Target Centermass

Author: Gunner

  • China: Projecting the Power Projection

    Previously, I’ve blogged about a recent Pentagon report looking at the modernization program undertaken by the Chinese military, writing the following:

    This is important as, on the ground, China has the obvious numerical advantage. Their problem would be in projecting this power. The areas they are focusing upon (missiles, aircraft, subs) are crucial in their ability to threaten Taiwan and blunt our ability to support the Taiwanese defenses.

    Similarly, I’ve examined a proposed piece of Chinese anti-seccession legislation which China could use as a legal foundation for an assault on Tiawan. In that post, I concluded as follows:

    Though they are working to upgrade and enhance their forces, it is doubtful that China currently has the air and naval capabilities to attack and bring about a successful conclusion before the impact of U.S. assistance to Taiwan is felt. A failed assault by China could possibly serve to strengthen Taiwan’s position in international circles while weakening China’s at home.

    Again, just last night I again warned about a possible arm race looming with China as they seek to upgrade their ability to project their power.

    Call it just lucky timing, as today I found an extensive and detailed examination of the matter by McQ over at the QandO blog. McQ has done an excellent job of drawing on several sources to flesh out Chinese strategy, both in the immediate future and for decades.

    McQ starts from essentially the same baseline that I did.

    One of China’s problems, in that regard, has been its inability, militarily to attack Taiwan and then sustain its army. A) it doesn’t have the military transport (in shipping) to land and sustain an army on Taiwan and B) it doesn’t have the navy to protect those sealanes (i.e. the Taiwan straits) even if it did have the transport.

    China has the air transport to accomplish an airborne invasion, but airborne troops are very light fighters and would be overwhelmed fairly quickly. What China needs, obviously, is naval shipping which can land troops and armor for that type of an operation.

    After that, McQ’s research points towards a more dire near-future situation than I had previously estimated.

    I’m not trying to be an alarmist here, and certainly if the Chinese are only getting a few Zubars to check out, it would argue against an imminent invasion of Taiwan. But to me the signs are unmistakable.

    Another obvious part of any plan to invade Taiwan would be their navy, and the most important requirement for their navy is to be of the strength and capablity to hold the Taiwan Straits indefinitely in order for any invasion force to have a chance at success.

    Are the Peoples Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) preparing for that? According to reports, they may very well be doing exactly that with a two phase strategic plan.

    […]

    Personally, and this is my opinion, I think Taiwan’s days are numbered if China is successful in implementing the plan outlined here. It will be a few decades from now but it seems apparent that China has plans to take the island whether the US or the world care.

    There’s an eye-opening amount of information in McQ’s work — go give it a read.

  • Army Faces Recruiting Woes Amid Iraq War

    Times are tough for recruiters and the goals are getting tougher to meet. Sure, there’s that Iraq thing, but I also blame that silly “Army of One” campaign.

    The U.S. Army has fallen behind its recruiting goals, officials said on Thursday, amid the violence of an Iraq war that has now claimed more than 1,500 American lives.

    “The war is obviously having an effect,” said Army Recruiting Command spokesman Douglas Smith. “Our recruiters are having to spend more time with hesitation on the part of potential applicants and their families. People are very alert to the fact of the risks that go along with Army service.”

    The active-duty U.S. Army missed its recruiting target for February by 27.5 percent, and had slipped about 6 percent behind its year-to-date goal for fiscal 2005, which ends Sept. 30, the Army Recruiting Command said. That marked the first time since May 2000 the Army missed a monthly recruiting goal.

    “It is a matter of concern,” said chief Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita, adding the Army had increased enlistment bonuses and boosted by 20 percent its number of recruiters.

    The Army Reserve and Army National Guard, whose part-time soldiers have shouldered a heavy load in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, also are reporting recruiting shortfalls. The Army Reserve missed its goals in January and February and is behind its recruiting targets for the year.

    The Army National Guard, which missed its 2004 recruiting target, did not provide February numbers, but said it had shortfalls for the first four months of the current fiscal year through January.

