Finally through recovering from the basement flood - that was tedious, but good to get the basement cleaned out. I can actually walk around in there now. The next event involves a two-year-old and a jar of vaseline. It was in his diaper basket, and instead of going to sleep tonight, he decided to get up, wander around, and open up the Vaseline. And spread it around. You'd really be amazed at how far one jar will go. I should have taken a picture - he looked like he had just been slimed by the green ghose in Ghostbusters. Kinda funny, but still. I was planning on other things this evening.

I'm not about to give Lileks any money. No matter who suggests it. Reynolds wants us to go by and give him money, not because he needs it, but to let him know he and The Bleat are appreciated.

I mean, I'm not unsympathetic - a sudden unemployment is a terrible thing. But I'm pretty sure that as money goes, he's already getting more than me, and he says himself, monetarily, he's okay.

Looking at the Ecosystem, Lileks is a "Higher Being," ranking #8. Going to memeufacture, I see The Bleat is #4 on popularity, and #5 on politics from the Right (which is kind of weird, because I don't really view The Bleat as something from the Right. Lileks strikes me as what David Brooks calls a "bobo," a Bourgeois Bohemian - though maybe a more middle class version, shopping at the Tarzhay like that. What's a bobo? From the previous link:

A bobo is a bourgeois bohemian. These are the people who are thriving in the information age. They're the people, you go into their homes and they've got these renovated kitchens that are the size of aircraft hangars, with plumbing. You know, you see the big sub- zero refrigerators and you open the door and you think, they could stick an in-law suite in the side. So these are the people who are really making a lot of money, and I spent the last few years going across upscale America looking at the people who are really thriving in the information age. And one of the things, the chief characteristic I noticed, was that they've smashed the old categories.

It used to be easy to tell a bourgeois from a bohemian. And the bourgeois were the straight-laced suburban types, went to church, worked in corporations. And the bohemians were the arty free spirits, the rebels. But if you look at upscale culture, at the upper middle classes, the people in Silicon Valley, you find they've smashed all the categories together. Some people seem half yuppie-bourgeois and half hippie- bohemian. And so if you take bourgeois and bohemian and you smash them together, you get the ugly phrase "bobo."

Bohemian? C'mon, the guy worships in the church of Mac!

Anyway, I think that the guy can take a quick look at his stats, and get an idea that he is appreciated. Heck, I read him daily, and he's on my Blogroll.

Now, my wife hasn't been working for almost 3 years - she gave her job up to stay with Little Blaster, since I don't have one of those jobs that lets me stay at home with him. I don't have a tip jar, but email me and I'll tell you how to send me something through PayPal...

I just saw over at tacitus that Storm Thurmond is reported to be on his deathbed.

There are lots of Strom stories out there. I grew up in South Carolina, so I have a few of my own.

South Carolina Boy's State, 1983. If you don't know what Boy's State is, well, it's hard to explain. It is sponsored by the American Legion, and their website tells the story. At any rate, Boy's State teaches you about government, and various officials from the state come and speak to the boys in attendance. It was a hot summer day in Charleston. And we were all packed in to hear the Senator - I think we had 400 attendees. At any rate, Strom got up to talk to us, and when I tell this story, I can do a great imitation, so you'll just have to imagine it. He said, and I try to quote from 20 years ago as best I can, "Many people ask me, they say Strom, how come you live so long? Well, I get in up in the morning and I do my little exercises. I lay down on the floor and kick my feet up in the air. And I don't smoke. Now people say to me, Strom, you come from a tobacco stay-et [that's how he said it, two syllables], how can you be against smoking? Well, I say Americans shouldn't smoke, but we should sell all our tobacco to all those third world countries out there."

