Over on Altercation, LTC. Robert Bateman deconstructs the peculiar theories of Right Blogostan’s favorite historian, Victor Davis Hanson, who specializes in the twisting of history to fit political convenience.

Well, completely contrary to Hanson’s thesis about how Western armies seek battle, hold ground, and strive for short and sharp shock conflicts, the reality was that the Romans, for the next 14 years, deliberately avoided shock and pitched battles with Hannibal. (Remember these Hanson lines? “All armies engage in mass confrontations at times; few prefer to do so in horrendous collisions of shock and eschew fighting at a distance or through stealth when there is at least the opportunity for decisive battle…” and “Foot soldiers are common in every culture, but infantrymen, fighting en masse, who take and hold ground and fight face-to-face, are a uniquely Western specialty…” (pg. 445))

What the Romans actually did was exactly the opposite of the Hanson thesis. They broke up their armies into smaller forces and harassed Hannibal indirectly. They gave ground, regularly, and lived to maneuver another day. They sought to wear him down, while preserving their own forces. They avoided pitched battles on any large scale. In short, they followed the direct advice of one of the other most famous generals of all time, one who is only mentioned by name a single time in the entire chapter (and then without noting his actions). That man was Quintus Fabius Maximus, called “Cunctator” (The Delayer), and it is from him that we have the term “Fabian Strategy,” which was so magnificently put into play by a fellow named George Washington a couple of millennia later.

How Hanson missed that extra 14-year part where the Romans avoided major pitched battles in Italy is curious.

Click on the link and read the whole thing.

Who needs softball questions tossed by professional fluffers like Steve Sammon when you can just have actual government-paid lackies ask the questions:

FEMA has truly learned the lessons of Katrina. Even its handling of the media has improved dramatically. For example, as the California wildfires raged Tuesday, Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, the deputy administrator, had a 1 p.m. news briefing.

Reporters were given only 15 minutes’ notice of the briefing, making it unlikely many could show up at FEMA’s Southwest D.C. offices. They were given an 800 number to call in, though it was a “listen only” line, the notice said — no questions. Parts of the briefing were carried live on Fox News, MSNBC and other outlets.

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He was apparently quite familiar with the reporters — in one case, he appears to say “Mike” and points to a reporter — and was asked an oddly in-house question about “what it means to have an emergency declaration as opposed to a major disaster declaration” signed by the president. He once again explained smoothly.

FEMA press secretary Aaron Walker interrupted at one point to caution he’d allow just “two more questions.” Later, he called for a “last question.”

“Are you happy with FEMA’s response so far?” a reporter asked. Another asked about “lessons learned from Katrina.”

“I’m very happy with FEMA’s response so far,” Johnson said, hailing “a very smoothly, very efficiently performing team.”

“And so I think what you’re really seeing here is the benefit of experience, the benefit of good leadership and the benefit of good partnership,” Johnson said, “none of which were present in Katrina.” (Wasn’t Michael Chertoff DHS chief then?) Very smooth, very professional. But something didn’t seem right. The reporters were lobbing too many softballs. No one asked about trailers with formaldehyde for those made homeless by the fires. And the media seemed to be giving Johnson all day to wax on and on about FEMA’s greatness.

Of course, that could be because the questions were asked by FEMA staffers playing reporters. We’re told the questions were asked by Cindy Taylor, FEMA’s deputy director of external affairs, and by “Mike” Widomski, the deputy director of public affairs. Director of External Affairs John “Pat” Philbin asked a question, and another came, we understand, from someone who sounds like press aide Ali Kirin.

Fake news perfected, even to the point of cutting out the middle man. Jeff Gannon, you’re obsolete.

(via atrios)

Or perhaps not:

Top Iraqis Pull Back From Key U.S. Goal
Reconciliation Seen Unattainable Amid Struggle for Power

For much of this year, the U.S. military strategy in Iraq has sought to reduce violence so that politicians could bring about national reconciliation, but several top Iraqi leaders say they have lost faith in that broad goal.

Iraqi leaders argue that sectarian animosity is entrenched in the structure of their government. Instead of reconciliation, they now stress alternative and perhaps more attainable goals: streamlining the government bureaucracy, placing experienced technocrats in positions of authority and improving the dismal record of providing basic services.

“I don’t think there is something called reconciliation, and there will be no reconciliation as such,” said Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, a Kurd. “To me, it is a very inaccurate term. This is a struggle about power.”

The so-called “Surge” was always described by the President as a means of furthering Iraq’s national reconciliation:

“. . . in January I announced a new way forward — sending reinforcements to help the Iraqis protect their people, improve their security forces, and advance the difficult process of reconciliation at both the national and local levels.”

It is the very goal of this strategy which the Iraqis themselves view as alien and have rejected. They understand, and have understood for a long time, even if Bush is too dense or stubborn to admit it, that U.S. goals of a stable, pluralisitic and unified Iraq are unattainable, precisely because the Iraqis themselves do not desire them. The factions in Iraq want power on their own terms, not compromise.

