*Yes, I did edit it for clarity, about 6 hours after it was published. It looked good when I hit publish. It didn't look so good when I read it on the site.

� Secure this line!

I don't know how well it worked as a tactic for getting people to think outside of ingrained structures...

Seems to me the *old* terminology fit quite nicely into the RMAs initiated by Napoleon, Gustavus Adolphus, Rommel, et alii. And I seem to remember that the only people who didn't laugh themselves silly over UA, Ux and Uy were the originators...

Regarding that "non line of sight" thingee... does having that then assume that the army is still dielfing direct fire (line of sight) artillery? Seems to me to sort of defeat the purpose of support fires when the battery will be within small arms range of it's intended target....

As to the newspeak... lets just carry it to it's logical conclusions, shall we?

SHOT= single human operator terminated
KILL= kinetic impact laid low
RIFLE= ranged infantry formed lead expender
WATER= work and training electrolyte restorer

You get the drift.

I pray there is a special hell for the dolks who come up with these monikers, and and even more horrible fate for those who allow them to continue to do it.

besides the special hell for PP rangers, and the worse jell for the creator of PP.

TTFN,

Nother Large Overweight Shot-Catapult.

[Geez -- I can't believe I beat JMH to that one. Uhhhh -- he's not sick or anything, is he?]

Oldthinkers unbellyfeel Ingsoc.

Actually, Bill - that sounds more like Murray.

I've been out for a decade now and I'm still trying to get my family to understand the differnce between a regiment and a brigade.

Why, that's *obvious*... Brigades are combined arms, Regiments aren't.

Oops. Damn Cav. And those Airborne bubbas, too.

Feh.

8^ )

A Brigade has a Sergeant-Major.

A Regiment has a Sar'n-Majah.

With a swagger-stick.

Notional Land Operational Specimen- Compound

Cheers

Brigade: BSM
Regiment: RSM
Squadron: "Sar't- Maju"
Never called the BSM or RSM "Sergeant-Major". Massive Double-plus Ungood. At Anytime.

Cheers

When P.J. O'Rourke was covering Desert Storm from Kuwait, he discussed the Army's fascination with acronyms and double-talk.

His favorite: a nut (for a bolt) was a "hexaform rotatable surface compression unit."

(from Give War a Chance)

Feh, as a Marine NCO, I rated a 'swagger stick' and a sabre too! Though not the coolio Officers Mameluke sword type sticky, slashy thingy...

I'm glad I'm not the only one who wondered about that! I did think it was odd, but thought there must be some new wrinkle. Nope. Just a dumb name.

And, 100 years is way too short. More like thousands, with ancient siege engines, trebuchets, and all those things. Not to mention firing thousands of arrows over city walls, and from behind hills, tree-lines, etc. They had black powder mortars way back when. Ain't too much new under the sun.

How about BUG, or BUMF?

The first one is Big Ugly Gun.

The second is... Bum Fodder, or toilet paper, from around 1890 Brit usage, usually applied to pointless paperwork.

Except that true bumf *isn't* pointless.

At least not if you're the one doing the laundry.

One of my AF counterparts is doing C&GS by correspondence. He's now at "Joint Operations: Logistics" and finding the concepts of Reinforced Battalions, Augmented Regiments and Brigade Combat Teams a bit confusing.

I told him he was lucky they weren't making him study the RMA verbage. As soon as I got to Unit of Employment and explained that there were *no set numbers* for a UE, he started giggling.

"Dude, just give me the numbers. How many of what and how far."

I think I discovered the real reason nobody talks UE and UA and Ux-y-z anymore. The logisticians all laughed themselves to death.

*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".

� Secure this line!

It's *still* ugly

Who designed that thing -- Lego?

I meant to put in there - it looks like it was built to make it easier for Lego designers to produce a kit...

Hey -- I found where the design originated!

Even the Chief was out shilling this spugly gun

Was *not*.

Been here the whole time...

and the dutch have the pzh 2000: not a prototype, not overpriced, no flaws and kicking ass in a'stan!

[Yes, Eric, like I said! 8^ ). - ed]

Paraskavedekatriaphobia? And here I thought the only phobia I'd hear about today is triskadekaphobia. Never knew there was an extension of that to include friday the 13th, instead of just the number 13.

Gee.
The things you learn around here.... BUT IT'S STILL FUGLY... NO MATTER WHAT DAY IT IS. Must have been designed by the same engineers who designed the Scion xB. FUGLY.

Sitting here in Boston - which in the west of Ireland is referred to as "the next parish over".........enjoying my people stick a finger in the eye of the EU.

AFSis, thank you for picking up on that. I'd been waiting for *someone* to notice how devilishly clever I'd been... ; ^)

I'd been waiting for *someone* to notice how devilishly clever I'd been

Or how bored.

I mean, how many Google-hits for "really long words with a lot of Greek derivatives that mean fear of Friday the Thirteenth (ummm -- the day and not the movie, even though the movie was pretty funny) and won't blow a post down through the basement" did you finally have to wade through?

[Um, it came up first time, really. See?]

Maggie: and here's a toast to them from one parish just farther over a wee bit more!

1. Never get into a land war in Asia.
2. Never bet with a Sicilian when death is on the line.
3. Never invite an Irishman to your constitutional referendum.

But I knew you would say that, so a smart man...

Someone overlooked this.

Cheers

This thing reminds me of the boxy tanks in Atari's old video arcade game "BattleZone", circa 1981.

John- I'm just the only one foolish enough to publicly admit to Googling "paraskavedekatriaphobia."

Re: The Irish and the EU. The MSM CHANGED the article! This quote was left out/redacted from the link. Good thing I saved a copy of the article I forwarded to the Armorer.

Gee, why don't I trust the ruling 'elites' much less their lackeys in the MSM?

Here is a prime example of why. Note the tone and attitude of the author.

"Rural and working-class areas were almost universally anti-treaty. Better-off parts of Dublin registered stronger support for the EU. In suburban south Dublin, a largely wealthy and highly educated district, the "yes" camp triumphed with 63 percent of the vote. But a neighboring, scruffier district voted 65 percent "no."

The bastids!

Heh. Well Kevin - I linked *before* you sent the link - and I remember that quote, too. So, it's not there now, eh?

If so, yer right - the bastids!

"If so, yer right - the bastids!"

Trust, but verify....

It was there, now it's not. Geez, wonder why?

Fug them!

Now, where's me pitchforks and torches?

Obviously the MSM and their masters realized they had made an 'oopsie' that us, great unwashed masses that we are, would not appreciate....

Good thing I have a nice stockpile of 7.62....

And to you. you gubbermint jackbooted goons.... I can still hit a man sized target at 500 yards... something to consider...

Me Gadsden Flag is unfurled!

Molon Labe!

Izzit it really 7.62 Nato or .308 Win?

It makes a difference...

wow.... Tim Russert died. I never watched "Meet The Press" until Tim started hosting it.
*heavy sigh*

The Armorer is being snitty...

It's Friday night, so I suggest he go to Outback and imbibe in massive quantities of margaritas.

And, fiendishly, I hope he has near termial gas from their infernal bloomin' onions...

May gawd have mercy on SWWBOs soul, or at least her sinuses...

Am not being snitty. Have an L1A1 that keyholes with .308, but punches the center with 7.62. Case dimensional differences, though small, *matter*.

And we had some mexican thing SWWBO make tonight. Tasty, but still might cause terminal gassiness.

For SWWBO.

Not me. And I use a CPAP, and get my air well away from the bed... there are some advantages to being partially broken.

LOL, I go to dinner and come back to gas discussions........nice.

Gee,much bigger an they'll have to paint a bunny on the front,which reference also might be where they got the stylin cues from.

Friday the 13th got me, as I mentioned in a comment to the previous post. The Deputy who responded was very nice, though, a real Peace Officer, and a credit to the memory of Bobby Peel and John D.. oh wait, John's not dead yet.

Big Al, don't make fun of bunnies who carry switchblades.

Non-Line-of-Sight? Is that like, you know, Indirect Fire, which evverbody has been doing for, oh, about a hundred years?

Shooting over hills? Pointing the sights one way and the gun, another? Estimating windage when shooting a BB gun?

They sure picked an unfortunate Marketing Name for that.

Gravity does affect trajectories. That is a very silly name, unless and until they do some 'splainin.

'Snot ugly; it's designed to Artillery Specs.

Cheers

Too bad our military still suffers from the NIH syndrome. I always figured that the South African military pretty much got the mobile 155 right with their G-6(?).

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

� Secure this line!

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.

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.

John,

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?

Heh. Mostly I used your comment as an excuse to show Ry how much you could condense his argument...

And to throw some props to Ry for his side.

I know, I know, Ry - brevity is for wimps!

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!)

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.

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.

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)

8^)

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.

So as to grovel medically prove that he is fit for the rigors of his up-coming boot camp ordeal basic camp induction, the poor sap applicant must lay in black and white all which has ailed him in the past. For example:

Item 3:

Epilepsy, fits, seizures, or convulsions

Item 4:

Sleepwalking

Item 9:

Double vision

Item 10:

Periods of unconsciousness

Item 13:

Fainting Spells or passing out

Item 14:

Head Injury, including skull fracture, resulting in concussion, loss of consciousness, headaches, etc.

Item 70, My favorite:

Bedwetting since age 12

But seriously, Item 16 raises some interesting questions.

Seen a psychiatrist, psychologist, social worker, counselor of other professional for any reason…

The above quandary, begs yet another question. What of those, whom have never sought the services of a mental health professional, and yet have had equal or worse life experiences? Aren’t they really worse-off mentally/emotionally than those who have sought help; keeping all of their inner afflictions bottled-up, ready to pop when subjected to the stresses of Basic Training? In this scenario, wouldn’t those who have sought counseling be penalized unduly, vis-à-vis those who haven’t?

On the other hand, with the above in mind, could the applicant obviate parts of his past, and put his initials on the “NO” column? Well… the preamble of DD-2807-2 states that:

DISCLOSURE: Voluntary; however, failure by the applicant to provide the information may result in delay or possible rejection of the individual’s application to enter the Armed Forces.

WARNING: The information you have given constitutes an official statement. Federal law provides severe penalties… to anyone making a false statement…

So, if the applicant decides not to volunteer this information, can it be truly voluntary, if he can be prosecuted for making “a false statement”?

The applicant will have to decide in this coming week, whether DD FORM 2807-2 is a literary work of NON-FICTION or FICTION.

BOQ

� Secure this line!

If you're doing what I think you're doing, 'you'll be sorreeee'.

No worries, Boq. Good things happen to good people.

Good things happen to good people.

Ahhhh - yeah. Got it.

Huh? I'm totally lost, Unka Bill. If it's what he wants it counts as a good thing, dontchaknow. Maybe I should stop trying funny and supportive in the same response?

"Voluntary" as in "Removing your shoes in the airport security screen" voluntary? As when you don't, you get sent to the "secondary screen" where you may end up taking your shoes off anyway voluntary? Or voluntary as in the "Never Again Volunteer Yourself" service I was in. Whatever, that's one form where whatever you put in/don't put in will be scrutinized in detail when the candidate goes through whatever security rating process there is these days for a security clearance. When they fill out the form. Again. And discrepancies are noted, discussed, mangled, mashed, and explanations are due for said discrepancies. On the pain of jail time, reduction in rank, and severe discharge from parts of the said military anatomy.

I think this purported DD Form 2807-02 makes absolutely no sense. But that never stopped them before. Stop and think, SECDEF Dr. Robert Gates issued a directive for the the removal of the mental health questions for a security clearance. Now you have this question #16, if it starts here, you can bet it is somewhere in the Military Jacket of each of its members. My big question is this- What does this say to our all volunteer force?

JoeC, I haven't travelled in many, many years. You talk of a "secondary screen". Is this the one, they put on a long sleeved glove and tickle your tonsils the long way? At least, this is the way it feels.

As I look at this, I have that not so quiet voice in the back of my mind, screaming, "What the [REDACTED]!

Grumpy

Interesting form. Sounds like it's basically you don't have to put any info in here but if you miss any sections or lie you will be in trouble and will be disqualified. This should be part of the initial recruitment screening process not something applied after that point. Some of these conditions are so common as to be silly and assumes one has current contact and records from doctors years ago.

A lot of potential here for misunderstanding and lying. If this really is an official form you military dudes need to clean up your administrative processes.

Dunno Ry, in the D&D's Moral Alignment Compendium, the applicant will be more of a Lawful Neutral, than Good (Goodie-Goodie-Two-Shoes). The applicant will be happy with all of your comments.

What's that saying? "Face it you're really neutral evil."

Didn't John forward on what I had on this Boq? NOt safe for this type of talk in this forum. try my gmail account so I know which email is you and I'll tell you what little wisdon I have on the issue.

My ancient version of Acrobat Reader showed a blank page for that, so I'm commenting from ignorance, here.

I'm thinking of earnest, socially awkward types like myself (borderline Aspies) who would have been hoicked in by the draft back in the late 60s, and told
to get with the program and fit in, or else.

These days, there is silliness in the mental and physical requirements, methinks.

Added to our symphony, now, is another sound. A ratcheting sound almost like a child with a spinning noise maker. It’s our Oboe. Our gleaming black hardware of life and death.