Columbia Metropolitan Airport, 1996. I was walking out the door and saw an old guy sitting there and thought, man, he looks a lot like Strom Thurmond. I looked again and saw a leather packet with manila envelopes sticking out that said "Senate of the United States." So I went up and introduced myself, told him that I lived in Aiken (right down the road from one of his houses), and that I had been in the Army in Italy. He shook my hand and asked me to sit down beside him, and on the mention of Italy, he picked right up on that and said that our move into, where were we, Kosovo, wherever we were in the former Yugoslavia at the time, was a bad thing, and Bill Clinton had no business sending the troops there. Pretty sharp to pick up on that right away - he would have been 90, 91 at the time. He also had three scratches on his cheek. To my eye, it looked as if a woman had scratched him. Coulda been a dog, I guess, but it would have been a big dog. Like I said, he was 90, 91.

Buick Dealership, 1984? I was in this dealership because we had a friend who worked there. I was talking with one of the salesmen, a black man who was evidently quite a good seller of cars, judging by the amount of gold jewelry he had, and the cut of his suit. (Yep, back then, in a Buick dealership, the salesman would be in a suit.) He was telling me that when he was a young man - I am guessing this is late 50's early 60's - his father took him to visit Washington. In those days, you could go and visit your congresscritters by going to their office. And his father took him to visit Strom Thurmond, their Senator. Strom, the man who ran for President on a segregationist platform, the man who filibustered the Civil Rights bill (though I guess that would have been later), on hearing that constituents from the Stay-et of South Carolina had come to visit, invited them in, talked for a while, gave them iced tea, and thanked them for coming by.

I think that last story probably tells the most about the Senator. It explains how he could get reelected, year after year, after all that had gone on.

Okay, one more, but this one is a joke. I've heard it around, but it was first told to me by someone who was a friend of Lee Atwater. President Reagan's age was catching up to him, but he knew Strom had fathered a child in his 70's. So he asked Strom how he did it in his old age. So Strom tells him, "Mr. President, the secret is, before I get into the bed, I go and knock my pecker on the bedpost three times, and then I am ready to please my woman." So that night, the President goes into the bedroom in the dark, and thinks about what Strom said. He pulls out his pecker and raps it on the bedpost three times. And Nancy says, "Strom, is that you?"

I know that saying something even moderately nice about Strom Thurmond is trouble these days, but I have to admit, Strom is a character that we won't see pass this way again. Some will say good riddance. But he's a darn sight better than some of the blowdried blowhards we have up there today.

If you want more Strom stories, check out the book Ol' Strom: An Unauthorized Biography of Strom Thurmond.

UPDATE: He's dead. Godspeed, whichever way you're headed.

Tim is posting again. I'm guessing finals didn't go all that well...

I'm in San Antonio, Texas this week. It's hot. Oppressively hot. But I've got Taco Cabana down the street, and I think I saw a Waffle House, too. Mmmmm, scattered, smothered, covered, and chunked!

The front page of the Express-News had this story:

Universities in Texas plan return to race preferences

Texas' most selective higher education institutions aren't wasting any time crafting new, race-conscious admissions policies now that the U.S. Supreme Court has paved the way for universities to give a boost to minority applicants.

Administrators at the University of Texas, Southern Methodist University and Rice University said Tuesday they've directed their staffs to formulate race-sensitive policies to be in place this fall when students apply for 2004.

"We intend for our admissions policies at undergraduate and graduate schools to include race factors as soon as possible," SMU President R. Gerald Turner said.

If anyone has any question whether the split decisions yesterday were a victory for one side or the other, this story is the answer. Texas academic officials just couldn't wait to start discriminating as soon as the Supreme Court told them it was okay to do so.

Now, I think diversity is a good thing, actually (more on that later). But this is unseemly. That these people are just standing there, rubbing their hands together, waiting to change the racial makeup of the student body as they see fit.

I just can't imagine that people would be stating that they were planning on discriminating with such pride if it were against blacks and Latinos, instead of against whites and Asians.

