Dirty Politics: The New Republic on McCain's unsavoury team

This is a bit of a U.S. politics geek post - but if you know what the New-Hampshire-get-out-the-vote-blocking scandal was, or remember the "Call Me Harold" ad, or indeed just enjoyed Tom DeLay getting arrested (see mugshot left), you're sure to be interested. One man connects all three, he's called Terry Nelson and he is now working on John McCain's presidential campaign. Everyone likes McCain even if they don't agree with him because he's made a career of being an honest, straight-talker. So the New Republic enjoys pointing out that McCain keeps ducking the question of why he has hired this guy. Read the whole profile from TNR here. Every campaign needs a hardman/woman who will go out and do all the dirty stuff for them, but that person normally manages to stay out of the headlines and definitely shouldn't become an issue that their boss gets questioned on. Let's see if Mr. Nelson becomes a hindrance rather than a help for McCain.

Why everyone should listen to "On The Media"

"On the Media" from WNYC and NPR - but available to us in the rest of the world via podcast - is the best and most consistently interesting current affairs radio programme I have ever listened to - and I listen to a lot of radio (too much if you ask my family). The podcast is available from Friday evenings (Finnish time) onwards and a I normally save it, hoarding it for the perfect moment when Brooke and Bob's dulcet tones and witty skewering of media sillyness (an aside; my browser is prompting me to spell that "silliness" but that really doesn't seem right does it?) will whisk me away into a world of intrigue and intellectual excitement to where we begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel of media information overload, and grope towards a better understanding.

Normally I use OTM to distract me from horror of having to actually do physical exercise. Running bores me to tears within 20 minutes, but with OTM carrying me away to the White House briefing room or the control centre of al-Jazeera, suddenly 45 minutes of pounding the pavement doesn't seem so bad. Last week I tried out our local cross country skiing track for the first time and with a bright moon shining down through the 15 degrees of frost, I desperately tried to stay upright on the track's many steep downhills whilst listening to an explanation of the how the media in Venezuela that Chavez is trying to muzzle is just as dubious - just from another angle - as his own pet press. And as my pulse climbed toward 200 bpm as I desperately tried to keep some sort of skiing-style going as I slogged back uphill again I listened to Emily Bazelon (another media voice I've fallen in love with through the Slate Political Gabfest) try to dig herself out of the minor hole that she and her colleague David Plotz found themselves in after gabbing from Israel whilst on an AIPAC junket. From time to time OTM repeats an old story and instantly they transport me back to where I was when I first heard them: there are hills on the Helsinki cycle-path system that will be forever linked in my brain to some minutiae of the Plame affair, or views out across the city that remind me of mil-bloggers blogging from Baghdad - all because of OTM happily whiles away the 20 km cycle-ride home from work.

So this morning, I was standing at my bus stop waiting for the perennially late bus to work, listening to them discuss with Vali Nasr why virtually no Washington decision makers can explain the difference between Sunni and Sh'ia thinking - "I should blog about that". Then as the bus got toward downtown Helsinki there was the fascinating discussion on the history and mythology of spitting on returning soldiers. Or how about how the voracious appetite of 24 hr news turns a silly publicity stunt into yet more background noise promoting a fear of terrorism? By the time I was making the coffee in the office, they were explaining how - counter-intuitively - 9/11 has actually made the representation of Arabs in Hollywood films slightly better (see here for why only 'slightly').

So basically, just listen to the whole thing. You know you want to.

Monopoints

This is a bit of techy-climbing post, non-climbers can safely skip it!


Someone on UKC had asked about monopoints vs. dual points. I've used monos for basically all my ice climbing over the last 6 years or so and think that in 90% of situations they are better on water ice. But one situation where they can be problematic is on relatively new ice that is still made up of a series of flutings. Monos can go between the flutings and fail to grip, and actually hiting the front of the fluting takes more accuracy than most of us punters can manage whilst pumped and scared. I've tried to illustrate this in the photo above. In this situation the increased damage that dual points do to the ice is actually an advantage as you in effect kick a foot hold. With mono points you need to rely on the secondary points to do that damage and its one of the very few times where I feel I actually stub my toes when kicking in crampons. Something for people to consider who are thinking of using monos and haven't tried it yet, but it's a pretty water-ice specific issue.

"...that thing with the orange panels is going to screw us..."

In this week's Economist, Bagehot (the UK section editorial) is called "A rough patch for the special relationship" and outlines how the upper echelons of the British government are putting as much space between themselves and the US administration as possible, so that once Blair goes they hope he will take the Iraq War with him. It was published last Friday, but that patch has just got a whole lot rougher. I wouldn't normally link to the Sun as it's a rag, but its journos (and ever open chequebook probably) have produced a coup by getting their hands on the cockpit video and audio from one of the USAF A10s that killed Lance Corporal Matty Hull of the Household Cavalry in 2003 and injured a number of his colleagues. Whilst the inquest into his death knew this vital evidence existed and that the UK MoD had it, they weren't allowed to have it because the MoD said that Pentagon wasn't allowing its release. You can see why when you read the transcript, or better watch the entire video.

