Fables of the reconstruction

Russian Says It's Giving Assad Anti-Aircraft Missiles

In response to Britain and France lifting the embargo on arming the Syrian rebels, Russia has announced it's going ahead with selling a very potent anti-aircraft system to the Syrian government. This probably means no U.S. intervention:

Russia will deliver an advanced air defense system to the Syrian government despite Western opposition because it will help deter "hotheads" who back foreign intervention, a senior Russian official said on Tuesday. ...

The S-300s can intercept manned aircraft and guided missiles and their delivery would improve Assad's government's chances of holding out in Damascus.

The S-300 is no joke. Spencer Ackerman at Danger Room wrote 3 weeks ago:

It ranges 125 miles a shot; and can shoot down missiles as well as fighter planes. However unenthusiastic the U.S. military is about a no-fly zone right now, confronting the S-300 would make it instantly worried about losing many, many pilots. “This is a system that scares every Western air force,” Lexington Institute defense analyst Dan Goure once remarked.

The U.S. obviously prefers to use airpower instead of ground forces because, usually, America can establish complete air superiority, virtually eliminating the chance of taking casualties. The S-300 would make that impossible. Manned fighters and bombers, drones, and cruise missiles would all be vulnerable, even if they were attacking targets in Syria while operating outside of its airspace. Combine that with the fact that Russia recently gave Assad sophisticated anti-ship missiles which can hit targets over 180 miles away, and it means the U.S. will not want to risk its carriers in the Mediterranean.

If the idea on the part of Britain and France was to arm the rebels while they and the U.S. provided air cover, they will have to think again.

This is all of a piece with Assad's apparent strategy of taking every opportunity to show the West that he has the upper hand. He crossed the so-called "red line" by using chemical weapons, and when nothing happened, he started using them more. Sen. McCain made a brief trip into the country to meet with rebel leaders, and it's obvious McCain - one of the "hotheads" Russia is talking about - will bang the war drum for American intervention by citing chemical weapons use when he gets back. Assad's spokesmen have been constantly referring to the rebels as terrorists and "al Qaeda" and playing up atrocities - like a rebel posting video of himself eating a human heart - to drive down Western public support for intervention. 

Remembrance

Five years ago yesterday, Andy Olmsted was killed by a sniper in Iraq.  It was a tragedy for the people who knew him, and for those of us who followed his blog posts.

Since then, over 20,000 Iraqi civilians died as a result of the U.S. invasion of their country. 

All excellent reasons not to go to war when you don't have to.

70 Years Ago

Two fateful mistakes:

Launching the attack galvanized a nation that had been deeply divided on entering the war and transformed it into 133 million people who, as Barbara Tuchman put it, were so angry they were willing to swim to Japan and strangle anyone they found there.

Second, the military blunder of launching the first and second waves of planes against battleships, rather than the oil tanks and machine shops, when it turned out the aircraft carriers were not in port. Killing the infrastructure at Pearl would have accomplished the same objective as sinking the carriers: It would have knocked America out of the Pacific for a year and made the West Coast vulnerable to attack, allowing Japan to consolidate its gains. Sinking battleships was a strategic nothing, but the Japanese commanders were simplemindedly convinced that destroying the maximum number of ships would achieve the optimal result.

150th Anniversary of Attack on Ft. Sumter

At 4:30 a.m., April 12, 1861, a rebel cannon fired the first shot of the Civil War at Ft. Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. This act plunged the nation into a war in which over 3 million American men fought each other, and 625,000 people died.

Four months prior, a secession convention in South Carolina had issued a document titled "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union" which read in part:

We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.

The intellectual and moral heirs of the Confederacy now control the party of Lincoln and still claim the mantle of the Constitution while seeking the destruction of the union and the enslavement of workers.

 

Quote of the Day

Daniel Davies:

There are plenty people out there (I've just seen a documentary on Channel 4 presented by one) who don't believe in Keynesian economics, but who think that the Great Depression was ended by the Second World War. In other words, paying men to dig holes and fill them in again is a ridiculous policy, compared to the sensible and effective course of action of paying men to dig holes and die in them.

It's Like Ballet Unless You're on the Receiving End

Gitmo Continues to be Moral Travesty

The Obama administration would love to avoid going to trial in the first military commission trial in Gitmo, but may be legally (not to mention politically) barred from doing so.

They'd like to reach a plea deal with the "defendant" (I use scare quotes because it offends my sensibilities as a lawyer to apply it to anyone held captive without the protections of the Constitution), Omar Khadr, because his case makes the whole process look as bad as it is. Khadr was a child soldier, just 15 when he was captured. He was heavily wounded when they found him, but somehow they determined it was him who threw a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier. A U.S. interrogator suggested that, if he didn't cooperate, he could be raped to death in prison. Nevertheless, the military judge let the resulting confession come into evidence. Then the Pentagon tried to ban journalists from Khadr trial because they had written about publicly-available information that the military nevertheless deemed secret. And an officer was excluded from the jury because he agreed with the President that Gitmo went against America's values and had hurt the country's international image.

The military is apparently surprised to learn that civilians consider it unsporting to coerce confessions from children by threatening them with rape and death, and then trying them in secret with a jury which excludes anyone who acknowledges reality. The Obama administration, being a little more enlightened, would like this case to go away. However, the Military Commissions Act forbids "unlawful command influence" on the process, which could be interpreted to mean that Obama can't order a more attractive plea deal be offered, much less dropping the charges.

For his part, Khadr, now 23, has rejected fairly sweet plea deals so far, saying "he was offended by what he saw as an attempt to 'legitimize the sham process' by dangling 'the least sentence possible' to coerce a confession. Good for him. I believe that the initial investigation was rigged anyway.

"Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom"

I guess this is real. I guess. It looks really stupid, though, and that reminds me that the CIA used to covertly fund all these left-wing rags back in the day so they could keep an eye on the true believers and occasionally hear some gossip from Moscow.

Anyway. I gotta go make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom.

Bush's Poodle to Receive Liberty Medal

I have to believe the National Constitution Center people are just dry satirists:

The National Constitution Center this morning announced who will get the 2010 Liberty Medal this fall in Philadelphia.