The M4 Carbine is a gas-operated, air-cooled, magazine-fed, selective fire, shoulder-fired weapon with a telescoping stock. We didn’t have SPOMOD yet, but when we got it at the end of our deployment, it turned an already viciously sleek weapon in to a work of combat art.
The sound is my boys. My Men. My comrades. My friends. Charging Handle back. Release.

Charging Handle back. Release.

It distributes life and death. No, not that it spares those it does not kill.

It spares the wielder. It spares the families at home from receiving a chaplain at the door. It spares the children from crying, and wives and husbands from sitting up at night quietly looking at old pictures.

But with great power comes greater responsibility and this is no different. So we have trained. And we have fired. And we have executed, and we have repeated our instructions, and we have rolled in the dirt, sand and muck until our M4 has become an appendage, a part of us.

The vehicles are not ours, but they are part of us.

The Bradley is not mine, though in a few hours I may wish it were. The heat blasts across us like a painting, slow, sleek, and with the sand and dust you can watch it scrape across the humid land like a giant hand.

The General did not want us here. But we were here. To do our duty, no mater what that duty may be. For, as has been said before, we were soldiers. And young.

We are to be what will later be called a Force Multiplier. Eyes and Ears. We are to be Ceaser, or rather CSAR, Combat Search and Rescue. FID. Foreign Internal Defense.

But this is not a story of action. It is one of memories, like my own personal yellow brick road with which I will skip down with my heart, my courage, my mind all hand in hand to that place where I was young, and bigger than I am.

“Are you bigger than yourself?”

I was challenged that by my instructor at John Kennedy’s school of higher learning.
“Are you bigger than yourself?”

We asked that now of ourselves, of each other. 12 men side by side awaiting our personal green lights.

The unit we are to move out with continues scrambling to their vehicles.

We too have a Captain. An Executive officer. But ours stand quietly beside us. Not even a hint of a smile beneath camouflaged faces, painted like some deranged child hood clown gone horribly wrong to create a dark persona, who hours ago held his children close as he boarded the plane.

Later our 12 men would become 3, as we break off in to smaller battles. Smaller wars. ODA teams. Recon. Then we would be whole again. A living organism with 12 minds, 24 hands , 24 hours, and 12 beating hearts pounding a rhythm to the beat of the Bradley tank in acts of peace and aggression.

My captain loved to say before an operation. “We were the Devils Brigade. Now we are the Devil.”

We have no horns. No pitchfork. We wear brown, or green not red. But we are fluid and singular in our action. We are a wave. We are the wind dust covered wind. We move not for ourselves. Not for glory or honor, or love or any other grandiose reason placed down in so many books.
But to free the oppressed. De Opresso Liber.

Si vis pacem, para bellum. We recite this as our motto within our team. It is our prayer. Our release.

Si vis pacem, para bellum. It is a mantra. A beat of its own. We chant it quietly, out loud. The regular Army soldiers look at us oddly. Like we are madmen. But we know it is we, who are sane.

Si vis pacem, para bellum. The beat increases. We say it louder. We match the thrum of vehicles. Yea though I walk through the valley of shadow of death I will fear no evil because I am the baddest sunuvabitch in the valley.

Si vis pacem, para bellum. Almost shouting now. We gather around as one. Slapping our magazines with steady rhythm. We crouch, like a football team huddle, practically screaming at each others faces. In to the valley of death rode the 600. 12 will come back. 12 always come back.

Si vis pacem, para bellum. Other soldiers stop and clap with us. The chant is louder. We are going to war. We are going where many men have gone before, and we will return. For we are brothers. In arms. In Blood. In peace. In war. We are Spartans. We are warriors. We are our country. We are soldiers.

SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM.

If you want peace, Prepare for war.

Diesel.

The smell reminds me.

Always.

� Secure this line!

that was the best thing I've read in awhile.

Bloodspite,
I didn't ever go mech, but I was airborne infantry. The camo, the weapons, (M-16-A1, not M-4's,) then the M21-D system and ghillie suits. The smell of camo sticks and breakfree, hot metal and gunpowder. I remember, and thank you for your service.

Thanks,
Alan Briley, RN

I wasn't Mec Infantry either, but we got attatched to various units pretty regular during Desert Storm/Shield. Stormin' Norman wan't crazy about us but we did our job just the same as ordered.

Either way I thank you both. Sincerely. I was having a hard time coming up with something to say, so I figured I'd just give what I see in my mind every Memorial Day.

Memories.

Thanks Armorer for posting it as well!

An excellent post. I only wish I was so eloquent. You hit it dead on. Those smells are something that you never forget. I started in Jeeps, so the smells of gasoline, motor oil and GAA are forever etched into my mind as well. Those sights, sounds and smells are reminders, no matter what level you rise to, if you were a real leader, they will bring you back to your roots.

Secretary of the Army Pete Geren
Marshall Awards Speech
Evans Hall, Washington & Lee University
April 17, 2008

AS DELIVERED

MG Rees, thank you for that kind introduction. Your service to our Nation began over 40 years ago, when you entered West Point in 1962. Over those decades, you have served in both the active duty Army and the National Guard - cavalry troop commander in Vietnam, commander of the 116th Armored Cavalry Regiment, service as the vice chief and acting chief of the National Guard Bureau. And now you lead the Oregon National Guard as Adjutant General. A remarkable career. Thank you for your service.

And to our Marshall Award winners - it is a privilege and an honor to address you tonight. And I want to thank the Marshall Foundation, Washington & Lee, and VMI for their support of this occasion and acknowledge the role VMI played in shaping the career of George Marshall. VMI is our nation's oldest state military college, founded in 1839 - an institution with a proud and rich history.

Since the graduation of its first class, VMI graduates have served our nation with distinction in every war our Nation has fought, starting with the Mexican War four years after its founding.

Two hundred and forty-eight VMI graduates have reached general or flag officer ranks. Seven have been awarded the Medal of Honor. Nearly 600 VMI cadets have been killed in action in our Nation's wars.

And VMI remains the only military college whose student body marched into battle - the 257 cadets who fought on the side of the South in the Civil War. They marched to New Market to turn back a Union offensive in the Shenandoah Valley - suffering 54 casualties with 10 killed in action -- 6 buried on the grounds at VMI.

In 1897, with many of the wounds of that war yet to heal, Pennsylvania's George C. Marshall enrolled at VMI, one of 14 Yankees among 82 rats in that year's class.

In 1901, that Pennsylvania Yankee graduated as the unanimous choice for First Captain of his class - and embarked on a nearly 60 year journey that shaped our Army to meet the perils of the 20th Century; he served as chief of staff of the U.S. Army and was one of the chief architects of the Allied victory in World War II. And, with the Marshall Plan, laid the foundation for our ultimate victory in the Cold War.

You the Marshall class of 2008, are part of the legacy of one of our truly great Americans. You are being recognized both for your outstanding performance in ROTC and for your potential as future Army officers.

Each of you was selected as the top cadets of your ROTC Units -- you have demonstrated outstanding leadership and academic achievement.

Together, you represent our Army's next generation of leaders. You are among our very best and our expectations of you are high. Today, our Army is the best led, best trained and best equipped Army the world has ever seen. Your job is to make sure we can still say that 20 years from now.

You are leaders who will lead our Soldiers during this time of war and in this era of persistent conflict and persistent engagement.

You will lead in complex and complicated times - under the Chinese curse of all those who are fated to live in "interesting times" - and much will be asked of you. You will be entrusted with our Nation's most precious resource - our sons and daughters - and our nation's most important mission - our nation's defense.

Napoleon told us, "There are no bad soldiers, only bad generals."

Your responsibilities are heavy - your charge is as old as our Army: lead by example, accomplish the mission and take care of your Soldiers.

Each of you has been given Forrest C. Pogue's four-volume biography of George C. Marshall. You would do well to study it. The many and varied challenges George C. Marshall confronted over his nearly 60 years of service to our Nation - you will find them all compressed into your military career, whether it be 5 years or 40 - perhaps even into a single tour in Iraq or Afghanistan. Clear-hold-build, Counter-insurgency, stability operations, combat, nation-building - winning a war, winning the peace - and laying the foundation for a sustainable peace - our Soldiers are doing all of that and more -- everyday.
That is a lot to ask of you - but that is what we are asking of Army leaders today.

George C. Marshall's career - it began before the Wright Brothers took flight and ended in the Space Age.
He began as you will - as a second lieutenant. And he told us, and I quote from him, "There isn't anything much lower than a second lieutenant" - come this May, you will be able to judge for yourselves whether that is true.

And this man who is credited with many of the greatest successes of the 20th Century, considered his promotion to first lieutenant in 1907, "the most thrilling moment of my life" - a thrill each of you can reasonably expect to share with him. But there are big differences.

George Marshall spent 15 years as a lieutenant before World War I and 23 years as a staff officer, commander and instructor between World War I and World War II.

He had an advantage you likely never will have - an extended break between conflicts.

For you, it is likely that your career never will be free of war - it will be an era of persistent conflict and persistent engagement. You will not get an inter-war break. You will be changing tires on a speeding vehicle for most of your career.

Today I want to talk about three of the challenges you will face in this era of persistent conflict, separate challenges, but interwoven.
First, we must be a military that can "clear, hold and build" - all equally well - win the battle, win the war, and win the peace - build a sustainable peace. In the 21st Century, wars are not won when the enemy army is defeated on the battlefield - in fact, there may not be a uniformed enemy to fight at all. Instead, today, a war is won only when the conditions that spawned armed conflict have been changed.

That is asking a lot of our military - missions we have not sought for ourselves, but missions our nation has given us today and will in the future. Missions that are critical to the safety and freedom of our citizens and our allies.

We must be prepared for the full spectrum of skills that assignment requires - kinetic and non-kinetic - lethal and non-lethal.

And this brings us to the second challenge: strategic communications - an art, a skill that is essential to success on the battlefield of the 21st Century and on the homefront. By definition, non-kinetic - but in the hands of our enemy - lethal.

Strategic communications are essential to maintaining public trust and confidence in our military, recruiting our nation's finest into our military and sustaining the morale of our Soldiers - and their families, their families are essestial to defeating the enimies of the 21st century and maintaining - support for the war effort.
And third - sustain military families in this era of persistent conflict. We are a nation long at war. In this seventh year of combat operations, we are in uncharted waters for Army families, the linchpin of our All Volunteer Force.

Our Families deserve a quality of life equal to the quality of their service. Family support for the next decade will not look like family support from the last - it is changing and you will be part of that change - you must lead that change.

Back to Point Number One: "clear, hold and build" in a 21st Century context - developing leaders - officers and NCOs - who can succeed at lethal and non-lethal operations.

Recently, our Secretary of Defense, Dr. Gates, told us: "One of the principal challenges the Army faces is to regain its traditional edge at fighting conventional wars while retaining what it has learned - and unlearned - about unconventional wars, the ones most likely to be fought in the years ahead."

Dr. Gates continued: "These conflicts will be fundamentally political in nature, and require the application of all elements of national power. Success will be less a matter of imposing one's will and more a function of shaping behavior - of friends, adversaries, and most importantly, the people in between."

Our charge is to "dominate" land operations. How do you define, redefine, "dominate" in this security environment?

The Army we are growing in Afghanistan and Iraq today is redefining dominate -- is the Army we must retain if we are to do our job. The officers and NCOs of today's Army, shaped in the crucible of the complex strategic and tactical environment of Iraq and Afghanistan today, understand the gritty reality of what it takes to win today's wars.

We must capture and retain their hard-earned experience and wisdom. That experience and wisdom must shape our Army's present and future.

We need Soldiers who speak foreign languages, understand local cultures and empathize with and address the plight of struggling peoples.

In this century's conflicts, our Soldiers must dominate lethal operations, but be as comfortable working on a computer keyboard, debating in a village council meeting, recruiting allies among the local population, training indigenous forces, as they are capable of determining aimpoints for artillery targets.

Our Army understands that the way we fight has changed - and is changing, and you will become the leaders who will carry this dynamic vision into this century.
And, if we are going to retain the combat edge honed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and adapt as the future requires, we must be an institution that encourages Soldiers to ask hard questions, questions that make us uncomfortable - reward not only the Soldier who risks his life, but also the Soldier who is willing to risk a promotion - encourage those who afflict the comfortable.

Recently, LTC Paul Yingling wrote a piece that appeared in the Armed Forces Journal - and sparked heated debate throughout the Army - ruffled some feathers - ruffled a lot of feathers. That is a good thing. We need more, not fewer, Paul Yinglings.

And on this point, George C. Marshall also can serve as our model. Many thought MAJ Marshall's career was at an end in 1917 when he publicly disagreed with and angrily lectured GEN "Black Jack" Pershing at 1st Division headquarters in France during World War I. He even grabbed the general's arm when he tried to disengage.

His anger and assertiveness did not draw a rebuke from Pershing - rather it earned his respect.

And rather than end Marshall's career, this incident launched his career - broke him out of the pack of his peers. Pershing made him a temporary colonel and added him to his staff - within two years he became his personal aide. And his assertiveness did not stop there.

In World War II, Marshall regularly sat at the conference table with President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, plotting strategy for the war effort. FDR labeled Marshall "the best man at the table."

Once, in response to an insistent Churchill's repeated demands that the Allies launch an invasion of the Greek island of Rhodes, the "best man at the table" looked straight at the Prime Minister and said, "Not one American soldier is going to die on that goddamned beach." And that ended the discussion of invading Rhodes.

