble from its public.4. SOME SAY IZZAT AL DOURI NOT DEAD but its best to keep in mind this time the news of his death came from the Baath Party, not from US/Iraqi sources.5. How’s this for logic? One Iraqi tells the media reporter that if al Douri were dead, there would be massive demonstration in the streets. The streets are peaceful, thus al Douri is alive. Why did the reporter bother reporting this tripe?6. HOWZAAAAAAAT?! (Cricket exclamation when the wicketkeeper thinks he’s got the batsman out, said to umpire). Women constitute 27% of the new Afghan parliament.7.      Next time anyone tells your editor that Muslims cannot handle democracy – and its usually liberal westerners who say so, he shall have great pleasure in stuffing this statistic down their throat. Lets see now, where do women constitute 27% of parliament? Not in the United States (Congress). 8.      Afghanistan leaped 500 years at one go. Women didn’t even have the vote before the US invaded. 9.      US Administration, Pentagon, Intelligence, Congress, Military, yes even the media which has left Afghanistan alone: you did it right. The glory and the victory are yours.10.  Now regarding Iraq, kindly all of you Assume The Position, because you are going to get 12 of the Very Best on your useless backsides – and that’s for starters. Everyone but the military, that is.11. If people in Washington who make egregious mistakes were treated to a Singapore 12, as opposed to a boarding school 12 or the old American paddle 12, we can assure readers our leaders would think things through better.12. LAFF OR GROAN? Suddenly everyone in Washington has advice for the US military: you must clear and hold. First we laughed. Then we groaned, and continue groaning.13. Where do these blithering idiots in Washington get off? Do you think the military didn’t know it? Do you think they didn’t ask for the proper number of troops? You all denied them the troops – Rummy Baba actually thought 60,000 troops would do the job. What do you think the military has been trying to, but build up Iraqi forces, in support of this strategy?14.  Don’t you Washingtoons have something sordid to do like misuse your power or steal the taxpayers’ money? Go do it, and stop bothering the grownups.

  0100 GMT November 13, 20051. PARIS DAY 17 “Only” 82 cars burned in the Paris region, which is under curfew, and “only” 420 cars burned elsewhere in the country. The big riots expected in Paris on Saturday did not materialize; perhaps the websites calling for the riots were breathing hot air, perhaps the curfew and police reinforcements deterred.2.      In Lyon, however, for the first time in any city since riots began, arsonists/demonstrators clashed with police. Hitherto the bad guys had been burning and running, this time they stood their ground and presumably got beaten up for their pains.3. ONE GOOD THING ABOUT THE FRENCH JUDICIAL SYSTEM Of approximately 2300 arrested, 300+ have already been convicted and are presumably starting their terms or are waiting deportation. Another 400 have been referred for juvenile action, which means they too have been convicted.4. WHY FRENCH RIOTS COULDN’T OCCUR IN US aside from the usual blah blah about America integrating immigrants better than anyone else and so on.5.      Reason 1: You don’t work, you don’t eat. There is no safety net worth the mention. You don’t get wonderful doles and places to live in and sit on your fat behind for years at taxpayers expense, on end drinking coffee and talking insurrection. 6.      Reason 2: You create problems: if you’re not a citizen, you are deported fast track. If you’re sentenced for a crime with a punishment of more than a year, even if the judge does not sentence you to a day in jail, the authorities can take you away from the court, and deport you as soon as they get the paperwork done. No appeals. 7.      Reason 3: Since most Americans of every color, ethnicity, religion, and country of origin have to bust their rear ends to make just make a living, if a bunch of immigrants went around burning cars and screaming that America owed them because they came voluntarily to settle in America or were born here, you would have Americans of every color, ethnicity etc etc beating the stuffing out of such people.8.      Reason 4: to elaborate on Reason 3. If in America you went around rioting and demanding jobs, which you define as not being the jobs that your parents did – i.e., clean latrines – but “real” jobs, i.e., sit on your tushy and pass papers around, you are likely to get unpleasant things done to you by other Americans. There are simply too many Americans cleaning latrines to have any sympathy for those who say they deserve better.9. GEORGE THE BORE George, give it up, man, give it up. Now you claim innocence because – you say – Tariq Aziz, the man who said you took money – says he said nothing of the sort. You want your name cleared on the basis of what you want us to believe Tariq Aziz, former regime foreign minister, says.10. George, George, George, what are we to do with you? Your name came up not because Tariq Aziz named you, but because your name was there, black and white, in documents, which are in the possession of the US Senate, including details of who paid what into your charity and you ex-wife’s account. There is also sworn testimony against you by people involved with you and your