    Separately, the Marine Corps said on Wednesday it missed its goals for recruits signing up in January and February. The Marines said they met last month’s target for new recruits actually entering boot camps.

    The article goes on to detail the recruiting numbers for the Army and its reserve components.

    The 500,000-strong Army has not missed an annual recruiting goal since 1999, and aims for 80,000 recruits in 2005. It fell 1,936 short of its February goal of 7,050, and through February was 1,823 short of its year-to-date goal of 29,185 recruits.

    The 210,000-strong Army Reserve has set a 2005 goal of 22,175 recruits. Through February, it was 643 behind its target of 6,230 after falling 330 short of its monthly goal of 1,320.

    The 345,000-strong Army National Guard fell about 7,000 short of last year’s recruiting goal of 56,000. It aims for 63,000 recruits this year. Through January, it was 4,014 behind its target of 16,835.

    Hmmmm…

  • Man Allegedly Tried to Sell Spy Names

    Another bad guy caught?

    A federal grand jury has indicted an Indiana man on charges he tried to sell names of U.S. intelligence operatives in Iraq to Saddam Hussein’s government before the U.S. invasion.

    Shaaban Hafiz Ahmad Ali Shaaban, 52, was charged with agreeing to act as a foreign agent for Iraq and with immigration violations, federal prosecutors said Thursday following Shaaban’s arrest.

    Shaaban traveled in late 2002 from Chicago to Baghdad, where he agreed to sell the names of U.S. intelligence agents to Saddam’s government for $3 million, said Susan Brooks, the U.S. attorney for southern Indiana. The Iraqi government paid for the trip, the indictment alleges.

    “The deal was never consummated,” Brooks said.

    Shaaban sought the names from foreign sources, but investigators believe he never obtained them, Brooks said. Investigators believe Shaaban acted alone.

    […]

    Brooks said she could not discuss what sparked the federal investigation of Shaaban, a resident of Greenfield, which is about 20 miles east of Indianapolis.

    The federal indictment unsealed Thursday also alleges Shaaban sought to broadcast pro-Iraqi propaganda in the United States and offered to pay Iraqis who agreed to act as “human shields” to protect infrastructure from coalition forces, Brooks said.

    Authorities believe that Shaaban is originally from Jordan and became a U.S. citizen illegally in 2000 when he used the alias Shaaban Hafed on his naturalization application. If convicted of that charge, he most likely will be deported, Brooks said.

    If Shaaban Hafiz Ahmad Ali Shaaban illegally became an American citizen under the name Shaaban Hafed and he’s found guilty of these acts, then I suggest we hang “Mr. Hafed” for treason and then deport Mr. Shaaban. In a box.

  • Looming on the Horizon

    China, begging to start another arms race.

    China will increase spending on its military by 12.6 percent this year to $29.9 billion, a government spokesman said Friday, adding to a series of recent annual double-digit rises.

    The announcement comes as Beijing expands its military to back up its frequent threats to attack self-ruled Taiwan, which the communist mainland claims as part of its territory.

    Jiang Enzhu, a spokesman for China’s parliament, disclosed the budget figure at a news conference on the eve of the opening of the legislature’s annual session. Jiang didn’t give any details of how the military intended to spend the money.

    China’s total military spending is believed to be as much as several times the announced figure.

    China has announced double-digit increases in military spending nearly every year for more than a decade as it modernizes the 2.5-million-member People’s Liberation Army, the world’s biggest fighting force.

    Beijing has spent billions of dollars on acquiring Russian-made fighter jets, submarines and other high-tech weapons.

    Note to self: at least they were on our side in Red Dawn.

  • AP Analysis: Iraq Conflict a Grim Experience

    Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.

    —Napoleon Bonaparte

    And Napoleon knew that without ever having to deal with the Associated Press, source to thousands of papers.

