CDR Salamander

A military jury sentenced a soldier to death Thursday for a deadly grenade and rifle attack on his own comrades during the opening days of the Iraq invasion, a barrage that prosecutors said was triggered by religious extremism.

Sgt. Hasan Akbar, who gave a brief, barely audible apology hours earlier, stood at attention between his lawyers as the verdict was delivered. He showed no emotion.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 21:24

Damn those sexy Marines! A curse upon their macho swagger and fascinating scars and rugged boot-camp-sculpted physiques and manly ill-fitting uniforms! How dare these vulpine volcanoes of voluptuous virility vend their voluminous values to vexed valedictorians? Who will keep our young adults from succumbing to the siren call of patriotism and public service?

"In promoting this type of recruiting effort," Bamburger writes, "our government apparently realizes what advertisers and marketers have known for years -- teens are fertile ground for influence because they still are at a point in life where impulse can overrule rational thought. So it's not a leap to worry that our children also might be unduly and dangerously swayed in these times by a call to patriotism. It's not a stretch to imagine that when they sign on the dotted line for boot camp, our children have focused more on the well-cut uniforms and group camaraderie and not on the long-term, and possibly deadly, consequences of even a short stint in the military."

If you're an adult at eighteen, then you should be a bona-fide adult, not a juvenile on stealth double-secret adult probation. At 18, the law says you're old enough to vote; old enough to have sex; old enough to have an abortion; old enough to enter a legally binding contract -- heck, you're even old enough to incur the death penalty, assuming recent case law from Suriname doesn't persuade the Supreme Court to the contrary. So you're old enough to vote on questions of when and how the military will be used around the world -- yet not old enough to make your own decision about joining the military. Say what?

Whether it's jacking up the drinking age, subsidizing Romper Room party colleges with taxpayer dollars, or ejecting those luscious Marine recruiters from our public schools, the theme is the same: we are creating an extended adolescence for American young people that reaches well beyond their eighteenth birthday. The years between eighteen and twenty-one are a limbo in which responsible behavior is little demanded and even less expected.

At what point do decisions entail grown-up consequences? At what point do the training wheels come off our citizenship? Precisely what favor do we think we're doing teens by prolonging their goofy years?

So don't hate those Marines because they're beautiful. Don't hate them for their smokin'-hot stubbly haircuts and their surprisingly generous college tuition deals and their slick sales pitch. Fight them on their own terms. Present the case to your kid for the advantages of a nice drunken college education on someone else's dime over patriotism and making your own way in the world. Sell them on the joys of sedentary pursuits over high adventure. Make your own wicked cool berets. If your precious little adult isn't buying it, don't blame those sexy Marines. Blame yourself.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 16:21

There is a great deal of talk about loyalty from the bottom to the top. Loyalty from the top down is even more necessary and is much less prevalent. One of the most frequently noted characteristics of great men who have remained great is loyalty to their subordinates.

Personally, I am of the opinion that older men of experience, who have smelled powder and have been wounded, are of more value than mere youthful exuberance, which has not yet been disciplined. However, I seem to be in the minority in this belief.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 09:45

Members of the Surete de l'Etat were ordered to disarm after news emerged that an agent only narrowly escaped injury when another opened fire.
Weapons will be issued only if specifically needed, the justice ministry told the BBC News website.
Separately, the work of the state security body may change if a ban on phone tapping is lifted.

…the Libre Belgique newspaper reported that an agent who was "without a doubt under the influence of antidepressants" had discharged his weapon.

agents prefer to be armed while out on missions as they often find themselves in hostile environments when investigating, for example, organised crime, and like to think they can defend themselves.

A report in the UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper notes that the Belgian security apparatus has been a source of frustration for other Western agencies.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 05:59

At a hustings meeting on Wednesday Mr Galloway and his Labour opponent Oona King stood together to plead for less negative campaigning.
Both candidates, contesting the Bethnal Green and Bow constituency, have required police protection.

Mr Galloway was allegedly "threatened with death" by Islamist extremists at a meeting on Tuesday evening.

The 40-strong mob apparently locked the door and denounced him as a "false prophet" and declared the sentence for this was "death".

Mr Galloway said: "It was a very frightening incident caused by a tiny, unrepresentative group of very extreme fundamentalists who believe that elections are a crime against Islam."

Miss King said: "I utterly condemn any attacks on George Galloway, or any other politician, and indeed just the general atmosphere of intimidation.
"I have to say it has not been helped by some of the language used by Respect. Extremism breeds extremism."

Mr Galloway and Miss King appeared together amid tight security at a meeting at the University of London on Wednesday evening.

Miss King told the audience that Mr Galloway had agreed to a meeting with election organisers and other candidates to try to "take some of the heat and vitriol out of this campaign".

Mr Galloway said: "Can I take this opportunity to express to Oona King how sorry I am for what has happened to her in this campaign and to welcome her call this evening for all the parties to talk with the police about how we can take some of the negative atmosphere out of this campaign and how we can see democracy prevail."

