Fred!: Right on Time

Somehow, the same commentators who bemoaned the unprecedented length of our current Presidential Primary process are also condemning Fred! Thompson for not officially entering the fray in July or August. I would like to quickly examine these propositions.

July:

I, like most conservatives, was keenly interested in seeing Fred! Thompson officially throw his hat in the ring of GOP contenders. Thus, when I heard rumors swilling about in June that Fred! would announce the launch of his campaign in around July 4th - with $5 million in June donations, I was excited. It quickly occurred to me, however:

1. How has Fred had the time to assemble a viable national campaign? Romney invested 6 months developing a network of support which would yield $6 million in "overnight" donations to his campaign in January. Both Romney and Giuliani have sunk more than 1 year in building campaign operations which are only now starting to roll out substantive policy positions. Fred was going to do this in 2 or 3 months???
2. He's already getting so much media attention (at least from the few folks who pay attention to these things in the summer months), why would he need to rush #1?
3. As long as he's getting free media and can quietly focus on prepping a campaign, why would Fred! risk ruining all this for the sake of an early announcement?

For these and probable other reasons, Fred! Refrained from announcing in early July.

August:

Conventional wisdom then commanded an early August announcement. Still I questioned this:

1. August certainly gave Fred! more time to organize, but this time was filled with attracting new leaders and restructuring his not-a-campaign. Why announce while there's still important work to be done?
   
2. Despite the summer doldrums, Fred! was polling in a solid second place nationally and near the top in two of the early primary states. Why announce early when you don't need the name recognition?
   
3. Fred! Is almost guaranteed to get a boost in the polls for several weeks after announcing. Why do this just 2 weeks before the largest event prior to the primaries - the Ames, Iowa straw poll? The poll was certain to garner media attention, again - what good that does in the summer - and would automatically severe whatever boost he would get from announcing.

In fact, Romney invested heavily in Iowa with the expectation that a win there would be necessary to get his name into the "living rooms" of Americans who know nothing of him. Similarly, Mike Huckabee, the "dark horse" of Ames was hoping to ride media accolades right into the company of first tier candidates. Rasumssen Reports has found that media coverage of these men's commendable performances has been missed by most Americans.

This simply goes to reinforce that Fred's! announcement of candidacy in August would have done very little for him above what his free media coverage is already winning.

September:

Announcing in September allows Fred! to take advantage of the following:

1. Time to build a message and a campaign structure, which has clearly been undergoing drastic change during the summer.
2. Time to raise more funds, but cover (hey, Fred's not even a candidate yet) if funds come in short of expectations.
   
3. Free media coverage and a predictable bounce in the polls without any other major campaign news to distract from it until eyes turn to Newt at the end of September.

In all, the only folks who would benefit from Fred having announced earlier would be:

• The news media, who would do anything to create excitement and viewership during the ratings slump that is July and August.
  
• Rival campaigns who know candidate Thompson can't possibly live up to expectations. So the early he enters, the earlier he fails and the earlier they can reclaim support which has been stored up for him.

On Principle,

CBass

Iraq Metric #3: Populations Freed

This latest post exploring ways to judge success in Iraq build upon:
1. The 3 levels of our war on terror
2. An overview of how to measure success in Iraq
3. Metric #1
4. Metric #2



The Distinction of Terror:
In our efforts to understand our Long War on Terrorism, it is absolutely crucial to understand the core difference between acts of terror which wage war against the human heart, groups who perpetrate acts of terror and the entirely different nature of terror groups backed, financed and equipped by nation-states. This distinction defines the very heart of how progress in Iraq must be measured.


Gangs and Mafia groups pursue their own ends through acts of terror. In Gangs, these ends are often the provision of illusory power over lowly circumstances, acceptance in a respected peer group and addiction to adrenaline. Eventually these ends mature to quests similar to those of the Mafia: control of territory, pursuit of illicit profit, expansion of influence through a sub-culture of hierarchical structures and thuggish armies. These groups are normally best addressed through police action which disrupts their operations, imprisons leaders and bridges the legions of followers into legitimate pursuits.


State-sponsored terrorism, by contrast, while using the same tactics and desiring the same ends as those sought by Gangs and Mafia groups, is specifically focused on achieving political ends. One of the latest UN definitions of Terrorism states:

criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or other nature that may be invoked to justify them". (GA Res. 51/210 Measures to eliminate international terrorism" (emphasis mine)

Thus, by its very nature, state-sponsored terrorism is intrinsically about winning control over population groups to achieve a political purpose.



Politics and Population:
Politics is an animal which can only exist where there are people. Without a population, there is no political agenda to be pushed or political purpose to be gained. Terror groups need safe havens in the backwater towns of Somalia, the elevated crags of Afghanistan and Pakistan and the barren expanses of Western Iraq. But as a mater of necessity their single focus is to move from the training ground of obscurity to the operational imperative of population centers. These centers provide both the "raison d'etre" for their purpose and the accelerants (money, support, housing, munitions, transportation, industry, and the unique leverage of human life) to violence which multiple their capacity to kill human hope.