The pilots clearly saw the orange panels, used by NATO to mark "friendlies" and described them as exactly that at 1336.57. The pilot Popov36 calls them orange panels again at 1338.49 - so they've been discussing it for two minutes - they discuss it a load more, decide that the panels have become rocket launchers (have you ever heard of orange rockets? Maybe there are some but it seems a very odd colour to paint rockets deployed on a battlefield) and then "roll in" and attack at 1342.09. It's taken them over five minutes to convince themselves that what they correctly identified first as friendly markers weren't that. About halfway through that time period POPOV36 screws himself by saying "I think killing these damn rocket launchers, it would be great." After hearing they have made mistake, they realise that its their fault because as they leave the area at 1351.33 POPOV36 says "Yeah, I know that thing with the orange panels is going to screw us" and the now famous "We’re in jail dude".

Shit happens in war, everyone knows this, but the American military keep doing it and A10 pilots in particular have a history of not being able to identify British armoured vehicles. In the first Gulf War the US managed to kill as many British servicemen as the Iraqis did, mainly from one strike by an A10. When I was a kid we regularly used to see USAF A10s flying over our house, so I would imagine that at least some of the older pilots have been based in the UK - you would imagine this would have given them opportunity to study British tank shapes!

But the way the Pentagon refuses to allow its servicemen to be involved in the inquest is what is really upsetting and leads to angry responses in the UK. All the fine words and "Thank you Tony" seem rather hollow when the US won't even send two men to answer questions at a coroners inquest. And the classifying of the tape looks simply political; as one defence analyst puts it: "I can see no reason for classifying it, other than it is deeply embarrassing to the US military." So although the pilots thought they were going to jail the Pentagon clearly isn't going to see that happen.

Heavyweights of hip-hop

I keep seeing these adverts on the telly for "the Heavyweights of Hip Hop" coming to Finland. And who are these heavyweights? Snoop Dog and P. Diddy. Lets get one thing straight, neither of these are heavyweights of anything besides marketing. Snoop Dog has always been the pantomime dame of hip hop with rhymes as blunt as his, well, blunts. Peepee Diddlydee is just a marketing degree case-study demonstrating that lots of people are really stupid and will buy all sorts of shit if you flog it hard enough. He went to private school and got - unsurprisingly - a business degree from a good university. How 'street' is that? The guy is bright and a grinder, no doubt, but his music is just crap that fits well a particular niche. It's depressing that kids paying some huge amount of money to go and watch them at the Hartwall Arena may actually think these chancers are Hip Hop Heavyweights. They aren't.

For those who need the education, this is heavyweight hip hop:

And even the coolest shorties know it:

Bad Finland! No missiles!

I pinched the pic from Helsingin Sanomat, but they borrowed it from Lockheed Martin so its all free advertising for them in the end... If that is really a pic of the JASSM air-to-ground missiles concerned, it looks bloody big doesn't it? Presumably it is much nearer the camera than the F-16 otherwise I can't quite see how the Falcon got off the ground?

Anyways... so the US has refused to sell Finland a certain weapon and the Finnish press suggests that it's the result of poor bi-lateral relations as opposed to dozens of other perfectly possible reasons. There's an old joke about a Frenchman, an American and Finn meeting a elephant. The Frenchman looks at the elephant and thinks "look at zat fine leg! Wiz a lil' butter et garlic it will taste magnificent!" The American looks at the elephant and think "wow - an unclaimed elephant! What business opportunity. I'll do elephant shows and make a fast buck!" And the Finn looks at the elephant and thinks "I wonder what he thinks about me?"

Having said that I was told by a Finnish diplomat in Washington once what tactics they use to keep the Finnish foreign minister's more... ummm... expansive comments on the US off the top of the in-tray at the Finland desk at the State Department. But of course telling you that would just be scurrilous gossip and self-respecting bloggers never do that sort of thing!

Update: I just checked out JASSMs on FAS. For those of you who dig weapons-porn, knock yourselves out. ;-) Here's a pic of a Hornet carrying one:Unfortunately for Finland, that's not a Finnish air force Hornet!

Update 07 February: This is an interesting bit of news suggesting that bad bi-lateral relations are unlikely to be the reason for the refusal to sell Finland the missiles. Who knows really, but there are so many other possible reasons, and the Helsingin Sanomat story seems more like some good grist for the election time mill, as Finland approaches its general election. Thanks very much to the anonymous commenter who left the link.

How to make an IED - Lancastrians beware.

