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Commencement Remarks by Secretary of the Army Pete Geren

US Military Academy, West Point

31 May 2008

Excerpt

Mark Twain told us that history does not repeat itself, but that it does rhyme...

Now, no graduation speech would be complete if I did not attempt to leave a few lessons behind. You enter our Army at a dynamic period in the history of our service-in the history of warfare--policy, doctrine, training and equipping are adapting rapidly to a constantly changing threat--an environment where our Soldiers must hold and build, as well as they clear. You have learned how to "eat soup with a knife" and other important lessons about leadership in your 21st Century Army.

For the lessons I want to leave with you, I will borrow heavily from a man who has spoken here before, as I could not improve on his prose and I share his vision for your service. He summed up succinctly a day in the life of an American Soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan today. He told your predecessors:

• They will "involve the command of more traditional forces, but in less traditional roles ... risking their lives, not as combatants, but as instructors or advisors."

• "This is another type of war, ... -- war by guerillas, subversives, insurgents, assassins. War by ambush instead of by combat ... seeking victory by eroding and exhausting us instead of engaging us."

• "The non-military problems which you will face will be most demanding: diplomatic, political and economic."

• "You will serve as advisors to ... foreign governments."

• "You will need to ... understand the foreign policy of the United States and the foreign policy of countries ... that 20 years ago were the most distant names to us."

• "You will need to give orders in different tongues;"

• "You will be involved in economic judgments which most economists would hesitate to make."

• "You will need to understand the importance of military power and also the limits of military power..."

Perhaps most importantly, he told your predecessors:

And, in closing he said:

History does rhyme. These words were spoken 46 years ago by President Kennedy, standing here, speaking to the graduating Class of 1962."

-----

President John. F. Kennedy - Remarks at West Point to the Graduating Class of the U.S. Military Academy, 6 June 1962 (Video)

Secretary of the Army Pete Geren - Biography

Hat Tip to Mr. Michael Brady for alerting SWJ to Secretary Geren's speech.

... but should concern us now more than ever. The "why" was provided yesterday by Thomas Christensen and James Swan in their statement before the Subcommittee on African Affairs of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Christensen is Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and Swan is Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs - two who should be in the know about such matters. The transcript of their statement can be found here...

Charlie Rose Show - A conversation with Colonel H.R. McMaster about Iraq - 30 May 2008.

Major General Kevin Bergner, MNF-Iraq Spokesman, and Major General Qassim Atta, Military Spokesman for Operation Fardh al Qanoon, speak with reporters in Baghdad, 4 June 2008.

Brigadier General John Campbell, Deputy Director for Regional Operations, Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaks with reporters at the Pentagon, providing an operational update, 4 June 2008.

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The core vision of the site, outlined on the About page, remains the same. We haven't fired the Editor-in-Chief or Publisher, yet. Other developments to follow.

- Dave & Bill

Parts 4, 5 and 6 of 6.

Part 1.

Parts 2 and 3.

Part # 4: Proofs of The al Qaeda Apostasy

And as proof positive that the terrorists do truly deserve such harsh condemnations, here is a partial "Bill of Particulars" of their many transgressions and willful violations of Qur'anic prohibitions of which the AQ radicals are enormously guilty -- as is further explained in Is it Holy "Jihad" of Unholy "Irhabi Murderdom"???

• Decapitating the live and desecrating the dead bodies of perceived enemies

• Committing and enticing others to commit suicide for reasons of intimidation

• Fomenting hatred among communities, nations, religions and civilizations

• Ruthless warring against nations in which Islam is freely practiced

• Issuing and inspiring unauthorized and un-Islamic fatwas (religious edicts)

• Using some mosques as weapons depots and battle stations, while destroying others

• Forcing extremist and absolutist versions (and perversions) of Islam on Muslims, when the Qur'an clearly says that there shall be "no compulsion in religion"

• Distorting the word "infidels" to include all Christians, all Jews and many Muslims, as well - when the Qur'an calls them all "Children of the Book" (the Old Testament) and "Sons of Abraham," and calls Jesus one of Islam's five main Prophets