Michele at A Small Victory is not afraid anymore. She writes, basically, that she has comes to terms with the threat:

As long as we have enemies - and there are many enemies of freedom and democracy - there will be threats. I've learned to live with that. I've learned to accept that as a price for my freedom. I'm thankful I don't live in a country where I have to literally cower in fear, as opposed to figuratively cowering in fear, which is what we do.

There's more, of course. But she's right - the sense of impending doom is gone. My bugout box is overdue for a reinventory/restocking (I'll get to it after the flood recovery is over.) But I don't think that the reason for the impendingness disappearing is simple acceptance. It is because we are winning this war. L.T. Smash recaps the successes for us (link via Instapundit). Among them:

Al Qaeda has not remained quiet through all of this. Terrorist attacks have occurred in Pakistan, Indonesia, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Jordan, Tunisia, and Morocco. But these countries are their home, not ours. By going on the offensive, we have seized the initiative and moved the front lines back to their neighborhood. Indeed, many of these recent terror attacks have killed more local Muslims than Westerners, creating animosity between the terrorists and the local populations.

Read it all. Feel hopeful, not resigned. The terror is receding because we are pushing it back. We have decided to defend ourselves, our country, our culture. And that means we have decided it is worth defending.

And that is really, really good news.

I lived in Athens from August 1989 to July 1990. It was an an interesting city. After living there, I no longer thought anything of driving in New York or Boston. After Athens, it was cake. (But I am glad I didn't drive in Cairo!) While I lived there, the International Olympic Committee was to choose the location for the 1996 Olympics. Athens was a sentimental favorite, as it was the 100th year of the Modern Olympics - held for the first time in Athens in 1896.

Coca Cola is a popular drink around the world - Greece is no exception. In Greece, the local bottler put the logo of the campaign to win the Olympics on the cans and bottles. Of course, the 1996 Olympics went instead to Atlanta - home of Coca Cola. Many Greeks felt betrayed, and there was a boycott - I don't know how effective it was.

But they felt that this American company was using their heritage and aspirations to ring up sales, while at the same time using their corporate muscle to stab them in the back. This was of a piece of the anti-American sentiment there.

But the truth is that Athens was not ready to hold the Olympics in 1996. Just before the IOC decision, there was a massive labor strike across the country, shutting everything down for about a week. Athens International was the number 1 terrorist gateway airport in the world. And the city's infrastructure was unprepared for the massive international event. I don't think their neighbors like the idea of a $2B redevelopment plan, with the EU footing three quarters of the bill, either.

I found this picture in the basement. I had been looking for it a while. To me, it is emblematic of Greece of the time. This car was parked on the street of an apartment 2 blocks down from mine.

No, it isn't a Photoshop. I don't have a working scanner right now, so I took a picture of the print with a digital camera, and I did use the Photoshop sharpen filter to make the details more visible.

Still don't see it? Look at the radio antenna. That's right, it's a coat hanger. On a Rolls. Not caught in the picture is the wrinkled fender and the rust on the headlight trim. The guy drove it every day.

I talked to someone who lived in Athens recently who told me that Athens is a completely different place today. A new airport and updates to their public transportation. They are actually ready for the first Olympics of the 21st Century. So they say.

Been working all day to recover from the flood.

Out:

• My old low quarters


• A pay stub from 1989 - takehome, $1049. For the month.


• The lease from when we lived in Italy. Our deposit was 1,240,000 lire. We used to do the Dr. Evil "one million dollars" thing, except it was "five thousand lire," (somewhat less than $5 at the time) and it was way before Austin Powers.


• A receipt for the last month I was in my apartment in Athens - 36,000 drachmas. (Wow, lire and drachmas, gone forever. The drachma was like the oldest currency in the world.)


• Instructions on how to use CompuServe - from 1993


• VHS tape of learning to use Corel Draw 3.0


• Assorted crap that has moved from box to box through 2 or even 3 living spaces. Just let it go!