The announcement by the Constitution Center, host of the September 13th ceremony, cites Blair’s “steadfast commitment to conflict resolution” both in Northern Ireland during his term, and afterward in such far-flung places as Kosovo and the Middle East.

There are millions of people in Afghanistan and Iraq who are familiar with Tony Blair's “steadfast commitment to conflict resolution”.

I think Mike Nutter is tone-deaf to irony and is sincere when he says:

“Can you just imagine the electricity in the air when two old friends, two masters of the English language, two men who have struggled for peace and human dignity meet here for the Liberty Medal ceremony?  Bill Clinton, former president and Liberty Award winner himself and now chair of the Constitution Center board, and Tony Blair.”

I imagine there would be more "electricity in the air" if George W. Bush were to hand Blair his medal, and then scratch him behind his ears. Or maybe the presenter should have been the 2004 Liberty Medal recipient:

I have to believe that someone at the State Department, which posted that picture, also has a sense of humor.

Things That Are Not Going to Happen: Tel Aviv Edition

I guess this means there will never be another Turkish ambassador to Israel:

Turkey will not appoint a new ambassador to Israel  unless the Israeli government formally apologizes for the killing of nine Turkish citizens, including one who also had American citizenship, who were aboard a boat that tried unsuccessfully in May to breach the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza, a Turkish senior Foreign Ministry official said Tuesday. The Turkish government is also demanding compensation for relatives of the dead and the establishment of an independent commission to investigate the Israeli military operation against the flotilla  that tried to run the blockade.

Rumint: McChrystal Resigns

CNN:

[Updated at 4:41 p.m.] Gen. Stanley McChrystal has submitted his resignation, Time magazine's Joe Klein told CNN, citing an unnamed source. CNN is working to confirm Klein's information.

Good. About eight months overdue, I'd say.

Cue rightwing pissing and moaning. Even though it was becoming clear that McChrystal's approach was failing.

Flotilla Fiasco

Daniel Davies (of "shorter" fame):

My canny theory about what happened is that the Israelis had convinced themselves that the flotilla were gun-running, didn't bother to check, and acted accordingly, planning roughly the clustereff that actually happened, presuming that the justificatory material would be found after the event. And then it wasn't and oooerr, oh shit. This would also explain why the post facto media strategy (via Henry) was so totally incoherent - it was built around a corpus delicti that didn't arrive.

My take is slightly different. I think the IDF went in thinking that the ships were full of silly peace types who would be frozen in terror at the arrival of the mighty Israel military. This would explain why they went in without throwing concussion grenades first and rappelled down singly rather than in pairs. They expected no resistance. Instead, furious opposition in the form of wooden clubs arrived - a pretty gutsy thing, in fact, given they were up against guys with guns - and when the Israelis started losing the fight, they resorted to those guns. Now all they can scratch up is video of their elite commandos getting beaten up by silly peaceniks and a pile of weapons including the wooden clubs, as well as tools from the engine room and cutlery from the galley. There was even a dangerous-looking phillips head screwdriver.

So, in short, the IDF fucked up by not planning for the contingency they found themselves in, period. And a bunch of people are dead as a result.

Aviation Weekly Suspends Writer Who Criticized Lockheed F-35

David Axe:

The number-one defense contractor is also one of AvWeek’s biggest advertisers. A Lockheed spokesman told reporter Steve Trimble that the company “has not asked Aviation Week to take disciplinary action against Bill Sweetman.” But it didn’t have to. Lockheed only had to keep buying ads. AvWeek’s cowardly editors handled the disciplinary action all on their own. That’s one way influence works in D.C. 

There’s more at stake than one man’s career. The F-35 program has proved, time and again, that it cannot be trusted with the taxpayer’s dollars. Audits and good reporting are the only way to keep the F-35 developers honest. Without Sweetman, that kind of oversight gets a lot harder. 

As a consequence, the United States could wind up like China. Beijing is scrambling to cover up serious, and sometimes fatal, design flaws in its new J-10B fighters, which were partially reverse-engineered from Israel’s Lavi fighter. “The pitfalls of reverse engineering without paying royalty and truly understanding the technology are high accident rates, a fact that China has hushed up with its lack of media freedom,” Manu Sood reports. 

The big difference is that the F-35 has not gotten anyone killed. Yet.

The arms manufacturers are lashing out at Sec. Def. Gates and anyone else who criticizes them. I expect that operators like Gates and Obama are working very closely on this. John Cole, a vet, is pessimistic:

It [the military budget] will just keep growing and growing and growing, and we’ll find more threats to justify the expense, and should the budget continue to get worse, I’m sure the fiscal discipline commission can come up with some cuts to social security and medicare to keep the war machine churning. And then very serious people on both sides of the aisle will tell us that we need to suffer, and suffer we inevitably will. But not as much as the people we bomb, so there is that.

But there are conservatives on our side on this. Not the D.C. wackos and shills, like Heritage, of course. But take James Joyner on Gates' question whether we really need eleven carrier strike groups, when no one else has even two:

Gates is asking the right questions here.

A few months back, I took part in the Navy’s distinguished visitor program, spending 24 hours aboard the USS Eisenhower.  Both the vessel and its crew were extremely impressive.  The amount of firepower and flexibility represented by a carrier group is enormous and likely well worth the cost, given our budget.  But I don’t know anyone who really thinks we need eleven of them.  My inclination would be to figure out how many we’ll plausibly need and add two.  But my strong guess is that would still leave us well short of eleven.  And, given the margin of advantage between us and the next strongest maritime power, the need for the Ford class [supercarriers] is less than obvious.

Or take this remarkably cutting blog post by Mark Safranski at Zenpundit. He's reacting to a statement by a defense industry flack who said, in reaction to Gates' announcement that the Pentagon would have to get by with less, "The only people celebrating at the Pentagon last week were the Mexicans working on renovating the building." To which Safranski said:

It takes a rare class of wit to combine an allusion to an ethnic minority group while shilling for a fabulously overpaid and notoriously dysfunctional industry that is anxious that we are spending too much money on the war wounded. Full story at Danger Room.

