Oct
20
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Monday, 20 October 2008 |
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Normally I fly Military from (the undisclosed location that may or may not be in Kuwait) to Baghdad.
This time I took a flight with Gryphon Airlines from Kuwait Internation to Baghdad.
I didn't know what to expect, but it was one of the better flights I have ever been on. And here is the key--they have arrivals and departures from KWI and BIAP (military side) that are ON TIME.
When an embed like me flys military, I am a "Space Available" passenger. Which means I may wait around a day or three trying to get into or out of Iraq.
The Gryphon is an airline flight. A confirmed flight. It leaves and arrives on time. Which means no more wasting days.
I was lucky enough to chat with Early Gibbs of Gryphon and can attest that he is a gentleman of the first order who bent over backwards to take care of Brian, LTC Russell and I.
Gryphon also works with United Airlines to provide medical evacuation flights for Iraqi children.
As we were getting off, an ambulance was waiting to put a burned child on the DC-9 to Baghdad then a flight on United to the states.
Gryphon is well positioned to be a player in the Gulf area air travel industry--especially the Baghdad/Kuwait/Dubai routes.
Tomorrow is a logistics day. Then I think we will start pulling some missions.
It will be nice to get back on the ground and outside the wire.
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Oct
19
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Monday, 20 October 2008 |
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Normally I'm a one-man band in Iraq. I head off to see what I can find
and travel from unit to unit, place to place until I have a feel for
what is happening and enough video to make a few documentaries.
This trip is different. I'm travelling with LTC Steve Russell who
commanded the Battalion at Tikrit in 2003 that captured Saddam. Along
with us is a Brian Bennett, a writer who covered LTC Russell's unit for
TIME Magazine.
Dinner last night in Kuwait by itself was worth the price of admission.
The knowledge of and points of view of Iraq and warfare around that table were worthy of an academic seminar.
LTC Russell, a student of military history, implemented the current
COIN strategy to great effect in 2003. The techniques applied to
Fallujah, Ramadi and Baghdad during the Surge were put in place in
Tikrit at the beginings of the insurgency.
Brian Bennett is an astute observer with a deep sense of history. Truly
more of a writer and analyst than a transcriber of events and an
adventurer of the first rate who would have fit in well with the
Victorian era Royal Geographic Society.
It is rare that I feel I am amatuer in Iraq, but with these two
I feel as if I am being called up from the Minors to play with the
Majors.
A Battalion Commander of one of the most storied units ever to serve in
Iraq, a world class writer for a venerable institution and me, a self
styled documentary filmmaker.
This is gonna be fun.
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Oct
17
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Friday, 17 October 2008 |
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On my way to Iraq today.
I've gotten so used to the trip I can throw everything together in 24 hours.
Not sure what the final product is going to be from this trip. I never even attempt to script or plan the war.
On my last trip I came back with documentaries I never could have foreseen. What will this trip bring?
I should be on the ground and operating on Tuesday. I'll save you the boring details of cork-screw landings and Rhino rides.
But I will say this trip is different. I've been rolling around doing
this for 4 years now and I am not the same person I was when I started.
This trip has some interesting features and as my experience in Iraq
has grown, I hope the product I produce will continue to evolve.
As many of you know, the DVD's finance my work in Iraq. If you can afford to, please buy a DVD .
| Please support this trip by purchasing a DVD or donating through Paypal. |
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Oct
17
2008
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Written by David Chavarria
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Friday, 17 October 2008 |
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Good news from Fallujah , part of JD's old stomping grounds while filming the previous documentaries. (H/T Hotair )
JD emailed me last night and let me know he's left early for a short overseas trip. We weren't expecting him to leave until next week.
Look for updates soon in the blog.
If you've signed up for the newsletter please do so again , we had a technical glitch and didn't get everyone. We just need a name and email. Sorry for the inconvenience.
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Oct
13
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Monday, 13 October 2008 |
Once again, Michael Yon proves that some of the best reporting is coming from the independents.
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Oct
09
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Thursday, 09 October 2008 |
The Taliban, the 'Talibs,' products of Peshawar and Quetta madrassas overflowing with orphans and children of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan are, in the end, Pathans--also known as Pashtuns.
A survey of history of the Pathans shows one never-ending pattern: Fusion in the face of a common enemy and the frission that shortly follows.
The warrior Poet Khushal Khan Khattack, attempted and occasionally succeeded in unifying the Pathans against the Moghuls, but the pattern of fusion and frission always frustrated his efforts, leading Khushal to write of his fellow Pathans:
Of the Pathans that are famed in the land of Roh,
Now-a-days are the Mohmands, the Bangash, and the Warrakzais, and the Afridis.
The dogs of the Mohmands are better than the Bangash,
Though the Mohmands themselves are a thousand times worse than the dogs.
The Warrakzais are the scavengers of the Afridis,
Though the Afridis, one and all, are but scavengers themselves.
This is the truth of the best of the dwellers in the land of Pathans,
Of those worse than these who would say that they were men?