• Deliberate misreading, ignoring and perverting of passages of the Qur'an, the Hadith and the Islamic Jurisprudence (the Fiqh)

• Ruthless recruiting of very young and easy-to-brainwash children into lives of hatred, revenge and suicide mass murder, long before they have reached the age of reaso

• Heartless use and abuse of mentally handicapped women, some of them carrying infant children for disguise, in acts of suicide bombing of fellow Muslims

Both the number and the gravity of these acts of disobedience and disrespect for the "peaceful, compassionate, merciful, beneficent and just" Allah who is so described by the Qur'an clearly identify the hyena-like perpetrators not as the Godly "mujahideen" and the "shahideen" (the holy warriors and the martyrs) they claim to be but as the "mufsiduun" and the "munafiquun" (the evildoers and hypocrites) they really are...

Commander Glover, Subsector Lead for Security and Justice, USACE GRD; Phillip Lynch, State Dept Rule of Law Coordinator and Wilson Myers, Rule of Law Attorney, Baghdad PRT, speak with reporters.

Major General Jeffery Hammond, Commanding General of Multi-National Division-Baghdad and 4th Infantry Division, speaks with reporters at the Pentagon, about ongoing security operations, 2 June 2008.

Major General Douglas Stone, Commander of Task Force 134 Detention Operations, speaking with reporters in Baghdad, 1 June 2008

Hardcover: 688 pages

Publisher: Harper (April 8, 2008)

War and Decision, an analytical description of a dysfunctional National Security Council and disloyal senior officials, will be studied for years by journalists, historians and aspiring political appointees. Half of the book is a convincing refutation of unfair allegations about the author. The other half presents a balanced analysis of policy debates about Iraq inside the administration between mid-2001 and mid-2004. While the length of War and Decision may deter the casual reader, its hefty substance gives credence to three themes.

First, poisonous leaks by senior CIA and State officials corroded trust inside the administration and damaged its public image. Feith cites leak after leak aimed at undercutting him personally, the Defense Department in general and the neoconservative political philosophy. The Bush administration was systematically undercut and trashed by its own senior officials. President Bush, who bragged he did not read newspapers, and his NSC adviser, Condoleeza Rice, tolerated disloyalty and paid the price in plummeting public approval and increasing political opposition.

Feith marshals evidence in great detail that rebuts previous allegations about his supposedly secret intelligence operation to undercut the CIA, the Pentagon's insistence on placing Chalabi in charge of Iraq or resisting a State Department plan for reconstruction. Unfortunately, his effort is probably to little avail. Facts rarely change ideological attitudes. The leakers effectively appealed to the liberal instincts of many journalists to shape narratives around presumptive political philosophies. Once Feith, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld were branded with the scarlet word 'neocon', then the substance of their positions - and the credibility of the leaks degrading them - became secondary.

In hundreds of pages, Feith lays out the case that CIA and State officials, disagreeing with Bush's policies, leaked false stories impugning so-called neocons in order to enlist the press. Journalists who pride themselves on healthy skepticism should read this book to understand how they can be played. As for the disloyal officials, Feith argues they should have resigned honorably. Small chance of that, when you can put the knife into someone's back.

Potential political appointees should read the book and ask themselves how they would react. Feith depicts Rumsfeld as a crafty, anti-ideological manager and intellectual counter-puncher with "Boy Scout" principles of honor that included not leaking to the press. Loyally obeying his boss, Feith didn't fight back the way his mentor, Richard Perle, had fought in the '80s. "I now see more clearly," Feith wrote, "the intense animus behind the systematic leaking and "backgrounding" that undermined President Bush and others who supported him. Our failure - as targets - to heed the attack, to protest it, and to fight back, was a form of unilateral disarmament that did not serve the interests of the President, the country, or truth."

The second theme that emerges from the book is that of a dysfunctional NSC system. According to Feith, "Rice worked to spare the President having to decide between clear-cut, mutually exclusive options." Before the war, Bush had approved a pre-war plan to place an Iraqi interim government in charge once Saddam was removed. When Baghdad fell, though, State and CIA feared Chalabi would gain power and proposed a multiyear transition. When Bremer left for Baghdad, the Pentagon believed the president had ordered a quick handover to Iraqis; Bremer believed he was to remain in charge indefinitely. "Among Garner, Khalilzad, Bremer, Powell, Rumsfeld, and Rice," Feith wrote, "there was not a common, clear understanding of what the President wanted done."

