We invite expressions of interest from individuals who may want to write on US energy issues for Orbat.com. Your job will be to keep track of the rise of non-traditional energy sources and tally the US's progress toward energy independence. Besides building an maintaining a small data base of the current situation, you will write blog entries as and when you want, of whatever length you want, but will submit at least 3 entries a week of not less than 100 words each. You will have your own page. Please contact the Editor.

Analysis

Comments on Major Amin's Analysis of Waziristan [Hamid Hussain 3/25/2008]
Declassified Gulf II Planning Documents

Starved for real military/strategic news? Visit Mathew Wilson's www.1913intel.com

For general news about US deployments/operations, visit www.globalsecurity.org

For solid reporting from Iraq from the US military's view, read Bill Roggio at www.longwarjournal.com

0230 GMT July 24, 2008

No Afghan Reinforcement this year, according to media. Mr. Bush will leave that decision to the next president. "Hundreds' of combat support troops are likely to be sent this year, such as helicopter units and engineers. For the three brigades the military wants, that is a No Can Do at this time.
We are not going to blast USG for this delay because it's true, there are no troops available. First we have to get to the stage where 12-month tours become the norm again; next the Army has to figure out how to limit overseas combat tours to 1 every 4 years. Since raising additional troops is not a reality either the military or civilians are ready to concede, though by next three of the extra six brigades sanctioned years ago will become available, it really will be next year before additional troops are available.
Elsewhere we have argued the US Army should have added an additional maneuver battalion to its 42 brigades instead of adding new brigades and support troops, and heavied up the reconnaissance squadron which is supposed to be the brigade's third maneuver battalion. US could have had a 40% increase in boots on the ground rather than the the 15% it is getting. But the thing with armies is that they like new brigades and divisions - looks better and more senior command slots.
Meanwhile, the US really needs to give serious consideration to reducing the use of airpower in Afghanistan and its traditional shoot-first, ask questions later policy. This is absolutely the way to go in conventional operations, its the way to lose in CI. Every week it seems there is another incident in which civilians are needlessly killed and more Afghans get angry with the US.