Now let me move to the subject of strategic communications and share with you a recent quote from MG Rick Lynch, Commander of the 3rd I.D., speaking from Baghdad:

"Last night my dad asked if I was still in Iraq. He's not seeing it on TV because bad things aren't happening over here. It's less publicized. That breaks my heart, because I've got 20,000 Dog Face Soldiers working their butts off every day over here making great progress for the United States of America, and we just have to get that story told."
Well, it does more than break his heart. The implications of the media's silence on the success of our Soldiers are felt on the battlefront and on the homefront.

On the battlefront, news of our success encourages our allies, converts fence-sitters and discourages and even converts some of our enemies. At home, that silence erodes public support and the morale of our families.

I again will quote Dr. Gates:

"[P]ublic relations was invented in the United States, yet we are miserable at communicating to the rest of the world what we are about as a society and a culture, about freedom and democracy, about our policies and our goals. It is just plain embarrassing that al-Qaeda is better at communicating its message on the Internet than America. As one foreign diplomat asked a couple of years ago, 'How has one man in a cave managed to out-communicate the world's greatest communication society?' Speed, agility, and cultural relevance are not terms that come readily to mind when discussing U.S. strategic communications."

The enemy has learned this lesson and learned it well. With the 24-hour news cycle, communication satellites and the Internet, Al Qaeda has a reach around the world that dwarfs that of the major networks only a few years ago - and they are using it effectively.
And they are unconstrained by the facts - Secretary Rumsfeld used to remind us that a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is getting its boots on - and in the meantime, Al Qaeda has spun its self-serving lie and broadcast it around the world. And, we are playing catch-up against the last lie while they launch their next.

We cannot get careless and retreat from our commitment to the truth - that is a given - but we must cultivate a sense of urgency in getting out the truth in the information domain comparable to that on the kinetic battlefield when responding to an urgent call for help from an embattled Soldier.

In the modern battlespace, our enemies use strategic communications to kill our Soldiers - we cannot yield that field of battle to them.

And on the homefront, devoid of good news, MG Lynch's father gets discouraged, so does the rest of his family and so does the American public.

And the impact is far-reaching - costing us support at home and abroad.

Recently, a newspaper columnist did a study of the 2005 press coverage of the posthumous Medal of Honor awarded to SFC Paul Ray Smith, the first Medal of Honor in the Global War on Terror, and compared it to the coverage of the court-martial of Abu Ghraib guard Lyndie England.

There were 90 stories about Paul Ray Smith and 5,000 on Lyndie England.

Lyndie England and her sordid story is known to most Americans and Paul Ray Smith is known to very few. That combination hurts our Army at home and abroad.

And, it does no good to blame the media - that will never solve the problem. We must focus on what we can do, what we can control.

We must embrace the media and it work for our Army.

As a leader - make the media your friend - use it to reach your Soldiers, their families, our allies and our enemies.

Tell the stories of your heroes in your Army - and get it heard.

Every leader in our Army, officer and NCO, must embrace the challenge of telling the Army story, the American story. It is not solely the job of public affairs professionals - every one of you must accept the challenge. As an Army leader, it is your job.

On the battlefront or homefront, we are in a battle for the hearts and minds of our friends, enemies and neutrals. As leaders in our Army, our nation's military - join that battle - whether you are in Kansas, Killeen or Kandahar.

On the firing range, every Soldier is a safety officer - in the war of ideas - the wars of this century - every Soldier must be a public affairs officer.

And, third - we must sustain our families in this era of persistent conflict.

President Bush underscored the central role of military families in his recent State of the Union address when he said, "Our military families also sacrifice for America. They endure sleepless nights and the daily struggle of providing for children while a loved one is serving far from home. We have a responsibility to provide for them. ... Our military families serve our nation, they inspire our nation and tonight our nation honors them."

We are in the 7th year of war in Afghanistan, in March we marked 5 years in Iraq. This is the longest conflict our Nation has fought with an All-Volunteer Force.

And the demographics of our Army are different from any Army so long at war: over half of our Soldiers are married - with over 700,000 children in Army Families. When a married Soldier deploys, he or she leaves a single-parent household behind and all the challenges of that family dynamic. When a single parent deploys, he or she leaves children in the care of others.

In our All-Volunteer Force, our Soldiers are volunteers and so are their Families. The Soldier of today does not look like the Soldier of 2001. He or she is equipped, trained and led differently. The family support systems cannot look the same, either.

Over the last several months, officers and NCOs across our Army signed our Family Covenant.

GEN Casey and I also have signed this covenant, and it's been signed at more than 120 installations across the globe, including Europe, Japan, Korea, as well as medical commands, Reserve Components and National Guard locations.

We must ensure that this covenant remains a living document, shaped by responsive leaders responding to the demands of a dynamic and unpredictable future. You are those leaders.

Across the force, we will look to you to make family support a top priority, to craft creative initiatives responsive to the needs of your command, to make the ideals of the Family Covenant a reality, and use your leadership positions to shape support for Families that meets their needs in an era of persistent conflict.

Our Families deserve a quality of life equal to the quality of their service. The future of our All-Volunteer Force depends on it. It is an obligation we owe to our Families and it is a readiness issue. You are the leaders who will ensure the Covenant remains a dynamic compact with our Families.

In summary, we must be and remain an Army that can "hold and build" as well as we "clear." We must seize the communications domain and make it a responsibility and competency of every Army leader, officer and enlisted. And we must guarantee our Army families a quality of life equal to their service.

I will close: When you receive your commissions next month, you become a part of the legacy of GEN George C. Marshall, the legacy of a man hailed a giant all over the world. Quite an honor and with it responsibility Winston Churchill called Marshall "the greatest Roman of them all." Joseph Stalin said he would, "trust him with his life". And Harry Truman judged him then, "the greatest living American ... one for the ages."

Let me close with a quote from Marshall - drawn from his speech when accepting the Nobel Peace Prize - the only Soldier ever to receive that award.

George Marshall was commissioned into our Army 107 years ago - he has been dead half a century. But his words are as current today as when he spoke them in 1953.

In these few words he captures the essence of your strategic mission as leaders of the United States Army in this 21st Century. He told us:

"We must present democracy as a force holding within itself the seeds of unlimited progress by the human race. By our actions we should make it clear that such a democracy is a means to a better way of life, together with a better understanding among nations. Tyranny inevitably must retire before the tremendous moral strength of the gospel of freedom and self-respect for the individual, but we have to recognize that these democratic principles do not flourish on empty stomachs and that people turn to false promises of dictators because they are hopeless and anything promises something better than the miserable existence that they endure."

Cadets - George Marshall has charted your course. Thank you.

� Secure this line!

We must embrace the media and it work for our Army.

Explain to me how that differs from If you can't beat'em, join 'em.

Trying to ingratiate the military with the journos and chattering classes by feeding their megalomaniacal pretensions of being more than content providers in a scheme to sell advertising in the hopes that they will less enthusiastically channel As Sahab evokes unwelcome homoerotic images of vaseline and kneepads.

The prospect is a very stark one for people who work in, write, and edit newspapers. For these people do not think of themselves as “content providers.” They think much more highly of themselves than that. They believe they play a vital role, perhaps the most vital role, in the defense of the freedoms of every citizen. After all, who else is there to keep a vigilant watch over the official custodians of society? Who else is there to protect the people from the depredations of business and government? Is not freedom of speech—the very freedom that enables journalists to ply their trade—the first of our freedoms, primus inter pares, and who will guard it if not they? -- John Podhoretz

The MSM's power is eroding. Why would anybody who has been so abused by that power wish to prop it up?
Stockholm syndrome.

I was wondering if anyone was going to jump in on anything in this piece.

At the same time, #4, we can't just ignore them and hope they'll go away.

Hence, why the Services are, with varying degrees of understanding and success, trying to find other info pathways to disseminate their info.

But until the Dinosaurs actually fall, you have to be cognizant of them.

And they still reach, and influence, a far greater number of citizens than the blogs do.

Blogs are a very inefficient way to gather information, if a surprisingly useful one for disseminating it, if what you wish is goodness in Google.

I really hadn't a whole lot to say, BB.

I am *curious* as to what this Covenant is.

BUt C4 brought up something and it has jogged an idea loose. The recent dustup about retired officers in relation to this working with the media instead of against it or blaming it? I dunno. I understand why Sec Geren said the mil should take a more collaborative rather than antagonistic approach with the media, but it just seems an errand doomed to fail. BUt then, a lot of the kids he talked to are smarter than me so just 'cause I can't see the way doesn't mean they won't.

I can answer the question about the Army Family Convenant, LB.

Fort Leavenworth.

Well, just about everywhere, actually.

The verbiage:

The Army Family Covenant
We recognize the commitment and increasing sacrifices that our families are making every day.

We recognize the strength of our Soldiers comes from the strength of their families.

We are committed to providing Soldiers and families a quality of life that is commensurate with their service.

We are committed to providing our families a strong, supportive environment where they can thrive.

We are committed to building a partnership with Army families that enhances their strength and resilience.

We are committed to improving family readiness by:
• Standardizing and funding existing family programs and services
• Increasing accessibility and quality of healthcare
• Improving Soldier and family housing
• Ensuring excellence in schools, youth services, and child care
• Expanding education and employment opportunities for family members

Definitely don't ignore them, but let's recognize the reality that 89% of them are in the tank for domestic oppositional elements who share common short-term objectives with an enemy whose strategic communications and Morale Operations against the domestic target audience depend on the MSM as delivery vehicles for their message.

Nine months from now when the counterinsurgent-supportive become the Loyal Opposition, the current “Loyal Opposition” assumes responsibility for retreat and disgrace, and the insurgent-supportive element within the newly-victorious counterinsurgent’s party demands indictments, sucking up to the alligators in the hope that they eat you last will be recognized for what it is.

" ... evokes unwelcome homoerotic images of vaseline and kneepads .... "

ROFLMAO!

#4 has a way with words, don't he?

And he can jargon-speak with the best of them.

Let Me Just Say...
I for one will not be welcoming our new Democratic overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a bitter, clinging rightwing nutcase, I consider it my sworn duty to aid the escape of those toiling in their underground sugar caves, and cause them to use an inordinate number of party faithful to guard them, and to harass them to the best of my ability, just like Group Captain Ramsey said.

Group Captain Ramsey
Gentleman, there's no fighting in the war room.

That was Group Captain Mandrake. Group Captain Ramsey was Senior British Officer at Luft Stalag III.

"[P]ublic relations was invented in the United States, yet we are miserable at communicating to the rest of the world what we are about as a society and a culture, about freedom and democracy, about our policies and our goals. It is just plain embarrassing that al-Qaeda is better at communicating its message on the Internet than America. – Sec Gates

True.

Definitely don't ignore them, but let's recognize the reality that 89% of them are in the tank for domestic oppositional elements who share common short-term objectives with an enemy whose strategic communications and Morale Operations against the domestic target audience depend on the MSM as delivery vehicles for their message –Cannoneer No. 4

True

Now, John and Bill are doing their share on the communications front.

But, Cannoneer No. 4 makes a valid point. The enemy has basically bought the MSM (or intimidated their stringers).

Because of the current laws it is next to impossible to sanction an enemy saturated “News organization.”

But, I believe it is entirely possible to investigate said “News organization” and turn the tables on them.

The enemy uses slick back alley K street “Communications consultants.” I see no reason why the US military cannot do the same.

This is information Gorilla War. The US should deal with it equally.

Hanoi Hannah and Tokyo Rose were unmasked by the USA. Why shouldn’t the new Iran Rose be unmasked?

The answer: She should be unmasked (however Un-Politically Correct it may be).

I would suggest that the military discreetly but effectively unmask those who disseminate anti-military propaganda to the US public.

Will it be easy? No.

Will it require the intelligence of the Manhattan Project? No.

Will it require adroit maneuvering? Yes.

Can it be done? Yes.

I just blessed off on the four Iraqi stick-jockeys who came here to have their Instrument Instructor skills honed and evaluated. [names, ranks and squadrons redacted] all of them smacked their simulated birds into the simulated ground the first time I put them IMC, but they were "flying" an unfamiliar airframe. By the second hour, they were over being sim-sick and ready to go. No problem with their basic flying skills -- all were at least as good as the US helicopter pilots with the same flying hour level, and they all have multiple-thousand hours of stick time.

After the second sim period, I briefed them on attitude indicator failure and how to keep right-side up using only the non-electric instruments -- basically, the same things the pioneer mail pilots used in the 'Thirties. For the first two minutes, they were a bit shaky, but after they got their scan adjusted, they were good -- *very* good, in fact. After they landed, I got everybody outside for a break and one of them said, "Now I know why the Mi-17 crashed." He was on the IqAF investigation board.

Originally, everybody I talked to said all the IqAF pilots had zero instrument skills, but what I saw makes me call bullshit on that. These four were just plain *good* at instruments.

The Iraqi pilot continued, "When you started talking about the attitude indicator, I didn't realize you meant the artificial horizon, then when you failed it, I suddenly realized. And then I realized what killed the Mi-17 crew. I *knew*.

"In American helicopters, the little airplane stays still and the artificial horizon moves up and down and sideways. It is opposite with Russian artificial horizon -- the horizon stays still and the little airplane moves up and down and sideways.

"The Mi-17 has *Russian* artificial horizon."

