70th Anniversary of the Battle of Iwo Jima

U.S. Marines during the assault of Iwo Jima, 1945

If it hasn't been mentioned, today is the 70th anniversary of the amphibious assault by the United States Marines on Japanese-held Iwo Jima on 19 February 1945. 

U.S. losses amounted to 6800, with 17,000 wounded. 

The Japanese lost almost 22,000 men. Only 216 prisoners were taken. 

Many today question why Truman used The Bomb. They are idiots.

Why Brian Williams Lied About His Combat Experience

"Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea."

Samuel Johnson said that. By the way, h/t to Ace for bringing that quote to mind.

By now, we all know that Brian Williams lied about being in a helicopter that was shot down during the Iraq war. Here's a video of Williams lying about the event, in detail, to David Letterman. I have been thinking about why he lied about this event. People defending Williams have tossed out this "memory is complicated" idea, in an attempt to let him off the hook. For instance, people are saying things like:

"He was in the helicopter in the sense that we are all in the helicopter. We are the ones who misremember. Misremember, conflate."

What? We are all in the helicopter? What is that even supposed to mean? Memory isn't complicated. You're either in a helicopter that was shot down, or you were in another helicopter an hour behind. It's not that complicated. Next time you get caught in a lie, try out the ol' "memory is complicated" line and let me know how that goes for you.

Look, people. sometimes, the simplest answer is the right answer. Here, I think the simple answer is correct: Brian Williams wanted to portray himself as as badass. So he made up a story.

Williams has been a journalist - a news reader - for his entire career. He's never been a soldier. He's never been one of the rough men standing ready in the night to visit violence upon people. However, he's reported on them, so he's been around them a lot.

I can relate to this. I'm a lawyer, but that makes me kind of the odd-ball in my family and extended family. Every single adult male in my family before me was in the military, and was deployed overseas to combat. Everyone.

My dad was in the Army as a doctor in an 93rd Evac Unit in the first Gulf war. My uncle was in the Army and was a tank commander in the first Gulf war, in addition to other deployments. My other uncle flew helicopters in Vietnam. My late grandfather was special forces in WWII, fighting at Anzio, among other places. My brother in law flew helicopters in the second gulf war. I can keep going back to the Civil War, but I think you get the idea.

Me? I'm just a lawyer. I'm not saying that anyone makes me feel bad about it (they don't), but sometimes I feel guilty about it on my own. Yeah, I know that being a lawyer is an honorable profession, and it's kind of interesting, but it's not exactly the same thing as being deployed to a combat area. I'm kind of the opposite of Lt. Dan.

So I'm kind of in the same boat as Williams. We're both guys who have been around military guys to a great extent, but we're not in the club. We're never going to be in the club. We don't have the bond that those men have, and we're never going to have it. Not that there's anything wrong with being a lawyer or a news reader; both are perfectly legitimate careers.

Here's what happened. I think Williams did a lot of reporting on military issues, and he got to know military men. I think he truly admires them. I think Williams admired these military men that he was around so much, he wanted to be part of their group so badly, that he made up this story so he could fit in - so he could be one of the guys. Who doesn't want to be one of the guys?

Essentially, I think Brian Williams lied for one of the oldest and most common reasons of all: He lied so people would think he's cool. I think deep down, he felt uncool standing next to these military men. Their actions held up a mirror to him, and he looked at his own job of reading the news and felt like he didn't measure up.

He certainly doesn't measure up now. Those who are dishonorable certainly aren't part of the club.

Jordan Decides To Go With Old Testament Response to Terrorism

Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.

Jordan will execute Wednesday an Iraqi would-be suicide bomber on death row and other jihadists after having vowed to avenge the murder of a Jordanian pilot by Islamic State jihadists, an official said.

“The sentence of death pending on… Iraqi Sajida al-Rishawi will be carried out at dawn,” the security official said on Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Jordan doesn't have the luxury of being half a world away from these evil men. ISIS is pretty much Jordan's next door neighbor. It's easy to shrug off ISIS if you're a pacifist in San Francisco, but if you live in Amman, you don't have that luxury.

I'm sure our State Department will call for "restraint" or some fool something, but restraint is not a virtue in war. James Taylor - you're relieved.

And make no mistake - this is war. I have a feeling that Japan is taking notes.

"American Sniper" Breaks Super Bowl Weekend Record

Not everyone was watching the Super Bowl yesterday. At least some folks were still out there going to see American Sniper, because it's still breaking records.