grubby dealings. Tariq Aziz is irrelevant, he will in any case never be called to testify at your trial – America is out, because UK says it has never extradited a sitting MP – but you have apparently violated UK law too.11. Er, George – may we ask you to look into whether your immunity as a sitting MP applies to an ex-MP? Just a suggestion, old boy.12. Another suggestion: can you zip your lip? Cardinal rule when you’re up the creek without the paddle: say nothing.13. DO YOU HAVE TO BE A MORON TO BE A JIHADI? We wouldn’t think so, but its rapidly becoming an inescapable conclusion.14. A videotape has surfaced saying that Queen Elizabeth II is ultimately responsible for UK’s “crusader laws” against Muslims. The British monarch is responsible for nothing except possibly whether she should put on her pink bunny slippers or her blue bunny slippers after getting out of bed. If the jihadis can’t even understand how the British system works, despite all the hundreds and thousands of actual and wannabe British Muslim jihadis, Jeez, even to call these guys morons is to insult morons, who appear to have a higher IQ than the jihadis.15.  By the way, Jihadis, not a bright move, threatening the Queen. 16. But then what to say? You just bombed three Jordanian hotels, 90% of the people you killed were Arab, including 27 Palestinians.  Before the bombings, 70% of Jordanians, acting in the usual knee-jerk Arab way, said Al-Qaeda’s violence was justified. But that’s before Zarqawi claimed credit for the Jordan bombings.17. Dumb and dumber, that’s all we can say.18. HERAT, AFGHANISTAN A prominent 25-year woman poet has been beaten to death by her husband because she published a book about love and longing.19. Let’s hear it again from the peace and love division about how we must respect all viewpoints equally.20. No, no, and no. You cannot respect a point of view when its advocates say their view is superior to all others and you must live by their rules or die. You cannot give such people any quarter. You must hunt them down and kill them before they kill you. Does it get any simpler than that?21.  By the way, will the peace and love division tell us how they advocated respect and understanding for communism, which was a religion as much as Christianity or Islam? And the communists were not a patch on the Islamic fundamentalists. The communists merely wanted you to keep your mouth shut on political matters. They didn’t care how long your beard was, how much you drank, how many people you slept with or didn’t sleep with, and if you wrote poetry. Sure, in artistic expression you couldn’t make political statements, actual or seen to be political. Yet for all its horror, communism was a peace-loving religion compared to the bunch we face today OPIONION: JOBS & ECONOMICS 1011.      It’s misleading to say France has a 10% unemployment rate versus US’s 5% because there are no jobs in France. There are ALWAYS jobs available. The question is, at what wage. Half of the US’s 5% unemployed could get jobs within a day. The jobs would be lousy, miserable, dirty, backbreaking jobs with no benefits, no health insurance, and no days off – if you don’t work, even if you are sick and dying, you don’t get paid. Places you can always get a job: Wal Mart, McDonalds and the like, agriculture are starters.2.      If you’re going to say “but those jobs are beneath me”, my response is the same as any Americans “get out of my sight, I can’t abide whiners”.3.      Your editor returned to America as a middle-aged person, and America is not kind to people looking for work in that age group. So your editor worked as a manual laborer in a warehouse. After the first week, he handed in a paper with 30 productivity suggestions. The assistant manager carefully took credit for the whole thing and your editor continued to haul loads. Then one day a supervisor said: “My calculator is dead, how am I gonna get the production figures entered in the daily report?” You editor gently told the supervisor he’d be happy to do the computation, sans calculator. When the supervisor found your editor could multiply 8 times 9 in his head, unlike the assistant manager, the supervisor saw your editor was promoted to a clerical position.4.      One day your editor worked out he was making an effective $2 an hour after transportation, transport time, insurance, taxes, and day care for his youngster was taken out. He quit, and luckily got a job a secretary to the school secretary at his son’s school. Your editor rose in importance every year, till his responsibilities extended to two 8 by 11 sheets of paper – single space, in 6 point type. His take home also rose, to a magnificent $18,000 a year. More on this saga another time, for now just remember that Washington is at least 40% more expensive than America outside of New York and Los Angeles. Reduce that $18,000 by 40% to see his REAL take home.5. So, your editor’s response to the rioting French immigrants: go back from where you came. No one owes you a darn thing: not the French people, not the French government. You think the Irish who came to America didn’t suffer horrible discrimination? The Italians, the Greeks, the Jews, everyone had to pay their dues before they were accepted. And if they hadn’t learned to talk American, dress American, act American, and be real American, they wouldn’t have had a chance.