There is a small discussion underway attached to last night's post on the helicopter downings over the extent to which Iran is likely to be involved in these attacks. Alex, the Yorkshire Ranter, left a comment here at exactly the same time as I was reading his blog and came across his discussion from a couple of weeks back on how to build an IED with a shaped charge. I'm not sure if he has a military background or just spends more time than is healthy reading Jane's Defence Weekly, but he definitely seems to know a lot about these things - hence my warning to Lancastrians - after having lived a year in Leeds I'm pretty certain Yorkshire would fight dirty. ;-)

Basically whilst I'm quite happy to accept Iran is playing a major role in Iraq - if Russia occupied France, you don't think UK intelligence would be all over the shop from Calais to Marseilles? - but it seems that there isn't so much hard evidence of Iranian arms being used by Iraqis. KGS left this link in the comments, quoting an unnamed US officer saying that it was Iranian surface-to-air missiles (SAM) bringing down US aircraft. But read it carefully - that's not quite what the unnamed officer actually says is it? The direct quote is: "where else would they be coming from?" Well, out of the defeated Iraqi army's huge arsenal would be one logical possibility. And pushing this a bit further, KGS's link is quoting from another US mil-blogger - who simply wants an attack on Iran and he openly argues that the evidence to justify this isn't really important:

The affairs of state, of National Security, aren’t the purview of some twisted OJ Simpson celebrity trial, where “if the glove don’t fit, you must acquit!”

Let's leave aside all discussion on the morality of attacking Iran - perhaps a solid case could be made although it doesn't spring to mind at the moment - and consider the practical implications of this policy prescription. If the Iraqi insurgents of all stripes aren't relying on Iran for some, or any, of their weaponry - then the US isn't actually going to stop its helicopters from being shot down or APCs blown up by taking this drastic line of action. They will however make sure that Iran will do everything it can in the future to help arm anybody who wants to take shots at US's interests or those of its friends.

I think that a lot of the discussion amongst Democratic senators and congressmen (and increasing numbers of Republicans as well) in the US over bringing the troops home is more led by their political sensibilities to the domestic zeitgeist, rather than to any deeply thought out military and foreign policy strategy for Iraq. But I'm not sure if this sudden "get tough on Iraq" policy coming out of the White House isn't any different. Things are pretty terrible in Iraq and if you don't want to go with the 'Ricksian' Fiasco argument - that simply immensely bad planning and strategy within both the upper echelons of the US civilian and military leadership are to blame for where we are now - then it's really handy to have someone else to blame. And the Iranians fit the bill perfectly because the current Iranian government is so odious.

There is though a certain irony that US helicopters are only getting shot down over Iraq at all, because in 2003 we went with an evidential glove that didn't quite fit.

A quick update: KGS has just left some links in the comments of the previous helicopter post discussing Iranian weapons - I'll put them here so everyone can read them and draw their own conclusions. They are from the Guardian, the Telegraph, ABC and the Crisis Group. Thanks to KGS for digging them all out. The ABC is perhaps the most interesting one, but it still relies on unnamed officials promising that there is evidence. The Telegraph story notes that "there is no concrete evidence", and likewise the Guardian story points out they don't really know who the smugglers were. The Crisis Group write:

Even as accusations have proliferated, hard evidence has remained sparse. Typical statements, culled from Crisis Group interviews with government officials and political leaders in Iraq, include the following: "We received reports that [fill in the blank]"; "We have proof that [fill in the blank]"; "Everybody knows that [fill in the blank]"; "They spoke Persian"; "We have heard that Etelaat [Iranian intelligence] set up an office in Basra"; "Money is coming into the country"; "We have proof that Iranians are supplying Moqtada al-Sadr with money and weapons"; "We received a report a couple of weeks ago that Moqtada visited Falluja. This is clear proof of his cooperation with the insurgency there". And, in response to a direct request for evidence that the violent Kurdish group Ansar al-Islam has a presence in Diyala governorate and is supported by Iran: "You know, crossing the border is very easy". (p.3)

These links are all very similar to how the LA Times story linked above notes that the evidence of Iranian military support is discussed by coalition spokespeople but no direct evidence or photography is released. I'll say it again, I'm sure that the Iranians are busy in Iraq and may well be supplying weapons, but that doesn't mean that they hold the key to peace in Iraq or are responsible for all the US setbacks.

Helicopter losses

There hasn't seemed to have been many obvious connections between what the British Army learned in its three-decade long counter-insurgency campaign in Northern Ireland and the situation in Iraq, but I do remember some years ago reading that what the British military feared most was the IRA getting ground to air missiles. In the rural areas near the border with Ireland, known as 'bandit country', land transport was never safe even for military forces, let alone the police, so the UK relied greatly on helicopters for resupplying border observation posts, to ferry troops around and the like. As far as I remember no British helicopter was ever shot down. The Soviets started losing in Afghanistan when the mujahideen began to be able to bring down their helicopter gunships as well, and it was tactics that were developed in Afghanistan that were used by the Somalia fighters who brought down the US Blackhawks in Mogadishu in 1993. So the news that the US has lost another helicopter to ground fire is very worrying, suggesting that insurgents are getting - and being able to deploy - heavier weapons and whilst the fighting gets worse - particularly in the light of yesterdays horrendous truck-bombing - it is going to be harder for the US forces to be able to move around to try and stop that violence.