Recovered/rediscovered

• My vinyl. I always knew it was there, but I haven't owned a turntable in at least a dozen years. In great shape. My Sigue Sigue Sputnik is mint! I'm going to have to record some of this stuff and burn it to CD so I'll listen to it again.


• A bunch of stuff that I have been missing for a while, but it was mixed in with a bunch of crap that made it from box to box through 2 or even 3 living spaces.

Rain. Lots of it. Lived in this house 6 years, and the basement leaks for the first time, soaking the carpets in the downstairs rooms. Fun

I've been meaning to get the spring cleaning done in the basement anyway, nothing like a disaster to motivate you. So I am going through boxes that have been packed up since 2 houses ago (that should be a sign) and finally throwing stuff out that I should have a long time ago. Like the manual for my Zenith Z-248 PC. Remember when they came with these binders full of material? The Logitech mouse had a 70 page users manual. A mouse! I ended up keeping that just for giggles, to put on my shelf at work. Threw out tons of old stuff on 5.25 inch disk - like maybe I was going to fire up Wordstar one day.

Now I am learning what I can about waterproofing. And I guess I really need to put that drainspout that came down back up.

Some of the opponents of RMA complain that technology is fine and dandy for all the flyboys and sailors, but the infantryman still has to do the same job - putting boots on the ground. True, but technology is helping the footsoldier, too. The Army has been fielding (though not fast enough) body armor that is a half pound lighter than the last generation, but provides significantly more protection. People are getting shot and living to tell the tale:

The impact knocked Ashline back, and Lopez grabbed him by the back of his body armor to drag him down the hill. "As I was dragging him down the hill, he was saying 'I think I'm all right,'" Lopez recalled. "I got him out of the direct line of fire and ripped his vest open to look for blood. To my surprise I couldn't find an entry wound."

The interceptor body armor system had stopped a 7.62 mm round. The round had passed through three layers of Kevlar and mushroomed inside the ceramic plate. But Ashline was alive and after another sergeant – Ryan Brown – retrieved the specialist's weapon, he was back in the fight.

Sure, hightech ceramics are saving livs, but they are not as cool as satellite guided bombs, right? Check this out.

What happened to Jane Galt?

Jay Nordlinger takes note in Impromptus today:

David Corn of The Nation said something typical. He said, "When John Kerry wears a bomber jacket, it's because he saw real combat and didn't dodge duty the way that George Bush did."

Nordlinger makes some good points, but misses Corn's major misstep. I am guessing this comment was made on some cable show where he was asked to comment on John Kerry riding a Harley and wearing a bomber jacket, trying to look a lot like Tom Cruise in Top Gun (sans Kelly McGillis) in light of the piece he blogged on The Nation about President Bush trying to look like Top Gun. What Corn is really missing is that "bomber jackets" are not awarded for combat. They are issued to aviators. Which Kerry is not. But President Bush was.

Al Gore is now looking into creating a "liberal media alternative." I say go for it. So long as you are squandering some rich liberal's money. Not public money.

What role Gore himself would play in any of these ventures is still far from clear.

Gosh, we can only hope he'll be a talkshow host. Won't that be riveting!

Emperor Misha is dealing with trolls in his comments. By not dealing with them. Jim Treacher is taking the opposite approach - he's shut off comments. And he's not going to comment on other blogs.

This kinda spurred me on to go forth and comment, myself. I had almost stopped, and also stopped participating in discussion fora that I used to frequent for various reasons. I think discussing stuff sharpens my thoughts. And sometimes, I even learn something!

Anyway, here's a couple of interesting comment threads I am in on - at DailyPundit about GEN Clark on Russert, and at Winds of Change, about the Left, Communists, and double standards.

Yes, there is a difference between Democrats and Republicans. Once again, someone nominally of the Right says that if a Republican says something nutty, you just can't trust Republicans. This time it is Vodkapundit (as pointed out by Instapundit), who is alarmed by Orrin Hatch's comments in a hearing that software to destroy someone's computer would be a good idea to stop illegal downloading.