All the time, these terrorists who are pursuing their own political agendas are being safely animated from a distance by nation-state puppeteers. These masters of manipulation are then quick to realize the gains of population dominance - the furtherance of national influence, ambition and, in many cases, profiteering (black gold anyone?).


I think Charles Krauthammer illustrates this point brilliantly:

Thought experiment: Bring in a completely neutral observer -- a Martian -- and point out to him that the United States is involved in two hot wars against radical Islamic insurgents. One is in Afghanistan, a geographically marginal backwater with no resources and no industrial or technological infrastructure. The other is in Iraq, one of the three principal Arab states, with untold oil wealth, an educated population, an advanced military and technological infrastructure that, though suffering decay in the later years of Saddam Hussein's rule, could easily be revived if it falls into the right (i.e., wrong) hands. Add to that the fact that its strategic location would give its rulers inordinate influence over the entire Persian Gulf region, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Gulf states. Then ask your Martian: Which is the more important battle? He would not even understand why you are asking the question.

Our State-sponsored terrorist enemies crave the power, prestige and positional leverage the gain through control of Iraqi populations centers.



Freeing a People:
If economic and political pressure don’t cause these cords of control to be retracted, then military force must cause them to be to cut. Once separated from, or limited in access to, the channels through which accelerants to violence can be imported, the shock troops of terror must seek to maintain their grip on the population through increasingly desperate terrorist atrocities. Only skillful and persistent pursuit will drive these carcinogenic agents from the life-giving nutrition of population centers.


This is why Coalition Counterinsurgency Advisor Kilcullen describes the purpose of the surge as being to:

"When we speak of "clearing" an enemy safe haven, we are not talking about destroying the enemy in it; we are talking about rescuing the population in it from enemy intimidation."

"The "terrain" we are clearing is human terrain, not physical terrain. It is about marginalizing al Qa’ida, Shi’a extremist militias, and the other terrorist groups from the population they prey on."

"The enemy needs the people to act in certain ways (sympathy, acquiescence, silence, reaction to provocation) in order to survive and further his strategy. Unless the population acts in these ways, both insurgents and terrorists will wither, and the cycle of provocation and backlash that drives the sectarian conflict in Iraq will fail."

The Fulcrum of Force:
Freeing population centers carries a "force multiplication" factor with it. It weakens the terrorists by separating them from their rallying point of purpose and from the industrial base which supplies them with new accelerants to violence. Such action also communicates powerfully to other populations currently suffering from oppression that if they will join with us, they too can taste the sweet air of security. Thus, Metrics #'s 1 and 2 (Combatants Eradicated and Accelerants to Violence Seized) serve to indicate our success in freeing initial population centers. As Metric #3 (Populations freed) reaches a critical mass, the tide of war begins to turn from desperate struggle to optimistically hopeful persistence.



A Moral Choice:
When confronted by such ugly realities and hopeful opportunities, people of faith have two basic choices. Individuals in positions of political power can quietly maneuver as missional agents of change. Intercessors can pray, churches can support and missionaries can outreach to the terrorist, perhaps to the point of laying down their own lives. This road is certainly the higher one. It is also the only road likely to yield lasting results. Terrorists are immersed in a cult of death which has prepared them since the inception of their mission to die in the pursuit of a cause they view to be noble. To change their persuasion, their hearts must be turned to the God who is the "God of the living", the "Resurrection and the life", the God who taunts, "Oh Death, where is your victory".


Secular leaders, however, must also confront this stubborn truth: this first choice is the longer road. It must be pursued if there is to be lasting change and lasting hope for peace. But in the pursuing, untold numbers of innocents are being subjected to a literal hell on Earth. In such a situation, despite if one supported the initial US invasion of Iraq or not, is it the position of a moral government to let the Middle East work out its own solution? Is this the lesson of history's concentration camps, killing fields, gulags, ghettos, torture rooms and ethnic cleansings? Is this the appropriate response for a nation who views its calling to be a nation set on a hill?


Is it possible the troops of our government should pursue the immediate release of populations from their earthbound oppressors while armies of compassion walk the longer road toward eternal peace for both captured/surrendered oppressors and the now-formerly oppressed?



How then do we define success?:

• First, we must question if our politicians are taking into account the draconian evil which will be given full reign in Iraq should the terrorist be permitted unrestrained domination of the population centers and beyond Iraq as they exploit the accelerants to violence found in those population centers?

• Second, do our elected representatives seriously address the successes won in freeing people from the prison of terrorist tyranny?

Here are some possible measure of success and examples of these measure:

• % of population under law & order (Coalition, then Local)
• 50% of Baghdad was secured as of July
• 7 of 18 provinces currently under total Iraqi control - 9 of 18 planned by year's end.
  