  0300 GMT November 12, 20051. IZZAT AL DOURI SAID TO BE DEAD CNN reports, based on a Baath party announcement, that Saddam’s deputy, General Izzat Al Douri, most wanted man in Iraq after Saddam’s capture, and the main Baathist organizer of the insurgency, is dead. 2.      General al Douri was a dapper man who looked every centimeter the soldier, unlike many of Saddam’s senior generals. Loyal he may have been to Saddam, but his heart was as dark as that of the other Saddam senior deputies like Chemical Ali. If he really has died, he has cheated the hangman, and we, for one, cannot say we are happy.3. SOME PARIS DISTRICTS UNDER CURFEW for the weekend as a precautionary measure, as a slight uptick in violence is reported in the capital area. “Only” 460 cars were burned yesterday. We think its pathetic that a major western government sees comfort in figures that are, for any other country, a day of major rioting.4. REGARDING LETTERS FROM READERS ON FRENCH RIOTS Almost without exception, our American readers are terrifically pleased to see the French get their just desserts. We haven’t been publishing these letters because none are publishable, to put it mildly.5.      Like our readers, we too were highly chuffed for the first two days before serious bloggers began warning that this was no time for settling scores with the French. Western Europe is America’s first line of defense since the start of the 19^th Century, and in their own interest, Americans must overcome their anger and stand by France.6.      The odd thing is that any American who visits France or lives in France for any length of time says exactly the same thing: the French love Americans. Gulf II hasn’t changed a thing as far as the person on the street is concerned. It is Mr. Bush they can’t stand. None of us should get het about that, because after all, a whole bunch of Americans can’t stand Mr. Bush either, to say nothing of the rest of the globe. 7. INDIANS AND MR. BUSH Indians, for example, are great friends of America – friends, heck, they have becomes allies. Right now there is a 12 day air exercise going on between F-16s from Misawa AB and Indian Air Force fighter squadrons. India has held more joint exercises with America than can be easily counted. In the good old Soviet days, whatever the politicians may have said about the USSR, the Indian military, diplomatic, administrative, and intelligence services kept the Soviets away with a 10-meter pole. There is no way the Indians would ever have agreed to a joint exercise with the Soviets.8.      India has never been ally to anyone except the US in its near-60 years of freedom.9.      But mention Mr. Bush at a party, and the reactions from the Indians is so severe and so negative that the ceiling blows off and the walls collapse. Your editor has seen Indians within instants of apoplectic heart attacks when Mr. Bush’s name is mentioned, they get so wroth.10. MOTHERSHIP BELIEVED BEHIND SOMALIA COAST HIJACKINGS Authorities say a mothership is responsible for launching the motorboats that have been hijacking ships off Somalia.11.  Our readers will have heard about the Carnival Cruise lines subsidiary’s ship that fought off pirates and got away. The story given at the time is that the captain refused to capitulate even after being fired on with AK-47s and a rocket launcher; instead he tried to run down the boats and then used his 16-knot top speed to pull away to safety.12. Apparently all that did happen and all credit to the feisty captain. But apparently he had a secret weapon that is supposed to be widely deployed on merchant ships starting about two years ago. This is one of those sound generators that can be used with great precision to produce noise up to 160 decibels – if we remember our acoustics, 130 db is what you get standing right behind one of the old Boeing 747s on takeoff. Since the decibel scale is logarithmic, 160 db has to be close to the threshold of knocking out a human, and certainly the pain has to be considerable.13. Which reminded your editor of a weapon the Ozzies came up with in the early 1960s. It was sound based, and called the Wombat. It was supposedly discarded as being too inhumane. Please correct us if we have things mixed up.14. A REAL AMERICAN It’s so easy to get carried away by the negative when one lives in the Washington metro area. You editor has to remind himself 20 times a day that Washington is not American with an upper case N-O-T. Now comes a story that serves to remind who Americans really are.15. In Thailand last year, an 11-year old American girl was vacationing with her family on a beach. When the tide started acting peculiar, she knew exactly what was doing even if the locals had no clue: she had been studying tsunamis in school.16. She became so agitated her father took her word for it and ran to the hotel to warn people, while she shouted for the people on the beach to run for their lives. 