Okay, I think it is a bad idea. too. But even a Senator in the majority party needs to get the votes to pass a law to authorize such a thing. That's just not going to happen. But I won't let this comment scare me off of the Republican party, either. There is no ideological mold of the Right (no matter how much the Left and paleocons - amazing how their views seem to be the same on just about everything -try to make one out.) Hatch certainly has his critics on the Right, for things he has done, or said, or positions he has taken, particularly co-sponsoring a number of bills with Senator Kennedy, who he claims as a close friend not just out of Senatorial courtesy.

But my point is that this is something Hatch said. Not the Republican Party.

If you are really concerned about corporate takeover of copyright issues, the people you need to worry about are Senators Kennedy and Hollings. Who, ahem, belong to the other party. And they don't don't just spout off in hearings, they sponsor bills.

Someone (Mike Spenis is the username left in the comments - like I've never watched the Simpsons!) said, hey, why not RSS since you're on MT? Well, MT does RSS automatically. So I've got it.

Also, before I wanted to do a PDA formatted version of the blog because I have the T-Mobile Sidekick which has a lo-res greyscale screen. And now I can! If you have a Palm or whatever, you can now enjoy Blaster's Blog. The links for these are over in the "Alternate Formats" box in the left hand column.

My permalinks seem to not actually be working. Could be something in my template.

Jinkies.

UPDATE: That got it. Spacing problem by copying template from notepad and pasting to web form. Whew!

It seems just about everyone has already pronounced the "Roadmap" as DOA. Certainly with a war going on between Hamas et al. and the Israelis, it does not appear that peace is at hand.

I think the roadmap has a chance. Because right now, Hamas is being marginalized. The Egyptians have tried (and failed) to get Hamas to stop their violence. Hamas is now in defiance of Arab states. Iraq is no longer a supporter, and Iran (mainly a supporter of Hizb'Allah) is looking shaky.

I think that there is some recognition in world opinion that Hamas and the like are indeed extremists who cannot be negotiated with, and that only by destroying their organization can there be any hope of peace.

A lot is being made of Senator Richard Lugar's statement that US soldiers may be used to hunt down Hamas. The transcript does not bear out the level of attention being paid to it. Senator Lugar says:

There have been suggestions that NATO may be involved, that the United States may be involved. At that point, the polls turn very sharply south, with regard to United States involvement.

And when prodded by Tony Snow, says:

Well, it's always a possibility. But having said that, I would just say this is down the trail. We have to be very, very careful about the use of American forces, whether they are to be all by themselves, whether with NATO, whether with the U.N., with WHO.

But clearly, if force is required, ultimately to rout out terrorism, it is possible that there will be an American participation.

The IDF does not need US assistance to do its job. It is quite capable. We just need to let them do what needs to be done. And despite some Realpolitik early on after the roadmap meetings, President Bush is making the US position pretty clear - Hamas are the bad guys, and they need to be dealt with.

Steven den Beste posts about Rumsfeld dealing with the Belgian laws that could be used to charge US soldiers with war crimes. A lot of people don't like blunt talk because it is so, well, blunt. But it works.

I seem to have made the transition fairly successfully. My email to Instapundit got the new address linked, so I have some new traffic here. Scrolling through my blogroll, and a few changes out in the world. Brink Lindsey is on hiatus. Jeff Brokaw at Opinions Galore went on hiatus and came back, but decided to change his style. Speaking of changing styles, Blogs of War has a new look (I guess that is an exception to my "nobody puts 'blog' in the URL" observation.) New banner at Cold Fury. The Happy Fun Rottweilers are now MT powered on news-portal.com, and its called Inscrutable American.

UPDATE: Tobacco Road Fogey has moved to MT and BlogCity.

First actual posting here on the new MT blog. Parallel paths diverge here.

