The raid that got Osama

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s the sort of article the New Yorker often does well—a detailed description of something. In this case, the “something” is the planning and execution of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

There are few surprises there, but one of them (for me, at least) is the fact that Obama really did make a few tough calls prior to the raid. Another previously unknown (to me, at least) fact is that the designers of the operation had the presence of mind to include a native-speaking translator, who stood outside the compound and warned curious passers-by drawn by the sounds to move along:

“Go back to your houses,” [translator] Ahmed said, in Pashto, as Cairo [the dog] stood watch. “There is a security operation under way.”

Although the beginning of the raid was filmed by drone and watched live in the White House, there was a blackout period of about 20 to 25 minutes where there was no information transmitted. It must have been a long twenty minutes.

As you read the article, you can just picture the movie that will be made some day. Those SEALS are very tough cookies:

After a few minutes, the twelve SEALs inside helo one recovered their bearings and calmly relayed on the radio that they were proceeding with the raid. They had conducted so many operations over the past nine years that few things caught them off guard. In the months after the raid, the media have frequently suggested that the Abbottabad operation was as challenging as Operation Eagle Claw and the “Black Hawk Down” incident, but the senior Defense Department official told me that “this was not one of three missions. This was one of almost two thousand missions that have been conducted over the last couple of years, night after night.” He likened the routine of evening raids to “mowing the lawn.” On the night of May 1st alone, special-operations forces based in Afghanistan conducted twelve other missions; according to the official, those operations captured or killed between fifteen and twenty targets. “Most of the missions take off and go left,” he said. “This one took off and went right.”

Here is a description of the moment right before Bid Laden was killed:

The Americans hurried toward the bedroom door. The first SEAL pushed it open. Two of bin Laden’s wives had placed themselves in front of him. Amal al-Fatah, bin Laden’s fifth wife, was screaming in Arabic. She motioned as if she were going to charge; the SEAL lowered his sights and shot her once, in the calf. Fearing that one or both women were wearing suicide jackets, he stepped forward, wrapped them in a bear hug, and drove them aside. He would almost certainly have been killed had they blown themselves up, but by blanketing them he would have absorbed some of the blast and potentially saved the two SEALs behind him. In the end, neither woman was wearing an explosive vest.

It’s not that the operation went flawlessly. It did not, beginning with the crash of one of the helicopters as it descended into the compound. But the SEALS were fully up to the task of improvising when things did not go as planned—and in the end, they got their man.

From horseheads to war paint

The New Neo Posted on by

Ann Althouse wonders how those Mafioso managed to get that horse’s head into the bed with Jack Woltz:

In that scene in “The Godfather”… we just see the guy slowly waking up and finally noticing there’s a bleeding horse head in his bed. It’s great cinema. You never forget it. But what the hell kind of a heavy sleeper was Jack Woltz anyway? I’d love to see the missing part of the story, where guys holding a giant, dripping horse head open the bedroom door, walk across the room, peel back the covers ”” I guess they’d have to set the head down ”” put the head in the bed, gently replace the bed clothes, and sneak back out of there. All that time, Woltz is snoozing peacefully.

Well, I guess Althouse never slept with some of my bed companions, because if she had, she’d know there are a lot of sound sleepers in this world. It’s not necessarily a bad trait, especially if you want to make a statement, as did the guys in “The Godfather.”

Speaking of statements—the whole thing reminds me of the summer camp I went to as a child. The horses there were for riding (although not by me!), and mercifully they kept their heads on their bodies.

But at the camp we had an institution known as Color War. It had nothing to do with race and everything to do with the speed contests known as races. Every year, kids from the city came to the Berkshire establishment for the entire summer, and the attendees were divided into two competing factions that fought (in the metaphoric sense) the whole time for hegemony on land and lake. There were track meets, volleyball games, and war canoe demonstrations, and archery and tennis and singing competitions and battles on every camp front imaginable.

It was all very intense. One of the most exciting parts of the whole thing was the beginning (isn’t that often the case?), when Color War was said to “break”—meaning the entire camp was divided into two teams, and each camper learned what team she was on. This was always done in some surprise way on about the second week of camp. We knew it was coming, and the tension built and built. How would it happen this year? Could they outdo the last?

