Center for a New American Security

On Tuesday, 9 November 2010, 2nd Lt. Robert Kelly, USMC, was killed in Afghanistan. Four days later, his father, Lt. Gen. John Kelly, USMC, gave the following speech. He did not mention his own son's death. He tells the story of two other Marines instead.

This is powerful stuff. Semper Fidelis.

***

            Nine years ago two of the four commercial aircraft took off from Boston, Newark, and Washington.  Took off fully loaded with men, women and children—all innocent, and all soon to die.  These aircraft were targeted at the World Trade Towers in New York, the Pentagon, and likely the Capitol in Washington, D.C..  Three found their mark.  No American alive old enough to remember will ever forget exactly where they were, exactly what they were doing, and exactly who they were with at the moment they watched the aircraft dive into the World Trade Towers on what was, until then, a beautiful morning in New York City.  Within the hour 3,000 blameless human beings would be vaporized, incinerated, or crushed in the most agonizing ways imaginable.  The most wretched among them—over 200—driven mad by heat, hopelessness, and utter desperation leapt to their deaths from 1,000 feet above Lower Manhattan.  We soon learned hundreds more were murdered at the Pentagon, and in a Pennsylvania farmer’s field.

            Once the buildings had collapsed and the immensity of the attack began to register most of us had no idea of what to do, or where to turn.  As a nation, we were scared like we had not been scared for generations.  Parents hugged their children to gain as much as to give comfort.  Strangers embraced in the streets stunned and crying on one another’s shoulders seeking solace, as much as to give it.  Instantaneously, American patriotism soared not “as the last refuge” as our national-cynical class would say, but in the darkest times Americans seek refuge in family, and in country, remembering that strong men and women have always stepped forward to protect the nation when the need was dire—and it was so God awful dire that day—and remains so today.

            There was, however, a small segment of America that made very different choices that day…actions the rest of America stood in awe of on 9/11 and every day since.  The first were our firefighters and police, their ranks decimated that day as they ran towards—not away from—danger and certain death.  They were doing what they’d sworn to do—“protect and serve”—and went to their graves having fulfilled their sacred oath.  Then there was you Armed Forces, and I know I am a little biased in my opinion here, but the best of them are Marines.  Most wearing the Eagle, Globe and Anchor today joined the unbroken ranks of American heroes after that fateful day not for money, or promises of bonuses or travel to exotic liberty ports, but for one reason and one reason alone; because of the terrible assault on our way of life by men they knew must be killed and extremist ideology that must be destroyed.  A plastic flag in their car window was not their response to the murderous assault on our country.  No, their response was a commitment to protect the nation swearing an oath to their God to do so, to their deaths.  When future generations ask why America is still free and the heyday of Al Qaeda and their terrorist allies was counted in days rather than in centuries as the extremists themselves predicted, our hometown heroes—soldiers, sailors, airmen, Coast Guardsmen, and Marines—can say, “because of me and people like me who risked all to protect millions who will never know my name.”

            As we sit here right now, we should not lose sight of the fact that America is at risk in a way it has never been before.  Our enemy fights for an ideology based on an irrational hatred of who we are.  Make no mistake about that no matter what certain elements of the “chattering class” relentlessly churn out.  We did not start this fight, and it will not end until the extremists understand that we as a people will never lose our faith or our courage.  If they persist, these terrorists and extremists and the nations that provide them sanctuary, they must know they will continue to be tracked down and captured or killed.  America’s civilian and military protectors both here at home and overseas have for nearly nine years fought this enemy to a standstill and have never for a second “wondered why.”  They know, and are not afraid.  Their struggle is your struggle.  They hold in disdain those who claim to support them but not the cause that takes their innocence, their limbs, and even their lives.  As a democracy—“We the People”—and that by definition is every one of us—sent them away from home and hearth to fight our enemies.  We are all responsible.  I know it doesn’t apply to those of us here tonight but if anyone thinks you can somehow thank them for their service, and not support the cause for which they fight—America’s survival—then they are lying to themselves and rationalizing away something in their lives, but, more importantly, they are slighting our warriors and mocking their commitment to the nation.

