Winds of Change decided to let a run-on troll (Tony Foresta of Daily Pundit comment fame) do a guest blog. It has spawned quite the comments itself, and the comments are long. I wanted to respond to that post, here, too, because I think my point will get lost in the mass there.

Foresta's point, besides that he hates George Bush, is that the administration went after Iraq but ignored Saudi Arabia, which is who we should really be after. This is one of those things that I point out often - there is no argument that the Left won't pursue if they perceive that it can be a negative on Bush. The "going after Saudi Arabia" argument used to be a negative on Bush itself. SA would be yet another notch in the neocon cowboy belt. Here is the knock on the Bush administration from Slate:

Diplomatic china rattled in Washington and cracked in Riyadh yesterday when the Washington Post published a story about a briefing given to a Pentagon advisory group last month. The briefing declared Saudi Arabia an enemy of the United States and advocated that the United States invade the country, seize its oil fields, and confiscate its financial assets unless the Saudis stop supporting the anti-Western terror network.

The article continues with a "guilt by association" argument with Lyndon LaRouche.

At any rate, the Bush administration putting Saudi Arabia in its sights in August 2002 was negative for Bush. That Saudi Arabia wasn't in our sights instead of Iraq, is negative for Bush today.

Changed in the blogroll - if you want to find it, it's http://www.thedonovan.com/index.html.

I usually try to stay away from grand conspiracy theories, but all of the strangeness surrounding the Bush administration and Iraq and WMD and all of that is kind of puzzling. They still maintain high confidence in their prewar WMD statements (as does Tony Blair), even in the face of what should be bad news - first, that none have yet been produced, and it doesn't look like the upcoming Kay report is going to change the narrative on that.

Some people are saying now that this means that Iraq never had WMD (which is just silly), to the Time magazine report that they didn't have WMD, but Saddam thought they did. Which would explain some things, but not others, since we weren't getting our intel on WMD from Saddam. At any rate, that theory isn't any stranger than the one I am about to suggest.

First of all, in Woodward's Bush at War, the President, early after 9/11, becomes concerned about the possibility of bioterrorism. I was surprised to read that, because the Washington Post, early on, had reported that one of the big concerns that drove terror alerts was the possibility of a dirty bomb. I don't recall that issue being raised in the book (though it could just be an oversight on my part.) Not too long after that, the first anthrax case shows up and is briefed to the President - another indication that the bioterror concern is one that has a high priority.

We have all but forgotten the anthrax attacks, despite their huge impact. While only 8 people lost their lives, it shut down the US government at a critical time and caused well over $100 million in economic damage. The import of this is something that I don't think we, as a country, have really digested, especially after putting it out of our minds - the United States has already suffered a bioterror attack.

The hard part is, we still don't know, at least not publicly, who made that attack. There was a public display of investigating Steven Hatfill, but that has not panned out. And that is probably because he isn't the most likely suspect. The circumstances add up to the 9/11 terrorists, or their associates, being behind it. First of all, there is the text of the letters that went with the anthrax:

Of course, there are those who say that this text is designed to throw suspicion on the terrorists. Second of all, the first anthrax victim was not a politician or big media person - a photo editor from the Sun tabloid. And the wife of the editor of the Sun was the real estate agent who found a room for two of the hijackers. And a pharmacist in Del Ray, Florida reported that Atta and another hijacker came in to his store for some skin treatment and antibiotics. And one of the hijackers was reportedly treated in Florida for cutaneous anthrax. Any one of these items could be considered a coincidence. The whole string of them makes that extremely unlikely. But the FBI chalked it all up to coincidence very early.

However,as soon as the larger number of anthrax letters was known, according to Woodward, President Bush thought that Iraq was behind the attack. Again, I don't think this is something he came up with on his own. He had been briefed on the possibility of bioterror before anyone else in his War Cabinet. He had more preparation, and more information. And his first inclination was Iraq.

So why not say that then, or even later, during the runup to the war in Iraq? There are some of the usual intel concerns - revealing sources, etc. And then there is the possibility that it was sketchy information. We've seen the flareup of the not absolute proof on African uranium - accusation of being behind a WMD bioterror attack would be labelled hysteria without iron clad proof that could be revealed. And then there is the question of what our response would be if this is the case. Suppose that we had that proof that the terrorists sent the anthrax, sourced from Iraq. We have relied on nuclear capability as a deterrent against WMD. Use WMD on us, and we'll nuke you.