The Color War break I remember best—and one never to be surpassed—was the morning we all woke up to the usual grating sounds of a scratchy record playing reveille, and as we opened our sleepy eyes, each of us noticed that all the other girls in the bunk had paint on their faces (of course, we were each unaware of our own painted face). Some were bright green and some stark white, the colors of the camp and the colors and names of the teams. As we pointed, whooped, hollered, and raced to the single tiny mirror to see our own faces, we realized that Color War had broken and the teams had been announced.

We also realized that our counselors must have sneaked into the cabin in the middle of the night and painted us while we slept. This was exciting in a disturbing way. There was a sense of vague violation and, at least for me, the shock that I had completely slept through such a thing. Since I was not a heavy sleeper, I could not understand it; how could it be? But the undeniable evidence was there for all to see in my bright green face.

The painters must have had a light and deft touch, because there were several hundred girls at the camp that summer, and the report was that no one had woken up.

Who won that year? Can’t remember.

[NOTE: This comment at the Althouse thread is mean mean mean, but hysterical.]

[ADDENDUM: Another connection between movies, Al Pacino, and a horse’s head. But this one’s musical.]

Oh, that civility!

The New Neo Posted on by

Apparently it ends when talking about the Tea Partiers.

Joe Nocera of the NY Times writes:

You know what they say: Never negotiate with terrorists. It only encourages them.

Can’t really disagree with that. Except the next sentence is this:

These last few months, much of the country has watched in horror as the Tea Party Republicans have waged jihad on the American people.

It goes on in that vein. And on and on—extending the metaphor and ending with this:

For now, the Tea Party Republicans can put aside their suicide vests. But rest assured: They’ll have them on again soon enough. After all, they’ve gotten so much encouragement.

Ah, it’s just words, right?

[ADDENDUM: It seems to be the meme du jour, although Joe Biden denies ever saying it.

See also this. And Jonah Goldberg observes:

Tom Friedman ”” who knows a bit about Hezbollah ”” calls the tea partiers the “Hezbollah faction” of the GOP bent on taking the country on a “suicide mission.” All over the place, conservative Republicans are “hostage takers” and “terrorists,” “terrorists” and “traitors.” They want to “end life as we know it on this planet,” says Nancy Pelosi. ]

Christian terrorism?

The New Neo Posted on by

The logic of those who claim that Breivik was the Christian equivalent of a Muslim terrorist leaves a lot to be desired.

Are there Christian clerics clamoring for the murder of Young Socialists in Europe, in order to preserve the continent for Christiandom, and protect it from the Muslim invasion? If there are, I certainly haven’t heard of them. And Breivik himself wrote the following about his religious beliefs in his lengthy manifesto:

“A majority of so called agnostics and atheists in Europe are cultural conservative Christians without even knowing it,” [Breivik] wrote.

“If you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God then you are a religious Christian. Myself and many more like me do not necessarily have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God. We do however believe in Christianity as a cultural, social, identity and moral platform. This makes us Christian,” he wrote.

Breivik’s initial explanation comes in a segment of the manifesto entitled “Distinguishing between cultural Christendom and religious Christendom – reforming our suicidal church.”

Later in the manifesto, when attempting to justify his “martyrdom operation” Breivik did not see himself as being religious.

“I’m not going to pretend I’m a very religious person as that would be a lie. I’ve always been very pragmatic and influenced by my secular surroundings and environment,” he wrote in a section of the manifesto.

“Religion is a crutch for many weak people and many embrace religion for self serving reasons as a source for drawing mental strength,” he wrote.

“I’ll say directly that this is my agenda as well,” he wrote.

So, Breivik seems to see Christianity as part of a Western culture he is interested in preserving, rather than being a Christian himself. His terrorist act was, of course, contrary to every teaching of Christianity and every statement of every Christian cleric—sanctioned by none, and condemned by all.

