Just FYI.

Next up:

An item entitled “Watch ‘Charlie Rose – An hour with General David Petraeus’” I sent myself through Google Reader on 10 SEP 2007 at 8:18 AM. I think the title is self-explanatory. The reason I want to watch it — and still save it? Because I love me some Petraeus. Link still works. Delete.

Next is a really old e-mail (17 OCT 2007 at 3:25 PM) with a link to The Blakes’ (a band) Myspace page. I’m deleting without looking further. Can’t remember why I saved it. If anyone knows if they’re any good, let me know and I’ll look into ‘em this time around.

22 OCT 2007 at 11:12 AM: Another Google Reader e-mail with a link to the Mother Jones’ issue focusing on leaving Iraq. The e-mail itself contains an interview with T.X. Hammes that was posted on the Kings of War blog, written by various faculty and research students of the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. The link still works.

Okay, I’m going to stop here again for a while. Maybe I’ll aim for getting rid of three old e-mails per post.

Does anyone else find random stuff on the Web, e-mail it to themselves and then let it sit there lingering forever?

Army Gen. David Petraeus, the four-star general who led troops in Iraq for the past year, will be nominated by President Bush to be the next commander of U.S. Central Command, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday.

Gates said he expected Petraeus to make the shift in late summer or early fall. The Pentagon chief also announced that Bush will nominate Army Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno to replace Petraeus in Baghdad.

Central Command oversees the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

. . .

At a hastily arranged Pentagon news conference, Gates said the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other problems in the Central Command area of responsibility, demand knowledge of how to fight counterinsurgencies as well as other unconventional conflicts.

“I don’t know anybody in the U.S. military better qualified to lead that effort,” he said, referring to Petraeus.

Asked if moving Petraeus from the Iraq command could interrupt momentum against the insurgency, Gates said that by waiting until late summer or early fall he hoped to “ensure plenty of time to prepare for a good handoff.” He said it also would help that Odierno has had experience as “Petraeus’ right-hand man” over the last year.

If confirmed by the Senate, Petraeus would replace Navy Adm. William Fallon, who abruptly stepped down in March after a magazine reported that he was at odds with President Bush over Iran policy. Fallon said the report, while not true, had become a distraction.

[Emphasis Mine]

A truer statement than Secretary Gates’ I could not make.

Some of my favorite COIN bloggers, though, disagree with Gen. Petraeus’ appointment — and its possible after-effects.

The State Department is warning U.S. diplomats they may be forced to serve in Iraq next year and says it will soon start identifying prime candidates for jobs at the Baghdad embassy and outlying provinces, according to a cable obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.

A similar call-up notice last year caused an uproar among foreign service officers, some of whom objected to compulsory work in a war zone, although in the end the State Department found enough volunteers to fill the jobs.

Now, the State Department anticipates another staffing crisis.

. . .

Some diplomats have privately expressed unease about volunteering for Iraq duty amid deep uncertainty over how the administration following President Bush will deal with Iraq, and how that might affect security or change Washington’s focus on the country.

Read my old post for my comments on this. Nothing has changed. Whiny FSOs.

Several hundred U.S. diplomats vented anger and frustration Wednesday about the State Department’s decision to force foreign service officers to take jobs in Iraq, with some likening it to a “potential death sentence.”

Oh, boo-fucking-hoo. Half the problem in Iraq is the fact that we’re asking military personnel to perform the jobs of other government agencies — the State Department, USAID, et cetera. The armed forces aren’t built for diplomacy, nation-building and extensive public affairs — they’re built for fighting and winning wars. So stop your crying and pack your gear, bitches.

And death sentence? Talk to a military member recently? At least you bastards get to stay inside the wire most of the time.

“It’s one thing if someone believes in what’s going on over there and volunteers, but it’s another thing to send someone over there on a forced assignment,” [Jack Crotty, a senior foreign service officer who once worked as a political adviser with NATO forces,] said. “I’m sorry, but basically that’s a potential death sentence and you know it. Who will raise our children if we are dead or seriously wounded?”