Respect is a coalition that grew out of socialist and trade union opposition to the Iraq war.

On his proudest achievement in parliament since 2001: "Having been a leader of the anti-war movement which built the biggest demonstrations in British history; having been right about Iraq; having made enemies like Tony Blair, Rupert Murdoch and Conrad Black; having defeated the Daily Telegraph in court; and having helped build Respect - the Unity Coalition."

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 05:30

The legacy of the former was embodied by the global spread of the English languages; the dynamism of America, Australia, Canada and New Zealand; Indian democracy; and the notion of the rule of English-based law applied on a worldwide scale. The latter was superseded—but not defeated—by the U.S. Navy. And the naval power of the United States in many respects was a result of greater material resources applied on a massive scale to a similar system of naval organization adapted from the British.

Sailors came to believe through their training and equipment that their ships were better, their commanders smarter and their mates more skilled than was true of any enemy firing back at them.

At first glance, the British maritime empire made little sense. Unlike Spain or France, England had no Mediterranean ports and was without a venerable seafaring heritage of the old galley states. It was distant from the ancestral Roman locus of power, and its population was religiously divided, torn by ethnic strife, smaller than France's and without the natural resources of larger European continental states. Indeed, there was not much of any British naval history before the 15th century. Far earlier, Viking longboats had freely raided the English coast and gone on to discover the New World; Portuguese and Spanish, not British, galleons would first chart the sea routes to Asia and the Americas.

Yet by the late 16th century, England had launched the most technologically advanced, nautically skilled and professionally led fleet in the world. And by 1630 no combination of French or Spanish ships could stop its 100-ship mastery of the seas, which by the mid-18th century had resulted in a worldwide empire protected by 300 capital ships. How did it all come to pass, and what effect did the nearly 500-year reign of British naval mastery have on the world at large?

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 02:56

President Bush nominate(d) Gen. Peter Pace of the Marines as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, .... The White House ... name(d) Adm. Edmund P. Giambastiani Jr. of the Navy to replace General Pace as vice chairman,..

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 10:32

While training a seaman on the guided-missile destroyer's flight deck, a mechanical failure caused a helicopter to crash onto the ship's flight deck during landing.

After pushing the seaman out of harm's way, into the hangar bay and securing the door to protect those inside, Garrett ran back onto the flight deck to provide first aid to an air crewman who was thrown from the helicopter. Only after the situation stabilized, and when ordered, did Garrett depart the scene to receive medical attention for his own injury.

"The helicopter crash we experienced that day was a terrifying experience," said Preble's supervisor, Senior Chief Gas Turbine System Technician (Electrical) (SW) Kane Valek. "Seaman Garrett did not freeze, he did not act on his own self-preservation instinct. Instead, he immediately went to protect his shipmates. He went to the aid of others. That is not something you can teach or coach. That is heroism."

The Navy/Marine Corps Medal is awarded to Sailors and Marines who distinguish themselves by heroism not involving actual conflict with the enemy. For acts of life-saving, or attempted lifesaving, it is required that the action be performed at the risk of one's own life.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 10:13

Denmark's Queen Margrethe II warned against the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Denmark and the world in a new book out, saying people must on occasion "show their opposition to Islam".
"It is a challenge we have to take seriously. We have let this issue float about for too long because we are tolerant and very lazy,"

"We have to show our opposition to Islam and we have to, at times, run the risk of having unflattering labels placed on us because there are some things for which we should display no tolerance," she said.

"And when we are tolerant, we must know whether it is because of convenience or conviction,"

Queen Margrethe, who professes a knowledge of Islam due to her interest in archeology, said it was "natural that young Muslims would be attracted" to the faith's absolute values and seek refuge in religion "as they are cut off from our community because of their lack of (Danish) language skills."

"It's not just a matter of speaking and understanding" Danish, she said, but also "understanding the language's codes, and we have to help them."

The queen, who is hugely popular among Danes, is the head of the Lutheran-Evangelical Church, of which 85 percent of Denmark's 5.4 million inhabitants are members. Muslims make up about three percent of the population.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:03

…DiscoverTheNetwork. This site is a "Guide to the Political Left." It identifies the individuals and organizations that make up the left and also the institutions that fund and sustain it; it maps the paths through which the left exerts its influence on the larger body politic; it defines the left's (often hidden) programmatic agendas and it provides an understanding of its history and ideas.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:00

Demon and Idol
Protesters blast Coulter at the G.O.P. Convention in New York City last year

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 05:54

This Jesus is rather more challenging than comforting. This is a Christ with standards ... his eyes directly engage even as his hands remain crossed quietly on his breast. He is interested in us, yet reticent and pensive, it seems. Those steady, dark brown eyes fix the viewer, while his head tilts to the side, giving the impression that he is scrutinizing you, studying you.
... A Christ who sized you up, maybe the way he sized up the chatty Samaritan woman at Jacob's well or the rich young man who thought so well of himself. Where are you now, viewer, he might be saying, what's going on in you, are you ready for me? What are you holding onto, what worthless baggage are you carrying so that you can't come my narrow way? You couldn't think of anything petty while in the purview of that calm, knowing, intelligent, and potentially redemptive gaze.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:31

Your actual outcome:

Labour -14
	Conservative 66
Liberal Democrat -71
	UK Independence Party 35
Green -17

The Conservative Party is strongly against joining the Euro and against greater use of taxation to fund public services. The party broadly supported the Iraq war and backs greater policing and ID cards. The Tories are against increasing the minimum wage above the rate of inflation, and have committed to abolishing university tuition fees. They support 'virtual vouchers' for private education.

