PurpleStater from Centerfeud, a blogger whose work I very much admire, in his update to a post citing my post on nuclear deterrence here has some good resources on discussions of the status of Iran’s program and the options being discussed. The resources include a post from Bill of INDC Journal and a couple of posts from the excellent American Future here and here.

To come fully up to speed you might want to take a look at this article by James Fallows from last December’s Atlantic Monthly and the related Powerpoint presentation (Hat tip: the ubiquitous praktike). The article details a wargaming exercise concerning Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The presentation was given to kick off the exercise by retired USAF Colonel Sam Gardiner who played the role of CENTCOM.

The conclusion of the wargaming exercise is that there is no practical military option in Iran. Despite this I’ve heard there’s a dissident minority opinion in the Pentagon. This minority opinion is pushing for a massive short-term air campaign targeting some 400 sites over a 4 day period.

I’ve also heard a rumor that the Israeli destruction of the Osirak nuclear reactor back in 1981 was not accomplished by an aerial bombardment but by infiltration on the ground and that the bombardment was a diversion. Just a thought.

Eric Martin, commenting on my post from yesterday on deterrence, made a comment that I felt deserved a response. As I began to formulate that response I realized that my response was in danger of overflowing its banks and drowning the comments section so I’ve made it into a post of its own

Here’s Eric’s comment:

Allow me to take issue with your definition of terrorism:

“I think that a terrorist attack is an attack on civilians or civilian assets whose purpose is to provoke terror. It has no other tactical or strategic significance.”

I guess it depends on how you define “strategic significance” and “provoke terror.”

Some contend that the strategy of targeting civilains is an attempt to compel a certain adversary to acquiesce to political demands of one sort or another. By targeting civilians, the “terrorist” is attempting to make the costs of confrontation so onerous that the other side loses its resolve. Thus there is a strategic significance to the targeting of civilians. Would that mean they are not terrorists?

Maybe you don’t consider this a strategic significance, and would say that any deliberate targeting of civilians is terrorism, even if there is an underlying political goal or a desire to force your opponenet to surrender.

But how would either definition of this tactic handle the historicl tendency by many armies to target civilians as a means to induce surrender? It might sound strange to say, but many generals used terrorism – at least under certain definitions. It sounds strange only because the term has been associated with non-conventional armies and non-state actors, but as a tactic it is the same in quality.

The attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were close to falling under this definition. While there were certain military production facilities in Nagasaki, it is hard to argue that the point was not to make the costs of war seem so onerous on Japan so as to compel their surrender. That was accomplished by killing massive numbers of civilians, and the threat of further destruction in such a manner. The same could probably be said of the bombing raids in Dresden and Tokyo. And of course there is the long ignominious history of targeting Native American “civilians” in order to purge this country of its inhabitants.

In the context of nuclear deterrence as the concept has been discussed, targeting Mecca with nuclear weapons as a response to a nuclear attack on the United States by terrorists who are not supported by Saudi Arabia would be very close to falling under the definition of terrorism. In fact, I think it would be hard to call it anything but (although I am not suggesting that you are advocating targeting religious sites per se, as I understand that is not your position).

[continue reading…]

Jay Tea of Wizbang has a two-part critique of the Geneva Conventions see here and here. I think he’s painting too rosey a picture of the Geneva Conventions. A primary purpose for becoming a signatory of the Conventions is to secure good treatment for your soldiers when they are taken prisoner by the enemy. Since we became signatories we have never faced an enemy that adhered to the provisions of the Conventions whether they were signatories or not. We have occasionally and incidentally violated the Conventions. Our opponents have violated them systematically.

Additionally, there are cases in which the Geneva Conventions achieve precisely the opposite of their intended result. As I mentioned earlier today the ban on chemical and bacteriological weapons actually enticed the Japanese to secure these weapons under the assumption that their opponents would not respond in kind. We face a similar problem in Iraq. The thugs we face are using the Conventions as a roadmap for identifying strategies to use against our forces.

Carnival of the Recipes is now available for your viewing and cooking pleasure. This week it’s being hosted by Boudicca’s Voice. She’s been good enough to classify the recipes cookbook-style and, I have to say, I like that format quite a bit better. I think I’ll follow it myself when I host the Carnival again.

Looking for ideas for Thanksgiving? Whether it’s cranberry sauce, stuffing, or potatoes, you’ll find them here!