            Since this generation’s “day of infamy” the American military has handed our ruthless enemy defeat-after-defeat but it will go on for years, if not decades, before this curse has been eradicated.  We have done this by unceasing pursuit day and night into whatever miserable lair Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their allies, might slither into to lay in wait for future opportunities to strike a blow at freedom.  America’s warriors have never lost faith in their mission, or doubted the correctness of their cause.  They face dangers everyday that their countrymen safe and comfortable this night cannot imagine.  But this has always been the case in all the wars our military have been sent to fight.  Not to build empires, or enslave peoples, but to free those held in the grip of tyrants while at the same time protecting our nation, its citizens, and our shared values.  And, ladies and gentlemen, think about this, the only territory we as a people have ever asked for from any nation we have fought alongside, or against, since our founding, the entire extent of our overseas empire, as a few hundred acres of land for the 24 American cemeteries scattered around the globe.  It is in these cemeteries where 220,000 of our sons and daughters rest in glory for eternity, or are memorialized forever because their earthly remains are lost forever in the deepest depths of the oceans, or never recovered from far flung and nameless battlefields.  As a people, we can be proud because billions across the planet today live free, and billions yet unborn will also enjoy the same freedom and a chance at prosperity because America sent its sons and daughters out to fight and die for them, as much as for us.

            Yes, we are at war, and are winning, but you wouldn’t know it because successes go unreported, and only when something does go sufficiently or is sufficiently controversial, it is highlighted by the media elite that then sets up the “know it all” chattering class to offer their endless criticism.  These self-proclaimed experts always seem to know better---but have never themselves been in the arena.  We are at war and like it or not, that is a fact.  It is not Bush’s war, and it is not Obama’s war, it is our war and we can’t run away from it.  Even if we wanted to surrender, there is no one to surrender to.  Our enemy is savage, offers absolutely no quarter, and has a single focus and that is either kill every one of us here at home, or enslave us with a sick form of extremism that serves no God or purpose that decent men and women could ever grasp.  St Louis is as much at risk as is New York and Washington, D.C..  Given the opportunity to do another 9/11, our merciless enemy would do it today, tomorrow, and every day thereafter.  If, and most in the know predict that it is only a matter of time, he acquires nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons, these extremists will use these weapons of mass murder against us without a moment’s hesitation.  These butchers we fight killed more than 3,000 innocents on 9/11.  As horrible as that death toll was, consider for a moment that the monsters that organized those strikes against New York and Washington, D.C. killed only 3,000 not because that was enough to make their sick and demented point, but because he couldn’t figure out how to kill 30,000, or 300,000, or 30 million of us that terrible day.  I don’t know why they hate us, and I don’t care.  We have a saying in the Marine Corps and that is “no better friend, no worse enemy, than a U.S. Marine.”  We always hope for the first, friendship, but are certainly more than ready for the second.  If its death they want, its death they will get, and the Marines will continue showing them the way to hell if that’s what will make them happy.

            Because our America hasn’t been successfully attacked since 9/11 many forget because we want to forget…to move on.  As Americans we all dream and hope for peace, but we must be realistic and acknowledge that hope is never an option or course of action when the stakes are so high.  Others are less realistic or less committed, or are working their own agendas, and look for way sot blame past presidents or in some other way to rationalize a way out of this war.  The problem is our enemy is not willing to let us go.  Regardless of how much we wish this nightmare would go away, our enemy will stay forever on the offensive until he hurts us so badly we surrender, or we kill him first.  To him, this is not about our friendship with Israel, or about territory, resources, jobs, or economic opportunity in the Middle East.  No, it is about us as a people.  About our freedom to worship any God we please in any way we want.  It is about the worth of every man, and the worth of every woman, and their equality in the eyes of God and the law; of how we live our lives with our families, inside the privacy of our own homes.  It’s about the God-given rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable right.”  As Americans we hold these truths to be self-evident.  He doesn’t.  We love what we have; he despises who we are.  Our positions can never be reconciled.  He cannot be deterred…only defeated.  Compromise is out of the question.