17. So, no one knows how many lives she saved, but it must have been in the scores. A whole bunch of people owe their lives to this plucky youngster – and the American educational system.18. DANG, THEY’RE GETTING CLOSER TO UNMASKING YOUR EDITOR Pravda of Russia says Egyptians are descended from Martians. Any day now Pravda will reveal the truth about your editor. He is from Mars and arrived on earth for a mission so secret even he couldn’t be told what it was. He has been patiently waiting for the mother-ship to come get him back. The other day Mrs. Rikhye said: “obviously the mission thing was a ruse to get you off Mars, and obviously the mother ship is never coming back”. Harsh, even for a wife disgusted with one.0200 GMT November 11, 2005Today is another of those No-News days.1. FRENCH MEDIA SELF-CENSORED RIOT NEWS The head of a major French TV company said he had censored his organization’s reporting on the riots because he didn’t want right-wing politicians getting a boost. Apparently several other media companies took similar decisions.2. WE’RE NOT GOING TO COMMENT on this because no comment is needed, but it half explains a great mystery: Orbat.com, among many other bloggers, complained it could get no good reportage, it was almost as nothing was going on, instead of the most wide-spread civil unrest France has seen in its modern history – riots in 300 cities is not a trivial matter.3.      But half the mystery remains. What stopped non-French media from wading in there? BBC we know for a fact was downplaying the news because we visit BBC every day. What was the American media doing? Does anyone report anymore? 4.      Someone Who Should Know told your editor that in the US the media has essentially stopped reporting on government issues: the media relies on handouts, which can of course be given face-to-face, from various “sources”, and avoid doing its own investigation or asking tough questions.5.      The Someone Who Should Know, by the way, is a raving liberal, almost a left-winger, and he was savaging mainstream American media, which is definitely well to the left of the country.6.      It seems to us the media in America, at least, has become corrupt in more ways than we have space to discuss. Insofar as major media worldwide is owned by giant conglomerates, we don’t really see other media in other countries as being that different. 7. PAKISTANI ANTI-AMERICAN GROUPS DEMAND ONLY AMERICAN RELIEF GOODS says Jang of Pakistan. Various groups who have no other agenda than anti-Americanism are turned up at relief points and telling officials if they have American goods, and in some cases South Korean goods such as blankets, they’ll take the stuff, otherwise the relief agencies can keep the supplies.8.      So supplies sent by Pakistanis – and presumably India and other 3^rd world countries – are simply being dumped by the recipients.9.      Your editor did not contribute a thin dime for quake relief. If you did, we aren’t going to say we told you so, but now you know. Fool me once etc etc. This whole emergency relief business is a big scam, no matter where you’re sending your money. If you feel you must contribute, give your money to a known group that will provide medical care and help restore schools.10. Of course, if you contribute regularly to known charities or your organization has adopted a school in Honduras or wherever, that’s fine. We’re talking about these disaster scenes.11. LIBERIA HAS A NEW PRESIDENT – Madame President is the correct address form for her. She becomes the first woman to head an African country, and your editor has to confess to some bafflement. In South Asia we have women leaders all the time –Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have them right now – and no one thinks it’s a deal of any kind, big or little. If Sonia Gandhi had been Indian born, India would – again – have a woman as leader, making it 3 of the 4 major South Asian states. Sonia is an Indian citizen, but stood down for Prime Minister – a job she was entitled to as head of the party winning the last election – because opposition parties were making too much of a fuss and she did not want to create an unnecessary distraction.12. WHY BILL GATES SHOULD BE HANDED OVER TO TERRORIST ZARQAWI So for a whole year our Word 2000 was crashing about 30 times a day, and your editor’s computer has a 1.4 GHz Celeron chip and had 256 MB of memory, with Windows XP as the OS. So when the hard drive also crashed, hard, your editor took it as an omen that more memory was needed. He purchased 256 MB extra, for $49, more money than he thinks he should have to spend because Idiot Face cant make an OS that works. Incidentally, your editor uses his computer for nothing else other than word possessing and the net. There are no games and no fancy shmancy programs for digital stuff and the like,13.  So now the computer started crashing only 20 times a day, and it wasn’t just Word that was crashing it, but Frontpage and the internet browser as well.14.  Okay. When the hard drive went down again – and the tech said very definitely the problem was not the hard drive – your editor got an MS Office upgrade, to Office 2003, thinking maybe this would resolve the problem. So – as anyone who deals with Bill Gates can tell you, every version of office deliberately leaves out some combination of programs, to force you to buy them separately. Small Business Edition 2000 had neither PowerPoint – which your editor needs for college, or FrontPage, and he had to pay $100 extra for each program on top of the Small Business Edition.15.  Well, the Office 2003 he has doesn’t have Frontpage, so your editor whipped out his Frontpage 2003 that he had bought the year previous.16. Well what do you know? Frontpage 2003, crashed the system right after installation, the minute your editor attempted to open the news page in Frontpage. And crashed it so badly that he had return to an original, pre-install configuration.17. Now, of course, our Mac fans will be sitting there with superior smiles. Folks, if you have money to Mac, your editor envies you. Anything over $700 for a laptop, paid every 3 years, is well beyond your editor’s budget.18. Your editor’s youngest, the math/computer tech who wont spend a penny extra on clot