• % of GDP within these areas

• % of key industries within these areas (oil, electricity, food distribution)

On Principle,
CBass

An Amazing Measure - The Pres. at VFW

I'm extremely excited to see the White House stepping up their seriousness in communicating the vision for our struggle in the Long War on Terrorism - especially its currently central battle ground in Iraq. More importantly, it's extremely gratifying to see the President personally promoting meaningful measures of our success in the surge of operations in the Iraq theater.

In his much maligned speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) gathering in Kansas City, the President supplied one of the measures for which I have been advocating: Combatant Eradicated.

From the Speech:

In Iraq, our troops are taking the fight to the extremists and radicals and murderers all throughout the country. Our troops have killed or captured an average of more than 1,500 al Qaeda terrorists and other extremists every month since January of this year.

That's between 10,000 - 12,000 combatants removed from the battle field - since January!

As I proposed in a former post, this particular metric, while superior to Vietnam era measures of enemy "kills", is still orphaned of interpretive context without being paired with some additional metrics.

I hope that that this new surge of communication from the President will further embrace a full-throated, hearty display of defense which makes use of a full arsenal measures. Perhaps the upcoming surge of support from candidates, media savvy supporters and political leaders will also present the American people with a substantive sense of our progress by referencing success factors which stretch beyond the obvious stale examples for which opponents are well prepared to refute.

On Principle,

CBass

Comforting

"pretty close. . ."

Blast Zone

Construction crews at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta are scheduled to resume blasting work within 30 feet of labs holding some of the world's deadliest organisms.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that blasting was halted in May after explosions sent rocks through windows in two other lab buildings that also contain deadly germs. But a CDC spokesman says new safety measures have been implemented and the chance of infectious organisms being released is, "pretty close to zero."

Iraq Metric #2: Accelerants to Violence

Today's post is a brief analysis of the 2nd Metric which should be used to build a fuller interpretive context in terms of our progress in establishing the safety and security of an ally in Iraq. It builds on these previous thoughts:
1. The 3 levels of our war on terror
2. An overview of how to measure success in Iraq


Combatant Contraband :
As examined previously, we need to more publicly communicate and analyze Coalition victories in eradicating combatants (killed, surrendered and imprisoned - especially those in terrorist leadership). But there is a greater context to this metric - it’s the context not discussed in Vietnam. Quantifying the number of combatants eradicated informs us at to the effectiveness of our operations, but not as to the strength of our adversary. To measure our operational success in this context, we must understand the well spring from which terrorist acts are drawn.


Explosive Terror:
Terrorist acts, like the suicide bombs which have been seared into our minds as an instant association, are characterized by an explosion of pent up energy. This is what science would call an exothermic event - an event which quickly dissipates stored energy outward. This sudden, seemingly random, unexpected explosion of heated hatred and violence is what catalyzes the reaction of fear in the human heart.


The energy which powers successive acts of terror must come from somewhere. Prior to every exothermic event, there is an endothermic process - a process which absorbs and stores energy to make ready for a potential explosion. In this manner, terror groups and terror networks serve to absorb, store and eventually release explosive acts of terror. These endothermic groups must absorb the means of violence.


Inputs to Terror:
The US military refers to these inputs as "accelerants to violence". Accelerants can be anything which feeds energy and capability into terror groups. Examples of "Accelerants" may include:

• ○ Money and food
• ○ Munitions and training
• ○ Transportation and staging
• ○ Intelligence and cover

And in the case of Islamic terrorism, an important Accelerant is:

• ○ Irrational hate and Existential reward

State Sourcing:
Waging a terrorist battle on a national level for 4 years, requires massive inputs of these Accelerants to Violence. Terrorists must be recruited and bolstered in their existential mission. They must be armed, trained and mobilized. They must be fed and housed. They must be granted intelligence as to targets and "cover" stories for access (stolen uniforms, black SUV's, forged security badges, etc).


Republican presidential candidates just invested millions of dollars in finding, recruiting, transporting, feeding, educating and mobilizing a few thousand voters in Ames Iowa. Yet, some in our World want to turn a blind eye to the obvious role nation-states are playing in sponsoring and resourcing terrorist acts and terror networks in Iraq??? Establishing a national network of these accelerants is an enormous task which requires material investments and cultural support which can only be sourced out of the warehouse of nation-states. This is the reason the term, "War" is appropriate in the context of our current struggle.


Journey To the Center of Iraq:
New accelerants imported into Iraq must be transported to their target population, such as Baghdad - the largest population center. What does this look like?

• ○ A human heart must be recruited and radicalized into a terrorist.
• ○ The would be terrorist and the means of attack must be brought across the Iraqi border.
• ○ Terrorists and weapons must be transported.
• ○ In a nation at war and checkered with checkpoints, this journey probably requires several days and numerous safe houses.
• ○ This network requires funding and food to maintain.
• ○ Eventually, new terrorists must be contacted and provided guidance
• ○ When necessary, terrorists must be united with highly technical munitions and/or cover material.