            It is a fact that our country today is in a life and death struggle against an evil enemy, but America as a whole is certainly not at war.  Not as a country.  Not as a people.  Today, only a tiny fraction—less than a percent—shoulder the burden of fear and sacrifice, and they shoulder it for the rest of us.  Their sons and daughters who serve are men and women of character who continue to believe in this country enough to put life and limb on the line without qualification, and without thought of personal gain, and they serve so that the sons and daughters of the other 99% don’t have to.  No big deal, though, as Marines have always been “the first to fight” paying in full the bill that comes with being free…for everyone else.

            The comforting news for every American is that our men and women in uniform, and every Marine, is as good today as any in our history.  As good as what their heroic, under-appreciated, and largely abandoned fathers and uncles were in Vietnam, and their grandfathers were in Korea and World War II.  They have the same steel in their backs and have made their own mark etching forever places like Ramadi, Fallujah, and Baghdad, Iraq, and Helmand and Sagin, Afghanistan that are now part of the legend and stand just as proudly alongside Belleau Wood, Iwo Jima, Inchon, Hue City, Khe Sanh, and Ashau Velley, Vietnam.  None of them have every asked what their country could do for them, but always and with their lives asked what they could do for America.  While some might think we have produced yet another generation of materialistic, consumeristic and self-absorbed young people, those who serve today have broken the mold and stepped out as real men, and real women, who are already making their own way in life while protecting ours.  They know the real strength of a platoon, a battalion, or a country that is not worshiping at the altar of diversity, but in a melting point that stitches and strengthens by a sense of shared history, values, customs, hopes and dreams all of which unifies a people making them stronger, as opposed to an unruly gaggle of “hyphenated” or “multi-cultural individuals.”

            And what are they like in combat in this war?  Like Marines have been throughout our history.  In my three tours in combat as an infantry officer and commanding general, I never saw one of them hesitate, or do anything other than lean into the fire and with no apparent fear of death or injury take the fight to our enemies.  As anyone who has ever experienced combat knows, when it starts, when the explosions and tracers are everywhere and the calls for the Corpsman are screamed from the throats of men who know they are dying—when seconds seem like hours and it all becomes slow motion and fast forward at the same time—and the only rational act is to stop, get down, save yourself—they don’t.  When no one would call them coward for cowering behind a wall or in a hole, slave to the most basic of all human instincts—survival—none of them do.  It doesn’t matter if it’s an IED, a suicide bomber, mortar attack, sniper, fighting in the upstairs room of a house, or all of it at once; they talk, swagger, and, most importantly, fight today in the same way America’s Marines have since the Tun Tavern.  They also know whose shoulders they stand on, and they will never shame any Marine living or dead.

            We can also take comfort in the fact that these young Americans are not born killers, but are good and decent young men and women who for going on ten years have performed remarkable acts of bravery and selflessness to a cause they have decided is bigger and more important than themselves.  Only a few months ago they were delivering your paper, stocking shelves in the local grocery store, worshiping in church on Sunday, or playing hockey on local ice.  Like my own two sons who are Marines and have fought in Iraq, and today in Sagin, Afghanistan, they are also the same kids that drove their cars too fast for your liking, and played the God-awful music of their generation too loud, but have no doubt they are the finest of their generation.  Like those who went before them in uniform, we owe them everything.  We owe them our safety.  We owe them our prosperity.  We owe them our freedom.  We owe them our lives.  Any one of them could have done something more self-serving with their lives as the vast majority of their age group elected to do after high school and college, but no, they chose to serve knowing full well a brutal war was in their future.  They did not avoid the basic and cherished responsibility of a citizen—the defense of country—they welcomed it.  They are the very best this country produces, and have put every one of us ahead of themselves.  All are heroes for simply stepping forward, and we as a people owe a debt we can never fully pay.  Their legacy will be of selfless valor, the country we live in, the way we live our lives, and the freedoms the rest of their countrymen take for granted.