The Iraqi Mi-17 pilots got their instrument training in the Huey. When they took off, they were nose-low -- *all* helicopters take off nose-low, it's the only way to get the beasts in the air, The little airplane on the artificial horizon went to the bottom of the gauge, as it was designed to do, and when they went IMC, the frikkin' Russian attitude indicator made them believe they were still straight and level for the first couple of seconds. By the time they got their scan going, they were still in a dive, probably only fifty feet above the ground.

Crunch.

I sent each one of the students off with a packet of instrument training pubs and slides. Got a couple of squadron patches in return -- [redacted] flies the Mi-17.

On a related note (related to oft-cited US opinion of Iraqi flying skills based on Gulf I and OIF), I think we might be painting with too broad a brush. [names and units redacted] flew fighter-bombers in Iran-v-Iraq and both had their bacon saved by the US Navy. The Aegis picket ships (who painted everything within 500 miles or so) would often give egressing Iraqi aircraft notice of bandits closing on their locations. When DS kicked off, most of the Iran-v-Iraq vets decided they weren't going to shoot up people who'd previously saved their asses -- but if they'd flat out refused to fly, they would have been shot; if they flew to Syria, they thought they'd be shot down by the Iraqi ADA ring oriented on Israel; they couldn't go to Turkey because Turkey was a Coalition partner. So, they went to Iran, got thrown in jail and beaten up for a while, and then were released at the end of hostilities. Most of the non-flying done in OIF was due to the Saddam's Got Control of the Situation Syndrome, but a bit of it was Iran-v-Iraq vets -- fixed- and rotary-wing -- hot-starting engines on purpose and frying them to ground the aircraft.

How much is true and how much is eyewash for the old gringo? Dunno, but both Su-7s on display here have slag for engine guts.

Now, before you lump me for telling tales out of school, consider the following:

1. The Iraqi board *knew* that spatial misorientation killed the Mi-17 crew, but they couldn't figure out *why* -- all the instruments were working normally and the crew, although inexperienced, had instrument training. Knowing the *why* won't change the causal findings, but it'll take a smidgeon of the onus off the dead pilots.

2. That's not the first time I've heard stories about what went on in the Gulf during Iran-v-Iraq -- just the first time I've heard them from the ones who were warned.

And now Dusty provides the coda:

"He's right about the Russian ADIs...they are the reverse of our design and VERY difficult to use the first time you try (given my MiG-23 sim experience in Hungary)...check that--it's impossible the first time. Everything is exactly backwards in the fixed-wing aircraft, i.e., what looks like a right bank in a US attitude indicator is a left bank in a Russian one, etc. If the little airplane moved as they say, that would be OK, but the ones I saw were out-and-out nauseatingly difficult to decipher.

As far as foreign pilot skills go, every fight I've ever been associated with assumes every SOB on the other side is an Eric Hartmann about to be unleashed. If they turn out to be less-than, so much the better. Then again, ask Randy Cunningham (on visitors' day) about Major Tomb.

I'm not surprised they are good pilots...they just flew in an air force owned by an a$$hole."

And to top it off - this might be the first "Marquee Post" where all the headliners of this space contributed something!

� Secure this line!

Wow. That is some fascinating stuff. Thanks so much for sharing it!

A question: So the Iraqis are training on one style of artificial horizon, then using another style for operations? Was that something that nobody had picked up on?! If so, is anything going to be done to align the training and operational equipment?

Wow... talk about a lightbulb moment.
You're right: It makes perfect sense now. Damn.

I think that goes along with Iraq now purchasing american weapons, etc.

I wonder how difficult it is, institutionally speaking, to overcome problems like the one you described? Up in the snowy, white north, we get people arguing all the time that we should be buying relatively cheap Russian or even more expensive European kit (especially aircraft). The example usually cited is the Indian military, which buys from whomever they can.

I wonder what a hodgepodge of equipment like that does to your safety, interoperability, orphan stock costs, and training costs?

Damian,
This story is EXACTLY what happens when you get a hodgepodge of equipment. Tragic.

Well, it's what happens if you can't maintain some structural separation.

Back when I weont on my final trip to the Sandbox for saber rattling, Operation Desert Thunder, the Kuwaiti Army had a brigade each of Pact gear, French gear, and US gear, and kept track of it that way. They didn't swap people out from unit to unit willy-nilly.

But it certainly complicates things, no matter how you manage it.

This also brings up an interesting additional facet concerning when people accuse the US of aiding Iraq against Iran back in the day.

In real life, actions have both negative and positive consequences. People who either focus all on the negative or the positives, to the exclusion of the real deal, are bombs waiting to go off if you strap them to your mission payload.

And they're not going to go off when you think they are going to go off either.

Such people make an extreme disaster of operations, precisely because they either look at America's support of Iraq and try to use it to destroy America's support of Iraq in the here and now by overplaying the negatives, or they look at the so called "positives" of cheap, inaccurate, "better" Russian hardware for the Iraqis in order to discount the advantage of interoperability and training which would come from getting the Iraqis the M-16 family of armaments.

Russia's quality control seems to be rather weirdly different to AMerica's, if not in the suckage compartment. Their industrial or technological base isn't the problem, it's the way they do quality control. Take a look at how they maintain, or rather don't maintain, their nuclear armaments. Which is probably why their most popular armaments like the Ak 47 don't need quality control because they have low tolerances. The popular refrain seems to be that you could bury an AK 47 underground for years, dig it back up rusted and gunky, then fire it off. It won't be very accurate though...

Little things like making the artificial horizon more intuitive, doesn't really seem to factor in for the Russians compared to the American or Western obsession with making things more streamlined and intuitive. Different philosophies, different methodologies.

For people, whether Leftists or not, just interested in the minor tactical advantages of Russian arms and their lack of a need for maintenance, are ignoring the logistical question. It's one thing if it is a tactical choice between more firepowr and less firepower. It is one thing if it is a tactical choice between weapons that work and weapons that just don't work even if you did everything you could to clean them, sort of like VIetnam plastic rifles. But this is a difference between solidifying American and Iraqi logistics by cutting out foreign equipment, or stay as we are while we try to get the Iraqis logistically independent of us.

Better logistics in the lnog run is always better than any slight improvements in tactics that could be effected, in my view.

On another note, it is always fascinating to see the perspective from another party in a warfare, rather than your own. Makes learning things faster.

Damien wrote:

wonder how difficult it is, institutionally speaking, to overcome problems like the one you described? Up in the snowy, white north, we get people arguing all the time that we should be buying relatively cheap Russian or even more expensive European kit (especially aircraft). The example usually cited is the Indian military, which buys from whomever they can.

You could go with the Israeli model and buy the A/C w/o instruments, and install your own

This is the first I’ve written about the Iraqi Air Force Mi-17 Crash last month. I didn’t personally know Staff Sergeant Chris Frost, the US Air Force Gunner who was killed in the crash, but do I remember seeing him whenever I was up at Taji. I had the highest respect for the USAF gunners and pilots who flew with and trained the Iraqi Airmen. Those men and women are the unsung heroes of the US effort to rebuild the Iraqi Air Force. I worked with several Iraqi Air Force Mi-17 crewmen, so odds are I knew some of those who were lost in the crash. I wanted to wait until the official report was released before discussed the situation. After reading the comments to this post regarding the after action report, I couldn’t remain silent. I’m very proud of the Iraqi Air Force, and proud of the Airmen of the United States Air Force who are training their fellow Iraqi Airmen.

The Iraqi Air Force does not have a 'hodgepodge' of equipment as is assumed by many. Their Mi-17 fleet, though currently small, will triple in size over the next couple of years. The Iraqi leadership chose to purchase more Mi-17s because they're good at flying them, and their maintainers are very experienced working on them.

We pushed the Hueys on them because the Huey II is an excellent helicopter and we could bring them in faster than the Mi-17s. We almost convinced the Iraqis to purchase another 30+ Huey II’s last fall, but the Iraqi Air Force rightfully decided they should stick with what they're good at and purchased more Mi-17s.

Ironically last August when I was ordering the Mi-17s for the IqAF I was asked by the Iraqi Air Staff time after time to make sure the helicopters had two modern radar altimeters, something not standard on the Mi-17. I was told that during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, 80+ helicopters crashed in the early morning darkness enroute to Kuwait because their altimeters were sub-par. The Iraqi leadership still remembers that lesson, and they stressed the importance of ordering only the best altimeters for their helicopters. I did just that. The new fleet that is inbound this year will be modified immediately after they leave the Russian assembly line by a US company. They will all have the appropriate altimeters, and hopefully a tragedy like this won’t happen again.

As for the transition from Hueys to Mi-17s being a contributing factor in the accident, what else could the Iraqi Air Force do? The Hueys were the only operational helicopters available to the Iraqi pilots first, so most pilots trained on them. The ones who transitioned to the Mi-17 were limited to flying inside the perimeter of their base because of a lack of defensive systems and trained gunners. Once those limitations were overcome, the Iraqis began flying operational Mi-17 missions outside the wire with great success.

Their first missions were to Basra last fall. They did an outstanding job and the crews quickly learned to adapt. The flight that crashed this March was flying north of Mosul, something the Iraqis haven't done in years, but they had to fly up there to provide the support their nation is asking of them. The Iraqi Air Force sortie rate increased from 30 per week in January 2007 to 300 per week in December 2007 because the Iraqi government desperately needs organic air power in the Counter-insurgency war they are fighting. This ‘surge’ in air power will most likely double throughout 2008, so the pressure is on for the US and Iraqi Airmen to train, equip, and join the fight.

Are the pilots inexperienced? Some of them. Are they learning and adapting quickly? Absolutely. Are our US Air Force pilots training the Iraqi pilots to the same standards as we train our own. You bet. Still, it's a new, young Air Force. No matter how many obstacles you overcome in your training and maintenance, mistakes will still happen and lives will tragically be lost.

And remember, the Iraqi Pilots and Crewmen are all learning how to operate in a combat environment, which makes this entire enterprise even more difficult and costly. They’re dodging small arms, missile fire, sand storms, and a “quazi-free for all” VFR combat air space while they’re learning how to fly in an operational capacity.

Yet they're still flying, and we're still training them. Why? Because no nation can be secure without Airpower, and the Iraqis have always known this. It's just taken us 4 years to finally do something about it.

I worked directly for the Iraqi Air Force for 6 months, and I'd do it again if called upon. Our Air Force is doing an outstanding job growing and developing what once was, and soon will be again, one of the most respected Air Forces in the region.

Just to be clear, El Capitan, Bill, Dusty and I were being *supportive* of the Iraqis, and not critical. That said...

Your information is illuminating. Thanks!

El Capitan, no disrespect was intended in my remarks. Canadian Forces aircraft are currently all American in pedigree, but we are constantly being pushed to buy something other than U.S. designs. I have concerns about mixing and matching, and was honestly asking for feedback, given that this post made me reflect on an issue that touches my military, but also quite a number of others.

Same here.
The point is that training on American helicopters and then flying Russian helicopters seems to be an issue due to the instrument panel differences. That's what was meant by hodgpodge- not that they have shoddy equipment, or that they're trying to put Russian parts in American copters or visa versa. And no one is saying that the IrAF pilots are incompetent- quite the opposite. After you read Bill's AAR, you understand exactly how this kind of thing could easily happen.

It's like driving in America your whole life, and then renting a car in England for a week's vacation- you're bound to screw up the right-sided steering, or at least struggle with it. Being in the air has far more dire consequences though.

This is why I am a landlubber and don't like heights and don't like to fly and and and...WOW.

I am impressed. This is Good Stuff.

Damian
The Forces may purchase American sourced equipment, but it is not USAF or USN standard. Back in the 80's we lost three Hercs and were offered replacements by Lockheed at a must-buy price. The aircraft were sitting unsold at the factory; the price to be charged was for the bare airframe. Unfortunately, the aircraft would have required partial stripping to remove the wiring/electronics and install the RCAF standard kit. The rebuild would have brought the acquisition cost up to the price of a Herc purchased the 'normal' way, which the Air Force could not afford.

There's a company in Kelowna which tries to sell Russian hels to the Air Force, but their aircraft are fitted with Canadian standard avionics, not Russian.

Cheers

The Forces may purchase American sourced equipment, but it is not USAF or USN standard.

Uh...yeah...which is why I purposely used the phrase "American pedigree." Are you forgetting I've actually flown in most of them?

Here's where I get to live down to the name of my site.

Bill, Bill, Bill... you and John threw a party and you didn't even invite me?

A** smacking, light hearted electronic bondage... err... badinage...???? Great goodly moogly!

A girl could really get her pert little nose out of joint :p

/flouncing off

SCOOOORE!!!!

Cricket, Ymar and Cassie in the same thread!

Heh. Given what Cassie came here for... I doubt it was a pert *nose*...

They’re dodging small arms, missile fire, sand storms, and a “quazi-free for all” VFR combat air space while they’re learning how to fly in an operational capacity.

Substitute "torrential rain" for "sandstorms" and you've got Vietnam. We lost a lot of helicopters *there* due to weather-related accidents before we taught ourselves how to survive.

That lesson wasn't lost on the Iraqi Air Force, either -- which is why they insisted that us rotary wing instructors have an Army Aviation background, rather than a USAF one.

When the Flight School Commander found out that two of us *were* Vietnam helicopter vets, he was ecstatic...

John, Damian, AFSister... my apologies if I sounded a little gruff on that comment. Guess I'm still a little emotionally attached to the folks out there, as well as their mission. Hard to leave for home when you're so attached to the mission.

Thanks for putting the good word out on this situation and the many others out there that go unreported.