This journey is perilous, difficult and costly. It requires intact terror networks. When we eradicate combatants, we disrupt these inflows of further accelerants to violence. Disrupt, but not eliminate. Once regrouped, the terror network now has fewer inputs to gather - thanks to the accelerants which remain in place. Thus, without this important contextual metric, the count of combatant eradicated is important but merely temporary.


Back to the Surge:
With the above perspective in mind, let's return to the strategy behind the Surge. The much misunderstood Surge in troops and then in Operations is NOT intended to be the definitive end of terrorist violence in all of Iraq. Indeed, the Surge has 2 very specific aims - 1) To decrease terror capabilities in Baghdad such that the Iraqi government can BEGIN to function and 2) To free key population centers around Baghdad such that local reconciliation and development efforts raise enough micro-cultural support to sustain that locale's freedom from fear.


Understanding this strategy is critical to measuring the success of the Surge. Our ultimate Long War on Terrorism must deal with uprooting the deeply entrenched accelerants to violence in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria and Pakistan (especially Waziristan). But in the Surge, it is enough to seize these accelerants in and around Baghdad. And by "around" we are talking 1 - 2 days journey from the capital city.


Victory:
So, we know the Surge is succeeding in eradicating combatants, especially leadership, but how are we doing against these accelerants that, if left in place, make the job easier for the next recruit? Several resources daily report upon this progress, but here I'll suggest and report just a few:

Original Sources:

1. Multi-National Force - Iraq
2. Michael Yon and Michael Totten
3. State Department Status Reports
   

Aggregators:

1. Victory Caucus
2. Bill Roggio
3. Iraq Report
   

Before closing out this post, it seems appropriate to provide a few examples of what this context provides in terms of practical measures.

• The Coalition is receiving local tips as to weapons caches
• Cache seizures are way up since the surge
• Transport systems are being dismantled
• Bomb factories have been closed

Bomb, bomb factories, booby traps, torture rooms, weapons caches, mobilization methods (boats, trucks, safe houses, etc) = Accelerants to Violence Seized

On Principle,
CBass

Iraq Metric #1: Combatants Eradicated

This is the first deeper look into the balanced approach to measuring our success in Iraq as I first suggested in summary form.



Body Counting Class:
While I find the reticence of the US Armed Forces to promote enemy body counts as a measurement of victory to be a welcome acknowledgment of the horrors of war, I also stand with the frustrated masses who are seeking to gain a perspective on our progress, or lack there of, in Iraq. Let's face it, body counts are an intuitive and seemingly simple means of counting progress against a standing enemy.


American distaste for body counts was acquired during the protracted Vietnam conflict. Bowing to the assumed power of attrition, US Commanders and political leaders from both parties reported the quantities of North Vietnamese killed in conflict. The obvious assumption was that North Vietnam didn't have limitless storehouses of supplies, troops or citizen support and that each body count marked a step closer to their forced surrender. Yet, when waves of Viet Cong continued to whittle away at our forces, the American heartland revolted against the use of body count as it clearly wasn't connected to any classic signs for victory.


While it may be argued that such popular discontent snatched defeat from a certain victory for the US, this is a bit besides the point. It is clear that body counts were not directly correlated in any sort of expected sense to the North's ability or willingness to press the fight.





Then and Now:
After several decades of disavowing body counts, the Pentagon has been carefully, tentatively and almost apologetically reintroducing this metric in reports on Coalition operations in Iraq. Once again, however, this metric seemed unrelated to the establishment of peace on the battle field. During 2004, 2005 and 2006 these measures, and the predictably sensational suicide attacks to follow their release, led to the much quoted description of "whack-a-mole". As in this game from a kid's pizza palace, there is no satisfying vanquishing of the mole. It just keeps getting whacked in one hole and reappearing in another. Ad nauseum. Ad infinitum.




But Why Doesn't It Work?
As I stated above, the body count metric just seems, intuitively, to make sense. Human beings are a scarce resource. Unless Al Qaeda has learned to clone fighters down in the belly of those caves, they have a limited number of zealots from which to choose. So, why are body counts again getting a bad representation in the left-leaning media?

1. Body Counts describe what quantity have died, not what quantity is alive. Killing 100 insurgents is a big deal when there are only 200 fighting you. It's not so meaningful when there are 100,000 awaiting glorious martyrdom.


2. Body Counts tally the number of times the mole is whacked. Not the number of holes removed from the game - through which the mole can never return.


3. Body Counts don't account for the count of the body. Some villains are worth more than others. When we take down an insurgent, is he someone working to plant IED's or is he just someone who supports "the cause".


4. Body Counts don't account for the asymmetrical nature of our battle. Coalition forces develop intelligence, draw up attack plans, move out in formation, take care to space civilians, and take a host of other responsible, precautionary actions to net each "kill". One insurgent, blended into the population can fight a guerrilla battle through IED's, kidnapping and other terror tactics which have a multiplying effect. Killing the one terrorist doesn't mean the other one remaining can't multiply his impact beyond a binary battlefield equation.