Wise Words On The Economy - Part III

The editor was looking forward to several bitter attacks and had his consoling chocolate milkshakes lined up. But all we got were two comments and neither was bitter. We drank the milkshakes anyway.
Reader Flymike says he is mind-boggled by the socialization of failed debt. If you and I go bankrupt, the government doesn't come rushing up to rescue us. But these days the USG is rescuing capitalists left and right, You don't have to be a leftie to note that even the government mortgage rescue is oriented more to saving the sorry rear ends of the capitalist class and less towards ordinary folks.
But this, unfortunately, has been a long-standing feature of the American capitalist class. They are constantly attacking the government for getting in the way of the "free-market". To them the free market means differently than for you and me. We ordinary sods think free-market means competition, and may the best wo/man win. To capitalists "free-market" means the government should make rules that help them make money without any consideration of anyone else, and if they still lose money due to their own stupid mistakes, the government (i.e., you and me) should pick up the bill.
Well, there it is, what can one do, short of staging a revolution. Having studied this issue long and hard the editor has concluded the problem with revolutions is that generally the revolutionaries create new problems that can be even more severe than the old - that standard trio of Mao-Hitler-Stalin being only the most egregious example in modern history. The other problem, as we are all aware, the capitalist class has drugged the rest of the population with cheap alcohol, legal drugs, TV, advertising, fast-food, and fantasies. This process has been underway for 60 years and we are all fairly much enslaved.
Your editor, for example does only legal drugs (Prozac and Desyrl, both primarily to sleep), but he is completed enslaved by the Internet. He should be back in India doing a revolution or two; instead, he'd much rather write this blog and research obscure subjects on the Internet. For example, why is our 4D universe connected to a 6D universe and not a 5D universe. (One of the creation theories is that on the "other side" is a 6D universe which collapsed into a singularity that gave birth to our 6D universe; shortly after the birth, the 5th and 6th Dimensions were jettisoned, sort of like the booster phases of the Apollo rockets, and so we have 4-dimensions. When our universe collapses into a singularity, it will be reborn as a 6D on our "other side" and the process will continue.
This is not the answer Flymike was looking for, but its the best we can do.
A second reader who wants to remain Anon says while it is true the huge contracting in lending credit due to deleveraging will very seriously hurt the economy, the real issue is the loss of wealth the ordinary Jane/John is suffering and which will s/he will continue to suffer for years. No one is bothering about this loss of wealth. For example, you lose your job because of the Wall Street Whores, so you lose your house and you have to pull out all your savings just to say alive till you get another job, which likely will pay you less than the one you lost. It will take you at least ten years to get back to where you were today. If you owned stock in any of the collapsing institutions you are even worse off. (BTW, has anyone done a study on how the Enron employees have managed and how much of their lost wealth have they managed to win back years later?)
Anon should relax: his point is exactly the one we were going to make along with another. That is, first the oil interests mess us up by pushing up the price so high that a serious transfer of American wealth is taking place, then the same lot uses that money to buy up American companies in trouble at throwaway rates. That irony is enough by itself to mess up anyone's happiness.
The sole remaining point we want to make is, who is responsible for this mess? To hear the Vox Populi, the ordinary Barbaras and Bobs tell it, its the greedy capitalists did this to us.
The sad reality is: we did it to ourselves. We abdicated all responsibility for ourselves and then we blame the predators. Folks, predators always exist. It doesn't matter how many rules the Nanny State enacts, new predators with new ways of predating will come up.
I am going to give a very simple, very specific example of myself and Mrs. R.
We purchased our modest house in 1995 (3 beds, 1 bath, 1940 construction, almost nothing improved or added since that time) for $138,000.The house was 2.8 times our income - we could have gotten a much better one, but we were sensibly cautious.
I am considerably older to Mrs. R. My plan was to scrimp and save and pay the mortgage off within 10 years. So then I could four-paws-up-in-the-air at anytime after, in my sixties, and not worry, my wife would face reduced income but at least she'd have a house. Instead of paying double every month, however, we found we had to spend money on furniture and this and that and a house is more expensive to run than a rented apartment. So we started consuming - a tiny fraction of what others do, but nonetheless.
Well, in 2000 Mrs. R wanted to extend the house a wee bit. I did not want to refinance for the above reasons. Another crisis. To keep Mrs. R. happy I agreed. When we went to the mortgage people, they pointed out Mrs. R's student loans carried a high interest rate, we'd cut it by 3% if we took more money than for the extension. Well, the extension was handled very frugally by Mrs. R, just $7000, and the house was a whole lot nicer, but our mortgage went up to $160,000 because of the student loan repayment. So had our salaries, we were still 2.8 on the income:house ratio. But because we had taken that first step on "living better", the extension, we still were not putting accelerated money into paying off the house.
Now, you will laugh at our "living better". We'd eat out at an inexpensive place once a week. Mrs. R. would pick something for the house from a yard sale. We purchased a new but obsolescing notebook for Mrs. R. for her work, bought a Pentium for the child genius (he'd been the only with a computer till then), and I took the kid's computer. Cars were still the same 1998 Neon and 1985 Chevvy Spectrum. Mrs. R began to go home every two years. This wasn't living terribly large; besides, our new mortgage was a 15-year due to my instance. I'd now have to be sure to live into my 70s to pay it off, but I took an insurance policy for that.
Okay. Then in 2004 Mrs. R decided to move out, I refinanced to buy her out, she bought her own place, and off a sudden, wham, our combined mortgages went from $1650/month to $3600/month, both 30 year thingys. I would have to work well into my 80s to pay off mine, and Mrs. R would have to work into her early 1970s to pay off hers. This radically worsened our economic outlook, for all that our salaries kept increasing.
Who is to blame for this? No capitalist, just ourselves. We knew enough that for both refis we avoided the shady brokers/lenders; in return, we had to have a minimum average FICO of 730 between us.
There is no way we are going to believe that people who were making less than we were but were buying houses twice, three times as expensive as ours were duped into anything by anyone except their greed. Even an idiot knows you can't buy a much bigger house without earning much more, and you cant keep raiding your equity for consumer spending. (Mrs. R took out an equity line, but only to buy a property back home).
I read stories of people who were earning less than $50,000/year buying houses of $300,000, and then when they are about to lose their house they cry and say "my dream was to have a beautiful house of my own..." and of course the WashPo is right there to make another tear-jerker story out of it, but nowhere do I see any acknowledgement that no one cares what your dream is, you have to live within your means at all times (and that includes saving an absolute minimum of 10% of your income).
This is life, this is reality. There is no government in the world, not even the Swedish, that says you have a heaven-given right to live better than you earn.
That's all it's really about.

