HUMMMMMP DAY READS

Boston Tea Party

American Leadership

Today the recommended reads are few, but rich in content. First off, blog-friend Lexington Green, the nom de guerre of a rather brilliant barrister who hails from the windy city has in the words of the zenpundit made the big time ever since he penned a piece about the Tea Party and gained the attention of the likes of the MSM, Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh. Lex, has an article on the rightnetwork and begins with this about insurgency.

Mass political movements often begin with a single, striking event. The Insurgency began in the fall of 2008, when President Bush, Senator Obama, and Senator McCain appeared together to endorse the TARP bailout. At that moment the lights came on for many Americans. It was glaringly obvious that both political parties jointly operated the system, and the system existed to protect the well connected at the expense of everyone else. The public opposed the TARP bailouts; the banks got their money anyway. The Insurgency, long brewing, began.

The Insurgency is a movement of citizens directed against unsustainable government taxation and regulation, and spending, both of which benefit insiders rather than ordinary people. The target of the Insurgency is a leviathan in Washington, D.C. that will ruin us all if it is not dismantled.

The Insurgency is part of a long tradition of mass political movements in our history. It has the potential to make a fundamental change in American life-for the better.

Read more:
Enter Stage Right

These next recommended reads, come from two gentlemen who have dialed back on the blog posts and in return, are turning out what I deem extremely high quality observations and analysis.

Iranian Flying Boats

Galhran the master of Information Dissemination  has fired off a salvo on naval gunnery. Granted in the missile age, this seems out of touch, but wait until you read both articles then decide. Is a return to ships bristling with automatic crew served weapons, a nod to the last ditch defence against Kamikazes in the last months of the Pacific War?

It is very easy to look at this technology and be dismissive... but that our weakness isn't it? We are a technology society and look at the specifics of technology to form the basis for our judgments. It a technology doesn't conform to our conceptual expectations regarding capability, then 'it doesn't pass the smell test' and is usually dismissed with sarcasm. I expect there is plenty of sarcasm to be easy shared upon examination of this little piece of tech being fielded by Iran.

Read more:
The Swarm

Twin Ma-Duces

In this post about a recent gunfight, Galhran writes.

In the missile age, it is noteworthy that with the exception of a single torpedo attack - we continue to see a series of gunfights of various natures define military combat at sea. Navy Times reported yesterday that just two weeks ago, the US Coast Guard engaged in one such firefight.

Read more:
Peacemaking: The High Seas Gunfight

Mumbai, 2008

Next?

And finally, today's news has been abuzz about the reported terror plot to launch Mumbai style attacks across Europe. Thomas Barnett, dialed back the volume of posts on his must read blog, and is now posting when he feels the need to provide an indepth review of major stories and trends. Barnett's analysis of the terror plot and how we handle the next one, makes this a spot-on piece to read and ponder. Tom begins by answering:

Why it's important to pay attention:

■It's long been my contention that extremists operating in NW Pakistan, most likely in some collusion with al Qaeda (not a big leap), will keep trying to make some big splashy strike in the West. Many experts saw the Times Square bombing attempt as a practice run using an expendable. Figuring how hard that is to pull off--in a relative sense, and with AQ and its net falling from our collective memory thanks to the economy, the default alternative for such groups to regrab the headlines is to do something easy and cheap like Mumbai II and to do it in Europe. So yeah, I find this whole logic believable. 

And I give you this his final thoughts with the link to read more.

Then tack on Obama's statement to Woodward that "We need to make clear to people that the cancer is in Pakistan."  I guarantee you, the next scheduled-by-our-enemies response (when the drones aren't enough) will induce a serious calibration effort/opportunity with both China and India.

Read more:
Report: NATO members foil Mumbai-style wave of attacks on Europe

The common thread I found in all of these articles is the call for leadership; real inspired visionary leadership, like the kind that got us through crisis’s in the past. Lex, Galhran, and Tom are pointing out that amid all those layers of rhetoric and micro management of the current and recent administrations, that as a free people, we are collectively waiting for an unnamed and unseen leader who can provide the essence of visionary leadership the has served the world before.

Zenpundit asks! The End of Mexico? or The End of U.S. Sovereignty?

This morning I was going to put up a reads of the week post. But when I cruised by Mark Zafranski's blog, I was stopped in my tracks when I read his latest. The bigger question looms, how will this impact the sovereignty of the United States to secure our borders and ensure tranquility?

Mark began by quoting this from Fox News.

….Last week, at least 30 Mexicans from the town of El Porvenir walked to the border crossing post at Fort Hancock, Texas, and asked for political asylum. Ordinarily, their claim would be denied as groundless, and they would be turned back. Instead, they were taken to El Paso, where they expect to have their cases heard.

