Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
Time to add a new caveat, because from email it's not clear to some folks (mind you, if you don't read this it won't matter...) Being an open post, people (collectively, the Denizens) other than I post in the H&I. They sign their work (most of the time) - keep that in mind when you want to flame someone in email please - if it doesn't say "The Armorer" or "John" then I didn't write it! And honestly - if you don't like something said or posted... leave a comment, and hash it out (within the context of The Rulez which are clearly posted on the comment form, I would add).
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CAPT H sends us to Grouchy Old Cripple Denny, who provides us with this gem on how to speak Democrat:
I'm sure Jason or perhaps Cliff can provide the other side... because there *is* an other side... -the Armorer
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One for “Things That Go *Boom*’ files: they’ve done a “Steve Austin” on the I-500 penetrator bomb. Good. So now can we stop talking about ‘first use’ in relation to a strike on Iran on these interwebs thingy? (Read as ‘we don’t need to use ‘mini-nukes’ so talking about it like we must is just a scare tactic for the anti-nuc wet knickers types’)
-- All your wars belong to Purple. Yeah, I know, I’m not funny.
--ry
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*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.
Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.
Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*
The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.
I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
Time to add a new caveat, because from email it's not clear to some folks (mind you, if you don't read this it won't matter...) Being an open post, people (collectively, the Denizens) other than I post in the H&I. They sign their work (most of the time) - keep that in mind when you want to flame someone in email please - if it doesn't say "The Armorer" or "John" then I didn't write it! And honestly - if you don't like something said or posted... leave a comment, and hash it out (within the context of The Rulez which are clearly posted on the comment form, I would add).
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I’m throwing yet more gasoline on the Iran topic with this.(Still waiting for that ‘beat down’ you threatened me with, Kat.)
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I wonder if this HuffPo-ster will call this a war crime if the UNSC doesn’t sign of on it? Such a study in contrasts, non? I get shades of the VC and NVA using countries along the western border of South Vietnam(Republic of Vietnam, or RVN) as LOC and staging areas for attacks in RVN, but calling a Nixon a war criminal for ‘broadening the war’ by going after the enemy where he’s at with the first post. When you study the PLA/PLAN you find their doctrine essentially reduces to ‘if you can attack us from there then you can be attacked there by us’, and it’s totally a valid reading of int’l law. Who knew?
--ry
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Fark. I got tagged by the BlogPrincess. Don't expect an immediate reply, 'cuz I'm busily saving civilization at the moment, but I'll give you a teaser. Since Cassie's a Lady of as Many Pseudonyms as She Has Talents -- in other words, she's got a bigger identity crisis than WereKitty -- I thought I'd include a small dedication to Princess Leia In A Cheese Danish Bikini with the response.
Perhaps Senator Clinton should move to Canada? They seem to be taking her prescription for child-rearing to heart... From Fox News (which means some people won't read it, I know):
A Canadian court has overturned a father's punishment for his daughter after she refused to stay off the Internet, his attorney said Wednesday.
The girl, 12, took her father to Quebec Superior Court after he refused to allow her to go on a school trip for chatting on Web sites and then posting "inappropriate" pictures of herself online using a friend's computer, AFP reported.
The punishment was for the girl's "own protection," according to the father's attorney, Kim Beaudoin, who is appealing the ruling.
"She's a child," Beaudoin told AFP. "At her age, children test their limits and it's up to their parent to set boundaries. I started an appeal of the decision today to reestablish parental
authority, and to ensure that this case doesn't set a precedent." Otherwise, she continued, "Parents are going to be walking on egg shells from now on."
According to court documents, the girl's Internet usage was the latest in a rash of disciplinary problems. But Justice Suzanne Tessier, who was presiding over the case, found the punishment too severe.
It also serves as a model for Supreme Court overwatch of military operations world-wide, I'm thinking. Heh. -the Armorer
*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.
Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.
Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*
The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.
I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
If not sanctioned by the UN Security Council - and there is no reason to believe that it would be - it would be a war crime. -- Robert Naiman
That's hilarious. The moonbats have wished the UNSC had that power *sooooo* hard and for *sooooo* long that they've finally come to believe their wish *must* have been granted.
Ry...I've pretty much came to the conclusion that I am beating a dead horse on Iran. Face it, we are persuing sanctions, etc and it would take a really horrendous act for anyone to go after Iran.
I am only hoping that everyone else is right and I'm not really playing Churchill screaming in the wilderness that there is a madman on the loose.
by kat-missouri on June 20, 2008 9:20 AM
From what we can tell, the Pentagon has not aggressively followed up, either on the Desautels case or those of hundreds of other Americans for whom the Chinese should be able to account.
Nor did they ever on the POW/MIAs from my war.
China and Vietnam have a tradition of holding POWs as bargaining chips. One recent example is the French soldiers who were not repatriated after 1954 -- referred to as "our precious pearls" by Hanoi, used to leverage concessions from the French in the form of investments and aid, then quietly repatriated years afterward.
There's more than enough evidence that US POWs were retained for the same reason -- but with Congress' push to "normalize" relations immediately after Saigon fell, Hanoi no longer had a use for bargaining chips. And their continued existence would have proved embarrassing to a US government which had loudly proclaimed that *all* POWs had been accounted for and returned. Bobby Garwood was supremely lucky to get out alive.
OH.MY.GOD.... it's just money, I'm pissed because we had to give it back and now I have charges???? Holy crap. I'm not even sure they can handle being Fluffers!
by AFSister on June 20, 2008 9:42 PM
Yeah, and from the tenor of the newscast, they've done it before and didn't even get a wrist-slap.
90 days in the pokey on the misdemeanor charge.
5-to-10 with the Peace Corps in Chad for a dose of reality.
Sentences to be served concurrently -- as in, *in* the pokey *in* Chad.
Wow. That's just mind-boggling, that they're so callous about it. Hopefully, the older sister of the 9-year old has her say in the matter.......heh, heh, heh.
Well, because we know Cassie is going to hurl this at Castle Argghhh! at some point and John’ll never answer these meme things I’ll take it---so you only need six now Cass.
The rules are
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
5. Present an image of martial discord from whatever period or situation you’d like.
I’m going to have problems with the martial picture thing, so you’ll all just have to let that slide. If I could do so without pulling out my hair while looking for a pic and getting onto a server, using fraking dial-up, I’d pick something like a combat engineer or sapper from the middle -ages, or maybe the picture of Jack and Bobby Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
(more below the fold)
Freaky/odd stuff about gollum:
1) I was born with a severely clubbed left foot. To treat it the docs broke the foot and shin repeatedly and reset it for two years. Mom still has the casts. It warped my hip something awful. Yet, I still ran the Mt. SAC 3 mile course in 17:30 and 800m in 1:57 as an HS sophomore, and until I got hurt. I can still put on a good dose of speed when I really need or want to.
2) I eat raw bacon, ground beef, and chicken while cooking. I know it’s not healthy or considered safe, but, hey, what’s life without a little risk? At least I don’t drive like a tool and tailgate, or while texting on a cell phone.
3) The oldest of my 1st cousins is old enough to qual for Soc Security this year and the youngest is in their early 50s. I’m in my early 30s. Wonder why I have such an odd view of the world, one that mixes old paradigms and newer ones? There you go.
4) My sister Michele still carries a grudge that I was born on the first day of kindergarten for her and, so my Dad took her to school instead of my Mom. She’s still pissed.
5) Until 20 I lived in the same house. We never moved as a family, and Mom still lives in the same house. When she initially took a loan to buy it in 1966 she contracted for $16K of the $18k it was worth. It’s now valued at over $200k. I had almost all the same teachers as my siblings, except my older brother who went to parochial school, because we never went anywhere.
6) In college my nickname was The Easter Bunny. Initially it had something to do with a scavenger hunt but later stuck because when people got publicly lewd in my presence I tended to turn a brilliant, yet pastel, shade of pink.
7) I was essentially raised by two families after my dad was kicked out for his unrepentant alcoholism when I was 4 months old---the Thompsons and the Quirks---while Mom worked until I was about 9 years old.
The Thompsons were a Navy family. Mr. T had retired from the Navy after picking up a Japanese wife and having two kids to join the CHP. Along with Ojisan Kawamura they were my first initiation to all things Japanese; and the beginning of long love affairs with Anime, Godzilla, Sumo, Kendo (I suck, badly), Japanese gyrls (oddly enough I didn’t marry one, though I did date Japanese and Korean gyrls heavily), and the USN (well, that also starts with my aunt, Betty Feiler, working for the Navy Dept for 25 years too).
The Quirks were an Irish-Catholic family from Chicago. If it wasn’t for the Quirk Kids (all 8 of them) and Mr. and Mrs. Quirk I probably would’ve starved, fallen down a drain pipe, burned myself to a crisp, or wandered off and been eaten by wildlife that lived along the Santa Ana river (before they bulldozed it and turned it into a golf course) long before I got here to annoy all of you. I still have a bone to pick with Jeannie and Tricie about dressing me up in dolly clothes, though (hello, boy, no dresses on boys thank you very much. I don’t care how docile I was at three. That’s still just wrong!).
If you ever hear me slip into weird speech patterns that don’t sound Californian that’s why, dontchaknow.
Oh, meme comes here to die---I’ll just go put this one in Bovine Bosnia--- and we don’t tag others with them.
--ry
4) My sister Michele still carries a grudge that I was born on the first day of kindergarten for her and, so my Dad took her to school instead of my Mom. She’s still pissed.
I did have my sights firmly set on the Castle crowd! I just hate passing on memes (like John) so I've been procrastinating. Plus I had a project at work this week that was making me nuts.
Is that one Quirk or SoCal?
Actually, that one's an ARmorerism.
So, maybe John'll do this one and Cassie will get a freebie.
That's weird stuff about your sister, Ry.
Not when you have to sit there and listen to her carp about it being all your fault every time you go home to visit(and she's serious about it). then it's about your sanity.
by ry on June 20, 2008 1:21 PM
"martial discord"???????????????
Me Canuck: you confuse me!
Cheers
by J.M. Heinrichs on June 20, 2008 5:07 PM
I didn't come up with the rules CPT H,nor the rules. That's a cut and paste job from Cassie's joint.
Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
Time to add a new caveat, because from email it's not clear to some folks (mind you, if you don't read this it won't matter...) Being an open post, people (collectively, the Denizens) other than I post in the H&I. They sign their work (most of the time) - keep that in mind when you want to flame someone in email please - if it doesn't say "The Armorer" or "John" then I didn't write it! And honestly - if you don't like something said or posted... leave a comment, and hash it out (within the context of The Rulez which are clearly posted on the comment form, I would add).
The desultory website redesign is looking like it will go live this weekend, with a temporary shutdown to let the web-gnomes in to do their thing. The developmental version is up - click here and tell us what you think. The intent was to get a new look, clean up the clutter, make the archives both easier to use and less a drag on bandwidth. Talk to us about colors, ease of use, or problems you see. Some photos in some posts may not display, that's an artifact of "leeching" protections. -the Armorer
The biggest concern over the possibility of Barack Obama becoming president has been his complete lack of executive experience.
History tells us, however, that this may not matter. What matters is whether Mr. Obama or John McCain has the capacity to grow.
...
A pattern emerges. A new president arrives clearly unequipped to meet the demands of the office. He makes mistake after mistake, his popularity wanes and the pundits prepare his political obituary.
But the president has the capacity to analyze each failure with a clear head. He discovers which advisers he can trust, which policies he should jettison or embrace. He figures out the Congress. The successes of the second half of his first term vindicate the learning curve of the first.
Other presidents obstinately determine to stay the course, and we get what we have now.
Ibbitson goes through presidential records from Lincoln, to Truman, to Kennedy, to Clinton in order to make his point. I'm not sure his analysis is spot on, but it's an interesting starting point for a discussion of how much experience matters versus temperament. - Damian
*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.
Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.
Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*
The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.
I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
I couldn't help but notice you have switched to the "English" camo colours. At least, the khaki and light bronze green are the colours i am seeing at the new site.
Personally, I have some trouble seeing the text on the khaki. If it were to use the same font and size as what's curently en vogue here, then it'd be fine. It's just my tired old eyes, though, so what it means to me is I will simply meed lonmger time to read what's on the screen with the new style.
I also think it appears to be "too" clean. I sunno, more like a Field Manualm or some business site. Not that there's anything wrong with that, bit this old look, t me at least, is comfortable with it's mild clutter, like someone's home, a place where you feel at home. Again, that's just me and I'm a little resistant to change :)
It is well done, however, and very clean and precise. So there's that.
Respects,
by AW1 Tim on June 19, 2008 11:06 AM
Nah, Tim - that's exactly the kind of input we want.
I like the new look, it is a lot cleaner and easier on the eyes (at least my eyes.) The fonts look crisper and have more contrast so they are easier to read. I'm not crazy about the colors but it's not an interior design site so that doesn't matter that much to me.
I'd give it a 9 out of 10 on a grumpy day and this isn't one so as far as I'm concerned it's a 10.
by NevadaDailySteve on June 19, 2008 11:16 AM
What color combos *would* you guys prefer?
Or point us to websites that you like in that regard?
Love the redesign. Much cleaner and tighter from my standpoint - easier to read and navigate. Hopefully the search function will work once again? *fingers crossed*
And unlike the other commenters so far, I *like* the colours.
Like the new site. Would advise slightly lighter color for right sidebar background, for contrast with font, and a slightly "chunkier" font. At least on my monitor (1280x1024) it is pretty fine-grain and I think that might be causing the readability issues
It loads faster, and, while I've sorta gotten used to the pink background, grey makes it easier on the eyes. It looks a bit sterile, but that's prolly because there aren't any pictures in the pos
Oh. There *are* pix in the posts.
Some of the pictures in some of the posts don't show up correctly
I have no problems with the new colours. I like them as well, in a colonial ANZACs uniform sort of way.
My suggestion would be to consider using white letters on the page, or at least perhaps in the right hand side to increase the contrast.
Two of my cisually favourite sites are "Warseer" and "The Daily Grail". Both use black background with white text and some other colours thrown in on various sections. That sort of contrast is actually easier on the eyes, at least for me, then the lighter coloured backgrounds. But I digress.
Anyway, I have no complaints, per se, about the new look. I have personal biases, but it is, after all, your site, and I will never be so boorish as to be invited to visit someone's domain and then complain about the decor. The French might, but not me. L)
respects,
by AW1 Tim on June 19, 2008 1:16 PM
I have personal biases, but it is, after all, your site, and I will never be so boorish as to be invited to visit someone's domain and then complain about the decor. The French might, but not me. :)
Ah, but Tim - you've been *invited* to do so - so it's all good. It's my site, but it's awful lonely just sitting here by myself - so, as a consumer of the product, your opinions are solicited. This isn't a commie blog - "There is only 1 way, and you will like it!"
As I said, John, I'm not sure I agree with his analysis, but it does provide a good starting point for the conversation. The shot at Dubya was Ibbitson's, not mine (...I says to the big man with the large stock of weapons and ammo).
I think the biggest mistake Ibbitson makes is to separate experience and judgment. Unless my life observations are completely off base, judgment largely stems from experience...
Interesting that our Canadian friend uses the possessive "we" in referring to the U.S. President.
I would rather see the good journalist spend a little time examining the state of freedom of speech in the Great White North (see Steyn, et al) before he starts casting his elitist gaze to U.S. politics.
by AW1 Tim on June 19, 2008 3:23 PM
RetRsvMike's got a good point about the hard break defining the dailies. I don't get out much, but the Castle's the only place I remember seeing it. Gives the joint a pretty unique look.
Plus it helps when I'm trying to remember what *day* it is...
There's some wiggle room. Siddown, Ry.
Oh, right, so there's no Instalanchers around so it's back to kicking gollum, is it? haven't even looked yet at the test site.
by ry on June 19, 2008 7:48 PM
Thanks much for the link! We really don't get it. Congress forced us to make FAOs in '97 but we screwed it up and had to do it all over again in '05. The new try seems to be sticking, but IAs are a mess that is only now beginning to clear up a little.
The new look is more readable (to me) than the current one.
I'd be reluctant to muck about with it too soon. See how it sets for a while.
Please.
by steveH on June 20, 2008 1:34 AM
I would like it better if the [Read More]s didn't push you to a whole new page like Blogspot rather than opening the text in place.
That format may make it leaner and faster loading, but makes it hard to peruse the H&I* Fires postings. On those, all you see is the post heading boilerplate and have no idea whether anything interesting lies beneath. I know that there is always "something" beneath, but how much and whether it has been added to is the question.
Interesting that our Canadian friend uses the possessive "we" in referring to the U.S. President.
Actually AW1 Tim, I'm not sure you can snark that line too much. Like it or not, everyone in the world gets to live with the consequences of American voting decisions. When your economy sneezes, Canada gets a cold. When your president decides to go to war, it affects the nations who choose to go with you, and those who choose not to. And when he decides NOT to go to war, that impacts the rest of the world as well.
The benefits of being the big kid on the block are many. But the downside is that you in America live in a fishbowl, and the rest of us get to comment on it because what you do affects us so very much.
It’s a short IPB this week. Spent most of last week game planning a visit with the In-Laws, RBBH’s parents really do require that much prep work, and little time reading far and wide as a result (and all of John’s threats to standing on my neck to get me to go scamper didn’t work, this time.)
First up are two posts about 5th Generation Warfare from the guys (group blog) at Dreaming 5GW. 5GW Chess looks at the nature of what 5GW is, and the 3rd comment is worth it all on its own. The second post can only be called a survey of recent thought in a certain circle on the web.
--
Michael Totten (of lots of places) has a piece up at Winds of Change worth looking at called No More Gazas.
Also from WoC is a bit about the role of consequences inherent to any chosen stance. TANSTAAFL, my friends.
--
When I was just a tadpole chemist the fad of the day was ‘multi-discipline study this and that’. I got to the point that I though MDS was a load of crap. After reading this from Shrinkwrapped I’m not so sure MDS is a load so much as the people pushing it on me back in the late 90s and early oughts were just know-nothing fad followers.
--
D. Nexon brings our attention to something in AFRICOM’s AOR: fighting between Djibouti and Eritrea that *nobody* is talking about, sadly (Gollum points no fingers ‘cause he didn’t know either).
--
The folks over at the Jamestown Foundation wonder if we might be seeing another 1971 unfolding in Pakistan. Many of the same dynamics are in play except for the strong outside intervener (India), but that may not be necessary given the martial reputation of the Pashtun (weren’t they the majority of the ‘Indians’ that the UK impressed during WW2?).
--ry
*Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace.
In real life IPB means:
“An analytical methodology employed to reduce uncertainties concerning the enemy, environment, and terrain for all types of operations. Intelligence preparation of the battlespace builds an extensive database for each potential area in which a unit may be required to operate. The database is then analyzed in detail to determine the impact of the enemy, environment, and terrain on operations and presents it in graphic form. Intelligence preparation of the battlespace is a continuing process. Also called IPB.”
Many of the same dynamics are in play except for the strong outside intervener...
'Nother that's not in play is *distance*: in 1971, Pakistan had to cross the width of a hostile India (about 1,000 miles) to reinforce its troops in East Pakistan -- the NWFP are practically suburbs of Islamabad by comparison.
One dynamic in play now that wasn't a factor in East Pakistan in 1971: the largest single employer in the tribal areas is the Pakistani central government.
Another dynamic in play now is the difference in temperament of the population: while the Pashtun are the majority in the NWFP, there are over 1,200 separate Pashtun tribes, most of whom have treaty obligations to the central government -- and those folks take treaties seriously.
The best chance for booting the TaliQaeda out will be another jirga between the Pashtun living on the Afghan side of the border and those living on the Pak side (they don't recognize the border, by the way, except to be polite). TaliQaeda lost both credibility *and* sympathy as a result of the last one.
Oh. You didn't hear about the last one? August 2007.
Well, the distance may not be the same, but the ability to move forces may be. Same result if you can't move sufficient or lack sufficient forces to keep the country together. I know some people like Barnett and Robb actually like the idea of a dismembered Pakistan and Afghanistan since that'll put country size at the level of command and control of a gov't(collection of tribes) in the newborn nation-state.
I dunno. Not my region, Unk.
I dunno about the treaty thing either. From what little, and it is little, these tribes change sides quickly. Hammes could be wrong. I don't know. This isn't my region.
by ry on June 19, 2008 1:04 PM
Well, the distance may not be the same, but the ability to move forces may be.
Ever try to move reinforcements through a thousand miles of country you're *at war* with? Without taking the territory you're moving over?
The Pak Army could *stroll* from Islamabad to the NWFP in a couple of days, but they don't have to -- half of the army is already *there*.
I haven't checked my sources lately, but when I left, most of the Pashtuns were in agreement that religious radicals were the biggest threat to their continued autonomy (and they *are* autonomous regions, which I haven't seen mentioned much). The fly in the ointment is Pashtunwali -- the host/guest relationship. The Taliban are fellow Pashtuns and al-Q came with them, so the hospitality mantle covers both.
What we don't "get" is that you don't demand that the host surrender his guests -- you show him that the guests are dishonoring him and abusing his hospitality. He can then boot the bastids out without abrogating his responsibility.
It's all about honor in this neck of the woods, because, in this neck of the woods, most of the time honor is the only thing a man has that can't be taken from him. He'll fight for his honor, even when he knows he's fighting on the wrong side.
And we're either too stupid -- or too cynical -- to believe that.
" ... It's all about honor in this neck of the woods, because, in this neck of the woods, most of the time honor is the only thing a man has that can't be taken from him. He'll fight for his honor, even when he knows he's fighting on the wrong side.
And we're either too stupid -- or too cynical -- to believe that. ..."
Honor. Unfortunately, many in the US and the West scoff at this kind of trite, anachronistic concept. I think it died with such notions as chivalry, personal responsibility, patriotism, and American exceptionalism.
by fdcol63 on June 19, 2008 3:50 PM
Ever try to move reinforcements through a thousand miles of country you're *at war* with? Without taking the territory you're moving over?
But they owned it in 1971 too, and could've sent far more to E. Pak before the Hindu onslaught(or at least sent a more competent general), or even attacked into the NW arm of the Hindu pincer from W. Pak. At least they claimed to have owned it and there was only small, sporadic groups of Bengalis armed by the Hindu before the war started.
I'll admitt that I don't have a grasp on all the factors, Chief. I don't. I haven't made a serious study of the ME nor Pak or Afghan in particular either(which you did not to long ago for *very good reason*). I'm just saying that if the pressence of malefactors like the Bengali resistance groups make ground 'contested' it makes sense to me that we should also call most of the FATA contested for the same reason. At least from a pure logic argument. The devil, he be in the details, neh?
And, dude, you don't want me guiding a force over 1000 miles with resistance. I've never done it, only have half a clue how, and would likely resort to 'burn it all' out of frustration. YOu never, ever want to give me that kind of power or responsibility.
by ry on June 19, 2008 4:09 PM
But they owned it in 1971 too, and could've sent far more to E. Pak before the Hindu onslaught(or at least sent a more competent general), or even attacked into the NW arm of the Hindu pincer from W. Pak.
Now I see where the confusion lies. You're looking at the internal conflict pretty much through a microscope -- in isolation. You need to minus out to cover the whole map.
Pakistan + East Pakistan was *at war* with India -- as in airstrikes, bombing, armored columns, massed infantry -- the whole shootin' match. India was smart and held off in the west until it creamed its eastern front, which it could do quite easily, given the size of its armed forces vice Pakistan's. The Mukti Bahini would have remained at nuisance level if the Indian Army hadn't crushed the Pak forces in the east.
...could've sent far more to E. Pak before the Hindu onslaught(or at least sent a more competent general), or even attacked into the NW arm of the Hindu pincer from W. Pak.
Yeah, if the two sides had parity or if the disparity in size had been less. India's forces were so overwhelmingly larger than Pakistan's -- and qualitatively on a par -- that Pakistan was screwed, blued and tattooed the instant the shooting started. The amazing thing is that the Paks held India's ground gain in the west to a minimum.
Pakistan's current strategy takes Indian conventional strength into account -- and the Left would faint dead away if they knew what it was...
Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
Time to add a new caveat, because from email it's not clear to some folks (mind you, if you don't read this it won't matter...) Being an open post, people (collectively, the Denizens) other than I post in the H&I. They sign their work (most of the time) - keep that in mind when you want to flame someone in email please - if it doesn't say "The Armorer" or "John" then I didn't write it! And honestly - if you don't like something said or posted... leave a comment, and hash it out (within the context of The Rulez which are clearly posted on the comment form, I would add).
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This morning I put up H&I Fires for one very selfish reason--to link this: This is me today. Why? Because of this: Take Two. - A deliriously happy FbL
CAPT H points to this article on how the Canadians do company-level UAVs, claiming it's better than the way the US Army does it (but calm down, AF types, it doesn't involve the CAF owning everything with wings). The Canadian approach mirrors their approach to fire support, as well. Whereas we put our junior officers with the companies to provide fire support, on a more permanent basis, the Canadians put more senior officers in those positions, and task organize as they see fit. Both systems have advantages, and I am of the opinion that the Commonwealth approach to fire support is, on balance, a better approach. But, hey, I'm a retired Major, whatta I know? -the Armorer
I'm voting Democrat because I believe in minority rights (except in Muslim countries), free speech (with regard to pornography but not conservative talk radio), environmentalism (unless we're talking about Al Gore's house) and diplomacy (but never backed by the threat of military force).
-the Armorer
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RIP, Walt...I enjoyed going even when attendance was mandatory (yes, I'm THAT old).
It's a pretty place, inside and out, and designed for several faiths...like the Service it represents. -Instapilot
*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.
Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.
Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*
The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.
I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
Time to add a new caveat, because from email it's not clear to some folks (mind you, if you don't read this it won't matter...) Being an open post, people (collectively, the Denizens) other than I post in the H&I. They sign their work (most of the time) - keep that in mind when you want to flame someone in email please - if it doesn't say "The Armorer" or "John" then I didn't write it! And honestly - if you don't like something said or posted... leave a comment, and hash it out (within the context of The Rulez which are clearly posted on the comment form, I would add).
********************************
A reminder about SWWBO and her pictures - she has several of her photographs entered into contests - so be a good, loyal reader of Argghhh! and go visit this site again - as in daily, for the rest of the month, from every computer you have (legal) access to - and rate SWWBO's pics! Well, rate them if you like them. If you don't like them, um, don't rate them, 'k? 8^ ) -the Armorer
I decided to ask a simple question of someone I know involved with the F-35 project: what is one of the things going to cost? I couldn't get a simple answer, so I did some digging and wrote a post about it with charts, and discussions of methodology, and all sorts of geeky stuff like that. Here's the money quote:
When LockMart says the F-35 will cost "about the same as current generation multi-role fighters," does that mean its Unit Procurement Cost will be around $62M, like the Rafale's Unit Procurement Cost? Or does it mean $118M like the Eurofighter? Because that's a pretty significant difference.
Or - and pardon my overt suspicion here - does it mean the F-35's Unit Procurement Cost (UPC) will be comparable to other fighters' Program Unit Cost (PUC)? That is to say, an apples-to-oranges sleight of hand that would hypothetically put a $115M (UPC) Lightning II up against a $95M (PUC) Super Hornet and call it a lot more plane for only a bit more money?
Did you get that? "Money quote?" I'm talking about costs, and ... oh, never mind. Funny's not my strong suit anyhow. - Damian
Britain's last surviving Tommy from the First World War celebrates his 110th birthday today - with a belated gift from the red-faced British Legion.
Remarkable Harry Patch, born when Queen Victoria was on the throne outlived the horrors of the trenches where half a million of our soldiers died.
He was injured in Passchendaele in 1917 but also served with the Auxiliary Fire Service in the Second World War.
He has been decorated with five military medals, including the Legion d’honneur, France’s highest military award.
Catch the rest of that story here in The Sun. H/t, Jim C. -the Armorer
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So, hotair says the issue with Chessani was dropped due to "improper command influence" on the investigation. It seems that an investigator became Mattis' top legal advisor and sat in on the briefings. Although it is is claimed he made no comment and would not have influenced the decision to bring charges. Which, is a considerable amount of hooey since even his position as Mattis' JAG and certainly his presence at meetings on the subject, is enough to be considered improper influence on the decision to bring charges. This guy should have recused himself. Fortunate for Chessani that he did not. -Kat
*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.
Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.
Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*
The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.
I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
Time to add a new caveat, because from email it's not clear to some folks (mind you, if you don't read this it won't matter...) Being an open post, people (collectively, the Denizens) other than I post in the H&I. They sign their work (most of the time) - keep that in mind when you want to flame someone in email please - if it doesn't say "The Armorer" or "John" then I didn't write it! And honestly - if you don't like something said or posted... leave a comment, and hash it out (within the context of The Rulez which are clearly posted on the comment form, I would add).
********************************
Saturday, yours truly and She Who Will Be Obeyed (SWWBO) undertook a trip to our local Wal-Mart Supercenter (horrors! cry our more 'progressive' readers) to acquire new litter boxes. We're always sampling the latest and greatest (well, unless it costs $100) in litterbox tech, what with the Interior Guard numbering 7 full-timers and one part-timer. Before we left, our neighbor had come over for a tour of the Arms Room and to pick up some excess fence posts we had salvaged from the fencing plan that existed when the Castle Demesne was previously a dairy farm.