Compare and contrast this to Islam’s reaction to its own jihadis. It is split. All too many Muslim clerics sanction and glorify terrorists’ deeds and suicide bombers’ martyrdom—and encourage more of the same, all directly in the name of Islam. The contrast with Christianity could not be greater. But there are many people—and some of them are quoted in the article I linked to in the first paragraph of this post—who would like to argue otherwise, and hope that readers will be too stupid and/or ignorant to notice the difference.

The debt limit compromise

The New Neo Posted on by

If you look at today’s Memeorandum page, you’ll see that the debt ceiling compromise story totally dominates the news.

Most of the articles are of the “who won?” variety (even though the vote hasn’t occurred yet, everyone’s assuming it will pass). No need to link to them; just look at the page yourself and start clicking, if you’re interested. Most of them seem to think that the winners were the Republicans and the Tea Party. But I think most on the right would agree, instead, with commenter “J.J.,” who wrote here:

This deal does nothing about the spending problem. Just puts a bit of lipstick on the pig. Or as some might say ”“ kicks the can down the road. This is what I expected.

It’s hard to see that anyone “won,” especially if America’s credit might be downgraded anyway (see also this). The prolonged negotiations involved in making this especially stinky variety of sausage may have further shaken creditors’ already-waning faith in America’s ability and willingness to pay its bills.

The Tea Party wanted far deeper cuts than this. Liberals, the left, and Obama wanted tax hikes. And the public didn’t want the process of “negotiations” to go on this long, although politicians had reasons for believing the pressure involved in a down-to-the-wire dickering to be strategically advantageous.

This is just a first baby step. More must be done. What might it be?

I will go out on a small limb here and say that there’s nothing all that wrong (and even a few things right) with some manageable amount of deficit spending by the federal government. It’s the magnitude it has reached in the last few years that has become untenable and unsustainable, especially when projected only a short time into the future.

Somehow, and soon, entitlements must be reined in, or taxes raised, or both. There is no other way out. To accomplish these feats without undue hardship, and in an effective manner—to trim entitlements without harming people who have relied on them and paid into the system, and to do so for the next generations as well, and to raise taxes in a manner that doesn’t burden business and harm the recovery, and which actually takes in the amount of revenue needed rather than causing the overly-taxed to flee and/or become less productive—takes skill and wisdom that I’m afraid members of Congress do not possess (actually, I’m not sure who does).

So let’s not pretend it’s easy, although I defer to none in my contempt for Congress as a whole. But balancing (or at least getting into better balance) the budget of the federal government is nothing like balancing the budget of a household. Politicians must get elected and listen to the cries of constituents who want what they want when they want it. And cutting spending in the midst of an attempt to recover from a recession has its own dangers; it has the potential to put a damper on the economy itself.

It does no good to pretend that these problems don’t exist, and that solutions are simple. If the law of unintended consequences is any guide (and it usually is), any attempt to solve the problem will not go exactly as planned.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. Congress is going to have to tackle this, for real. This is what is contemplated:

Both Republicans and Democrats have proposed drumming up a committee of 12 legislators, handpicked by both parties, to deal with the most complicated issues involved in a likely debt-ceiling compromise. It will be up to this “super committee’’ to complete the epic task of cutting $2.8 trillion in spending from the federal budget.

According to the agreement reached yesterday, committee members would have only until the end of November to complete the job, and when they approve a final set of cuts, the rest of Congress would be given a simple choice: take them or leave them.

The first step in the process would take place immediately: raising the debt limit by nearly $1 trillion and cutting spending by a slightly larger amount over a decade.

That would be followed by creation of the super committee to recommend an additional $1.8 trillion or more in deficit cuts, targeting benefit programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security or overhauling the tax code.

Best of luck. As the article points out, the committee will be tasked to do what Congress couldn’t, and there’s no indication it would do any better.

The problem is not just that Democrats are stupid and Republicans are mean, or vice versa, or both—although in some cases that may indeed be true. The real problem is that the problems are real, and the disagreements are real, and that predicting what the economy will do as a result of government intervention is an iffy task. But doing nothing is not a viable option.