This weekend, it broke the record for the biggest Super Bowl weekend gross ever.

@BryanCaskey I went, with my Dad, to see the movie again today. We chose the moment well -- we had our choice of seats this time...
— Brad Warthen (@BradWarthen) February 2, 2015

Anyone else go to the movies this weekend?

Movie Review: American Sniper

Over the weekend, I saw American Sniper. I got to the theater a few minutes before it started, and boy was that a mistake. Almost every seat in the entire theater was taken, so I had to sit in the very front and slump down in the seat and crane my neck to see the giant screen which was mostly straight above me. Luckily, the movie was so compelling I forgot myself.

The movie is based on the real-life story of Chris Kyle, a highly-decorated Navy SEAL who served four tours in Iraq and became the most lethal sniper in American military history. Normally, you would think that a movie about his war experience would be a traditional summer blockbuster that would come out around the Fourth of July. It would have lots of explosions, lots of big battle scenes, have generic and gruesome violence.

Well, director Clint Eastwood took that story and made a movie that focuses on how war changes men. The contrast between Kyle in combat and at home is the real story. With each successive tour, Kyle withdraws further from his wife and family, unable to escape the battlefield. Kyle has not so much of a character arc as a character circle.

You see Kyle near the beginning of the film as a relatively green solider, albeit a Navy SEAL. After graduating from sniper school, he's asked something like "What will you do when you have a real live person in your crosshairs?" and his response is essentially that he hasn't thought about it, but he just hopes that he can do his job when that time comes.

And do it he does. In his first assignment he's forced to decide whether or not to shoot a mother and son who are possibly attacking some Marines. It's clear that he doesn't want to shoot them, but once he does, he doesn't dwell on it too much beyond commenting on how evil they were.

Over the course of the movie, he is drawn deeper into the fighting, both physically and emotionally. The pull for Kyle is not killing the enemy so much as it is protecting the Marines on the ground. The successive tours of duty are interrupted by brief stints back at home. However, it's clear that "home" for Kyle has become the battlefield and the men that he feels a duty to protect.

At one point, he's with his wife, and they're driving somewhere. He's zoned out and not really listening to her complain about how weird he's been acting. She confronts him and accuses him of not being making time for his family. His response is telling. He says that all the stuff at home can wait, but the soldiers over in Iraq cannot wait. He feels the obligation to be on the battlefield protecting the men on the ground so strongly, it's a waste of his time to be at home "driving to the mall" as he puts it, while men are dying.

Ultimately, Kyle escapes from the whirlpool of the war after killing an enemy sniper. As he flees the swarming Iraqis that had his position surrounded a giant dust storm overwhelms the entire area in what is clearly metaphor for the fog that has been surrounding Kyle the entire time. He's running to catch up with the Humvee that will take him home, running from the whirlwind of dirt, death, and blood that is trying to catch him. He eventually makes it inside the safety of the Humvee, but not before dropping his rifle in the dirt, leaving it behind. It was the bookend to a scene in the first few minutes of the film, where a young Kyle is admonished by his father "Never to leave your rifle in the dirt." Kyle never leaves his rifle in the dirt until he leaves it forever.

The movie is about how PTSD affects men, how war brings it about, and how it can be overcome. You see Kyle's PTSD manifest itself in sounds. In one situation, Kyle hears an air wrench at a quick-oil change place that takes him back to a drill used to kill a child. Later he hears a playful family dog  takes him back to a rooftop in Iraq where he had an encounter with a vicious dog.

Eastwood and Cooper masterfully work together to show how the war affected Kyle without having Kyle really even talk about it. Circling back to what I said about the "character circle" (see what I did there) Kyle ends up back where he starts. By the end of the movie, Kyle finally is able to get the war behind him and can enjoy his family and peacetime again. He's not an emotional victim of the war and he's not a chest-beating killer with insatiable blood-lust.

In many ways, Kyle reminds me of Dick Winters, who went through WWII, and then wanted nothing more than to claim a small plot of land and live out the rest of his life in peace. Both men went through war, excelled at it, were changed by it, but eventually left the military and retuned to peace.

Even if you were against the Iraq war and think President Bush is horrible, try to compartmentalize that and focus on what is actually in the movie. It's not a political movie. It's not a justification for the war, and it's not an indictment of the war. Eastwood pointedly avoids the entire issue because it's irrelevant to the story he's trying to tell.