0230 GMT July 23, 2008

Part III (and last) of our essay on the US economy is delayed. After the initial comments, we haven't heard one word. That means either our readers agree with us - unlikely, or that they are scratching their heads wondering "what on earth is he talking about?" - more likely. The editor escapes a significant part of the derision, disrespect, and insult normally accorded to editors because his vast age, and his rapidly gaining iconic status as one of that selected band of husbands, the ones who are complete, utter, total, useless, 100% doormats. But please - let neither age nor doormat stand in the way. Criticize away. The editor will merely weep a few bitter tears in the chocolate shake he will need to console himself.

This Is So Not Fair Zimbabwe may knock six zeroes of its dollar because calculators are having trouble processing transactions. And we find - for the first time, shows how uninformed we are - Zim in 2006 already knocked off three zeroes.
So overnight, instead of being a Zim Dollar Trillionaire (editor's cash assets equal US$10 counting unused postage stamps), if this move goes through, he will be worth only Z$ 1-Million! Aaaaargggh! And the editor worked so hard to become a trillionaire - even looked in the vacuum cleaner bag, and found 11 US cents.
And had Zim not knocked off the three zeroes two years ago, editor would now be worth Z$ 1-Quadrillion!
Don't these people have any sense of justice?
Zimbabwe: Negotiations And Sanctions To the surprise of many, the opposition leader has agreed to open negotiations with the President. Theoretically these negotiations are for power-sharing. How that is to work out is, of course, the devil in the detail.
Meanwhile, European Union has imposed new sanctions against Mugabe regime supporters and officials. Their bank accounts overseas will be frozen - presumably they each have a hundred billion Zimbabwe dollars, since any goof could tell additional sanctions were coming; and their travel in Europe banned. No one can stop Mr. Mugabe from visiting the UN, but his wife will not be given a visa to accompany him.
EU apparently hopes not that Mr. Mugabe will relent, something no one expects him to do, but that his supporters will see less and less percentage in backing him. At some point his supporters have to trade-off their gains from being part of the dictator's circle versus their losses fro being part of his circle. They also have to judge their chances of personal survival should Mr. Mugabe be forced from office. The new government will surely open enquiries into the actions of the old; Mr. Mugabe's supporters could be looking at long jail sentences for their role in the violence Mr. Mugabe uses to keep control plus for all the other illegalities they have committed.
Christian Bale, Actor Ever since we realized Brittany Spears had genuine problems not of the drugs/alcohol/self-indulgence genres, we stopped making fun of her because obviously it makes no more sense than making fun of a physically handicapped person. That self-interdict ended our attention to the entertainment world.
So you may be surprised to see mention of the British actor Christian Bale, most recently of Batman "Dark Knight" fame.
This pleasant young man "allegedly" beat up his mother and sister in a hotel before the premiere of his new movie. He was arrested today and let out on bail.
The point of our rant: the Metropolitan Police, London's Finest, allowed him to attend the première. He went to the police station under his own steam.
No, No, and No. The Metropolitan Police, for whom we have great respect, need to be officially reprimanded for favoritism, unless they can show they would have treated a young man from the London slums with the same deference.
The organizers of the event should have barred him from attending. And Hollywood needs to openly, publicly, and mercilessly shame this man, and strip him of any honors he may have gained.
His behavior, no matter what the provocation, is completely unjustified. Its bad enough when a famous sports or entertainment idol beats up someone in a bar or is repeatedly arrested for drugs and alcohol and treated with kid gloves. Hitting your 61-year old mother and your 40-year old sister is a heinous act in many cultures. The British need to show the world that they will deal with equal severity with everyone regardless of their "status".
Asking the Americans to do that is, of course, pointless. But the British pride themselves on being different, for them fairness and justice is supposed to be the underpinning of society.
Let's see some of that fairness and justice in this man's case.

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