Thanks Dean!

I just logged into Blogger, and find the new interface. Of course, I was just going to post that I will be doing some migration work over to MT, so I won't get all that much practice with it. One thing that is missing is the "Archives" button, which is where you go to fix the permalink problem. Maybe that will be fixed, too? Dunno. Day late and a dollar short.

Adam Ant arrested (link via Drudge):

LONDON (Reuters) - Former British pop star Adam Ant has been arrested after apparently running amok and stripping off in a London cafe.

Police said on Thursday they had arrested a 49-year-old man on suspicion of criminal damage, while The Sun newspaper showed pictures of the former 1980s heartthrob being held by two burly policemen, a blanket wrapped around his waist.

Reuters misses the chance for the big punchline:

Ant's career saw him selling 15 million records, including punk-pop hits like "Prince Charming" and "Stand and Deliver." Police said he had been released on bail until mid-July.

They missed this album:

Phil Carter has a new post on the retirement of GEN Shinseki. In it, he writes:

Always the consummate diplomat, he does not explicitly blame Rumsfeld for the problems in Iraq, or castigate him for plans to cut the Army's size.

I think this is gets it wrong. Shinseki is not just being diplomatic - he certainly takes a swipe at the civilian leadership. He doesn't castigate Rumsfeld for plans to cut the Army's size because they don't exist. Early on in his tenure, he discussed it as an option, but even prior to September 11th, that was off the table. And quite clearly, with the ongoing war on terror, it is a non-starter now. The Defense Department prepares a 5 year Future Years Defense Plan (FYDP). The CBO reports (in a report that questions cost projections) that:

As a consequence, the Administration plans to initiate or increase funding for programs such as space-based radar satellites, unmanned combat air vehicles, unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, small surface combatants for the Navy, advanced-technology combat vehicles for the Army, and precision munitions. Nevertheless, the Administration's 2003 plans would continue to fund nearly all of the major acquisition programs inherited from the Clinton Administration (except the Army's Crusader self-propelled howitzer program, which was terminated). And the 2003 FYDP incorporates no significant changes over the next five years to the military's force structure--the number and composition of Army divisions, Air Force tactical fighter wings, Marine Corps expeditionary brigades, Navy carrier battle groups, and so forth.

Emphasis mine. In other words, there is no plan by Rumsfeld or the DoD to cut the size of the Army.

As for the "problems" in Iraq, again, it isn't diplomacy. Rumsfeld didn't cause the problems in Iraq - Saddam Hussein did. And some of the "problems" simply don't exist - like the now debunked "looting" of the Iraqi National Museum that Carter cites in his article in the Washington Monthly. The force structure that is there and will be required there is not closer to Shinseki's prediction than to Rumsfeld's. We have 120,000 or so troops there now. That is not "several hundred thousand." The SecDef had said that he hoped to get the force down to 70,000 by September. We are not likely to put "several hundred thousand" troops there because we simply don't have them.

Rumsfeld is criticized on both ends, here. One, for not having enough troops in Iraq, and two, for having too many. Donald Sensing picks up on it, and so does Steven den Beste.

The point that everyone is making is that we are "overcommitted." There are two ways to address that - first, you can increase resources, second, you can reduce commitments. Increasing resources is just not likely to happen. The size of the services is capped by law. Even with an ongoing war, the American people will not support the massive increases in spending standing up a couple more divisions would cost. Listen to the tax cut rhetoric. The argument is never made that taxes are cut at the expense of further national defense needs. They are cut at the expense of the children, or granny's drugs. Activating a couple of Reserve/Guard divisions is less costly, but there are already some 70,000 or so guard and reservists activated, and have been for a while. Activating entire divisions will be a very hard sell to the American people. A lot of military like to think that Viet Nam was lost by Walter Cronkite's reporting on Tet - they forget that there was significant ill will generated by the Joint Chiefs demanding a 270,000 troop activation in its aftermath.