            Over 5,000 have died thus far in this war; 8,000 if you include the innocents murdered on 9/11.  They are overwhelmingly working class kids, the children of cops and firefighters, city and factory workers, school teachers and small business owners.  With some exceptions they are from families short on stock portfolios and futures, but long on love of country and service to the nation.  Just yesterday, too many were lost and a knock on the door late last night brought their families to their knees in a grief that will never-ever go away.  Thousands more have suffered wounds since it all started, but like anyone who loses life or limb while serving others—including our firefighters and law enforcement personnel who on 9/11 were the first casualties of this war—they are not victims as they knew what they were about, and were doing what they wanted to do.  The chattering class and all those who doubt America’s intentions, and resolve, endeavor to make them and their families out to be victims, but they are wrong.  We who have served and are serving refuse their sympathy.  Those of us who have lived in the dirt, sweat and struggle of the arena are not victims and will have none of that.  Those with less of a sense of service to the nation never understand it when men and women of character step forward to look danger and adversity straight in the eye, refusing to blink, or give ground, even to their own deaths.  The protected can’t begin to understand the price paid so they and their families can sleep safe and free at night.  No, they are not victims, but are warriors, your warriors, and warriors are never victims regardless of how and where they fall.  Death, or fear of death, has no power over them.  Their paths are paved by sacrifice, sacrifices they gladly make…for you.  They prove themselves everyday on the field of battle…for you.  They fight in every corner of the globe…for you.  They live to fight…for you, and they never rest because there is always another battle to be won in the defense of America.

            I will leave you with a story about the kind of people they are…about the quality of the steel in their backs…about the kind of dedication they bring to our country while they serve in uniform and forever after as veterans.  Two years ago when I was the Commander of all U.S. and Iraqi forces, in fact, the 22^nd of April 2008, two Marine infantry battalions, 1/9 “The Walking Dead,” and 2/8 were switching out in Ramadi.  One battalion in the closing days of their deployment going home very soon, the other just starting its seven-month combat tour.  Two Marines, Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter, 22 and 20 years old respectively, one from each battalion, were assuming the watch together at the entrance gate of an outpost that contained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines.  The same broken down ramshackle building was also home to 100 Iraqi police, also my men and our allies in the fight against the terrorists in Ramadi, a city until recently the most dangerous city on earth and owned by Al Qaeda.  Yale was a dirt poor mixed-race kid from Virginia with a wife and daughter, and a mother and sister who lived with him and he supported as well.  He did this on a yearly salary of less than $23,000.  Haerter, on the other hand, was a middle class white kid from Long Islaned.  They were from two completely different worlds.  Had they not joined the Marines they would never have met each other, or understood that multiple America’s exist simultaneously depending on one’s race, education level, economic status, and where you might have been born.  But they were Marines, combat Marines, forged in the same crucible of Marine training, and because of this bond they were brothers as close, or closer, than if they were born of the same woman.

            The mission orders they received from the sergeant squad leader I am sure went something likfe: “Okay you two clowns, stand this post and let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass.”  “You clear?”  I am also sure Yale and Haerter then rolled their eyes and said in unison something like: “Yes Sergeant,” with just enough attitude that made the point without saying the words, “No kidding sweetheart, we know what we’re doing.”  They then relieved two other Marines on watch and took up their post at the entry control point of Joint Security Station Nasser, in the Sophia section of Ramadi, al Anbar, Iraq.

            A few minutes later a large blue truck turned down the alley way—perhaps 60-70 yards in length—and sped its way through the serpentine of concrete jersey walls.  The truck stopped just short of where the two were posted and detonated, killing them both catastrophically.  Twenty-four brick masonry houses were damaged or destroyed.  A mosque 100 yards away collapsed.  The truck’s engine came to rest two hundred yards away knocking most of a house down before it stopped.  Our explosive experts reckoned the blast was made of 2,000 pounds of explosives.  Two died, and because these two young infantrymen didn’t have it in their DNA to run from danger, they saved 150 of their Iraqi and American brothers-in-arms.