Debt compromise

The New Neo Posted on by

So, is this it?

And was it really Obama who stalled things all along?:

In many respects, the deal will, if approved by all parties, resemble the contours of a short-lived pact negotiated last weekend by House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Obama rejected that deal, forcing Congress to wrestle with other inferior legislative options throughout the week.

[NOTE: Here’s an interesting analysis of the compromise proposal.]

The theater in DC continues…

The New Neo Posted on by

…although it’s not all that entertaining, and the seats are “obstructed view.”

The Boehner plan was never about something that would be implemented, anyway. Everyone knew it would be rejected by the Senate. It was in the nature of a serve in tennis—and certainly not an ace—just a start, to get the ball in play.

Now it’s in Reid’s court. This piece describes his latest move as an attempt at a compromise that will appeal to the GOP. But when you actually read what the two changes are, it’s almost impossible to see how they could sweeten the deal in any meaningful way.

The truth as I see it is that each party is philosophically opposed to the other’s stand on this issue, and see this as an exceedingly important showdown. But beyond the substantive disagreements is the need to appeal to constituents. No one wants to be turned out of office in 2012, and in the House everyone is up for grabs.

The results of the election of 2010 put the fear of being dismissed by the voters into everyone, not just the Democrats. The electorate is angry and impatient and will not forgive transgressions. That’s another reason true compromise is difficult, if not impossible.

The Incredible Journey

The New Neo Posted on by

A mountain lion traveled from South Dakota to New Haven, a distance of 2000 miles:

Biologists estimate the size of the mountain lion population at about 100,000 in North America, mostly living in western regions and seldom traveling more than 100 miles. It was the first confirmed wild mountain lion in Connecticut in more than 100 years…The lean, 140-pound male was killed June 11 when it was hit by a sport utility vehicle at night on the Wilbur Cross Parkway in the New Haven suburb of Milford.

Why the journey? Nobody knows. But maybe it wanted to see the coast.

And speaking of coasts and mountain lions, there this haunting ballad from my youth:

After I posted that, I was curious about the origins of the song (and especially how the girl got to be the jackpot in the card game), and I found that it’s based on this poem set in old Big Sur. Here’s how it went down, in the poem, which is more forthcoming than the song on the subject:

I sat in a card game at Jolon;
I played with a man there named Juan.
And after I’d won all his money
He said, “Your homestead ‘gainst my daughter, Dawn.”

I turned up the ace, I had won her!
My heart which was down at my feet
Jumped up to my throat in a hurry;
Like a young summer field she was sweet.

He opened the door to the kitchen;
He called the girl with a curse;
“Take her, God damn her, you won her!
She’s yours now for better or worse.”

A bit more research led me to Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, who’s rather well-known for a somewhat more gruff rendition “South Coast.” I was stunned to learn something of his background on Wiki; it’s quite a story in itself (and no, this is not the Onion):

Elliot Charles Adnopoz [who became Ramblin’ Jack Elliott] was born in Brooklyn, New York to Jewish parents in 1931. Elliott grew up inspired by the rodeos at Madison Square Garden, and wanted to be a cowboy. Though encouraged to follow his father’s example and become a surgeon, Elliott rebelled, running away from home at the age of 15 to join Col. Jim Eskew’s Rodeo, the only rodeo east of the Mississippi. They traveled throughout the Mid-Atlantic states and New England. He was only with them for three months before his parents tracked him down and had him sent home, but Elliott was exposed to his first singing cowboy, Brahmer Rogers, a rodeo clown who played guitar and five-string banjo, sang songs, and recited poetry. Back home, Elliott taught himself guitar and started busking for a living. Eventually he got together with Woody Guthrie and stayed with him as an admirer and student.

Ramblin’, indeed.

My kind of food–maybe

The New Neo Posted on by

Wow.

You can eat tons of this stuff and not gain weight.

Only thing is, would you want to eat it? My reaction to most-reduced calorie food, or food that uses substitutes (carob, artificial sweetener, what-have-you) is that it’s unappetizing. Give me the real thing–just don’t give me too much of it.