Cheers!
EC

In recent years, America has developed a counterinsurgency doctrine that fuses the tools of war with the instruments of peace to help countries in conflict shape a future of freedom and opportunity for themselves. Our armed forces can defeat any adversary, but our civilian agencies must shape the political and economic context in which our gains will endure. We’re gaining the field experience to work with you to do this right.

There has been much talk, of late, about how we are doing in Afghanistan. Some of it has been positive, some of it has not. Today, I’d like to offer you my assessment. We now have a new strategic opportunity in Afghanistan, one that is a product of lessons learned from both successes and setbacks. So here is why we will win in Afghanistan.

Since 2001, there has been much that has been good and successful. First, and most importantly, we have seen that whenever the Afghan people have an opportunity to choose a course for their nation, they have voted overwhelmingly, and often at great personal risk and sacrifice, for a future of democracy and modernity and liberty under law, not for the medieval despotism of the Taliban. And we continue to have a strong partner in the elected government of President Karzai.

To support our Afghan partners, NATO is leading an International Assistance Force of 40 nations. The Afghan National Army, which we are training and equipping, is now at the forefront of many combat operations alongside international forces. Twenty-six Provincial Reconstruction Teams, including 14 led by allies, are helping our Afghan partners to turn improving security into better governance and development. The legitimate Afghan economy is now growing faster than any other in Central and South Asia, and it is benefiting more and more of Afghanistan’s citizens.

America’s commitment to Afghanistan is also bipartisan. Congress has played a leadership role in funding U.S. policy there. And thanks to the generosity of the American people, the United States has provided nearly $23 billion in assistance to Afghanistan, with our allies providing another 18 billion. This assistance has helped over 15 – over 5 million Afghan refugees to return to their homes. It is supporting the construction of critical infrastructure, like the national ring road, which is nearly 75 percent complete. And it is enabling 5 million Afghan children to get an education, including, for the first time ever, 1.5 million girls.

Our mission in Afghanistan has led to substantial progress. But at times, our many good programs have amounted to less than the sum of their parts. We have grappled with a lack of coherence among a broad coalition of international partners with disparate capabilities. This partly reflects a learning curve, as we have re-engaged a nation that America and our allies had neglected for too long: a country of inhospitable terrain, many ungoverned spaces, and a long history of poverty, misrule, and weak civilian institutions and civil war. Indeed, much of the work in Afghanistan could be more properly described not as reconstruction, but as construction.

This challenge has been made more difficult too by a determined enemy, the Taliban that has regrouped after its initial defeat, and has now turned to the tactics of pure terror to further its intolerant goals. The Taliban has benefited from regional turmoil on Afghanistan’s borders. And this has led many in Afghanistan and the region, some even in our alliance, maybe even some here at home in America, to question whether our coalition has what it takes to support Afghanistan’s long-term success.

In recent months, our Administration has looked closely at our policy in Afghanistan, both what we’re doing well, and what we can and should be doing better. We have studied the independent reports that have been issued. I went to Afghanistan myself in February, both to Kabul and out to Kandahar, to see the situation on the ground. And the President and I have recently conferred with our allies, at the NATO summit in Bucharest.

I am confident that we are now laying the foundation for a long-term commitment to the success of Afghanistan and this region. This commitment must be built on a bipartisan consensus that unites our Administration and the Congress today, but also future administrations and future congresses. This commitment must also be built on an international consensus among our allies and our Afghan partners. We must all understand and explain to our people that Afghanistan is not a peacekeeping operation. It is a hard counterinsurgency fight and the stakes could not be higher.

The United States and the entire free world have a vital interest in the victory of our Afghan partners over the Taliban, and the consolidation and empowerment of an effective democratic state. Successes in Afghanistan will roll back the drug trade in a country that produces 93 percent of the world’s opium and a great deal of its heroin. Successes in Afghanistan will advance our broader regional interests in combating violent extremism, resisting the destabilizing behavior of Iran, and anchoring political and economic liberty in South and Central Asia. And success in Afghanistan is an important test for the credibility of NATO.

Let no one forget, Afghanistan is a mission of necessity, not a mission of choice. That country must never again become a haven for the kind of terrorists who attacked America on September 11th, who have attacked our friends and our allies repeatedly, and who seek to do us all even greater harm. We cannot afford, either, to think whether we will choose to succeed in Afghanistan or succeed in Iraq. That is a false choice.

In both countries, the stakes are too high, the potential benefits of success too great, and the real costs of failure too catastrophic for us to think that these missions are zero terms. The real choice, and it is a choice befitting a great people, a great power, and a great democracy, is how to forge long-term commitment to succeed both in Afghanistan and in Iraq.

This goal is not only essential, it is attainable. As in Iraq, our challenges in Afghanistan do not stem from a traditionally strong enemy. The Taliban does not offer a political vision that most Afghans embrace when free to choose. The Taliban’s theory of victory is not to prevail on the battlefield, or to win hearts and minds. It is simply to undermine the elected Afghan government, fracture the international coalition, and outlast us.

Our theory of victory, and the counterinsurgency strategy that we are pursuing to achieve it, is far superior to the designs of our enemy. We can defeat the Taliban on the battlefield. But we will render the Taliban obsolete by supporting an effective, democratic Afghan state that can meet the needs of its people. Where we have been able to do this, for instance, in the east of Afghanistan, the Taliban is in retreat.

Earlier this month in Bucharest, we and our NATO allies renewed our commitment to Afghanistan. President Karzai announced that the Afghan National Army will assume responsibility for security in Kabul by August, and we are supporting our Afghan partners. The United States is deploying roughly 300 – 3,500 additional Marines. France is sending a battalion. This has enabled Canada, whose service in Afghanistan is an inspiration for NATO, to extend its deployment through 2011. Our allies pledged to deploy additional forces, with some deciding to enter conflict zones in the south, where we are especially grateful to Canada, Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Australia for shouldering most of the hardest fighting. We will continue to press our allies to lift the caveats on their military forces.

The international community is also taking new steps to increase the coherence of our assistance effort in Afghanistan, including appointing Kai Eide as the United Nations Secretary General’s Special Representative. Our strategy directs resources toward the central pillars of counterinsurgency: protecting the people from the enemy by strengthening Afghan security institutions, connecting people to their government by improving governance and rule of law, and fueling economic and social opportunity through reconstruction and development.

On the security front, Afghans are eager to provide more of their own security, and our plan supports that. We and our allies must step up our efforts to train and equip the national army of Afghanistan. But we must also increase our efforts to help the Afghan National Police become a more professional force that can enforce the law and police the nation’s now porous borders.

At the same time, we and our allies are helping the Afghan Government to marry these security gains with good governance and economic development. Success depends on expanding the good work of our Provincial Reconstruction Teams. These teams lead our growing effort to help Afghan leaders, both national and local, to promote the rule of law, to strengthen their ministries, to deliver essential services like health and education to the people, and to lay a foundation for long-term private investment. Just last week, I had the pleasure of meeting with eight Afghan governors who play an important role in these efforts. These are local leaders who are beginning to give Afghan – Afghanistan’s government the means to deliver goods and services more directly to the people.

Within our counterinsurgency strategy, we and our Afghan partners must also expand our counternarcotics efforts. This has been one of the most difficult and vexing problems and, frankly, we’ve not found all the right answers. Yet, it is just as urgent as the fight against the insurgency, because the two are inextricably linked. There is an erroneous view that poppy in Afghanistan is mostly grown by poor farmers struggling to earn a living. In fact, over 70 percent of Afghanistan’s poppy will likely be grown this year in the Taliban’s stronghold, on vast narco-farms that benefit our enemies. These drug kingpins do not need alternative livelihoods; they need to be brought to justice.

We must step up our interdiction, eradication, and law enforcement campaign while helping those Afghan farmers who truly do need adjusting. In places where security and political will exist, this strategy has shown some promise. Two years ago, only six of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces were nearly or completely poppy-free. This year, it will likely be 26.

In everything we do, we must encourage the Afghan people, empower the Afghan Government, bolster our allies, and demoralize our enemies. But success is only possible if Afghan ownership grows over time and with greater integrity. Afghanistan’s democracy is already under attack from external enemies. It cannot allow corruption to undermine democracy from within. Institutions like the Independent Directorate for Local Governance are a good start and we are increasing our support for Afghan efforts to create a fair and functional system of justice.

Addressing Afghanistan’s regional context is also crucial to success. A new strategic opportunity comes from the transition to democracy that is underway in Pakistan, a nation that, like Afghanistan, America had too long neglected. Pakistan has been an ally in the war on terror since September 11th and yes, this has necessitated a strong program of military assistance and cooperation. After 2001, we supported President Musharraf’s efforts to chart a moderate, modern path for that nation.

Our engagement, however, has always been multidimensional. Since 2005, America has invested $300 million each year to help the Pakistani people by supporting health programs, educational reform, as well as the building of civil society. And when this progress was put at risk last November, we pushed hard, publicly and privately, for a return to civilian rule, an end to the state of emergency, and free and fair elections in February that were open to all of Pakistan’s leaders.

To be sure, terrorists exacted a high toll in innocent life trying to stop this election, including the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. But not only did their violent efforts fail to disrupt the voting and plunge the country into chaos; the Pakistani people dealt the forces of political extremism a crushing defeat at the polls, including in the frontier province. Indeed, the election dispelled the myth of rising extremism in Pakistani politics, proving that a moderate, democratic center is the country’s dominant political force. We salute the Pakistani people for courageously restoring their democracy.

Successful American engagement with a democratic Pakistan is vital to our national security and to the lasting success of South and Central Asia. In Pakistan, as in Afghanistan, we must help a democratic partner to meet the needs of its people and eliminate the conditions that feed continuing extremism. We will greatly expand our support for the efforts of Pakistani civilians to strengthen democratic institutions and the rule of law and to reinforce the foundation of every free society: good governance, judicial independence, a free media, health and education, good jobs and social justice. We will support Pakistan’s efforts to secure all of its people, and to wage a counterinsurgency fight against the violent people who still threaten Pakistan’s future.

Finally, the United States will support Pakistan’s efforts to develop fruitful links with its neighbors and with the community of responsible nations. This includes intensified Pakistani-Afghan dialogue on regional security, continued efforts to reduce tensions and reconcile with India, and closer economic integration with the nations of South and Central Asia.

We have a unique opportunity to foster the lasting security of a troubled region, a region that is of vital interest to our nation. From our partnerships with the newly democratic Pakistan and a free Afghanistan that is fighting the Taliban, not governed by it, to our growing strategic partnership with India and our improved relationships all the way across South and Central Asia, the United States is in a dramatically different and better position in this region than we were in 2001.

Though we and our friends face savage and determined enemies, I am confident that we will prevail, not by force of arms alone, but by the power and the promise of the values we share: the conviction that parents everywhere want their children to grow up in dignity, in liberty, and with limitless horizons. Success in Afghanistan and Pakistan will demonstrate that these values are more compelling than the spiritual poverty of suicide bombing.

The journey ahead will be difficult and often winding. Most certainly, the path toward democracy is never a straight line. We have hard work to do. But I am confident that we will succeed because we have done hard work before. I was fortunate to be the White House Soviet Specialist from 1989 to 1991 at the end of the Cold War. It doesn’t get much better than that. In fact, those were very heady days. But as we went through those extraordinary days, it was important to stop and to pay homage and to think about those who had set up the possibilities and laid the foundation for the victory of our values at the end of the Cold War.

In fact, when I would go to the White House, and now, when I go to the State Department, I think about the people in 1945, in 1946, and 1947 who built a firm foundation for democracy on the ruins of Europe and Asia at the end of World War II. I think about people who faced a situation in 1946 in which the Italian Communists won 46 percent of the vote, French Communists 45 percent of the vote. I think about those people who faced a 1947 in which Europe was still starving, 2 million Europeans still starving; that in 1947, saw civil war in Greece and civil conflict in Turkey; that in 1948, saw what we all thought would be the permanent division of Germany with the Berlin crisis; the Czechoslovak coup in which the Soviet Union snuffed out the last of liberty in Eastern Europe; in 1949, a Soviet Union that exploded a nuclear device five years ahead of schedule; and when the Chinese Communists won, only to have war break out on the Korean Peninsula in 1950.

Those were not small tactical setbacks. Those were huge strategic defeats for the victory of democracy and Western values in Europe and Asia. But somehow, someway, the people who led that fight, Marshall and Truman and Kennan and Acheson – somehow, everyday, they got up and they stayed true to their values and they believed in the power of our principles. And that is what permitted us to see, in 1989, in 1990 and ’91 the overcoming of a country 5 million men strong, 30,000 nuclear warheads, and spanning 12 different time zones without firing a shot.

That is the spirit with which we must meet this new historic transition and transformation because challenges like the ones that we faced at the end of World War II and the ones that we face now can only be overcome with optimism about the power of our principles and our values. And so, as I sat at NATO next to permanent representatives from Poland and the Czech Republic and Hungary and the Baltic states in Latvia in 2006, I thought, had someone said there will be a NATO summit in Latvia in 2006, in 1946, people would have thought that they had lost their minds.

And so, I know that some Secretary of State will stand here in 10 years or 20 or 30, but most certainly, will stand here to say, of course the people of Iraq have triumphed in democracy; of course, the people of Afghanistan have triumphed in democracy. What else would you expect? Because the power of our principles is that it makes those things that one day seemed impossible seem, after, to have been inevitable.