In chapter after chapter, the book describes an administration where the principals excelled at identifying the defects in any plan and were spared the discipline of having to agree to one course of action and see it through. General Tommy Franks denied that his Central Command and the 170,000 soldiers had any role in Iraq's reconstruction. Rumsfeld warned that "Yankee can-do" initiative deprived other countries of incentives to pull their own weight. Powell urged a "go slow" approach in Iraq. Bremer reported to Bush, Powell and Rumsfeld, and spoke to Rice almost daily. This meant, Feith wrote, that Bremer "effectively had no boss. This was not how the interagency process was supposed to work."

The third - and perhaps accidental - theme of the book is the contradiction it draws between the NSC deliberations and the war that was raging. President Bush appears decisive in his own mind, and an enigma to all around him. In Feith's book, the NSC principals treat the tribal, sectarian, religious and extremist currents roiling Iraq as intellectual concepts that could be resolved by wise senior officials armed with video teleconferencing machines.

Feith did make a two-day visit to Iraq. "In August of 2003 I traveled to Iraq for the first time," Feith writes. "It is valuable for any top policy official to visit the theater of operations. One can never be reminded often enough that national security policy is ultimately about human beings."

The human beings who were killing American soldiers had motivations that eluded the policymakers and couldn't be grasped by short visits. Feith writes that before the war he never saw a CIA assessment warning that the Baathists would organize an insurgency, let alone ally with foreign jihadists. The NSC principals didn't see the train coming that ran over them. Feith points out that on the one hand he wasn't sure what the president's policy goals were, while on the other Rumsfeld excluded the Pentagon policy shop from operational discussions with the military.

Policy, however uninformed, is supposed to direct the selection of a war-making strategy.

That didn't happen during the Iraq war. An insurgency grows from the bottom up, reflecting Tolstoy's view that the collective, inchoate will of the people shapes the course of a nation's history and is indifferent to discussions in the king's palaces. Washington existed inside its own bubble, showing no humility in the face of a fiendishly complex war. The interagency process in Washington concocted and debated policy theories, explained at length by Feith, that were disconnected from decisions, sensible or otherwise, about military strategy.

These high-level policy discussions didn't influence insurgent actions. In April of 2004, having ordered the Marines, against their better judgment, to seize Fallujah, a fractious city of 300,000, President Bush then stopped the assault mid-way to permit a 24-hour negotiation. Feith describes how at the NSC level, the battle for Fallujah was discussed in the context of political theories - how to placate the Sunnis, how to handle Sadr, etc. At the time, I was with a Marine commander whose battalion had gained momentum by breaking through a heavily-defended city block, only to be halted by the ceasefire. The battalion held onto that block, beating off attacks for 14 more days, while Feith describes the NSC deliberating political theory before calling off the attack altogether.

The NSC became too wrapped up in itself, forgetting that battle is determined by the spirit of those doing the fighting, and that the first duty of leaders is to take care of their men. One pores over Feith's book - so meticulous in describing a dysfunctional NSC - looking for the decisions that made a difference in the war. Feith was too much the gentleman to entitle his book, War and Indecision. But aside from handing over the keys to the kingdom to Bremer, it is hard to identify any NSC decision through mid-2004 that affected events on the ground. Feith describes interminable debates inside the NSC about Iraqi attitudes toward sovereignty and the role of expatriates.

"But none of these judgments," he concludes, "had any reality outside the subjective thoughts of the officials who asserted them."

That, unfortunately, is a fitting epitaph for the NSC during the early years of the war in Iraq.

Bing West's third book on Iraq - The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics and the End Game in Iraq - will be published by Random House in August.