No good qualities are there in the Pathans than are now living:
All that were of any worth are imprisoned in the grave.
This indeed is apparent to all who know them.
He of whom the Moghuls say, "He is loyal to us",
God forbid the shame of such should be concealed!
Let the Pathans drive all thought of honour from their hearts:
For these are ensnared by the baits the Moghuls have put for them. (Dupree, Afghanistan, 88)
"Ultimately, the Taliban are tribal Pashtoons [Pathans]," writes Robert Kaplan in this book Soldiers of God. "An anarchic mountain people who have ground up one foreign invader after another." (Kaplan 239)
The Pathans unify barely enough and barely long enough to bloody their enemy before descending into tribal warfare again. Even Kushal, while fighting the Moghuls, "carried out his tribal blood fued with another major Pashtun tribe, the Yusufzai." (Dupree, 321)
The blood fued, the blood debt, is something the United States has faced recently. The violence in Iraq in 2006 and early 2007 was not, as some believe, a civil war. It was the the Arab tradition of the blood debt spiraling out of control.
As Gibbon wrote of the Arabs in Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, "Everyman, at least every family, was the judge and avenger of his own cause...the interest and principle of the bloody debt are accumulated; the individuals of either family lead a life of malice and suspicion, and fifty years may sometime elapse before account of the vengeance be finally settled." (Modern Classics Library, 894)
(In my documentary Baghdad Surge , you can witness the cycle of the blood debt in action and how one infantry battalion set the stage to short-circuit the cycle.)
In the West Rashid district of Baghdad, the cycle of violence was brought to a halt when Sunni assassins like Malik and Shia assassins like the "The Wolf" were captured or killed by U.S. Soldiers. Because many reporters and analysts did not understand what they were seeing, because they did not study Arab culture, they thought they were watching a civil war--but random and targetted assassinations do not a civil war make.
I fear many are making the same err in Afghanistan--a failure to understand the culture. The lumping of Pathans, who throughout time have bloodied any invader (which the U.S. is), with the Taliban would be a mistake.
If the Pathans can be peeled off from the actual Taliban the way generic Sunni tribal insurgents were peeled off from the Takfiris in Iraq's Al Anbar province, the direction of the war will change.
In these discussions and negotiations the lessons of the British in 1842 should loom large.
In 1842 the revolts of the Afghans had the British in dire straights and Sir William Macnaghten, British Envoy to Afghanistan, set about a plan to sow dissent among the various tribal chiefs and bribe them to betray the rebel leader Akbar Khan.
But Akbar Khan set a trap for Macnaghten.
"[Macnaghten] seized on proposals from Akbar Khan which would permit the British to remain in Kabul until spring, and then withdraw voluntarily. Understandably desperate and strained by the awesome responsibility on him, Macnaghten accepted and signed a Persian document which agreed to Akbar's terms. Akbar showed the document to the other Afghan chiefs to expose Macnaghten's two-faced policy. Several of the 'rebel' leaders admitted to receiving proposals from Macnaghten to betray Akbar. Now, all united in a plan to sieze Macnaghten and hold him hostage." (Dupree 387)
(Peter Hopkirk's The Great Game has a more in-depth account.)
Macnaghten was not taken hostage though....Akbar murdered Macnaghten.
The British retreated from Kabul to Jalabad and only one Englishman survived the winter cold and the constant gunfire rained down by the tribesmen from the hills and crags to reach Jalabad.
But the fusion gave way to frission once again:
"Almost immediately after the defeat of the final remnants of the Kabul garrison at Gandamak, the illusion of unity loosened and finally broke down. Akbar Khan could not hold together the exultant Ghilzai and other Pashtun elements, and, singing improvised songs of the improvised victory, many tribesmen returned home." (Dupree 394)
The goal of any discussions with the Taliban, or more precisely, the Pathan (Pashtun) elements of the Taliban is to bring about the inevitable cycle of frission. In this case, frission between the Taliban and the Pathans.
To do this, the wise company and battalion commander will have to master the ancient way of the Pathans.
In a few weeks I will be in Afghanistan to witness what is happening first hand, until then, I will continue to study the history and anthropology of Afghanistan, the Pashtun language and the ways of the Pathans.
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Oct
01
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Thursday, 02 October 2008 |
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Echoing Glenn's point about how to defeat the MSM/create alternatives to the MSM .
I am a producer of original material. I take very expensive equipment to very dangerous places.
Then I produce original documentaries--four so far , with number five on the way then I'll go to Afghanistan and Iraq and shoot three more.
I am the exact opposite of the pajama clad pundit.
So are Michael Yon and Michael Totten (even more than I.)
The sad truth of the blogosphere is that 90% of it based on the reporting of MSM or another media outlet. There is very little original reporting.
There are some original inputs of data coming from the right side of the blogosphere, but the blogosphere has a parasitic relationship to the MSM it despises.