Anyway, off we go on our errand, and our neighbor scoots off in his ATV to gather t-posts.
Our return to Castle Argghhh! looked very similar to this - except substitute horses for cattle.
A herd of cattle surrounds a U.S. Army Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle during Operation Fire Fortress in the Diyala province, Iraq, June 2, 2008. Operation Fire Fortress was launched to clear the influence of al-Qaida in the towns of Qubbah and Mukhisa in Iraq's Diyala province. U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Paul Seeber
Our neighbor, because the horses weren't in sight when he went into the south pasture to get the fence posts, forgot about the horses and left the gate open, and the F150 of Argghhh! was surrounded by gnoshing equines as we toiled up the motte to the bailey. Fortunately, SWWBO and I are on good terms with the horses, and were able to persuade them all back into the enclosure with a few bribes of cracked corn. Heh. Anyone who tried to "command" those beasts (we know of a smug "horseman" of that stripe) would have spent all day chasing peeved horses. Treating horses like family has it's advantages. -the Armorer
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Speaking of SWWBO - she has several of her photographs entered into contests - so be a good, loyal reader of Argghhh! and go visit this site - and rate SWWBO's pics! Well, rate them if you like them. If you don't like them, um, don't rate them, 'k? 8^ ) -the Armorer
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This has got to be a bit demoralizing, if you're an Afghan Freedom Fighter insurgent:
Patrol attacked: 20 insurgents killed in Deh Chopan
BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan (June 16, 2008) – Afghan National Security Forces and Coalition forces killed 20 militants after they attacked a combined reconnaissance patrol in Deh Chopan District, Zabul province, Sunday.
The militants attacked the ANSF and Coalition forces with rockets, mortars and small-arms fire in a mountainous river valley.
ANSF and Coalition forces returned fire and called in precision aircraft strikes to kill the militants.
No ANSF or Coalition forces were injured during the engagement.
20 to zip. Ouch.
Heh. Or, 15 to nil. Not much better.
15 militants killed in Sangin District
BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan (June 16, 2008) – 15 insurgents were killed after they attacked an Afghan National Security Force and Coalition patrol in the Sangin District, Helmand province June 14.
While on patrol, the soldiers observed a large group of women and children leaving a village.
As the patrol moved closer they observed a group of men near the tree line. These men opened fire on the ANSF and Coalition force using rockets and small-arms fire.
ANSF and Coalition forces returned fire and moved to a better location to engage the extremists and to guide Coalition aircraft for precision air strikes. After about two hours of fighting, the enemy positions were destroyed, killing 15 militants.
********************************* Small town governance at it's best. There are many state, and dare I say, national, institutions which might benefit from this sort of benign neglect. Just because you have the job, doesn't mean you have to *always* be meddling with something. Heh. Actually, small town/county politics can be the most brutal, since the press usually doesn't give a flying fig, a lot happens behind closed doors. H/t, Kevin. -the Armorer
I'm not sure how much play the Kandahar prison break got in the U.S. press, but it sure has received a pile of play in the Canadian media. With lots of commentary about how much of a strategic setback it is, and how embarrassing for the CF, etc.
"It's a big blow. It's a very significant development," said CBC's Susan Ormiston, who visited the prison last April.
Today, the Taliban is celebrating its Bastille Day. The dramatic jailbreak at Kandahar's Sarposa Prison -- which freed not some prisoners, but nearly all 1,000 prisoners in the jail -- is a massive strategic blow for the Canadian Forces. And it was totally avoidable.
Canada's top soldier downplayed a spectacular, commando-style prison break in Afghanistan on Saturday, where hundreds of captured Taliban insurgents were set free.
Outgoing Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier, in Calgary for a Military Families Fund fundraiser, said soldiers weren't at higher risk after the escape of an estimated 800 prisoners - among them Taliban.
"What I would emphasize is it's a small splash in the pond," Hillier said Saturday evening.
"We understand the Taliban are not 10 feet tall, but they are capable, at times, they can pull off an operation like this."
Man, I'm going to miss having this guy in charge... - Damian
*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.
Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.
Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*
The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.
I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
Oh, knowing that we have very similar inseam lengths (hey, a low CG helps in wrestling) do you, too, find it necessary to run the F-150's seat all the way forrard on the tracks, and wish it went a bit farther? The safety bomb did not go off when I got rear-ended last Friday pm, but I always fret about the possibility, sitting as close to the wheel as we do, and wearing specs.
Beth takes beautiful pictures. I wish I had half her talent.
by AFSister on June 16, 2008 8:56 PM
Okay, keep the link to SWWBO's pix up -- we'll get it to 5.0!
Speaking of pix, I'd a-taken some of Super SUV if they hadn't gone with the particular COTS brand they did. And if I OPSECed all the specifics, the only thing left to see would be the minigun, hanging in midair...
We had roving Stinger teams aggressing against us during a series of live-fire JAATS we did at AP Hill in '98. First day out, they nailed our administrative / safety observer Hi-Bird. Next day they made themselves annoying by "shooting us down" while we were testing the weapons systems -- sitting on the helipads on the range.
Meanwhile, one of the scouts had found their bivouac site.
Next morning they convoyed out to play with us again and their vehicles drove into an L-shaped aerial ambush. They got creamed. That night, we flew single-ship NVG missions from sundown to sunup, rotating crews so there was a Cobra over their hootch All. Night. Long.
And the *next* day, we "strafed" their POV convoy as they deployed to breakfast. And did it again on their return.
Wheeee!
Final score: Them -- one Hubert, Us -- four Stinger team Hummers and three POVs (twice).
7 cats and 1 part timer. Only someone who's never put a bowl of cat food out is unfamiliar with the term "part time" cat.
I married one of the world's greatest cat attractors. If it's a stray and within 1/4 mile of the estate it WILL show up on our back patio. We now have 9 full timers and 2 part timers. No mice or snakes, though. :-)
by GunTrash on June 17, 2008 9:33 AM
To answer your question about how much play the prison break got in the American press: None.
The American press is no longer reporting on the GWOT, because of recent successes in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Freedom and Democracy are so passé these days. Particularly, the defense of freedom and democracy. At least, that is the impression that you get when listening to the two men who are currently running for President.
In fact, freedom and democracy as an American cause has been déclassé since the end of the Reagan presidency and the demise of the Soviet Union. Yes, there was a brief resurgence post 9/11, but it didn't last long.
Instead, we get soaring speeches about stopping the rising tides of the oceans. Or, the political commercial for John McCain I caught after the late news the other night. It starts out with, "I hate war." Somebody actually had to say that? And, why is it necessary to say that instead of articulating the principle that defense of freedom and democracy, the defense of the United States, is the first principle above all others that a leader of a free nation must be ready to not only articulate, but perform? Now we have to apologize for even thinking the idea because it is tantamount to expressing some terrible militancy. Nazi like in fact.
What happened to being a prominent and unyielding leader of the free world? "Bear any burden, pay any price" and "tear down this wall" apparently met their demise along with the bogeyman of Communism. Instead, our modern idea seems to more closely resemble Rodney King's cry, "Can't we all just get along?"
The answer is, no. No, we can't. There are some things that cannot be compromised. Among them are freedom and democracy, but just as importantly the defense of these United States.
No one, it seems, can be brought to care about millions of people still living in tyranny and terror. Nor care that such disturbance aren't just mild blips on edge of our national psyche, but have historically led to the rise of the worst sorts of evil ideologies and become threats to those same passé principles of Freedom and Democracy.
The most gauche slip of all is to refer to any ideologies or nations as "evil". That simply does not jive with our modern, enhanced, sophisticated, nuanced understanding of the world. The word "evil" is apparently an antiquated term used by superstitious people who are barely two steps evolved from their cave dwelling ancestors. Now, people are just misunderstood. Nations are simply reacting rationally and logically to the actions of others or the potential demise of their governments by malcontent rebels who just don't get that freedom and democracy are so déclassé when the planet is about to meet its imminent demise.
Freedom and democracy have been tossed aside like yesterday's fashions. "Global warming" is now the cause du jour. In fact, it has surpassed an ideology based on once obscure science and reached the status of a religion, complete with prophets and prophecy of an apocalyptic revelation of the end times of the earth. That's how you know it has reached the status of a religion: prophets and apocalyptic prophesies.
How ironic is it that many of the same people who castigated "evangelicals" for just such beliefs as superstitious, uneducated, exclusionary bigots have themselves become evangelicals complete with all of the ills they prescribe to any other practitioner of religion and faith. If you deny the existence of "global warming", or, at least, disbelieve that it is either a primary result of mankind's activities or that the known historical climatic ages of the earth can be stopped by mankind, you are a blasphemer.
You are a sinner of the worst kind if you don't fully participate by buying energy efficient vehicles that allegedly don't produce carbon emissions or do other environmentally friendly activities such as recycling, composting or eating organic foods. There are certainly many reasons to do things that are "environmentally friendly", including not putting poisons into our own water or soil conserving farming, but these have much more immediate concerns. Such as not contributing to the death or birth defect rate of children. Or, insuring that the soil is capable of continuing to produce food well into the future to support the burgeoning human population and its continuing progress towards prosperity, away from starvation creating, population destroying famine.
The list could go on as to the reasons to do it, but "global warming" doesn't and shouldn't even hit the top ten list of reasons much less reached the status of religious dogma. While man can impact his environment and his ability to survive in that environment, the idea that man is responsible for or can control the global climate is obscene arrogance. Man is no more capable of that than an ant building its tunnels in the yard can stop the torrential down pours of rain.
The religion of "global warming" has elevated man to the status of a god. Man has become the embodiment of the Hindu god Vishnu: both the destroyer and the creator, the sinner and the savior. No one has yet to explain satisfactorily the illogical leap from eons of global climatic change without man's interference, due to the changes of the earth itself and its relation to the sun, to man becoming the arbiter of the coming global apocalypse.
Worse, this pseudo-religion has been elevated to a presidential platform by Sen. Obama with a nod by Sen. McCain. All the while Sen. Obama was exhorting the crowds that this is the generation that will stop the rising tides of the oceans, the junta in Myanmar were massacring non-violent monks and dumping their bodies in the jungle. In Zimbabwe, Mugabe lost the elections and refused to give up power. Instead, he is sending out thugs to murder his opposition and their families, butchering them and setting them on fire in their own houses or in the streets. In Sudan, ethnic cleansing continues, with tens of thousands dead and more displaced.
In Venezuela, Chavez continues to push his nation towards fascistic socialism, sending red shirts into the streets to beat up and shoot any opposition. He is barely held in check from declaring his life long dictatorship. Even that is still questionable since the real test is the next election. The Bolivians are in the same boat, while down in Colombia, Venezuelan interference and support for FARC narco-terrorists has come to full light. Here, in the United States, instead of supporting Colombian democracy and free trade, the Democrat led Congress continues to treat Colombia as if it was actually one of the worst dictatorships on the planet.
In Pakistan and places around the globe, an evil, oppressive ideology has taken shape and has inflicted truly horrific death and destruction on multitudes of "impure" and have directly attacked and killed citizens of this nation, both within its borders and abroad.
Sen. Obama continues to insist that he will attempt some sort of rapprochement with actual repressive regimes like Iran, Cuba and North Korea as if these regimes were worthy of remaining in place. All those who languish under the yoke of that repression are just so much detritus in the shadow of the great apocalyptic "global warming".
Once upon a time, the leaders and would be leaders of this nation would turn their eyes on the unfortunate unfree and state clearly our solidarity with their desire for freedom and their right to life and liberty. It was the continuation of our national imperative. While the world might not have trembled nor instant changes take place, those repressed were given the audacity of hope and nations understood where this nation stood: the leader of the free world, against tyranny and injustice, ready and willing to stand with those who would be free.
Now, there is barely a whisper from the White House. No candidate from the presidency has made it a central platform beyond McCain insisting that we continue to support the fledgling democracy of Iraq. Something that is considered a political albatross and risky to boot. With the last great foe of freedom defeated, the cause of freedom and democracy seems to lack any meaning. These remaining pesky, tyrannical states are too small to give time or thought to much less turn the great strength of our nation towards or even spare them a word beyond comforting, sonorous intonations of meeting with their oppressors to avoid conflict.
Of course, democracy and freedom are hard work. They are messy and occasionally ugly. They do not happen over night and tyrants do not fall without being shoved. Freedom and democracy require vigilant and jealous guarding which in turns requires strength and stamina. When global liberty and the prosperity that goes with it is at hand, we have turned away, unwilling to do the last difficult tasks and see the job done. We are leaving that to the others while we hurry on towards the next great cause; the pop religiosity of Global Warming.
Let the masses help themselves. We're too busy talking about the arctic ice caps that are or are not melting, the latest star to give lip service to the new faith by driving a Prius while living in 5,000 sq ft mansions, taking private jets to the next filming destination and threatening ex-communication on any industry that is not fast enough to genuflect to the ten thousand commandments from the Church of Global Warming.
Would it be blasphemy against the Church and the Chosen if one wondered what has been happening to all those political posters, signs, fliers and other such gee-gaws that go with political campaigns? Have they all been printed on recycled paper with environmentally soluble ink? Did they go to the recycling plant or end up in the land fill with the rest of the garbage?
We are talking about the same people who, mouthing such platitudes, still drive their individual cars to work; alone. Cars that, even if they get 35mpg, still emit carbon emissions. Particularly when they are idling away in the drive thru of their local fast food or speedy coffee chain getting their caffeine in cups that may or may not be made of recycled paper, but inevitably end up in a land fill just the same.
That's another way you can tell that Global Warming is a religion: it is already chock full of hypocrites and inveterate backsliders.
Where, in all of this, are the oppressed, imprisoned and murdered for political tyranny? If you were watching all of this, you would believe that they don't exist. Except, maybe in Guantanamo.
Yes, freedom and democracy are now passé. Calling destructive, mass murdering foes "evil" is gauche. The new cause demands sacrificing not one wit beyond what can be conveniently done in the home by turning off a light switch. Suggesting that condemning industry and technology that has largely been responsible for creating the ability to feed, clothe, shelter and educate the masses will result in worsening conditions for the vulnerable masses is blasphemy that is met with a modern version of Marie Antoinette's mythological reply: "let them eat cake".
There should be nothing more fearful to an American citizen than the slipping of freedom and democracy from its supreme position in our domestic and foreign politics to be replaced by a pseudo-religious cause.
These remaining pesky, tyrannical states are too small to give time or thought to much less turn the great strength of our nation towards or even spare them a word beyond comforting, sonorous intonations of meeting with their oppressors to avoid conflict.
The irony is, these tyrannical states can leverage technology, freedom-of-movement, and open information ... none of which can be inhibited if our civilization is going to continue to thrive ... to attain the destructive power of "big" nations, and apply it with a deadly surprise ...
... yet they think, because they are "small" and therefore perceived as the underdog, they can act with near-impunity ... in large part, because so many in our civilization reflexively root for them to the point that they can inhibit decisive action to put down these rabid underdogs.
What happened to being a prominent and unyielding leader of the free world?
Postmodernism happened. That's a school of philosophy that arose in Europe after WW2. It was half a genuine revulsion at the horrendous destruction wrought during the war, and half a cynical exercise in manipulation of public opinion by socialists who wanted to pave the way for a nonviolent takeover of Europe by the USSR. Postmodernism includes a basic assumption that the consequences of going to war, for any reason whatever, will always be worse than the consequences of avoiding war.
Since war was by definition evil, any impulse that might lead to war had to also be evil. Including such things as national pride, colonialism, moral superiority, need for resources, even self-defense. But for reasons I'm not quite sure of, this only applied to Western countries. Non-western countries were free to do all these things to their own citizens, to other non-western countries, even to Western countries, and Western countries weren't permitted to stop them.
These attitudes crossed the Atlantic in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and succeeded in infecting the Baby Boomer generation on a large scale. The notion of "freedom and democracy" as things worth fighting for -- indeed, the notion of anything at all being something worth fighting for -- has been going downhill ever since.
by wolfwalker on June 16, 2008 5:29 AM
Non-western countries were free to do all these things to their own citizens, to other non-western countries, even to Western countries, and Western countries weren't permitted to stop them.
Silly capitalist running dog lackey, former colonial enclaves of the imperialists were incapable, by definition, of performing in such an expansionistic manner because they were previously *victims* of imperialism.
In exactly the same manner, plethorically melaniistic persons were previously *victims* of racism, and hence are intrinsically incapable of being racists themselves.
To say otherwise is nekulturny and you must re-read the agitprop memos. And not the fascistic samizdat milblogs.
What happened? The Left has been successful in demonizing and ridiculing the words of philosophers like John Stuart Mill:
"War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
The Left: Creating compliant sheeple for a global tyranny. The meek shall inherit the earth, and a despot will rule them.
by fdcol63 on June 16, 2008 7:08 AM
"What happened to being a prominent and unyielding leader of the free world? "Bare any burden, pay any price" and "tear down this wall" apparently met their demise along with the bogeyman of Communism."
And the tombstone on the grave of "freedom and democracy" has GWB's answer to 9/11 and Iraq - "Just go shopping!"
Maybe the problem with being a "prominent and unyielding leader" is that when you're going the wrong way, other people tend to start edging away from you...
Maybe the problem with being a "prominent and unyielding leader" is that when you're going the wrong way, other people tend to start edging away from you...
And my answer to this would be:
Instead of leading everyone who agrees with you off the edge of a cliff, like lemmings, a good leader will recognize that a change in direction needs to be made. The leader makes that change and turns, but there's often a delay in the reaction of the followers caused by the force of momentum.
Once the followers stop, there may then be a delay as they stand around in confusion, wondering what happened and why there's been a change of direction. You will then have some argue that things were fine and that they should resume traveling in the old direction, and then some will argue that maybe they should continue to follow the leader.
Either way, a leader's back is always vulnerable to the slings and arrows of petty followers who find it easier to criticize than to assume the responsibility of leadership.
by fdcol63 on June 16, 2008 8:19 AM
Jason's point is still well-taken, as is Frank's response.
President Clinton was a master at looking at which way the herd was running, metaphorically sprinting to the leading edge, and waving his hands wildly, saying, "Follow Me!"
President Bush has been following the "There is where we must go" mode of a true leader - but, President Bush is rightly vulnerable to charges of failing to adequately inspire those he leads, and possibly to sticking to the single most direct, yet hardest, path to where he thinks we should be.
Sometimes, doing what railroads do - following the path of the water - is in the end faster and cheaper than blasting the mountain out of the way... which is part of the metaphoric argument between Kat and Ry.
And, of course, we don't know the answer until we go through the veil of the future to where what was future is now past, to know who was right.
But both sides are oft times loudly and smugly sure, with one or both standing on a firm base of quicksand. It just hasn't gotten wet enough yet.
Sorry, gentlemen, et al, I was at one of those pesky meetings where the capitalist doktor's were discussing the problem of getting paid by our pseudo-national health care insurance.
Now, to answer one or two:
And the tombstone on the grave of "freedom and democracy" has GWB's answer to 9/11 and Iraq - "Just go shopping!"
Actually, I believe you are somewhat correct. We did need to "go shopping" and keep our economy from sliding into a long term, serious recession. It was bad enough after 9/11. To recover so quickly from such devastation was truly remarkable, if you consider it. So, "go shopping" wasn't wrong, per se, but it was definitely not the call to defense that inspired people.
I thought his best speech was 2004 inauguration "freedom is a fire in the minds of men". but we were so lost by then.
I would agree with fdc that Bush had the right heading, but I would also agree that he has been pretty bad at signaling that direction to the trailing folks. Being in a position of leadership, you know if your people aren't going with you, it is your failure. You can certainly identify those things that keep them or you from progressing, noting the recalcitrants and nay sayers, but leadership demands that you find a way forward and a way to communicate.
It's not Iraq that did it. It was, in the words of Cool Hand Luke, a failure to communicate.
If there is one thing I note in this election, it is that Obama is a communicator. I disagree completely on the subjects he is choosing to lead with or their direction, but he does inspire. McCain, not so much, though I agree with much more that he says than Obama.
We're in trouble, that's all I can say. Where are Obama and McCain reminding the oppressed that they are not forgotten or championing freedom above and beyond?
No where, as far as I can tell, and that's where they want it.
by kat-missouri on June 16, 2008 11:06 AM
In my example above, there's no doubt that a good leader will attempt to use better communications skills and try to gain a better "consensus" among the group before continuing to lead in the other direction. Sure, Bush has failed at doing this effectively.
But you can't always have agreement or lead by consensus. Sometimes there are those in the group who succeed in undermining a leader's ability to convince the group to change direction - either because they can't see the edge of the cliff due to their limited perspective from behind, or perhaps because it is indeed their goal to see others advance over the edge even as they attempt to stop abruptly before going over. (Not so subtle reference to Chirac, Schroeder, and many in America's Left).
In this case, a leader who leads by example can do nothing more than turns his back on those who refuse to follow, allowing them the freedom of their own action, and lead to safety himself and those who can be convinced to follow.
by fdcol63 on June 16, 2008 12:45 PM
Like Moses?
I was rather thinking last night that the global warming brouhaha rather resembles the impatient folk creating the golden calf while Moses was up on the mountain getting the ten commandments.
Sort of inspired my "10,000 commandments of the church of global warming".
by kat-missouri on June 16, 2008 1:22 PM
Also, to Jason, don't imagine that Bush's failures excuse Obama's. he is a great orator and has chosen a very disturbing, improbable, psuedo-religious concept to stake his claim on. He doesn't say one word about freedom and democacracy.
That is not because Bush has made it unfashionable, it is because it is unfashionable on the left and parts abroad to discuss such subjects. It is indelicate and rocks the boat. Our Euro-centric politicians do not like to rock the boat. That is why he says little.
And, regrdless of Bush's leadership, what sort of cowardice would keep a man from saying what he meant if he really believed it?
I have been preaching the concept of a Navy-run national nuclear energy program for almost 20 years now. Heh. Maybe someone who actually counts for something will take heed. Maybe pigs will fly as well :) Sigh.
The biggest problem I have with TSA is that it is a contract civilian job. I consider those TSA folks no better than mercenaries and have zero respect for any of them. In EVERY encounter with them at an airport I have found them to be rude, imperious and acting in a manner I find repulsive: Standing around and watching others work, or pretend to work.
It's monday.... and raining here in the People's Republic of Maine. Gonna be a wonderful day again.....
by AW1 Tim on June 16, 2008 7:07 AM
Nuclear (as opposed to "nuke-u-lar") power makes sense in so many ways - even if considered as a 20-30 year interim approach while we get other technologies together.
Here's the rub. There is apparently only one company left in the world capable of casting a containment vessel. That company is in Japan, and has a 4-year backlog even if one had the $60M down payment on the $250M part.
Unless someone fires up new capacity for making these vessels,
the first new US nuke plant is at least 5 years away.
Now, if the US Navy wanted to declassify some of its technology so we could make plants of a different design, that might improve the situation, but probably only by a little.
by Lou Mazz on June 16, 2008 7:46 AM
There just aren't that many nucs. How many plants are the navy running right now? Less than 100? And these plants are very small compared to any civilian powerplant.
If you decide to run powerplants using mainly ex-navy types, don't be surprised to see Navy nuc retention take a big hit. Which will place an even bigger burden on the Navy's nuc schools.
I'm all for nuc power ashore. But don't think there's this magical well of qualified people just sitting around to plug in to whatever slots we have.
by XBradTC on June 16, 2008 9:50 AM
Brad,
What i would like to see is an expansion of the Navy Nuke program in order to accomplish an entire restructure of the nation's electrical system.
Make electrical generation a natiopnal strategid resource and place it under Navy control. Build and deploy Nuke plants similar to the ones on the Trident boats based upon a per capita scale. Everyone gets electricity from the Government via the Navy plants and everyone pays a fixed price.
Many areas already have virtial monopoly of electrical production and/or service by single companies so it's not that bif a change, structure-wise.
What you can do by using smaller plants is to seperate the grid so that the loss of s single plant only affects it's service area and nothing else.
Plants would be made to standard specs so that crews could transfer from one to another with a minimum of refresher training, and maintenance would be simplified, rather than the frankenstien monster we have now, where each plant is unique.
by AW1 Tim on June 16, 2008 2:01 PM
Hmmm...what's to discuss? Ignoring the resources to get the plants y'all discussed, this idea will field competent and safely operated plants throughout CONUS.
...with the added bonus of a large increase in coffee consumption.
I didn't forget 'em so much as overlooked them. Busy times right now at Castle Argghhh!
I did spend time yesterday planning the repair to the Castle flagpole. Although installed to manufacturer's spec, all the rain we've had this last month, combined with the flag on the pole in 50mph winds, has caused one of the poles to take a lean. Yes, yes, I dug the hole to spec, installed the ground tube, framed it plumb and cemented it in. The clay is just...wet and slick. I'm going to see if I can't straighten her, or am I just gonna hafta rip it out and redo it. Frankly, I don't wanna dig again, if I can avoid it!
U.S. Army Sgt. David Williams, assigned to the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 502nd Infantry Regiment, dances with Iraqi children in Shula, Iraq, June 8, 2008. Williams and his unit were in the area to install barriers throughout the city. DoD photo by Staff Sgt. Manuel J. Martinez, U.S. Air Force. (Released)
The Army leadership sent out their birthday message, which we'll reproduce below:
2008 Army Birthday Message
Since June 14, 1775, the magnificent Soldiers, Families, and Civilians of America’s Army have sacrificed personal comfort and safety so that others can live in freedom. Our sacrifices have preserved our way of life, built a better future for others, and led our Nation to victory over our enemies.
In this, our 233rd year, we find our Nation at war. For six years. our Army has been a leader in this war liberating over 50 million people from tyranny and oppression and giving them hope for the future. Inspired by these efforts, almost 300,000 men and women enlisted or reenlisted just last year in America’s Army — Active, National Guard and Reserve. This type of dedication is what makes our Army the Strength of the Nation.
Not everyone recognizes it day..to-day, but we are at war against a global extremist terrorist network seeking to attack and destroy our way of life. This is not a foe that will give up easily. They must be defeated.
Faced with such a long and difficult struggle, and with so much at stake, it is important to remind ourselves that our military exists to field forces for victory just as we did in 1775. Our Warrior Ethos has it right;
•I will always place the mission first.
•I wilt never accept defeat.
•I will never quit.
•I will never leave a fallen comrade.
Our Army is a hugely resilient, professional. and battle~hardened force. We are the best in the world at what we do. and we are that way because of our values, our ethos, and our people — especially our people.
On this Army Birthday, we have much to celebrate and be proud of. God bless each and every one of you and your Families, and God bless America.
Kenneth 0. Preston, Sergeant Major of the Army
George Casey, Jr., General. United States Army Chief of Staff
Pete Geren, Secretary of the Army
Bent, but not broken. In need of some spot-painting, but still C1 mission-capable. But it would be okay if you didn't toss anything *more* onto the table for a while...
U.S. Soldiers from the Indiana Army National Guard fill sandbags for flood control efforts at the Indiana Department of Transportation office in Vincennes, Ind., June 10, 2008. The Soldiers and U.S. Marines and Sailors assigned to the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit are helping state and local authorities raise the White River levee in an attempt to prevent further flooding in the area. DoD photo by Senior Master Sgt. John S. Chapman, U.S. Air Force. (Released)
We're busy enough at the moment, thanks.
An Army Reserve CH-47D helicopter assigned to the 159th Aviation Regiment in Fort Eustis, Va., lifts an 11-meter rigid-hull inflatable boat (RHIB) out of the Pearl River in Mississippi Feb. 14, 2008, as special warfare combatant-craft crewmembers use a ladder to board the aircraft during a maritime external air transportation system training exercise. CH-47D Chinook helicopters are capable of lifting and transporting vessels over long distances of land and water. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Robyn Gerstenslager) (www.army.mil)
The first photo looks a bit like a screenshot from Halo or something. With all the gear festooned on U.S. soldiers these days, I don't think it will be long before they look like Space Marines or some other futuristic movie/video game character.
Then again that's how science fiction works I guess - sometimes they get it right :)
Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
Time to add a new caveat, because from email it's not clear to some folks (mind you, if you don't read this it won't matter...) Being an open post, people (collectively, the Denizens) other than I post in the H&I. They sign their work (most of the time) - keep that in mind when you want to flame someone in email please - if it doesn't say "The Armorer" or "John" then I didn't write it! And honestly - if you don't like something said or posted... leave a comment, and hash it out (within the context of The Rulez which are clearly posted on the comment form, I would add).
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Yanno, something like this, on Gunner's Ridge, overlooking the pond and the MSR into the Castle Argghhh! lands, would look pretty nice. This prototype fantasy is a Swedish coast defense emplacement... -the Armorer
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I didn't do any editorializing in yesterday's post about the naming of awardees of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. But it came up in a comment to the post from the editor of Liberty News.. HomefrontSix chose to note who *wasn't* on the list (an absence I *should* have noted, I admit) and there are others, such as Andy McCarthy and Yuval Levin who are asking questions about Ms. Shalala's award. -the Armorer
"I'm not asking Barack Obama to vet the vetters. I'm just asking him to Google them."