Hardcover: 288 pages

Publisher: Random House (June 3, 2008)

Book Review by Jon A. Custis

The Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), with its intermittent hiring freezes and exhaustive screening process, is a fairly well-known government security apparatus. With Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent, author Fred Burton pulls back the curtain on the formative years of the DSS's Counterterrorism (CT) Division, an element that began with three agents working in the bowels of the Harry S. Truman Building, behind a secure door and in the midst of the "dead bodies" files. In the process, Burton details his personal involvement in investigations into terrorist acts that occurred as far back as the Beirut Embassy and Marine Barracks bombings of 1983.

This memoir is all at once hard-hitting, well-researched, and an easy read. Organized into thirty-six chapters, with thoughtfully-placed transitions between each, Ghost becomes ones of those books that is easy to put down and return to in a few days. The book's appeal stemmed from the insight it provided on a multitude of state-sponsored and independent terrorist incidents, along with Burton's efforts to glean lessons in prevention. In today's counter-IED terminology, Burton could be considered to have been working towards "getting to the left of boom," as his team sought to determine the vulnerabilities that the Department of State faced abroad and at home. Burton also does an admirable job of delineating the division of labor between the various three-letter agencies that work against terrorism in the "Dark World." He sums it up well by stating: "In many ways, we're America's Dark World redheaded stepchild. We maneuver in the cracks and crevices between the other agencies. It is a tough place to operate." This may be news to the casual reader who previously assumed that the Central Intelligence Agency was the dominant actor in defeating terrorism abroad, and thus those chapters contribute to the book's readability.

The CT Division's efforts took Burton to Germany for debriefings of Hezbollah captives snatched from the streets of Beirut, to Pakistan as he helped investigate the crash of the Presidential C-130 that killed President Zia-ul-Haq, Ambassador Raphael, and Brigadier General Wassom, (U.S. Army) in 1988, and to Cyprus as he probed the causes of Pan Am Flight 103's break-up over Lockerbie, Scotland. It was illuminating to see how the defensive efforts of the DSS intersected with terrorist acts that captured headlines throughout the eighties and nineties.

The book should not be subtitled as a confessional, since it is not a story of misdeeds, secrets, and recurring lies. Rather, it recounts aggressive actions taken to protect our nation's diplomats -- actions in a campaign that almost cost Burton his marriage and family. Fred Burton left DSS to serve as the vice president for Strategic Forecasting (STRATFOR), and seems to attempt to offer the truth and provide justice for the families of victims who were taken by terrorism's hand. The writing can be a bit clichéd in the early chapters, but picks up its pace and matures along the way. There is nothing earth-shattering about Ghost, but it is good material presented well, and an eye-opener in a few areas: 4 out of 5 stars. It is a good read from a security professional who has been on the front lines of the good fight. It will make for excellent pleasure reading for the aspiring Homeland Security, intelligence, or protective security professional.

Major Jon Custis is Small Wars Council member jcustis and a Marine infantry officer.

Because every service and every component, and every branch contributes to those operations. COIN is the same way. I think this is counter-intuitive but if we want COIN to be equal to Major Combat Operations then we should NOT have a single proponent because once we do that we allow abdication of responsibility for it to studied and practiced by all the organizations that are not the proponent...

Parts 2 and 3 of 6 parts.

Part 1.

Part # 2: George Orwell to the Rescue?

Turning to the New York Post's editorial, which sees no problem whatever in the current lexicon, both its eye-catching title and its message throughout argue that the legendary George Orwell -- author of "Newspeak" fame in his great works "1984" and "Animal Farm" -- would disapprove of these NCTC and DHS recommendations and would opt for retaining these two controversial "holy war by holy guys" labels forever more.

With all due respect, I emphatically disagree. As the 20th Century's supreme authority on the manipulation and cynical distortion of language and labels, Orwell would have wanted these two words (and others like them) of asserted "holiness" and "martyrdom" on the part of al Qaeda, Hizballah, Hamas and their hater-mongers and suicide mass murderers to be rejected outright as the worst sort of "Newspeak" disinformation.

He would have strongly favored such sharply negative and condemnatory Arabic and Islamic terms as "Irhab" (Terrorism), "Hirabah" (unholy war, war against society, crimes against humanity), "mufsiduun" (evildoers, sinners, corrupters) and "shaitani" (satanic) -- along with several more of these demeaning and demonizing labels recommended below.