In What Ways Does it Work?
Having outlined the above, one can't shake the notion that Body Counts do, indeed must, mean something! Killing bad guys has got to mean that the enemy at least needs to recruit, train, equip and deploy one more replacement. So I submit the question is not if Body Counts are or aren't good metrics of success, in themselves. Body Counts tell us something when the are placed within a larger interpretive context.


In Vietnam, the Body Count metric didn't measure the following:

1. Support for North Vietnam from China and Russia. (Accelerants to Violence"

2. Support for the Viet Cong within South Vietnam. (Hearts and Minds)

3. To what lasting victory was the body count attached? (Populations Freed)

4. To what end was the body count building? (Political Reconciliation and Institutions Built)


These are the very metrics, coincidently, which I'm advocating we use to contextualize the relatively crude body count accounting.


Together, these metrics don't just tell us how many we are killing, they tell us:

1. How many more are there and how effective can they be?

2. How free will they be to operate in our territory?

3. Will their deaths lead to a demonstrable and lasting victory of a desired end (like a city)?

4. In the case of Iraq, are freed areas responding by joining and building the institutions which promote and protect peace?


It is only as we can also measure success along these other vectors that the body count figure is truly informative.





Bodies Counted or Combatants Eradicated?
To further press my case, I suggest we expand the body count metric. The power of body counts is that each dead enemy today is one less enemy to fight tomorrow. It doesn't take kills to achieve this simple goal. Enemies who are captured today and enemies who surrender today are also enemies who won't fight us tomorrow (absent errant political pressure to release these captives). Thus, I suggest we move beyond body counts to "combatants eradicated.

The combined quantity of combatants killed, captured or surrendered is a much more meaningful metric (especially when combined with the others we will later explore) than just those killed. More importantly, rather than repeating "point in time" numbers, this combined metric should be presented as an updated aggregate total. Aggregation over time allows vectors of progress (or not) to be identified and it updates the accuracy of numbers as captured combatants are questioned and released.

Further, captured and surrendered combatants are potentially MORE valuable because they can provide intelligence into the enemy's numbers, arms, strategies, locations, identification, etc. Thus, including them in one collective metric may also serve to address the secondary concern questionably inherited from Vietnam: If Body Counts are what count, body counts are what you'll get - truly enemy or not.

Counting Combatants That Count:
There is one more aspect of counting combatants which should be included in our metrics. Killing, capturing or taking through surrender a leader of the enemy is far more valuable than doing the same to a new recruit. The news pouring in from Iraq informs us that a unique aspect of the surge is the large number of leaders which have been successfully eradicated through coalition efforts. Eradicating leaders doesn't permanently cripple this enemy, but it certainly has a role is disrupting operations, and en mass, it will probably help in weakening the resolve of non-die hards.

I reported on a list of these in Afghanistan. General Petraeus makes mention of this in an interview with Hugh Hewitt. Bill Roggio includes success in targeting enemy leadership in his weekly recap chronicles.





In the end, I think the counting of "combatants eradicated" from the field of battle is a powerful testimony as to our effectiveness in this war. I just hope our leaders on the home front don't shortchange such meaningful metrics because of a faulty application 40 years ago in Vietnam.


Summary:

Killed + Captured + Surrendered + leaders = Combatants Eradicated (Neutralized, Removed, whatever)

Updated Aggregates (perhaps by named Operation) = vectors of progress

On Principle,
CBass

Understanding the Iowa Straw Poll

If you, like most Americans, have been living your life this weekend, you may have missed the news and analysis regarding the Iowa Straw Poll held in Ames, Iowa.

Some analysis on this further below, but first, the results:

• Mitt Romney 4516 votes (31.0%)
• Mike Huckabee 2587 votes (18.1%)
• Sam Brownback 2192 votes (15.3%)
• Tom Tancredo 1961 votes (13.7%).
• Ron Paul with 1305 votes (9.1%)
• Tommy Thompson 1,009 votes (7.3%)
• Fred Thompson 231 votes (1.6%)
• Rudy Giuliani 183 votes (1.3%)
• Duncan Hunter 174 votes (1.2%)
• John McCain 101 votes (0.7%)
• John Cox 41 votes (0.3%)

Some tricks to understanding these results:

1. Presidential primaries are unique beasts - not intended for the general public. The Primary is nearly completely focused upon the active base of each party.

2. The Iowa Straw Poll precedes the first Primary by at least 6 months and is held during August - the month when families are rushing to complete vacations, family moves, rituals, wedding and other rituals of summer prior to the start of school in late August - early September.

3. Put these together, and what you get in the Iowa Straw Poll is an event tailored to excite the core of the party's base. The real die-hards who follow primary machinations while on vacation, 6 months before anyone casts the first vote.

4. To really make this point, remember: In 6 months, most Primary voters (the active base of the party) won't even remember who was on the ballot in Ames this weekend. Even fewer will remember who was on the ballot by the time the general election rolls around in 15 long months.