The problem with that formulation is that we don't have the will to do it. I don't think that the United States really wants to nuke anyone, which is actually a good thing. The world would also look pretty poorly on a US nuclear strike in response to something that killed 8 people. And a response less than a nuclear strike would have truly taken away from our mission in Afghanistan - that had yet to begin when we were hit by the anthrax. Also, while many people credit the threat of nuking Iraq for deterring the use of chemical weapons during Desert Storm, that may not necessarily be the case. Many Gulf War veterans claim that Gulf War syndrome is the result of chemical exposure in the Gulf. I personally know someone who logged a chemical attack during the Gulf War, and was told later from higher headquarters to change the logs to reflect detector malfunction. (His story sounds remarkably like this.)

If both of these are true, then the US has been attacked twice with WMD, and made no response to it. Which means that the United States has no WMD deterrent. And Saddam Hussein knew it. Since both attacks had minimal effect, and their source not publicly known, it would be easier to cover it up, not because we didn't want to pay benefits to Gulf War veterans, but because we did not want to reveal our vulnerability. And that is why we had to put Saddam out of power. Because he had WMD. And because he wasn't afraid to use them. Because he had no reason to be afraid.

Al Qaeda is worried about infiltraters. Yeah, well good. I read that one of the ways we combatted Abu Nidal was by preying on his paranoia. We would openly send agents to meet with his lieutenants, and offer them huge sums of cash. They would turn it down, but Abu Nidal wouldn't believe it and whack them anyway. I hope we are "getting inside their decision loop." (Link via Instapundit.)

UPDATE: Islamic Jihad has trouble, too. (Link via The Greatest Jeneration.) Good.

Cracker Barrel Philosopher points to a couple of good stories. Best quote:

As one Marine put it, this was the perfect war. "They want to die, and we want to kill them."

Actually pretty good. Tom McClintock and Cruz Bustamante seem to know the most about the mechanics of the government - they know all the wonk stuff, bills by number, etc. Not surprizing, since they are in the government. Doesn't necessarily mean they have the best answers, though. Arianna Huffington seems to be running against President Bush, and throws out negative barbs to Arnold. Bustamante basically called Arnold stupid a couple of times. McClintock sounds pretty good. And, the thing people were waiting for, what is Arnold like? Well, he sounds good, too. He's not stupid, he has some good answers. Then there is the Green Party candidate - he is getting mostly lost in the noise. Peter Camejo is not a wild haired, wild eyed nut. His ideas are not going to go anywhere - single payer health care, increasing taxes, etc.

Anyone who says this process is a corruption of democracy should see these people on the stage. I don't know that I have seen a Green candidate and an independent on the stage with the 2 major parties before (I am sure in other states that this happened, but I haven't seen it.) Obviously California needs a change. It may be a circus, but at least its a good circus.

Mission Compromised. It was, well, okay. The characterization was simplistic (if the character was fat, you knew they were also evil). The score settling with the Clinton administration, and other notables in the Oliver North universe, was ham-fisted. But when the main action got going in the last third of the book, it was a pretty good read.

I guess none of that is really surprising, but there were some surprises. Surprising, to me anyway, was the very strong theme of Christianity running through the book. And that there were some pretty sloppy parts that should have been cleaned up by the editors - some continuity and sequencing problems, and one major anachronism caused by the ham-fisted score settling (a negative reference to Desert Fox, which took place in 1998, though the events in the book are in 1995).

Also kind of strange was North's introduction of himself as a character. The main character, a Marine LTC who is head of the Special Projects Office for the White House seems as if he should be the proxy for North in the book, but North himself plays that role. It seems that North is trying to tell a story about himself, fictionalizing it so that secrets are not really revealed. But it is hard to determine what that story really is. It could just be out and out fiction, and that twist provided just to provoke more interest in the fiction, but it just doesn't seem that way.

Charles Schumer is making sense. Charles Schumer.

"I fully support the teaching and worship of Islam in the military, but I think it is common sense that the groups in charge of vetting people don't have links to terrorism and are fundamentally pluralistic," Schumer told reporters.

When Schumer is less PC than the Army, one has to wonder.