Heh. -the Armorer
*********************************
While I, as a shareholder, might not want to accept InBev's offer for Anheuser-Busch, I find all the opposition to the possible sale, from people who's politics is nominally from the right, bemusing. None of them would have cared had Anheuser-Busch been putting forth an offer for InBev, why is is a problem the other way around? Really, I'm curious. Now, if the relative position of the dollar against the Euro makes this kind of thing attractive to the Belgians, it strikes me the effort should be set around strengthening the dollar and the US economy, not fighting rear-guard actions like this.What am I missing? -the Armorer
*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.
Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.
Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*
The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.
I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
I'd only be really irritated if they tried to take-over one of beer-makers. Budweiser hardly qualifies as beer; so, really, who cares? Just sayin'. Yeah, I know Benny, "beer snob"!!
Mikey - okay, they're Belgian. My original point remains. If we're at a point where Belgians can buy US companies... is fighting the sale of the company the schwerpunkt of our attack?
Regarding the buying of US stuff. I'm reminded of the Japanese buying up just about anything they could get their hands on, for ridiculous money, back in the late 80s. And then they had to sell it all back when the Yen tanked and the dollar resurged.
Best way out: Anybody but Obama, since that'll mean a growing economy instead of a protectionist one.
Schwerpunkt? QUit calling me names or I'll bite your ankle.(screams as I fly thru air to land in the Luc de Argghhh!)
by ry on June 12, 2008 3:09 PM
And the Luc de Argghhh! is pretty deep right now, what with all the rain.
i merely refer back to the Monty Python sketch contest wherein the winning entry for most offensive nickname for Belgians was "I'm sorry, I can think of nothing more offensive to call them except Belgian."
by RetRsvMike on June 12, 2008 3:37 PM
Yeah, but it's starting to look like the EU is going to be the Revenge of the Belgians, ainnit?
Might be a 'skosh" more than 32K though.....but it does have a good view from the left seat.
by R. Jewell on June 12, 2008 8:26 PM
A couple of points:
- The Belgiques may be getting more hassle than they bargained for. Budweiser is an Americanization of "Budvar" (pronounced "Boodvahr"), the brand of Czech beer on which the recipe--and name--is based. The Czechs want it back. Bad. The original legal basis for A-B's use of the name was, so I was told by the Czech hosts in my last trip there in the late 90s, coming up for renewal and they were gunning for the company. Again, this is dated intel but I can just see the 'Giques being handed a tiger's tail in addition to the keys to the breweries. Heh.
-Standard NATO joke: Q: "What's the difference between a Belgian and a piece of toast?" A: "You can make a soldier out of a piece of toast." (I said it was a standard joke, not a good one.)
-F4 drones: been doing that for a loooong time. They launch 'em out of Holloman AFB outside of ABQ. I was there as a fighter lead-in student when we had one crash on takeoff, something about the control actuators going goofy and the drone operator not being able to adjust in this critical phase of flight (easy to understand)...that was in 1980-81.
"You can make a soldier out of a piece of toast." According to Brit lore, "soldiers" are pieces of toast cut into strips, to be dunked into undercooked eggs.
Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
Time to add a new caveat, because from email it's not clear to some folks (mind you, if you don't read this it won't matter...) Being an open post, people (collectively, the Denizens) other than I post in the H&I. They sign their work (most of the time) - keep that in mind when you want to flame someone in email please - if it doesn't say "The Armorer" or "John" then I didn't write it! And honestly - if you don't like something said or posted... leave a comment, and hash it out (within the context of The Rulez which are clearly posted on the comment form, I would add).
********************************
Thank Gawd the Truthers are out there to sort through all the complex interwoven threads that only they have the intellect to glean the TRUTH from! And that they're willing to share. /satire.
And the first thing I wanna know is - where'd they find a left-hand-feed Vickers? Oh, wait, they didn't. That's just a badly trained crew. Never mind. H/t, CAPT H. -the Armorer
Just because - a random pic from the collection... this time, an Australian instrument for determining meteorological corrections for artillery. -the Armorer
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It's old, but it's still funny.
THE 10 COMMANDMENTS
The real reason that we can't have the Ten
Commandments posted in a courthouse is this:
You cannot post 'Thou Shalt Not Steal,'
'Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery,' and 'Thou
Shall Not Lie' in a building full of lawyers, judges
and politicians...It creates a hostile work environment.
ATLANTA - For the first time, U.S. life expectancy has surpassed 78 years, the government reported Wednesday, although the United States continues to lag behind about 30 other countries in estimated life span.
The increase is due mainly to falling mortality rates in almost all the leading causes of death, federal health officials said. The average life expectancy for babies born in 2006 was about four months greater than for children born in 2005.
From what I hear and read, I was expecting to see a fall. -the Armorer
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Gollum might be the only Denizen left with a warm spot in his heart for former SecDef Rumsfeld, but if this Atlantic article is remotely right I think the idea of Rummy as Nixon holds. Nixon is overly maligned and all the things he did that positively changed the world---EPA, Nixon to China, etc--- forgotten simply because he was an imperious, pessimistic, incessant worrier (Watergate) and it is so much more fun and emotionally satisfying to blame Nixon—and all republicans--- for Vietnam mishaps than St. Kennedy and Johnson.
You still have an admirer here, sir. You get much respect for your accomplishments in the Big PI and efforts to move the American eye from the drill down on Europe to the horizontal gaze across the Pacific. In 50 years people will see the value in what you tried to accomplish outside of the ME. (H/T to Chirol of Coming Anarchy)
--ry
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*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.
Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.
Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*
The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.
I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
"Dice told FOX News that he’s trying to help troops by giving a voice to people “afraid to speak up out of fear of punishment” from their superiors."
Sounds like yet another conspiracy theory to me! Units full of Marines afraid to ask questions.
Doesn't sound like any Marine I know...
by April on June 11, 2008 10:42 AM
Heh,
Ywoofers iz such funny pipplz....... :)
Regarding Seattle, however and that guns on public property ban. does that extend to city streets and sidewalks, etc? because if it can be interpreted that way, then it effectively restricts firearms to a person's property and no further. You wouldn't even be able to take your gun(s) to the range, or bring home a gun from a gun store.
I don't think such a law would stand up in court, especially cinsidering it would ban the exercise of a constituonaly guarenteed right on public property.
by AW1 Tim on June 11, 2008 10:48 AM
That's just a badly trained crew.
But... are they, um, *trainable*?
Just asking.
by Neffi on June 11, 2008 11:25 AM
Well, If we don't get distracted by their points, I'm sure we can get them pointed in the right direction as to how to properly thread a belt.
Points taken. But surely 'unthreading' a belt would be more productive??
Discussion concerning proper extension of the tripod, use of the cocking handle, and laying down (in) a field of fire could follow.
I'll even supply a feed tray, in case we work up an appetite.
*PG-17C switches from Standby to Active mode...*
by Neffi on June 11, 2008 12:08 PM
You people are *determined* to ensure I never get posting privileges on NRO, aincha?
(Stomps up from the Dungeon)
Not me. I'm the one with the cheeto fetish. At least I don't talk to a couch. They're the ones who're cwazy.
(stomps back down)
by ry on June 11, 2008 1:29 PM
...instrument for determining meteorological corrections for artillery
If it's shiny, the sun is out.
If it's wet, it's raining.
If it's moving, it's windy.
If you can't see it, it's foggy.
Yup. Prolly paid a scad of cash to develop it, too...
Ry - I've always given Rumsfeld credit for breaking the grip of the Cold War on the Generals.
I pan him for not getting the difference between his RMA method of warfare and counter-insurgency... and how his RMA method setup the counterinsurgency.
Ry...I think I've tried to defend some of his efforts once or twice, but it's a no go.
That dude might as well face it. he's going to get shoved in the same slot with McNamara and that's the end of it.
by kat-missouri on June 11, 2008 4:23 PM
"That dude might as well face it. he's going to get shoved in the same slot with McNamara and that's the end of it."
And the sad part is that Vietnam defines McNamara. I know many don't like it, but his business style make over was necessary to fight the CW. He deserves credit for that. He almost never is, but he should. Not that I like McNamarra. I really don't like him as SecDef. But his change of the way business was done was important.
Same with Rumy. If we simply stand back and let 'em people are going to do the same BS with him.
You know, I would even say that Rumsfeld's push of the US vision away from being Europe centric(and, hey, growing up on the West Coast I've known for a long time that there's issues out there that don't get dealt with because the national brain is on the East Coast) is more important than having the correct strategy for Iraq post Anabasis. I don't think the enormity of that is really comprehended.
Flawed tenure, but an important one. Not for the blunders but for the monumental changes.
by ry on June 12, 2008 12:08 AM
...but his business style make over was necessary to fight the CW.
Except we fought the CW as a series of *hot* wars. R. Strange McNamara's "makeover" set the stage for the continuing belief that hi-tech is the magic bullet that will eliminate warfare (or at least the need to actually *fight* a war) sometime in the rosy, distant future.
Ever try to stop a tank with a motion sensor? Or divert a hostile battalion with an electric fence? RSM's "business-style" makeover created the need for a new cadre of high-paid management to oversee it -- which resulted in an Army that had more GOs than E5s for at least a year.
You've got *no* idea of the number of hyper-expensive, one-off "Star Wars" gadgets that came out of CECOM et al. which were built in the hopes that evolving technology would finally make them *work*. The Comanche was billed as the "digital quarterback of the battlefield" -- but it folded because the radios, computers and software needed for the beast to live up to the hype are still in the sci-fi realm.
Army aviation is now so hi-tech that *dust* getting into quick-disconnects for the black boxes means a grounded aircraft...
[Jtg stares at pic of shiny gizmo, breaks target fixation with some difficulty]
Yup, Bill, I'd prefer stuff like said shiny gizmo, which apparently does not even require electricity.
I remember reading a book by an old Brit flier who did recon flights in a Spitfire, about his experiences building and flying a Volksplane.
He mentioned differences between electrical engineers and other engineers. When other engineers built something, they expected it to at least sorta work the first time they tried it.
When electrical engineers built something and tried it the first time, they were amazed if it even sorta worked.
We note the Medals of Honor, we should note the civil equivalent.
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(Rome, Italy)
_________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release June 11, 2008
STATEMENT BY THE PRESS SECRETARY
President George W. Bush today announced recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Nation’s highest civil award. Established by Executive Order 11085 in 1963, the Medal may be awarded by the President “to any person who has made an especially meritorious contribution to (1) the security or national interests of the United States, or (2) world peace, or (3) cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.” President Bush will honor these recipients at a White House ceremony on Thursday, June 19, 2008.
Benjamin S. Carson, Sr., M.D., has worked throughout his career to improve the lives of those suffering from neurological disorders. His groundbreaking contributions to medicine and his inspiring efforts to help America’s youth fulfill their potential have strengthened our Nation.
Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., has dedicated his life to expanding the horizons of human knowledge. His efforts to advance our understanding and treatment of HIV/AIDS have brought hope and healing to millions around the world.
Tom Lantos was a champion of human rights. The only Holocaust survivor to serve in the Congress, he devoted himself to securing liberty for oppressed people around the world and became a powerful witness for the importance of freedom.
General Peter Pace, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.), is one of our Nation’s most accomplished and respected military officers. His selfless service and visionary leadership have helped keep our Nation safe.
Donna Edna Shalala is one of our Nation’s most distinguished educators and public officials. She has worked tirelessly to ensure that all Americans can enjoy lives of hope, promise, and dignity.
Laurence H. Silberman has devoted his life to promoting, enforcing, and defending the rule of law. He has been a stalwart guardian of the Constitution, and his work to strengthen our national security institutions has made Americans safer.
Okay. Just a thought. Isn't Silberman the fellow that did the "Robb-Silberman" indpendent investigation into whether there was any real or malicious intent to mislead the public about Iraq in order to convince the American people to go to war? The one that cleared President Bush and his people from any such thing?
And isn't that interesting he gets it now (whispering in a conspiratorial manner) after the recently released and totally misleading investigation into the same that is claiming Bush lied?
Just saying.
by kat-missouri on June 11, 2008 11:56 AM
While I'm thrilled for the people included on the list, I am waiting on patiently to see Rick Rescorla's name on an announcement.
I would like to know WTF Donna Shalala is doing on that list. "... enjoy lives of hope, promise, and dignity." My a$$. See what Democracy Project has to say about this - http://www.democracy-project.com/archives/003831.html
Our problem remains the same: we are unable to see the strategic reality for what it is and we're perplexed that our attempts at global gun control aren't working.
--
Mike over at Haft of the Spear has a warning that I think should be heeded.
-- This is not half as bad an idea as it sounds. I notice the extent that nuclear power is used in Japan is conspicuously ignored. Cricket will go postal if she’s told she has to do all her cooking with a microwave oven though.
-- This one is the weekly dose from Tom Dispatch. I don’t suggest Unka Bill or Armorer read. It takes a track I *know* pisses John off immensely. It isn’t something Unka Bill’s not seen or heard before, but, well, why go thru it again if you don’t have to. Really, this one’s pretty bad. And makes anything I’ve ever written seem like a postage stamp.
--
Last two are from Democracy magazine and require free online registration to view. The first is a book review/polemic from TX Hammes on J. Arguilla’s latest book. The second is from A. Exum, late of the blog AM, which offers a holistic plan for the Long War.
--ry
Flash Traffic (extended entry) Follows �
*Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace.
In real life IPB means:
“An analytical methodology employed to reduce uncertainties concerning the enemy, environment, and terrain for all types of operations. Intelligence preparation of the battlespace builds an extensive database for each potential area in which a unit may be required to operate. The database is then analyzed in detail to determine the impact of the enemy, environment, and terrain on operations and presents it in graphic form. Intelligence preparation of the battlespace is a continuing process. Also called IPB.”
USeful nuggets? In what, seeing their psychology? Their misuse of statistics in social science and experimental design?
That guy is crazy. He's using a narrative that was written in 1919. He's the kind of guy who says people like you, Auld Vet, and Unka Bill belong on a reservation in South Dakota---which is why I knew it would annoy you.
I really liked the Exum one though. That's the keeper in my opinion.
by ry on June 11, 2008 12:24 PM
These civilians, who rarely interact with soldiers or Marines, are to most of the occupation troops in Iraq nameless, faceless, and easily turned into abstractions of hate.
Right. I've lost track of the number of nameless, faceless, abstractions of hate who walk up to me every morning to say, "Hi, Haji!"
The guy I ambled back with from the airfield tonight said he'd heard I walked everywhere and wanted to know if I knew about the bus service...
Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
Time to add a new caveat, because from email it's not clear to some folks (mind you, if you don't read this it won't matter...) Being an open post, people (collectively, the Denizens) other than I post in the H&I. They sign their work (most of the time) - keep that in mind when you want to flame someone in email please - if it doesn't say "The Armorer" or "John" then I didn't write it! And honestly - if you don't like something said or posted... leave a comment, and hash it out (within the context of The Rulez which are clearly posted on the comment form, I would add).
********************************
Heh. All the condom news you can use - first up, Bad Cat Robot:
Seems they got their yearly shipment of condoms, all 16.5K of them. If you do the math, for the winter folk that's over 130 per person, regardless of gender and/or orientation. These are *scientists* , fer crying out loud. Birth control AND STD protection with every degree! (Which probably means 16,500 spermicidal water balloons, or ribbed balloon animals ..)
With a frequency level like that, no wonder they're not having any problems filling the teams to "winter over" in Antarctica... "The first sunrise will occur on August 20 and McMurdo's population will start to increase again in September when supply flights resume, peaking at more than 1,000 during the summer period." Well, at least we can be sure the population won't be increasing except via air-delivery, vice older forms of delivery...
Heh. Then there's this: Practice Safe Policy... Oh, go ahead, click it. You know you want to. It's a natural urge and you shouldn't repress it. Ever.
New York, NY, June 9, 2008 Practice Safe Policy, the nations first brand devoted to showcasing the indecent relations between politics and sex, has launched its collection of intimate yet topical novelty products with OBAMA CONDOMS and MCCAIN CONDOMS.
Now that the people have voted, the lusty patriots at Practice Safe Policy decided that it was time for the people of this great nation to forget about minor concerns like the war, the economy or healthcare and instead focus on the truly important issue of the day: Practicing Safe Policy in the bedroom. OBAMA CONDOMS and MCCAIN CONDOMS were designed so Americans could take their favorite candidates out of the living room and into the bedroomwhere the real game of politics is played.
Heh. Since it seems we conservatives are likely to get screwed regardless. -the Armorer
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I understand farm life isn't for everyone - and wouldn't have been for me, when I was younger. And for people who are neatniks, it must be a nightmare. But the rewards are manifest, if you take the time to watch... Heh. I'm starting to sound like a Fourierist, which I am most emphatically not...
Meet Serafina (in the rear) and her daughter, Morgan La Fey, both wild and wooly wimmin with strong opinions they aren't afraid to express...
Or getting up in the morning, and finding this tired little keet in the incubator, who's just had a long 24 hours or so of being curled up in a shell, trying to peck his or her way out.
That's hard work and just plumb tuckers a feller out... so a warm friendly hand is a good place to rest and take in the strange new world you find yourself in. SWWBO took the pics. -the Armorer
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Civilization advances, one thundermug at a time. This is out in AFSis' region... H/t, Mike L. -the Armorer
The article Dean linked to had one little blurb I found...well..ridiculous:
The "Sunni Awakening" in formerly deadly Anbar province helped turn once-hostile forces into allies or at least mercenaries— since the U.S. has paid them handsomely— against al Qaida in Iraq .
You know these folks must never have been to Iraq or simply refuse to believe, regardless of money, these people had extremely good reasons to become "mercenaries". In fact, those reasons are so real and so important to these "mercenaries" that they are volunteering to go with us to Afghanistan to fight Al Qaeda. h/t Instapundit
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On another note, FBI reports violent crimes are down. Right in the middle of a recession. Huh. I thought poverty was supposed to make that rise? So, which of the left's canards is being proven false? Is poverty on the decline? Or, are people not really driven by poverty to seek the life of crime? Or, maybe there is a third canard that dies with this report: Guns don't make us safer.
CCW permits and less restrictions on citizens to carry or own weapons have been spreading from state to state since slightly before 2006 with 2007 being a banner year for enacting laws or fighting off appeals restricting or slowing implementation.
The only sad part is the note that young black men continue to be the number one victims and perpetrators of violent crimes. Particularly, against each other as gangs once again surge to the fore.
-Kat
*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.
Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.
Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*
The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.
I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
Can't say that I'm a "Green Acres" girl, but I do enjoy a trip to the farm- and seeing the baby animals is one of my FAVORITE things in the whole world. SO FREAKIN' CUTE!!!!!
by AFSister on June 10, 2008 8:59 AM
There are so many bad jokes one could use for the political condom site it's just not worth it.
I spent a lot of my growing years in the country so I have a lot of appreciation for it. Definitely not good for neatniks. Not real great for arachnophobics either. When they pick up the dog and take it home you know it's time to open the arsenal. Not so great for the service dependant or image conscious either. Snobbery does not easily survive a cowpat.
Still the fresh air, once the sprayers have passed, and the clear night sky, which really just means a frost, are nice. I particularly enjoyed bushwalking, a pastime most who actually live there find pointless. And it puts you more in touch with day to day life too I think. Neighbours and people actually matter. What a concept!
Frankly I think John's a genius. I'm sure he knows what I mean. Don't spread that around too much.
Haha... that new outhouse is VERY close to my neck o' the woods. Same county, in the next little town over. TOO funny. I can't believe that made FOX!!!
by AFSister on June 10, 2008 9:15 PM
RE: the outhouse, concrete vault and all.
*laughing*....it's nothing more than a modern version of the "Roooosevelt" built around here by the WPA or CCC during the depression, some of which are still in use.
Yes, we had one.....and it was a status symbol of the times.....and still stands.
I also remember one building we had on the farm that was built by members of the CCC, the Civilian Conservation Corps, one of Roosevelts work projects. It was an outhouse with the CCC imprint in the concrete floor
And Y'all only remember Rooosevelt for the Day of Infamy speech........sheesh.....Google Roosevelt outhouse and see what comes up.
OK, John.....I'm done talking about outhouses.
by R Jewell on June 10, 2008 10:02 PM
Hee! I could always post the pics of your expertise in privies...
Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
Time to add a new caveat, because from email it's not clear to some folks (mind you, if you don't read this it won't matter...) Being an open post, people (collectively, the Denizens) other than I post in the H&I. They sign their work (most of the time) - keep that in mind when you want to flame someone in email please - if it doesn't say "The Armorer" or "John" then I didn't write it! And honestly - if you don't like something said or posted... leave a comment, and hash it out (within the context of The Rulez which are clearly posted on the comment form, I would add).
For two years British troops staked out a presence in this small district center in southern Afghanistan and fended off attacks from the Taliban. The constant firefights left it a ghost town, its bazaar broken and empty but for one baker, its houses and orchards reduced to rubble and weeds.
But it took the U.S. Marines, specifically the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, about 96 hours to clear out the Taliban in a fierce battle in the past month and push them back 10 kilometers, or six miles.
The operation stood in stark contrast to the events of March 2007, when a Marine unit shot and killed 19 civilians after a suicide bombing attack.
This time, the performance of the new unit of marines, in Afghanistan for seven months to bolster NATO forces, will be under particular scrutiny.
-the Armorer
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Now we know how the troops are coping with the thong shortage Bill waxes so eloquently about... H/t, Theo at Last of the Few, via CAPT H. -the Armorer
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Heh. In light of *this* I offer *this*. H/t, CAPT H again. -the Armorer
"For men, it is particularly insulting to be arrested by a female officer. Too bad."
- Malalai Kaker, the most senior policewoman in southern Afghanistan
- Damian
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Dogs and soldiers: loyal, fierce, and not particularly domesticated. Who knew the connection extended to sailors as well? ;) - Damian
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One of the most technology-laden armies in the history of armies on the move:
A U.S. Soldier from 1st Brigade Combat Team, 6th Infantry Division, assigned to Task Force Regulars receives a lift from an Iraqi boy and his mule on Route Douglas in the Jameela Market in the Sadr City district of Baghdad, Iraq, May 31, 2008. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Cohen A. Young/Released)
Of course, what is this 6th Infantry Division of which they speak...? Methinks they most likely mean the 6th Infantry serving with the 1st Armored Division, but I'm only guessin'. -the Armorer
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Just dumb.
1. CNN: "With gas prices reaching a national average of four dollars a gallon — a record high — John McCain is planning to resurrect his call for a national gas tax holiday, which became a staple of his stump speech in late April and early May."
2. Reuters: "Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said on Monday he would impose a windfall profits tax on U.S. oil companies as he sought political gain from Americans' pain over high gasoline prices."
Heh. #1 just takes money from the highway trust fund and will cause deferred maintenance on the highway system and give consumers not that big a break, and does.absolutely.nothing to address the core issue. But *this* is what candidate McCain is going for? Along with Barack Obama, many economists largely dismissed the notion of a gas tax holiday as a political ruse that would do little to lower prices, but McCain has repeatedly said he does not believe the proposal would be a panacea for America’s energy woes.
Instead, McCain argued, low-income families could save some extra cash to pay for their children’s school supplies this fall, or perhaps treat themselves to a nice dinner.
Oh that will make everything all better.
#2?
"I'll make oil companies like Exxon pay a tax on their windfall profits, and we'll use the money to help families pay for their skyrocketing energy costs and other bills," the Illinois senator said
.That will just incentivize my neighbor to shut down his wells and pump less. And will do. absolutley.nothing to address the core issue, but will probably serve to exacerbate it. Which means what, you gonna squeeze 'em again, because it's all their fault - and couldn't have anything.to.do.at.all with the fact that Congress (in a bi-partisan fashion) has restricted the ability to expand the supply, while doing nothing (in this case, probably not a bad idea, given the outcomes oft times when they *do* something) to reduce demand. Heh. Giving people money isn't going to incentivize a frigging thing. Except to keep consuming. So, this is the best they've got? Fie. Could we start over on the primaries? For both parties? Shut up, Kevin. -the Armorer
*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.
Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.
Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*
The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.
I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
Awwwwww, c'mon, MaryAnn, that night in SoCal was sooo special. A nice steak dinner, a drink or three, the moonlight, SWHNOB yammering away in the background......
[But that doesn't mean *you* have to say that again...]
by Semper Fi Wife on June 9, 2008 11:43 AM
My bad!!!
by Semper Fi Wife on June 9, 2008 11:52 AM
Now we know how the troops are coping with the thong shortage...
The PX/BX consolidated the two half-empty (I'm an optimist that way) boxes of thongs into a single, brimful box last week. Three days ago, a contingent of Brits moved in with us. As of thirty minutes ago, the remaining box is now half-empty.
Draw your own conclusions. Use dry-erase markers only.
...In order to photoshop, you must first have a picture.
Regarding the 24th MEU killing Talibs in Helmand...
This notion of 'pushing them back' 10K seems a little wishful to me, considering this is a war with no front lines. Insurgents can move about throughout Afghanistan, so long as there's nothing to identify them as insurgents. Even their own police can't do a damned thing about it without some incriminating evidence.
So yes, kill them when they mass and want to operate conventionally. The armies of the western world are pretty good at that. Canadians have killed a whole pile of them over the past few years just next door in Kandahar. But know that so far in Afghanistan, that has only changed the threat, not eliminated it.
I think the author of the IHT article might have been a bit too caught up in the allure of kinetic ops.
Oh, sure, go all "Ry" on us, Damian, and spoil our lust for large scale conventional warfare! we're Cold Warriors here, take your newfangled stuff and go hide out at Namao or something!
Next time, the kid with the Cheetos™ crumbs on his chin gets it
(jumps on John's back and rubs the cheeto dust on his beard)
Now fork over those cheetos!!
Never! (Primes chocogun to repel boarders). Come and take them.
--
Oh sure, John, just label Damian and me as newfangled ways merchants. Of course you know I get labeled a dinosaur for even thinking of a go-slow approach instead of full bore engagement in the Barnettian acolyte circles, right?
Rereading Citino's Blitzkrieg to Desert Storm right now and he'd be so disappointed in you for being all formulaic like the German High Command with its prediliction for high casualty/high POW style combat that cost them success in OP: Typhoon. Tsk. Tsk. ((cringe) Lord, for what I am about to recieve(and turn me to goo) I am not so sure I'm eternally grateful.(cringe))
by ry on June 9, 2008 3:13 PM
I think everyone would prefer a clear-cut enemy to engage in conventional warfare, including most of the soldiers...at least until conventional casualty counts come rolling in.
I'm just saying I'm not sure how useful the article was, given the realities....
Mistress Mandy would also like to crack her whip but sadly, her bad, bad children have hidden it and refuse to tell her where in the helk it is.
Mistress Mandy is sad.
by Mistress Mandy on June 9, 2008 4:01 PM
Heh. You are soooo glad I have a security clearance. It lets you get away with sooo much.
Herk?(head swivles like a dogs) To what do I owe this punting? Is it another thread that's getting me a spot for Castle Moonshot Program? Or is that you care so much about 'God's Work' that snuffing Smeagol isn't worth it? I never can tell.
Dude, cheeto dust sticks to the fingers. No need for postulates or protractor. You're far more visible than I so anyone sending lightning will see you cheeto faced first. Simple if inelegant.
Unk Bill, punk, always with the double meanings.
by ry on June 9, 2008 4:02 PM
Cass doesn't *do* pictures like that. See, even I know that!
Ry ~ step away from the Cheetos and no one gets hurt.
I know Cass doesn't do pictures like that so that's why I was a little mystified. As well, I've never met Bill so I knew it wasn't a picture of me. Heh...I get it now.
That said, I do know that there's a picture of her digging around my f-r-i-d-g-e...
by Semper Fi Wife on June 9, 2008 5:19 PM
I have a compromising picture of Cass. Heck, of a lot of the Milblogochicas.
That night when the wineglass died horribly, and everybody was on their hands and knees...
Now Kevin, you know as well as I do that "safe" words are for when the game has gone too far.....when you are in pain or afraid. So, no the word wouldn't be "McCain". When the name "McCain" escapes my lips it is with enthusiasm and happiness.
Now put the gag back in. I'm headed over to the bar. Where's Jim B?
Mistress Mandy? How is he supposed to utter the appropriate scream with the gag?
Oh that is it! Next thing you know there'll be Felines in the Chandelier again, do you know how hard it is to clean up around here?(clomps on down to the Dungeon while carrying bag of cheetos and stack of comic books, and slams door).
by ry on June 9, 2008 7:18 PM
"Now Kevin, you know as well as I do that "safe" words are for when the game has gone too far.....when you are in pain or afraid."
I stand triumphant. Thank you for verifying my comments.
"When the name "McCain" escapes my lips it is with enthusiasm and happiness."
Think I'll avoid that party scene, 'roofies' were never my style...
Not that I don't have a weakness for Irish lasses...
Waiter, another glass of Connemara please.
by Kevin on June 9, 2008 7:21 PM
Actually, it's better to have several safe words. One to stop the game, one to slow the game, one to convey pain beyond what was agreed upon at the outset and one to convey that a boundry has been violated.