Whatever tactical success the surge may have achieved — and one can argue the point and the methodologies used to quantify that success — the current U.S. strategy is a miserable failure (Bush’s hallmark, after all) on a strategic level.

Even if we exclude car bombs, gunshots to the face, intra-religious killings and other forms of violence endemic to Iraq and claim we are reducing violence, Bush’s policy of sacrificing American lives in the hopes that Iraqis will come to an epiphany and seek national reconciliation is a colossal failure.

In response, we can expect the administration to continue to shift focus in Iraq from its actual goals to more attainable one. As the people of Iraq continue to reject the foreign al Qaeda elements, Bush will advance the argument that the surge was intended to oust al Qaeda. Forget that our “surge” troops are tasked with completely different goals, and al Qaeda has always been a vastly unpopular element in the equation of Iraq violence and no threat to dominate a country comprised primarily of Shia and Kurds who loathe the Sunni fanatics. Bush will continue to claim success in Iraq is just around the corner, regardless of the facts, until he hands over the whole mess to the next president.

From the Times piece on Bush’s approval of torture:

After the Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that the Geneva Conventions applied to prisoners who belonged to Al Qaeda, President Bush for the first time acknowledged the C.I.A.?s secret jails and ordered their inmates moved to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The C.I.A. halted its use of waterboarding, or pouring water over a bound prisoner?s cloth-covered face to induce fear of suffocation.

But in July, after a monthlong debate inside the administration, President Bush signed a new executive order authorizing the use of what the administration calls ?enhanced? interrogation techniques ? the details remain secret ? and officials say the C.I.A. again is holding prisoners in ?black sites? overseas. The executive order was reviewed and approved by Mr. Bradbury and the Office of Legal Counsel.

The arrogance of these people is just staggering. Told by no less an authority than the Supreme Court of the United States that what they are doing is illegal, the Bush administration publicly discontinues the illegal practice — then reinitiates the same illegality in secret.

The significance of this cannot be understated. Legal Positivist H.L.A. Hart, in The Concept of Law, described the complex interplay between what he called primary and secondary rules of law — the first being laws of command, the second being the laws which determine how primary rules are created, modified, interpreted, or abolished.

What the Bush administration has done has gone far beyond simply breaking the law; his brazen acts erode the very means by which America has, for centuries, formulated and administered its system of laws. This administration no longer recognizes Marbury v. Madison, which posited that the Supreme Court was the ultimate arbiter of what is and what isn’t law, as legitimate. He has arrogated that to the executive branch, and his contempt for our system of laws, and the notion that we are a nation of laws and not men, is manifest.

Whatever that sinkin’ ship John McCain may believe, we don’t need another Decider after the current one leaves office:

WESTMINSTER, S.C. - Republican John McCain is accusing Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton of indecisiveness on foreign policy, arguing that the nation can’t afford a post-Sept. 11 commander in chief who employs a triangulation policy.

~~~

“The Democratic front-runner wants to have it both ways when it comes to foreign policy. On the one hand, the New York senator voted for the Iraq War. On the other hand, she now opposes it ? sort of. On the one hand, she wants a firm deadline for retreat. But, on the other hand, she says we cannot abandon the nation to Iran’s designs,” McCain says in remarks he plans to deliver Wednesday at a South Carolina military academy.

“Senator Clinton, this is not the ’90s,” McCain says. “This is the post-September 11 world. The commander in chief does not enjoy the luxury to conduct our national security by means of triangulation.”

Triangulation can’t be as destructive as Bush listening to a bunch of batshit crazy assholes over at the PNAC and deciding to invade Iraq and make Ahmed Chalabi Iraq’s Solon. (All the Mandelas are dead, remember?)

Or as destructive as McCain sticking to Bush’s fuck-up and insisting we have to stay in Iraq forever, for that matter.

And isn’t Giuliani supposed to be the chief GOP 9/11 pimp? What’s going on around here??

Well, Secretary Rice promised a “full and complete review” of Blackwater’s security practices in Iraq, and here’s the first report:

The initial U.S. Embassy report on a Sept. 16 shooting incident in Baghdad involving Blackwater USA, a private security firm, depicts an afternoon of mayhem that included a car bomb, a shootout in a crowded traffic circle and an armed standoff between Blackwater guards and Iraqi security forces before the U.S. military intervened.

The two-page report, described by a State Department official as a “first blush” account from the scene, raises new questions about what transpired in the intersection. According to the report, the events that led to the shooting involved three Blackwater units. One of them was ambushed near the traffic circle and returned fire before fleeing the scene, the report said. Another unit that went to the intersection was then surrounded by Iraqis and had to be extricated by the U.S. military, it added.

~~~

Witnesses and the Iraqi government have insisted that the shooting by the private guards was unprovoked. Blackwater has claimed that its guards returned fire only after they were shot at. The document makes no reference to civilian casualties. Eleven Iraqi civilians were killed and 12 wounded in the incident. The report said Blackwater sustained no casualties.

Thus far, we’re talking about a “full and complete review” which ignores eleven civilians gunned down by Blackwater mercs.

Heckuva review, Condi. Nice jacket, though.