My only criticism is that I would have liked to see more, but I think Eastwood was constrained by time limits. I'd love to see what was left on the cutting room floor.

Five Stars.

CNN Has Decided the Murderous Islamic Terrorists Might Have a Point

The inspiration for killing people - a damn cartoon.

Go read this NYT piece from Ross Douthat about the terrorist attack today.  I'll give you a little taste, for fair use, but go read the whole thing.

If a large enough group of someones is willing to kill you for saying something, then it’s something that almost certainly needs to be said, because otherwise the violent have veto power over liberal civilization, and when that scenario obtains it isn’t really a liberal civilization any more

Amen! The man gets it. The purpose of the attack today was to have us Westerners engage in self-censorship. That's the goal of these terrorists. Should we give in to people who are going to engage in violence to get what they want? NO!

Or...you could go the other way, and let the murderous terrorist-bastards win by adopting the policy that you shouldn't show cartoons of "The Prophet", like CNN has decided to do.

Either way, really.

The Fog of War

In the second volume of his history of the Civil War, Foote described the fog of war through an episcopal clergyman in New York described the many reports that came in about the Battle of Chancellorsville:

"It would seem that Hooker has beaten Lee and that Lee has beaten Hooker, that we have taken Fredericksburg, and that the rebels have taken it also, that we have 4,500 prisoners, and the rebels 5,400, that Hooker has cutoff Lee's retreat, and Lee has cutoff Sedgewick's retreat, and Sedgewick has cutoff everybody's retreat generally, but has retreated himself, although his retreat was cutoff.

In short, all is utter confusion. Everything seems to be everywhere, and everybody all over, and there is no giving it any truth."

Thus, the second attempt to capture Fredericksburg ended in a Federal defeat, albeit a dearly bought one.

The Senate Report On the CIA Reminds Me of A Movie

There's been a lot of debate about the use of the CIA's interrogation techniques, in the wake of the Senate Intelligence Committee's Report. It's been a chance for everyone to re-litigate the entire issue of whether we tortured detainees, and there's been some good debate on this.

It's certainly an open question, and anyone who conclusively comes down either way without acknowledging the other side may have a point is not a grown-up. This debate about torture is a debate about where you draw the line on what can and what cannot be done to captured combatants in war. Reasonable minds can disagree.

However, what really upsets me about this report has nothing to do with the issue of torture. What I find completely revolting about this report is the the fact that the main findings of the committee are essentially that the CIA didn't tell them about all this, and they are shocked, shocked to find out that gambling is going on in Rick's. But that's not the movie reference I thought of.

Essentially, this report is some Senators trying to avoid the fact that they asked the CIA to do whatever it took to avoid another 9/11. Do you remember how America was after 9/11? I do. 

Everyone was looking at the smoking rubble of the twin towers, a crater in Pennsylvania, and a hole in the side of the Pentagon and saying: We cannot let this happen again. You guys in the CIA need to take the gloves off and make sure this doesn't happen again. Keep the country safe. Stop playing nice - go after these people. Do everything you can.

People who weren't openly saying this were silently happy to go along with those who were. Not a single representative of the people rose up to say Well, wait. Maybe we don't need to change how we deal with the bad guys just because they did something bad to us.

Accordingly, the CIA started turning up the heat - as they were asked to do. They didn't do this on their own accord. We the people, through our elected representatives, asked them to do this. The Senate Intelligence Committee was briefed on exactly what the CIA was doing. And now, they're trying to say: Hey, I didn't intend for you to be mean to those poor souls! I wanted you to do everything possible to keep us safe while being perfect gentlemen! I have no culpability for these things that you did!

I know. Politicians evading their responsibility seems so farfetched. In any event, this whole thing reminded me of the end of Clear and Present Danger. In the movie, the President gets very upset when a Columbian drug cartel kills a personal friend of his who was laundering money for them (and stealing a little bit for himself). Therefore, the President tells his Chief of Staff to get the CIA to start really going after the drug cartel. The CIA basically does what it is told and starts really hurting the cartel - killing people and breaking things.

Eventually, the President decides he's had enough of the operation, simply says it should go away like "It never happened", and hangs all the men out to dry, who are then killed by the cartel. Ryan is neck deep in the whole thing and eventually goes to confront the President. Here's the scene:

The President tries to tell Ryan that he is "just becoming aware" of the certain things that happened, and that he "never ordered any" strike against the cartel. Ryan, having no patience for the cutesy little game of plausible deniability, tells the President: I will not have you dishonor their memories by pretending you had nothing to do with it.

