James R. Rummel

There’s a term in military affairs called the Decision Cycle. It pretty much refers to the amount of time it takes an individual or an organization to figure out what’s going on, decide what to do about it, and then get around to implementing their plan.

The acme of the general’s art is to gain the initiative. Make the enemy react to what you’re doing. The opposing force’s officers will be sitting around, scratching their heads, wondering what your doing and what they should be doing about it while your forces gain their objectives and win the war.

Moving faster than the enemy can react is called “getting inside their decision cycle.”

I started to blog because I could get the news faster than by using the traditional media outlets. On the average a breaking story would start to make the blogosphere’s rounds a good two days before it hit the front page of my local newspaper. By the time it was considered a major item it had already been discussed to death and just about every blogger had moved on to something else. As long as you keep a sharp nose out for someone trying to pass out some bullshit you could be better informed than anyone who didn’t read the blogs.

So CBS, a traditional news outlet if there ever was one, is caught up in a forgery scandal. Less than 48 hours after the documents were used in a 60 Minutes II segment, Dan Rather went on the air in an effort to rebut the evidence that the damning memos were faked.

Not surprisingly, most bloggers who saw Rather’s rebuttal aren’t impressed.

(As Murdoch states in the post I just linked, any military command generates huge amounts of documents. It should be easy to find a few stacks of memos from the same office, written at the same time, that look like the suspect forms. Doing so would easily and decisively rebut any claims of forgery. That hasn’t been done yet, and somehow I don’t think it’s going to happen.)

But what’s more amazing to me is that this Associated Press wire report is essentially fisking Rather’s explanations. It was available online less than an hour after Rather was on the air. Not only that, but they actually have their own document expert on record saying that she’d be willing to swear in court that the TANG memos are faked.

The blogs are inside Big Media’s decision cycle. BM (heh) better adapt or there’s going to be more excrutiating embarrassments ahead for them.

UPDATE
The biggest defense that CBS can use is that there was equipment available that could have produced the same results as Miscrosoft Word and a modern desktop printer.

So could a top-of-the-line typewriter from 1973 produce identical documents? J. Harrell at The Shape of Days has contacted a typewriter enthusiast that has working equipment from the period. Click on over and read the evidence for yourself.

I get off work at 01:00 or so, get to sleep at 03:00. When I wake up I go online and check the news.

So I see that CBS has some documents that make Bush look bad, Something that the Boston Globe printed on their front page. One look was all it took for me to realize they didn’t look like anything I’ve ever typed up on a typewriter. Really looked fishy to me.

But I see that the blogosphere has jumped all over this with both feet. That’s what I get for needing a whole 5 hours of sleep a day.

Hey, wouldn’t you think that CBS or the Boston Globe would have a few grizzled old hands wandering around? Professionals that were pounding out pages by the thousand and stories by the bucketful in their salad days? People that would have typed up significantly more copy then myself, who noticed that something was wrong immediately even though I’m not a professional journalist or writer?

One would think that a few of them might just have made it all the way to a position as an editor. You know, the guys who have to okay a story before it actually makes it to the website or the front page.

This is kind of ironic, since I read this post on Instapundit where a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer bitterly complains about a “free-floating cadre of rightist warriors.” Seems that we’re bullying the traditional news media so much by fact checking their butts that they’re actually choosing stories that will appeal to our bias. Buying us off with conservative drivel, in other words. This has the effect of slanting the news to the Right, instead of the middle where it would be if we’d just leave the professionals alone to do their job.

I’m finding it hard to swallow that these guys actually believe that crap considering the evidence.

UPDATE
Hold the phone! Our very own Mike Spenis of The Feces Flinging Monkey has typed up his own copy one of the damning memos using Microsoft Word, and then he superimposed it on the smoking gun.

Want to see how it looks?

So the Russians are burying their dead. Lots of people are going to be asking how this sort of thing could have happened, who’s to blame, who should lose their job for negligence. The same old story.

I’m not a big fan of the Russian daily Pravda. They pretty much sound like al Jazeera most of the time. No lie is too big if it smears the people you don’t agree with. Ever since the US first made noises to depose Saddam they’ve been giving Pres. Bush and Tony Blair both barrels. The main thrust of their arguement is that Russia has superior knowledge of the Middle East and we’re idiots not to listen to Russia.

Not that Putin has made things easy for us. He’s not been very supportive of our efforts in iraq, to say the least.

But now the Russians have had a mass killing by terrorists. Hundreds of children are dead. Putin has vowed to finally deal with the corruption that’s rampant in Russia’s military and internal security forces in order to combat the terrorists.