No one doubts that they have a strong claim. Their town on the Mexican side of the border is under siege by one or more drug cartels battling for control of the key border crossing. According to Mike Doyle, the chief deputy sheriff of Hudspeth County, Texas, one of the cartels has ordered all residents of the town of 10,000 to abandon the city within the next month.

Mark's own comments follow.

I saw this coming. I’m sure that so has anyone else studying insurgency or military history who stopped to give the matter five minutes of serious thought. There’s nothing magical about geographic proximity to the United States that would prevent this tactic, if applied widely and backed by lethal examples, from working. What has been done in the villages of Bosnia or Dar Fur can be done in towns of northern Mexico.

Read the whole piece.
The End of Mexico?

You will note after you read the link embedded above that this blog concurred and wrote on the same issue twice last year and the year before.

Mark's concerns are reflected in the citizens of Fort Hancock, Texas who probably feel they are channeling the lives of the people of Columbus, New Mexico who almost 100 years ago felt the sting of living next to the failed state of Mexico.

Fort Hancock, Texas -- Residents of this tiny Texas town say they're living in fear that Mexican drug cartel violence could spill over into the United States at any moment.

Locals here say they've seen a recent increase in illegal immigrants simply walking across the border and disappearing into the town, which lies just four miles from El Porvenir, Mexico, and 50 miles southeast of Ciudad Juarez, where 2,300 people were killed last year alone.

When I read each day that the cancer of lawlessness gains control like a reverse "Oil Spot Strategy" right on our southern border; and then read about this and this from the President of a country where we are spending our most precious resource to secure.

It becomes very hard to justify continuing to stay the course in Central Asia when it appears the tiger has creeped up to our open back door and threatens to come inside.


UPDATE: Chicago Boyz readers join the discussion, 56 and counting

What Comes Next? In The Wake, of The Latest Airline Bombing Attempt.

Nigerian Arrested in Failed Plane Attack Claims Links to al-Qaeda This headline was the lead story on newspapers and every news broadcast worldwide, Christmas Day. It could have been much worse if the alleged bomber had been successful. We would be mourning the unexplained loss of 278 lives when an airliner exploded and fell to earth as it entered U.S. airspace. Thanks to a combination of inept execution and the bravery of some passengers, we will have the opportunity to discover how this latest attempt at terrorism came about.


This story has begun to resonate across the blogs where it will touch millions of minds and trigger responses that are both insightful and offer ideas and warnings about what to expect when the inevitable finally occurs.

One of the first to post a comment is respected grand strategist Thomas Barnett who weighs in with two brief comments to yesterday's devlopments. Here is the money line, in the first post.

Said it a million times: we are an ultra-violent society. The Occidentalism of the Salafists is severely misguided. We are anything but wimpy momma's boys. We can't wait to kill, so we're the wrong society to pick a long war with.

Read more:
Imagine that: Home-grown mass murders in America

Barnett goes on with his next post to note his personal connection to Northwest Flight 253 and his first thoughts on this foiled attempt.

I've taken Northwest 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit, even connecting through the Netherlands from Africa. I remember the African security being fairly lax, and the Dutch being much tighter, with the usual screening before you board the plane by special personnel (who ask a lot of questions).

Nice to see the spirit of United 93 lives on in passengers.

Will this stuff ever go away? Unlikely. But important to remember how easy it was to hijack planes in the 1970s and then how that tactic went away in the 1980s thanks to heightened security.

Read more:
A familiar flight and--thankfully--a familiar ending


To be sure airline security will increase in the coming days. My own off-the-cuff observation would lead me to look back at what happened in the wake of the failed attempt by Shoe bomber, Richard Reid. Today, we all queue up and remove our shoes to be X-rayed along with our carry-on luggage. I suspect that if it was a small vial of liquid and powder as reported, that in the future all luggage containing any of that kind of material will have to ride in the cargo hold. One or two more incidents will have us down to wearing TAS issued slippers and sanitized coveralls and having only the reading material in the seat pockets to pass the time. I am being a bit fascias, but before Reid, who would have thought about having to shed our shoes and pad across dirty terminal floors clutching our britches as we waited for the tray to disgorge our worldly possessions.

UPDATE:

The Small Wars Council has begun to weigh in on this subject with this discussion thread. Explosive device set off aboard airliner at Detroit Wayne International Airport

And for those who might think bending the rules to defeat your enemy is a 21st century rightwing neocon invention.

The Battle of Trenton, 1776