Oh, it's JTG pounding on the door. It's safe then. Why no cussin'? John's the one who made the Rulez. Last iteration I saw didn't give an exemption for non-'Murican. Well, at least you don't know how to do the s-set on the 'puter either.
So, how bad did they trash the Hall? YOu know I'm going to get stuck cleaning it up, right?
WereSib, no worries, we was invaded by Cassie's people. Nobody's replaced you.
by ry on June 9, 2008 10:06 PM
"From my experience, it's hard to say "Snagglepuss" with a ball gag in your mouth."
Oh, Mistress Mandy is not going to be happy with you telling *secrets*.......
by DL Sly on June 9, 2008 10:06 PM
But, Ry, it wasn't "really" cussin, as such. I was just funnin' ya, in a spirit of Klugscheissedness, so to speak.
Mistress Mandy will share the whip if Werekitten will stop crying AND she adds that if Kevin has a ball gag in, he could just wave a cheeto as a safety signal if Ry will share.
That's how Mistress Mandy rolls.
by Mistress Mandy on June 9, 2008 11:05 PM
Referring to what I wrote above, and seeing what MM (hmmm, also stands for Milo Minderbinder) wrote, I think my notional Yossarian persona needs to _draw_ that piece!
And keep it at low ready, of course, observing Rule 3, as we don't want to shoot anybody by accident, even fictitiously in comment parties.
As to shooting people on purpose, I'll defer to the sojers here as to when that's appropriate.
I've dropped over 50 lbs since Christmas. I figured it would be a bit of a waste *not* to run somewhere, seeing as I actually can again.
But given your marksmanship, it's probably a bit pointless. I tell ya, if I'm going to die tired, it's going to be in the company of my wife, and no-one else...
Again, to parphrase from a time honored American icon....
'She don't know me very well, do she?'
With apologies to Warner, Bugs Bunny and Mel Blanc.
What's up Maggie?
by Kevin on June 10, 2008 8:38 PM
Personally, I prefer slippery and wet over sticky and sweet ANY day.
purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
by WereKitten on June 10, 2008 9:24 PM
Maple syrup is just too sticky....
Only if you don't heat it up. Otherwise, it can be very...interesting. Cheez-Wiz is a new one. Haven't tried that one...yet.
But I'm like WK - give me slippery and wet over sticky and sweet any day. I'm all for trying out new things but there's a lot to be said for tradition.
From the lone Canadian weighing in for this...ahem...discussion...
Don't be dissing the maple syrup! The stuff is like gun-tape for the tastebuds: useful in just about any situation, including some situations that are best left to the imagination rather than blog comments threads...
I do not understand the obsession; the obsession about the dead, future dead, and the “evil.” Really, I don’t. On the one hand you have melodrama about the dead, but then you have it pointed out that the dead from other acts don’t seem to count as much. Apparently one dead body is an orange and another is an apple. Being ‘evil’ means you’re #1 on the Hit List, even though certain actions that make one ‘evil’ can be seen entirely as the rational, but cruel and horrific, acts of a nation state. Acts very much like one’s the US has taken during the Cold War as issues of policy, including things like proxy war (Contras come to mind, as do the Maquis and Afghani resistance fighters). But, most important, is the lack of one specific thing. What is it that one wants with respect to Iran? What’s your goal? What’s the purpose beyond mere denial of one of their policy to attain nuclear arms? How is it that this obsession with death caused by Iran overrides some very important factors in decision making?
(More below the fold. No, really, there's a lot below the fold.)
I Still See Dead People.
The point of what casualty calculations, whether from the Cold War or not, is utterly lost; or insinuated to be irrelevant because Iran is killing people and that wrong apparently outweighs all other considerations. I could go on at length about how Containment, crafted by Keenan for the Truman administration, was decided upon in the absence of nuclear conflict since the USSR did not detonate their first nuclear device until 4 years after the assumption of Containment as national policy, but that would be skipping the point as well. It was the cost of the end desired, namely the defeat of the Soviet Union, and its inherent costs versus other means of acquiring the same end which was the whole and only point. Said costs and calculations were done regardless of nuclear arms in the equation.
The Cold War example is essentially:
1) All actions, choices, and goals with respect to the USSR had associated costs.
2) One needs to understand the costs of each choice, action, or goal.
3) There exists a significant non-zero chance that indirect confrontation attains your goal for you at lower overall cost.
That is a universal in decision making, actually. The example was only to bring it to the fore.
Nor is it merely the weak-kneed snobbery of White Tower intellectuals. B.H. Liddell-Hart’s Strategy is an entire work on this concept of attaining strategic goals via an indirect approach. Toughness, manliness, or announcements of one’s presence ‘with authority’ are only useful if they actually buy you what they want. Liddell-Hart pointed out that in the realm of poli-mil affairs that just as often as not the indirect works better, is cheaper, and doesn’t exhaust a nation the way direct confrontation could.
If it costs me, hypothetically, approximately 9 millions dead in six months of direct conflict and 9 millions dead over 40 years to achieve the same goal using proxy wars how can one say the former is better? Yes, I know all about the integration of misery under a curve analytical tool. But, if one is focusing on the dead as the basis of correctness or stupidity of an action is not paying a higher price for the same item usually considered the worse play?
Let’s apply this same hypothetical (read as the numbers were chosen strictly for illustration only, they are not from actual analysis) to an Iran conflagration. 9 millions represented by 1 million from the actual war, approx 3 million starving in China from lack of fuel to move food within six months, an equal number in India for the same reason, and another 2 millions from the rest of the world, particularly in what we used to call the ‘Third World’, that cannot afford higher costs for a diminished total supply of petroleum passing thru the Persian Gulf. What have I gained in doing that? And how long in comparison to another hypothetical situation with a further hypothetical death rate from Iran’s proxy war-making before I reach that 9 millions? If it is a matter of decades can I truly say I’ve gained anything?
Now, keep in mind, I am not the one who said that deaths were the deciding or most important factor. I am just pointing out that if one holds deaths so important the full accounting of the dead should also weigh on your decision making. If it takes decades to attain the same number of mortalities then can you say, since the policy was predicated on death-toll, that you have actually gained much of anything beneficial?
Repercussions do matter greatly when you accept, as you must, that a confrontation or conflict does not exist detached, does not operate like a duel with only the two fighters affected by the outcome, from everything else.
The repercussions go beyond the US, the EU or the ME and branch out into countries around the world since energy will be diminished, food, medicine, clothing and shelter will rise dramatically. More than they are today.
It’s a true statement, the above. But it is not only true for allowing Iran to be the ‘bully’ by gaining a nuclear weapon. A war to prevent Iran from attaining nuclear weapons carries the exact same repercussions, sooner and more severely, and likely in higher amounts. Those costs need to be considered as per my hypothetical, and, if one is making the decision based on the number of dead, policy adjusted accordingly. In most people’s books, the payoff better be real good if you are going to buy something that expensive.
Why sooner? Iran has the capability to close Hormuz as we speak. That was the significance of the Brecher story a few weeks ago. Mining Hormuz closes it. It is no secret that Lloyd’s of London cancels insurance for vessels passing thru such warzones quicker than snap. Iran has the capability to do exactly what has been stated as the worry over the use of an ‘economic weapon’ right now without a nuclear weapon. They can with the ballistic missiles they currently have shut down the Saudi oil fields, tomorrow. Attacking them does not prevent the economic/oil weapon that has been discussed. It brings it on in a much harder to fix/clean up scenario. Hence, the world’s poor die of hunger and preventable disease in vast numbers while the 1st World economy shudders if not seizes like a car engine without lubricant in summer heat.
Nor does Iran’s proxy war capability depend upon nuclear weapons. Hezbollah is a major nuisance and was formed without nuclear capability as backup. What is the justification for implication that unconventional capabilities are dependent or will become more pronounced with nuclear weapons in Iran’s hands? It does not seem to follow since Soviet SOF and US SOF wax and wane depending upon personnel available and not nuclear weapons backing up said SOF. It does not agree with history as to why these non-conventional forces were created or methods initially studied.
Lack of a nuclear weapon seems not to prevent Iran from partaking of shadow war and slaughter of innocents right now or for the last 20 years. Our having nuclear weapons, and Israel’s long known open secret of nuclear arms, does not seem to have any effect on their actions what so ever right now. Maybe it is not the nuke that makes that dynamic go? After all, such 4th Generation Warfare forces are by their very design and intent to be means to circumvent advantages granted a major industrial power for a weak industrial power. Nukes seem not to be the enabler for proxy war and 4th Generation Warfare methods employed by Iran, or anyone else, at all. More likely it is that the US and Israel are nuclear powers that has pushed Iran to ‘grab the belt’ as Giap tried to (and did) in an attempt to neutralize said technological advantage.
Someone I Know Is Standing In The Trenches
In relation to costs it has been said that because one’s child/friend/loved one is in the Services or in boot they understand the cost. No, that isn’t the point as it is not about personal costs and grief. That one will experience the loss of one’s kin and that said event is painful is not the point. Personal loss is not the point. Not to be a callous jerk, but it is not the point. “People die” is often lesson one for officers in war, and lesson two is often “your rank doesn’t mean you can change that.”
I accept that people will, must, die if any action will be taken; whether said action is a neo-Containment or direct confrontation or Barnett’s ‘Big Boy Pants’ theory. The question is scale and, more importantly, what have we bought with that particular amount of carnage? Are there other pathways we can go down that cost us less in terms of lives---and in other metrics---than a direct military confrontation?
One does not decide policy or strategy based on *who* will be lost. Securing a policy that buys a better peace, using Liddell-Hart’s definition of said peace, and what the cost of that purchase is what matters. Particular losses are rather inconsequential. It is the size and the object I am buying with them that is of prime importance, and, unfortunately, all else is fluff. If the goal is actually worth what I am paying in lives then I will spend it but one should not spend more lives than necessary.
It is not weakness or some bizarre need to be Neville Chamberlin that drives this. No. It is a dicta of Richard “Demo Dick” Marcinko, high priest of high testosterone warrior ethos, to not screw over one’s men. Going ‘hey-diddle-diddle-up-the-middle’ without considering whether or not another course of action is superior or viable is exactly that. Marcinko relates in one of his books the different fates of SEAL teams in Panama wherein one commander forced ahead with his plan regardless of facts on the ground and the other not only evaluated different options he had multiple plans to call upon for each option. The former, SEAL Team Four, got cut to pieces at Hato Airfield while the latter, Seal Team Two, pulled off its mission without a casualty. One guy *knew* evil was afoot, was dragon slaying, was unwavering, went with a one throw of the dice approach, and his men paid for it; the other asked questions, thought about his situation instead of emoting, and his men lived because of it. Sending men to die, asking—or condemning depending on your perspective------ civilians to die, in a furball which was un-necessary in that one could have bought the same end by different and cheaper means is, defacto, screwing one’s men; and worse for said civilians. Whether that is assaulting a meaningless hill or going into an unnecessary confrontation to achieve national goals it still counts as screwing the men… royally.
Kill ‘Da Wabbit, Kill ‘Da Wabbit, Kill Da Wabbit (eh, eh, eh, eh).
The following is rather emblematic of the ‘no questions necessary, just hit ‘em’ school of thought: How many millions have to die for the second Cold War to be considered a complete disaster compared to direct war?
There it is. Shock Battle it must be, our hoplites against the Persian horde for anything less is seemingly failure. Regardless of how many die as a result it must be done because millions will die if we do not. If millions die it is a failure. Just as many millions, from economic collapse brought on by closing Hormuz for months to years, do not apparently count as much because Iran has killed them. We. Must. Have. Shock. Battle. We. Must. Kill. ‘Da. Wabbit.(Eh. Eh. Eh. Eh.)
There is no value to be found in spreading the dying out over time to be found here, is there? No. There could not be any real advantage in not having an acutely high body count. The loss of economic output and other tangibles we will lose via a direct confrontation pathway are irrelevant. It is only the deaths and losses caused by Iran’s nefarious actions we will count.
What Are You Asking Him To Die For?
But for what purpose will we do this? To end evil is unlikely. To forestall an economic threat is our cause? No, not when the threat actually already exists and can be utilized while we speak can it be rightly cited. Will we save millions of lives in the process? Maybe, and it might actually cause more death and mayhem than if we took a different path---and that is not guesswork. What is our reason for taking a directly confrontational pathway?
What would be our aim coming out of said conflict that would make it worth doing? Would we be wanting to integrate them rapidly into the global economy? Are we deconflicting the ME and spreading democracy? What? What would be our purpose for doing this? An ‘anti’ strategy is not good enough.
In the Cold War we did not just deny a country to the Soviets. We did more, far more. We integrated it as much as possible. We supported monsters like Noriega, Pinochet, even Marcos (they should have flogged Imelda with all of her shoes) with a purpose beyond simple denial of Panama, Chile, and the Philippines to the Red Sphere of Influence. Americans died supporting all three. Their lives were worth it because there was more than just a ‘hands off, it is mine’ strategy that called for their lives to be sacrificed in pursuit of it. What would that be vis-à-vis Iran?
Shock battle for the sake of shock battle is screwing your men royal. What do you seek to purchase, how do you intend to shape the world coming out of this to make it all worth it?
Madden 2K1 Is Not Much Better Than Madden 2K, But 2K7 Is a World Apart
Is it also possible that a ‘go slow’ approach is preferred and has inherent advantages over Kill Wabbit? Is it possible that the issue of iteration of choices puts us in a stronger position? Nash’s economic theory seems to support this. So does recent evolutionary biology. A series of sub-optimal, not for the all the marbles choices may actually lead to greater outcomes over the long term.
It is not like Great Captains of the past did not recognize this. Gen Eisenhower saw that the Broad Front idea allowed for change with iterations of choice in ways that simply letting Gens. Patton and Montgomery go buck wild in offensive glory would not. A ‘go slow’ or Barnett’s ‘Big Boy Pants’ approach does not discard future offensive action should it become necessary.
Each logic gate, since I choose to model it that way, has three options: a) Kill ‘Da Wabbit b) Neo-Containment c) Barnett-ian Big Boy Pants. Options b and c give us the option to choose a series, and the concept that it is a series is of prime importance, of moments of choice where we can consecutively choose options that move the pile forward toward a better peace. We would not be deciding such a situation with long lasting ramifications on a single throw of the dice. Iterations of choice give us the opportunity to minimize the death tolls and other associated costs. There are examples of this phenomenon in economics, evolution, and war being used beneficially.
Of course there’s the risk that things go south on any iteration or consecutive iterations of choice. That is always possible. There is no zero risk approach. We have seen this sequence play out on the Korean Peninsula in a mixed bag fashion. Given that DPRK threatens 3 major US trading partners from whence the majority of our electronic supplies come from--- PRC, Japan, ROK--- one cannot say that potential DPRK action via CBW does not already give us an analog of Iran, no microchips no economy, and yet the carnage of 50 years of dealing with DPRK iteratively is still cheaper than the one big gulp approach.
Failure is also possible with a single throw approach such as Kill Wabbit, and recovering from that is far harder than the iterative approach. Destroyed or damaged oil fields will not be quick fixes as the Kuwaiti experience shows. Market Garden was hard to recover from because of the logistical losses such a one-and-done approach incurred.
Kill ‘Da Wabbit is not a panacea. It is a particular policy choice that has its place in the tool box.
Evil, Evil, Evil.
A litany of evil acts have been listed at one time or another regarding Iran. Whether it be actions during the Iran-Iraq war or proxy means to attain Iranian policy or support for terrorists like Hezbollah it is meant to show that Iran is evil and that Iran cannot be a rational, and ergo stable and predictable, actor. Because Iran is evil we must attack.
I do not deny that many of the acts are, truthfully, evil. It is also irrelevant. Robert Mugabe is evil, his regime is evil, and has a body counting numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Burma is a flat out freaking mess. Sudan is still tagged as genocidal warfare by the ruling faction against the non-Moslem factions by the UN. So? Irrelevant. What would invading or other muscular acts in these countries buy the US? Going off like an knight errant to drive all dragons from the kingdom makes for great epic poems and romances, it is not a coherent means of deciding for a nation.
Are we to be governed by the R2P (the right, or responsibility, to protect inherent in the UN charter) then? Will we then find ourselves invading Sudan, Burma, and DPRK then? Wherever we are told there is an evil regime, one that abuses its people, foments trouble for neighbors, or fights proxy wars we will have to attack then? If it is based on the two factors of evil and body counts one would be hard pressed to find a justification for not going into places like Sudan, Burma, and the DPRK (particularly North Korea, the king daddy of proliferation, murder and kidnapping of foreign nationals, and active belligerent threat to its neighbors.).
Evil is a poor ‘gotta’ factor in decision making. There’s so damn much of it around after all. Being consistent in policy would mean we would be tied to policies that lead to many Kosovos, many Somalias, and take downs of every whackadoo dictator like Kim Jong-Il regardless of what it buys the US. Such an ‘Onward Christian Soldier’ sermon works on Sunday but it is not sound policy.
Not Bowing Down To Darth Sidius
Which brings me back to the central thrust of the initial piece: can we get to a defanged/irrelevant Iran/Iran we can live with via another route? Are there iterative pathways that get us to the same place for far lower costs? Do not all other options than direct confrontation amount to bowing down to Emperor Ahmenidijad ne Palpatine (a.k.a. Darth Sidius)?
Is it possible to give nuclear weapons to UAE and other ME nations to counter Iran and end the problem via a MAD theory soft kill? Actually yes it is, and it is standing these nations in Iran’s way instead of capitulation.
Can we extend our nuclear umbrella, meaning saying to Iran ‘any use by you means your nation turns into a glass parking lot’, and then providing neighbors with military aide to combat irregular forces get us there? Yes, it is possible to counter in just this way and then ‘buff up’ a nation’s forces to meet the unconventional threat. We have seen this sequence play out on the Korean Peninsula. Given that DPRK threatens 3 major US trading partners from whence the majority of our electronic supplies come from--- PRC, Japan, ROK--- one cannot say that potential DPRK action via CBW does not already give us an analog of Iran. No microchips no economy. And that is being handled in an iterative fashion that does not amount to capitulation.
There is a host of possible, viable pathways that can be considered or enacted that come well short of the beloved one throw of the dice shock battle for all the marbles to buy us what we want--- an Iran we can live with and a secure stream of petroleum for the world economy. They must all be considered and the ‘Iran is evil’ mantra does not dismiss them. It is the rare cure that is worse than the disease---chemo-therapy for example--- but I do not dismiss the possibility. Few amount to kneeling at Darth Sidius’ feet. Quite the contrary, many are standing up to the Sith but not in a winner takes all fashion.
Coda
Obsessions with slaying evil dragons or numbers of dead or with looking tough do not coherent policy make. Obsessions do not purchase the nation its goals for responsibly considered costs.
--ry
When I read this, I just get the sense from you, Ry, that we all ought to just sit by and do nothing. Why, there's nothing to get worried about at all. Everything will be okay as long as we don't do anything stupid or unnecessary, and just wait and let matters take care of themselves in the long run, eventually. Because, God forbid, if we do something, we'll just make them angry at us and this will just make things worse.
Why, the Cold War would have NEVER HAPPENED if we had not over-reacted when Japan attacked us on 12/07/1941, and went to war with Germany. The Cold War was all our fault, because we were the ones who helped defeat Hitler, and created the conditions that removed an important check on an expansionist USSR.
Oh, and never mind the fact that millions of Jews were dying in Nazi concentration camps. We would not have known about these anyway, since we woould never have liberated them or known about them with Hitler and his fellow Nazis still in control of the continent. Besides, that whole "Holocaust" accusation is nothing but a big LIE anyway, promoted by those pesky Jooos and the victorious Allies who needed to justify their "war of aggression" and "war of choice".
And if Truman hadn't done something stupid like issue that "Truman Doctrine" - you know, an over-reactive and aggressive policy that threatened the USSR which caused them to react in kind - we would have never needed to keep troops in Germany or Europe for 60+ years nor would we have fought proxy wars in Korea, Vietnam, or elsewhere.
How could we have been so misguided and naive? How could we have let ourselves be MISLED so much by Truman, JFK, and LBJ - who lied about that Tonkin incident? Because Lord knows, if we hadn't gone to war in Vietnam, we would never have angered the North Vietnamese, and they would not have had reason to seek vengeance and retribution on those traitorous South Vietnamese who aided us when we withdrew from Vietnam, which caused that whole refugee and boat people problem. Oh, and that whole Cambodian mess, either. Those Khmer Rouge guys were not evil, after all. They just wanted to enlighten those misguided people who wanted a different society.
Etc etc etc.
PS - Did you change email addresses recently? I tried to thank you for you kind comments on one of your previous posts. I was out of town on business at the time, was too busy to post much.
by fdcol63 on June 9, 2008 9:02 AM
I think you're being a bit unfair, Frank, and over-reading what Ry is saying.
As I read it - Ry's thesis is, Containment and the indirect conflict inherent in that approach gained what we were after (the collapse of the Soviet system) with fewer overall deaths than would have resulted from direct conflict (as he see's is advocated by Kat), and that approach should get as serious a consideration as the more robust approach advocated by Kat.
And Ry doesn't like the invocation of "evil" and "people are dying" as the rationale for going all kinetic.
Let's face it - as OIF shows, once started, wars develop a character all their own, and usually don't follow the path the initators were seeking. Ry also suggests that Iran is already capable of doing 90% of the mischief we fear without using nukes.
Ry is also positing that Kat may in fact kill more people than would die over the protracted approach he suggests - all in order to save them.
Kat's counter is that the Iranian government doesn't constitute a rational state actor and the issues of self-preservation extant in the Cold War don't apply, so the better to kill the threat abornin' than find out it's actually a psychopath.
Both arguments have merit - though I admit, I'm in favor, at least right now, of Ry's approach. I don't think we've got the ground combat power to deal with Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
I didn't mean to be unfair or flip. However, I did want to convey 2 things:
1) Everything is interconnected, and whatever policies, strategies, or tactics we adopt and pursue will inevitably lead to "equal but opposite" reactions from the other side, and consequences that are both foreseen and unforeseen, as well as positive and negative.
At every point in the decision tree, you're basing your actions on the reality as it currently exists, trying to solve the most immediate crisis first, even though you may be trying to plan ahead as much as possible. But Murphy's Law and the Law of Unintended Consequences always reign.
2) If we had adopted Ry's "containment" strategy with regard to Hitler and Nazi Germany, we might have prevented the larger war in Europe, preventing the continent wide destruction and millions of combat-related deaths that ensued.
But would the world have been better off?
Personally, I think the "containment" strategy pursued by the US, Britain, France, and USSR led directly to the horrors of WW2, when they failed to take adequate action at Germany's rearmament, Hitler's move into the Rhineland, Hitler's Anschluss of Austria, and their failure yet again at Munich over the Sudetenland.
Their "containment" strategy at these points may have prevented a "smaller" war in 1935, 1936, or 1938. But might this smaller war have prevented the much larger war that followed?
by fdcol63 on June 9, 2008 10:30 AM
Heh. Mostly I used your comment as an excuse to show Ry how much you could condense his argument...
I agree with John that I'm being largely misread here.
Itterative approach is not 'do nothing'. It is more like turning a car without flipping it or even better turning a semi without jackknifing. It's nudging things along in a positive manner, and just because I'm using the word positive doesn't mean holding hands and singing koomayah. Iran-Contra was a 'positive manner' in an iterative fashion.
The Nazi Germany example is being abused, me thinks. Teh Triple Alliance does not qualify as 'Containment'. That was simply defensive alliance making("Don't attack us becasue the other two will be in at your sides.") and none of the troika had the capacity to intervene. None could arm the Poles or the Romanians with the methods and means to stand against the Wehrmacht, as we did during the CW.
The current ISR network allows us to take 'Never Again' seriously while having the R2P protocol as legal @55cover for intervention, and one could say that the ability to intervene and see what Iran is doing is why we're not seeing ghettos and gas chambers for homosexuals. None of the big three had that capability at any point before 1939. The Triple Alliance does not count as Containment.
Containment is being abused. The Truman Doctrine is part and parcel to it. Korea was part of Containment; as was supporting folks like the slew of corrupt Philippine presidents, not denouncing S. Africa, and the support for the Contras. That was all part of Containment. Some of it was muy macho and some of it not. It was entirely iterative.
Fd, except for the 'worst crisis' as an absolute I'd agree with your #1 in the scond comment you made. Only when it moves strategy forward or halt dire threats does it make sense. Patton didn't worry about flank attacks because his threat to the enemy was great enough that the enemy quit flank attacks.(His famous, 'I don't worry about my flanks' comments). Same logic here. If and only if it gets me where I want to go or is about to kill my plans dead do I worry about a given crisis.
People are seeing what they want to see: any arguement that does not end with '...and then we kick their @55' is capitulation. That is far from the truth.
I knew morality was going to get tossed up. I predicted it inthe first rebuttal. Sure, it is a factor to consider. But, as I pointed out above, abuse of the Nazi example is not a proof for doing Iran. You haven't shown that they *are* as depraved as the NAzis and that not doing them leads to as horrible a world as not standing up to the Nazis would have. You've assumed it and not shown your supporting work as for why. Dangerous assumption, imo.
That doesn't rule out that they can be or are. Just sayin' that assuming it is a bad way of making up your mind or trying to win a debate on it.
John, I don't suggest. The capability is there. It is fact. the two Kilo class subs can lay 15+ nautical mines each per sortie, and mines they have aplenty(look at Galrahn's post over at InfoDissem on it). Mining Hormuz ends commercial traffic within it. That's just application of Formosa reality to an analogous situation. Someone else worked that one out. It isn't just a claim, some other analyst(guy who gets paid to do it) I know worked that out and I'm cribbing from him.
The BM attack is suggestion but the mines are not. But it would seem to be a decent educated guess given ranges.
And it's 'Brevity is for the weak.' Wimps are people who have the capability but not the will. THe weak simply don't have the capability. (Hyaa! Hyaa! Flog them electrons! Hyaa!)
by ry on June 9, 2008 12:19 PM
see what Iran is doing is why we're not seeing ghettos and gas chambers for homosexuals.
Nope, they just hang them. After a "fair" trial of course.
But, on a different note, when we talk about "morality" as if it has no place in decision making, I believe it leaves us considerably blinded by cold numbers. When a country does things that are explicitly immoral (and I don't mean some namby pamby multi-cult outlook of "this is their culture" BS I mean political prisoners, absolute repression, and executions or imprisonment based on ideological concepts that have little to do with good ordering of society...homosexuality, changing religion, opposing government policies, etc), I believe it indicates the over all nature of the government and what we can expect from it on an intra- and inter-national scale.
For instance, besides Iran, there is Sudan. Certainly, Bashir was smart enough to ask Osama to leave and, at least, give an outward appearance of rejecting international Islamist terrorism, but, his internal activities of promoting Islamist ideologies and promoting genocidal assaults is representative of his actual international behavior.
Sudanese are some of the top "foreigners" found on battlefields we operate on. There are likely international Islamist terrorists receiving training, participating (training) against the internal citizens and Bashir is basically posturing his national government and organizing his citizenry in such a manner that, should the Islamists actually gain a foot hold or "legitimate" government in other states, he can easily align and reflect that ideology and alliance.
On the other hand, he is also positioning himself under the umbrella of the chinese, to hold power indefinitely. One could say that he is a pragmatist that needs to be watched.
I can see some of that in the Iranian movements, but John is correct that I am concerned that they have not quite settled over whether they are a rational state or a revolution. In otherwords, they aren't all that rational yet.
Part of that is due to their internal struggle to continue to maintain control of the government and keep it functioning under the "Islamic Revolution".
However, recognizing that doesn't mean that we should give them extra breaks since it means they also have the tendency and capacity to do just as you argue they are not doing. Extremist ideologies are considered extreme for those reasons. Largely, they have a tendency to be extremely reactionary in order to survive. An extremely reactionary government with nuclear weapons does not sound particularly safe to me.
While I can appreciate the idea of containment and believe that it has a possibility to work, I also believe that Iran's instability along with their move towards nuclear technology and probably weapons, makes them more dangerous at this moment than any other time. I also believe that the window for implementing successful containment is very narrow for the reasons I stated above.
Another issue that weighs heavily on my mind is "never again." I have a very strong feeling about those who routinely call for the destruction of others and hold Nazi like forums for conducting a defamation drive against people of any sort. Most particularly the 7 million Jews (of the 20 million left in this world) who reside in Israel. I believe that there is only one reason that this occurs and that is because Iran is trying to whip up support for a much bigger war with Israel since they know that Israel sees their nuclear activities as a threat.
I believe Iran wants this because they believe that they can consolidate their power over the region by advancing their leadership in the "fight" against Israel. That is the reason that they had their proxies in Hezbollah attack Israel in 2006. Not because it gained anyone anything physically, but because it increased their stature in the region.
Since I believe they have not reached rational stage of post revolution, since they have regional and global ambitions, since they have nuclear ambitions and since they are in fact exporting that revolution in order to meet their stated goals AND since I believe that, upon reaching those stated goals, they will create an even more horrific crisis, not just regionally, but internationally with oil and gas from the region under their auspices....