There’s been some developments in the past few days that are heartening but not too surprising. First off, StrategyPage.com reports that Russia has penned a deal with Israel in order to cooperate as far as intel on terrorist organizations. (Entry dated September 7, 2004.) I can’t find confirmation anywhere else, though. But, if it’s true, it’s a great first step.

Next, Putin called a press conference specifically for foreign (non-Russian) journalists. Putin said that there will be no negotiating with “people who are child killers”, and that “people who call for talks with Chechen leaders have no conscience.” He has sworn to bring “total war” to the terrorists.

This is a dig at the European Union, who have been asking why the Russians have allowed the violence in Chechnya to continue. Nothing like being criticized by people with no freakin’ clue to get the Russian’s fur up.

So what does this mean? Is it possible that Russia will use some of those nukes left over from the Cold War?

Probably not. That would really make the Americans and British upset. That’s also why Russian military atrocities against civilians, even if they’re supporters of terrorist gangs, will probably be relatively rare. But the Russian troops aren’t as well trained or equipped as US soldiers, and I expect that things will get out of hand somewhere. A few naked prisoners at Abu Ghraib will seem like a vacation at Disneyworld.

I could be wrong about this, and I certainly hope that I am.

This might also swing Russian attitudes around so they’ll view our efforts in Iraq in a more favorable light. But it’s very important to realize that any direction Russia decides to go will always be dictated by Russian interests and not our own. Even if Moscow decides to lend more support in the War on Terror they’ll be focusing on their own internal problems. Don’t expect 20,000 Russian troops to suddenly gear up and head for Iraq.

Just a personal note. I’ve always been annoyed by the way the media here in the US harp and complain and write negative op-eds even if the government is obviously doing the right thing. They seem to think that being negative is actually noble even if they sound like barking moonbats. Now Pravda, that former mouthpiece of Communist strongmen, is doing the same thing.

Seems like they’ve made great advances in the past few years. An op-ed like that just 20 years ago would have earned the editor an unmarked grave.

It would appear that a pair of amateur Egyptologists claim that they have located a hidden chamber in Egypt’s Great Pyramid.

Okay, great. These guys have been written up in French archeology magazines. (Sorry about linking to the lousy translation, Sylvain, but I don’t speak French.) I’m not an Egyptologist myself so I can’t comment on the evidence they present. But their conclusions seem sound enough if their data is correct.

The only problem is that holes would have to be drilled in the pyramid to see if the chamber is really there.

Zahi Hawass, the director of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, has a few choice words to say about this scheme.

“There are 300 theories concerning hidden rooms and other things inside the pyramid, but if I let them all test their theories they will do untold damage to the pyramid, which was built with the blood of Egyptians,” said Hawass. “I will not let Egyptian blood be damaged by amateurs.”

This might seem to be harsh, but he has a point. We are dealing with an ancient monument to man’s ingenuity, resourcefulness and technical prowess. Every little bit that’s shaved or drilled off the pyramid is irreplacable, and it represents an erosion of something that should be preserved.

Besides, technology is constantly advancing. Wait a few decades and we might just be able to see what’s inside the pyramid without drilling.

So the summer Olympics are in full swing and the speechifying both annoyed and amused me, like it does every time someone steps up to the podium. They always start blathering about peace this, peace that, spirit of peace, blah blah blah. They want you to think that the Olympics celebrate and are dedicated to peace.

Not so. The Olympics are very definately all about war.

Just take a look at the traditional events. Open hand martial arts like boxing, wrestling and a sort of anything goes cage match called pankration. Missile weapons were represented with the javelin throw. Chariots and cavalry were very important in combat, so those events were represented.

Should a hoplite become seperated from the line, his only chance to survive was by constantly moving in a swirling attack pattern so an enemy couldn’t attack from the rear. The discus throw was considered a good way to train for that.

The most famous of all Olympic events is the marathon, named after a famous battle in 490 BCE. The Greeks that won the battle knew that everyone back home in Athens was expecting them to lose, so it was very possible that they would surrender the city without knowing that they had kicked ass. So legend has it that one of the soldiers stripped off his armor and weapons and ran the 25 miles back to the city to give news of the victory before dying of exhaustion.

Before 490 BCE they did include relatively short distance running events in the Olympics, the longest of which was about 2.5 miles long. Some of these events called for the hoplites to run in full armor which illustrates the martial air of the games. But after 490 BCE they decided that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to train couriers for some long distance runs.

It’s true that the almost constantly warring Greek city states would have a truce when the Olympics were held. But this wasn’t an indication of a desire for the celebration of peaceful competition, but more a way to gauge your own training methods against those of potential enemies.

So the Olympics are a throwback to a time when your warriors’ physical fitness was the most important factor in the survival of your nation. If the members of the IOC were honest they’d admit it.