Remember people, every dollar wasted on caring for a critically injured combat veteran, or on a pay raise that keeps a private’s family off of food stamps is a dollar that could have gone to cost overruns or a desperately needed executive bonus.

Joyner and Safranski are mainstream conservative policy wonks and seem as fed up with the military industrial complex as any liberal. I think I know how the Congressional GOP is going to try to handle the situation, but their position may not be nearly as strong as Cole fears it is.

Report: Army Spy Plane Helped Catch Bomber. Me: I Doubt It.

Noah Schachtman passes along a TV news report that was taken down without explanation:

“In the end, it was secret Army intelligence planes that did him in. Armed with his cell phone number, they circled the skies over the New York area, intercepting a call to Emirates Airlines reservations, before scrambling to catch him at John F. Kennedy International Airport.”

He then geeks out over the technology, but I call bullshit on the whole story. If the FBI had Shahzad's cell phone number, all they needed to do to listen to his phone calls was wiretap his line. It would be quick, given the state of the evidence it would be easy to get a warrant, and unlike a spy plane over a particular location, it would catch his conversations no matter where in the world he was.

The details of what exactly went down May 1-3 are still unclear, so spin, misinformation and mistakes - whichever this was - fills the void.

Times Square Bomber Suspect is Naturalized U.S. Citizen From Pakistan

Great:

Federal agents and police detectives arrested a Connecticut man, a naturalized United States citizen from Pakistan, early Tuesday in connection with the failed Times Square car bombing, according to people briefed on the investigation.

The man, Faisal Shahzad, was believed to have recently bought the 1993 Nissan Pathfinder that was found loaded with gasoline, propane, fireworks and fertilizer in the heart of Times Square, one of the people briefed on the development said.

Mr. Shahzad was taken into custody at Kennedy Airport, apparently trying to flee, one of the people said. Charges against Mr. Shahzad, who had returned recently from a trip to Pakistan, were not announced.

If the jihadis had a brain, they'd be dangerous.

We definitely have to profile people who work on Wall Street:

Early Tuesday, at Mr. Shahzad’s former home in Shelton, Conn., just outside Bridgeport, a neighbor said that Mr. Shahzad and his wife, Huma Mian, spoke limited English, and kept mostly to themselves. The couple had two young children, a girl and a boy, said the neighbor, Brenda Thurman.

Ms. Thurman said the couple had lived at the house at 119 Long Hill Avenue for about three years before moving out last year. Mr. Shahzad left around May, she said, and his wife followed about a month later.

The house was a gray, two story Colonial-style three-bedroom built in 2003, according to the real estate site trulia.com.

Ms. Thurman said Mr. Shahzad got up early every morning and left to work nicely dressed, and had told her that he worked on Wall Street.

Graham Cracker Uninvited

Good:

The evangelist Franklin Graham’s invitation to speak at a National Day of Prayer event at the Pentagon has been rescinded because his comments about Islam were inappropriate, the Army said Thursday. Mr. Graham, the son of Billy Graham, in 2001 described Islam as evil. More recently, he has said he finds Islam offensive and wants Muslims to know that Jesus Christ died for their sins.

Now, if we can just dispense with this idiotic national day of talking to your invisible friend ... .

Royalties?

Department of grain of salt:

The sounds of Metallica and Thin Lizzy are now being used on the frontline in Afghanistan, according to a report by the AFP. Marines are allegedly blasting heavy metal into villages in Marjah, hoping to subdue the Taliban through ringing ears. 

"Taliban hate [this] music," said a US special forces sergeant. "Some locals complain but it's a way to push them to choose [sides]. It's motivating marines as well." Apparently, when rebel forces start firing on American soldiers in Marjah, an armoured vehicle with "powerful speakers" fires up the tunes, blaring rock and heavy metal so loudly that it can be heard two kilometres away. The tactical playlist continues for several hours. 

As the military blasts Offspring's Pretty Fly for a White Guy, children cover their ears and, it is claimed, insurgents lay down their arms. Mixed in with the songs are messages from the Afghan government and threats to the Taliban resistance. There are no obscenities, the AFP's contact promises, "but we tell them they're gonna die".

This sounds more like a sergeant bullshitting an AFP reporter.

Handle With Care: Wikileaks Apache Guncamera Video

Wikileaks has a site up, CollateralMurder.com,  to present video which they claim came from a U.S. Army Apache helicopter as it fired on (largely) unarmed Iraqi civilians, killing several including two Reuters journalists.

Charli Carpenter at LGM says what I am thinking:

Could the film be a fake, and how would we know? (Wikileaks has provided almost no information on its website about the video’s source other than a non-working link. The big “Click here to donate” link above the video on the Wikileaks site works fine, which is troubling.)

I am not saying I don’t believe some Apache gunners made gross errors and the military covered it up, only that user-generated content should always be verified before conclusions are drawn, and Wikileaks’ confidentiality policies make that difficult.

My instincts say people should wait for this to unfold before claiming the video and audio are genuine.

Dug the Bullets From Their Hearts and Minds

A propaganda coup! Too bad it's for the other side:

After initially denying involvement or any cover-up in the deaths of three Afghan women during a badly bungled American Special Operations assault in February, the American-led military command in Kabul admitted late on Sunday that its forces had, in fact, killed the women during the nighttime raid.

The admission immediately raised questions about what really happened during the Feb. 12 operation — and what falsehoods followed — including a new report that Special Operations forces dug bullets out of the bodies of the women to hide the true nature of their deaths. 

A NATO official also said Sunday in an interview that an Afghan-led team of investigators had found signs of evidence tampering at the scene, including the removal of bullets from walls near where the women were killed. A senior NATO official later denied on Monday that any evidence tampering occurred. 

The U.S. contradicts the investigation by its "ally", which seems less than persuasive when changing the basic story of non-involvement.  This makes the "ally" unhappy without reducing the appearance that the U.S. is lying.

Water is Wet

Shocking:

Osama bin Laden has threatened that al-Qaeda will kill American captives if the United States executes self-avowed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed or other members of the terrorist network in U.S. custody.