Take the test at Who Should You Vote For

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 16:51

No sex, no drugs, no wine, no women
No fun, no sin, no you, no wonder it's dark
Everyone around me is a total stranger
Everyone avoids me like a cyclone ranger
Everyone
-The Vapors, Turning Japanese, 1979.

In 2003 Japan's birthrate hit a record low of 1.29 - the average number of times a woman gives birth during her lifetime - one of the lowest rates in the world, according to the cabinet office. The population will peak next year at about 128 million, then decline to just over 100 million by 2050.

Like many Japanese women, Junko waited until her early 30s to get married. When she and her fiance, an employee of a well-known firm, decided to tie the knot, she set her sights on making a home, putting away some money and starting a family.

Fifteen years later, Junko and her husband are childless. It is not that they cannot have children; it is just that they have never had sex.

The 200 women a year who seek help at a clinic in the Tokyo suburbs have not had sex with their husbands in up to 20 years, and some never, according to Kim Myong-gan, who runs the clinic.

"The women who come to see me love their husbands and aren't looking for a divorce," he told the Guardian. "The problem is that their husbands lose interest in sex or don't want sex from the start. Many men think of their wives as substitute mothers, not as women with emotional and sexual needs."

Mr Kim's short-term solution is unconventional. After an initial 20,000 yen (£100) counselling session, he produces photographs of 45 men, mostly professionals in their 40s, with whom the women are invited to go on dates and then, in almost all cases, arrange regular assignations in hotel rooms.

Mr Kim dismissed charges that his service was little more than a male prostitution ring. "The men volunteer and pay half the hotel and restaurant bills, so legally there is absolutely nothing wrong with it," he said.

The number of married couples is in rapid decline. In 2000 almost 70% of men and 54% of women between 25 and 29 were unmarried. That bodes ill for the birthrate, as conservative Japanese society frowns upon having children outside marriage.

A survey of 600 women found that 26% had not had sex with their husbands in the past year.

The divorce rate has nearly doubled in the past 10 years, with more women blaming their sexually inactive, as opposed to sexually errant, husbands for break-ups.

"The men love their companies; they live for work," Mr Kim said. "Men don't even think it is a problem if they don't have sex with their wives. They have pornography and the sex industry to take care of their needs, but their wives have nowhere to go. They just suffer in silence."

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 13:23

The trio submitted two of the randomly assembled papers to the World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (WMSCI), scheduled to be held July 10-13 in Orlando, Florida.

To their surprise, one of the papers -- "Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy" -- was accepted for presentation.

"the model for our heuristic consists of four independent components: simulated annealing, active networks, flexible modalities, and the study of reinforcement learning" and "We implemented our scatter/gather I/O server in Simula-67, augmented with opportunistically pipelined extensions."

We now compare our approach to previous wearable algorithms methods. Further, Niklaus Wirth et al. [7] and Garcia [8,9] introduced the first known instance of autonomous symmetries. Furthermore, the original approach to this grand challenge [3] was considered intuitive; on the other hand, it did not completely achieve this aim. Our method to B-trees differs from that of Erwin Schroedinger as well. However, the complexity of their method grows quadratically as symbiotic information grows.

Labels: Education

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 15:50

President Lee Bollinger (who's also under fire over alleged anti-Semitism in his Mideast Studies Department) has said he allows ROTC recruiters at the Law School only "with regret," and ROTC itself is banned on the Columbia campus.

ROTC opponents claim that they're not anti-military — that their opposition is solely related to the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy. … Columbia banned ROTC in 1969, a few months after the height of the famous campus demonstrations against the Vietnam war and all things military.

Columbia anthropology Professor Rosalind Morris: "[W]e should not be inclusive or tolerant of an institution that structures violence as a war against homosexuality."

Two years ago, a student referendum to bring ROTC back to campus passed with 65 percent of the vote.

The faculty is another matter. It took a year after the referendum before the faculty-dominated University Senate would even form a task force to study the issue. After a year of town halls, email exchanges and committee meetings, the committee is deadlocked, 5 to 5, over whether to change the existing policy. The full Senate is set to decide on May 6.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 11:13

When you ask military officers who should get the job, the first thing many say is that the military needs someone who can stand up to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

... (they) should ... voice their opposition (to policies) ... they kn(ow) (will) fail, publicly if necessary, and then resign() rather than carry out the policy.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 09:00

…stricter personal and professional standards and tighter overall discipline.