Thank you very much and God bless you.
(Applause.)
Air University Part 2 (Q&A)
(Applause.)
GENERAL LORENZ: Thank you, Madame Secretary, for those inspiring and thought-provoking remarks. I believe our students and faculty have some questions, so if you’d go ahead and sit down, I’ll tell you how the rules will be played, all y’all. (Laughter.)

Air University students and faculty, if you have a question for Secretary Rice, please make your way to one of the microphones -- there are three on each side -- and to begin with, I will recognize you in turn. Prior to asking a question, please identify yourself and your college, your school. And with that, we’ll take advantage of this time. Please make your way to the microphones and let’s begin. Thank you.

Over here to the left.
QUESTION: Good morning, Ms. Rice. We have the honor to have you with us today. I’m Lieutenant Colonel Alenazi from Saudi Arabia. My question is you’ve been traveling a lot to the Middle East all this time. Could you give us an idea of to what level has the peace process reaches, and what is the King Abdullah -- have the influence in that process?

SECRETARY RICE: Yes, thank you very much. You’d like a trip report, is that right, on my trips to the Middle East? (Laughter.) All right.

Yes, we launched -- the President launched in November of this past year what has been called the Annapolis process. And the Annapolis process is an effort to help the Palestinians and the Israelis end their conflict by getting the vision of the Palestinian state, the details, the outline of the Palestinian state, finally agreed between Israelis and Palestinians. And there’s a very important reason to do that. Of course, of course, it would bring peace, and that’s a very important thing. But also, the moderate, tolerant, peace-loving people of the Palestinian territories and indeed of the Middle East in general need to know that there is an alternative to extremism. And the state, the Palestinian state, provides that alternative.

Now, the Annapolis process has three tracks. On the one hand, we are trying to help the Palestinian people simply have a better life through the ability to improve movement and access so that Palestinian businesses can start and the economic life of the people can grow.

Secondly, we are trying to make progress -- the Palestinians and the Israelis several years ago undertook certain obligations on something called the Roadmap, which are a set of parallel obligations to move them toward peace. And you might want to know that one of the Air Force’s own, General -- Lieutenant General Will Fraser, is the monitor for that effort and doing a very fine job.

And the third is the peace negotiations themselves. And I can tell you the following: They are talking very, very seriously about the hardest issues, about borders, about refugees, about how they’re going to bring into being two states living side by side in peace and security.

Now, one reason that you hear very little about what they’re actually talking about in the negotiations is they’ve made a very wise decision that they’re not going to go to the press every day to say whether they’re making progress. That says to me they’re really serious. I sat with them for two and a half hours. It’s going to be hard. If anyone had had an easy answer to this, they would have solved it a long time ago. But they are serious about it, and it is the President’s hope and the intention that there would be a state in being, or a state in outline, by the end of this coming year. We think it is time. It’s been too long. The Palestinian people need a state.

Now, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has been a very strong supporter of the Annapolis process. Prince Saud, the Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia attended. It was the first time that Saudi Arabia had actually attended under its own flag at a peace conference, so that was very exciting. And I believe that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, along with President Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah of Jordan, are perhaps the most influential Arabs in helping to give the kind of support to both Abu Mazen, the President of the Palestinian Authority, and to the Israelis to go ahead and make peace. And so we’ve been in very close contact. The President visited Saudi Arabia very recently, talked to the King a great deal about the peace process. And we, this time, are going to make certain that we’ve worked with the Arab states so that they can be supportive if the Palestinians and the Israelis are able to come to an agreement.

GENERAL LORENZ: Let’s go to the second mike on this side.
QUESTION: Good morning, Secretary Rice. This morning, I just want to comment that the cooperation and friendship between yourself and --

GENERAL LORENZ: Hang on a second. Remember the rules: Identify yourself and your school, please.
QUESTION: Major Courier from Air Command and Staff College. The cooperation and friendship between yourself and Secretary Gates is refreshing and important to the unity of effort between the Department of State and the Department of Defense in addressing regional conflicts. I was wondering if you could please discuss specifically the new Office of Coordinator of Reconstruction and Stabilization and our nation-building effort.

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you very much. Yes, first of all, let me say that Bob Gates and I have a very close friendship that goes back a lot of years. We served together. He was the Deputy National Security Advisor when I was special assistant on that NSC staff of Brent Scowcroft and George H.W. Bush that was fortunate enough to be around at the end of the Cold War. So we had a great friendship and we have a lot of good stories and we enjoy being together.

And we recognize that we have a very strong obligation to have the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the uniformed military, be able to perform well on really what is a continuum between war and peace. We tend to think in our theory of war and then peace, so you win the war and then you go and build the institutions of peace. But of course, that’s not how we are fighting and winning any longer. We’re fighting on a continuum. Counterinsurgency really means that you have go to into an area, you have to clear it of the enemy, then you have to hold the area with police forces, most appropriately police forces of the home country, which means you have to build adequate police forces, and then you go in and you do reconstruction and development right there where you’ve cleared so that people don’t turn back to the terrorists.

Because the best – by far, the best weapon that the terrorists have is when they can imbed in a village or in a community and have the local people refuse to turn them over. Very often, the local people don’t really support them, but they’re terrified of them. And if you can give people security, then they will turn over the terrorists and they will be on your side. And that’s what we’re seeing in places like Al Anbar province in Iraq, where the Sons of Anbar turned on al-Qaida and have essentially thrown them out. And we’ve been able then to stabilize Al Anbar.

Now, if you’re going to do that, you have to have not just the ability to fight, but also the ability to bring that reconstruction effort. We call it the post – the stabilization phase. And we have never had in the United States an institution that was really capable and dedicated to doing that, and it needs to be a civilian institution. We’ve done it in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. Frankly, we tried to do it with the UN structures and that didn’t work terribly-- all so well. And then in Afghanistan we tried to do it with the Bonn process, which brought every country in the kind of adopt-a-ministry approach, so the Germans took one ministry, the Italians another ministry. And frankly, while the efforts were sincere and I think many of them good, it left us with some of the incoherence that we have today. In Iraq, we tried to do it by handing it to the Defense Department to do reconstruction and development. Of course, that worked not all that well either. I mean, we were able to do some things, but not as much as we should have done.

So finally, Americans – if there’s one thing we do, we keep going until we get it right. And I think we’ve now got the right structure, which is a civilian structure that would be akin to the Reserve and the National Guard, where you have different kinds of expertise on call to go out and do reconstruction and development. There’s no way in the State Department that I can have city planners and engineers and specialists on building judiciaries and specialists on police. You really, however, might be able to call up Americans -- perhaps, that prosecutor who’s in Arizona and wants to spend a year helping the Afghan people to learn how to build a good justice system, or perhaps that city planner who’s in Montgomery and would like to go and help the people of Haiti or Liberia know how to do city planning. And so the idea is to have a civilian response corps, probably initially of close to 2,000 or so Americans, who would train the way the Guard and Reserve train, and then be ready when we need to do one of these stabilization efforts.

And not only do I think it would be a wonderful call for Americans who want to contribute in that way; but frankly, this isn't what the military, the Reserve and the Guard should be doing, and we've had to rely heavily on the uniformed military in order to do civilian stabilization and reconstruction because we've just not had the right institution. I think this is the right institution. It's had no stronger supporter than Bob Gates and the uniformed military. And if Congress fully funds it, which we hope that it will, it should be really ready for its initiation phases very shortly.

But thank you for asking.
GENERAL LORENZ: Let's go to the second mike on this side, please.
QUESTION: Good morning, Dr. Rice. I am Group Captain, or Colonel, Iqbal, from Terminal 13 Air War College and Pakistan. Thank you very much for sharing your views about the region, especially Afghanistan and its neighbor, Pakistan. I just want to call your attention towards the recent developments which has happened in Pakistan; that means the country is getting back to the path of democracy. But traditionally, what we have seen, that U.S. is more -- feels comfortable to engage with autocracy there. Because you know, about 30 years, in my country, the country has been ruled by the army. Now, you have a different stage. There is a broad-based government in Pakistan.

So I want to -- I'd like to hear your views about it, because many of the intellectuals here has given their opinion that now the U.S. policy should be engaging both the political as well as the other half, that is, the army. So what are your shares? Thank you very much.

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you. And again, on Pakistan, you are absolutely right that the Pakistani people have made a transition. There is a broad-based Pakistani Government which we intend to engage, as the Government of Pakistan, as we would engage any other democratic government. In fact, Deputy Secretary Negroponte has already been to Pakistan to meet the new civilian leaders. I have spoken to a couple of them on the phone prior to the formation of the government. And we think this is a really terrific step for the people of Pakistan. They're to be congratulated for doing it, despite a lot of threats from extremists and efforts to disrupt the elections, starting, of course, first, with the assassination of Mrs. Benazir Bhutto.

Now, we will engage the armed forces in military training and in military cooperation in the way that we do militaries around the world, many of them from democratic countries. It is terrific that you are here. I think one of the most important things that we can do is to have military officers from countries like Pakistan here for international military education. We cut that off for a period of seven -- let's see, four years, which really, I think, was a very, very bad thing to have done, frankly, because we need to engage with all of the institutions of Pakistan. And Pakistan now will need to find a way to have very solid civilian control of the armed forces. I believe that our tradition of that is a good one, in which Pakistani officers can come and be a part of a democratic state in which civilian control is really now taken for granted, but wasn’t always taken for granted, so we’ve built the institutions of it.

So we will engage across a broad front. As I mentioned in my remarks, I believe that the coming of a democratic government in Pakistan is a new strategic opportunity. It is an opportunity for an ally in the war on terror. But remember that our answer to terrorism is not just to fight and defeat the terrorists; it is to deal with the conditions that produce terrorism, and the absence of freedom is one of the conditions that produces terrorism. Perhaps the most important condition is the absence of freedom.

And so when we see an ally in the war on terror makes a transition to democracy, it could not be more affirming of everything that President Bush believes about the power of democracy, the power of those principles, and their power to defeat terrorism long term.

GENERAL LORENZ: Let’s go to the last mike on this side.
QUESTION: Good morning, Madame Secretary. My name is Lieutenant Colonel Edwards. I’m from Syndicate 17 at the Air War College. Could you please share with us the foreign assistance framework and how the combatant commanders can inject their theater and regional security concerns in that process, and how might that process be enhanced?

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you. We have gone a long way to reform foreign assistance over the last several years, since I’ve been Secretary. And one of the reasons that we did it is that we believe that we were not able to bring all elements of our programs together to see whether we had the right elements to move countries along from total dependence on foreign assistance to the place that they were beginning to build the infrastructure and the environment in which perhaps they could begin to get foreign investment. Trade is a part of building that environment.

And so we have changed our foreign assistance process. What we now do is we start by asking the question -- let’s take a country like Mozambique. Where is Mozambique on the economic continuum? What two or three things are standing in the way of Mozambique making a transition from totally dependent to eventually perhaps even able to be self-sustaining? Is it the problem with infrastructure? Is it a problem with subsistence farming? How can we make sure that the people of a country are seeing Americans out with them in the field, giving them the opportunity for healthcare, giving them the opportunity for education? Because, in many ways, one of our strongest foreign policy tools is the assistance that we give.

Now, that’s where the combatant commanders and the Defense Department have come in. And indeed, when we do now our foreign assistance strategic look at what the budget is going to look like for that year, in my conference room I sit not just with the Assistant Secretary for, say, Africa and the Assistant Administrator for USAID, we also invite the Department of Defense to come and join that meeting, the Department of the Treasury to come and join that meeting, and so we get a full picture of what we’re doing for any one country.

The combatant commanders have also been enormously helpful because they are able to use their assets and their resources -- I saw a great example of this in Guatemala, where there is a health clinic that’s being run by naval personnel on a kind of rotating basis. They come back every several months and they do healthcare at this clinic. I asked the question: Now, is USAID here alongside you so that when you leave three or four months, before you come back, perhaps we’ve trained some local healthcare workers to help make sure that eventually Guatemala is going to be able to sustain those clinics on their own?

But I’m a big fan of many of the programs that the combatant commanders run to help people with healthcare, with education. They’re fine programs, and we’re trying to unite them, link them up with the programs that we have at USAID and State Department programs so that the entire U.S. Government is going -- putting its programs forward for a specific country as a unit -- the entire U.S. Government. And I think we’re making some progress.

But I just have to say that one of the real contributions that President Bush has made is to take foreign assistance, which was flat for almost 20 years in the United States, and we have now quadrupled foreign assistance for Africa, tripled foreign direct assistance worldwide, and in Latin America doubled it. We have -- we had the opportunity to see some of these programs in Africa, where the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS is literally saving lives, where children are being saved from malaria, where girls are going to school in places that they've never gone to school, and the compassion of the American people in what we do around the world is coming through, through those programs.

Because America is, and always will be, a powerful country. But what makes America different in the annals of the history of powerful countries is it is also a deeply compassionate country. And compassion, married with principle, married with power, is an extremely effective way to change, literally, the face of the globe. As I said, we've done it before and we're doing it again. And I want to thank each and every you-- every one of you for the role that you're playing in that great historic transformation.

Thank you very much. (Applause.)
GENERAL LORENZ: Madame Secretary, on behalf of the entire Air University community, let me thank you again for sharing with us today your incredible wealth of knowledge in international relations and national security. This has truly been a memorable day for all of us.