What's he going to do with U.S. captives otherwise? Tuck them in and read them bedtime stories, I guess.

McCain and Lieberman Propose Bill to Strip U.S. Citizens Suspected of Terrorism of All Rights

Via Eric Martin, Marc Ambinder says:

A close reading of the [Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010] suggests it would allow the U.S. military to detain U.S. citizens without trial indefinitely in the U.S. based on suspected activity

He's wrong. The bill does not "allow the U.S. military to detain U.S. citizens without trial indefinitely". It requires it. It's not optional.

Section 2(a) of the bill (pdf):

MILITARY CUSTODY REQUIREMENT.—Whenever within the United States, its territories, and possessions, or outside the territorial limits of the United States, an individual is captured or otherwise comes into the custody or under the effective control of the United States who is suspected of engaging in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners through an act of terrorism, or by other means in violation of the laws of war, or of purposely and materially supporting such hostilities, and who may be an unprivileged enemy belligerent, the individual shall be placed in military custody for purposes of initial interrogation and determination of status in accordance with the provisions of this Act.

(Emphasis supplied.)

This means that anyone, U.S. citizen or not, who is simply suspected of engaging in terrorism or "of purposely and materially supporting such hostilities" must be turned over to the military.

I know I am using italics a lot. I think this warrants it.

Section 3(b)(3):

A individual who is suspected of being an unprivileged enemy belligerent shall not, during interrogation under this subsection, be provided the statement required by Miranda v. Arizona (384 U.S. 436 (1966)) or otherwise be informed of any rights that the individual may or may not have to counsel or to remain silent consistent with Miranda v. Arizona.

I'm disappointed. Every self-respecting enemy belligerent, even unprivileged ones, know the Miranda warnings. This section should have read:

A individual who is suspected of being an unprivileged enemy belligerent shall be provided with the following statement:

"We can do anything we want to you, and no one can stop us. We can rape you, we can burn you, we can kill you. And we're going to enjoy it."

At least that would have the virtue of honesty, if no other.

After the initial detention:

The bill asks the President to determine criteria for designating an individual as a "high-value detainee" if he/she: (1) poses a threat of an attack on civilians or civilian facilities within the U.S. or U.S. facilities abroad; (2) poses a threat to U.S. military personnel or U.S. military facilities; (3) potential intelligence value; (4) is a member of al Qaeda or a terrorist group affiliated with al Qaeda or (5) such other matters as the President considers appropriate. The President must submit the regulations and guidance to the appropriate committees of Congress no later than 60 days after enactment.

To the extent possible, the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Team must make a preliminary determination whether the detainee is an unprivileged enemy belligerent within 48 hours of taking detainee into custody.

The High-Value Detainee Interrogation Team must submit its determination to the Secretary of Defense and the Attorney General after consultation with the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.  The Secretary of Defense and the Attorney General make a final determination and report the determination to the President and the appropriate committees of Congress.  In the case of any disagreement between the Secretary of Defense and the Attorney General, the President will make the determination. 

An "unprivileged enemy combatant" is anyone who is not a "privileged combatant"; i.e., anyone not in uniform. In other words, any civilian labeled "enemy combatant" is automatically an "unprivileged enemy combatant". 

How long may such person be held? Section 5:

An individual, including a citizen of the United States, determined to be an unprivileged enemy belligerent under section 3(c)(2) in a manner which satisfies Article 15 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners in which the individual has engaged, or which the individual has purposely and materially supported, consistent with the law of war and any authorization for the use of military force provided by Congress pertaining to such hostilities.

Forever.

Seems Like a Lot of Effort to Kill One Guy

Back on January 19th, a senior Hamas leader went to Dubai and was found dead in his hotel room within a few hours of arriving in the country. Those are the agreed-upon facts. Everything else is disputed.

Dubai's police chief says that an 11-person assassination team killed him and that there is surveillance video showing them in action. (Nothing graphic.) Assuming that's what they are, it's pretty interesting to see these people walking around trying to act normally before, during and after the murder. The extraordinary thing is how ordinary they are.

The cause of death varies, depending on who you believe.  Shooting, electrocution, poisoning and suffocation are all mentioned.  

The victim is said to have a security detail but they were left behind because there wasn't enough room on the plane. And Dubai apparently didn't have anyone to cover him. That's just weird if he is who they say he is.

The assassins - if that's what they were - traveled mainly on British and Irish passports. Several of the passports were in the names of British citizens who live in Israel. That plus the fact the victim was Hamas clearly suggests a Mossad operation. Indeed, Israelis were initially cheering the Mossad chief when the murder first occurred. But now since the video came out and the allegation of the forged British and Irish passports was released, not so much:

The initial nods, winks and pats on the back here over the assassination last month of a senior Hamas official in Dubai are turning to puzzlement and concern as mounting evidence, including extensive surveillance footage, points to a remarkably clumsy operation many Israelis deem unworthy of their intelligence service, Mossad. 

It's remarkable to me that the Israeli public is portrayed as only being concerned that the killers were clumsy. My guess is that this is just a case of people believing their own hype. Mossad agents aren't superheroes. In any country that had as many CCTVs as Dubai apparently has, you'd end up with pretty good video of an operation like this. They had to have figured burning all those operatives was an acceptable loss given the objective. Assuming any of this is true.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Want to Know

Thoreau at High Clearing:

The Defense Secretary and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are asking Congress to allow gays and lesbians to serve openly. The biggest stumbling block at this point is a fear that if the draft is ever re-instated this policy would make Republican Congressmen and televangelists draft-eligible.

(Via Frank.)

Afghanization

Via Joshua Foust, a reaction to a 60 Minutes piece on U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan:

When you live behind walls everything on the other side of those walls is a threat. When you isolate your forces from the population you are supposed to “protect,” then your forces have no ability to distinguish friend from foe, threat from normal routine, the good from the bad. Gen McChrystal can gob on all he wants about the importance of “COIN” and getting to know the people blah blah blah …. it doesn’t matter because he sets the operational rules here, and under his rules no conventional American troops can leave a FOB unless they have at least four MRAPS and 16 riflemen. How are you supposed to “protect the people” if you can only roll around in large road-bound convoys? How can you “protect the people,” if every night all your people have to be back on the big box FOB’s eating ice cream and pecan pie?