That's the note that the Senate Report strikes for me. They're trying to pretend that they had nothing to do with the CIA's methods, when it's crystal clear that they asked the CIA to take the gloves off. Specifically, the WaPo had an editorial pointing this out:

On May 26, 2002, Feinstein was quoted in the New York Times saying that the attacks of 9/11 were a real awakening and that it would no longer be “business as usual.” The attacks, she said, let us know “that the threat is profound” and “that we have to do some things that historically we have not wanted to do to protect ourselves.”

This report is a purely political document, and its intent is to allow the authors to engage in some moral preening. They're simply engaging in a political act to curry favor with their constituents now that the existential threat from terrorism is a distant memory, and the people who swallow this report are doing the same thing.

I accept that we did some brutal things to people. We the people, asked the CIA to do exactly that. Maybe we made a decision in a moment of weakness that some of us regret. That's fine. However, it's just a damn lie for the Committee to say that they didn't know what was going on.

They all knew and approved. We The People all knew and approved. If you feel regret for what happened, that's fine. If you're ok with what we did, that's fine, too. But for goodness sake, take some responsibility for your actions.

BREAKING: Lying Politicians Lie

The Democratic Senate Report on CIA's methods is just politicians lying about what they knew, what they authorized, and what everyone wanted in the aftermath of 9/11.

CIA didn't conduct this program on some kind of wild notion - they didn't just make this up because they were bored.

CIA did this at the specific request of the American people's elected representatives in Congress and the White House. The Department of Justice was kept in the loop on the program and issued legal opinions on it. Congress was repeatedly briefed. CIA did all this...because we asked them to.

And now, these same spineless politicians want to squirm out of the fact that they asked CIA to these things.

It makes me sick.

Pardon me, but these politicians are lying sacks of shit. CIA does difficult stuff. The easy stuff gets handed off to other agencies. We asked CIA officers to do things, and now we're throwing them under the bus? Well, good luck getting CIA officers to go do anything remotely controversial in defense of the country in the future.

“It’s hard to argue that opposing marriage equality is a central tenet of Christianity when majorities of Christian voters support same-sex marriage.”

Says Sally Kohn, writing in The Daily Beast.

Whoa! Same-sex marriage and government's role in it aside, when did the central tenets of Christianity become determined by poll results? Did I miss a meeting where the Pope decided that Christianity's tenets would just be whatever the poll numbers showed most Christians wanted to go with?

I'm pretty sure Moses didn't take poll of all the Israelites when he came down off Mt. Sinai and saw them worshiping the golden calf.

You know, I read these kinds of pieces, and it's obvious that the kulturkampf war is over on this issue. However, unsatisfied with claiming the field, the victors are now in full "mop-up" duty, going around and humiliating and shooting the survivors on the other side.

"We Must Declare War Upon War"

Said President Obama at the UN, today. That's an actual quote. He actually said that. Really.

My reaction to declaring "war on war".

First of all, that's just a weird construction. War on war? Huh? That sounds like something out of Dr. Strangelove.

As to the substance, it's a naive and silly idea to try and declare war on war because you're never going to win the War on War.

There are always going to be aggressive nations/groups who ultimately decide to use force of arms against others. This will always be the case. To try and "end war" is like trying to "end sadness". It ain't gonna happen.

The problem is that in almost all things, President Obama sees the world as he wants to see it, and not how it actually is.

13th Anniversary of 9/11 - On the Cusp of War Again

Some iconic photos from that day.

On the thirteenth anniversary of the attacks of 9/11, we are now poised to go back to the middle-east to begin fighting a new enemy, but for the old reasons.

Let us pray that our civilian and military leaders have the courage and wisdom to do what is right, even if that means making hard decisions. Very often, the right decisions involve taking a more difficult path. Let us not be fooled into thinking that we can wage a bloodless war against a jihadist army.

War is hard. War is ugly. We should confront the reality of war squarely. I am afraid that many Americans are taking a view of this upcoming battle with ISIS like many Americans viewed the Civil War at its outset. I am worried that people are thinking this will all be over in a few months with minimal casualties.

History warns us otherwise. Yet we should not shrink from what is necessary.