    Here are the words of AP writer Tom Raum as he looks at the situation in Iraq in about as negative light as possible. Granted, he managed to avoid terms like “quagmire” and “baby-killers” but he probably had to work hard at it in his defeatist reporting.

    The conflict in Iraq can be told in numbers and milestones, from the more than 1,500 troops who now have died to the number of weapons of mass destruction found — zero.

    Two American soldiers died in Baghdad of injuries from a roadside bomb and another was killed in Babil province south of Baghdad, the military said on Thursday. That brought to 1,502 the number of U.S. troops who have died since President Bush launched the invasion in March 2003, according to an AP count.

    There are other milestones, other important numbers, some reached, some soon to be, as the conflict in Iraq nears its third year.

    • Roughly 60,000 National Guard and Reserve troops are deployed in Iraq. As of Wednesday, 300 had died there since the war began.
    • May 1 will be the second anniversary of Bush’s “mission accomplished” aircraft carrier speech in which he announced an end to major combat operations.
    • The price tag is over $300 billion and climbing, including $81.9 more just requested from Congress. The money also covers operations in Afghanistan and the broader war on terror, but the bulk is for Iraq.

    Conspicuously missing from this list are the successes, such as the January elections (tucked into the piece later), the capture of Saddam and the bulk of his henchmen, the dominant offensive in Fallujah, itself practically unprecedented in urban warfare. I guess successful accomplishments cannot be considered milestones.

    When Lawrence Lindsey, then chairman of Bush’s National Economic Council, predicted in September 2002 that the cost of war with Iraq could range from $100 billion to $200 billion, the White House openly contradicted him and said the figure was far too high. He was eased out in a shake-up of Bush’s economic team.

    “Americans need to take note of these sorts of milestones because it’s a way to show respect for the sacrifices of troops and reassess strategy,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a foreign policy analyst with the Brookings Institution.

    “But I’m much more interested in trends,” he added, citing indications pointing to the relative strength of the insurgency and whether violence is declining or increasing.

    On that, the signs are mixed.

    The top U.S. general in the region said that about 3,500 insurgents took part in election day violence in Iraq on Jan. 30, citing estimates from field commanders. Army Gen. John P. Abizaid suggested the failure to prevent millions of Iraqis from voting showed the insurgency was losing potency.

    “They threw their whole force at us, we think, and yet they were unable to disrupt the elections because people wanted to vote,” Abizaid told the Senate Armed Services Committee this week.

    But his comments came just a day after one of the biggest attacks by insurgents since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s government in April 2003. A suicide car bombing in the town of Hillah killed at least 125 people, including dozens of recruits for Iraq’s security forces.

    From Jan. 1 until Iraq’s election day, 234 people were killed and 429 people were injured in at least 55 incidents, according to an AP count. Casualties rose in February, with 38 incidents resulting in at least 311 deaths and 433 injuries.

    Why point out that civilian casualties rose in February without pointing out that U.S. military casualties fell? Especially after focusing on those casualties? Why not point out that those same civilian casualties, while every one an individual tragedy, happened in the month after the terrorist bastards promised and failed to make the streets run with blood? Oh yeah, it’s all about the negative. My bad.

    Meanwhile, the United States is losing some partners in its “coalition of the willing.”

    Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko announced this week that Ukraine would withdraw its 1,650-strong military contingent by October. Poland is withdrawing about a third of its 2,400 troops. Last year, Spain’s new Socialist government withdrew its 1,300 troops.

    At the same time, Bush drew commitments during his visit to Europe last week from all 26 NATO countries for contributions to NATO’s training of Iraqi security forces — either inside or outside Iraq or in cash.

    Even harsh war critic France will send one officer to help mission coordination at NATO headquarters in Belgium and has separately offered to train 1,500 Iraqi military police in Qatar.

    Wow, thanks, France. You pervs.