I believe that, yes, that would end up killing many more people directly and indirectly (through famines, raging energy prices and housing crisis, etc) than a direct war would.
In short, I would kill 200,000 Iranians today if it meant that 7 million would not have to fear death ten years from now either through nuclear attack or conventional warfare that these states might feel they can now perpetuate under the umbrella of nuclear weapons.
I would accept 1 million Iranian casualties if I thought that 10 million or more people around the world would be saved from a future with Iranian power firmly in control of the ME, its resources and exporting its proxies to kill and terrorize nations.
But, you know, I never wrote that war should be tomorrow. I simply believe that the window is much shorter than those who propose talking believe it to be. In fact, after thirty years of hearing the same comments from people about how the time is never right it does seem that those who advocate talking have never and will never accept any other action. So, yes, I feel the need to advocate a more hawkish stance so that we do not forget that we do have that option, we are responsible and able to assist in securing our allies survival (and securing ours) and that people and nations should know there is a line that we will not accept being crossed without a significant response.
And, no, I do not mean more sanctions.
Finally, John did surmise my point neatly. This isn't 1947. Iran is not the USSR. What we could or should accept as behavior from them should not be equal to anything we accepted from the USSR under those conditions. To do so and allow people to die under the acceptance of a new "cold war" and an unequal comparison of The Cold War until now seems, indeed, immoral and decidedly cheapening.
Further, to allow ourselves to be placed in a position of potentially diminishing survival due to Iran's control of the region and resources does feel unnecessarily suicidal. In the end, my entire premis is based on that being the primary concern, followed closely by our allies and then the rest of the world.
We no longer have grand enemies like the USSR, but that does not mean that we are not in danger. Even giants can be pulled down by a million little rabble rousers.
by kat-missouri on June 9, 2008 2:11 PM
Dude, that was longer than anything I ever wrote except a historical review of the bombers of wwii.
But, to refer to another note or two, I'll be addressing your post later this week because I believe that you willfully misrepresented some of my points or choose to ignore them at your own peril and ours.
by kat-missouri on June 9, 2008 4:41 PM
I guess the best way of saying this is: don't assume the casualties you fear so are inevitable because they are not. YEs, the full span of national power and means should be on the table and a containment-like policy would use some of that hammer(like the Libya raid) to further goals. But it is about costs, not fears.
Fear does not override the need to evaluate costs and means available(look at how the US pop reacts to deaths for esoteric reasons, and how that effects the ability to comitt the force necessary for a full takedown).
A 4th Gen approach can buy the same thing, the 10 million not dead and not oppressed, without the 1 million dead or the economic costs associated to making those 1million dead.
It should not be about how Iran relates in some historical spectrum of threats. IT should always be about are we securing the better peace. If it is 'insulting' to 'elevate' Iran to do so I don't give a damn and consider the idea that we shouldn't because it is emberassing to be silly to even consider. If it gets me where I want to be fine. If not fine. BUt because it is emberassing or ruins some categorization of threats historically as a reason not to consider is just flat out boneheaded.
It is not game over once they've fitted a nuc to a missile either. THEL and the ABL research programs in conjunction with the SM-3ER program for AEGIS means that having a nuc means a whole lot less in 2009 than it did in 1999.
That leaves their non-conventionals. The de Atkine and FARC experiences should speak to that. We train and equip nations to deal with it. We buy the same damn goal for a hell of a lot less.
It just means we've got to get over being scared to achieve it.(That short enough for you, John? I got distracted once or twice so it got a bit wordier than intended)
Gad Ry my eyeballs hurt. Well for what it's worth I'm more on your side with this one if we're talking sides which is a bit limited. I want to see careful considered thoughts and plans in the now context. We have time to do this cleverly. If it shows Kat's way is better though auf Wiedersehen. At this point in time I see US and other political will not being there and there being no good case for intervention. Is there a good third option?
What I would vastly prefer is Iran to grow up real-soon-now. That is the fairytale. sigh.
Hey, when did folk reach the point where they can only handle 500 words? Eh? Slackers. (yipe!)
There is a third option Argent. That's largely my point. Kat's way sounds like very muscular engagement with a preponderance toward breaking their stuff and rebuilding the country. There's the peace, love and harmony pipe dream. Then there's neo-containment with 4th Gen elements option which has low buy in, low stay in, and low closing costs. Building an ABM system is a lot cheaper than repairing Iran. Helping Lebanon fight its own battles is a lot cheaper(in cash and in bodies) than fighting it for them by taking on Iran. Building a mini-NATO to deal with bad actors in the ME is a lot cheaper than just deciding we've got to take someone down.
There's three options. All have strengths and weaknesses. But being ruled by fear on this is tremendously stupid. Go to War Historian's site and read his three part series Images of Enemy and Self. Then tell me this is not a situation where fears aren't calling the shots instead of reason.
Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
Time to add a new caveat, because from email it's not clear to some folks (mind you, if you don't read this it won't matter...) Being an open post, people (collectively, the Denizens) other than I post in the H&I. They sign their work (most of the time) - keep that in mind when you want to flame someone in email please - if it doesn't say "The Armorer" or "John" then I didn't write it! And honestly - if you don't like something said or posted... leave a comment, and hash it out (within the context of The Rulez which are clearly posted on the comment form, I would add).
CHICAGO - For young voters, Rosa Parks' refusal to sit at the back of a bus in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955 is schoolbook history. Even the racially charged 1992 riots in Los Angeles are a distant memory.
The United States is far from a blueprint for racial harmony, but for today's young adults — all born after segregation was outlawed in the mid-1960s — race is not the issue it once was.
They have grown up with Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jordan among their highest-profile and wealthiest role models. And in their everyday lives, they are much more likely than their elders to have friends of another race, studies show.
Is it any wonder, then, that young adults have been the most willing age group to support a black man for president?
Well and good. It bothers me not one whit that Senator Obama has more melanin than I. It also is *not* a qualification for the job. One hopes that we don't shift ourselves into an "entitlement" mode on the Presidency - now that a black man has been nominated, he *must* be elected, or it means we're all racists. Just as if Senator Clinton had won - just because a woman got the nod from a party, doesn't mean that particular woman should get the job, so too, here - this particular black man is not entitled to the job simply because he has some african parentage in his background. We'll find ourselves playing a quota rota on the Presidency...
Heh. One thing is clear - the bulk of the people who were voting in the primaries didn't want a Republican for President. Nor especially a conservative. Oh, yes, I meant what I said. The question is - is the electorate so tired of feckless Republicans they'll give a fellow more liberal than McGovern the nod - and a pliant Congress, to boot? Gimme some more of that rancorous divided government that isn't on the bullet train to Abilene. -the Armorer
********************************* The SUV is not dead at Castle Argghhh!. We still need (and use) the big-engined F150, thenkewverramuch. True, we don't drive it as often - but when it's moving, it's moving because we need to move something heavy, tow something heavy, or muscle something cross-country, and let's face it, the Aztek just ain't gonna do that. -the Armorer
*********************************
Happy Birthday, Ed. Keepin' my sis happy for 30 years. Good work, dude. -the Armorer
*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.
Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.
Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*
The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.
I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
Just suprised you have an Aztec..Most car blogs and mags were too busy dissin the styling to realize they were actually a good little suv...At least every one I talked to who has one really likes them.......And I wonder how often Rumsfeld felt like actually doing the piece with the northern portion of a southern bound horse bit on some of his questioners?
by big al on June 6, 2008 2:22 PM
Why are you surprised we have an Aztek, Big Al? It's spugly little car with a terribly contrived name, but then, I liked Saabs, too. It's pretty versatile, comfortable for a tank like me, and we haven't had to do anything other than routine maintenance on it since we got it in early 2004. Heck, we've used it for goat-hauling!
As for Rumsfeld - I'm sure he thinks it's funny, too.
I read a line somewhere I liked - It wasn't the color of Obama's skin that bothered him, it was the color of his politics.....pinkish red. Yes, that about sums it up for me too.
Well you already had the SUV (we call them yupmobiles or 4 wheel drives... except most are no longer 4 wheel drives).
I really dislike them. Most people don't use them for their utility but merely as one would use any other car on urban and suburban streets. It's an ego chariot which wastes petrol, the power of the engine and causes safety issues by blocking visibility on roads and causing more harm in impacts. Spray on mud is the most telling sign of the cultural stupidity of the SUV.
However some do use them well. I know one man who goes out oona whoop whoop to find rare spiders. Yes he's nuts. Did i mention rare. As in so rare they haven't been discovered yet and there are no antivenons for. The other lot a couple lived out bush much like the Armourer and used it to traverse the treacherous winter roads.
'Real men use utes on a farm.' :D utes ochre aussie oi oi oi. dammit no one here would get it but it's funny i tell you FUN - E
Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
Time to add a new caveat, because from email it's not clear to some folks (mind you, if you don't read this it won't matter...) Being an open post, people (collectively, the Denizens) other than I post in the H&I. They sign their work (most of the time) - keep that in mind when you want to flame someone in email please - if it doesn't say "The Armorer" or "John" then I didn't write it! And honestly - if you don't like something said or posted... leave a comment, and hash it out (within the context of The Rulez which are clearly posted on the comment form, I would add).
********************************
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. - A military jury acquitted a Marine intelligence officer Wednesday of charges that he tried to help cover up the killings of 24 Iraqis, including women and children.
Cheers erupted as the seven-officer panel cleared 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson, who was the first of three Marines to be tried in the biggest U.S. criminal case involving Iraqi deaths linked to the war.
The judge, Maj. Brian E. Kasprzyk, admonished those in court, telling them: "There will be no more of that."
Perhaps not in your courtroom, Major - but there will be more of that now that Lieutenant Grayson gets his life, however folded, spindled, and mutilated by the legal process, back. The latter is an observation, not a complaint. The way Haditha ran, going to trial wasn't much of a choice, really. And given the behavior of some Members of Congress in regard the issue, to say nothing of the public crucifixion of the accused, the accused, *especially* if they were innocent, needed the trial to establish that fact, seeing as how Representative Murtha's rules of evidence are, shall we say, slightly less stringent. One needs aught but innuendo to engage in character assassination. Heh. Politics and punditry rely upon it. -the Armorer
*********************************
Yes, I know it's broken. Yes, we're working on it. Sigh. Who fiddled the template? -the Armorer
The U.S. Military Academy will now honor its daughters as well as its sons in two of its beloved songs.
Gender-neutral lyrics were incorporated into West Point's "Alma Mater" and "The Corps" — replacing lines like "The men of the Corps" with "The ranks of the Corps."
West Point officials made the change after attending funerals for female graduates killed in combat and listening to the line "Guide us, thy sons" being sung. The new lyrics read, "Guide us, thine own."
The songs were written about a century ago, long before the first female cadets joined the Long Gray Line in 1976.
ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey and Iran have been carrying out coordinated strikes against Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq, a top general said Thursday in the first military confirmation of Iranian-Turkish cooperation in the fight against separatists there.
Gen. Ilker Basbug, Turkey's land forces commander, said the two countries have been sharing intelligence and planned more coordinated attacks in the future against the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, and PEJAK, the group's Iranian wing.
"We are sharing intelligence with Iran, we are talking, we are coordinating," CNN-Turk television quoted Basbug as telling reporters on the sidelines of a security conference in Istanbul.
And it's something we're not hearing much about in the news or from CENTCOM. -the Armorer
****************************** DC does "clear", hasn't got a clue how to "hold" and rebuilding is for losers apparently. I suppose you can't blame them for not wanting to actually have to do COIN on US shores. If it makes them feel better, they can call it the old fashion name: Broken Windows. h/t Instapundit
Also from the "great one", "war on photography". I have to disagree, having just recently passed by Ft Leavenworth, there was a very large sign that did, in fact, read "No Photography After This Point". Of course, if you approach from the west past the federal penitentiary, there's a very large, billboard type sign warning, "Do not pick up hitch hikers". Ya' think?
-Kat
A great guy doing something great... read below, and please support by spreading the word.
Thanks,
Chuck
Chuck is forwarding a note:
He's a retired army capt. wounded in Afg. (lost his arm from the elbow down) He is driving across the country to meet the people that supported him while he was deployed(camping or sleeping in his truck when he has to). He's funding his trip w/donations through his blog. I offered to host him here in jersey but just missed him by a couple of hours(didn't hear about him till yesterday morning) so i'll be banging his account for him today. I'm hoping we'll get to catch up on his way back south. he is in Reading, Pennsyltuckey now working his way to Maine. Thanks for any additional exposure you can offer. He definitely deserve our support.
RJ Vail
And "He" would be Daniel McConnell - of Daniel's Big Trip. If you pass through Kansas, Daniel, you're welcome to crash at the Castle. -the Armorer
*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.
Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.
Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*
The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.
I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
is it just me, or is the right sidebar scroonching left over the text down the middle of the page, thereby making it unreadable?
by RetRsvMike on June 5, 2008 9:00 AM
While I can't see it on the machine I'm currently using, I just got a call from someone else who has the same problem. Something went flibberty-jibbet with the template.
It looks fine to me now, but I wasn't here at 0900 when RetRsvMike saw the problem. I was still in bed.
Follow the link for Kat's "DC does 'clear'" story - I can't remember a time I saw someone quoted as saying "cockamanie" in a newspaper story! Too funny!
I thought that was humorous, but I also thought she was way over blown with that whole "they tried it in Russia"...I was thinking she was trying to infer that the police were being authoritarian brutish tyrants.
by kat-missouri on June 5, 2008 11:08 AM
Then to be really safe around Ft. Leavenworth one does not pick up hitch hiking photographers?
by Fred on June 5, 2008 11:09 AM
Yeah, she's overblown, but isn't that the way the game is played? I think this sounds like a dangerous game. DC isn't Fallujah. Of course, my view on this sort of things is tainted by my experiences in Charlestown during the federal busing years. We had curfews, enhanced police presence, etc. A very small taste of a world I don't want.
This DC thing will never fly. If they can't do it in CA they won't be able to do it anywhere else. Westminster/Midway City tried something similar and it was deemed unCon. I'm predicting so too will this. Freedom to assemble will be what's cited. Then to be really safe around Ft. Leavenworth one does not pick up hitch hiking photographers?
Or gollum.
by ry on June 5, 2008 1:50 PM
Well, DC is putting only six officers on each blockade, so that's gonna work real well.
Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
Time to add a new caveat, because from email it's not clear to some folks (mind you, if you don't read this it won't matter...) Being an open post, people (collectively, the Denizens) other than I post in the H&I. They sign their work (most of the time) - keep that in mind when you want to flame someone in email please - if it doesn't say "The Armorer" or "John" then I didn't write it! And honestly - if you don't like something said or posted... leave a comment, and hash it out (within the context of The Rulez which are clearly posted on the comment form, I would add).
********************************
Another fun quote:
"The story is told about the high defense official, confident in the methods of systems analysis, and faced with a personal decision. He owned two self-winding watches... that had both become defective. The first lost four seconds every day; the second had stopped completely. so he called in his Chief Systems Analyst, and asked him to evaluate these two chronological "systems" and recommend what to do.
After study, the recommendation was clear: throw away the first watch and keep the second. Calculation showed that the first watch was correct only once every fifty-nine years, the second was correct twice a day.
This is something more than a bad joke. It illustrates that systems analysis, while it is a superb decision-making tool, operates in a broader setting that requires human judgment."
Wesley Povar, "The Easy Magic of Systems Analysis." American Defense Policy, 2nd Ed., ed M. E. Smith III and C.J. Johns, Jr. (1968)
I am reminded of the "no half sizes of boots" decision of the MacNamara regime. And you have no idea the risk I'm taking with this quote.... Things are better now, from my perspective... but periodically I've earned my daily bread since retiring by offering some "operational experience leavening" to ORSA-dominated project teams. -the Armorer
*********************************
Email from Kevin:
*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.
Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.
Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*
The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.
I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
Time to add a new caveat, because from email it's not clear to some folks (mind you, if you don't read this it won't matter...) Being an open post, people (collectively, the Denizens) other than I post in the H&I. They sign their work (most of the time) - keep that in mind when you want to flame someone in email please - if it doesn't say "The Armorer" or "John" then I didn't write it! And honestly - if you don't like something said or posted... leave a comment, and hash it out (within the context of The Rulez which are clearly posted on the comment form, I would add).
********************************
Sorry we're a little late getting anything up today. Just a few items to start your day off.
5 percent of Mass. taxpayers uninsured, some fined Actually, that was 97,000 uninsured who did not attempt to or otherwise refused to get some exemption from obtaining health insurance because they were "too poor". 97k raised 9 million in funds to support "the law" as this article kindly calls it over and over prior to go on a somewhat rhapsodic review of this wonderful state run health insurance where 95% of the the citizens are covered,
Emergency room visits haven't really gone up like was predicted, but everybody has someone or somewhere to go to if they are ill. It's all wonderful. Except this one little part, right at the bottom of the article that they try to sweep under the rug without much details:
That will come in handy as lawmakers struggle to find ways to cover the soaring costs of the law.
How much? It went from 725 million in 2006 to over 869mil (budgeted). If all things are the same, if no one is going to the emergency room or non-emergency care more than before, how are the costs soaring? Apparently, the state of Massachusetts has no idea or the reporter doesn't really want to say. What they know is that the Mass. Assembly is going to try to pass a $1 per pack of cigarettes tax. And Mass. already has one of the highest costs per pack with lots of people going to the doc to get meds to stop smoking. Irony, thy name is Massachusetts.
********************
From JM via email (though I was actually following it yesterday), the real Orwellian "human rights" trial of Mark Steyn. If you don't know, Steyn had the temerity to write an article in MacLeans re: his book American Alone that talked about Europe's continuing growth in Muslim population, its continuing radicalism, its continuing contortions to try to seek security while dealing with the un-assimilated masses of immigrants. Oh...and he quoted some very interesting Imams right out of their own sermons.
Along comes some very shady Muslim characters and a few "sock puppets" as we like to say in the blog world to accuse Steyn of Human Rights violations for engendering Islamophobia or hate against a minority. You want to see how free speech dies and 1984 becomes real? This is it. Pretty soon you won't even be able to write that their hockey team lost or their star outfielder sucked without fearing the thought police might consider it a violation of human rights.
Is it me or is this really pulling down basic human rights of life and liberty to be no more or less important than anyone being offended by...words. - Kat
****************************************************************
Figured I'd better actually come up for air and contribute something versus just the same ol same ol blathering I usually do around here ;) That and well, frankly, I figured ya'll could use a break from politics for a bit. Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy.
******************************** Noooooooo! Clinton to concede delegate race when Obama clinches
Didn't she listen when my Bad Boyfriend told her to stay in at least until the DNC convention? It was going to be "Crazy! Crazy exciting!"??????.........Maggie
*******************************************
Ok he told me to do this, figured what they hey, not like I'm real busy today and I sorta whipped it up apropos of nothing, thusly if it stinks, well, shoot me.
Some minor languge warnings do apply, but otherwise I hereby present to you BloodSpite vs Academia, in"My Truant Pen"
-BloodSpite
*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.
Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.
Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*
The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.
I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
If words were not so "dangerous" there would be no need for such things as political correctness, the abolishment of ageist, sexist, gender or race based language in academic writings (something I just recently learned myself. That and they hate contractions. Go figure.)
We've been slowly becoming Orwelian for a while.
And the ACLU, Speech and Thought police have been helping the whole way.
How was it said in Richelieu?
True, This! —
Beneath the rule of men entirely great,
The pen is mightier than the sword. Behold
The arch-enchanters wand! — itself a nothing! —
But taking sorcery from the master-hand
To paralyse the Cæsars, and to strike
The loud earth breathless! — Take away the sword —
States can be saved without it!
I doubt it's long enough for a post, although its certainly fustrating enough for me.
One of my current classes is Contemporary Business Communication (COM140)which also teaches us the bascs of academic writing.
Titles such as Misses, Mrs or Miss are all no-no's. Because they identify a person as a female.
Title are fine, provided it's not fire *man* or Chair*man*
It has to be Firefighter, or Chairperson.
Something that does not signify a gender in any way.
Some thing with age or race based language.
You can't refer to someone as African American, Black or any other term what so ever unless it specifically deals with the context of the conversation and then it must be a conjoining of the individuls original country as well as their current country.
Quit frankly, for this good ol boy from Georgia its all quite mind boggling and I got scolded for calling my Professor "ma'am".
Not only because I said the word ma'am but also because it's a bloody contraction.
Instead of protesting the entire system (recall our tilting at windmill converstion previously, Mr. John? :) )and attempting to martyr myself to the gods of academa I resounded to keep my mouth shut, get my degree and walk away with something reseambling my sanity still in tact.
Instead of protesting the entire system (recall our tilting at windmill converstion previously, Mr. John? :) )and attempting to martyr myself to the gods of academa I resounded to keep my mouth shut, get my degree and walk away with something reseambling my sanity still in tact.
Yeah, but some of us like being people instead of causes, y'know?
Btdt, BS. I hear you. If you were, say, RBBH, and had her family financial backing you would become a cause. But you don't. So you do what you have to.
I will offer this advice, the very same I give to kids who speak Ebonics and carp about getting hammered for it: You are not in your 'Hood anymore. You aren't in Georgia anymore, homeboy. Titles is a new one though. Really, check latest MLA or governing body on this. If the prof is just being a witch you can burn her at the stake with the rulings of the appropriate governing body. I think titles are still okay. At least they were when I went thru this nonsense 8 years ago.
And if you just need someone to be mad at, BS, you know where to find gollum.
by ry on June 3, 2008 2:17 PM
BTW, I was just commenting on the reality, and not making a "Fie, you coward!" assertion.
If we are to not use words like Ma'am, I guess I am screwed. Chivalry is NOT dead, it has a sucking chest wound, yes, but it survives. Most women I know are secure enough in themselves that they enjoy being treated respectfully and understand it is not a "put down" of any type. As for contractions, if Academia don't like 'em, they can go piss up a rope. Normal folks use them and we pay the bills that allow Academia to sit in their little world and judge everyone else.
Keep up the good work BloodSpite.
Scouts Out
by CAVSCT on June 3, 2008 4:12 PM
Nah I ain't in the habit of beating messengers for messages that aren't of their making.
I meant it in the "Well, if you need a younger brother to shoot spitballs at..." kinda thing. kicking gollum is more humane than kicking your dog or shooting varmits, but only slightly when it comes to shooting varmits.
by ry on June 3, 2008 5:42 PM
CAVSCT,
Any woman with a shred of self-respect and self-confidence knows that "Ma'am" and other such gender-based evidences of respect are not condescensions, but markers of the speaker's/actor's deferential appreciation of the fact that she is not a man (and I firmly believe that "Ma'am" in the context of authority does not lose its sense of respect and authority when colored by that awareness).
And vice-versa for uses of "sir."
I feel very sorry for people who are so frightened by awareness/recognition of gender differences that they refuse to acknowledge their existence.
I remember from, oh, back in 1978 it might have been, when I was running a wood chipper for Bartlett "Tree Experts" (got Mad Mike to exempt me from being chipped as a FL voter, and promoted to throttleman on his main chipper crew! Well, I hope...)
Well, anyway, to get back to the story, we were hired by an ancient Southern lady to take down a large old pine tree or two in her yard which had been crippled and killed by some pine-specific insects. (Who'da thunkit?)
The job was very delicate, involving taking the tree down in rather small pieces because of the narrow space in which we had to work.
At any rate, I made the mistake of addressing the lady as "Mrs. Satterwhite" (or something.)
She promptly came right back at me and assured me that she was a "Miss", and had been so all of her life since before I had been thought of, and would continue to be a "Miss" for the rest of her life, thankyouverymuch.
We all said "Yes, Ma'am!"
P.s. One of the things that peeves me about Ms. is that I was raised Southern, and then moved to Southern florida when small. Everybody in Georgia just said "Mizz" rather than try to figure out whether or not the woman we were addressing was married.
Then I went to Pubic Skrools run by (quite sharp, but culturally clueless) Damnyankees in Southern florida and was taught that I could no longer say "Mizz", that it was a Southernism, and that I should always try to find out if a woman was married or not, so I'd know to call her Miss or Mrs.
Now y'all know why I passionately hate the goddamned feminists who want us to say "Mizz", as well as the other goddamned feminists of which Bloodspite writes.
I was taught to say "Mizz", then taught not to do so, then some folks wanted me to do so again, and now I hear from Bloodspite that all of our pronouns have been officially comletely compendiously sodomized.
By Bolshevik PCs. Where P stands for "Police" and C stands for what you think it stands for...
Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
Time to add a new caveat, because from email it's not clear to some folks (mind you, if you don't read this it won't matter...) Being an open post, people (collectively, the Denizens) other than I post in the H&I. They sign their work (most of the time) - keep that in mind when you want to flame someone in email please - if it doesn't say "The Armorer" or "John" then I didn't write it! And honestly - if you don't like something said or posted... leave a comment, and hash it out (within the context of The Rulez which are clearly posted on the comment form, I would add).
********************************
"I think that this is the first war in history that on the morrow the victors sued for peace and vanquished called for unconditional surrender." Okay, who, and about what? -the Armorer
*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.
Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.
Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*
The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.
I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
Oh, y'know yer a chickenhawk now, right? Since you aren't fighting or subject to fight, if you support the war, you're a chickenhawk. Just wanna make that clear.
No, no, Bill. You're either a) a poorly-treated veteran forced into virtual prostitution and therefore a victim of the heartless Rethuglican administration or, b) a mercenary bastard who deserves whatever horrible death the mujis inflict upon you, and the more horrible, the more Just.
Get with the program, dude. Do you even *read* the memos?
..now if we can just ask Congress to put a wee bit of "Green" into those of us who are "Grey Area" pink card holders...
..then maybe i could qualify for mercenary status.
by RetRsvMike on June 2, 2008 2:43 PM
I'm waiting for Bill to write his memoirs (obviously with an excellent ghost writer and editor): Memoirs of a Mercenary Bastard: Selling Your Soul to the Devil one Dinar at a Time
by kat-missouri on June 2, 2008 2:50 PM
Well, Bill, that makes 2 of us, I guess. I was a mercenary bastard in Iraq for 2 years, 8 months, but now, I'm soaking up the sun (mare than plenty) in the UAE, training/supporting the Emiratis in maintaining their sovereignty against (I don't think I can say who, but they live on the other side of the gulf).
Therefore, feel free to call me a chicken hawk mercenary bastard, but I'm still entitled to the cheap beer at the VFW due to my time when I was too stupid to get a real job (LOL). Although, my pension pays better than some of those liberal smart people make… Things that make you go hmmm…
by Oldloadr on June 2, 2008 3:04 PM
Selling Your Soul to the Devil one Dinar at a Time
Geez, I'll be around *forever* -- do you know how many dinars you've gotta scrape together to get ten bucks?
Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
Time to add a new caveat, because from email it's not clear to some folks (mind you, if you don't read this it won't matter...) Being an open post, people (collectively, the Denizens) other than I post in the H&I. They sign their work (most of the time) - keep that in mind when you want to flame someone in email please - if it doesn't say "The Armorer" or "John" then I didn't write it! And honestly - if you don't like something said or posted... leave a comment, and hash it out (within the context of The Rulez which are clearly posted on the comment form, I would add).
********************************
A little news from an island nation (vice continent) Down Under as reported by Murray (who has posting privileges, for pity's sake):
Hullen Clark has made an aplogy to viet Nam vets for teh way they were treated when they came home.
Lamest.apology.ever
Didn't even include the word sorry and made much of her labour partys anti-war stance.
In the latest round of people going boo hiss a survivor of the communist invasion has added a comment in the local rag.
At present Labour are very unpopular with polling in the low 30's and Kiwis once again proud of their military - see Willie Apaiata VC.
I suspect we're having a bit of a turn around.
Just as we're probably about to have a bit of a turn-around... heh. -the Armorer
*********************************
Best line in email yesterday: "I might come across as a friendly and reasonable guy, but in truth I’m a lawyer." Emphasis mine. -the Armorer
Reuters news agency says about 500 Australian combat troops have begun pulling out of their base in southern Iraq, fulfilling an election promise by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to bring the soldiers home this year.
Thanks for the multi-year assist, Diggers - including sticking through the tough times. -the Armorer
*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.
Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.
Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*
The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.
I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
Query: In the event that a front runner is DSQ'd, wouldn't "running the video tape," if allowed, be one of the first things done? I know some sports do not allow for instant replay.
by GeoSTI on June 1, 2008 10:54 AM
That's discussed in the article Geo - it was an "unofficial" tape.
Sorry Sir, didn't catch that the first time through.
Also interesting on the discrepancy in the disqualification reporting. I think it goes back to the discussion in the comments, that situations like this should have the process itself be examined, something which is rarely done.
by GeoSTI on June 1, 2008 11:45 AM
Eh? I've been screwed before. I was a 145lb sophmore running against seniors and had a victory snatched away by a linesman who simply was pushy. It happens.
I stand by my commentary eariler. Given the info I had, and the point(sportsmanship is not simply letting yourself get played, or being a doormat) I was trying to make I think I'm still in good stead.
You don't run on the infield just becuase you're boxed in. That's cheating like a rat-wasterd because someone outthought you. Verbotten.