These SF guys are supposed to be the ones who know how to operate outside the big bases with the local population, but did you notice where they live? On a big box FOB, isolated and removed from their Afghan charges which is obvious, because none of them spoke a word of Dari or Pashto. ... They will never be able to gain the situational awareness required to do real COIN if they remain confined to the Big Box FOBs. That is the real story and as usual the MSM missed it.

(Links added for the military-acronym-impaired.)

Shades of another conflict I have read about. The author of the post is a military contractor and former regular U.S. Army infantryman, so animosity toward Special Forces is to be expected. But the point is: You can't win "hearts and minds" if you're safe and secure on your heavily-guarded base every night, but walking out among the population also means you will take a lot of casualties. The American public doesn't tolerate such losses as part of long conflicts with nebulous objectives and no clear-cut end. So, if you want to maintain political support for the war, then you can't actually use the strategy you have ordered.

This disconnect plays itself out at the small unit level, where in direct contradiction of COIN policy individual soldiers express contempt for the people, fail to acquire any local knowledge or language skills, and do things like shoot at vehicles carrying kids that don't represent any kind of threat. At best, you spend a hellish amount of money just treading water while you pray something happens that will allow you to leave without admitting you failed. At worst, what happens if that the situation deteriorates, the opposition kicks the ass of the indigenous force you just trained, your failure is obvious to everyone, and you're back to square one.

Trijicon and U.S. Military to Remove Bible References From "Jesus Rifles"

A rare victory for common sense:

Bowing to Pentagon concerns and an international outcry, a Michigan arms company said Thursday that it would immediately stop embossing references to New Testament scriptures on rifle sights it sells the military. 

The company, Trijicon Inc., has multimillion-dollar contracts with the Pentagon for advanced telescopic sights that are widely used in Iraq and Afghanistan. Trijicon also said it would provide the Pentagon with 100 free kits to use for removing the lettering on existing weapons.

The Army and Marines are setting about removing the references immediately, which I imagine involves filing down the metal and re-bluing it. The bad news?

Neither the company nor the Pentagon released estimates of how many weapons carried the references, but the number appeared likely to be at least in the tens of thousands. The Marine Corps has an ongoing $660 million contract with Trijicon for more than 200,000 of the high-tech rifle sights, said Capt. Geraldine Carey, a Marine spokeswoman.

Which means it will be years, or perhaps never, before all the inscriptions are removed.

U.S. Military Spokesman: "Jesus Guns" No Big Deal

The U.S. military, doubling down on stupid:

[A] spokesperson for CentCom, the U.S. military's overall command in Iraq and Aghanistan, said he did not understand why the issue was any different from U.S. money with religious inscriptions on it.

"The perfect parallel that I see," said Maj. John Redfield, spokesperson for CentCom, told ABC News, "is between the statement that's on the back of our dollar bills, which is 'In God We Trust,' and we haven't moved away from that."

Said Redfield, "Unless the equipment that's being used that has these inscriptions proved to be less than effective for soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and military folks using it, I wouldn't see why we would stop using that.

What's next? Inscribing little Xian fish symbols on the brass of every round of ammunition? The only thing I know for sure is that Maj. John Redfield is a fucking dumbass.

Why Don't You Just Hand the Other Side Our Ammo and Be Done With It?

Holy shit:

Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the United States military by a Michigan company.

The sights are used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. The maker of the sights, Trijicon, has a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps, and additional contracts to provide sights to the U.S. Army.

U.S. military rules specifically prohibit the proselytizing of any religion in Iraq or Afghanistan and were drawn up in order to prevent criticism that the U.S. was embarked on a religious "Crusade" in its war against al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents.

One of the citations on the gun sights, 2COR4:6, is an apparent reference to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the New Testament, which reads: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

Other references include citations from the books of Revelation, Matthew and John dealing with Jesus as "the light of the world." John 8:12, referred to on the gun sights as JN8:12, reads, "Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." 

Trijicon confirmed to ABCNews.com that it adds the biblical codes to the sights sold to the U.S. military. Tom Munson, director of sales and marketing for Trijicon, which is based in Wixom, Michigan, said the inscriptions "have always been there" and said there was nothing wrong or illegal with adding them. Munson said the issue was being raised by a group that is "not Christian."

This is just so goddamned stupid. I don't know what else to say.

Spokespeople for the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps both said their services were unaware of the biblical markings.

I don't believe for a second they didn't know.

They said officials were discussing what steps, if any, to take in the wake of the ABCNews.com report. It is not known how many Trijicon sights are currently in use by the U.S. military.

Too late, the damage is done. But you better act fast anyway, assholes.

The biblical references appear in the same type font and size as the model numbers on the company's Advanced Combat Optical Guides, called the ACOG.

A photo on a Department of Defense Web site shows Iraqi soldiers being trained by U.S. troops with a rifle equipped with the bible-coded sights.

*headdesk* Thanks Trijicon/Pentagon, you sold out our Muslim allies.

"It allows the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, al Qaeda and the insurrectionists and jihadists to claim they're being shot by Jesus rifles," [Michael "Mikey" Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an advocacy group that seeks to preserve the separation of church and state in the military,] said.

Weinstein, an attorney and former Air Force officer, said many members of his group who currently serve in the military have complained about the markings on the sights. He also claims they've told him that commanders have referred to weapons with the sights as "spiritually transformed firearm[s] of Jesus Christ."

Want to throttle someone now.

Iranian Physicist Murdered in Bomb Attack

Unsurprisingly, the regime is blaming the U.S. and Israel:

A remote-controlled bomb attached to a motorcycle killed an Iranian physics professor outside his home in northern Tehran on Tuesday, state media reported, blaming the United States and Israel for the attack.