Those commentators who allege that these new sharp-edged labels would somehow "soften the Lexicon" and "blind us to the real nature of the enemy" would do well to reconsider their (unintentionally) pro-al Qaeda conclusions in that regard. After all, the Terrorists WANT to be known by the halo-polishing language of "Jihadi Martyrdom" and never, ever by the harsh and condemnatory language of Irhabi Murderdom (Terroristic Genocide)...

The linked Rand paper is worth the read. Great doctrinal historical run down.

I have to take slight exception to the wording of this paragraph (page 28) below. It is not that we (in Army Special Forces) consider Foreign Internal Defense (FID) to be a core mission, it is by law a core Special Operations Force (SOF) mission but by doctrine all services are required to provide forces trained and ready to conduct FID. It is not an exclusive mission to any one service or force.

And I would also a caveat to the above. Just as Special Forces and the Marine Corps are not expected to win high-intensity conflicts alone, Special Forces an/ or the Marine Corps, and General Purpose Forces in general do not "win" FID or COIN alone. It takes an integrated whole of government effort not to win the FID/COIN fight but to support friends, partners, and allies in their fight against an insurgency (or lawlessness, or terrorism or ungoverned spaces and sanctuaries, whatever internal or transnational threat exists the country or region). But again, I hate to beat a dead horse, one of the fundamental problems I think we have with FID/COIN is that we approach it from the perspective of the US winning the FID/COIN fight. While our past doctrine has alluded to it and you can read it in the attached paper when it discusses the paramount requirement for the local government to win (or win back) the support of the population, we tend to pay lip service to that fact and a consistent theme in all our operations in post WWII has been about the US winning in FID/COIN. For example we place great emphasis about "living with the people." While I absolutely believe that is critically important (see CIDG, CAP, and CORDS discussions in the paper on pages 14-15) , it is not so much about us (as in big US) living with the indigenous people - it should be us living with the indigenous security forces - but with us in the background advising those indigenous security forces to live among their people. We have to get out of the mindset that we have to be the victors in Iraq and Afghanistan. We can only be the external support to help the Iraqi and Afghan people be the victors by helping those governments and their security forces to be successful. In the long run, it is counterproductive to try to win these fights ourselves, because we cannot. The only COIN fight we can win is one directed against the United States.

And one last editorial comment. We have to get over the "we-they" in our own military and our own government. What we have learned in the era of jointness is that no one service or one capability (e.g., SOF vs GPF) can be successful in any campaign. It takes the proper application of the right joint capabilities and resources to be successful. And the we-they problem is not just within the military -- we have a "we-they" problem within our whole of government particularly as evidenced when we say "the military and the interagency." We seem to forget that DOD is part of the interagency when we tend to talk like it is something separate. We need to get over our parochialism and get on with accomplishing the mission and getting the job done as a joint and interagency team.

- Schmedlap

- SWC Thread Saving their Souls in Fallujah?

Lieutenant General James Dubik, Commanding General, Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq; and Major General Kevin Bergner, Multi-National Force-Iraq spokesman provide an operational update, 28 May 2008.

Admiral Timothy Keating, Commander of US Pacific Command, speaks with reporters at the Pentagon, providing an update on recent relief operations to Burma and China, 28 May 2008.

In recent days, many "war of words" op-ed essays and newspaper editorials have been linked to by Small Wars Journal -- and appropriately so, for the issues they raise must surely be resolved in a far more adequate way than is now the case.

Most of these postings have been written by well-intentioned but, I think, mistaken authors who are angrily objecting to recent advisories -- not mandates but preliminary advisories -- by the National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that we begin avoiding the very familiar "Jihad" (Holy War) and "mujahideen" (holy warriors) labels in the ongoing War on al Qaeda-style Terrorism.

For my own part, when I first saw these two documents long before they became public, I gave one of them a C- and the other a C+ at best -- but for reasons entirely different from those of the critics who are now attacking them in their entirety. At this point, I agree with only about half of their dozen or more specific recommendations of words to use and not to use.

Unfortunately, both of these advisories are insufficient to the situation and are, therefore, vulnerable to charges that they let both the terrorists and the despotic perversions of Islam which sponsor them "off the hook" -- and leave us with an unclear idea of exactly who and how very dangerous the "Jihadi" (but no longer to be called that) enemy really is.