Chief Petty Officers serving at Naval Surface Forces commands have new orders to get tougher on Sailors. … Asked why he aimed his message at Chiefs and not Officers, Entyre told Navy Times in an email reply that Chiefs are the “backbone of the Surface Force and the ones closest to the crew. They are very important role models. If Chiefs are actively engaged in knowing how Sailors in their divisions are doing and what they’re doing – that’s successful intrusive leadership. It means asking the right question, getting the right answer, ensuring standards are being met, nurturing and mentoring their Sailors.

…he “noted an apparent decline in the traditionally high standards of professional and personal excellence” and that his assessment encompassed “a broad range of issues including safety, operations, military smartness, and personal behavior. … We are/may be trending in the wrong direction.”

Since I have taken command here at the USS Neverdock, we have had a compete breakdown in personal behavior and professional conduct. Everyone is getting drunk, and my Chiefs are a bunch of lazy scupper trouts that only play golf and fraternize with the help. I look forward to the time after the Change of Command when these disturbing trends will be corrected; just remember that I had nothing to do with the decay that took place while I was in command, but the improvements afterwards are a direct result of the attention I gave them prior to my departure. Now, when in the WWR potluck? I have to get to a Navy Relief golf tournament.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 08:53

”There are.” Theseus proclaims, “three classes of citizens. The rich are of no use and always lusting after more gain; the poor who lack a livelihood are dangerous folk, who invest too much in envy, trying to goad the rich, as they are hoodwinked by the tongues of wicked leaders. But of these three classes those in the middle save states, since they preserve the order which the city has established.”

“Freedom is simply this: Who has a good proposal and wishes to bring it before the citizenry? He who does so, enjoys repute, while he who does not merely keeps silent. What can be more just for a city than this?”

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 09:21

From Russia, Chavez is buying 50 advanced MiG-29 fighters, 40 helicopter gunships and 100,000 AK-47 assault rifles. He's also bought arms from Spain and Brazil.

During the first semester of 2004 Spain sold chemical warfare agents and radioactive materials to Venezuela worth €539.603 according to a report entitled "Spanish exports of defence materials and related products and technologies". The report, produced by Spain's Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, .....

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 10:03

Question: What does a soldier do when the Army slaps a 45 mph speed limit on U.S. convoys in Iraq?

Answer: Gripe about it in a battlefield blog.

That's what "Michael," did in his March 17 Web journal entry from deep inside Iraq:

……posted on his adayinIraq.com blog. Michael identifies himself as a soldier in the 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, out of Fort Benning, Ga. In e-mails with this reporter, he says he must remain anonymous.

"I love the Army and our great country more than most and believe in everything we are doing over here. If I criticize some of the inevitable dumb things that are done in any bureaucracy like the army, it is to vent and have a little fun, nothing more."

"My guess is blogs - like every type of new media used by soldiers, sailors and airmen - already are (looked at carefully) by the Department of Defense," said Christopher Michel, chief executive of Military Advantage, a commercial Web site geared to members of the military and their families. "Like a lot of communications, blogs can cut both ways. The DOD's main concern is that they don't compromise security.

"The next news breakthrough in Iraq could be covered by a soldier in the field writing a blog rather than a journalist."

Another worry is that some people might intentionally use blogs to give inaccurate information about the morale or behavior of U.S. troops.

Some say soldier blogs perform a valuable public service.

"Blogging troops are not getting paid to 'spin' the war. Nor are they worried about losing ad revenue if they tell it like it is," said Jock Gill, a former "new media" adviser to President Clinton.

Freedom Of Speech: Rhetorical attacks against blogs have turned into real attacks that may curb free dissemination of information. What of the First Amendment?

The latest assault comes from San Francisco, where the board of supervisors announced last week that it will vote on a city ordinance … (that) … will require San Francisco's bloggers to register with the city's ethics commission and report all blog-related costs over $1,000 in a calendar year.

But that's not all. According to San Francisco city attorney Chad Jacobs, bloggers who write about candidates running for local offices will be have to pay a registration fee if hits on their Web sites exceed 500. Violators will also be subject to Web site traffic audits.

This naked aggression follows a chilling rule from the federal bench. Last fall, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled that the federal campaign finance law covers the blogosphere. She expects the Federal Elections Commission to enforce her decision….

….- even though the panel voted (4-2 three years ago) that the shameful McCain-Feingold campaign finance law does not apply to blogs.

Fortunately, that's not the end of the story. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has introduced legislation to nullify the court ruling. While he deserves credit for this, he's partly to blame for government attacks on free speech getting as far as they have. He was one of the many supporters of McCain-Feingold.

Canada has banned a U.S. blog for its coverage of Canadian political scandals. The Captain's Quarters blog is famously guilty of raising the ire of a panel looking into government corruption merely because it posted testimony from the panel's inquiry and promised readers it would follow up with more news.