The MSM still controls the killer app of gathering original information and producing original products. But even they have cut back back original reporting...it is cheaper and easier to line up a pundits and "strategists" to yell at each other than actually go out and produce hard news.
There is a vaccum in overseas reporting that some like me have filled. The vaccum exists because covering wars and foreign countries is expensive and difficult.
So far the nominally right side of blogosphere has started to fill that vaccum. But it is expensive and dangerous. (And I honestly don't know how many more times I have until that bullet or bomb finally catches up to me.)
Last Spring I set what I thought was a modest goal: Beat Brian DePalma's anti-soldier movie "Redacted."
I'm 68% of the way there.
If a small independent production could beat a film financed by a billionaire and directed by an major Hollywood director, then maybe someone would notice that there is a market for documentaries about Iraq that show the dignity and bravery of the troops. And hopefully that someone would back a much better director and deploy a real crew to Iraq.
As the blog father said , "There's a vast underserved population out there, for news, entertainment, movies, etc., and if people start serving it, the current "mainstream" media won't be so mainstream anymore."
The market must be proven with original content. And original content is not cheap or easy and, in my personal case, it is often dangerous.
So go see An American Carol this weekend.
Buy Michael Yon's book .
Buy Evan's DVD .
Hit Totten's tip jar .
Buy one of my DVDs .
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Oct
01
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Wednesday, 01 October 2008 |
Regular readers here have known for a year that the Surge could, would and did succeed.
The rest of the public is catching on now .
Almost a year-and-a-half ago I explained the process of how public opinion on the war could change.
The genius of a free republic is that each person knows his or her personal circumstance better than a central planner ever could and therefore make better decisions.
The downside in foreign policy is that so few citizens have the requisite information to hold a valid opinion.
In matters like Iraq, the public essentially wets their finger, sticks it in the air and feels which way the breeze from the Gross Ratings Points generated by the media is blowing.
Combined with a news media whose coverage of Iraq played directly into the strategy of the enemy, it is amazing the Surge was allowed to happen and last long enough to work.
The soft and un-rooted center will always follow the flow the Gross Rating Points breeze.
In the case of Iraq, it took more than a year for the breeze to change directions and finally be felt by those with their fingers in the air.
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Sep
26
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Friday, 26 September 2008 |
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A disturbing clip from the upcoming movie....
Well, maybe more amusing than disturbing.
Hoepfully I'll be back in Iraq or Afghanistan when this movie is released.
This will be my 5th documentary about Iraq. (The other 4 are here.)
Not bad for a one-man band. The only people beating me in volume are CNN, BBC and PBS/Frontline.
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Sep
24
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Wednesday, 24 September 2008 |
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John McCain recently released ads hitting Obama on his ties to FannieMae/FreddieMac.
I am not sure where these ads are running, but they are not running in the Kansas City media market. (The Kansas City market being the 2nd largest in the swing state of Missouri.)
I have a pretty good idea why the Fannie/Freddie ads are not running in Kansas City.
And it has a lot to do with this graph.
So much human activity and trends fit into normal distribution it is almost disconcerting.
If you were to conduct a study of political/current events knowledge of the general public, the majority of public would be grouped in the middle of the bell curve. (In normal distribution 68% will be one standard deviation away from the mean.)
Michael Barone would be on the far right.
My friend Darlene, who is vaugely aware that some guy named George Bush is President, would be on the far left.
Everyone else will be clumped in the middle with "some" knowledge of politics/current events. If you are reading this, you are somewhere on the right side of the curve.
People who are aware of Fannie/Freddie as government entities will be to the right of mean. People who are aware of Jim Johnson and Franklin Raines would be quite a bit to the right.
For a political ad to convert, there must be intensity and believeability.
The believeability is often formed by prior knowledge and inputs formed by (unfortunately) the news media.
Intensity is how much people care about it.
And here is the lesson: People on the left side of the curve can and do vote. People on the right side typically have their minds made up already.
An ad that converts addresses what people on the middle and left side of the curve know about and care about.
They do not know about Jim Johnson and Franklin Raines, therefore, it is very hard for them to care (intensity). McCain's ads hitting Fannie/Freddie will probably not hit air in a swing state like Missouri.
In this youtube age, I suspect a lot of the ads that are being floated around are head-fakes or are being used for earned media in the cable news cycle.
Take this ad for example.
Hard hitting, if you know who villains are.
I only knew 3 of the 4 villains.
The people on the left side of the curve have no idea who the villains are.
(At this point I should rail against the news media, but I will leave that to others.)
Because so few of the people in the middle, especially on the left side of the curve, will know the villains, I doubt the ad converts.
But, it can be used to drive a few stories and a little discusssion on the cable shows. Which means Obama might be thrown off message for a few seconds in the next 48 hours.
If the story catches on, there might be enough earned media for a subsequent round of ads--but only if there are several hundred earned media points so the people in the middle/left end of the curve are exposed to Rezko, et.al.
Then there might be enough believeability. The question then becomes: Is there enough intensity to convert voters?
The voters might not care.
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