Ladies and gentlemen, please remain standing for the singing of the Air Force song and the departure of the official party.

2008/T12-1
Released on April 14, 2008.

� Secure this line!

Okay, someone is going to call this a sketchy observation, but I think I just heard Dr. Rice say "DoD punts on reconstruction" in her opening remarks. By saying it has to be the civilians, and the Guard and Reserve, like that it's saying that DoD wants to get back to the business of waging war only. Given the wierd nature of State compared to the professional nature of the military the only way we're going to get reconstruction right is if we have it done by the mil with strict guidelines(while leaving some lattitude to adapt on the ground realities). So I'm hearing punt.

I didn't get that exactly. What I got is that you have to be able to do both at the same time and that it really stretches the military to have to do both at the same time when we could be and should be calling on expertise throughout our citizenry to do it.

The only thing I think that the State needs to work on is how they approach their end of reconstruction. They have to do it ground up and top down at the same time, coordinated. We are not seeing that until the last year I think and I give much credit to the military and to Gates and Rice for bringing those two entities and ideas together.

And not only do I think it would be a wonderful call for Americans who want to contribute in that way; but frankly, this isn't what the military, the Reserve and the Guard should be doing, and we've had to rely heavily on the uniformed military in order to do civilian stabilization and reconstruction because we've just not had the right institution. I think this is the right institution. It's had no stronger supporter than Bob Gates and the uniformed military. And if Congress fully funds it, which we hope that it will, it should be really ready for its initiation phases very shortly.

Well, I'd be willing to go over and help the medical institutions develop good record keeping and administration, inventory control, etc. When do they need me?

---------- From: Callsign "Oyster" Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 1999 3:08 PM To: E-mail to a friend Subject: Hornet Night Barracade (Pilot's Version)

Greetings Slacker Landlubbers,

Hey, I felt the need to share with you all the exciting night I had on the 23rd. It has nothing to do with me wanting to talk about me. It has everything to do with sharing what will no doubt become a better story as the years go by.

So, there I was...
Manned up a hot seat for the 2030 launch about 500 miles north of Hawaii (insert visions of many Mai-Tais here). Spotted just forward of the nav pole and eventually taxied off toward the island where I do a 180 and get spotted to be the first one off cat I (insert foreboding music here). There's another Hornet from our sister squadron parked ass over the track about a
quarter of the way down the cat. Eventually he gets a move on and they lower my launch bar and start the launch cycle.

All systems are go on the runup and after waiting the requisite 5 seconds or so to make sure my flight controls are good to go (there's a lot to be said for good old cables and pulleys), I turn on my lights. As is my habit, I shift my eyes to the catwalk and watch the deck edge dude, and as he starts his routine of looking left then right, I put my head back. As the cat fires, I stage the blowers and am along for the ride.

Just prior to the end of the stroke there's a huge flash and a simultaneous boom! and my world is in turmoil. My little pink body is doing 145 knots or so and is 100 feet above the Black Pacific. And there it stays - except for the airspeed, which decreases to 140 knots. The throttles aren't going any farther forward despite my Schwarzzenegerian efforts to make them do so.

From out of the ether I hear a voice say one word: "Jettison." Roger that! A nanosecond later, my two drops and single MER - about 4500 pounds in all - are Black Pacific bound. The airplane leapt up a bit, but not enough.

I'm now about a mile in front of the boat at 160 feet and fluctuating from 135 to 140 knots. The next command out of the ether is another one-worder: "Eject!" I'm still flying so I respond, "Not yet, I've still got it.

Finally, at 4 miles, I take a peek at my engine instruments and notice my left engine doesn't match the right (funny how quick glimpses at instruments get burned into your brain). The left rpm is at 48% even though I'm still doing the Ah-Nold thing. I bring it back to mil. About now I get another "Eject!" call.

"Nope, still flying." Deputy Cag was watching and the further I got from the boat, the lower I looked. About 5 miles, I asked tower to please get the helo headed my way as I truly thought I was going to be shelling out. At this point I thought it would probably be a good idea to start dumping some gas. As my hand reached down for the dump switch I actually remembered that
we have a NATOPS prohibition regarding dumping while in burner. After a second or two I decided, "hell with that" and turned them on. I was later told I had a 60 foot roman candle going.

At 7 miles I eventually started a (very slight) climb. A little breathing room. CATCC chimes in with a downwind heading and I'm like: "Ooh. Good idea," and throw down my hook. Eventually I get headed downwind at 900 feet and ask for a rep. While waiting I shut down the left engine. In short order I hear "Fuzz's" voice.

I tell him the following:
"OK Fuzz, my gear's up, my left motor's off and I'm only able to stay level with min blower. Every time I pull it to mil I start about a hundred feet per minute down." I continue trucking downwind trying to stay level and keep dumping. I think I must have been in blower for about fifteen minutes. At ten miles or so I'm down to 5000 pounds of gas and start a turn back toward the ship. Don't intend to land, but don't want to get too far away, either. Of course, as soon I as I start in an angle of bank, I start dropping like a stone so I end up doing a 5 mile circle around the ship. Meanwhile, Fuzz is reading me the single engine rate-of-climb numbers from the PCL based on temperature, etc. It doesn't take us long to figure out that things aren't adding up. So
why the hell do I need blower to stay level!?

By this time I'm talking to Fuzz (CATCC) , Deputy (turning on the flight deck) and CAG who's on the bridge with the Captain. We decide that the thing to do is climb to three thousand feet and dirty up. I get headed downwind, go full burner on my remaining motor and eventually make it to 2000 feet before leveling out below a scattered layer of puffies. There's a half a moon above which was really, really cool. Start a turn back toward the ship, and when I get pointed in the right direction, I throw the gear down and pull the throttle out of AB.

Remember that flash/boom! that started this little tale? Repeat it here. Holy shit! I jam it back into AB and after three or four huge compressor stalls and accompanying decel the right motor comes back.

This next part is great. You know those stories about guys who deadstick crippled airplanes away from orphanages and puppy stores and stuff and get all this great media attention? Well, at this point I'm looking at the picket ship at my left 11 at about two miles and I say on departure freq to no one in particular, "You need to have the picket ship hang a left right
now. I think I'm gonna be outta here in a second." I said it very calmly but with meaning. The LSO's said that the picket immediately started pitching out of the fight. Ha! I scored major points with the heavies afterwards for this. Anyway, it's funny how your mind works in these situations.

OK, so I'm dirty and I get it back level and pass a couple miles up the starboard side of the ship. I'm still in min blower and my fuel state is now about 2500 pounds. Hmmm. I hadn't really thought about running out of gas. I muster up the nads to pull it out of blower again and sure enough...flash, BOOM! YGTBSM!

I leave it in mil and it seems to settle out. Eventually discover that even the tiniest throttle movements cause the flash/boom thing to happen so I'm trying to be as smooth as I can. I'm downwind a couple miles when CAG comes up and says "Oyster, we're going to rig the barricade."

Remember, CAG's up on the bridge watching me fly around doing blower donuts in the sky and he's thinking I'm gonna run outta JP-5 too. By now I've told everyone who's listening that there a better than average chance that I'm going to be ejecting - the helo bubbas, god bless 'em, have been following me around this entire time.

I continue downwind and again, sounding more calm than I probably was, call Paddles.
"Paddles, you up?"
"Go ahead" replies "Max," one of our CAG LSO's.
"Max, I probably know most of it but you wanna shoot me the barricade brief?" (Insert long pause here). After the fact, Max told me they went from expecting me to eject to me asking for the barricade brief in about a minute and he was hyperventilating. He was awesome on the radio though, just the kind of voice you'd want to hear in this situation. He gives me the brief
and at nine miles I say, "If I turn now, will it be up when I get there? I don't want to have to go around again."

"It's going up now Oyster, go ahead and turn."
"Turning in, say final bearing."
"zero-six-three" replies the voice in CATCC. (Another number I remember - go figure).

OK, we're on a four degree glideslope and I'm at 800 feet or so. I intercept glideslope at about a mile and three quarters and pull power. Flash/boom! Add power out of fear. Going high. Pull power. Flash/boom! Add power out of fear. Going higher. (Flashback to LSO school....All right class, today's lecture will be on the single engine barricade approach. Remember, the one
place you really, REALLY don't want to be is high. Are there any questions?) The PLAT video is most excellent as each series of flash/booms shows up nicely along with the appropriate reflections on the water. "Flats," our other CAG paddles is backing up and as I start to set up a higher than desired sink rate he hits the "Eat At Joe's" lights. Very timely too. [note:
wave-off lights - a guts-ball decision]

I stroke AB and cross the flight deck with my right hand on the stick and my left thinking about the little yellow and black handle between my legs. No worries. I cleared that sucker by at least ten feet. By the way my state at the ball call was 1.1. As I slowly climb out I say, again to no one in particular, "I can do this."

Max and Flats heard this and told me later it made them feel much better about my state of mind. I'm in blower still and CAG says, "Turn downwind." Again, good idea. After I get turned around he says, "Oyster, this is gonna be your last look, so turn in again as soon as you're comfortable." I lose about 200 feet in the turn and like a total dumbshit I look out as I get on
centerline and that night thing about feeling high gets me and I descend further to 400 feet. I got kinda pissed at myself then as I realized I would now be intercepting the four degree glideslope in the middle.

No shit fellas, flash/boom every several seconds all the way down. Last look at my gas was 600-and-some pounds at a mile and a half. "Where am I on the glideslope Max?" I ask ask and hear a calm, "Roger Ball." I know I'm low because the ILS is waaay up there and I call "Clara." Can't remember what the response was but by now the ball's shooting up from the depths. I start flying it and before I get a chance to spot the deck. I hear "Cut, cut, cut!" I'm really glad I was a paddles for so long because my mind said to me, "Do what he says Oyster," and I pulled it back to idle. The reason I mention this is that I felt like I was a LONG F$#@! WAYS OUT THERE - if you know what I mean (my hook hit 11 Oyster paces from the ramp, as I discovered
during FOD walkdown today).

The rest is pretty tame. I hit the deck, skipped the one, the two, and snagged the three and rolled into the barricade about a foot right of centerline. Once stopped my vocal chords involuntarily yelled "Victory!" on button 2 (the 14 guys who were listening in marshal said it was pretty cool. After the fact I wish I had done the Austin Powers' "Yeah Baby!" thing.) The
lights came up and off to my right there must have been a ga-zillion cranials. Paddles said that with my shutdown you could hear a huge cheer across the flight deck. I open the canopy and start putting my shit in my helmet bag and the first guy I see is our Flight Deck Chief, huge guy named Chief Richards and he gives me the coolest look and then two thumbs up. I will remember it forever. Especially since I'm the Maintenance Officer. I climb down and people are gathering around patting me on the back when one of the boat's crusty yellow-shirt chiefs interrupts and says, "Gentlemen, great job but fourteen of your good buddies are still up there and we need to get them aboard." Again, priceless.

So there you have it fellas. Here I sit with my little pink body in a ready room chair on the same tub I did my first cruise in 10 years and 7 months ago. And I thought it was exciting back then.

P.S. You're probably wondering what made my motors shit themselves and I almost forgot to tell you. Remember the scene with the foreboding music? When they taxied that last Hornet - the one that was ass over the cat track - they forgot to remove a section or two of the cat seal. The board's not finished yet, but it's a done deal. As the shuttle came back it removed the
cat seal which went down both motors during the stroke. During the waveoff, one of the LSO's saw "about thirty feet" of black rubber hanging off the left side of the airplane. The whole left side, including inside the intake is basically black where the rubber was beating on it in the breeze. The right motor, the one that kept running, has 340 major hits to all stages. The compressor section is trashed and best of all, it had two pieces of the cat seal -one about 2 feet and the other about 4 feet long, sticking out of the first stage and into the intake. God Bless General Electric!

P.P.S. By the way, the data showed that I was fat - had 380 pounds of gas when I shut down. Again, remember this number as in ten years it will surely be claiming, FUMES MAN, FUMES I TELL YOU!

Oyster out...
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note: 380 lbs = 50 gals, which is a drop in the bucket for an engine in and out of burner.

The average Navy pilot, despite the sometimes swaggering exterior, is very much capable of such feelings as love, affection, intimacy, and caring. These feelings just don't involve anyone else.

A wheelbarrow, indeed.

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I love this story--it never gets old. Oyster used to be a semi-regular commenter over at Lex's. Haven't seen him for awhile, though...

Yeah, that one's worth re-telling.

Two or three times, in fact.

Every farkin' week for the rest of his life!

Heh. The GAs are an Equal Opportunity bunch...

I'm betting that 160 of the hits to "The right motor, the one that kept running, has 340 major hits to all stages" were GAngel-parts.

yeah, we tell that story too -- from a slightly different perspective, naturally. Do you have any idea how hard it is to redirect malfunctioning jet engine exhaust? Carrier GAs have it *almost* as hard as I do.

Putz Alert! Putz Alert!

"Sometimes the aviators earn that extra pay that usually they have to back up to the table to collect."

Must.

Control.

Fist.

Of.

Death.

Sheesh...

Why did I just *know* that was going to put Dusty into a low hover... and him not even a fling-wing flier?

The blackshoes always tell us that we earn our flight pay, that's for sure.

It's the base pay they're not so sure of...

I was on that cruise in that squadron as a youngish sailor when that happened. It was quite a big deal. Quite a bit of damage and I'll never forget that big piece of rubber sticking out of that engine. An extremely good bit of aviating to get that jet back on deck and we all knew it.