What's worse, any Canadian blogger who links to the Captain's Quarters' post apparently is subject to state retribution. The one Canadian blogger who did could be charged with contempt.

We're not surprised. Unlike mainstream media, many bloggers aren't just mouthpieces for big government. Their very existence is dangerous to the current arrangement, so they must be harassed out of existence or regulated into servility.

In this war, the death of free speech is just collateral damage.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 21:40

"We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, Which we, from time to time, most grievously have committed, by thought, word and deed, Against thy Divine Majesty, Provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us."

...humble, lowly, pentient, and obedient....

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 13:23

China will soon have at least eight APDs.....The 1,800 ton Jianghu’s have a top speed of about 46 kilometers an hour. This enables APDs to move quickly, especially during darkness, to reach their destination. Shorter travel time makes the APDs less vulnerable to attack (and easier to defend, especially if you have to keep fighters overhead.) Taiwan is 300 kilometers from the Chinese coast. Each APD could carry several hundred troops, or a few hundred tons of cargo.

China took the “armored regiment” of the 164th infantry division and converted it to the Second Marine Brigade. This brigade is organized using the new format, with one company of each infantry battalion having armored vehicles, in this case amphibious light tanks (Type 63A). The infantry companies have amphibious armored personnel carriers. The brigade artillery battalion has self-propelled 122mm howitzers. The First Brigade is larger, and has five combat battalions (two armored, with amphibious tanks, and three infantry.) The armor battalions have two tank and one infantry companies. In addition to the two brigades, there are two marine recon battalions and two frogman platoons (think “SEALs Lite”). These are usually attached to the First Marine Brigade. There may be a skeleton Marine Brigade in Shanghai, to be used to rebuild a Marine Brigade if one of the other two is destroyed in combat. The total size of the Chinese Marine Corps is over 10,000 troops.

...there is sufficient lift for 250 infantry and mechanized (tank and mechanized infantry) battalions. That’s about twenty divisions.

China appears to be building small amphibious ships in as many as five different shipyards (Lunshan, Huangpu, Jiangnan, Shanghai and Zhonghua). These are ships that could make the run across 300 kilometers of open water, at least in good weather, carrying a tank or two, some trucks, or a company of infantry. Larger amphibious ships, like their new LSD (landing ship dock) are building at a more leisurely pace. In any event, the LSD and LST type ships are also useful for longer range amphibious operations. But the smaller craft have only one target; Taiwan.

PLA Navy is now building two new types of LSM medium tank and troop landing ships, a total of about 12 since 2002, added to 20 or so ships of the same class. These ships can carry an average of about 10 tanks and 250 troops. The PLA may now be considering building new 15,000 to 20,000 ton LDH class amphibious ships that will use new hovercraft tank and troop conveyers similar to the U.S. LCAC, and large helicopters, allowing assaults from greater distance and against more difficult shore terrain.

That's why we call it "The Long Game." Not now, not in 5 years; but you're getting close.

On March 4th the Chinese government announced that its defense spending would increase by 12.6 percent in 2005. Save for 2003, all of the last 15 years has seen Chinese defense spending grow by double-digit percentages.....In 2004 the Pentagon noted that for 2003, overall Chinese military spending ranged between $50 and $70 billion.[1] If we take the Pentagon’s estimate as a baseline, then for 2004, which saw an "official" Chinese increase of 11.6 percent, spending might have risen from $55.8 to $78.1 billion, Similarly modifying the announced Chinese 2005 budget increase of by 12.6 percent yield actual expenditures between $62.8 and $87.9 billion. Other estimates have long held that Chinese military spending has reached or exceeded $100 billion. By comparison, Japan spends $45 billion on defense, and India about $19 billion.

Labels: China, Long Game

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 09:09

"One of the serious problems in planning against American doctrine that the Americans do not read their manuals nor do they feel any obligations to follow their doctrine."
-- From a Russian military document "

Personally, I think excessive reliance on doctrine is a hobgoblin of small minds. Lessons learned, however, are essential to avoid making stupid mistakes that others have already made. John has inspired me to get WAY outside my comfort zone on this one; armored warfare.

Well, the post is more of a philosophical concept that applies to any professional Officer, regardless of the color of your uniform. First, not remembering the weaknesses of the past, and how that gets people killed is not unique to US Navy. I don't want to Hackworth like second guess everyone and their intentions; we have excellent professionals in peacetime that are doing the best they can with the resources at hand to get ready for the next war. As in any human institution, it is imperfect, and in the rush to get your readiness or get the exercise done or get the project backon the time line, things can get lost in the shuffle.

Since the invasion of Iraq, we have been bombarded with stories about a lack or armored transport (I’m not going to link any, because if you are not already sick reading about the story, you are truly lost) or the shocking, yes shocking (sarcasm), concept that tanks are useful in fighting the enemy somewhere outside the North Plain of Europe or the open desert.