            When I read the situation report about the incident a few hours after it happened I called the regimental commander for details as something about this struck me as different.  Marines dying or being seriously wounded is commonplace in combat.  We expect Marines regardless of rank or MOS to stand their ground and do their duty, and even die in the process, if that is what the mission takes.  But this just seemed different.  The regimental commander had just returned from the site and he agreed, but reported that there were no American witnesses to the event—just Iraqi police.  I figured if there was any chance of finding out what actually happened and then to decorate the two Marines to acknowledge their bravery, I’d have to do it as a combat award that requires two eye-witnesses and we figured the bureaucrats back in Washington would never buy Iraqi statements.  If it had any chance at all, it had to come under the signature of a general officer.

            I traveled to Ramadi the next day and spoke individually to a half-dozen Iraqi police all of whom told the same story.  The blue truck turned down into the alley and immediately sped up as it made its way through the serpentine.  They all said, “We knew immediately what was going on as soon as the two Marines began firing.”  The Iraqi police then related that some of them also fired, and then to a man, ran for safety just prior to the explosion.  All survived.  Many were injured…some seriously.  One of the Iraqis elaborated and with tears welling up said, “They’d run like any normal man would to save his life.”  “What he didn’t know until then,” he said, “and what he learned that very instant, was that Marines are not normal.”  Choking past the emotion he said, “Sir, in the name of God no sane man would have stood there and done what they did.”  “No sane man.”  “They saved us all.”

            What we didn’t know at the time, and only learned a couple of days later after I wrote a summary and submitted both Yale and Haerter for posthumous Navy Crosses, was that one of our security cameras, damaged initially in the blast, recorded some of the suicide attack.  It happened exactly as the Iraqis had described it.  It took exactly six seconds from when the truck entered the alley until it detonated.

            You can watch the last six seconds of their young lives.  Putting myself in their heads I supposed it took about a second for the two Marines to separately come to the same conclusion about what was going on once the truck came into their view at the far end of the alley.  Exactly no time to talk it over, or call the sergeant to ask what they should do.  Only enough time to take half an instant and think about what the sergeant told them to do only a few minutes before: “…let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass.”  The two Marines had about five seconds left to live.

            It took maybe another two seconds for them to present their weapons, take aim, and open up.  By this time the truck was half-way through the barriers and gaining speed the whole time.  Here, the recording shows a number of Iraqi police, some of whom had fired their AKs, now scattering like the normal and rational men they were—some running right past the Marines.  They had three seconds left to live.

            For about two seconds more, the recording shows the Marines’ weapons firing non-stop…the truck’s windshield exploding into shards of glass as their rounds take it apart and tore in to the body of the son-of-a-bitch who is trying to get past them to kill their brothers—American and Iraqi—bedded down in the barracks totally unaware of the fact that their lives at that moment depended entirely on two Marines standing their ground.  If they had been aware, they would have know they were safe…because two Marines stood between them and a crazed suicide bomber.  The recording shows the truck careening to a stop immediately in front of the two Marines.  In all of the instantaneous violence Yale and Haerter never hesitated.  By all reports and by the recording, they never stepped back.  They never even started to step aside.  They never even shifted their weight.  With their feet spread should width apart, they leaned into the danger, firing as fast as they could work their weapons.  They had only one second left to live.

            The truck explodes.  The camera goes blank.  Two young men go to their God.  Six seconds.  Not enough time to think about their families, their country, their flag, or about their lives or their deaths, but more than enough time for two very brave young men to do their duty…into eternity.  That is the kind of people who are on watch all over the world tonight—for you.