But it's not even clear that the scientist, Massoud AliMohammadi, was a nuclear physicist or involved in any way in Iran's nuclear program:

[T]wo Iranian academics, who spoke in return for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said in telephone interviews that he was not a nuclear physicist and had specialized in particle and theoretical physics. The Web site of Tehran University lists him as a professor of elementary particle physics.

So what the hell. You can't even tell for sure what's going on here. Maybe the regime killed him or they're lying about it being a bomb, maybe it was some anti-regime group, who knows. But I am confident that it'll increase support for the regime in the short term because assuming it was the U.S. or Israel is the natural thing to do.

War Is Boring #31

You should be reading David Axe and his webcomic:

And that's life out on the edges of the empire.

Militants Can See U.S. Spy Drone Video Because It's Not Encrypted

Lovely:

Using cheap, downloadable programs like SkyGrabber, militants were apparently able to watch and record the video feed — and potentially be tipped off when U.S. and coalition forces are stalking them. The $25.95 software was originally designed to let users download movies and songs off of the Internet. Turns out, the program lets you nab Predator drone feeds just as easily as pirated copies of The Hangover.

And here’s the real scandal: Military officials have known about this potential vulnerability since the Bosnia campaign.

Worst of the Worst

Hurray for justice:

The U.S. government released from Guantanamo Wednesday a Kuwaiti Airways engineer whom a judge freed from eight years detention because American interrogators had wrung a false confession out of him years ago.

The case of Fouad al Rabia, a 50-year-old father of four, brought into sharp relief questions about the quality of evidence the military intended to present at his military commission trial. ...

Rabia, who holds a business degree from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona, Fla., won his freedom after Cynamon argued that U.S. officials had mistakenly identified the obese flight engineer as a key aide to Osama bin Laden at the 2001 battle of Tora Bora, then subjected him to systematic abuse at Guantanamo until he told them what they wanted to hear.

Kollar-Kotelly, with access to secret Pentagon evidence, agreed in a 65-page ruling.

She found that Rabia had been subjected to a sleep deprivation program forbidden by the U.S. Army's field manual, that his interrogators themselves didn't believe his confession, and that the evidence backed his assertion that he was in Afghanistan on a humanitarian mission that he undertook annually.

"If there exists a basis for al Rabia's indefinite detention, it most certainly has not been presented to this court.''

It only took 8 fucking years of torture and the intervention of a Kuwaiti prince to spring an innocent guy. One down, 214 to go.

Phil Carter Says He Left Pentagon for "Personal Reasons". Really.

Noah Schachtman at Danger Room says:

Carter served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee policy, handling porcupine-thorny issues like Guantanamo. So when Carter said he was stepping down for “personal and family reasons,” some wondered whether that was Beltway code for unhappiness with the way the Obama administration was dealing with Gitmo. After all, every D.C. official says he or she’s resigning to get in more family time.

I just got off the phone with Carter. “I know this is a Washington cliche, but sometimes the cliches are true,” he tells me. “I made this tough decision for personal reasons, even though I loved the job and the work we were doing. Hopefully I’ll have the chance to serve again.”

Schachtman claims to be a long-time friend of Carter's and believes him. Carter has always seemed like a stand-up guy to me, so I tend to believe this.

The Excitement of a Military Career

In video game form:

Ultra-Realistic Modern Warfare Game Features Awaiting Orders, Repairing Trucks

In other news, Mikhail Kalashikov turned 90 yesterday. If he got royalties for the gun he invented, he'd be a very wealthy man. Instead, he had the bad luck to create the AK-47 in the Soviet Union, which was notoriously bad at protecting intellectual property rights.

Happy Armistice Day.

Mortification

Regrets, now you have more than a few:

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the 39-year-old man accused of Thursday’s mass shooting at Fort Hood, Tex., started having second thoughts about his military career a few years ago after other soldiers harassed him for being a Muslim, he told relatives in Virginia.

He had also more recently expressed deep concerns about being sent to Iraq or Afghanistan. Having counseled scores of returning soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder, first at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and more recently at Fort Hood, he knew all too well the terrifying realities of war, said a cousin, Nader Hasan.

“He was mortified by the idea of having to deploy,” Mr. Hasan said. “He had people telling him on a daily basis the horrors they saw over there.”

I doubt this is intentional wordplay, but the original meaning of the root of "mortify" is "put to death." I believe both that Hasan was harassed and that he was deeply affected by the soldiers he had to treat. I understand not wanting to deploy, although "tough shit, they paid for your medical degree" is also an acceptable answer. But assuming you don't want to go to war, how do you get from there to shooting scores of people? Probably he was just flipped out and not thinking straight. But I can't rule out the possibility that he connected the dots between being harassed for being Muslim and what he was afraid of in Iraq and decided he needed to kill some soldiers, intending to go out guns blazing. In effect, he decided to take up arms against his country, albeit in a half-assed way. 

For these reasons, I think his commanding officer's remark that Hasan's "death is not imminent" is both a statement of fact and a prediction of mortification to come. The U.S. military has not had an execution for some time, but has several men on death row, including Sgt. Akbar - who also claimed harassment and then fragged his officers while in Kuwait. I think Maj. Hasan is destined to join them.

Hasan is Alive and in Custody

Per press briefing by Ft. Hood CO. "His death is not imminent," he said, in reply to a question about Hasan's condition.

A female, civilian Department of Defense police officer who had been wounded by Hasan shot him and stopped the attack.

Hasan Didn't Want to Go to Iraq; Total Dead is 13

Says MSNBC:

Hasan was scheduled to be deployed to Iraq on Nov. 28, officials said. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said military officials had told her that Hasan was “pretty upset” about his deployment orders.

The Associated Press, quoting military officials, said Hasan received a poor performance evaluation at Walter Reed. The officials would reveal no further details, citing the confidentiality of military records.

A 12th victim has died, bringing the total dead to 13.

Shooting at Ft. Hood

The radio tells me that U.S. Army Col. Maj. Malik Hassan Hasan and two accomplices have killed 12 10 soldiers and a civilian contractor. Hassan was shot and killed by MPs. The others have been apprehended.

