Paul Stone

Why Nuclear Bunker Busters are Bad

Nice animation by the Union of Concerned Scientists. 

Why nuclear bunker busters are bad:

• Fall-out.
• They can't reach the deepest bunkers.
• Rather than destroying chemical weapons, they may release them into the atmosphere.

The animation proposes an alternative weapon/strategy for dealing with underground bunkers.  I highly doubt that Iran has any significant weapons worth starting a war over, but the UCS suggestion at least makes more sense than using nuclear weapons.  It's a step toward rational thinking and much appreciated.

Back to the Future of Iraq Project

The State Department's Future of Iraq Project, the most extensive Iraq postwar planning conducted by the federal government, is now publically available for the first time at The Memory Hole, albeit partially redacted.  The $5 billion Future of Iraq Project, which accurately predicted many of the problems in the postwar occupation, was mostly ignored¹ by the Bush administration.  Its director, Thomas Warrick, was removed from Jay Garner's Iraq planning team at the insistence of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.  (Rumsfeld told Garner that the request came from a level higher than himself, i.e. the president or vice president).

1. Alternate link

Iraq Catastrophes

Juan Cole lists the Top Ten Catastrophes of the Third Year of American Iraq.

Army Blog Team

With recent reports of military bloggers being silenced, it's nice to know that some bloggers are still allowed to spout off:

Another point on the anti-war types grouching about our armor: Level I armored vehicles (IE: purpose-built armored vehicles) are the only ones allowed off the FOB. All our bolt-on armored vehicles are either being used as FOB taxis, or being given the Iraqi Army. Is GWB going to get any credit for this? Of course not--the MSM is just going to keep running the same stories with the same quotes from the same dudes who didn't have this wealth of equipment two or three years ago. I cannot recall a time in history when the US Army so thoroughly re-equipped as this war.

If you still want to get outraged, get outraged at your Congressman who wouldn't give the DoD money for a pot to piss in until after the war started.

Some might argue that this soldier is only allowed to keep blogging because his opinion toes the party line.  Some might even go so far as to say that the blogger is a military psyops officer engaging in an astroturf campaign to promote the administration's talking points online.  Of course, those people would be unpatriotic, un-American turncoats.  (Or so I am led to believe.)

Related, the Army has created a Blog Team to "try to disseminate news about the good work being done by U.S. forces in the global war on terror".  [Army]

Blogs sometimes include information -- accurate and otherwise -- about the U.S. military's global war on terror. U.S. Central Command officials here took notice and created a team to engage these writers and their electronic information forums. ...

... "Now (online readers) have the opportunity to read positive stories. At least the public can go there and see the whole story. The public wants to hear these good stories," [Army Reserve Maj. Richard J. McNorton] said, adding that the news stories the military generates are "very factual."