You know, you signed up to serve your country. Feel free to resign. I bet you like the benefits, though, don’t you. The benefits of traveling around the world for free, getting great government wages, free health care, and on and on and on.

I seem to remember telling the FSOs who interviewed me during my attempt at the entrance exam that I was there to serve my country. In fact, that’s the thing — you serve the interests of your country; not yourself. Just because you “don’t believe in it” doesn’t mean you get out of it. Just like our soldiers, airmen, sailors and Marines. And who takes care of their kids? Whiny bastards, all of you.

American Foreign Service Association President John Naland said that a recent survey found that only 12 percent of the union’s membership believed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was “fighting for them.”

“That’s their right but they’re wrong,” [Foreign Service Director General Harry Thomas] said, prompting a testy exchange.

“Sometimes if it’s 88 to 12, maybe the 88 percent are correct,” Naland said.

“88 percent of the country believed in slavery at one time, was that correct?” shot back Thomas, who is black, in a remark that drew boos from the crowd. “Don’t you or anybody else stand there and tell me I don’t care about my colleagues. I am insulted,” he added.

Ooooooh, burn!

Guess what? The State Department isn’t a democracy. Put up or shut up.

Ugh. This shit pisses me off. Do your job, State. Not everything is the military’s responsibility. When State finally starts doing something right, their FSOs cry like little babies. Get. Over. It. Or. Get. Out.

UPDATE 05 NOV 2007 1411: A couple of other folks have picked up on this story and agree with my sentiments. I’m sure there are a helluva lot more where those came from.

Soccer is Iraq’s only true national sport. The passion it generates is twice that of the Super Bowl or the College Football national championship. Soccer has always been one of the few bonds between Iraq’s peoples and this was evident when Iraqis defied terrorist attacks this past summer to celebrate Iraq’s improbable capture of the 2007 Asian Cup soccer championship. Images of weeping and joyful Iraqis underscored that reconciliation is possible.

Beyond proving that the Iraqi soccer team made up of both Sunnis and Shiites can bring together all Iraqis regardless of ideology, the essay promotes the idea that Coalition (read: American) efforts at “winning hearts and minds” may be more effective when the Iraqis see American support for their team (and, implicitly, sincere concern for and a connection to Iraq):

Prior to the Iraqi Olympic soccer team’s semifinal run during the 2004 Athens games, preliminary plans were made to improve the Iraqi team’s training grounds and demonstrating Coalition support for the Iraqi effort. Bumper stickers in Arabic supporting the Iraqi team were to be created and placed on Coalition vehicles and handed out to Iraqi adults and children. The plans were never implemented, as the Coalition leadership believed the effort was a waste of time and resources. The Iraqi team’s great success in Athens brought much joy to Iraq, though many Iraqis expressed disappointment over the lack of Coalition backing for their team.

The 2007 Asian Cup was no different. Instead of working with the Iraqi authorities to develop a strategic plan to leverage the tournament to build national unity, support for the government, and communicate Coalition respect to the Iraqis, the Coalition did little beyond issuing a few press releases that received only scarce media attention. In contrast, the Emir of Dubai garnered extensive media coverage for flying the Iraqi team out of Jakarta on his private jet and giving the team $5.4 million to honor Iraq’s victory.

He even offers a solution to this possible problem:

In 2009, the Iraqi team will represent Asia in the Confederations Cup in South Africa. One possible opponent for Iraq could be the United States, which won its regional championship this past July.

It’s a short essay, and, while not a strategy that can end American involvement in Iraq immediately, may definitely continue to improve American-Iraqi relations on the ground. Read it all.

Opinions are one thing. Actually paying close attention and then voicing an opinion is another. Stick to state politics, Mickey B.

Abu Muqawama has always been a big fan of the late French intellectual Raymond Aron. Aron, writing in his newspaper column for Le Figaro, believed it was the responsibility of the public intellectual to make a careful study of the issues at hand — economics, military strategy, etc. — before putting pen to paper and presuming anyone should read what you have written.