            We Marines believe that God gave America the greatest gift he could bestow to man while he lived on this earth—freedom.  We also believe he gave us another gift nearly as precious—our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Coast Guardsmen, and Marines—to safeguard that gift and guarantee no force on this earth can every steal it away.  It has been my distinct honor to have been with you here today.  Rest assured our America, this experiment in democracy started over two centuries ago, will forever remain the “land of the free and home of the brave” so long as we never run out of tough young Americans who are willing to look beyond their own self-interest and comfortable lives, and go into the darkest and most dangerous places on earth to hunt down, and kill, those who would do us harm.  God Bless America, and….SEMPER FIDELIS!

And here we have a poem written by a young Talib, translated and provided by our friends Alex Strick Van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn, who will publish a book of Taliban poetry next year.

Mother! Pray for me, I am going into battle tomorrow;
I am going for Allah’s satisfaction, without delay;
Battle has many rewards;
Allah will grant me paradise;
If I am martyred, I’ll go to my leader with a white face;
If I head to my trench
To fight against the invader,
I like pride, and will head into the afterlife with pride.
If I don’t make it back home,
This is my will to my father and mother:
Don’t be impatient; I head towards doomsday with a red shroud
Until the homeland becomes free
When all the betrayers are suppressed.
I go to the punishing plains of war with great courage;
You became Allah’s blessing for us;
Now, we all accept you, Abu Fazl;
I’ll ascend to the sky in great honour.

-- Abu Fazl

(AM: One could probably title this one "Dulce et decorum est pro patria et religione mori." One similarly wonders whether Abu Fazl will feel about this war, at its conclusion, as Wilfred Owen felt about his at his death.)

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

-- Randall Jarrell

When the 'arf-made recruity goes out to the East
'E acts like a babe an' 'e drinks like a beast,
An' 'e wonders because 'e is frequent deceased
Ere 'e's fit for to serve as a soldier.
Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
So-oldier ~OF~ the Queen!

Now all you recruities what's drafted to-day,
You shut up your rag-box an' 'ark to my lay,
An' I'll sing you a soldier as far as I may:
A soldier what's fit for a soldier.
Fit, fit, fit for a soldier . . .

First mind you steer clear o' the grog-sellers' huts,
For they sell you Fixed Bay'nets that rots out your guts --
Ay, drink that 'ud eat the live steel from your butts --
An' it's bad for the young British soldier.
Bad, bad, bad for the soldier . . .

When the cholera comes -- as it will past a doubt --
Keep out of the wet and don't go on the shout,
For the sickness gets in as the liquor dies out,
An' it crumples the young British soldier.
Crum-, crum-, crumples the soldier . . .

But the worst o' your foes is the sun over'ead:
You ~must~ wear your 'elmet for all that is said:
If 'e finds you uncovered 'e'll knock you down dead,
An' you'll die like a fool of a soldier.
Fool, fool, fool of a soldier . . .

If you're cast for fatigue by a sergeant unkind,
Don't grouse like a woman nor crack on nor blind;
Be handy and civil, and then you will find
That it's beer for the young British soldier.
Beer, beer, beer for the soldier . . .

Now, if you must marry, take care she is old --
A troop-sergeant's widow's the nicest I'm told,
For beauty won't help if your rations is cold,
Nor love ain't enough for a soldier.
'Nough, 'nough, 'nough for a soldier . . .

If the wife should go wrong with a comrade, be loath
To shoot when you catch 'em -- you'll swing, on my oath! --
Make 'im take 'er and keep 'er: that's Hell for them both,
An' you're shut o' the curse of a soldier.
Curse, curse, curse of a soldier . . .

When first under fire an' you're wishful to duck,
Don't look nor take 'eed at the man that is struck,
Be thankful you're livin', and trust to your luck
And march to your front like a soldier.
Front, front, front like a soldier . . .

When 'arf of your bullets fly wide in the ditch,
Don't call your Martini a cross-eyed old bitch;
She's human as you are -- you treat her as sich,
An' she'll fight for the young British soldier.
Fight, fight, fight for the soldier . . .

When shakin' their bustles like ladies so fine,
The guns o' the enemy wheel into line,
Shoot low at the limbers an' don't mind the shine,
For noise never startles the soldier.
Start-, start-, startles the soldier . . .