And I've *never* heard of an official taping of an entire race at the HS level. Maybe accutrack at the end. It's just not done, but it's been 9 years since I was serious. Maybe times have changed.
Yeah, when you tot up the score - the Ozzies have been about our most constant ally - and they've come at our call more often than we've come at theirs, though it's not an analogy to push too far.
I'll cut the Canadians some slack, given we did keep trying to invade for a century before we went to the indirect approach, via television and movies. Which, come to think of it, isn't working that well, either.
And if I've dissed the Kiwis, I'm sure Murray will set me straight.
Ry, the problem is that the girl didn't step out. The official made a very bad call and didn't even get the lap right. Bad calls are part of most games, but to disqualify someone that did not break the rules is pretty lame, especially at a state meet. This information also makes what the rest of the girls did sportsmanship. They knew the girl got screwed by the call probably because they were close to her the whole time.
So, what does sportsmanship call for in this instance?
Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
Time to add a new caveat, because from email it's not clear to some folks (mind you, if you don't read this it won't matter...) Being an open post, people (collectively, the Denizens) other than I post in the H&I. They sign their work (most of the time) - keep that in mind when you want to flame someone in email please - if it doesn't say "The Armorer" or "John" then I didn't write it! And honestly - if you don't like something said or posted... leave a comment, and hash it out (within the context of The Rulez which are clearly posted on the comment form, I would add).
********************************
'Nuff said. H/t, Jim D. -the Armorer
******************************** Remember this? There was every indication that things were headed down a familiar path. It's all not entirely out of the woods, but yesterday she saw the proof: miracles still happen.
McCain Trusted More on the economy and Iraq. You think? And people don't like tax hikes and that a McCain presidency would lead to victory in Iraq though there is a small majority (52%) of Americans who, paradoxically, believe its more important to bring the troops home than win the war.
I wonder what order they asked the questions in? Because, if you can get victory, why would you leave? The question we keep booting around here. -Kat
Today, in the comments to the 'bullets' post, I made a passing reference to "Blazing Saddles."
Then, checking email, I find this: Harvey Korman died yesterday. I always liked Mr. Korman as an actor. SWWBO and I got to see him and Tim Conway doing their act at the Silver Legacy in Reno, and it was worth twice the price of admission. As Mel Brooks told the AP:
"A world without Harvey Korman -- it's a more serious world," Brooks told the AP on Thursday. "It was very dangerous for me to work with him because if our eyes met we'd crash to floor in comic ecstasy. It was comedy heaven to make Harvey Korman laugh."
Mr. Korman served in the Navy, so, "Fair winds and following sea, sailor."
Now is the time at Castle Argghhh! when we dance: In Memoriam, for Harvey Korman. -the Armorer
*********************************
This came to me with the tag of "Another tempest in a teapot". Perhaps. But it still works at cross-purposes to what the US is trying to accomplish in Iraq. -the Armorer
Those young men and women, serving a government without the guts to even talk about a draft, are essentially indentured servants. Worse. At least indentured servants knew when their obligation would be over
*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.
Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.
Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*
The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.
I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
I had a liberal tell me one time, "Flamethrowers are barbaric and should not be allowed for use in modern warfare." This from an idiot who called me "baby killer" because I served as an airborne grunt and sniper. "So," I innocently (yeh, right!) asked, "There are appropriate modern wars?" He was still choking as I walked away, destroyed by his poor grasp of logic and PC thinking.
For the flamethrower, he should always be aware of the warning, "BACKBLAST AREA CLEAR?"
by Alan Briley, RN on May 30, 2008 9:05 AM
I'm not a Lib, but I do also think that flame-throwers are barbaric and unnecessary. I'm also having a problem with the US not signing the ban on cluster bombs signed by 111 other countries today. The excuse "we'll diffuse the uxo's better" just doesn't fly. http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/05/30/cluster.treaty/index.html
by AFSister on May 30, 2008 12:28 PM
How about "The Chinese and Russians aren't playing, either."
Does that help?
Cluster munitions are a clear menace. But when you built your doctrine around them, it's foolish to just toss 'em over the side without having made the requisite adjustments.
And we are actually working on reducing the dud rate. And there is a lot more training in when to use them (they were almost a default choice, back when the SU was the major threat) and the ROE for their employment is much more strict - moreso than the ones in place for Kosovo.
And while flame weapons may appear barbaric, and there is no arguing they are nasty ways to die, they don't seem so bad when your alternative is to go into the caves and bunkers and winkle the bad guy out with small arms.
Of course, now we just bury 'em in the bunker and let 'em suffocate or starve.
At the sharp end, AFSis, it's an ugly business.
Doesn't mean we shouldn't do what we can to reduce it - and especially the post-conflict threat, but I'm not sure spending 10 minutes bleeding out with your intestines dangling around your knees is all that better a death.
Heh. When are they going to get around to thermobarics and stuff like MOAB?
From my standpoint, it isn't the dud rate. It's the 'wars over, let's go home' attitude. There's more to it than that. The 'flailtank' and other things like that make this a non-problem if people stick around to clean up their mess.
I'm just waiting until someone dies from the lack of mines(and soon to be clutermunitions) and the rise of people who scream about why we didn't 'do everything'. Kind of like we saw with body armor and humvees. It's all morally superior until someone loses an eye.(What did they put into this lemonade? I seem really caustic the last couple of days.).
by ry on May 30, 2008 1:53 PM
So, we double-teamed 'em on the handing out coins.
As for Mr. Reeves - yes, Mr. Reeves, it *is* a professional Army. One far, far, far more professional, and better treated, better trained, better equipped and subject to less personal danger, than any draftee army that preceded it.
And that's taking nothing away from those draftee soldiers, who, despite the shortfalls and shortcomings, did amazing things - that's just putting credit where it's due.
Ok, we'll take it from the top.
The poster - too funny! Love the non-PC caption.
Flamethrowers - I have never been in combat and it is highly unlikely that I ever will be. That said, I want my miltary to have every weapon at their disposal. I also want them trained on every weapon possible. To paraphrase the CNO, I never want my military to go into a fair fight, I want them to have every advantage.
Also, if you throw out flamethrowers because they are barbaric - what next? I am told being gut shot is a slow painful death. So, will we say that our military should only take the shot if it will be a clean headshot and quick and painless death?
Everything to do with McCain - Yeah, I know, he's fab. Shut up and vote for him. Bye, Susan, mind the door.
Harvey Korman was a Sailor? Good deal!
The Marine(s) and the coins. He's lucky I wasn't there. I would've smacked him upside the head so hard his eyes would have rolled! What the hell was he thinking? Answer - he wasn't. Clearly.
I don't think there really is a point where war isn't barbaric. Killing and injuring people isn't exactly chardonnay and chit chat with gentle classical in the background.
But there is better and there is worse.
I really best shut up about the chocolate, i'd just get into trouble.
Good grief. Seriously with the chocolate? Someone (several someones, actually) has ENTIRELY too much stinking time on their hands. Really...all of the time, effort, brainpower, and money that went into creating that piece of...work couldn't have been used for something more, um, useful? Really?
Dumb question, are flame throwers still in inventory?.....And the only good way to die offhand ,is getting snuffed by a jealous 30 year old husband on your 85th birthday.
by big al on May 30, 2008 10:09 PM
The US Army flamethrowers went out of the inventory during/right after Vietnam. They were replaced by a rocket system, which was still in inventory in the 80s, anyway.
With the proliferation of rockets like the LAW and AT-4, and the profusion of 40mm grenade launchers, the flamethrower wasn't seen as worth the risks to the operator, nor provisioning of fuel, etc, as the tactical mission was covered. Same thing is true of napalm, really. With the irony in this discussion being that napalm was considered replaceable because of... cluster bombs.
I agree there really isn't a "good" way to die if you're going to start comparing gut shots to fire, however, anyone who has been burned will tell you that it's about the most painful thing you'll ever endure. It's also a slower death if you survive the initial fire. Think about the Marine who recently died in San Antonion. He suffered 2nd and 3rd degree burns over something like 90% of his body- and lived... for 3 years. Burn risk reduction is why the military banned UnderArmor thermals- they're nylon and melt when exposed to heat. The saying goes "cotton kills" when you're talking about cold weather gear, but so does melting nylon.
Replacing naplam with cluster bombs is rather ironic. Heh.
Considering that China, Russia and the United States are probably the most prolific users of cluster bombs, it doesn't surprise me that those three countries wouldn't sign the ban. Maybe technology has improved the "dud rate", but not enough is being done to rid the world of unexploded cluster bombs. There's a huge move to rid the world of unexploded land mines, but not enough on these cluster bombs from what I've read.
by AFSister on May 31, 2008 10:15 AM
There's a huge move to rid the world of unexploded land mines, but not enough on these cluster bombs from what I've read.
*That* I can agree with. You have to prepare to spend a lot "after the war" to clean up the effects. And if the locals won't/can't/shouldn't do it, then we have an obligation to do so (absent starting a war again...).
On the other hand, Argent, the non=pretty colors make them harder to find for disposal too. Double edged sword, that. There's ways of doing this, and then there's accepting that wars are icky. Sometimes.
Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
Time to add a new caveat, because from email it's not clear to some folks (mind you, if you don't read this it won't matter...) Being an open post, people (collectively, the Denizens) other than I post in the H&I. They sign their work (most of the time) - keep that in mind when you want to flame someone in email please - if it doesn't say "The Armorer" or "John" then I didn't write it! And honestly - if you don't like something said or posted... leave a comment, and hash it out (within the context of The Rulez which are clearly posted on the comment form, I would add).
********************************
A serving Canadian officer publicly spanks an American deserter and all those morally bereft cretins who would support him up here north of the 49th. - Damian
********************************
From the email box this afternoon:
I am not a *demagogue*.
I am a *demigod*.
Spelling counts.
Heh.
Three guesses as to which of the deployed Argghhh! correspondents this came from.
--ry
*****************************************
Kat in GA [Not to be confuse with our own Denizen Kat] is in need of some help.
Good morning, everyone! Just wanted to drop you a note to update you on the status of our Operation Love From Home 2008 4th of July card drive for the troops. Sadly, we are still far, far short of our 5,000-card goal... we have in our possession slightly less than 1,500 cards. We've extended the deadline until JUNE 14, 2008. Please do all you can to help get the word out, and send in a card or two! :) Every single card/letter helps tremendously, and truly makes a very real difference! An empty P.O. Box means less 4th of July Thank You cards & letters going to our troops. :-(
So what is "Operation Love From Home?" - 4TH OF JULY CARD DRIVE FOR DEPLOYED TROOPS
The Mission: To collect at least 5,000 "thank you" cards for troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The majority of the cards collected will go to a unit currently stationed in an extremely harsh and remote area of Afghanistan.
The Reason: Being away from home and living in harsh conditions with combat & constant danger is difficult ~ our troops need to know we have not forgotten them!!! Mail from home helps to keep our troops' morale strong, making a very real difference in their lives. It keeps them motivated and focused when they know we care about them!
The Address: Send your signed, unsealed thank-you cards to the following address:
Mrs. Kathy Orr
OPERATION: LOVE FROM HOME
P.O. Box 1660
Loganville, Georgia, 30052
ALL CARDS MUST BE RECEIVED NO LATER THAN SATURDAY, JUNE 14, 2008.
The Guidelines:
The cards can be handmade or store-bought (letters are just fine, too). This is a great opportunity to get your Scout troop, school, church and other civic organizations involved in doing something to show support for our troops.
Please do not write the date on your cards
Please, no glitter on the cards. Because of the intended destination of the cards, nothing "shiny" should be sent for safety & security reasons.
For those of you that have been deployed you can attest to the power that receiving mail from home can do for one's moral, it really does mean a lot to them to receive mail.
David M
*****************************************
Uh-oh. Princess Crabby is going to have connipitions....
General Officer Announcement
Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates announced today that the President has nominated Army Maj. Gen. Ricky Lynch for appointment to the rank of lieutenant general and assignment as commanding general, III Corps and Fort Hood, Fort Hood, Texas. He is currently serving as commanding general, 3d Infantry Division (Mechanized)/Multi-National Division - Center, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Iraq.
*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.
Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.
Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*
The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.
I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
Well, ruin the suspense even. If I put in heliflopter herder 1) everyone would've known it was you and 2) HF6 would've kneecapped me for lying since you're a close second.
Um, since you helped Sky Boss with the formula for mud, aren't they all a little to young for you, Unka Bill?(wait, John filled in all the holes? Dude! where am I supposed to hide now?!)
Heh. Bill, that reminds me of a ventriloquist I saw once who was using a shaggy muppet-type puppet for his show. At one point the puppet started making these hacking, retching sounds in the middle of the show. The exchange with the comic ventriloquist went something like this:
It seems silly to pretend this isn't a shot across my bow, so to speak, so I won't. No, sorry, but I’m not buying this fallacy by emotional plea to the audience argument. And here are the reasons why.
A) Misunderstanding The Cold War
The Cold War, despite the loss of thousands (which is better than 100k increments if you ask me) in the places where proxy wars occurred, did cause one side to be unable to reach its goal. It (oh gawd I hate cribbing from Dan) off-loaded the conflict from one of direct violent confrontation to one of economic, political, and military confrontation, with a resulting lower body count over the same period of time. Fewer broken bodies along the way to victory (sort of like how we study Network Centric and Effects Based Ops to limit the number of bodies necessary to win) how is that a bad deal? Oh, well, I guess it's just manlier to take one's grief in mega-loads all at once, to chug it all beer-like.
Of course one has to remember that the WHOLE POINT of fighting the Cold War as it was fought was one of costs. It wasn’t about changing goals or ends, but of means. No change in the manner in which one fights is ever about taking away an opponent’s goals so much as finding better and cheaper ways of denying the enemy his goals or bending him to your political will (all Clausewitz-like). As much as I dislike George Kennan for becoming an anti-nuclear advocate he was 100% right that we had to change the means in which we thought to pursue our ends or the death counts would be beyond imagination and tolerance of any moral individual. Having so much of Europe emulate the wasteland that the Eastern Front was at the end of WW2 was exactly what he thought would be the result of WW3, and for good reason. Look what came of it with the industrially and economically hobbled Nazis, and now you’re going to talk about the two strongest economies and industrial bases at war’s end going at it. No, this is a twisting of the Cold War in a gratuitous manner. It ignores the issue of scale.
Let’s just skip straight to Party Time, and not even consider other alternatives because, well, people will die if we don’t. As if just as many, maybe more, people won’t also die if we just barrel on ahead with the assumption that the only way ahead is masjor military intervention. Let’s not even consider that there were three options available to us at any point in the Cold War, just as there are, at least, three facing us now, and that we constantly chose the one with the greatest chance of real success and the lowest body count during the CW while we have the possibility of doing the same with Iran in the present. I’m not saying which one that is, so much as saying it is fundamentally necessary to look and evaluate potential pathways before we commit to anything.
We had three major pathways in the Cold War available to us. We could’ve gone the Students for a Democratic Society collaborationist route, which would’ve turned us into communists ourselves, and unleashed a death orgy like we’ve seen in Mao’s Great Leap, Stalin’s Purges, and during Tet at the city of Hue. We could’ve gone with Roll Back, glowed in the dark, and watched humanity be supplanted by the cockroaches, but felt good about ourselves as we died (or while we watched hundreds of millions of others die) because, well, if we didn’t people would die. Which is a weird twist of logic employed here. Instead, we took the path that hurt, called Containment, which got us where we are now vis-à-vis the Soviet Union: we’re here, they’re not, and the path is not littered with as many bodies as it would have with either other alternative. But, nope, despite there being other alternatives available here (at least in potential and worth examining before we say, “Johnnie, get your gun, the commies are in our hemisphere today.”). It’s a pure binary set-up. One orgy of death or another and you have to pick either vanilla or chocolate in some people’s minds apparently. This isn’t ‘nuance’ here; we’re talking about deciding how many people die and why they die here. That’s not nuance. (more below the fold)
Let's just toss aside that Ike, when he first entered office, thought of nukes like bullets, just ordnance to be expended. Let’s forget that early in Ike’s tenure and his Sov counter part’s that threats were hurled fairly consistently over the use of nuclear arms. They were threatened in Korea, over the first Formosa Straight crisis and subsequent ones, and simply as hyperbole at times. But he changed his mind. He realized what he had in his hands, and his policy regarding them changed because of it. So did that of his Soviet counterpart.
But the Mullahs can't do that. They can't realize the horribleness of it. They can't possibly grasp that hitting Israel, which has had, tacitly, our nuclear umbrella extended over them, means that Iran disappears, forever; either by a ruthless campaign that would make Bomber Harris happy, or nuclear retaliation on a much smaller scale than Cold War levels. Yeah, they’re evil, and so that means they’re inherently and irredeemably stupid too. No, there’s no learning curve involved here at all and we can’t even entertain the idea that they might be capable of following the trail Eisenhower blazed at all. We need to just skip straight ahead, regardless of outcomes and costs measured in lives, to Party Time because, well, people are dying.
So it must be that some country winds up a burn-out cinder because Iran would wind up with nuclear weapons or that they’d wind up uncontested in their devious plots. Despite historical evidence to the contrary, that even a nuclear armed state’s cloak and dagger moves can be checked, we cannot even contemplate anything but a full fledged take down. That would be idiotic to do. Sit down, shut up, and hang on is the only acceptable approach so let’s not even waste the time on it, you collaborationist traitors you.
C) Proxy Wars Are Not As Good As The Real Thing
Let’s forget that what tolerated someone making a much more serious threat to the economic life’s blood that is what lays below the ME, with nuclear arms no less, and beat that back cheaply with proxy wars. Turning it into a complex dance of economics, industrial power, and low intensity armed conflict instead of a full-on clash that a Spartan Hoplite would love in all its Technicolor gore and glory (shock battle, baby!) was so stupid and not in our favor in the past so how ever could it be in our favor now? Hundreds of thousands dead directly, millions more indirectly, because we like the direct, “full mobilization of the nation” style of war more is such a smarter play that we shouldn’t even consider this possibility when contemplating what to do about Iran? I've been such a fool.
Last I checked though, we won because our plan was better.
It's not like we could ever accept them as central player in the ME, like we couldn’t accept Soviet control of Eastern Europe or Communists to control continental China for 50 years. It's not like we could ever leverage that to our advantage by having the conflict played out in other realms instead of the purely kinetic and physical one. I mean, bankrupting the enemy to win? It’ll never happen, stupid to contemplate, and a waste of our time. Make with the Great Power Warfare already, regardless of actual costs, people we like are dying.
Economic development and a take down from within (which PRC fears and the Soviet Union disappeared as a result of) has worked in the past. Proxy wars, simply holding someone up instead of stomping their guts out has worked in the past to prevent domination by those we consider evil and depraved. So it would be foolish to consider it now.
The costs of achieving said victories was much cheaper and more likely, when looked at the intact nature of the West and the East at the time of the end of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact, via this route. Could the same be possible when talking about a nuclear- armed Iran? Is it possible that we could array forces, in the multiple spheres of conflict, to steer the confrontation to the end we desire like we have in the past? Of course not and it isn’t worth our time to consider the lower cost of lives in pursuing this. Naw, let's just have a Party at Ground Zero.
Sorry, but I’m not buying. Even if one ultimately chooses to do Iran, a full blown invasion because air strikes only kick the can down the road for a spell, you have to examine if it is the best play. If you’re trying to make an argument based on numbers of dead, hell, you’re likely to find you’re in quicksand since a war to end the Mullah-cracy, if one accepts the CW analogy originally adopted, is costlier than letting them be Numero Uno in the ME with nuclear weapons. How many civilians will die there? How many of our Service people will die there, considering that the Pasdaran (the Iranian SOF) *definitely* has taken notes from Iraq and is better equipped than the initial insurgency there? What, you don’t think they won’t fall back on a guerilla strategy?
Don’t forget that, yeah, we can do shadow war right back. We can ram it down their throats just as hard as they try to do it to us. Sure, the costs didn't disappear with this shift away from the direct and physical during the Cold War, but they were lower. Economic sabotage like the faulty computers to Russia is open to us. Cloak and dagger stuff. We can make them build, and build, and build with their very limited industrial base, pushing them to the brink of collapse just like we did for 45 years in the Cold War, with a much lower misery index, but that’s a play for losers. Yeah, this was such a losing play and it still is.
D) Quantity of Suffering and Death.
You want to talk death and suffering? Really? How about how many? That's the point of MAD and the Cold War, as Barnett talks about it, which doesn’t seem to be understood here, the issue of scale.
You'd rather we had particular and discrete conflicts where we talked about 500k casualties, if not more, in ten years instead of 50k in the same period, like Vietnam, and hundreds of billions of dollars of lost economic transactions that then has the ripple effect of millions more who die from 'lack of resources' (things like people dying from treatable diseases, contaminated food supplies because there's no development to do anything about it— the very same ripple effect grabbed onto to denounce the Cold War) because we’ve gutted the infrastructure (Seoul, Korea in 1953, but a bunch of them), instead of proxy wars. So, yeah, people want talk about it this way, fine. People want to deride the Cold War as not having changed anything for the better, fine. You own all of it though. You own the consequences of the alternate path, the blood bath that Roll Back would have been. You own a ruined Europe, some of it uninhabitable from BCW use. You own millions of refugees faced with no hope and mass starvation. You own it.
Same exists here with Iran. There are alternate pathways with different body counts at the end, as costs for traveling it. You accept responsibility for all of it and not just the stuff you like (kicking Iran's heiny), but all the consequences too and the ripple affects in totality as well. Own all of it. All of the dead and not just the one’s you want to accept in some arbitrary manner. All the misery and grief and kids dying from rickets and starvation because you found a classic von Clausewitz-ian fight of annihilation more palatable then a long shadow war, you VD Hanson lover you. Accept responsibility for all the stuff that gets glossed over when talk of being unable to accept a nuclear Iran because of body counts. You.Own.All.Of.It.
Digression: Do you actually feel better when you look at all the consequences of such a bigger, nastier level of war? Do you? I never have. In fact, I can’t ever seem to feel clean whenever I even contemplate this kind of Roll Back/Orgy of Blood type reasoning. It feels good for a few minutes, but when I work out the system of equations I start feeling like Lady Macbeth. So much blood, so much death, and there’s never enough soap to wash it away. End.
When doing the nasty Calculus of Death you don’t get to count only one side of the ledger. You have to do both sides, the whole system of equations. Scale matters. Even if it does make one an @55hole to consider scale.
--ry
Yeah, they’re evil, and so that means they’re inherently and irredeemably stupid too. No, there’s no learning curve involved here at all and we can’t even entertain the idea that they might be capable of following the trail Eisenhower blazed at all. We need to just skip straight ahead, regardless of outcomes and costs measured in lives, to Party Time because, well, people are dying.
and you are assuming that, gaining the nuclear weapon, they will, indeed, grow into this rational being. It's all guess work, compadre. Just looking at their current political affairs where anyone who even looks like or smells like a non IRGC "moderate" is being driven from office ought to give that entire argument a little more pause.
Along with the long held belief in martyrdom that they have supported and acted on in the last three decades.
I'm going by what they have done and you are hoping nuclear tech and/or weapons will suddenly make them something else.
Let's recap:
thousands of children and other non-military, walking across Iraqi mine fields carrying "the key to paradise".
Iranians letting lose with chem weapons that blew back into their own trenches.
That's two in one war and we're not talking about the 1950's when people didn't understand the power of nuclear weapons or the first expression of nuclear arsenals. We're talking about right now when it is well known and has existed for 70 years. Anyone still talking crazy about wanting it or using it and isn't "grown up" already is a serious danger.
for the rest of your argument, you'll have to wait, cause I'm trying to get ready for a conference call.
by kat-missouri on May 29, 2008 1:33 PM
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 05/30/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.
Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
Time to add a new caveat, because from email it's not clear to some folks (mind you, if you don't read this it won't matter...) Being an open post, people (collectively, the Denizens) other than I post in the H&I. They sign their work (most of the time) - keep that in mind when you want to flame someone in email please - if it doesn't say "The Armorer" or "John" then I didn't write it! And honestly - if you don't like something said or posted... leave a comment, and hash it out (within the context of The Rulez which are clearly posted on the comment form, I would add).
The Bon Jovi IED
O Dark Thirty. Memorial Day weekend, not that any of us were really aware of that at the time. Patrolling up and down Route Daytona, the highway stretch that serves as the logistical spinal column for the massive American body draped across this part of Iraq.
"Gravedigger 1, this is X-Ray." My entire vehicle groaned along with me.
Radio calls at this time of night rarely bring good news.
I responded and waited for the details for the latest goat symphony we needed to conduct. "Roger ... move south, to Checkpoint AL5. There's a convoy that has come to a halt on the far side of that checkpoint ... claims they see a box with some wires coming out of it. They need someone to check it out."
H/t, JimC. -the Armorer
*******************************
Sen. Inhofe visiting NLOS-C with Gen. Casey Photo by U.S. Army May 23, 2008
Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. George W. Casey traveled to Minneapolis for rollout of the first Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) Cannon prototype at the headquarters and central engineering site of BAE Systems. U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) accompanied Gen. Casey to the event, where they toured the BAE Armaments Systems facility and participated in a press conference. In front of the NLOS-C after its first operational test and public appearance, from left to right, Lt. Col. Robert McVay, Brig. Gen. David Ogg, Sen. Jim Inhofe, Gen. George Casey, and Col. Bryan McVeigh.
Heh. Isn't that thing taller than a Paladin? And that oh-so-contrived "Lookit us, we're thinking outside the box!" name... NLOS-C. Heh. Gad, they've spoiled the lines of my beloved artillery, managing to make the guns... *spugly*.
Sigh. -the Armorer
**********************************
The fight over the F-22 continues.
--ry
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*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.
Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.
Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*
The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.
I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
I am a firm believer in "Peace Through Strength". The threat of a US attack (air, ground, or sea) has kept our enemies at bay for hundreds of years. When we start to weaken our military through reduced funding and lack of vision, we weaken America and make ourselves vulnerable to attack.
AFSis, more accurately, the threat of US retaliation has kept us more moderately safer since 1945. Before that, most players figured us for minor league, and too far away to be worth the bother.
it appears to meet all the criteria to be classified on sight as being French.
by MajMike on May 28, 2008 2:37 PM
I dunno, John. I'm sure there is truth in what you're saying (you're the history dude after all), but we have ALWAYS kicked some serious a$$ in wars, going back to before the USA *was* the USA. Maybe we were left alone because of distance, but considering that a bunch of farmers and hunters smacked down the British Army during the Revolutionary War, I'd say we've always been a threat.
I've heard some people make comments about why we haven't won the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, considering we're fighting "a bunch of camel jockeys", and that we lost Vietnam to "rice farmers", but those who fought in those battles know better. They know that determination is a lethal weapon, and so is knowing the lay of the land. We were just as determined to win our freedom and independence, and we knew the lay of the land... and we beat the British.
No, I'm not saying that we lost Vietnam, AFG and Iraq (quite the contrary- we could have won Vietnam, and will win AFG and Iraq as long as we stick with it and don't pull out too early like we did in Vietnam)- but I am saying that fighting for your own homeland, on your own turf, gives you a distinct advantage of any enemy.
by AFSister on May 28, 2008 2:53 PM
We won in the Revolution because the Brits were distracted with events elsewhere in the world and not able to bring all their power to bear.
War of 1812? Frankly, similar.
Mexico? We won, but it's not like we were fighting a world class power, either.
Civil War? After that war, we'd have been a tough nut to crack, for a while. But we still had a coastal/riverine Navy. Our power was commericial, not military.
Spain? Beating up a cripple.
WWI? That's where we came out of our shell and showed we had a trule blue ocean Navy, and could field an impressive Army that could perform.
Then, Wilson got his knickers in a twist, everything came home, and, depending on the oceans and the Navy, we dissolved the Army, leaving a rump of 220K troops.
And no one really saw us as a challenger (nor did we really challenge anyone) and our location made that a pretty safe and sane approach to take.
Then we did start getting into a shoving match with the Japanese on several issues, not least of which was the mercantilist view of the world the Japanese had clashing with our capitalistic view of things.
And we got our clocks cleaned at Pearl Harbor, learned that the oceans weren't quite the barrier we had come to think they were, and got engaged.
Then, because we had nukes, we dumped the Army again, only to find out that unless you wanted to always fight a nuclear war, you were going to have to have a full-spectrum armed force, and that in an era of airplanes and missiles, it was better to have your defense forward-deployed than bunkering up in NorthAm.
But we didn't have "kick-ass" militaries at the start of most of our wars. We built them on the spot, and the geopolitical circumstances of the time allowed us that luxury.
That's my point. For most of our history, prior to WWII, were were mostly nearly defenseless, because we didn't need to be anything else.
The Armorer has it, the power of the US military is mostly a modern thing not that the US was really that much of a pushover before 1945. And it all relates to economics too. Military power needs people and money.
Mind you I agree with AFSis that now the US so heavily relies on the military for foreign policy any weakness might be quickly exploited. I view it as a dangerous situation.
As for the .. thing: We are the Superior Beings! Exterminate! Exterminate!