Over the last several days Iran’s nuclear program has made the headlines on nearly a daily basis:

November 15, 2004	Iran agrees to suspend uranium enrichment
November 17, 2004	Iranian group claims ‘new’ nuke facility in Tehran
November 18, 2004	Powell: Intelligence suggests Iran trying to adapt missiles for nukes

This flurry of stories has occasioned a variety of responses in the blogosphere, mostly expected—from denial to extremely hard-line (“nuke ’em now”) positions. I’ve made the comment on several blogs that I think it’s time for a public restatement of the United States’s policy of nuclear deterrence.

[continue reading…]

For the last ten years or so I’ve smoked my turkey at Thanksgiving. For the last half dozen or so of those years I’ve brined the turkey before I smoked it. Whether you smoke, barbecue, roast, or even deep fry your turkey I think you’ll find that brining will give you a tastier, juicier bird. To brine your turkey you’ll need to start around noon (or earlier) the day before Thanksgiving. Use a large stockpot or bucket large enough to hold the turkey and the brine with enough space left over so you won’t go insane trying to keep the whole shebang from spilling. Here’s what you’ll need for the brine:

1 gallon water
1 cup kosher salt
½ cup brown sugar
¼ cup dried tarragon leaves
12 peppercorns
6 allspice berries

1. Mix all the ingredients making sure the salt and sugar are thoroughly dissolved.
2. Place the turkey in the brining pot. Pour the brine over the turkey. Cover the turkey completely with the brine.
3. Allow the turkey to soak for at least 12 hours in the refrigerator or a cool place that gets no warmer than 40°F.
4. When ready to roast or smoke, remove the turkey from the brine, pat it dry, and coat it with butter or olive oil.

Smoke the turkey according to the instructions for your smoker. I typically smoke a 15 lb. turkey roughly 12 hours using mesquite, apple, or hickory chips. Use oak only if you want it to taste like a desk.
[continue reading…]

It looks like others are coming to a conclusion that I’ve believed for a long time now—that our species arose as cursorial hunters:

LONDON (Reuters) – Humans were born to run and evolved from ape-like creatures into the way they look today probably because of the need to cover long distances and compete for food, scientists said on Wednesday.

From tendons and ligaments in the legs and feet that act like springs and skull features that help prevent overheating, to well-defined buttocks that stabilize the body, the human anatomy is shaped for running.

“We do it because we are good at it. We enjoy it and we have all kinds of specializations that permit us to run well,” said Daniel Lieberman, a professor of anthropology at Harvard University in Massachusetts.

“There are all kinds of features that we see in the human body that are critical for running,” he told Reuters.

Lieberman and Dennis Bramble, a biology professor at the University of Utah, studied more than two dozen traits that increase humans’ ability to run. Their research is reported in the science journal Nature.

They suspect modern humans evolved from their ape-like ancestors about 2 million years ago so they could hunt and scavenge for food over large distances.

Cursorial hunters that hunt in packs occupy a pretty specialized ecological niche. It’s probably not a coincidence that we took up company with another species that occupied the same niche: dogs. We just ran into them along the way.

This isn’t a new idea by the way. Friedrich Engels first came up with it in his essay The Part played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man 125 years ago.

Posting will be a little light today. Real life has intervened and work beckons. Yes, I do work. There are quite a few longer topics I’m working on right now:

• The Wave Theory of the Core (Pentagon’s New Map)
• Why the demise of TennCare matters to non-Tennesseans
• A really great fruitcake recipe (really)

The Diplomad has a post from a retired foreign service officer on the occasion of Gen. Powell’s announcement that he will be leaving State that simply should not be missed:

“I was in the Department the day that Powell arrived. He was a breath of fresh air after a string of very bad Secretaries of State, starting with Jim Baker, continuing with the comatose Warren Christopher, and then the vile Madeleine Albright. The State Department was in disarray, morale was at rock bottom, literally hundreds of officers had quit or taken early retirement. Our Embassies in many countries were barely functional, and very exposed to terrorist attack. Department employees were constantly being lectured on the need “to do more with less” but no reform of the bureaucracy was undertaken to make it leaner and more efficient; everything was pretty much left as it was, but just given less money — except of course for Albright’s travels, in (my office) she was known as the “Empress” for her lavish demands on the budget.”

Read the whole thing.