So, then what good is the Iowa Straw Poll:

1. Despite the fact that the voters in Ames tend to be the energized core of the party's always active base. Iowa is hot and humid in Iowa. Iowa is a large state. Voting in the Straw Poll costs folks money. It interferes with summer family plans. And the results are completely non-binding. So, getting supporters to attend the hot, sweaty masses in Ames is a demonstration of a candidate's appeal to the base (at least the base in Iowa).

2. Iowa is a big state. To assist supporters in attending, candidates tend to run free shuttle buses from as many population centers as possible. Identifying supporters, encouraging them to attend, informing them of travel arrangements, taking care of 1,000's of supporters on site in Ames, etc are all assumed to point to the candidates' ability to organize a broad, effective state organization and to attract and train the types of volunteers which will prove critical in turning out voters on actual election day.

3. All of the campaigning, organizing and logistical support mentioned above take money. So it is assumed that the great Iowa Straw Poll provides an excellent early indicator of a candidate's ability to attract donors.

4. Perhaps more importantly, the Iowa Straw Poll is, above all things, a media event. And, as with all media events, to the perceived victor go the spoils. Historic well performers at Ames have attracted, in the afterglow of media and pundit praise, seasoned leaders and increased donors to their campaigns.

5. Sometimes overlooked, Ames is also an important historic filter. While some candidates meet the tests described above with much aplomb, others flail below the high-set bar of performance. Some of these read the results with an air of reason and remove their entries from the remainder of the primary race. Once withdrawn, their staff, supporters and donors flock like fleas around the big dogs of the poll - multiplying the boon for victory.

6. And for all the above - - - at least on in the minds and writings of the pundits. Nothing ever really goes exactly as described here, but the patterns are fairly predictive.

And now for the analysis:

1. Mitt Romney: The first observation is that Romney won. Yes, he won the most votes, but he won more than that. Romney invested about 2 x's as much budget into the Straw Poll as did any other candidate. He and his entire campaigning family have virtually lived in Iowa for the last month. So assumed was Mitt's victory that Giuliani's campaign withdrew from the Poll. All told, these factors built an added expectation handicap of not just winning, but needing to win by 10%. Mitt was up by 13%, so to Mitt goes the victory.

2. Mike Huckabee: Huckabee has been little noticed by the general press, but party faithful and political commentators have been whispering his praises with little peeps of surprise after each debate - yes, still surprised after admitting he's performed superbly at each (yes every) debate. Huckabee has been said to have raised few dollars and developed no campaign structure, yet he turned in a very impressed 2nd place. One can only assume that:
1. He played the expectations game like a maestro.
2. He organized a better campaign infrastructure than was previously noted
3. He spent his limited budget shrewdly.

3. Sam Brownback: Brownback was forecasting a strong second. He spent the second highest budget in Iowa and lives next door. His campaign infrastructure in Iowa has been developing literally before he officially entered the race. So, by finishing 3rd, he lost the expectations game. At the same time, most folks regard his candidacy as something of a joke nationally. So his close 3rd may win him some respect in terms of national expectations. Time will tell.

4. Losers: Tommy Thompson and Ron Paul. Both candidates focused heavily on Iowa and built expectations for a strong performance. I assume both did this in hopes of bolstering waffling supporters to invest a weekend in traveling to Iowa to cast an expensive ballot on their behalf. Thompson promised a 2nd place finish. Ron Paul proudly forecasted a top 3 finish. Both men performed miserably by comparison with these expectations.

Predictions for Losers:

• Tommy Thompson: I predict he'll announce his withdrawal from the race by day's end Monday.
• Ron Paul: While he should follow Thompson's noble lead, I predict he will not withdraw, will contest the results and will continue to stir up his quite vocal supporters in the conservative "blogosphere".

5. Not Winners: Giuliani and Fred Thompson. One can't win elections without winning votes. Conceding the straw poll may make sense in terms of the huge expectations both would be expected to meet. But at the same time, Romney and Huckabee are alone positioned for media attention, punditry praise and the spoils of name recognition, respectability, donor support and activist/volunteer support. These are the currency of a campaign. Currency which will flow away from Giuliani and Fred Thompson in the next 2-3 weeks.

6. Dark Horse: Tom Tancredo. I view these results with a bit of dismay. Like so many others, I view Tancredo's candidacy as nothing more than a single issue hobby horse being ridden to draw media attention toward immigration reform. His strong 4th place finish, a sure surprise to me, will certainly draw attention to his flagship issue and is almost as certain to encourage him to dig in his heels and stay in the race. Yikes.

7. 
   
7. Filtered: I love the idea of Duncan Hunter, but he just hasn't campaign convincingly or debated impressively. He should leave the race now - while his influence in Congress is still strong. John Cox, another individual who has impressive credentials on paper, but a completely unsuccessful campaign should pull of camp and head for home. I sincerely mean him no respect, but I think I could go to Iowa and purchase 41 votes. I predict both respectable men will do the respectable thing. May we all remember them in 6 and 15 months not as bottom feeding candidates, but as successful men in their other realms of achievement.