I also had the chance to ask LTC Mills about how things have been going in 3ID's AO, which stretches from Iraq's western to eastern borders in a band from southern Baghdad Province to south of Najaf. He reports they didn't experience any of the unrest that was sparked in Baghdad proper by the Iraqi offensive in Basra, and the rates of attack against coalition and Iraqi forces remain very low. However, several of the Iraqi units they train/mentor or assist were sent to Basra and were on their way back the day I spoke to LTC Mills. He seemed to be looking forward to hearing their reports.

In general, LTC Mills was very upbeat and optimistic about 3ID's AO. “We believe we are clearly at a point where security is good in our AO, to the point now that we really focus on capacity-building.” He credits much of the success to counter-insurgency tactics such as Coalition forces living among the Iraqis, and development of the Sons of Iraq (citizen security groups). Conditions are now such that the Iraqi people "realize there is more to life than being scared everyday about unrest and the security environment.” Priorities have been economic development, reconciliation--linking small towns with higher government--and a focus on improving the lives of women through job-training and development of social or advocacy organizations.

LTC Mills seems to believe that the section of Iraq under 3ID's responsibility has hit a tipping point, though he didn't use that phrase. As security improves, “markets pop up everywhere, providing local economy stimulation and security, which creates a Circle of Life in some ways.” Coalition forces are “no longer worrying about the crisis of the day. The Iraqi government and military are stronger each day, exercise their power more each day.” As things get better and better, LTC Mills reports they become self-reinforcing. “Once you get to a certain point there is no going back. Each day government, economy and military get stronger and it’s harder for the terrorists to come back.”

Considering how much the Canadian populace seems opposed to the Iraq war, I asked LTC Mills if he felt that his fellow Canadian soldiers at home understood or shared the perspective he'd developed from being a part of the mission in Iraq. “When I talk to my peers in Canada, I have never got the feeling that what I am doing is not right or proper or appreciated or respected,” he reported. “It’s all part of the global stability and I’m doing my part.” He's a firm believer in finishing the job in Iraq. “You can debate whether or not we should’ve come here in the first place, but we’re long past that... You can’t cut and run. I look to today and the job that we have today.”

He's also adamant about the growth he's seeing in Iraqi capabilities. “I’m here on the ground, so I see the change day-to-day, he reports. I see a government that is standing up.”

Because of his optimism and the upward trajectory of conditions in the AO, LTC Mills almost sounded disappointed when he spoke of GEN Petreaus' Tuesday testimony on Capitol Hill. “I get his comments about ‘guarded optimism,’” he said. And he agreed with GEN Petraeus' message of “let’s not rush,” but LTC Mills is obviously very optimistic and excited about the future. He acknowledged that improvements are uneven across Iraq, “[But] in our area, there has been a lot of progress... it has been quite substantial.”

I suspect it would not surprise many readers that one of the bigger challenges 3ID is facing right now has to do with the homefront. As Deputy Chief of Staff, LTC Mills doesn't usually interact directly with VIPs who visit from the U.S., but he hears about the visits and has definite opinions about them. “We respect [visitors who are informed and] can speak about the before and after... who tend not to come in with an agenda. Not all are like that, sadly.”

So for the last week, LTC Mills has been working on something aimed at VIP visitors who have an agenda based on inadequate information, or who lack the contextual understanding of what is happening in 3ID's AO. They are literally putting together a presentation of “before and after” pictures and info to educate VIPs who think that because it doesn't look like America, it's a disaster. “There is a continuing trajectory of positive developments, LTC Mills explained. "However, we get some people coming out here and they look and go, ‘eww, this is progress?!’”

LTC Mills reports he has been warmly received by the American soldiers he works with (not treated as an outsider or token), and that having spent a number of years in the U.S. with his family, the thought of going back to Canada permanently this summer brings mixed emotions. The exchange program has provided him with a “sense of pride and belonging and understanding of the American people.” The more time he spends, “the more I enjoy it.. and the more I understand it.” Like what he has learned from the U.S. military that he will take home with him, he sees his family taking home a bit of American culture, too: “You can take the best of both worlds. It’s gonna be tough to go home. We’ve made a home in Savannah [home of the 3ID]--and it doesn’t snow there!”

[updated to adjust grammar and punctuation]

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Great interview, FbL! By the way, it looks like the next Canadian Chief of Defence Staff (the top officer in the Canadian Forces) is going to be another fellow who has spent some time on exchange with the U.S. Army in Iraq.

Only RUMINT for now, but pretty high-level scuttlebutt.

Thanks, Damian! I'm so glad you liked it.

General Natynczyk sounds impressive. Seems he would be a good friend for America to have in high Canadian places...

Please tell LTC Mills that if he is ever in London i have money and know where to get beer(s).

LGen Natynczyk is not the first senior Cdn. general to serve as deputy CG of III Corps. That honour went to this fellow: http://www.forces.gc.ca/dsa/app_bio/engraph/FSeniorOfficerBiographyView_e.asp?SectChoice=1&mAction=View&mBiographyID=52

So there may well be something to the rumint. Though I would have thought that Leslie was most likely to be the next Army CDS. Given who his grandfather was, that would be interesting...

Even though his pic seems to have disappeared - Natynczyk's time as DCG, III Corps was noted in this space...

Dr. Funk - long time, no see in comments!

YG89 had a selection rate to CPT of less than 90%. This was with selection happening just before the four year mark, pin on close to five. This was also after DA allowed early voluntary separations and took the last month of YG89 and deferred their board to YG90 (my YG). The selection process was so difficult, that even having a still authorized B&W photo was considered a discriminator (advice from branch managers). Next year, the selection rate was just over 90%...still traumatic. Promotion rates to MAJ were around 60-65%, LTC around 50%. Selection rate to CGSC was around 50%. Worse, because the primary zone for LTC was at the 16 year mark, getting passed over twice meant that you were out of the Army at 18 years. Period. No retirement.

So, what happened was that many who stayed in faced a very early, and obvious, defining moment as captains: company command. If your OERs didn't have you walking on water by the time you finished command, you were 'defined', in a bad way. You were at risk for promotion to MAJ and probably were not getting CGSC. This meant you were, if promoted, starting your MAJ window in the bottom half of your YG. Looking ahead to the LTC board, what were your odds? Many captains figured that out. My class, according to our class registrar, shows that there were two distinct waves of exodus: immediately after Desert Storm, and in the middle of the captain's window (i.e., right after command). There were exceptions, but not many.

So, if you were a young captain, and didn't walk on water for your last command OER, what were your options? Seek refuge in a functional area? Their promotion rates were no better (if not worse) than DA averages. And all of us were in one central selection board (minus medical, JAG, Chaplains and maybe some other specialty that escapes me at the moment). The point is, you had poor job security. Why risk getting booted as a passed over captain or major?

What drove the rates so low was simply a lack of personnel dollars to fill all the authorizations. When I dabbled in FAO, I quickly discovered that the promotion rates were actually slightly lower than my basic branch, but the shortages in MAJ and LTC were huge. There simply was no money to retain the required end strength.

That all started to change in the mid to late 90s. Promotion rates went up. Selection board for MAJ moved up to the ten year mark. Pin on time for 1LT to CPT cut down to the 4 year mark. DA made the decision to remove CGSC as a discriminator by mandating 100% attendance (still working on that one...). Does that mean the Army was retaining mediocrity?

How do you define mediocrity? OERs were so inflated that they were almost worthless. The new OER only achieved one thing: senior rater accountability. Not everyone could be a top-block anymore. However, CPTs currently don't get a senior rater block check. So their verbiage is what matters. No quality control equals generally the same problem: the OER is still a poor tool for measuring quality control (unless you get the 'velvet hammer' OER...damnation by faint praise).

This is where the young captain conflates promotion rates with quality. Quality is more a function of how the OERs are written, if the senior rater and rater took the time to craft their OERs and were being honest. Promotion rates are high because the requirements have gone up AND we have the money to retain end strength (the latter being more important). I don't know how the captain's attrition rate of today compares to the late 90s, when things were looking up. The real issue of identifying and retaining quality in the officer corps has little to do with promotion rates. The requirements are driving rates up, and since we're still stuck with a promotion system tied to time in service, promotion rates really don't serve as an indicator of quality.

Also, being passed over twice is no longer a career ending affair. Does that mean that an officer passed over twice is automatically a dud? Not necessarily. They may still have all the patriotism and desire to serve, but it just didn't work out. However, there are still nearly automatic things that will get you drummed out. That's what the SELCON board is for. This is a big deal if you are a MAJ. Now you can at least stay in until 20 if you've already served 16+ years and were passed over. I think that's a significant improvement for retention.

I interpret CPT Hsia's real issue with quality control in the officer corps to be an issue of a lack of rewards for above average or excellent performance. I doubt CPT Hsia has been able to read his peers' OERs and compare them to his (one way a rater/senior rater rewards top performers). So what does he expect? You won't see a real divergence in perceived quality (I use the term with tongue in cheek because of the OER still is not a comprehensive evaluation) until battalion command selection. What does he want? Higher ascensions which will drive promotion rates down? That's an expensive solution, especially if there are no requirements to justify an increase in LTs. Oh, and the Army isn't letting LTs out before their commitments are up, like they did in the early 90s. That means that you will just about automatically stay in for the captain's board (which is at the three year mark, I think). With such a high demand for captains, of course promotion to CPT is almost automatic. As I recall, it was that way in the 80s as well.

So when does the first real screening occur whereby lower performing officers either get weeded out, or transfer to another specialty where they may be more suitable? I would offer that this first occurs at the career field designation (used to be at the end of the CPT window, I think it is now mid CPT window). This is where the functional areas and branches that don't need LTs, but do need CPTs, get healthy. This doesn't mean that functional areas or these other branches are made up of second rate officers. Many basic branches, such as mine, seriously neck down at the MAJ and LTC level. If we all stayed in our basic branch, the Army would either have to lower promotion rates, or force officers into other career fields. The point is, due to high promotion rates brought on by high retention dollars, you now have options.

This is especially important for rewarding risk takers. Junior officers now can take risk and not have it automatically equate to separation if you fail (unless you fail big time, such as UCMJ). That wasn't the case in the 90s...

I could go on, but it's getting late. I agree that the Army doesn't have enough branch managers to provide the quality of support as other services. His comment on having to manage his own career = whining. I sure as hell am not going to abdicate complete responsibility for my career to someone else. CPT Hsia doesn't delineate what he thinks his responsibilities should be.

Sponsorship/mentoring = unit problem. However, has he reached out to the MAJ in his SQDN? Junior officer clique = it happens anyway. Lots of highly suspect generalizations such as the retention bonus only appealing to those who want to stay in, junior officers deciding to get out because they don't know what their options are (ever go on line to your branch page?), 'brain drain among officers' (I thought that didn't happen until your mandatory lobotomy when you made MAJ). As to his statement that the promotion system needs to be better explained, I agree. Try asking the MAJ in your SQDN. If they don't take the time, ask the CDR. As to not knowing how the selection process works, why worry about a process you can only influence by keeping your records straight?

I will give him the benefit of the doubt in the next to last para with the line "these problems are acutely highlighted for junior officers..." to also include all junior Soldiers. I don't agree and think this is more a reflection of his perceptions than an accurate generalization.

Same para, up a few lines: "For high achieving officers there is little financial incentive to outperform their peers...". Hm...are you saying you are in it for the money? Or are you insinuating that 'somebody' have a bag of cash they can hand out (with some type of governance process?) as arbitrary awards? Not sure I like the idea of how this would look in execution. It doesn't work to well in the DA civilian side (everyone tends to get the same, or very similar, award). The DAC side does have some supervisor controlled things like quality step increases. Maybe de-link pay from time in grade? That could get ugly if not tightly controlled.

The last para just flat out confuses me. After reading all this, this is all just a 'cyclical evolution of the historical norm'? I haven't read Kitfield, so I'm not sure what CPT Hsia's point is. Maybe later.

Ranting complete...for now.

LTC Marty

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Well...my brother is air force and a Captain. A lifer as it were, since he started out enlisted. I don't think he would agree with this whiney individual about lack of opportunities, lack information, lack of rewards not keeping people in the service.

In fact, we recently had a discussion about whether he was going to stay in the military or get out (since this year constitutes year "20", including enlisted and officer time). He was telling me about several people that he knew who had "gotten out" and joined some corporate firms who had a rude awakening when the alleged "higher pay" suddenly had giant chunks taken out for insurance (especially family coverage), taxes, etc; there was no BAQ, hazard pay or other additional pay that is typically added.

There were so many "real world" expenses that several people discovered they were not making the money they thought they should.

Er...and, my brother is not leaving. He knows several of these folks who have left and severely regret it.

SWJ should learn to distinguish between a martyr who was at "Calvary" from someone who is trying to sound like a martyr while serving in the Cavalry...

little whining puss.

off topic: John, check your yahoo inbox

All those great "demonstrated leadership" command gigs and umpty-zillion service schools don't always translate into *marketability* with the Fortune 500 set. I know HROs who have instructed their recruiters to concentrate on the tabulae rasae just out of grad school because they consider vets multitalented individuals who are -- alas! -- psychologically incapable of adhering to the Company Way.

That said, there are still boatloads of good, vet-friendly companies out there, but a newly-on-the-street JO had better be prepared for a severe salary-shock...