There were many examples of our unpreparedness in both World Wars and why it took so long to force our way back into Europe. Armorer: how about that cute little French light machine gun with the slotted mags that easily became fouled with mud, our GASOLINE powered Shermans in Africa. We never had a class tank all war. Our first carrier planes were no match for the Zero and our torpedo planes were sitting ducks. We sent the Marines into Guadalcanal with Springfields. The worst thing today is that all those industries that kept us in the World Wars don't exist anymore today. Oh well.
by Fishmugger on May 28, 2008 7:11 PM
NLOS
Gosh, I thought in the old days we just called that "indirect fire". LOL
by fdcol63 on May 28, 2008 8:06 PM
Ry ~
Boxy designs are great - in the right context. THIS is not the right context. THAT is "fugly".
And what year of Jetta were you thinking? The earliest model years (i.e. early 1980s) or something a little later in the history of the Jetta (ala early 1990s)? We have a '93.
Let the troops figure it out. They'll call it something...
by Blake Kirk on May 29, 2008 10:23 AM
Let the troops figure it out. They'll call it something...
*If* it's foisted off on them. And don't bet what they'll call it will be printable, even when reduced to an acronym.
I remember a contest CECOM had (back in the '80s) when it came time to name the very first computer program they fielded. The winning entry was "Digitally-Integrated Logistical Data Organizer."
[cue fanfare and initiate much in-house rejoicing]
Then somebody realized what the acronym spelled and the program was quietly re-christened...
Up through about '89 I'm thinking, HF6. The 'Hat Box on Wheels'. I've got a 95 right now that they tried to 'sleek out', and I don't like the contours.
Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
Time to add a new caveat, because from email it's not clear to some folks (mind you, if you don't read this it won't matter...) Being an open post, people (collectively, the Denizens) other than I post in the H&I. They sign their work (most of the time) - keep that in mind when you want to flame someone in email please - if it doesn't say "The Armorer" or "John" then I didn't write it! And honestly - if you don't like something said or posted... leave a comment, and hash it out (within the context of The Rulez which are clearly posted on the comment form, I would add).
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Well, for the last eight years, we've been subjected to comedy routines and books about President Bush's malapropisms and occasional mushmouth. Looks like, if Senator Obama convinces the electorate of his Presidential Gravitas, the comics will have just as much fun, if in a slightly different way.
No doubt the Rethuglican Attack Machine (sekritly directed by Karl Rove) will be watching for more dead people voting this upcoming election. Heh. Nothing like an Chicago politician and dead people... but this man has Powerz! He's raising zombies in New Mexico, too. Oh, by the way, Senator - Memorial Day is for the dead... it's Veteran's Day for the living. Not that it didn't stop the whole lot of you from politicizing the fargin' holiday. Faugh. -the Armorer
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I know someone is going to blast me, messily and angrily, for disagreeing on this. It isn’t good sportsmanship at all. It’s stupid and the rewarding cheaters (who can say cheaters never win, eh, if this is what now constitutes good sportsmanship?).
Sorry, stepping out of bounds to get around someone who had boxed you in because you made bad tactical mistakes in your race does not mean you won. Actually, you lose when you do that. Just like takedowns outside the circle in wrestling don’t count and touchdowns where you run part of the way out of bounds to avoid getting your clock cleaned get called back. I can’t believe this was even appealed. She lost even though she was the stronger runner, and rightly so. She got frustrated, cheated to overcome someone else’s brilliant gamesmanship (or fell prey to the random vagaries of the race or even paid the price for being a drafter during the race.) and got caught. Giving her the medal isn’t good sportsmanship. It’s stupid.
Don’t turn silliness into sportsmanship, please. It’s hard enough teaching the young ones how to play by the rules without having moving goal posts to contend with as it is.
--ry
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*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.
Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.
Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*
The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.
I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
I know, it's not funny. A day that shouldn't be used for domestic politics and chust thumping like that...was.
Still, I couldn't pass up the op. to turn that back on John. Sure, I'll pay for it(oi, I will pay for it), but you can't pass chances like that up, not if you're gollum.
by ry on May 27, 2008 10:12 AM
We are teetering on being afflicted with at least four years of what amounts to a looping "Saturday Night Live" sketch...
While I understand your pique, Ry, if the others want to swap around their medals, hug, and sing kum-by-yah, that's okay with me.
If would not be okay with me if the results of the race were officially overturned.
If the participants want it that way, unofficially, amongst themselves, okay. Number two is just admitting she got spanked, and didn't want to win on a technical issue, regardless of how important the issue is.
As a state champion myself, I admit I wouldn't be very proud of a distinction that came on a technical issue like that - but your point is well taken, like 'em or not, there are rules like that for a reason, not to gain an unfair advantage.
It's a semi-empty gesture - Nelson is still going to get the credit.
I'd save my ire for someone trying to overturn the official results, especially by lawsuit or something.
This is among the athletes themselves, they know who won and who didn't.
Heh. Until I read the article, I thought this was going to be about Danica Patrick's problems at Indy!
..and LTC DuBois (MI, Ret) knew full well that young Juan Rico only placed fourth in that race...
by MajMike on May 27, 2008 4:04 PM
I think you miss where I'm annoyed, BB. That ESPN is running this as a great example of sportsmanship(meaning that more people should be like this). That's wrong to encourage that. If you move the goal posts on what good sportsmanship like that you've got the, excuse please, was from psychological research(not mine either---no Castle Felines rending the rear upholstery of gollum, thanks), situation where girls change the rules of a game to make it 'more fair' instead of a single, universal rule for everyone(which is fair) as they walk in the door of the competition. I'm miffed at the media coverage. Damn it, kids are confused between the 'I's get's mine' of Allen Iverson-types and this rather silly example held up as what sportsmanship should be.
It's an incredibly selfless gesture, to be sure. It's the girl who finished second understanding that the other girl was a much stronger runner(but that doesn't mean better). Distance running is a tactical endeavor. Much more cerebral than sprints. The girl who came in second probably, I'll withold that util I can see some tape of the event, deserved to win because she manipulated the conditions of the race to *her* advantage. Gamesmanship is part of the equation, not just raw ability. (Which is why I disagree with the statement of the athletes know who won as you intend it. No, this action shows they don't really understand who won. Part of all games is using what you have in your favor to maximum advantage, and if your strategy infuriates someone into doing something stupid, like breaking the rules, well, tough. That's part and parcel of gamesmanship. Like you never frustrated an opponent by doing something, repeatedly, that drove him angry to the point of stupidity.)
Mmmm....Danica Patrick.....
RBBH wants to know if BSBH wants to borrow the 14" cast iron skillet. RBBH says so long as it comes back forensically clean we'll eat the shipping charges(we'll what?!)
Wait, did MajMike just drop a Heinlein reference(speaking of Heinlein, why is Green Hills of Earth on the floor of your garage, Armorer?) ?
by ry on May 27, 2008 4:31 PM
Ry, I have to disagree on the sportsmanship angle, especially if she was "boxed in". Many sports have quite poor contact rules and/or balking rules, track especially. What this should do is prompt a review of the rules of the sport, something which is needed in many now a-days. As long as it doesn't become like fencing, with a new rule each year a-la Calvin ball.
I think the Major's got it. The others did not feel they earned their rewards and *gasp*, tried to correct it, even unofficially. This IS something to be proud of in this day and age, where the need to EARN something is better than receiving it without any struggle.
Which brings me to Danica, oddly enough. She's pretty, but lacks talent required to move to a higher league. Her results do stem from her small stature, both in height and more importantly in an all-spec series, weight. CART/INDY min weight is car-only, not car+ driver. She won't stand a chance in something like F1 (where she will look like a giant next to Ferrari's number 2).
And there is the whole "can just turn left" issue. Even NASCAR has the Glen.
by GeoSTI on May 27, 2008 6:07 PM
Yes it's not good sportsmanship. All the same it's Ok for them to do that. Why does this matter to you so much? Bad sportsmanship is the norm in sports and that's mostly how the spectators like it.
Armorer, politicians politicize, it's their job. The reason many of us avoid it is because it usually involves a great deal of dishonorable behavior.
Ok ok....no me volunteering for hr uh..pit crew...or to look under her hood, or ball bearing adjustments or pistons, or rocker arms or rods or...uh yea...anyway
Especially that now I know Rye's D6 is playing overwatch for my warden I have to be careful! :)
Geo, dude, I'm walking on a bum knee because of how badly the contact rules are in track. Trust me, I know of what I speak. Boxing someone in is part of the tactical game of distance running. It's smart. It's taking their strength, the ability to push the pace high for a long time, without surrendering the advantage to us quick twitch muscle freaks.
Look, I was a drafter too. Someone who ran just behind the leader instead of trying to lead the race myself and then booked it the last 300 m of the race. IT's part and parcel of the game. Just because you've got an amazing kick doesn't mean the game has to be arranged just so for you to use it to your advantage. That's abusing the rules too, for undo advantage. The best way for a grunter to win is to box someone like me in and hold on hoping for a mass at the finish. What, are they going to institute a rule saying that I can't draft, saving my energy the entire race, only to kick people down in the last 300m then to offset my undo advantage? That's the only way a grunter, someone who's got endurance for days but no real high gear, is going to win. If they don't, dude, I'm going to win every damn time. I'm just going to let the grunter do all the hard work for 90% of the race and then sprint ahead at the end. And, yeah, leading a race is damn hard work. It's a lot easier to be just off their shoulder or totaly in their wind shadow.
And I've not gotten into the psychological effects of drafting someone either.
Like I said, vagaries of the race. It happens. Sometimes someone plans to box you in, sometimes it simply happens. That doesn't mean you get to break the rules to escape. Hell frackin' no. If you're really that cool you slwo down, drop back, go gonzo up the outside, hope you've got enough left in the tank, and vomit when you cross the line(heck, she won by more than 5 seconds, that's totally within her capabilities). Sometimes you'll lose. Chance is part of it after all. John's got a different perspective. He outclassed so many of his opponents in wrestling that he doesn't seem to get how some of us lesser beings would have to gameplan him, to offset his natural advantages of size and speed, and put the fight on our terms so we'd have a snowball's chance of winning. Which is also part of the game too, afterall. If you want nothing but pure talent go for sprints of 400m or less where you're always in one lane. No tactics involved.
No, that these girls coughed up their medals shows they don't understand how the game is played. They *got* played. Their whole conception of racing is the kick at the end, it would seem. He with the better kick is the best. balls. There's other ways of winning. And if the chick was so good why didn't she go back up the outside instead of cheating? No, they got played. I wouldn't complain if it *was* someone admitting they really didn't win, but this isn't.
Though I agree about fencing. THe rule I always hated in saber was the elimnation of the fleche and the arm cocked grants right of way rule. Yeah, like that's fair. He's got right of way, indefinitly, and can just back me off the piste. (But that just shows how long I've been out of fencing, huh?)
by ry on May 28, 2008 6:19 AM
Ry, I think we're on the same page, at least on the whole "system needs reformation" bit. I'm not a runner, so other than the rules explained to me by some of the more lanky types, all I know is that the penalties for contact and balking are similar to horse racing, where any contact, even something that in motorsports would be considered a racing incident, results in a full DSQ.
I wasn't there, so I'm not sure if going up and to the outside was an option, or what her options of maneuver were. If she could have dropped back, then powered ahead (I'm assuming that 5 seconds is a large margin in running of this distance, again, massive ignorance on my part), then the others did get played. You're right, even if she could have dropped and then re-gained, she still broke the rules.
I'm just used to sports where the goal is to push that line with the rules. That's what judges and stewards are for.
I *think* they've fixed the arm-cocked rule in sabre, but I'm a foilist (that hasn't been in it for 2 years due to an issue with knee+metal piste), so grain of salt. The point close to this topic is the elimination of the yellow cards for accidental corps-a-corps, since it used to be that even the slightest contact, no matter the cause, warranted a penalty. This change did benefit the bigguns like me though.
Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
Time to add a new caveat, because from email it's not clear to some folks (mind you, if you don't read this it won't matter...) Being an open post, people (collectively, the Denizens) other than I post in the H&I. They sign their work (most of the time) - keep that in mind when you want to flame someone in email please - if it doesn't say "The Armorer" or "John" then I didn't write it! And honestly - if you don't like something said or posted... leave a comment, and hash it out (within the context of The Rulez which are clearly posted on the comment form, I would add).
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A weird bleg (it is gollum after all): does anyone know much of anything about a Boeing program called Eagle Eyre (alternative spellings possible) that would’ve been concurrent to AWACS development? I’ve been told that not only was it shelved but much of the data on it was ordered ‘lost’, and so I’ve not much hope in any web search engine giving me much on it. But, we’ve got a pretty eclectic and sometimes connected readership here so what the heck. You guys might know something or someone that can clue me onto a book or something.
--
Even though I am (a quasi) one I too have to, every once in a while, say, “Saveusfromtheintellectuals.” Or in John speak, ‘the “Smart Guys” (@55es?) Who Want to Tell Me My Job.’ I love these guys and the work they do, but, sometimes, it takes on the air of arguing about angels and pin dancing. It really does, every once in a while, remind me of the hyper-anal phys-chem guy on my committee who had kittens over my Retro-Synth-Analaysis because I used hybridized orbital models(SP, SP2, SP3 type stuff, and was done in 6 minutes at the time) in my decision making instead of taking 6 days to let a computer chug thru Mol-Orb-Theory and quantum mechanics calculations. Tool.
There is no formula, no ‘best model for all situations’ to understand it, and you still have to tinker with whatever you’ve read and learned. I’d say, if anyone asked me, warfare is as much an art and a science as crystallography (if you’ve ever had to get some ugly , novel compound ready for x-ray diffraction you know *exactly* what I’m talking about (where’s my rubber sacrificial chicken?)).
--ry
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Memorial Day message from Dusty:
Dude,
I'm in Frankfurt with my biological clock turned completely around so I'm gonna crash in about 5 5 minutes. I wish I had a stirring post to offer but I wouldn't do it justice. In Germany on Memorial Day weekend...ironic, that (if you're a WW II buff).
God bless all who have served, are serving and will serve. Theirs is a Special Place in heaven...a place Barack will never see (he may get to heaven, but there are some sunny uplands for The Fallen where only they can go--personal opinion).
My best to you and SWWBO on this holiest of holidays.
Cheers,
Dusty
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Heh. One of these things is not like the other... Ask.com, Yahoo.com, Dogpile.com, Google.com. Mind you, you have to click those *today* for this post to make sense. My fave? Dogpile. -the Armorer
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- FbL
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As the the WWII and Korea generation start moving, in ever larger contingents, to their final bivouacs...
*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.
Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.
Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*
The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.
I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
Now this is the kind of criticism I like, ry. Sharp but not mean and with a bit of wit! Even if I do disagree. Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to figure just what the flying hell hydronized portable nodules (or something like that) are.
I didn't either, FbL. Normally I have no use whatsoever for "cute," but I must admit, I like what Dogpile does with their cute little mascot. Not just for Memorial Day, but for every major holiday and many lesser ones. I never know what I'm going to see when I load Dogpile on any given day. And I load it a lot because it's my regular search engine.
by wolfwalker on May 26, 2008 4:16 PM
IMO, Yahoo wins, hands down.
Dogpile was cute, Ask was good, Google... Zips mouth to avoid being in violation of the Rulez.
by Jon The Mechanic on May 26, 2008 7:23 PM
Ry
SAAB 2000 with an Ericsson AEW+CS system was called an Eyrie. It was offered to Pakistan during the 90s. Piccie
Cheers
by J.M. Heinrichs on May 27, 2008 4:10 PM
That's not what I was thinking of JMH, but thanks. Something older. Kind of a flying UCAV handler.
Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
Time to add a new caveat, because from email it's not clear to some folks (mind you, if you don't read this it won't matter...) Being an open post, people (collectively, the Denizens) other than I post in the H&I. They sign their work (most of the time) - keep that in mind when you want to flame someone in email please - if it doesn't say "The Armorer" or "John" then I didn't write it! And honestly - if you don't like something said or posted... leave a comment, and hash it out (within the context of The Rulez which are clearly posted on the comment form, I would add).
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Yesterday was a long day. First, the celebration of Sue Johnston's life at her funeral, then, hope in the car and head for Rosebud, Missouri, to pick up three more goats for the Angora Tribe of Argghhh! The tribe joins the Pack. Clowder and Flocks of Argghhh! Didn't get back until a little bit after 2300...
There is a new Outpost flying the Argghhh! Banner, so to speak. 22AD Artillery...
*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.
Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.
Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*
The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.
I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
{Author’s note: I’m loath to post this and push the memorial to Sue Johnson off of top billing, she deserves it longer. I would want her to have every minute of admiration she deserves and earned. But, the world moves on and so must we. Not because we’re callous and uncaring, but because that’s the way of it. We don’t forget, we don’t cast aside precious memories, but we do get on with it. I'm sorry.--ry}
[No worries, Ry. In his magnificent eulogy yesterday, Keith, noted there comes a time when you have to dry the tears, square your shoulders, and move ahead. Yesterday was that day. The flags at the Castle are at full-staff. -the Armorer]
In the comments to an H&I a few Fridays ago there were raised questions about what to do about Iran and the capability of US CBGs in Hormuz. I’ve been out of sorts a bit of late, not as a result of wrangling chickens, so I’ve not been quieter than usual and wasn’t able to get back into the comments before the settings cut off the discussion. So I'll try and give the questions the full answers they deserve now.
fdcol63, good guy in my book, asks if we (meaning the US I take it) can live with Iran having “The Bomb”. It’s a good and decent question. One people should ask before they move to deciding on means. What is the answer?
Well, you can go very Barnettian if you want. Barnett holds that MAD works. MAD, in a Barnettian view, breeds a stable system so long as you have rational actors (meaning that they actually pursue stated goals in a non-counterproductive way, from game theory). The Mullahs, whatever one thinks of their goals, are rational actors. The US can accept a nuclear Iran and perform a soft-kill ala Perestroika-Glasnost since looking at the demographics indicates a population susceptible to that(lot’s of youth, many ‘hip’ to Western ways of doing things, it’d be the long slow change we’re seeing with Turkey essentially but one with a lower body count).
One way to go in this scenario is to get the trustable neighbors to develop programs of their own (gee, maybe helping India with their nuc program ain’t so stuuuuped after all), that act as hedges against invasion/bullying by Iran even though in Barnett’s view we all have to accept Iran as biggest fish (just sift thru this search page at Barnett’s place, you’ll see many posts on accepting a nuclear Iran and regional strategies here). Why? How does this work?
Nukes prevent serious armed conflict, full national mobilization for war on WW2 levels, because doing so runs you up the Escalation Ladder and then you glow in the dark. It worked in that it kept things small is the argument; more Koreas and Vietnams than World War Twos. At least, that’s what Barnett says, and he *does* do this for a living instead of just for cheetos, like me.
So, could we live with a nuclear Iran? Maybe. Depends on whether you buy MAD theory and whether you believe soft-kill is possible (do they have a Gorbachev is a good question on this). Depends on whether one is all sure fire sure that the minute the Iranians get themselves a score of warheads they’ll be up to no good, or whether you have a Mullah having an ‘Eisenhower Moment’ where they realize what it is they’ve got in their hands and what the consequences of using it are.
Or, you could look at it another way. The Shahab missile series can’t reach CONUS. They’ve not proved, according to Dr. Jeff Lewis the ArmsControlWonk, that they even have a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead as far as Italy (or carry a nuc warhead at all for that matter). So, where’s the threat to the US in this? Where’s the impetus for alarm? They cannot threaten the US directly, we can move to non-fossil fuel economies (or so the latest crop of Presidential hopefuls tell us), and the majority of US fossils don’t come from the ME (Africa and the Americas provide ours, not so for everyone else in the world). Why would we do this since there’s so little on the line for us personally? Principles will be what are cited most I bet you. True. But at the end of the day you’re still left with the proposition that you’re having the US play Globo-Cop and putting US personnel in harms way for some other country’s benefit without direct threat---economic, physical, or ‘national interest’--- to the US.
This is a very legalistic approach to the question, for sure, but it is one that has to be considered. Why? If an Islamic Republic is such a scary thing why not take out Pakistan too? Why not take down other nations we have reason to distrust that have or are acquiring nuclear weapons (like India which waxes and wanes on violent nationalism, DPRK (the king of irrationality and threat to regional stability), Pakistan, Russia (can’t trust them, Putin and his successor are going back to the Cold War), et al)?
It’s a heady question that deserves a serious answer and an honest attempt during the pondering. It depends on whether you’ll accept *any* answer other than no, too.
The second question, which Ledger brought up, is harder. Me and my generation have never really gotten into the whole documentation thing, have we Armorer? (Inside joke that he may not even remember the beginning of, but who cares since I know I’m funny.)
Perform a Google search for ‘Millennium Challenge’ you’ll eventually find a story that purports to be a report about how the Navy Dept rigged a war-game, after finding some of the very solutions John was talking about didn’t work so well, fighting against a mythical country that looks somewhat, sort of like Iran on a made up map where the opening moves saw that mythical country really take it to the USN. I don’t know the author or the reliability of the original source so I can’t and won’t vouch for veracity, but it is a start for someone wanting to find something on the issue. I’m not going to spend two hours, likely more, digging thru those archives to find it either.
Is the question really about the effectiveness of CSG and expeditionary groups in some place somewhat narrow like Hormuz or is it much more a question of would they be BFT (big freakin’ targets) that a modified strategy we saw in the Tanker War would be tailor made to hunt for that Info-Dis and Belmont are pushing? I’m more in favor of the latter.
No, I don’t think it is a question of whether or not USN assets won’t be able to function “well”, meaning they won’t work at all or be unable to strike at the enemy less capably than if they were doing wargames near Hawaii, in Hormuz so much as how do we keep the wily Iranians from sinking them from those island positions or hiding nasty little swarming forces in and around those.
I’m not sure where the idea that flight ops (or something else) couldn’t be performed and therefore USN assets would be operating far below what they would elsewhere arose, but in my mind the question is one of how much danger are USN ships going to be in if those islands aren’t captured (and is in part why have said the better part of three years that geography is more against us in an assault against Iran than it was for Iraq). Much like the little, dinky chunk of land out around Inchon was necessary to take to make the landing doable, or Sicily to make an attack on the Italian ‘boot’ possible if a US strategy requires the USN to transit or control the Straight of Hormuz.
I know there’s been debate as to whether Iran has Russian cavitating torpedoes, in some part because there’s question of whether Russia actually has working models and whether they’ve actually exported the hyper-fast but dumb as rocks weapons, but one can see the utility of something like that if one looks back to the PT boats of the S. Pacific where nautical defiles and littorals allowed little wooden boats to put ships many multiples their size out of action (or just let your boat be run over by an IJN destroyer ala St. Kennedy). But the Iranians don’t need cavitating torpedoes on little more than speed boats for that threat to exist since a wake homing one will ruin your day just as badly even if it is slower, and an RPG at your waterline is not a party favor either. Modern nautical mines are not nice to USN ship longevity either. The island complex Wretchard and ‘Armchair Admiral’ point at represents such a defile where major combatants (including “L” ships, amphibious assault ships that carry troops, tanks, or various types of aircraft and what it can or can’t carry sometimes depend on the make and model) could be bushwhacked in a similar manner as the PT boats of yore by the Iranians, or they could serve as a Fort Alcatraz (Alcatraz was initially a fortress intended to defend SF harbor, but it couldn’t hit anything accurately or otherwise with the cannon available in the days it was constructed) actually capable of hitting something since the Iranians do have some Russian and Chinese made ASCM (wave hopping, super-sonic, whatever) in land, sea, and air launched forms as well as other weapons systems, such as nautical mines, that make traversing said region of sea, well, complicated.
Are there counters to this rather Brecher-esque scenario or the one’s put forth by Rense or the host of other nightmare scenarios? Of course there are.
One could try something like a stop thrust in fencing, attacking into your attacker’s attack to disrupt it instead of locking yourself into a parry-riposte cycle of trying to beat down their attacks until you can launch your own. Maybe something like using rotor-wing (Marine AH-1) and VSTOL(AV-8B until the F-35B is available) aircraft configured for prolonged strafing runs guided by E-2/E-3/JSTARS (requiring Naval fighter or other fighter protection) to deal with the ‘boggarts’, destroying or scattering them before they can move into a position to threaten the surface combatants and amphibs.
You could avoid the nastiness of that defile by going for a port city East of Hormuz and putting a screening force on your left flank. I’m thinking of Bandar Beheshti (bottom right corner of the map), which had a lot of construction at it at one point even if it is still considered a crappy port according to a 2003 RAND report. That’s 300 miles east of Hormuz and cuts down on the places for bushwhacking at sea by ‘boggarts’ a bit. Yeah, it has only one road leading out, putting us into the Market Garden type position, worse actually because said road is going thru some very rocky areas, but that might be better than having your LOC going thru Hormuz which is a lot easier to shut than the Arabian Sea. Anti-mine warfare is a long, slow, drudgery work and Iran has sought and bought a goodly number of mines to use in such an endeavor (go down to the last heading where Gahlran has it listed.).
This is not intended to be an exhaustive or comprehensive look at all the scenarios though, mind you. I’m just saying that there are ways out of this by embracing combined arms theory.
Some would have you believe that the problem can only be beaten by avoiding the ‘Tiffany Navy’ that the USN currently seems to want by buying Zumwalt destroyers and the LCS by instead buying platforms like Cebrowski’s Streetfighter and adherence to the ‘High-Low’ concept in acquisition strategy and overall doctrine. I’d rather we went High-Low too, but there’s ways out of this without going that way. Unfortunately, any path out always leaves you on the measure-countermeasure- counter countermeasure wheel. So why not leave that cycle?
Of course, the best way to beat a guy’s preferred scenario is to make him play yours instead. This might be accomplished by, say, declaring war a few days early, waiting for civilian traffic to vacate(both air and nautical(3 days or so for the nautical), and then moving in the surface forces. That doesn’t mean sitting on our hands for that time, mind you. Letting SSN hunt for Kilos class subs laying mines, doing ISR work, and such can be done. Establishing air dominance can be done in the form of hitting SAM sites, C4 nodes, and airfields can still be done as well as recon and destruction of threats to the USN surface forces missions. We don’t have to put the Marines ashore on day one after all, and strategic surprise is only worth the cost of achieving it if and only if it buys you what you want. It is only one principle of warfare after all, not the sum total or the most important in all situations. This action could possibly deny the Iranians the chaos and cover of civilian traffic the asymmetry the Brecher/Millennium Challenge scenario requires to work. Basically, this way out is the escape from the limitation of choice Iran would impose on the USN. No matter how fast your OODA loop is he’s already limited what your choices are or has a really good idea what those choices will be, and that’s a major advantage to him. So don’t play his game, play your’s instead.
Yes, this approach allows Iran to close Hormuz and cut oil deliveries that normally go thru their. That was likely to happen anyway so I don’t perceive it as a loss. It does allow Iran to cut it’s Kilo’s loose to go headhunting or lay mines, but we could, hopefully, counter with letting our SSNs hunt for them in return well in advance of our ESG or CSG. We could even time the announcement to coincide with such a move to place such assets in good position to go after the Iranian subs. Essentially, most of the arguments I’ve heard against this are of a conventional warfare mindset, and conventional is playing to our strengths and not Iran’s. It isn’t entirely risk free, but it is pushing Iran toward having to play the game the way we want more than us to the way they’re likely to want to which is likely asymmetric to the hilt.
So, do you think you can accept a nuclear Iran? Do you think you understand the problems of the Hormuz problem better? Good, now could you explain it to me then?
--ry
Ry has provided a very thought provoking discussion.
We ignore the subject at our peril. I hope that a lot of very smart, and hopefully very senior people in the purple world and their civilian puppet-masters are grappling with the issue as well.
There are no easy answers, and perhaps no good ones.
Now, just imagine if someone tried to explain all these famifications to Mr. Obama, sitting in the oval office and get him to decide what to do. His repsonse would make Jimmy Carter's ineptness seem to be Churchillian brilliance by comparison.
God help us. The voters probably won't.
by John S. on May 24, 2008 10:05 AM
I disagree a bit, John. I think Senator Obama, should he get those initial sets of briefings in the White House Situation Room, will be more pragmatic in his actual policy, whatever his public verbiage might be.
But, as has been made clear by yesterday's threads, I'm high *and* I'm an optimist.
Which for people who really know me well, *both* of those statements will come as rather a surprise.
After all, I'm the kid carrying the fire extinguisher who burst into a room full of people smoking weed because I thought there was a leaf fire in there.
Well, the advantafe we have in this situation is that it is, essentially, a lake. Therefore, our diminished ASW forces might have a chance to take out the couple of Kilos that Iran has dunctioning. Having said that, I'd say that our best option is to use our Navy as an anvil, pinning a large percentage of Iram's forces in place, and use our AF and Army as the hammer, and strike from Afghanistan, with support through Iraq. Once things get all a twiddle and duckbimps in Iran's CinC's head, then release the Sea Hounds to decide the issue.