    More than half of Americans remain convinced of the importance of keeping U.S. troops in Iraq until the situation has stabilized, though polls suggest widespread doubts about the handling of the war and Iraq’s prospects. An AP-Ipsos poll in February found that 42 percent approved of the president’s handling of Iraq, while 57 percent disapproved. A slight majority in recent AP-Ipsos polling expressed doubts that a stable Iraq can be established.

    How the hell could support not erode with this kind of reporting? Yell that the sky is falling often enough and people look up and question the clouds.

    Another milestone will come the day Iraq’s security forces are sufficiently trained and equipped to deal with the insurgency — and to permit the United States to begin leaving.

    There have been conflicting reports on this, too.

    The administration says there are 140,000 “trained and equipped” Iraqi military, security and police officers.

    But Anthony Cordesman, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, puts the number of Iraqi troops able to stand up to serious insurgent attack at fewer than 20,000.

    Why are the administration’s words slipped into question-implying quotes (without sourcing) but “military expert” “Anthony Cordesman” can state what is essentially an “opinion” and it is written as a fact?

    “Everything we do in Iraq will fail unless we develop a convincing plan to create Iraqi forces” able to defend their country without U.S. help, Cordesman said.

    Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said some administration documents suggest that there are no more than about 40,000 trained Iraq forces and that they are lightly equipped.

    “We’ve been given wildly different numbers of these security forces,” Levin complained to Abizaid.

    “Senator, the big question doesn’t really have to do with numbers; the question has to do with institution building,” Abizaid responded. “I remind you … that institution building takes a long time.”

    “I agree,” Levin said. “But we shouldn’t kid ourselves as to how long it does take.”

    No balance from a supportive senator? Of course not, as the piece only pretended at a hint of balance all along.

    I find it most telling that the AP felt obligated to justify Mr. Raum:

    EDITOR’S NOTE — Tom Raum has covered national and international affairs for The Associated Press since 1973.

    Tommy, you’re a sorry bastard. I bet you’ve chafed these many years, knowing how close you were to being able to write this defeatist crap after Tet.

  • Gadhafi Wants Libya, U.S. to Be Friends

    Dear ol’ Moammar Gadhafi — a nutjob dictator with the occasional good points, trying to position himself and Libya into a leadership role in the Arab world. Now he wants to buddy up to the U.S. Maybe. And denounce the UN. But work with it. Oh yeah, foreign terrorism is bad.

    Moammar Gadhafi said Wednesday he wants Libya and the United States to be friends, but the one-time international pariah slammed the United Nations Security Council for being controlled by a select group of countries.

    In a wide-ranging address to the annual meeting of Libya’s parliament-like General’s People Congress, Gadhafi also warned Libyans not to support foreign extremists and to stand strong in the face of terrorism.

    Gadhafi’s comments, moderate in the main but typically inflammatory in parts, come as Libya returns to the international fold following years of being regarded as a state sponsor of terror.

    “We don’t say love the Americans. We are talking policies, and (on that level) there is no problem or animosity” between both countries, Gadhafi, wearing a white robe, told hundreds of often-cheering Congress members during an address televised live and monitored in Egypt.

    Last year, the U.S. government lifted 23-year-old travel restrictions imposed on Libya, invited American companies to return to the oil-rich nation and encouraged Tripoli to open a diplomatic office in Washington. President Bush has also commended Libya’s progress in scrapping its nuclear weapons.

    Of the United States, Gadhafi said: “We are not enemies. We are not allies. We are not agents. We hope one day we will be friends.”

    Gadhafi, however, criticized the United Nations and the permanent five-member Security Council, repeating complaints he raised in a full-page advertisement that appeared in Wednesday’s Guardian newspaper in England.

    “They are suggesting to expand the Security Council. This is another attempt to fool the nations at the expense of international peace and security,” Gadhafi said during his speech in Sirte, a coastal city 260 miles east of Tripoli.

    Okay, so I can find common ground with him on the UN being little more than a pit of jackholes these days. I have to begrudgingly give him that point.

    Despite his criticism, Gadhafi said Libya has applied for a seat on an expanded Security Council, which he wants to rotate among African states.