Obama Waited 30 Days to Authorize Foley's Rescue

Here's a hypothetical for you: You're the President. You get some intelligence about the location of the whereabouts of a captured American held hostage by ISIL. How long would you wait to order a raid to rescue an American citizen held hostage by ISIL?

Our President waited "almost 30 days."

Anthony Shaffer, a former lieutenant-colonel in US military intelligence who worked on covert operations, said: “I’m told it was almost a 30-day delay from when they said they wanted to go to when he finally gave the green light. They were ready to go in June to grab the guy [Foley] and they weren’t permitted.”

Another US defence source said: "The White House constantly goes back and forth on these things. These people are a bunch of academics who endlessly analyse stuff and ordering up another deep-thinking paper but can't decide what to order for lunch."

This makes me angry. I don't care about Obama playing golf. I don't care about Obama raising money. That's fine. Just make decisions.

I want him to make good decisions and act in the best interest of our country and my fellow citizens. This thirty day delay to authorize a rescue mission just flies all over me.

Intelligence goes bad over time. The longer you wait to act on intelligence, the less likely it is that the hostage will be there. An "almost 30 day delay" is hard to understand. It's now understandable that Foley wasn't there once the mission finally got the green light. It had been about a month since they got the tip.

I don't really even see how this is a "hard" decision. We have soldiers who have signed up to defend America and protect our citizens. That's is their job. This is what they do. They know the risks. If something had gone wrong, it would be horrible, but it's worse to just dither. And this delay absolutely reeks of political calculation.

You get the intelligence, the military plans a mission, you say "go". I don't know how I could delay that long and then still look grieving parents in the eyes.

We're not talking about just a terrorist bad guy. We're talking about an American citizen who was being held captive.

He's dead now.

By the way, a British newspaper broke this story. Nice job, American press.

American Journalist Executed - What Is Our Response?

In the wake of an American journalist being publicly executed by ISIS, I thought of this:

What will be the response from the United States today when one of our citizens is publicly slaughtered by a foreign power that has wrought so much death and misery on others?

What should our response be?

Hey guys? I think Russia and Ukraine are at war.

I was going to try and make a joke, but there's not really anything funny about this.

Ukraine said its artillery partly destroyed a Russian armoured column that entered its territory overnight and said its forces came under shellfire from Russia on Friday in what appeared to be a major military escalation between the ex-Soviet states.

Yeah...armored columns going "poof" tend to indicate something more than a minor disagreement. I wonder what Fred Thompson's character in The Hunt for Red October would say about this.

Commercial Airliner Shot Down In Ukraine

BREAKING: Adviser to Ukraine's Interior Minister says passenger plane carrying 295 shot down.
— The Associated Press (@AP) July 17, 2014

Not good. It sounds like people are pointing fingers at Ukrainian separatists (the pro-Russian folks) within Ukraine. However, there's going to be some finger-pointing for a little while.

However, I expect Putin to come out and say that he's now compelled to go into Ukraine and stop all of this, since Kiev clearly cannot control their own people.

I just hope there wasn't an Austrian Archduke on that airplane.

Loud + Weak = War

Remember "Walk softly and carry a big stick"?

It kind of seems like we're doing the opposite now.

What Are You Prepared to Do About it?

Russia has occupied the Crimea, and it is looking towards the rest of Ukraine. The West hasn't responded yet, and the longer the West waits, the weaker it looks. The weaker it looks, the more likely it is that Russia will take more.

The question to the West is: What are you prepared to do? I'm not sure any of our current leaders are prepared to do much.

Lone Survivor Trailer

Brad had an interesting post on top war movies according to British newspaper, The Guardian. Although the Guardian's list isn't very good, the commentariat came up with a better list.

One that might make the list in the future is Lone Survivor. Lone Survivor is based on the true story of a failed SEAL team mission in Afghanistan to take out a high value Taliban leader. The mission ended up compromised and ultimately the first Medal of Honor of the Afghanistan war was awarded posthumously to one of the SEAL team members. Here's the trailer.

If it's like the book, it's not going to be a rah-rah America movie, but it will show the sacrifice that our soldiers, sailors, and airmen make in war.

Former Gitmo Detainee Joined Rebels in Syria

Well isn't that special.

Just so you don't forget, there are no "good guys" in Syria. I'm pretty sure all the good guys have either been killed by everyone else, or they've left.

But apparently, the plan is to send guns to jihadist Al-Qaida fighters and hope for the best. I'm sure that will work out just fine.