Update: Hasan is said to have used pistols, which suggests a lack of a plan. Also, this: "Fort Hood is home to the Warrior Combat Stress Reset Program, which is designed to help soldiers overcome combat stress issues." It doesn't say if Col. Hasan had seen combat. This could be a PTSD-related incident, if the accomplices prove to be innocent.

On TV, CNN says that there is also known gang activity at Hood.

Update 6:08: Sen. Hutchinson went out of her way on CNN to note that the troops killed were on their way to Iraq. Let the politicization begin!

Update 6:19: Hasan was a doctor.

Update 6:23: Suspected accomplices have been cleared and released. I say PTSD.

Update 6:30: Hasan was a psychiatrist licensed in Virginia.

Update 6:50: Hasan worked at the stress management center.

Update I quit: CNN is interviewing some dude from Facebook. "Are there memorial pages that have been set up?" Um, okay, news over.

A Small Change for the Better

Bush never went to Dover.

Scientist Arrested for Attempted Espionage

People are stupid:

In early September, [Stewart David] Nozette was contacted by phone by an individual purporting to be an Israeli intelligence officer, but who really was an FBI undercover agent, the document says.

They met in downtown Washington in front of a hotel, and over lunch, Nozette "demonstrated his willingness to work for Israeli intelligence," it says.

The undercover agent engaged in a series of meetings with Nozette, and eventually Nozette allegedly provided "secret" information in a "dead drop" post office box. Some of the information, the affidavit says, was classified as secret.

Selling secrets is just plain dumb. I mean, even if it had been the Israelis he was dealing with, turning over classified information puts you at their mercy. They can make you deliver more and more material, and if you refuse they'll just burn you to the Americans. 

So what was Nozette's problem?

The FBI document, signed by Special Agent Leslie G. Martell, says Nozette in January 2009 told a colleague "that if the United States government tried to put him in jail" on an unrelated matter, Nozette would move to Israel or another unidentified foreign country and "tell them everything" he knows.

What the hell is that about? Taxes? Drugs? Child porn? I have no idea. Whatever it was, telling someone with a clearance you're thinking of betraying your country if you get prosecuted for it is just stupid squared.

What did Nozette know?

Nozette had a "top secret" clearance, and served at the White House on the National Space Council for President George H.W. Bush, the affidavit says. Later, from early 2000 to early 2006, he did research and development for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Naval Research Laboratory, and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, it says.

Lovely.

The Israelis are not accused of doing anything wrong here. However:

The document says Nozette also acted as a technical consultant from 1998 until early 2008 "for an aerospace company that was wholly owned by the government of the state of Israel." The company consulted with Nozette monthly, getting answers to questions, and he received regular payments of $225,000, Martell's affidavit says.

Well, if he was an independent contractor receiving "regular payments" of almost a quarter million dollars, I would guess the tax angle sounds likelier.

U.S. Generals, Off the Record: McChrystal is Just Like Shinseki

Poor babies:

The hallways at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center buzzed with sympathy for McChrystal, who has said the U.S.-led effort in Afghanistan risks failure without a rapid infusion of additional forces. Obama and his advisers are now debating strategy in Afghanistan, with some officials arguing against additional deployments.

"It was definitely a hand slap," one Army officer said of the statement last weekend by national security adviser James L. Jones, a retired Marine general, that military officials should pass advice to President Obama through their chain of command. The Army officer, like others attending the annual meeting of the Association of the United States Army, spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the politically sensitive issue.

Profile in courage: An anonymous officer criticizing the President publicly for telling a commander he should work on the strategic review that is underway rather than just announce his preferred strategy.

A number of senior Army officers compared McChrystal to Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, the Army chief of staff who warned before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 that it would take several hundred thousand troops to secure the country -- advice that was dismissed as "wildly off the mark" by then Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz.

"You know what happened to Shinseki," said one Army general, referring to what many officers believe was the Bush administration's punitive treatment of the general, now Obama's secretary of veteran affairs.

Yeah, I know what happened to Shinseki. He was called before Congress to answer questions, he didn't run to the Washington Post to bitch anonymously. And when he answered Congress's questions, he was forced out. Unlike McChrystal. 

Officers said there was no question that McChrystal and other commanders would carry out whatever decisions Obama makes. "We will tell you what we think, but we are also soldiers, so if the president gives an order, we will execute it," the senior officer said.

How nice of them.

U.S. Commanding General in Afghanistan Tells the President Which Orders to Give

There's no other way to interpret this:

He was speaking in Britain — America’s close ally in Afghanistan — a day after he had participated by video link from London in a White House strategy session on the war that included President Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and an array of senior advisers.

General McChrystal was asked by a member of an audience that included retired military commanders and security specialists whether he would support an idea put forward by Mr. Biden to scale back the American military presence in Afghanistan to focus on tracking down the leaders of Al Qaeda, in place of the current broader effort now under way to defeat the Taliban.

“The short answer is: no,” he said. “You have to navigate from where you are, not where you wish to be. A strategy that does not leave Afghanistan in a stable position is probably a short-sighted strategy.”

He did not mention Mr. Biden by name.

Right now the White House is engaged in a strategic review of its options in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That review has just gotten underway and is expected to take some time to complete, but McChrystal's statement, if left as is, narrows the range of possible options. The statement is an attempt to tie President Obama's hands by publicly announcing which strategic goals are acceptable and which are not. If Obama decides to support Biden's idea, then Republicans will seize on McChrystal's statement as proof that Obama is undermining American security. 

McChrystal must retract his statement or be removed from his position. If SecDef Gates lets this slide, we'll end up with a decades-long commitment to a war for no reason other than the generals like fighting it.

Saddam Said He Bluffed on WMD to Deter Iran

Given that he must have known he was going to be executed, I think he had no reason to lie about this:

Saddam Hussein told an FBI interviewer before he was hanged that he allowed the world to believe he had weapons of mass destruction because he was worried about appearing weak to Iran, according to declassified accounts of the interviews released yesterday. The former Iraqi president also denounced Osama bin Laden as "a zealot" and said he had no dealings with al-Qaeda.