Also, in further Bizarro events, the Kofi Annan speech that I thought sounded pro-US sounded to Sean Hannity like it was bashing the US. The BBC says it, too. But it sounded to me that it was a rebuke not of the US acting without UN authority, but a chiding of the UN for not providing the US the legitimacy for what needed to be done. This is the part that makes me think that:

Annan cautioned the world body must face up to the concerns of countries that feel "uniquely vulnerable" to a threat because that's what will drive them to "unilateral action."

He said the United Nations has come to a fork in the road and must meet its responsibilities and decide how it will deal with "perceived threats."

PS - what Schumer is making sense about is this:

Officials said Senior Airman Ahmad al Halabi was arrested July 23 because he allegedly had classified information about suspected al Qaeda detainees and facilities at the Guantanamo Bay base on his laptop computer.

Wow, talk about your dull political speeches. I think he is blowing an opportunity, here. Not sure why he is taking this time to talk about sex tourism. Sure, it is a problem. But I don't see that the kind of talk that will win the French to our side.

I guess his overall point, as he is winding up, here, is that there are many moral issues that require the UN to take action. And the UN isn't doing it, not just on Iraq, but the other ones as well.

Maybe I am not listening closely enough, but it sounds to me like Kofi Annan, in his speech before President Bush's, is on our side.

I am listening more closely now.

The new Mark Steyn column, where he notes what everyone else does about the Democratic candidates:

And the net result of this media onslaught? According to a poll in the Washington Post, 69 percent of Americans think Saddam was involved in 9/11.

According to all the experts, that's the one thing that absolutely isn't true: Oh, no, they've assured us, there's absolutely no connection between Saddam and terrorism; why, he's ''secular,'' they're ''fundamentalist,'' and ne'er the twain shall meet, etc.

Sixty-nine percent of Americans beg to differ. You may say that just shows what a bunch of morons they are, which is fine and dandy if you're a Fleet Street hack or a European foreign minister. But it's not a viable position for a Democratic Party candidate. Unfortunately, the Dems need a good third of that moron vote if they're not to be humiliated at the polls next November.

Besides, who are the real morons here? According to another poll in the last week, 70 percent of Iraqis are optimistic about the future. Egged on by their media pals, the Democrats have somehow managed to wind up on the wrong side of 70 percent of both the U.S. and Iraqi electorates, cut off in the corner reserved for wimps, defeatists, Eurosophists and Halliburton-planned-9/11 conspirazoids.

You know: RTWT.

I think David Warren coined the term "flypaper" for what is going on in Iraq right now, and it has definitely stuck. Probably Andrew Sullivan is its strongest proponent right now. No less a light than Thomas Friedman agrees. It even made the front page of the Washington Post.

The general idea of the "flypaper" theory is that we have gone into Iraq and the mass of the US military is a tremendous piece of bait for the bad guys, who come and attack and get killed instead of killing civilians. Iraq attracts terrorists, who get stuck there.

But why does this work? I noted earlier that the war in Iraq followed the principles of Sun Tzu. One thing that he wrote that applies to the flypaper: "Seize what he values, and he will do what you wish." This isn't just Iraq, but the whole war on terror.

Clausewitz isn't left out, either. What we have done with Iraq is to make it the "central battle in the war on terror." The CENTCOM generals have called it that, as has Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleeza Rice, and the President himself. Having a central battle is important, to Sun Tzu, and to Clausewitz. One of the things that military strategists look for is the "center of gravity," somewhere that the military can focus on and destroy in order to win the war. The whole problem with a war on terror is that the terrorist organizations are decentralized in their locations, their command, and their support, so there wasn't a center of gravity. Thus, we had to create the conditions or a center of gravity - and we did it in Iraq. This is how Army Field Manual 100-5, Operations, describes the center of gravity:

Center of Gravity. The center of gravity is the hub of all power and movement upon which everything depends. It is that characteristic, capability, or location from which enemy and friendly forces derive their freedom of action, physical strength, or will to fight. Several traditional examples of a potential center of gravity include the mass of the enemy army, the enemy’s battle command structure, public opinion, national will, and an alliance or coalition structure. The concept of a center of gravity is useful as an analytical tool to cause the joint commander and his staff to think about their own and the enemy’s sources of strength as they design the campaign and determine its objectives.