This essay will attempt to describe the truth-in-language path which the NCTC, DHS, Department of State, Department of Defense and National Security Council experts should now follow in correctly and adequately defining what I have long called "The al Qaeda Apostasy" -- and doing so in several of the Islamic religious words they say should be avoided. In other words, I am a critic, too -- but in a largely constructive and supportive way rather than an angry and confrontational one.

Rather than trying to deal with each of these commentaries individually, I have selected a representative one -- a May 1, 2008 New York Post editorial, entitled "Jihad Newspeak" -- and will attempt to respond not only to its rationale and particulars but also to many of the individual columnists' worries, objections and understandable confusion...

HEADQUARTERS GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC

General Orders No.11, WASHINGTON, D.C., May 5, 1868

I. The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.

We are organized, comrades, as our regulations tell us, for the purpose among other things, "of preserving and strengthening those kind and fraternal feelings which have bound together the soldiers, sailors, and marines who united to suppress the late rebellion." What can aid more to assure this result than cherishing tenderly the memory of our heroic dead, who made their breasts a barricade between our country and its foes? Their soldier lives were the reveille of freedom to a race in chains, and their deaths the tattoo of rebellious tyranny in arms. We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the nation can add to their adornment and security is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders. Let no wanton foot tread rudely on such hallowed grounds. Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.

If our eyes grow dull, other hands slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain to us.

Let us, then, at the time appointed gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with the choicest flowers of spring-time; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved from dishonor; let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us a sacred charge upon a nation's gratitude, the soldier's and sailor's widow and orphan.

II. It is the purpose of the Commander-in-Chief to inaugurate this observance with the hope that it will be kept up from year to year, while a survivor of the war remains to honor the memory of his departed comrades. He earnestly desires the public press to lend its friendly aid in bringing to the notice of comrades in all parts of the country in time for simultaneous compliance therewith.

III. Department commanders will use efforts to make this order effective.

By order of

JOHN A. LOGAN,

Commander-in-Chief

N.P. CHIPMAN,

Adjutant General

Official:

WM. T. COLLINS, A.A.G.