Then he takes Maureen Dowd to task for her latest column on the Petraeus/Crocker reports:

Shut up. Shut up now. There is nothing in your cleverer-than-thou repertoire of pop culture references and mildly amusing 8th-grade literary devices that prepares you to even open your mouth to say anything about the war in Iraq. Just be quiet. Transport yourself back to the 1990s when the biggest issue facing the country was the president’s extramarital sex life, because for those times you were perfect. Now, you’re worthless. As a matter of fact, you’re worse than worthless. Because you, writing on the allegedly-serious op-ed page of the New York Times, give everyone else an excuse to treat this war and the debate surrounding it as flippantly as you do. If you want to be taken seriously, take the issue seriously. Study it. Learn about it. Talk to people who might know something.

And if you still don’t have anything of substance to say, keep quiet. This is why you don’t see Abu Muqawama writing anything about Manolo Blahniks. That’s your territory.

This goes for MoveOn and any number of other op-ed writers and bloggers.

Inform yourselves before you start talking shit. Otherwise, you’re no different from the ideology-driven folks marching in lock-step behind Bush.

. . . [W]hen the invasion of Iraq was being planned, Kilcullen was one of a handful of senior military advisers in the coalition of the willing to voice a dissenting view. “I was one of a bunch of people … who said ‘Iraq is going to be a lot harder than you people seem to think, based on 20 years of experience doing it and studying it. It’s going to take a lot more than you seem to be willing to commit.”‘

If you don’t want to read a Bible-genealogy-like listing of his achievements, skip this next quote:

Kilcullen is one of the most influential Australian military minds of his generation. He grew up on Sydney’s north shore, the son of academics. He studied counterinsurgency as a cadet at Duntroon, served for more than 20 years in the Australian Army and was awarded a PhD in political science from the University fo NSW for a thesis on Indonesian insurgent and terrorist groups and counterinsurgency methods. He has been a military adviser to the Indonesian Special Forces in counterinsurgency, taught counterinsurgency tactics at the British School of Infantry, and served in peacekeeping operations in Cyprus and Bougainville. Kilcullen also commanded an Australian infantry company in counterinsurgency operations in East Timor and trained and led East Timorese forces after the independence vote in 1999. He was a special adviser for irregular warfare to the 2005 US Quadrennial Defence Review and is Rice’s chief strategist on counterinsurgency and counter-terrorism, working in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Horn of Africa and Southeast Asia.

His no-nonsense guide to fighting insurgents, The 28 Articles: Fundamentals of Company-Level CounterInsurgency, is used by the US, Australian, British, Canadian, Dutch, Iraqi and Afghan armies as a training document.

And I love these parts:

“Part of it is that I’m not political. Not Democrat, not Republican. I have no party affiliation in Australia either, so I don’t have to say, ‘It’s all going very well, Mr President.’ I just tell it like it is.”

. . .

Kilcullen says he’s been targeted in Iraq as a civilian adviser but he has also been targeted in the US. “There’s this war about Iraq going on in Washington. I have been targeted by enemy insurgents but also by the far Right and the far Left in American politics as a bit of a hate figure.

“The far Right thinks I’m too nice to Muslims and that I should be killing more of the enemy and focusing less on the population, and I should be saying up-front Islam is the problem, which is not the case. And the far Left think I’m some sort of Nazi occupation leader locking up Iraqis.”

. . .

“Some on the far Right call me a jihadist lover but I’ve got a pretty long body count of jihadists that I’ve either killed or put in jail. These dudes who sit behind desks in Washington, when you’ve killed half a dozen jihadists you can come and talk to me about not liking jihadists.”

Nice. These guys don’t mess around. That’s why I’m glad we have them over there leading now.

Read the whole story, though. I’ve just pointed out his achievements and a funny part I like. The real meat is in the story.