The essence of operational art lies in being able to mass effects against the enemy’s main source of power—his center of gravity, which he seeks to protect. At any given time, however, a center of gravity may not be immediately discernible. For example, the center of gravity might concern the mass of enemy units, but that mass might not yet be formed. Additionally, the center of gravity may be abstract, such as the enemy’s national will or an alliance structure, or concrete, such as strategic reserves, C2, or industrial bases and LOCs.

The Iraqi Republican Guard is a good example. Although not located in Kuwait, it was the real source of power necessary for Iraq to hold that country. The destruction of the Republican Guard was seen as the center of gravity for achieving the strategic goal of removing the Iraqi forces from Kuwait. The eventual destruction of elements of the Republican Guard in the Kuwaiti theater of operations led to the withdrawal of Iraqi forces and limited their capability to return. The initial analysis of the enemy’s center of gravity requires constant reappraisal during both planning and execution. It may develop or change during the course of the campaign.

And that, in essence, is how the flypaper strategy works - it creates a main source of power where we can "mass effects." It gives us central position in the region, bordering Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran, and gives us freedom of action to operate without the constraints that operating out of Saudi Arabia or Kuwait might.

That is precisely what is happening right now in Iraq. And it wasn't by accident, it was by design.

Bring 'em on.

A lot more.

Just about had an anerurism when I read this over at LGF:

Capt. James J. Yee, a 1990 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., was arrested earlier this month by the FBI in Jacksonville, Fla., as he arrived on a military charter flight from Guantanamo, according to a law-enforcement source. ...

The Army has charged Capt. Yee with five offenses: sedition, aiding the enemy, spying, espionage and failure to obey a general order. The Army may also charge him later with the more serious charge of treason, which under the Uniform Code of Military Justice could be punished by a maximum sentence of life.

I guess we really shouldn't be surprised, though - we had plenty of warning.

On Fox & Friends this morning, Deborah Orin said that Hillary's campaign staff and HILLPAC staff were the same people. That seemed a bit strange to me, I thought the Campaign Finance Reform bill did something with that. Or something. And it seemed to me that Newt Gingrich got into trouble for something similar. Of course he got in trouble for his book, too, and Hillary got away with it. So I figured I would ask the ultimate source on it - Rich Galen. The Gingrich thing involved GOPAC, and Rich Galen was the director.

Well, I actually got a response. He says it isn't a problem so long it wasn't her "official" staff, as opposed to campaign staff.

Makes sense. Anyone know if there is overlap there?

Kennedy Says Case for War Built on 'Fraud':

"There was no imminent threat. This was made up in Texas, announced in January to the Republican leadership that war was going to take place and was going to be good politically. This whole thing was a fraud," Kennedy said.

Maybe the gentleman **cough** from Massachusetts should attempt to stay awake during the State of the Union:

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.

Of course there wasn't an "imminent threat." The President never said there was. Why make up a reason to criticize? If you have a beef, at least let it be based on truth. I am sure there are enough things the President actually said that Kennedy didn't like.

Posting now from a Borders here in San Antonio. Picking up American Jihad by Steven Emerson. It is next on my reading list after Oliver North's book.

I finished Oriana Fallaci's The Rage and the Pride. Ms. Fallaci is angry, and she is proud. Really not much to it beyond that. I had read reviews of it before that said it was a great call to arms, etc., but, basically it was a long rant, and kind of an acquired taste. Not bad, really, but she's no Misha.

But back to Michael Ledeen's book for a bit, since I promised more.

I was a but surprised that Ledeen makes some of the same criticisms that the Left does about the war on Iraq - for example, that we were ill-prepared for the aftermath. But his slant is of course different. He doesn't say that we didn't care enough to send tens of thousands of military policemen, but rather that we didn't place more faith in Ahmed Chalabi - who the Left, and the Department of State, and the CIA, hate.

I wonder time and again about State and GEN Powell, who I respect a lot. I continue to think that he is only doing the President's work, and that perhaps is playing good-cop bad-cop at that bidding. While he protests the Israeli move to exile Arafat, our Ambassador to the UN is busy stopping the Security Council from doing the same thing. And the President today said that Arafat was a failed leader, and one would have to conclude that failed leaders need to get out of the way. One way or another.

Right, like you need me to tell you that. But I didn't have a connection once I started travelling yesterday, as per that story below. When Lileks is on, he is on. Read the whole thing.

Plus he likes the 1939 World's Fair! Who knew?