Memorial Day 2008

Bush Pays Tribute to Troops on Memorial Day - Associated Press

Bush Urges Americans to Honor Holiday's Meaning - John Kruzel, AFPS

This Memorial Day - Washington Times

Honoring life on Memorial Day - Mike Mullen, Washington Times

Fallen But Never Forgotten - Blackfive, Blackfive

Reflections by Frontier 6 - Frontier 6, CAC Blog

Promises to Keep - COB6, Blackfive

Reflections by Frontier 6 - Jack, DoD Live

Memorial Day 2008 - CJ, A Solider's Perspective

Missing - Jules Crittenden, Forward Movement

The 173rd Airborne in Vietnam - Blackfive, Blackfive

Thank You From Those Left Behind - Blackfive, Blackfive

Roundtables: Memorial Day Edition - Grim, Blackfive

Memorial Day: Remembering the Fallen - Laughing Wolf, Blackfive

Memorial Day and Dog Tags - Phillip Carter, Intel Dump

Mullen Cites Importance of Remembrance in Memorial Day Message - AFPS

To Live with Honor - Joseph Morrison, National Review

Saluting Those Who Serve - Ed Feulne, Washington Times

Memorial Day - Baltimore Sun

The Dead We Honor - New York Post

The Fallen Live On - Boston Globe

Memorial Day 2008 - Austin Bay, Washington Times

How We Can Really Honor Our Veterans - Joe Galloway, McClachy News Service

Forgotten Heroes - Ed Sherwood, Washington Times

Mystic Chords of Memory - Mackubin Thomas Owens, National Review

The Gates of Heaven - Blackfive, Blackfive

A Weekend to Remember Them - Joseph Rehyansky, Human Events

Returning Meaning to Memorial Day - Bret Schulte, US News & World Report

Burial at Arlington - Douglas Stone, Human Events

Let Us Remember Them - Colbert King, Washington Post

Protesting the Antiwar Protestors - Kevin Ferris, Wall Street Journal

The Last Doughboy - George Will, New York Post

On Memorial Day - Los Angeles Times

His Family Chose to Serve - Mac Thornberry, Washington Times

Ross McGinnis: Medal of Honor - Chuck Simmins, America's North Shore Journal

Where They've Been, What They've Done - Cannoneer No. 4, CIIDG

Memorial Day - Herschel Smith, The Captain's Journal

Memorial Day - Eagle1, EagleSpeak

Memorial Day - Maj Pain, One Marine's View

Why Didn't We Listen to Their War Stories? - Edward Lengel, Washington Post

Washington Set to be 'Thunder'-Struck - Jennifer Harper, Washington Times

Memorial Day Book Suggestion - COB6, Blackfive

Funeral Duty - William Troy, Washington Post

Remember to Remember - William Kristol, New York Times

Arlington Burial: Fanfare, Precision - Karen Goldberg Goff, Washington Times

Five Best Works of War Poetry - Wall Street Journal

Vietnam Wall: Personal, Searchable - Washington Times

Memorial Day 2008

Band of Brothers

First up -- setting it straight -- defining vs. ignoring the problem.

In other words, let's not fix the problem. Let's give up.

And second up, the solution.

Read the rest here.

Charlie Rose Show - Guest host George Packer talks to General Anthony Zinni about Zinni's book The Battle For Peace: A Frontline Vision of America's Power and Purpose which calls for an end to unilateral action and an effort on the part of the U.S. to work towards world-wide stability and development.

Where would one find the U.S.'s greatest weapon? Try traveling to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the home of the Army's War College.

You will enjoy the trip. The College's stunningly beautiful campus hosts historic buildings that reflect the service's proud warfighting history in a dignified yet refreshingly unapologetic manner. Just being there makes you stand straighter and -- importantly -- think clearer about serious subjects.

Clear thinking about serious subjects is what marked the Army's XIX Strategy Conference convened there in early April. The premier convocation of its type, the meeting displayed an often misunderstood aspect of how the U.S. military improves itself: by welcoming critiques from the widest variety of sources, and encouraging opposing ideas to collide with great force.

The ability to think, learn, and adapt is what makes America's military the finest in the world. Though it does not use these words, the Army exploits conferences like that at Carlisle to, in effect, tap into a concept from the Nation's powerful engine of change, its free enterprise system.

Free enterprise triumphs as an economic system because it respects and empowers competition. Competition breeds efficiency and innovation. Unfortunately, the competitiveness outsiders may see in military debates can be misread as mere parochial squabbling. Sometimes that's true, but more often the rivalry reflects honestly-held but differing beliefs as to how to use the military instrument most effectively in today's very complex environments.

The good news is that those differences can make the U.S. military a devilishly difficult problem for our adversaries. Increasingly Iraqi insurgents are finding themselves watched and targeted by the Air Force's unmanned drones linked to high-flying bombers. The satellite-guided weapon that lands precisely in their lair could come from aircraft they never saw or heard.

There is really no escape. Just when the insurgents think they've somehow outsmarted the Air Force's high-tech surveillance capabilities, a young Army captain could show up on their doorstep with a platoon of no-nonsense U.S. and Iraqi troops. How? Today's captains carefully cultivate information sources among the locals as the Army's new counterinsurgency manual teaches them to do. Schooled in the manual, such captains deliver offers the insurgents can't refuse: be captured or be killed.

These are exactly the kinds of dilemmas the U.S. military loves to impose upon our enemies.

To get to the point where differing approaches are meshed to produce battlefield success requires passing through a crucible where white hot exchanges of ideas are forged into joint and interdependent "steel". The process is not always "pretty", and certainly not for the timid, but is one that -- regardless -- works.

The Army's conference is central to this eminently "American" way of strategizing for war. Panels convened to wrestle with such questions as how can the interagency process work more effectively? What is the right balance of military forces? What is the role of civilian specialists? How can the armed forces optimize themselves for the future?

Moreover, the attendees, who represented a myriad of organizations in and out of government, showed no hesitation in challenging panelists with the toughest questions.