So the Administration is working the other end. We have static and dynamic commitments in the world. Among the static commitments are leftovers from the Cold War in Europe and Asia. We have troops essentially pinned down in Germany and Korea and Japan. Moving the troops in Korea doesn't just teach South Korea a lesson, it makes them available for rotations or missions elsewhere.

There are hard realities out there. That's why Rummy is the right person at the right place at the right time - his age and wealth make him immune, relatively, to the criticism someone asking people to do something difficult will receive. Again, the Army needs to get on board, or they will make themselves as irrelevant as they fear they are becoming. GEN Shinseki was intransigent on the force needed for Afghanistan. As a result, Marines operated the ground bases in a landlocked country during the war there.

Baby Blaster turned 2 yesterday. One thing he got for his birthday was some kind of stomach flu. The fever just broke. So he's eating Goldfish and watching Courage the Cowardly Dog. And I'm blogging.

Terrorism bad.

Killing terrorists good.

I hate RealPolitik.

Rumsfeld, with his glasses and Brylcream, bears some resemblance to Robert McNamara. Vietnam era officers hate McNamara, deservedly so. Some think of his deputies like Wolfowitz as "Whiz Kids," and think he is trying corporate management techniques for efficiency out on the military establishment. Of course, this ignores the fact that he has held this job before, 1975-77, which would have been a very turbulent time for the Department.

Phil Carter notes that the new Chief of Staff of the Army is a retired general, and comments on what that means. (link via Instapundit) He writes in his analysis:

I think this sends a very loud message from the Eisenhower Corridor (where Rumsfeld's office sits in the Pentagon) to the Army's leadership. The SecDef couldn't find his man in the Army, so he had to reach into the pool of retired officers for his man. Not only that, he didn't like any of the "establishment" Army generals from the infantry or armor branches, so he chose one from the special operations community -- the antithesis of an "establishment" general.

Yes, it is a loud message indeed. Full disclosure - I really like Secretary Rumsfeld - not just the one inside the Matrix of Frank J's mind - but the "real world" one. I like him because he talks tough and backs it up. An old guy with a gazillion bucks in the bank who doesn't have anything to prove - the perfect person for a nearly impossible political job. That nearly impossible job is now called "transformation," and used to be called RMA - revolution in military affairs.

It seems like 100 years ago, but I recall speculation in the Washington Post and on NPR about whether Rumsfeld would be the first of the Bush cabinet secretaries to go - this was August and September of 2001. He was rubbing the Joint Chiefs the wrong way, and they, and the longtime civilians looked at him with a "this too shall pass" point of view. I think it is true, I'd have to go look in the Washington Post archives (which costs money!), but the front page had a story on Rumsfeld's troubles with the Joint Chiefs on 9/11. Of course, all of that went by the wayside as he became a celebrity with the Washington press corps. It resurfaced in the buildup for Iraq, with the argument that the Secretary was not listening to the Joint Chiefs, and then during the war during those few days when the quagmire flag went up. And now in the occupation phase.

But really looking at it, the disagreements have not been with the Joint Chiefs, but with one Chief - the Chief of Staff of the Army, GEN Shinseki. Other criticisms for Rumsfeld came from retired Army generals Wesley Clark and Barry McCaffery. Recently, former Secretary of the Army White (former because he was asked to resign by Secretary Rumsfeld) was critical, too. There is some question of whether there was political or other motivation in those attacks - Jed Babbin had a piece on NRO about that in March. I also read an article a while back that I have to dig up about how GEN Shinseki, one of the champions of transformation in the Army became the strongest defender of status quo against Secretary Rumsfeld. An interesting side battle in all of that - Shinseki has proposed that the Army have more Stryker brigades, units armed with lighter, wheeled vehicles, and Rumsfeld wants to kill Stryker.