Sometimes travelling a lot for work isn't just a pain because I am away from home while the home is facing a hurricane. Sometimes it is a pain because of the travelling.

Yesterday was undoubtedly my worst day of travel, ever, and I have had some unique travel experiences. Like Air Afrique. You know those movies you see where the folks in the third world are climbing on the bus with goats and things in cages and a small firepit? Like that, except on a 747.

But yesterday was worse - much worse. My travel for this week was bad enough according to plan. Fly from Northern Virginia to Sacramento via DFW on Sunday, stay in a hotel 50 miles from the customer site for three days. Then fly out of Sacramento, again through DFW, to San Antonio, where I have a 3 hour drive to a hotel, check out, visit the customer site, then drive back to San Antonio, stay there and depart Saturday for home.

I get out of Sacramento after going 20 miles the wrong way on the interstate, but I gave myself enough cushion so I arrived with enough time to return the car and check in just fine. That wrong turn should have been my first sign that this day was not going right. We land at DFW, where lightning has stopped all ramp operations - our gate is filled by a plane that cannot push off. So we spend an hour on the tarmac, while the time for connecting flight passes by. Don't worry said the attendant, everyone is going late now.

Well, everyone except my connection. As soon as I deplane, I talk to the gate agent, and my flight was already closed and pushing off. But they were helpful, and got me on the next one, scheduled for only an hour later - 7:08, but delayed to 7:15. I board that plane, and it doesn't close and push off until 7:35. No problem, at least my luggage had time to get on board. So we push off, and sit on the tarmac until about 8:20. Finally, we get to San Antonio around 9ish, and I wait until the carousel stops and realize my luggage didn't make it. There are about 50 of us in that situation, and one tired baggage agent. She says we can wait for her, or she'll give us a phone number. I get that, and head for the rental terminal.

At this point, I shouldn't be surprised that they don't have my reservation. My travel agent had arranged the travel correctly, but the rental car was setup for DFW. So now instead of just hopping in the car and going, I have to work with the agent to transfer everything over. Finally, around 9:30 I hit the road - I still have 3 hours to go, but at least I'll get some reasonable amount of sleep when I get there. On the interstate, I call the baggage claim number, and I am talking to the representative there - with my earpiece, so I am hands free. Construction causes a slowdown, real slow. I am doing a stop and go creep at maybe 2 mph when I look in the rearview and see headlights moving fast, directly behind me. I floor it and cut the wheel into the breakdown lane, but too late. The car smashes into the back of the rental (poor baggage agent, she heard it all, and my choice words when I saw it coming), spinning it around into the divider so I am facing traffic. Sweet. His car, an old Taurus with faded paint. Him, ballcap, missing teeth, mullet haircut. "Listen buddy, I got just one thing to say. It wasn't my fault, it was the damn construction in the middle of the night." I just tell him to go back to his car, he didn't strike me as quite "right." A sheriff shows up right away, and calls a city cop, who handles the investigation. I call the rental agency emergency number, and they are very helpful, but need to know where the car will be towed so I can get another one. The tow truck showed up, and he wanted to know if the rental agency would pay for the tow. The cop wanted to know where the car was going to go. It was a lot of information to process after just getting hit. Eventually, I got all the answers to the people, and left with the tow truck to go back to the rental lot. Oh yeah, mullet guy, he leaves the scene in handcuffs in the backseat of the squadcar. Hit by a drunk driver!

But of course, that would be too easy. The car is in too bad a condition to tow, so the truck has to pull over so the guy can unbend it enough. He calls a cab for me, and I head back to the airport - and of course we run into construction traffic. Well, when I finally get back to the rental lot, they have another car ready for me, and off I go. And the manager tells me, hey, another flight just came in late, maybe your bags are here. So I go into the terminal at 12:03 a.m. And of course, the baggage claim closed at 12:00. I could see my bag in the cage.

After that, it got better. 3 hours through West Texs nothingness in the dead of night. I did see a deer by the side of the road that I was sure was planning to improve the record, but he just watched me pass. Dodged that bullet.

Turns out I am okay, except of course the stiffness and soreness you get from an accident like that. Ibuprofen helps a little, a margarita helps a lot. And from the homefront, we were very lucky. We live in a heavily wooded area, and we have neighbors and friends with trees through their decks, or through their carports and onto their cars, but we have a lot of braches down and nothing else, except for one tree leaning precariously over one of my non-running cars.