On Principle,

CBass

Update: It looks like Tommy Thompson has already announce the inevitable. I bid adieu to a good man doing a good thing.

We Won!!!

Castle Rock, Colorado has been voted one of Family Circle's 10 Best Towns for Families.


And from Gene Brooks' blog, I calculated our homes "Walk Score". We lost (3 out of 100). Which is really funny because there are trails crisscrossing every seeming inch of our neighborhood and the weather is almost always perfect.

After I looked into the score a bit, I found these tell tale indicators of the calculator's bias:
1: "Walkability" is how close you are to destinations, not how attractive other walk encouraging factors (trails, views, climate, culture, etc) are.

2. These "destinations" are very healthy indeed:

• Grocery Store: We are encouraged to go to stroll to the health food mecca, Circle K
• Restaurants: Perhaps we could jog to Taco Bell for that new, organic, tofu taco
• Coffee Shops: And wash that down with a triple shot latte, loaded with sugar and whole milk.
• Bars: If coffee isn't you thing, jaunt next door and down a healthy shot of single malt Scotch.
• Movie Theaters: Of course! After all this healthy walking if we really need to sit for 2.5 hrs with a tub of butter popcorn, candy and coke.

I'm liking my community more every day. . .

How to Measure Success in Iraq

I haven't posted on progress with the Iraq Surge in a while due to my own lack of comfort with how to measure success in an complex operation such as this. It's like asking how you measure the success in raising your kids and shepherding your family. What do you measure?

Obedience of your children?

The number of times they say respectful words ("Thank you", "Please", "Sir/Ma'am")?

Their grades?

Playing well with others?

Orderliness of their room?

The degree to which they look like their mother vs. their father? (Poor kids)

Do they pray daily and seek to know God personally?

Obviously, none of these "metrics" - in isolation - provides any sort of meaningful measure as to family quality. Making matters worse, any single day's snap shot is likely to be full of glaring defects. Of course, maybe that's just with MY family. . .

Similarly, I'm discomforted by the dramatically poor job that's been done to measure Coalition success in Iraq (and by extrapolation) the greater Long War On Terrorism.

Below, I will attempt to layout an achievable, understandable and, yes, MEANINGFUL combination of metrics which really focuses on the three layers of effort in this Long War and the current Iraq/Afghan Surge:

1. Dramatically reduce the nation-state sponsorship of terrorism and the leadership centers of international terrorist networks

such that. . .

2. Local governments and cultures are able to police localized groups of terrorist

toward the end that. . .

3. Billions of individuals, free from heart-binding terror, are free to experience Life and Liberty and to Pursue virtuous happiness.

In light of these three levels of focus, it is helpful to remember the goal of the Iraq/Afghan Surge - to disrupt and eradicate terrorist control of population centers, especially Baghdad, to the end that the Iraqi government and people have the opportunity to self-police localized violence and build cultural support for contextualized Liberty.

So, what are these "Metrics" of success?

1. Combatants Eradicated
2. Accelerants to Violence Seized
3. Populations Freed
4. Hearts & Minds Won
5. Political Reconciliation & Institutions Built

I will summarize each of these here and then flesh each out in successive posts over the next week or so. No one of these Metric categories can completely encapsulate the degree of success or failure in our Iraq venture. Together, these metrics - and especially a trend line for the metrics over several months - can provide the substantive view of our progress for which so many of us are hungering.

1. Combatants Eradicated

There has been a thoughtful debate on the Hugh Hewitt show recently concerning the US Military's disdain for releasing "body counts" of enemy killed due to unhealthy actions in Vietnam. At the same time, in battle, how else do you determine the scale of loss or victory without some sort of count?

I have a suggestion here. Victory on the battle field is not merely in terms of "kills". It is measured by the number of combatants eradicated. When armies submit to terms of surrender (Appomattox, VE Day, VJ Day) combatants are eradicated (not killed) and the war or battle is won.

Suggestion:

Killed + Captured + Surrendered = Combatants Eradicated (Neutralized, Removed, whatever)

2. Accelerants to Violence Seized

In Iraq, most terrorists don't work as mild mannered reporters by day and transform into the enacters of spectacular attacks at nights and on weekends.

Iraqi #1 - So, what did you do this weekend?

Iraqi #2 - Oh, the usual. I cleaned the house, spent time with the family, successful demobilized a US Army convoy with an EFP, pinned the surviving troops through covering fire and kidnapped 3 highly-trained American soldiers. You know, the usual.)

The energetic core of terrorism is a dynamo which must be fed by outside suppliers. These supplies are money, food, munitions, training, intelligence, false documents, mobilization capabilities, communications, etc.

Each of these "accelerants" seized, directly disarms or dis-empowers multiple combatant enemies, rendering them virtually eradicated.