Hussein, in fact, said he felt so vulnerable to the perceived threat from "fanatic" leaders in Tehran that he would have been prepared to seek a "security agreement with the United States to protect [Iraq] from threats in the region."

Bush, knowing all this or at least having good reason to believe it, boxed Hussein into a corner by demanding Iraq prove it had no WMD, which would have weakened Hussein against the Iranians. Instead, by deposing him, all we've done is strengthened Iran's influence in the region immeasurably, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives and hundreds of billions of American dollars.

Over There

American troops withdraw from the cities and Maliki moves to consolidate his power. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, only with ties to Iran. Heck of a job, Georgie.

More Uighurs Released

The 17 Uighurs held in Gitmo are innocent of any wrongdoing but have been imprisoned since 2001. In 2007, five Uighur detainees were released to Albania.  A couple of days ago the Obama administration announced that the nation of Palau had agreed to take in temporarily some or all of the Uighurs. And today, the Justice Department [sic] announced that the country of Bermuda has accepted four Uighurs for permanent resettlement.

First Trial of Gitmo Captive in U.S.

Good move:

The Obama administration on Tuesday transferred its first Guantánamo detainee to U.S. soil by having U.S. marshals move a Tanzanian man from Guantánamo to New York City for trial on capital terror charges.

A predawn Justice Department statement said Ahmed Ghailani, about 35, was being housed in the Metropolitan Correction Center, a medium to maximum-security lockup in downtown Manhattan that has held everyone from alleged al Qaeda arch-terrorists to financier Bernard Madoff.

Ghaliani, born in Zanzibar and captured in Afghanistan, had been at a secret Super Max-style lock-up at the remote U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba for former CIA captives called Camp 7.

He faced arraignment in federal court later in the day as an alleged co-conspirator in the Aug. 7, 1998, U.S. Embassy bombings in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed 234 people.

Okay, do that 200 more times and then we're done. Seriously, it will be more difficult than that, but at least this is a start.

Ambinder notes:

Notice the date that Ghailani arrived at Guantanamo: 2006 -- that's after the reign of enhanced interrogation techniques had ended...after the torture that extracted (lots of bogus information and some accurate information) from his fellow detainees was put to an end. There was plenty of collateral information about Ghailani's involvement in the embassy bombings, and so the decision to grant him an Article III trial was probably one of the easier calls the administration had to make.

That is, Ghailini probably wasn't tortured, so that won't hinder the admissibility of any incriminating statements he may have made.

Dad Wore Grey or Blue

I should have realized there are lots of people still alive today whose fathers fought in the Civil War. The last Union widow died only in 2003. And I guess that site implies there is at least one Confederate widow still alive.

It's the 21st century and we still have the living reminders of the 1860s. I find that amazing.

Treason!

Shorter Porter Goss:

Liberals stabbed America in the back! The CIA needs to be able to torture in secret for freedom to survive.

Like a Fucking Boomerang

It's nice to see scum get their just desserts; it's horrific it took four murders to make it happen.

Hopey-Changey of the Day: Jimmy Carter, Call Your Office

China Hand at American Footprints, on the meaning of a personnel fight in the Obama administration that you probably have never heard of:

[C]onsider l’affaire Freeman the first conspicuous salvo in the effort to sabotage the Obama administration’s outreach to Tehran.  

Under the Bush administration, when the identity of U.S. and Israeli priorities was pretty much a given, regional confrontation was a welcome opportunity to advance Full Spectrum Dominance, and the idea of fighting two billion-dollar wars (plus for good measure a Global War on Terror) was considered to play to America’s economic and military strengths, AIPAC’s trashing of Middle East realists was not such a big deal.  

But now we are in classic Walt-Mearsheimer territory, where the Obama administration’s intense desire to disengage from Iraq and fix Afghanistan requires at the very least a divergence from Israeli priorities and at worst (from Tel Aviv’s point of view) bilateral engagement with Iran.

Provocation, obstruction and even the active sabotage of U.S. Iran initiatives inflicts few costs on Israel.  Israel’s political position in Washington is secure, and its claim to unstinting U.S. support is enhanced rather than damaged if it occupies an isolated position at the center of a dysfunctional Middle East filled with Muslim nations hostile both to it and the United States.

For the United States, it’s different.  The Obama administration is trying to unwind from overextended positions in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It needs the help of regional powers that have real reach and positive interests inside Iraq and Afghanistan to avoid a catastrophic clusterf*ck that would damage U.S. interests and cripple the Obama presidency.  

That means Iran.  And Syria.

Not Israel.

I anticipate unending efforts by Israel’s supporters in the U.S. Congress, media, and think tank commentariat to make the political cost of dealing with Iran unsupportable for the Obama administration.  And with the economy stuck in a mile-deep rut, President Obama may in fact decide not to pick a fight over Iran and do little more than prolong the bloody standoffs in Iraq and Afghanistan.

That is to say, the hardest of hard-line Israel hawks has a death grip on American foreign policy, and it looks very likely they will be able to stop Obama from changing our country's relationship with Iran and advance peace in the region. Because peace doesn't serve their interests in the short run.

How Much Would You Pay for This Vehicle?

It's called the Growler Light Strike Vehicle:
It's top speed is 35 miles per hour, it's only 50 inches wide so it can fit in a small cargo plane and is designed to surmount an obstacle 12 inches high. It is based on Vietnam-era jeep technology, and uses some of the same parts. It is unarmored and so can't be used in urban environments. It's sole mission is to tow a mortar and haul ammo in uninhabited areas. The commercial version is $15,500 and a military model sold to the Dominican Republic was priced at $33,000.

The U.S. Marine Corps is paying $209,000 each. You may be shocked to learn that the company which makes them is run by a retired U.S. Marine Colonel.

I have a better option: mules. They cost about $3,000 each after training and can climb over obstacles greater than 12 inches. I don't know how much they can haul, but I imagine a team of 4 could pull quite a bit and you'd still be $197,000 ahead on cost. On the downside, they'd shit all over the place. On the upside, you could eat them if you get in a tough spot. Can't really eat your $209,000 jeep.