There are common themes that keep coming up in every war in the last 75 years, and we have to learn the basics all over again, every time. I heard a Lt. Col. the other day talking about relearning urban fighting with tanks and how you simply can't get 100% ready for what you are going to see on the battlefield when you get there when you are focused on what Navy Air calls the "Inter-deployment Readiness Cycle." I'm paraphrasing here, but he said something to the effect,

"We spent all this time practicing as if we had some open terrain to move around in. The thing is, these things like cities keep popping up in our perfect maneuver warfare world. Too hard to model, we are used to going around them (bypass and haul a55), so we just didn't train to fight in them. We do now though."

Thus at the outset of American participation in the conflict and for some time thereafter, Army planners saw little or no need for armored units in the U.S. force structure in Vietnam.

Now that major combat operations have ended, the mission has evolved to one of peacekeeping and low-intensity engagements -- operations better suited to dismounted infantry proficient in small unit actions.

From early March 1965 until the cease-fire in January 1973, U.S. armored units participated in virtually every large-scale offensive operation and worked closely with South Vietnamese Army and other free world forces. After eight years of fighting over land on which tanks were once thought to be incapable of moving, in weather that was supposed to prohibit armored operations, and dealing with an elusive enemy against whom armored units were thought to be at a considerable disadvantage, armored forces emerged as powerful, flexible, and essential battle forces. In large measure they contributed to the success of the free world forces, not only in close combat, but in pacification and security operations as well. When redeployment began in early 1969, armored units were not included in the first forces scheduled for redeployment, and indeed planners moved armored units down the scale time and again, holding off their redeployment until the very end.

The Marines fought hard in the battle of Najaf, but the Army's role proved decisive. At stake is more than bragging rights. The success of the Army's tanks on the city's narrow streets in the last three weeks casts a new light on efforts to transform the Army by weaning it from the heavy armored vehicles that are a traditional mainstay.

The proponents of this transformation have pushed the Army to become more flexible and fleeter. They argue that lightly armed Soldiers, provided with real-time information about enemy movements and supported by precision air power,
can replace heavy armor, especially against enemies who lack their own.

"We can use precision weapons, in the form of bombs dropped by aircraft, in the form of snipers," said Andrew Krepinevich, executive director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, which studies defense issues.
"Precision allows you to do more with less."
………
The battle for Najaf began on Aug. 5, with American forces fighting guerrillas loyal to the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr. Najaf's old city, with narrow, easily mined streets and buildings that allow guerrillas to fire down on tanks, is in theory dangerous terrain for armored vehicles and better suited to fighting on foot.

Yet in Najaf, two battalions of the Army's tanks did what a lighter marine battalion could not, inflicting huge casualties on Mr. Sadr's insurgents while taking almost none of their own. The 70-ton tanks and 25-ton Bradleys pushed to the gates of the Imam Ali shrine at the center of the old city. Meanwhile, the Marines spent most of the fight raiding buildings far from the old city.
Even so, seven marines died, and at least 30 were seriously wounded, according to commanders here, while only two Soldiers died and a handful were injured.

The difference the armor made was obvious to Soldiers on the ground. "You spot an enemy in a building, you don't want to send guys in, you use Bradleys and tanks," said Specialist Marquis Harrell of the Second Battalion, Seventh Cavalry. "We're glad to have 'em."

Military commanders here say they were somewhat surprised by the tanks' success.

"They myth that we've proven false is that heavy forces can't operate in an urban environment that in the past has been considered a light-fighter environment," said Lt. Col. Myles Miyamasu, commander of the First Battalion, Fifth Cavalry, which fought north of the shrine. Colonel Miyamasu emphasized that he was not trying to play down the contribution of the marines.

"One of the greatest tragedies of life is the murder of a beautiful theory by a gang of brutal facts." --Benjamin Franklin

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 16:01

Dominique Perben, the justice minister, who said at a dinner debate in Lyon: "At last we have obtained this 'Europe à la Française' that we have for so long awaited. This constitutional treaty … is an enlarged France."

Support among traditionally pro-EU voters has fallen dramatically because of fears that the constitution would open up labour markets. Critics also complain that it will force the whole of Europe to adopt "Anglo-Saxon" social and working practices.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 09:41

20 miles west of Raleigh's ditches
There's a place called hell
Where ten thousand son-o-bitches
Call the Chapel Hill

Where the bastards born
And the bastards bred
And when he dies
The bastards dead

Soooooooo
Piss on Carolina-lina
Piss on Carolina-lina
Piss on Carolina-lina

Go to hell Duke

Waaaaakeeeee Forrrresssttt Suuucccckkkksss

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:58

Soldiers from Bravo Company 1st Battalion, 155th Infantry Regiment, do a house to house search in an area where a U.S Army convoy received sniper fire from in Al Iskandariyah, Feb. 26, 2005.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 22:14

Hirsi Ali, who was born in Somalia and has been a member of the Dutch Parliament since January 2003, had endorsed the view that Islam is a backward religion, condemned the way women live under it and said that by today's standards, the prophet Muhammad would be considered a perverse tyrant. She had also announced that she was no longer a believing Muslim. The punishment for such apostasy is, according to strict interpretations of Islam, death.