Suggestion:

Bomb, bomb factories, booby traps, torture rooms, weapons caches, mobilization methods (boats, trucks, safe houses, etc) = Accelerants to Violence Seized

3. Populations Freed

The end goal of our military operations is to free population groups from the coagulation of terrorist overlords. Overlords, not street thugs. The context of the surge, again, is the Long War on Terrorism - especially Nation-state sponsored terrorism. Terrorists in a small country town are important, but terrorists in control of large industrial, population centers are more important.

Population centers allow for a more efficient ratio of terrorists to civilians for intimidation and control (the definition of terror). Population centers are also where one finds, takes control of and develops the accelerants to violence discussed above. Third, disrupting population centers is a more efficient means of amplifying ones effect through threatening disruption of infrastructure, the economy, regional tensions, etc.

Thus, ultimately, controlling population centers has to be a major goal of our enemy. Put another way: Terror groups don't need nation-state funding, training and equipping to overwhelm and overpower al-Bubba in the middle of the desert. Nation-states, ultimately, are concerned about winning population centers and the means of industry they house.

Suggestion:

Parallel measures:

% of population under law & order (Coalition, then Local)

% of GDP within these areas

% of key industries within these areas (oil, electricity, food distribution)

4. Hearts & Minds Won

The guiding principle behind the American Revolution was that all governments derive their power from the consent of the governed . This is no different when the local rulers are tyrannical terrorists. In an earlier post, I quoted one of Gen. Petraeus' chief advisors for Counterinsurgency:

"The enemy needs the people to act in certain ways (sympathy, acquiescence, silence, reaction to provocation) in order to survive and further his strategy. Unless the population acts in these ways, both insurgents and terrorists will wither, and the cycle of provocation and backlash that drives the sectarian conflict in Iraq will fail."

Through the continued application of love (food distribution, healing the wounded, reconstruction, risk life to secure others, etc), our forces begin the process of warming hearts of a population driven into the cold darkness of terror. Eventually, individual by individual, a critical mass is reached where the population starts to enliven from being a host from which terrorist parasites are literally sucking life blood to an empowered populace with hope, capacity and fortitude to support the battle against their oppressors.

This turning of the tide is quite practical, dramatic and measurable. It occurs when former terrorists share the location of weapons caches, when residents identify rogues in their midst, when locals call in Coalition & Iraqi forces to confront marauders and take up arms to hold the encroaching darkness at bay until military support arrives.

Suggestion:

# of local leaders pleading to work with the coalition + level of support from locals in identifying terrorists + level of support from locals in identifying the accelerants of violence = Hearts and Minds won from darkness to light.

5. Political Reconciliation & Institutions Built

Media coverage follows either the path of least resistance or fights bravely to secure the lowlands of scandal. Asymmetrical violence, punctuated with spectacular (derived from "spectacle") one-off attacks on civilians, sequesters all media attention by conditioned stimulus / response reactions . Governmental benchmarks on the national level are easy to cover in 30 second sound bits.

Reconciliation between little known sheiks with hard to pronounce names, the rise of police recruiting in an unknown Baghdad suburb and the development of a local food warehouse do little to stir the attention of a restless America torn between reruns of Seinfeld and coverage of Iraq.

If you were an Iraqi, especially one with family, which of the following would most likely captivate your attention and impact your daily life:

1. A power-sharing agreement in Baghdad between Sunni ex-Saddam regime supports and Shiite ex-patriots recently returned to Iraq - - OR - - Historic cooperation between Sunni and Shiite leaders in your neighborhood, city or Province/State?

2. An agreement to share oil revenues from a distribution system which still needs a couple years of repairs before being fully operations - - OR - - the construction of a food distribution center and efforts to secure the convoy routes by which life giving staples are delivered to your desert region in the midst of the 120 degree summer?

Government takes two forms. The national bureaucracy which is critical to building lasting institutions, negotiating international trade, providing national security, distributing treasury funds, etc. And the local leadership which polices streets, renders justice, applies distributed funds to felt community needs, etc.

For too long, America and the world focused on and forced the development of the national form with the hope that the local form would soon follow - despite the personalized terror of death squads. A little heralded part of the Surge strategy, worked in concert with Ambassador Crocker is to continue to push for national progress, but to foster and support the quicker wins of local reconciliation and reconstruction. There is a new national election in 2009 to elect new representatives to the national government. If more provinces have successfully developed vibrant local capabilities, perhaps better representatives can be found to build a more stable, more broadly representative national government.

Suggestion:

Examples of local reconciliation efforts + completed, local reconstruction projects + local institutions (courts, police, food distribution, etc) developed.

On Principle,
CBass

Bathroom Etiquette and Congress

A brilliantly fun look at the convoluted legislation of a Congress with too much time on their hands.

I do recommend Mary Katherine Ham's weekly blog/video as an always humorous, usually insightful commentary on modern America.


On Principle,
CBass