    The United Nations had imposed sanctions against Libya, but the Security Council removed them last year after Tripoli accepted responsibility for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, and agreed to compensate families of the 270 victims.

    Gadhafi said his country must now take a lead role in combatting terrorism and warned Libyans that if their sons join extremists fighting U.S. forces in Iraq, they will eventually return home to kill their parents for being “infidels.”

    “A country that is weak in front of terrorism harms the international community,” he said, while suggesting Libyan security forces might be given extra powers.

    “The power that is responsible for security must be strong enough to make people feel safe,” he said without elaborating.

    Libya is known for its extensive security apparatus and highly active internal and external intelligence services, a system that neighboring Egypt helped install in the early 1970s. Most Libyan opposition members live abroad because of the country’s heavy handed security.

    Mix this buddy-buddy talk with this article where he espouses a desire for greater Libyan freedom and we start to see my case for the nutjob criteria.

    Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi urged his people on Wednesday to let “freedoms blossom” but made no mention of democratic goals like political parties that the United States wants to promote in the Middle East.

    […]

    “You have to let freedoms blossom. People must have the full freedom to chose useful and fruitful work, the full freedom to learn and carry out scientific search and the freedom of faith,” said Gaddafi, who came to power in a 1969 military coup, in a speech broadcast live on Libyan television.

    […]

    “Every one has the full economic freedom of what to do and where to invest. Every one has the freedom to establish social and economic enterprises of his liking and interest,” said Gaddafi, shunning mention of Western-style democracy.

    […]

    “The people power and the direct democracy in Libya came to give an alternative to the worsening political crisis in the world where everywhere outside Libya dictatorship rules,” he declared.

    Gaddafi said the people of the United States, Britain and Italy were living “under the yoke of dictatorships” and invited their politicians, scholars and intellectuals to visit Libya to learn how “the only genuine democracy works.”

    “It is an international duty of the Libyans to help resolve the world political crisis. I advise you to set aside the money to pay for accommodation and other expenses for people we invite to come from America, Britain and other countries to learn at Green Book university.”

    Ummmm … we need to chat about freedom, democracy, dictatorships and the different meanings those words apparently hold to you an me, Moammar-baby.

    Look, it’s obvious he’s decided to emerge from retreat after his spanking by Reagan, sensing a chance to again become a leading figure for the Arab world. Good luck with that, Moe — you’re at least better than some of the other cluelessness running around in that area.

    I do want one bold statement from the guy: how do we spell his name in English … consistently and correctly? These two articles had two variations, and here’s several more.

  • Recruits, Insurgents in Faceoff

    The lines are drawn in Iraq. On one side, those who want to force their society back to an oppressed time or a medievel, radical Islamist society. On the other, those who want to be prosperous, who want their country to thrive and be free, and who want their country to move forward.

    The insurgent campaign against Iraqi security forces claimed 14 more lives in two bombings Wednesday in what has become a battle of wills between recruits lining up to defend their country and attackers who oppose the country’s democratic direction.

    Better security in Baghdad helped keep the death toll down compared with Monday’s attack in which, according to the top U.S. commander, a terrorist in Hillah exploited weak security in driving a bomb-laden car into a crowd of police and military recruits, killing 125.

    “It was well scouted,” Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, told members of Congress in Washington on Wednesday about the Hillah attack. The recruiting center there “showed itself to be vulnerable,” and so insurgents struck, Abizaid said.

    Iraqis continue to line up for jobs in the army and police despite repeated attacks and threats of more. Iraq’s leading fugitive, terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, purportedly claimed responsibility for the Hillah attack and at least one of the Baghdad bombings in an Internet declaration.

    “This explosion will never make me leave my job as a policeman, and I will continue,” Ali Ghanim Mijbass, 25, said from his hospital bed in Hillah, where he was wounded in Monday’s attack.