If your officer's dead and the sergeants look white,
Remember it's ruin to run from a fight:
So take open order, lie down, and sit tight,
And wait for supports like a soldier.
Wait, wait, wait like a soldier . . .

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
So-oldier of the Queen!

-- Rudyard Kipling

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

-- Siegfried Sassoon

The alternate title Londonstani and I suggested was Two Dope Boyz [in a Cadillac]. Skidmore passed on that idea, but this talk should nonetheless be a lot of fun (for us, if not for our audience). This will be the first time we've seen each other since leaving the 'Stow in 2008 and going about our careers Speakerboxxx/The Love Below style for two years.

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It was pretty obvious that the Republicans were going to win the House of Representatives and that Buck McKeon would be the new chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. But I was hoping that Skelton would at least win re-election and stay in the committee. The fact that he has now lost his seat is a loss for the entire national security community. Widely respected by both Democrats and Republicans, Skelton leaves the Congress and takes his 30 years of experience with him. And though I for one will miss his genial presence on the HASC, I'm sure Skelton himself -- always the gold standard for civility while in the Congress -- will move back to Missouri and find more time to read the Civil War histories he enjoys. I wish him -- and his successor, Rep. McKeon -- the best of luck.

Update: To be sure, this isn't really the blog to follow for defense policy in the legislative branch, but there are some good comments in this thread.

Two recent articles made me think. The first, which is the most accesible (in more ways than one), is Richard Betts' review essay on Huntington, Fukuyama and Mearsheimer in the most recent Foreign Affairs. The second, which I am considering translating into English because it is both very good and very important, is the new article by Stathis Kalyvas and Laia Balcells in the much-maligned American Political Science Review. Grand strategist types should read the first essay, while students of counterinsurgency should plow their way through the second.

This is really, really, really funny. (h/t Sullivan)

My friend MK over at the Ink Spots blog has posted a tough criticism of my argument that Kenneth Roth's idea for the United States to lead a U.S. military intervention into Central Africa to arrest Joseph Kony and destroy the Lord's Resistance Army is the worst idea on the internet. Since MK never really disagrees with my conclusion -- that getting U.S. troops involved in Central Africa to literally act as the world's policeman and carry out arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court is madness -- I get the sense this post of MK's was a chance for him to show off his knowledge of Africa and throw a brushback pitch to those of us who are not area experts but have the temerity to write on issues relating to the Dark Continent. (This is what Africa specialists call it, right? Right?)

Fair enough. I should have included a disclaimer in my 300-word post that I have never lived south of the Sahara Desert and am by no means an Africa expert. And as someone who has spent several years of my life studying the peoples, languages, history and geography of one area of the globe, I deeply appreciate area experts and what they can offer. I similarly appreciate any and all attempts to correct any gaps in my horticultural knowledge. (Forests are not jungles. Noted.)

But I am responding to MK's post for two reasons. The first is that I cannot believe my luck. I am regularly accused on the internets of being some kind of wild-eyed liberal interventionalist because I have favored counterinsurgency operations as well as slower, conditions-based withdrawals in Iraq and Afghanistan. I think people just assume that I think these conflicts are fun and was in favor of the decisions that were made concerning our entry into each conflict. So whenever I get the chance to set the record straight and stress the fact that my experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan have made me more reluctant to engage in expeditionary military operations, I welcome the opportunity.

The second reason has to do with my semi-flippant reference to the disastrous 1993 debacle in Somalia. I stick by this analogy for reasons I'll discuss later.

First, though, let's talk about international interventions. There are four questions* we should ask when considering whether or not the United States should engage in an international intervention:

1. Will an intervention make the situation better, or worse?
2. If better, should the U.S. government participate in this intervention?
3. If yes, should the U.S. government lead this intervention?
4. If yes, what should the U.S. government do?