But the point remains - the major contention is not between Rumsfeld and "the military," but Rumsfeld and the Army.

Appointing a retired general to be the new Chief of Staff is a real shakeup for the Army, but injures less egos than jumping someone up in rank. It doesn't mean that noone in the active Army could fill the bill, but certainly noone at the 4 star level could. (Another aside - Phil Carter makes note of bypassing "establishment" officers. While it is true that the big critics of Rumsfeld - Shinseki,Clark, McCaffery, and White - are all West Point graduates, and were infantry or armor officers, and Schoomaker was an ROTC graduate from the Special Operatiosn world, the establishment is in mindset, not where they come from. President Clinton selected GEN Hugh Shelton to be the Chairman of the JCS, and he was an ROTC officer from Special Operations. Of course, he was not Chief of Staff of the Army.)

The Army is being given a message - get on board on transformation. The Army is an institution of traditions. It is also a huge bureaucracy. There is significant resistance to change of any type in the Army - for example, GEN Shinseki changed the Army hat from a camouflage cap to a black beret. This took months, and was the target of thousands of letters to editors, the ire of the Ranger Association, and even Congressional hearings. That was just to change a hat.

Changing the face of warfare itself is going to be somewhat harder. Some say that air power is the primary method of winning a war now - like former Air Force Chief of Staff GEN Merrill McPeak in an oped in the Washington Post. He writes:

Nevertheless, the coming flood of "lessons learned" will focus on a stale issue: Can advanced (principally aerospace) technology substitute for large, heavy ground combat forces? That matter is settled. Because air warfare is so plainly the centerpiece of modern combat, it would be far more productive to figure out how to fight it better.

This represents a threat to the Army that Hussein couldn't muster. Air power subsituted for large, heavy ground combat forces. That would wipe out whole divisions. Of course, McPeak is retired, and he doesn't calculate what it takes to patrol the streets after the war. And there is no indication that Rumsfeld thinks the way McPeak does. But a lot of Army people fear that he does. Because the programs he has killed or wants to kill - Crusader and Stryker - are Army programs. The Air Force and Navy have not had high profile programs eliminated.

But what the Army folks are missing is that transformation has already made massive changes to the way the Air Force and Navy operate. The Air Force for a long time was accused of not wanting to do ground support because it wasn't as "sexy" as flying the cool supersonic jets. But all of the cool supersonic jets now fly ground support missions - F15's and F16's, and even B1 and B2 bombers. Even the old B52 is available to the grunt on the ground. Not to mention their acceptance of not only unmanned aircraft but armed unmanned aircraft. The Navy, too, puts Top Gun F14's and F18's in ground support roles, and fast attack submarines no longer hunt Russian subs but launch cruise missiles at tactical targets.

This is a huge philosophical change for those services. The Army has yet to internalize that same level of change. It took months and months to change a hat - "transformation" will take years and years. The Army cannot keep dragging its feet. That is the message that Rumsfeld is sending. Even McPeak understands the challenge, though. His last line was:

Memo to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: Good luck with "transformation."

Yes, good luck. And I hope the Army gets the message.

I am pretty sure I am going to move this blog off of Blog*spot and onto a MT powered site - at the urging of Dean Esmay, and the performance of Blogger and Blog*Spot together. Now the key is picking a domain name to go along - blastersblog.com is available, but it seems that noone, noone, puts "blog" in the name of their blog. So my other thought is "overpressure.com," which I like a lot, and goes with my theme.

What do you think?

UPDATE: Blogger sez: Error 203:java.lang.NumberFormatException: (server:page) That cinches it.

ANOTHER UPDATE: OVERPRESSURE.COM it is!

Yesterday Virginia had a primary. Where I live, there was only a Republican primary - the Democratic incumbents had no challengers. There were 3 offices to vote for a candidate, and only one of the contests had I heard anything about beyond yard signs. So I just guessed on the other two. When I came home, I looked them up, and I voted for