    Army and police recruits say they are attracted by pay, patriotism and the professional challenge. Entry-level police and soldiers generally get more than $200 a month, a high salary by Iraqi standards.

    “I have no regret. I wanted and I still want to be a policeman,” said Ahmed Adil Ridha, 19. He is recovering from eye and arm wounds in the Hillah attack.

    A country reborn, Iraq is in need of heroes of its own. I suggest that they already have them and just need to start taking pride in men like Ali Ghanim Mijbass, Ahmed Adil Ridha, and hundreds upon hundreds of others like them. Inspiration is there to be found.

  • Now That’s Entertainment!

    Freakin’ hilarious reality TV, Iraqi-style, courtesy of Jeff at Beautiful Atrocities.

  • Canada Expels Holocaust Denier

    I’m all for free speech and against supposed “hate speech” laws, having faith in the market of ideas. That said, I see plenty in this nutcase to take in joy the action taken but still cannot yet call it justice.

    A white supremacist from Germany who denies the Holocaust ever took place has been expelled from Canada after a two-year legal battle.

    Ernst Zundel, 65, arrived in Germany on Tuesday and was immediately taken into custody by German authorities.

    Germany was able to seek his extradition on the grounds that he was running a web site denying the existence of the Holocaust.

    Zundel once described Adolf Hitler as a “decent and very peaceful man”.

    Last week, a Federal Court judge ruled the his anti-Semitic and hatred-inciting activities were “not only a threat to Canada’s national security, but also a threat to the international community of nations”.

    I have to question whether Zundel was really a threat to the community of nations or just an idiot a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic.

    It took Canadian authorities two years to establish whether Zundel, who authored a book called “The Hitler we loved and why”, posed a security threat.

    During that time, he was being held in near-solitary confinement.

    Denying the Holocaust is a crime in Germany, where Zundel’s theories could be easily accessed and read through the Internet.

    This enabled authorities there to open a case against him.

    Zundel, who was born in Germany, moved to Canada in the late 1950s.

    In 1988 he was convicted of “knowingly publishing false news” after issuing a leaflet carrying the title “Did six million really die?”.

    But in 1992, the Supreme Court struck down the “false news” law on the grounds that it violated freedom of expression.

    Zundel, who never managed to obtain Canadian citizenship, moved to the US in 2001 but was later deported back to Canada for allegedly violating immigration laws.

    A group that led a campaign to have him extradited, B’nai Brith Canada, welcomed last week’s verdict.

    “For decades, Zundel has spewed his venom and imbued his brand of hate in a new generation of white supremacist groups that had made him a hero,” the association’s vice president, Frank Dimant, said in a statement.

    Zundel is now expected to be kept in custody while a German judge reviews his case.

    Canada has every right to thrust this burden back upon Germany, as Zundel has no Canadian citizenship. While one could question Germany’s laws regarding denying the Holocaust, one certainly has to question their jurisdiction on internet postings from international sources. I’ll try to look more into this case tomorrow to resolve my qualms, but for now I’ll say pragmatically that Canada did well in getting rid of some trash.

  • Rumsfeld Hit with Torture Lawsuits

    Add this to the long list of lawsuits deservedly going nowhere fast.

    Human rights groups filed a lawsuit against the United States Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, yesterday on behalf of eight men allegedly tortured by US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Anthony Romero, of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) , said Mr Rumsfeld bears “direct responsibility” because he “personally signed off” on policies guiding prisoner treatment.

    It is the latest in a number of lawsuits resulting from the abuse scandal at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison.

    The ACLU said yesterday’s suit alleged the eight men suffered physical and psychological injuries while incarcerated in US detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    It alleges that they were subjected to torture, including severe and repeated beatings, cutting with knives, sexual humiliation and assault, mock executions, death threats, and restraint in contorted and excruciating positions.

    Beyond the obvious difficulty of linking Rummy to the rogue behaviour of the detainee abuse cases, just exactly how the Abu Ghraib story is related to American civil liberties is absolutely lost on me.