Hormuz is a problem best dealt with by a slow stinging death by a thousand small cuts. Start with an embargo. Iran NEEDS the currency from it's oil sales, and Europe is a primary customer. Economics alone might well force the issue to an acceptable solution for us, especially if we can get the Russians to do what they do best, which is play Byzantine Court and up their own oil production and sell at an reduced price to Europe to make up the loss of Iranian oil.
Let the USN attack in small, deliberate and well-targeted attacks against the Islands. Start by taking out the Comms and SAM sites. Wait a couple of days. Then take out another sall dacility, say a GLCM site. Make deliberate and devastating attacks on a refular basis that are designed to slowly and surely destroy Iran's defenses in the straits. Take out, especially, the fuel depots so the boat squadrons have a limited supply of fuel.
IOW, make the Iranian Navy respond to OUR attacks, rather than we to theirs. However, if we can tie up a guge amount of their forces in the straits, it makes it easier for land forces to come in from elsewhere.
Personally, I cannot accept a nuclear Iran. Iran doesn't need a delivery system for it's warheads. it has proxies in Hamas and Hezzbollah and others that can do the work for them. Iran, if allowed to get it's hands on nukes, WILL use them. That cannot be allowed to happen.
The road out of Iraq travels through Iran. Iy's also the only way the something resembling peace will ever come to the ME. Iran is buffering itself through it's proxies in Gaza and Lebanon and elswhere. We need to cut the head off of this snale in order to let the other factions die off. Oranian oil=Oranian gold=funding for terrorism. Ergo Pax, Persia delenda Est. Or something to that eddect. My Latin is a tad bit rusty still .....
by AW1 Tim on May 24, 2008 10:49 AM
Ryan, Well done! You have tried, or at least in my opinion, to write a very comprehensive view on a very complex region in the World. The error most people make is they oversimplify the issue and actually get a firm grasp of nothing. The other extreme is some people will try to tell you, "It is too complex, trust me." Well, we see where this concept goes, nowhere. If you listen, at all, to the rhetoric of the politicians, the answer is either absolutely black or absolutely white, but absolutely NO grey! As we get older AND mature, we see some grey, but not always.
So where do we go from here? I would ask you to join me on a virtual journey. Let's explore a phrase commonly used, implied, inferred or in some way suggested in our discussions either personally or even the blogs. The two words are "National Security." Who has a role in national security? 9/11 was a tough teacher, but a necessary one. It also taught us about the importance of first responders. But do we often think of operating engineers as first responders? They were, the same for the hospital systems. Did we take a look at the Highway Infrastructure as actually being a part of national security, this was the thinking of 5 star General Dwight D Eisenhower. I personally believe The same is true for the rest of the infrastructure systems of this Nation.
I know this complex, but we can break it down into bite size chunks. National Security can only be achieved, not just the Military, but by all of the people called, "We the People."
As always
"Grumpy"
by Grumpy on May 24, 2008 1:04 PM
I like your article Ry. It's well focused and taught me some basics mind you many terms are beyond me that are familiar to most of the readers here.
For the nuclear question it's been my view for some time the well displayed conventional success of the US in Iraq and other places means every nation small and large, particularly those actively threatened by the US, has every incentive to develop nukes and other high damage for the money weaponry. Especially anything the US civilians are afraid of or the US military can be harmed by. This is the price for such overwhelming conventional power. I call this the unintended consequence of the war.
What I am saying is that this is now the era of nuclear proliferation. Australia itself, a nation with a population very highly opposed to nukes, made rapid and hard moves to develop nuclear power and weaponry which are unlikely to stop now. And this was by Howard who utterly aligned with Bush's ME goals. Look at all of these countries for Iran is not at all alone.
From this belief I see attacking Iran to be akin to whack-a-mole. It also brings home the core point of war. Heart and minds. A tired old phrase but wars are won by altering thinking not an invasion and bash the facilities down, sure a genocide can do that but if that's not a goal the military actions of the US need to be a sharp scalpel of the mind.
What I am saying is how would doing this change the goals of the Iranian and at a broader level the Islamic/ME group mind?
It's also a kind of throwback to US gun law. You're willing to let any fool in the US bear arms by right of constitution and indeed some of them use them for murder and other ill-will even if they end up dead themselves. Well nukes are higher stakes all around but the principles are the same. Are you ready to start policing and killing the perhaps unstable or perhaps unworthy gun users based on suspicion and possibility?
The invasion itself looks difficult by er lake. It really seems to suggest the US needs less big ships and more small ones, but that's me in simple think because I don't understand the details.
The other thing I'm confused about is why the invasion isn't primarily by land. There's lots of available border.
This is not intended to be an exhaustive or comprehensive look at all the scenarios though, mind you. I’m just saying that there are ways out of this by embracing combined arms theory. – ry
True, but you are being too modest. This post is the best I have seen so far on the web. It’s well thought out with plenty of good reference links.
That doesn’t mean sitting on our hands for that time, mind you. Letting SSN hunt for Kilos class subs laying mines, doing ISR work, and such can be done. Establishing air dominance can be done in the form of hitting SAM sites, C4 nodes, and airfields can still be done as well as recon and destruction of threats to the USN surface forces missions. We don’t have to put the Marines ashore on day one after all, and strategic surprise is only worth the cost of achieving it if and only if it buys you what you want… This action could possibly deny the Iranians the chaos and cover of civilian traffic the asymmetry the Brecher/Millennium Challenge scenario requires to work. Basically, this way out is the escape from the limitation of choice Iran would impose on the USN.
Yes, the best defense is a good offense. Hit them hard and fast sending their command and control into a ball of confusion. Gain control of the air and then systematically eliminate each threat.
That [closure of the Straits] was likely to happen anyway so I don’t perceive it as a loss. It does allow Iran to cut it’s Kilo’s loose to go headhunting or lay mines, but we could, hopefully, counter with letting our SSNs hunt for them in return well in advance of our ESG or CSG.
That sounds like a good plan and I have no doubt that Hormuz will be shut for some period of time. You know the Iran will do it sooner or later anyway just to poke us in the eye.
It isn’t entirely risk free, but it is pushing Iran toward having to play the game the way we want more than us to the way they’re likely to want to which is likely asymmetric to the hilt.
DAng it, I had RBBH edit this before I posted it, and there's still errors. Sigh. I do try John.
AW1, like I said, I didn't intend the scenarios I put forward as the only, best, or preffered ones. It isn't comprehensive or rigorous. There's many ways to deal with Iran militarily *if* the decision is to do that. AS always, some are better than others. THe point I was really going for is that we have to realize is that no one scenario is a given. We don't have to be locked into a meeting engagement like Brecher says, or come rumbling-stumbling-bumbling in like Rense would have us, or not do any prepratory work to deal with shore based threats. We aren't invinvible, but we can still work to maximize our strengths and minimize theirs. NO scenario is predominate until the lid on the box is opened. I'm admittedly an amateur. I would hope to gawd that someone wouldn't take my ideas too seriously or without a heavy amount of study and tweaking before hand. I don't konw that even strafing the little boats would work. It could be a real waste of time, fuel, and ammo. I don't know. but there's ways of dealing with it, either by having counter-moves or by making them react to us instead(if the decision to invade is ever made, and that's a big if).
After all, I'm the kid carrying the fire extinguisher who burst into a room full of people smoking weed because I thought there was a leaf fire in there.
As a sophomore in college.
Heeeeeeeeee. Did they at least offer you some munchies, John? I can actually envision you breaking down a door too, Mr D-Lineman. I bet there were some wet britches.
wait, someone said go by land thru Afghanistan and Iraq. Look at the map I posted. Or find better ones. There aren't many roads, and those that do go thru mountains. almost all of them. There's little infrastructure to support such a move from either place, and the Iranians have shown that they know how to stage ambush of armored columns coming out of Iraq quite well. I'm no logistician, but getting supplies into Afghanistan and then to forces at the front, in needed quantity, sounds a lot harder since it would likely be airlifted(and that limits how much). You can get far more moving by sea. The point of going to BB is that it is a port, and even a port in disrepair allows some type of Ro-Ro(roll on, roll off) action and more logisitical support capability(rebirth of the Mulberry bridge perhaps?) To get supplies to Iraq we'd still have to get them to Kuwait somehow, and that means traversing Hormuz. ASuW is slow work and hard. I wouldn't want to stake my hopes on keeping it safely open, and I'm not willing to bet the lives of Grunts on the chance that I can(but that's me). Hence, I'll go east, take a port, and andvance onto Kerman, which then allows me to go in many directions, including threatening their sea base on Hormuz. BUt that's me. I could be an idiot. That's always possible.
Grumpy, I have no idea where to go from here. I've done what little genius given me allows. I don't have answers, just slightly better questions than the punditocracy. But, thanks.
Argent, I choose to invade by sea for two reasons. 1) Logistics. I can move more by sea than I can by land. I can feed my forces better, because I can move more, if I have a port. 2) Geography. Iran has lots of hills and mountains on her borders(good defensive terrain), and, according to a Navy geographer, isn't well suited to tank warfare anyway. The interior is slightly better for the fast paced actions we'd seen in Iraq, though still not great for tanks.
There's reasons to not go as I would also. I don't deny that at all. My way gives you mother-flipping long supply lines, and takes a long time to get to anything of real importance. There's lots of ways of doing this, but if left to my choice I'd go by sea simply for the logistical advantage. We'd need a port to feed our forces anyway so why not take a fairly safe one early and use that? By going at Bandar Beheshti(it's got another name, I forget what it is at the moment), we also could move up the coast to Jask, and then to the major navy base at Bandar-E Abbas. A real British minded land and sea one-two punch from the 1800s.
You could also do all three(from Afghan, Iraq, and amphib.). There's advantages to that, too. Again, I wasn't being comprehensive. I started with Brecher and Gahlran(K'plah!) and moved on. They were my starting points.
by ry on May 25, 2008 4:11 AM
Ry,
You're right on! First, you're honest, you don't have THE answers. Second, you'll never have THE answers until you ask the right questions. Therefore, challenge the question, not just the answer. How do we challenge the question? Third, challenge the way you ask the question. Ask open ended questions, make our leaders talk! If you can't make them talk, make them think, this can be a high impact process.
The last thing is the most important, I want you to challenge with the most important question. The challenge becomes why are you asking the question? Are you searching for THE truth or your version of the truth. The significance of the difference between the two positions in the last sentence can not be under stated. We are now talking about the realm of TRUTH or HONOR in the core of our being.
I must address your comment to me on 15 May 2008 4.11PM. I had the honor of knowing 5 of Albert Einstein's students and later co-workers on the Manhattan Project. My Father and brother were both had IQ's in top 1%, me - I was at the other end of the line. But the one thing they all agreed, the man who says, "I don't know." You watch that guy, he's the one who will find the real answer, meeting all of these standards.
Grumpy
by Grumpy on May 25, 2008 5:03 PM
A coherent and thoughtful review of the challenges involved. I am impressed. Kudos, sir.
Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
Time to add a new caveat, because from email it's not clear to some folks (mind you, if you don't read this it won't matter...) Being an open post, people (collectively, the Denizens) other than I post in the H&I. They sign their work (most of the time) - keep that in mind when you want to flame someone in email please - if it doesn't say "The Armorer" or "John" then I didn't write it! And honestly - if you don't like something said or posted... leave a comment, and hash it out (within the context of The Rulez which are clearly posted on the comment form, I would add).
John Hawkins over at Right Wing News takes his marbles and goes home. Why I can no longer support John McCain. The problem I have with this approach is... go ahead, surrender the Supreme Court. It won't matter, right? Heh. It's easier to undo Congressional foibles than it is to undo the Court, especially since the Congress and Executive have defaulted an immense amount of power to the Court.
*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.
Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.
Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*
The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.
I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
The problem I have with this approach is... go ahead, surrender the Supreme Court. It won't matter, right?
That's right. It won't. Here's why:
All three remaining candidates support "comprehensive immigration reform" -- a code phrase for amnesty and a quick path to citizenship for illegals. So does a majority of Congress. Thus, amnesty and citizenship is now a fait accompli, impossible to stop and unlikely even to be delayed. I expect the new "comprehensive immigration reform" bill will grant immediate amnesty to be followed by citizenship within three years -- just in time for the next election cycle. If not, then certainly in time for the cycle after that (2016). That bill will pass before June 2009.
Those new citizens will vote overwhelmingly Democrat. Therefore, a Democrat majority and Democrat control of all elected offices are now guaranteed within eight years at the most. That control will be permanent. Even a conservative judiciary, assuming RINO McCain could and would deliver such a thing in the face of a Demorat-controlled Congress, won't be able to stop the socialists.
The United States is finished. I give it thirty years after the D's take over before they run it into the ground. Maybe forty. But no more than that.
by wolfwalker on May 23, 2008 8:15 AM
"The problem I have with this approach is... go ahead, surrender the Supreme Court. It won't matter, right?"
And by surrender, you mean "make it impossible to lock in a fully 'constructionist' right-wing Supreme Court, right?" Because best case, any replacements we see over the next eight years will be left-wing judges replacing left-wing judges. Why exactly is that a bad thing? You still get pro-torture, pro-warrentless wiretap, anti-Rowe v. Wade advocates tilting the balance throughout the next administration. Seems like a deal for your side.
It's been this bad, arguably worse, before. And we've recovered. Wilson and FDR come to mind, when discussing breath-taking power grabs, all in the name of doing the right thing, of course.
Well, you're right, Jason. That's all I care about. I want to lock wimmin up in baby factories, torture the bad guys and anyone who we happen to pick up with them, and listen in on your phone conversations.
So, you concede my argument that the Court has been ceded way too much power then, eh?
I'm sorry, but the "He's abandoning Security for Amnesty" cries are BS. The question McCain was answering were about H1-B Visas with regard to highly skilled positions (scientists, etc.) These are not positions that get filled by illegal immigrants.
I know, I hire a bunch.
And that's because
We do need comprehensive immigration reform *and* we need to tighten down the border. You can (and should) do both.
There are many sins of John McCain. Enough so, that there is no need to go make mountains out of molehills.
by Yu-Ain Gonnano on May 23, 2008 10:08 AM
Ceded too much power? Are you high? All the Court has been doing for eight years is consolidating power for the vast right-wing conspiracy, and you're guaranteed not to lose power for the next eight years, unless one of the conservative judges goes hunting with Dick Cheney.
And I didn't say that those previously listed positions are YOUR high points, but they certainly do reflect the platform of the Republican Party (and the one-half of the Court). You are known by the company you keep, sir.
Oops, don't know what happened to the 3rd paragraph.
It's supposed to read
That's because <1% of the population is qualified for my jobs. No one walks off the street and builds non-stationary stochastic models. If you want to blow up a building there are easier ways than spending 4 years getting a BS in Math and another 2-3 getting a MS in Statistics or 4-5 years getting a PhD in Econometrics.
I'm sorry, these are not the terrorists you're looking for.
by Yu-Ain Gonnano on May 23, 2008 10:15 AM
What Wolfwalker said....
and
"Wilson and FDR come to mind" You'll note that the sad, vast majority of their programs and their massive expansion of the Federal Government are still in place and plaguing us to this day.
As for McAmnesty... isn't he meeting with La Raza? So much for not negotiating with our 'enemies'.
My guy was/is correct on the two most important issues facing this nation. Write in or no, he's still getting my vote.
Gadsden Flag and Stars n' Bars ready to be raised.
by Kevin on May 23, 2008 10:46 AM
John, I'm serious: can you give me any good reason to believe my analysis and prediction are wrong? The only chance I can see (short of a bloody revolution, which I really don't want to see) is that voters in general, and Democrat voters in particular, start crunching some numbers and realize this nation genuinely can't afford the spending commitments it's already made, let alone add any new ones, and vote out the tax-and-spenders. But they haven't done it yet, and I don't see any reason to think they will in future. Do you?
by wolfwalker on May 23, 2008 10:57 AM
Jason says those things like they are bad (LOL). I wish his gun-hating, baby killing friends all the best, too...
by Oldloadr on May 23, 2008 11:34 AM
...voters in general, and Democrat voters in particular, start crunching some numbers and realize this nation genuinely can't afford the spending commitments...
Never happen. Special Interests A-to-Z will dig in their heels and insist Special Interests AA-to-ZZ take the hits -- and, oh-by-the-way, they'll demand the "savings" be funneled to Special Interests A-to-Z.
Meanwhile, Special Interests AA-to-ZZ will be etc., etc.
Don't count on *anything* resembling a common sense approach emanating from the Left, especially if money's involved...
Bill,
That's the thing I don't get. The whole "If the Dems win then maybe the R will get it back together and be 'Real Conservatives' is predicated on the assumption that if things get "bad enough" people will wake up and start voting for limited gov't.
The problem is that we have test cases all around us of countries much further left than we are and they keep voting for more socialism. Then they get it, and they vote for more of it.
Where is this "Waking Up" we're being told would happen? I can't see any evidence of it at all.
It seems to me, if you want the Republicans to become "Real Conservatives" you are going to have to do more than take your ball and go home.
by Yu-Ain Gonnano on May 23, 2008 11:56 AM
Scylla won't get strict constructionist justices confirmed, John. Neither will Charybdis. At this point all we have left to decide is who the survivors of the future will blame for the fall of the Third Republic.
wolfwalker has got it mostly right.
Functional Westphalian nation-state representative republics don't last forever.
The time to make preparations for the future is now, while you still have some property rights.
Entrepreneurial Frontiersmen must act while the environment is still permissive. They will be the producers in what is left of the economy upon whose back the welfare state will be tightly cinched. Gated communities and islands of light in a sea of socialist darkness, the capable seceeding from the needy, those who can seperating themselves from the insatiable demands of those who can't.
The future will be a struggle between Entrepreneurial Frontiersmen trying to preserve the fruits of their labors from rapacious redistributionist totalitarians.
Don't want to live in that future? Tough. The previous choices all of us collectively made or failed to make have brought us to the edge of the abyss.
Not sure why I want to bother with this. Kevin is never going to be budged. Neither am I.
What the hell, in for a penny, in for a pound. I might catch a lurker on the fence and pull him/her my way.
First, the whole "Teach the country a lesson" arguement, I addressed here.
Next, John Hawkins calling McCain a liar for stating a view that he has always had and none of us can argue with is ridiculous. Does anyone think our current immigration policy works? I don't. Therefore, it requires an overhaul - comprehensive immigration reform. McCain used to say that was his top immigration priority, followed by border security and employer sanctions. Last summer conservatives rose up. McCain said he got the message - Border security first and foremost, immigration reform after. He never said he gave up the idea of immigration reform. Why would he? It needs an overhaul.
Next Wolfwalker - You think no matter who is elected we are in a 30 to 40 year slide to the end. Ok, I don't think so, but if I concede your point....why rush it? Certainly this slide is slower under McCain than Obama.
Judgeships are important, but what about Iraq? If you believe we are succeeding there, and I do, how can you abandon it? Surely there is no question that Clinton or Obama would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. This arguement is of course irrelevent to isolationists and Bush haters.
If you are angry with Bush, fine. McCain is not Bush.
If you are angry that the Republican party didn't pick your guy, get over it. That's the way the party works.
If McCain isn't as conservative as you would like, remember he's a lot more conservative than Obama.
In short, an Obama presidency is too high a price to pay for whatever grievance you have.
Oh and John, if you are listening in on coversations.....make sure you have a bowl of popcorn for mine. You know how I love to get a Sailor on the line!
The future will be a struggle between Entrepreneurial Frontiersmen trying to preserve the fruits of their labors from rapacious redistributionist totalitarians.
And the Air Force shoots itself in the foot throwing away a part of their vital infrastructure when they booted that nurse.
Yu-Ain Gonnano
You make some good points. Nursing is similar to your profession. One can't just throw warm bodies in the slot and get a proper result. Here in Phoenix we are short thousands of nurses. I used to teach at the University and Community College but quit the CC. Ever try to explain acid base to a student who has not had pathophysiology, algebra, chemestry, nutrition?
From personal experience in todays market I have seen what damage bureaucrats running healthcare can cause. Just ask my patient Jessie, Oh wait you can't because he is dead. Dead because a bureaucrat demanded the working therapy I was using on him be stopped (no I did not stop it someone else did after I removed myself from his care). And just wait for the future when the nurses don't have the depth of education they need to fend off the bureaucrats.
by Azygos on May 23, 2008 6:19 PM
I really don't know enough about McCain's actual actions and voting record,but if he gets in,from what I've seen,he would more likely do the right thing as he sees it...This may not always be pleasant or agreeable to everyone but his entire past seems to prove he can actually draw his line in the sand ,so to speak,and stand behind what he thinks has to be done......As I said,not always the way you want but what in life really does turn out that way..
by big al on May 24, 2008 3:14 AM
Only chemistry and algebra are necessary to teach acid-base chemistry. Pathophysiolgy? Nutrition? Nope, not necessary. I should know, I've been teaching chuckleheads Ahrenius, etc, for a decade on it. And quit bashing CC students. I was one, and worked my way up to being a PhD candidate in chemistry. Maybe the problem is that nursing candidates aren't the sharpest tools in the shed to begin with?
In my experience, nursing students always made the worst students, not as smart as other pre-meds. Just a bunch of ticket punchers. They didn't want to learn any of it. But that's only at two JCs and three universities, so I could be wrong to paint with such a broad brush.
by ry on May 24, 2008 9:13 AM
Well, even with your qualifier, Ry, that does count as gratuitous bashing, doing nothing to advance your point, even if it vents your pique...
Nothing like calling the other commenter a ticket-puncher just because he dissed community college students without knowing you were one.
Snerk. Geez, take a half-day off to go to Rosebud to pick up some more Angoras for the Tribe of Argghhh! No, we're not going native, that's what you call a group of goats, a tribe. Ladies, there's probably a good snark in there for you next time you sashay by a construction site and the goats start whistlin'...
I did not say all those courses were necessary to teach acid base but doing well in ALL of them make it easier for the students to understand how the body works. If you read what I wrote I said I stopped teaching at the CC because those courses were dropped. If a student is not provided with the proper tools to understand something that is not the students fault. And by the way I've interacted with plenty of PhD types who were one subject smart and life STUPID.
Having taught at the university and a CC I have first person experience that the programs are not equal. What I was taught in chemistry at the university level in the first three weeks is what they teach at the CC level for the entire semester, or at least they used to. The point of my comment was that the people who care for us when we are sick are in serious trouble and government is NOT the answer'
Here in Arizona they had a commission to study the nursing shortage. Who do you think was not included on the panel? If you guessed nurses ding ding ding ding.
God help us if universal denial of healthcare is inacted and some bureaucrat with an inadequate 2 year degree decides which treatments we can receive. Oh, wait, here in Arizona its already happened.
by Azygos on May 24, 2008 8:34 PM
Well, there was some nose tweaking intended, but I was also trying a new tactic, subletly.(That's what this was for: "But that's only at two JCs and three universities, so I could be wrong to paint with such a broad brush.
"). making a massive generalization about a type of student from a very limited sample is not good science or thinking. But, yeah, the snark was heavy. It should be.
There's a lot of reasons some of us wind up going the JC route(one of them being that in CA Gov Brown built a three tiered system starting at the JC level to increase overall number of Californians going to college). But, hey, let's just pile on the supposed idiots, right?
As for nurse shortages, I have one word: Phillipines. Wwhere they've done a 4 year program, but have to do the whole thing over again if they come here. Just not worth it. And, hey, they produce more nurses there than we do here. We'll just let them all go to Japan instead. Hell, we have a dental shortage too. I knew a woman, who had to leave the country recently, trained at one of the top schools in Japan for oral surgery and anesthesia who couldn't get a job in the US in the field without doing 3-6 years of work. The system, simply put, sucks, and I wonder which union(s) went to bat to make it like this?
Having done both the quarter system at a 4 year and a semester system at a JC I can say I'm glad they didn't try to ram more down one's throat at the JC. The breakneck speed at the UC system didn't mean we understood it better---there's a reason why curves rather than scales are near universal after all---just that we met the curricular goals of covering said topics. I walked in knowing more O-chem than most because I took it elsewhere---major advantage. I *still* run into profs who complain that their grad student doesn't know something about the field they're in but should(and the kid went to Colgate, or UWashington, or wherever, where they were like UCD and just rammed stuff thru regardless of how well anyone learned it. At the JC we took the ACS exam at the end of a year, and if you didn't pass it you failed the second half of either general chemistry and o-chem. Never heard of a 4 year doing that, so keep on believing a 4 year gaurantees a better education, because I can tell you, it sure as hell doesn't.)
Now, a two year degree? sometimes it is the worst thing. SOmetime's it isn't. Mom went with a 2 year certification program(in 1950) for her nurse's aid job, and worked burn wards until she had her own kids in 1968(I'm the 1974 edition). Worked then, but, of course, they had specialization then that they don't allow for as much as they do now. And we still aren't going to let all those Phillipine nurses in to meet that shortage, are we? (Skippy-san will be annoyed. (Insided joke, don't worry about this.))
ASt ot the subject smart, life stupid crack. What's your point? You came in blazing that JC students were dumb. No, we're not. Often we're people who by sheer bad luck had bad educations at the lower levels(HS, elementary) and have to work to make that up. So, yeah, they're all dumb and you're just an underappreciated teacher working with substandard clay.
And, if you're not enforcing the prereq reguirements regularly(and not going to the admin to make sure they have the prereqs so they can even enroll) someone's not doing their job. I've done that at UCD and at Purdue. It doesn't make you popular with anyone, but it sure is the right damn thing to do to protect a program("gollum, you @55hole, do you know that Dean So-and-so just called because you went and did that stupid stunt of yours again! Get out of my sight!" heh, bad times.). But, hey, I could always just walk away, wash my hands of it, and let the program slip into suckatude such that nobody trusts the graduates anymore.
I'll buy your comment on more often than not trained as lawyers in gov't not being the best ones to make certain types of decisions. That should be a given. I'm not big on the judiciary making certain types of calls either(like the thimerisol case, and it's total BS. Nobody has ever shown causation ergo the science is bad. It doesn't happen. MErcury2 salts are insoluble in human blood. It's a crock.) But, beyond that, we'll just have to disagree.
by ry on May 25, 2008 10:35 AM
I'm afraid I concur with Wolfwalker, and Kevin, and Yu-Ain, and Cannoneer.
Owhell, I give y'all my two favorite Jerry Pournelle quotes;
The comments are hilarious though. “There are people under those bombs.”
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BCR gets a plug. She’s right. It’s something I’ve brought up before too: there’s a lucrative market in smuggling legal stuff to sell cheap on the black market, and it doesn’t all go to Fat Tony either. Talking about a potential solution as if it has no downsides, when it does, is typically a bad idea. (It counts! IPB isn’t just for leftist stuff after all.)
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Ubiwar has an interesting look at the whole AF botnet thing: what’s its Constitutionality? Apparently it doesn’t violate the 3rd Amendment.
A note on this: why is J on almost all the theoretical/academic mil-bloggers blogrolls and we aren’t? WT Frak? We’re geekier than he is!
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No Soob (We’re on their blogroll (it’s a groupish blog). See, Argghhh! is geeky.) this week, though, as usual, there’s something from TomDispatch. 9/11 wasn’t that bad, we were being silly about wanting ABMD anyway, he doesn’t mention PNAC and the focus on China, but he does bring up the racism of WW2 America. Overall an interesting read.
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Fabius Maximus thinks there’s an RMA afoot, but it has nothing to do with technology or Western warfighting doctrine. Kat might find this a slightly interesting read.
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Pat over at Kings of War has a different take on the lay of the human terrain. This one is actually pretty good if you care about COIN, or Kat’s mud huts and chai tea/broken windows approach to understanding reconstruction operations. (Again? J is in the blogroll and Matty O’B5 too, but no Argghhh!? John, I think we need to break out with some really supra-geeky posts.)
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I finally get back around to reading King Daddy over at Arms and Influence. This time he’s laying out the case most Defense Progressives should be making when talking about draw downs in Iraq, but haven’t. (And again we’re dissed by not being on the blogroll. Must be the cheeto dust I leave everywhere I go.)
-- Brecher’s a bit to irreverent for my taste (This is definitely not for Maggs. Nope, stay away Maggs or you’ll blow a gasket. I warned you.), but when you strip that away you’ve got a somewhat thought out piece dealing with something that Ledger asked a week or so ago about ‘effectiveness’ in the Straight of Hormuz a week or so ago. Of course, since I’m way risk averse minded when it comes to things like this I’d hit every place, multiple times, that they could hide those Kamikaze Evinrudes, shore based ASCM launch site, and small combatant (things like the Bayandor and Hudong class vessels) since they can carry torpedoes and ASCM before I even started moving a ESG or CSG into range of anything but the Kilo class subs Iran has while well away from their pens.
But I’m known to be very slow, methodical, conservative, and to telegraph my punches like that.
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Ack. Why won’t this idea of invading Burma go away? When did international relations get made over in Madeline Albright’s image? No, Curzon, we don’t force Burma at the point of a gun to take foreign aid. (Dang it, J’s on their blogroll again but we aren’t? Grrr. I tell ‘ya, we get no respect in the under 45 academe set. What a drag. 10 points to whoever knows which anime characters line that is.)
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Lynch over at Abu Aardvark seems to be wondering if we can’t play the Muslim Brotherhood against the Wahabi al-Qaeda and thereby