And when I check into my hotel tonight, a Holiday Inn, it turns out to be a "Select" and I am on the concierge level. I think things are looking up. Now to just make sure that my flight is going back into DC tomorrow....

PS, kudos to the American Airlines baggage clerk, who hung on the line after my phone went flying, disconnecting the earpiece. I thought I was cut off, but she hung in, to make sure I was okay. And the Hertz Roadside Assistance office and the rental office at the San Antonio airport were extremely helpful, too, and everyone I talked to asked about me first. Thank you for that.

Even a committed internationalist like Tom Friedman is ticked at France.

What is so amazing to me about the French campaign — "Operation America Must Fail" — is that France seems to have given no thought as to how this would affect France. Let me spell it out in simple English: if America is defeated in Iraq by a coalition of Saddamists and Islamists, radical Muslim groups — from Baghdad to the Muslim slums of Paris — will all be energized, and the forces of modernism and tolerance within these Muslim communities will be on the run. To think that France, with its large Muslim minority, where radicals are already gaining strength, would not see its own social fabric affected by this is fanciful.

So one of Jonah's original "Military Guys" has a blog up, and he is not fond of GEN Wesley Clark. But he is fond of guns....

I have heard a number of former military people with negative opinions of GEN Clark - of course a lot of successful people are notoriously hard to work for. But that doesn't seem to be the gripe most of the folks who worked for him, that he was difficult to work for.

Today I have to go to Del Rio, Texas, and Friday night I will be in San Antonio.

I am out of the path of the hurricane, but unfortunately, Mrs. Blaster and Little Blaster are not - they are defending the homefront. That's one of the real downers about travelling a lot for work. Not just being away, but being away when I am really needed.

At least my wife doesn't have to waste time standing in line at the supermarket. Note this all you people who laugh at Tom Ridge - if you had your emergency kit ready, noone would have to Fedex you a flashlight!

I keep hitting on this because the draft, and the arguments being proffered for it strike me personally, and I'll explain how and why as I go through this.

I think the draft has the potential to become the central issue in the next election. Because there are 2 arguments for the draft that come together in the candidacy of GEN Wesley Clark, and they are arguments nominally from the Left and the Right, which could make a formidable force. The first argument is the Rangel angle - obviously the one that resonates with the Left. He argues that a draft would cause people to resist the war, make Congresspersons think twice about it, and alleviate a fairness problem, that the "best and brightest" are not in the service, because it is beneath them. Only the downtrodden, the lowest of the low are in the service, in Rangel's world.

This is a hit with the Left, it pushes a lot of buttons. Yeah, George Bush would have not struck back at Afghanistan after 9/11 if his daughters were in the Army! The whole volunteer military is a con to get the minorities and other bottom of the barrel people into the line of fire.

This argument really pisses me off. When I was in the Army, it was an all volunteer force. There were still a few people who had entered by being drafted, but their continued service was entirely voluntary. That Army was full of good people. Not the dregs of humanity. Good people. Not the sons and daughters of the powerful? Maybe not. My mother was a single school teacher. But I had classmates who had fathers that were vice presidents of IBM and Sears-Roebuck. And while I am not some Ivy League dilletante, I could have been. I had an acceptance to Princeton, I just didn't take it. I chose instead service. When Rangel and his like-minded proponents of the draft describe the service the way they do, they demean me and every person who serves in the all-volunteer force.

The other argument for the draft is the "we just don't have enough troops to do what needs to be done" argument. A lot of military and ex-military people buy this argument, and it is the argument from the Right. It is Curt Weldon's argument, it is McCain's argument on National Service (he doesn't come right out for a draft). And it makes a certain kind of sense - hey, we are at war, we do seem kinda stretched, maybe we need a draft.

But this argument ignores important things. Again, when I was in the Army, it was all volunteer. But instead of 475,000 soldiers, we had 785,000. We did it without a draft. The answer, of course, is that the authorized end strength of the Army was that much larger then than it is now. If we could staff 300,000 more soldiers a dozen years ago, why couldn't we do it now? Don't tell me that the economic conditions now are that much better than 1988.

Plus, the draft is not a natural condition for this country - we've not had one for many more years than we have had one. And many times, the draft caused civil unrest, and compulsory service seems to go against the grain of American freedom. Rangel might argue that the unfairness of those previous drafts were the reason for the unrest - if we just did it right, it would be fine. I've heard that about Communism, too.