…several dozen vocational students were taking up the main restaurant, so she and her guards parked at two tables near the bar. Hirsi Ali had her back to the restaurant when one of the students, apparently a Dutch convert to Islam, tapped her on the shoulder. ''I turned around,'' she recalls in her elegant English, ''and saw this sweet, young Dutch guy, about 24 years old. With freckles! And he was like, 'Madam, I hope the mujahedeen get you and kill you.' '' Hirsi Ali handed him her knife and told him, ''Why don't you do it yourself?''

Because her voice is soft, she can seem meek. She is not. Hirsi Ali has a calm and syllogistic way of dropping verbal bombs all over the place, using words European politicians never do: Decadent. Corrupt. Cowardly. Wrong.

Hirsi Ali was born into Somalia's Darod clan…her father, Hirsi Magan Isse…who now lives in England, was an iconoclastic Somali intellectual and politician who studied in Italy and earned a degree from Columbia University in 1966. He returned to Africa strengthened in his Muslim faith, his daughter says, but also deeply touched by North America. ''If such a young nation as the U.S. could make it to superpower status,'' she recalls him saying, ''we could do it as well.'' An anti-Communist, he agitated against the Marxist dictatorship of Mohammed Siad Barre, who came to power in 1969, the year Hirsi Ali was born. Hirsi Magan spent part of the 1980's as a leader of a guerrilla force in the Democratic Front for the Salvation of Somalia.

It was Hirsi Ali's grandmother who managed, following regional custom, to have Hirsi Ali and her sister ritually ''circumcised'' at age 5, against the wishes (and without the knowledge) of Hirsi Magan.

A crisis came in 1992, when her father contracted her in marriage to a Somali-Canadian cousin she did not know. After a wedding ceremony in Kenya, she followed him on a flight to Canada. During a layover in Germany, scheduled for the completion of her immigration paperwork, she decided to bolt -- an idea that did not occur to her, she says, until she arrived in Europe. She fled across the border on a train to the Netherlands, fearful that the Somali-German guardian assigned her by her clan would find her if she stayed in Germany.

In the Netherlands, she … found a job as a cleaning lady (''I would rather clean than beg'') in the Riedel juice factory in Ede, a heavily Moroccan city that has since become notorious in the Netherlands as the place where a television camera caught children and teenagers celebrating the destruction of the World Trade Center.

She also worked as a translator for immigration and social-service agencies. She interviewed Muslim women married off to reprobate cousins because they had lost their honor (virginity) and no one outside the family would have them. She interviewed battered wives and women infected with the AIDS virus who were under the impression that Muslims could not contract it. She came to marvel -- and despair -- at the tenacity of traditional Islam's grip on women who, now living in the West, seemingly had little reason to fear it.

In 1995, she entered the University of Leiden. She studied political science and political philosophy, … which she remembers with a desperate gratitude.

On Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, Hirsi Ali was in her second week of work as a researcher at the think tank of the center-left Labor Party, a job she'd sought after a short corporate stint peddling drugs to doctors for GlaxoSmithKline. Although she now describes herself as an atheist (''I do not believe in God, angels and the hereafter''), she had not at that point wholly lost her faith. The water-cooler talk that week was converging on agreement that it was simplistic to blame the attacks on Islam. Hirsi Ali begged to differ. She had been haunted by the letter left by the hijacker Mohamed Atta, in which he reminded his accomplices to pray for martyrdom. ''If I were a male under the same circumstances,'' she says, ''I could have been there. It was exactly what I used to believe.'' …Soon she had the chance to talk this way in public. Television interviewers were clamoring for immigrant analysts. … Asked her opinion of Pim Fortuyn's characterization of Islam as a ''backward religion,'' Hirsi Ali replied that by certain measures, including the treatment of women, Fortuyn's statement was not an opinion but a fact. Muslim leaders began to threaten her and her employers. ''Every time I went on TV,'' she says, ''I got a threat.'' In London, her father received menacing calls about her from Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands. Not only Muslims but also multiculturalists were outraged. Hirsi Ali wasn't impressed. ''I was like, 'I can't say that?' '' she recalls. '' 'For five long years in Leiden, you taught me to state facts. Now I do.' ''

Until recently, the Netherlands adhered to a national policy cumbersomely known as ''integration with maintenance of one's own identity.'' It arose partly out of unspoken guilt over the country's failure to save many Jews under German occupation during World War II and partly out of a modish multiculturalism.

But she prefers to describe her legislative achievements in broad terms. ''I confront the European elite's self-image as tolerant,'' she says, ''while under their noses women are living like slaves.''