No surprise, but Roth skipped straight to Question 4, which is pretty typical not just for humanitarian advocates but also for U.S. military types, congressmen, talking heads, think tank researchers, etc. Questions 1 and 2 are really important, though. Question 2 gets at interests: does the United States have a vital interest at stake? (With "vital" meaning you're willing to use force?) Question 1, meanwhile, gets at a tricky question about how an intervention would change the dynamics of the conflict: On the one hand, it might immediately end the conflict. (Good!) On the other hand, it might also prolong the conflict due to unforeseen second-order effects of the intervention. (Bad!) Can we make a determination about what it would do prior to the intervention? And Question 3 is pretty important as well: are there other nations or militaries that might be better suited to intervene? Would it be more appropriate, in this case, to work by, with and through African nations?

Obviously, we can all disagree on interests. Kenneth Roth and I probably disagree on the question of whether or not the United States has a vital interest in Central Africa or, specifically, whether or not the United States has a vital interest in leading an expedition to arrest Joseph Kony.

That leads to operational concerns and my use of the Blackhawk Down analogy. I stick by the use of this analogy, even though I employed it pretty flippantly (and drew some grief from Laurenist as well). Here's why:

Once upon a time, in Prussia, some dude remarked that everything in war is very simple -- but the simplest thing is difficult. I understand that the LRA is not exactly Hizballah. But we should be very wary of those who claim military operations conducted against them would be some kind of cakewalk. Because one of the reasons the best military units constantly conduct rehearsals and plan for contingencies is not to prepare for when things go right but for when, even independent of enemy action, things go wrong.

Things will always go wrong. You may embark on an open-and-shut humanitarian intervention, as we did in Somalia, and get dragged into something different. Or you may be hitting a relatively easy target in the Bakaara Market one day when boom! A helicopter goes down and suddenly things get a lot more complicated. And it doesn't matter that you and your buddies manage over the next 18 hours to kill 1000+ Somali militiamen: when dead U.S. soldiers appear on CNN, the reason why U.S. troops are on the ground has to make sense to people back home. Going back to Central Africa, what happens when a helicopter drops out of the sky -- as helicopters tend to do -- and eight U.S. servicemen are killed? Was it worth it? Does the mission still make sense to the public?

Things go wrong, folks. Things always go wrong. Which is why it is really important that we determine vital U.S. interests are at stake before intervening.

In the next few years, the United States will draw down in both Iraq and Afghanistan. On the right, the last neoconservatives will clamor for more U.S. military action against rebels in Yemen or Iran's nuclear program. Liberal interventionalists on the left, meanwhile, will argue for the employment of U.S. military force in humanitarian interventions from Burma to Uganda.

I may be the only person to have read Samantha Power's "Bystanders to Genocide" and come away thinking Richard Clarke was kind of a hero. Clarke was one of those who asked the tough questions of all the plans to commit U.S. military power on the ground in Rwanda, another landlocked area of Central Africa: How would we seize the airport? How would we resupply the troops? What is our endstate? How would we evacuate casualties?

I'm sorry, but these are the kind of questions responsible people have to ask. The fact that we often don't ask these questions depresses me.

*A varient of these four questions is in my notes from a conversation I had with Dave Kilcullen two years ago, so we can safely assume I stole these from him.

Update: The comments thread of this post is a good one, with some back and forth between Gian Gentile and Gulliver worth reading. But the real show is the comments thread at Ink Spots, where the five of them are locked in what can only be described as "intense disagreement" with one another.

I get several hundred emails a day and often do not have the time to respond to them all. I am by no means some kind of big deal, but I also don't have a personal assistant. So if I have not responded to your email or never got around to reading a paper you sent me, have mercy on me, okay? I regularly work long hours, read 100+ pages a day, and, believe it or not, have a life outside the office. (Though I can understand how it might not make sense why I can tweet about a baseball game yet leave your email unanswered.)

As I read over this post, I realize how pompous it sounds. I honestly do and apologize for that. But as you may have guessed, I have gotten some frustrated comments recently by people to whom I failed to respond or failed to respond in the depth and length they would have preferred. Maybe I should just let Ron Burgundy handle this: