Austin Bay Blog

This morning my cell phone buzzed at 1:45 AM local and one of thearenausa.com ’s Hollywood video directors said: “Hey, Austin, you’re on Hugh Hewitt’s show in fifteen minutes.” Okay. I jotted down the radio show’s phone number and at 0-dark-two in Central Europe called “drive time” Los Angeles. Hugh’s producer, Duane Patterson, answered and immediately started telling me that the US House of Representatives was going to vote to cut defense funds for Iraq. Representatives, huh? Reprehensible. Okay, the politicos’ Beltway game is to fund but fund with “withdrawal conditions” or some similar rhetorical shuck and jive. Hugh and I talked briefly about this congressional foolishness. I hope history judges these conniving political hacks with appropriate harshness. They built their election plan around defeat and by damn they will have defeat. The Beltway show echoes 1864 and the Copperheads. No, it isn’t the same political and military situation (unless Islamofacist terrorists get a nuke Lincoln’s was more dire) but the hate rhetoric and vicious hack tactics are similar.

Hugh asked me a question very similar to one Ed Driscoll asked me for an upcoming PajamasMedia/XM satellite radio podcast. Hugh asked it from the perspective of the effects of a victory in Iraq, Ed from the perspective of what I’ve seen in the Persian Gulf region/Middle East that I would advise a presidential candidate (or newly elected president in 2009) as being important in terms of policy.

That’s a tough question, but influencing the positive trends, the “positive modernization.” Take Abu Dhabi and Dubai. They are petro-emirates extraordinaire, and have cash to invest. They are doing that. Dubai is an instant, desert-tinged Hong Kong, a trading entrepot wisely leveraging its strategic position (check the map). There’s a huge new seaport and airport complex between Dubai and Abu Dhabi (I think it’s name is Jebel Ali) that is a one-stop-trade-shop. Bring in goods from the ship and transfer them to air freighters and send the goods to Sydney or Paris.

As State Department officials have noted, there are “a lot of Ataturks” in the region — a reference to Turkey’s 20th century revolutionary leader who founded the Turkish Republic on the dregs of the Ottoman Empire. I should emphasize secular Turkish Republic.

The Gulf region’s Ataturks are economic Ataturks — leading with cash instead of a general’s baton. The economic integration has social, political, and cultural implications. This should b e the new era of US civilian agencies work closely with the DOD. I told Ed Driscoll that we needed a revived State Department (a State Department without Jack Croddy’s — and I don’t have time to link to my post about that FSO guttersnipe — but check it out from last week).

I would tell a candidate to look for ways to integrate all elements of US power to influence the positive trends — and much of the positive is the result of American security efforts throughout the region (Iraq being primary).

I’ll write more about this once I return to the States. At the moment I am in Ramstein, Germany, getting ready to visit the hospital at Landstuhl. That USAF hospital is a key node in the medevac chain moving US and allied wounded from Afghanistan and Iraq back to the States.

Meanshilw, check out thearenausa.com ’s website. I want to thank ArenaUSA for picking up my expenses on this trip (wait ’til they see the bill for a couple of nights in Abu Dhabi). ArenaUSA is a classy example of emerging “convergence media.” I shot a lot of video of the trip, including a long shot of a Global Hawk landing at a US airbase and a U-2 taking off for a strategic recon mission. In Afghanistan I had a lot talk on camera with the crew of a Pavehawk UH-60 search and rescue helicopter (the guys who pick up downed pilots or injured troops). I was working as a one-man band and had to borrow cameramen (from folks on the trip). There may be a lot of shake to the video, but thearenausa has some very sophisticated video engineers. Like I told Hugh, I’m not sure when their site leaves the beta stage. Several of ArenaUSA’s senior people have educational software backgrounds which appeals to the professor in me. The outfit has an interest in providing “deep background” on issues. Their software also has a “community aspect” to make the discussion interactive. I’ll be interested in seeing that capability when it’s up and running.

More later.