We had a draft in WWII, and that worked out okay. But that draft wasn't a "no exemptions for anybody" deal, either, and that winning military was also a segregated one. Not to demean it, but just saying it wasn't an example of what the draft fairness crowd are promoting.

I don't think there is any question that the draft would cause massive social upheaval if it were reintroduced. People would leave this country for Canada again, there would be riots in the streets. All to man a military that we could staff entirely with volunteers, avoiding that strife.

Clark, as a Democrat, and a General, can walk both sides of the fence - he can promote a draft as a military necessity, while slyly, Rangel as a supporter can say, this guy is on our side on this.

That is potentially a threat, that bipartisan support. But I don't think that the American people at large really want to reinstitute the draft. Someone should be pushing Clark for his position now.

Or so I hear on the radio.

Does Clark want to reinstate the draft?

I finished up Ledeen's Terror Masters. I am not sure what to make of it. Ledeen has been a critic of the war on terror from the right - his constant "Faster please" rejoinders are not in jest. However, he makes some interesting critiques which sound an awful like some of the criticism from the Left - but with a different cause, however.

I want to write more, because now we are moving into that phase where Bush's critics are coming from the right almost as much as from the Left - I heard Michael Savage asking for callers who had "given up" on Bush, as he had, and he got a number of them. I have seen other blogs headed that way, too.

I have noted before that this pattern has been a running thing with this administration - once the Right finally gets disgusted, the Bush administration does something outstanding.

Well, it better be coming soon, because we are going to need a President with a lot of support when we take on the next major battle in the war on terror - Iran.

BTW, next book on my reading list is The Rage and the Pride by Oriana Fallaci. It is a small tome, I expect to be finished with it rather quickly.

Well, my bold prediction was wrong - Wesley Clark says, not someone else, that he is running for the Democratic nomination. Color me surprised.

But it is kind of interesting what this says for the Democrats - Clark is Clinton's man, through and through, as this piece in Best of the Web recounts.

Obviously this damages Kerry, who was using his military service for credibility to cover his desire to surrender to the French, and the 4 stars trump that. And since Clark is also anti-Iraq-war-angry-at-Bush, he pulls some of Dean's core, too - Dean has clearly peaked. Everyone wrote what they believed on his blank slate, and now its all fuzzy with the constant erasures.

Clark is a new blank slate. I don't think he'll have as long a ride as Dean did. But, hey, I've been wrong before.

Though I still would like to know where he stands on the draft.

So I met up with Tim of Political Lomcevak, and enjoyed a hearty meal of charred mammal flesh from the flamepit. You should read him more. He should blog more. But then, there is that whole law school thing. It is evidently much easier to teach law than study it...cough**Instapundit**cough.

This time, a Starbucks in Davis, CA. Closest one to my hotel.

An op-ed in the Washington Post yesterday from a West Point classmate of GEN Wesley Clark. He makes some interesting arguments, like the reason that Wesley Clark should run for President is that he lost 33 classmates in Vietnam. Novel. I lost a classmate in Desert Storm. And LCDR Smash lost an Annapolis classmate in Iraq. Surely that means we should be city councilmen or something.

The author, who is cited in the Post as "a former general counsel of the CIA," and as Ramesh Ponnuru points out at NRO, they don't mention that he was general counsel there during the Clinton administration, but I don't know if that is an appointee position or not, so that may or may not matter. At any rate, he argues that the military should be increased in size, and that we should reinstitute the draft, which is now, as I wrote a below, something the Democrats really want to do. Not that it is anything pricipled from the Left. And not that it is uniquely from the Left. Many military and ex-military people of various political stripes think we should have a draft, people like John McCain.

So it would seem fair to ask whether GEN CLark supports reinstituting the draft as does his supporter on the op-ed pages of the Post. Seems like a dangerous thing for a Democrat to run on, if he is indeed running, in spite of my previous bold prediction. The papers are saying he is, but nothing official yet:

Mark Fabiani, a spokesman for Clark, did not reveal the decision, but sources close to the former Army general said he told his fledgling campaign team that he's in the race. The announcement will be made at 1 p.m. EDT Wednesday in Little Rock, sources said.

I guess we'll see.