If you were hoping that at the end everyone stood and sang "Kumbaya" you will be disappointed. Disagreements still exist -- and may (should?) always exist -- but views do evolve. Military professionals know that being challenged intellectually forces them to re-examine their thinking. In some instances it will simply make views even firmer; in other instances, fresh information produces new insights. Both results are valued.

The finest military leaders want, indeed, demand, that differing ideas be ruthlessly explored. They expect and encourage vigorous debates. Can that process go awry? Sure. When it devolves into personal attacks and gets mired in finger-pointing, progress ceases. Accountability for the past may have its place, but it is vastly more important to look to the future. The stakes are too just too high.

Looking to the future is what took place at Carlisle. The American way of war is renewing itself. Our most powerful weapon - the competitive analysis of security issues by America's military - is taking the field. Our enemies ought to beware. And update their wills.

Lt Col Nagl was one of the principal authors of FM 3-24, the Army/Marine Corps' new counterinsurgency manual; Maj Gen Dunlap is the author of "Shortchanging the Joint Fight?" a critique of that same manual. These are their personal views.

of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen, the combatant commanders and other defense officials, England says an irregular warfare study uncovered steady-state shortfalls in the general-purpose forces' capability and capacity to handle counterinsurgency and foreign internal defense missions.

Inside the Pentagon, which obtained a copy of the memo, quotes England as identifying deficiencies in doctrine, training and institutions before general-purpose forces can train, equip and advise large numbers of foreign security forces in key irregular warfare missions.

SWJ has more at a 6 May post - IW on Roles and Missions Task List

On a related issue, Inside the Pentagon also reports that Outgoing Army Vice Chief of Staff General Richard Cody has rejected plans for a new breed of units that would spearhead the training of foreign armies, asking instead that the service's Training and Doctrine Command reassess the idea, according to service sources.

SWJ has more at The Army's TMAAG.

Major General Mark Hertling, Commander of Multi-National Forces-North and Commanding General of 1st Armored Division, speaks with reporters in Baghdad, providing an operational update on 21 May 2008.

Introduction and Background

America's Frontier Wars: Lessons for Asymmetric Conflicts by Congressman Ike Skelton.

Revisiting CORDS: The Need for Unity of Effort to Secure Victory in Iraq by Major Ross Coffey, U.S. Army.

The Most Important Thing: Legislative Reform of the National Security System by James R. Locher III.

Beyond Guns and Steel: Reviving the Nonmilitary Instruments of American Power by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates.

Learning From Our Modern Wars: The Imperatives of Preparing for a Dangerous Future by Lieutenant General Peter W. Chiarelli, U.S. Army, with Major Stephen M. Smith, U.S. Army.

FM 3-0 Operations: The Army's Blueprint by General William S. Wallace, U.S. Army.

FM 3-07, Stability Operations: Upshifting the Engine of Change by Lieutenant General William B. Caldwell IV, U.S. Army, and LTC Steve Leonard, U.S. Army.

Cause for Hope: Economic Revitalization in Iraq by Paul Brinkley, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Business Transformation.

Combating a Modern Insurgency: Combined Task Force Devil in Afghanistan by Colonel (P) Patrick Donahue, U.S. Army, and Lieutenant Colonel Michael Fenzel, U.S. Army.

Preparing for Economics in Stability Operations by Lieutenant Colonel David A. Anderson, U.S. Marine Corps, Retired, and Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Wallen, U.S. Air Force.

The Role of USAID and Development Assistance in Combating Terrorism by Colonel Thomas Baltazar, U.S. Army, Retired, and Elisabeth Kvitashvili.

Counterinsurgency Diplomacy: Political Advisors at the Operational and Tactical Levels by Dan Green.

Control Roaming Dogs: Governance Operations in Future Conflict by Major Troy Thomas, U.S. Air Force.

Monitoring and Evaluation of Department of Defense Humanitarian Assistance Programs by Colonel Eugene V. Bonventre, U.S. Air Force.

Why We Need to Reestablish the USIA by Michael J. Zwiebel.

The Sole Superpower in Decline: The Rise of a Multipolar World by Shri Dilip Hiro.

Nothing follows.