Disrupting political classifications is explicitly what Hirsi Ali means to do. In her view, consensus-seeking politicians of all parties work hard to keep off the table the issues most Dutch people care about. Sometimes she refers to these people -- from Dijkstal to the Christian Democrat justice minister Piet Hein Donner to Job Cohen, the Labor mayor of Amsterdam -- as ''the Baby Boomers,''

Hirsi Ali claims a direct line of intellectual inheritance from the Dutch Enlightenment, and says she is merely laying claim as a Dutch person to freedoms won for her fellow citizens starting in the 17th century. … She calls Spinoza her biggest Western inspiration.

The present Dutch crisis looks very different if you believe a tribal principle is at work. It can look apocalyptic, in fact. In late February, sitting in an empty conference room in The Hague, clutching her black woolen wrap, Hirsi Ali speculated on one consequence. ''The Netherlands is an art country,'' she said. ''If the citizens of Amsterdam, 60 percent of whom will soon be of non-Western origin, are not made part of that, all of this will decay and be destroyed. When the municipality has to vote on whether funds go to preserve art or build a mosque, they may ask, 'Why should I pay for this stupid painting?' They may do a host of other things that are undemocratic, illiberal and unfriendly toward women and homosexuals and unbelievers.'' Hirsi Ali fears that inaction will be grist for the mill of an extreme right that is on the rise. ''If we don't take effective measures, now,'' she said, ''the Netherlands could be torn between two extreme rights'': an Islamic one and a non-Islamic one.

Last fall, entering the Dutch Parliament wasn't much different than entering one of the museums nearby. Now it is like entering a military base. You go in through a side entrance, which has been equipped with bulletproof glass, behind which the main hall is piled up with office furniture, crime-scene tape and two-by-fours.

In mid-February, Hirsi Ali shocked the country by revealing the location at which she was being kept in hiding -- a naval base in Amsterdam. She complained, ''I want a house just like anybody else.'' After days of recriminations in the press, she now has one. Her undisclosed location has become permanent. ''I sleep very little,'' she says. ''I have no real social life. It's like having a body with no bottom,'' she adds, using a Somali expression. Her friends worry that she will not soon find the chance to marry and have children. ''Well, who on earth can I saddle with a relationship?'' she asks. ''It's not off-limits, and technically it can all happen. But is it, as we say in Dutch, verstandig? Sensible? It doesn't seem sensible now.''

Hirsi Ali has been dealt a full house of the royal virtues: courage, intelligence, compassion. She has needed them. Hers is a big, heroic life that moves her fellow citizens but now gets lived mostly in locked rooms and bulletproof cars. She leads that life partly above other Dutch people, as a national symbol -- and partly below them, as a prisoner. She is a democracy campaigner for whom the role of an ordinary democratic citizen is off-limits, an egalitarian for whom equal treatment is turning out to be an elusive and maybe impossible thing.

...the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God."

Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds; that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness,..

The important thing, she insisted, was that people be able to talk about Islam openly, in an atmosphere free of intimidation. In her 2004 book, The Cage of Virgins she wrote, ''When a 'Life of Brian' comes out with Muhammad in the lead role, directed by an Arab equivalent of Theo van Gogh, it will be a huge step forward.''

Labels: Ayaan, Dutch, Islam

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 09:20

Young blacks have grown markedly less willing to join the Army, citing fear of being sent to fight a war in Iraq they don’t believe in…..Fear of combat also is a leading reason fewer young women are choosing the Army…

Statistically, the fear factor is about twice as strong among potential recruits as a whole as it was in 2000, the study said.

The Army has suffered more of the 1,500-plus U.S. deaths in Iraq than any other service, and thousands have been wounded. Some soldiers will serve their second tour in Iraq this year. While Army leaders say soldiers have shown a strong interest in re-enlisting, the strains of war seem to have become a barrier to first-time enlistees.

Blacks make up about 23 percent of today’s active-duty Army, but the share of blacks in the recruit classes of recent years dropped. From 22.7 percent at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the share slid to 19.9 percent in 2002; 16.4 percent in 2003 and 15.9 percent last year, according to figures provided by Army Recruiting Command spokesman Douglas Smith.

The slide has continued, dropping to 13.9 percent as of Feb. 9.

That and other studies, all of which are posted on an obscure Defense Department Web site, cited the Iraq war as a major turnoff for many.

African Americans still make up nearly a quarter of the overall Army, where, historically, blacks enlisted in strong numbers to take advantage of economic and social opportunities not available elsewhere.
But the drop in new recruits from that ethnic demographic means the Army has to make up ground elsewhere. Hispanics have increased from 10.4 percent of new recruits in 2000 to 13 percent in 2004; whites went from 61 percent in 2000 to 65 percent in 2004; and Asians or Pacific Islanders made up less than 1 percent of new soldiers in 2000 but nearly 5 percent in 2004.

Military scholars said the decline was not all that surprising, in part because African Americans' propensity to join the military has been dropping over the past decade.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 17:18