CDR Salamander

REVOLUTIONS NOTORIOUSLY IMPRISON THEIR MOST committed supporters. Intellectually, influential elements within our military are locked inside the cells of the Revolution in Military Affairs--the doctrinal cult of the past decade that preaches that technological leaps will transcend millennia-old realities of warfare. Our current conflicts have freed the Pentagon from at least some of the nonsensical theories of techno-war, but too many of our military and civilian leaders remain captivated by the notion that machines can replace human beings on the battlefield. Chained to their 20th-century successes, they cannot face the new reality: Wars of flesh, faith, and cities. Meanwhile, our enemies, immediate and potential, appear to grasp the contours of future war far better than we do.

Even in preparing for "big wars," we refuse to take the enemy into account. Increasingly, our military is designed for breathtaking sprints, yet a war with China--were one forced upon us by events--would be a miserable, long march. For all the rhetoric expended and the innumerable wargames played, the best metaphor for a serious struggle with Beijing--perhaps of Homeric length--comes from that inexhaustible little book, Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness, with its pathetic image of a Western gunboat lobbing shells uselessly into a continent.

Labels: Long War

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 14:55

The creaky B-52 bomber, first flown in 1952 when stamps cost 3 cents and George W. Bush was 6 years old, will be the mainstay of the United States' long-range bomber fleet for another decade, the Pentagon has decided.

Today's newer bombers -- sleek, high-tech and terrifyingly expensive -- will be largely sidelined as costly trophies, just as they are now.

The distinctive droop-winged, eight-engined B-52s cost around $61 million each, in inflation-adjusted dollars. The Air Force bought 742,

The B-2 "stealth" bomber, built in the 1990s, cost $1.3 billion each in today's dollars, 22 times as much as the B-52. The Air Force could afford only 20 of them.
…
The numbers illustrate a serious problem for the U.S. military. Weapons systems like jet fighters and warships cost more and more. And as ever bigger budgets buy less, the forces are shrinking and aging.

The Navy, for example, has faded from 568 warships in the late 1980s to 261 today.

The Air Force has the same problem. It planned to purchase 648 F-22 supersonic stealth fighters for $152.94 million each. But costly delays pushed the price up to $338.8 million per aircraft. Now the Air Force can afford only 181 planes,..

The pressures of rising costs and advancing age of weapons is old news to veteran Pentagon hands.

"I first started clamoring about this in 1973 as a captain in the Air Force," said Chuck Spinney, who retired last year as the Pentagon's chief tactical air power analyst. "God knows I tried to make them see the problem."

The B-52 went from paper concept to flying prototype in a remarkable four years, in part because its developer, the Boeing Military Airplane Company, was left alone by the small bureaucracy of the Air Force, then only a few years old. In contrast, it took 12 years to bring the B-2 bomber into production,
…
One problem is the high turnover of senior Pentagon officials. "The planning horizon of political appointees is out of whack with development cycles," said Loren Thompson, head of the Lexington Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington. "Every four years you get some bright new idea that results in key programs being reshaped, and that adds to the cost."

The Air Force believes the B-52s will fly until the year 2040, when most of the fleet will be 80 years old.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 14:36

BERLIN: Two top Germany generals were dismissed Friday after allegations of racist abuse by one general's son, favoritism and misuse of official information. Lieutenant General Hans-Heinrich Dieter, deputy chief of the armed forces, and Lieutenant General Jürgen Ruwe, deputy chief of the army, were dismissed from active duty, the Defense Ministry said. Ruwe's son, a student at the military academy in Hamburg, was accused of making racist and far-right comments. He has denied the allegations. Dieter was responsible for overseeing the academy and was accused of passing on details of the investigation to Ruwe, who informed his son.

A Spanish Army general has been put under house arrest after suggesting that military intervention might be necessary to quell demands for greater autonomy from the northeastern region of Catalonia, the Defense Ministry said.
Recalling the dispute over Catalan autonomy that was a partial cause of the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, Lieutenant General José Mena Aguado, 63, said on Friday night that history appeared to be repeating itself as the nation debated Catalonia's recent requests for more self-government, and that the military was ready to act.

"It is our obligation to warn that there could be serious consequences for the armed forces as an institution and for its members if the Statute of Catalonia is approved in its proposed form," he said during a speech to members of the military in Seville.

"The Constitution establishes a series of impassable limits for any statute of autonomy," he said, referring to the type of law that describes the relationship between Spain's regional governments and Madrid. "But if those limits are exceeded, which thankfully is unthinkable at this time, it would be necessary to apply Article 8 of the Constitution."

Article 8 establishes that the armed forces are responsible for defending Spain's "territorial integrity" and "the constitutional order."

An army captain voiced scathing criticism of the Spanish government Wednesday in the second such outburst this month, accusing it of bowing to independence-minded regions and leading the country toward a breakup.

Captain Roberto González Calderón, with an army branch called the Legion, spoke out in a letter published in the newspaper Melilla Hoy. Melilla is a Spanish enclave on the coast of Morocco and the city where the captain is stationed.

In early January, the Defense Ministry fired a top army officer and placed him under house arrest for eight days after he warned of possible military intervention if Parliament approved a blueprint that would give much greater autonomy to the northeast Catalonia region.

Those remarks, by Lieutenant General José Mena Aguado in a high-profile speech Jan. 6 to fellow officers in Seville, triggered memories of a failed coup in 1981, just three years after Spain restored democracy following the death of General Francisco Franco.

After Mena Aguado spoke out, Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's government said it had polled other military personnel and concluded that this was an isolated case.

González Calderón said he disagreed vehemently. "Mr. Prime Minister, what your advisers told you is not true, nor are the interpretations that have been made. Of course, there is unease both within and outside the armed forces, as could only be the case. Unease over seeing how our Spain is being dismembered," the letter read.

He said Spain's 25-year-old system of giving more and more self-rule to regions like Catalonia and the Basque region had spawned "a generation of Spaniards that do not recognize Spain as their fatherland."

The captain said that Spain today - from TV stations to everyday people - treated the country's armed forces with disrespect and that in recent years politicians have used deadly military accidents as fodder for attacking one another and scoring points in opinion polls.

Alluding to the punishment meted out against Mena Aguado, the captain said he had considered traveling to Madrid with soldiers under his command to deliver the letter personally to Defense Minister José Bono, but ultimately opted for the newspaper as a forum. Even so, he said he was aware that his public complaints probably doomed any chances of his ever being promoted.

The Defense Ministry and the army both declined to comment. Spanish National Radio quoted ministry sources as saying González Calderón would be disciplined by his superiors.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:34

Iraqis and Afghans are among the most optimistic people in the world when it comes to their economic future, a new survey for the BBC suggests.

Italians join people in Zimbabwe and DR Congo as the most downcast about their future, according to the poll of 37,500 people in 32 nations.
...
In Afghanistan, 70% say their own circumstances are improving, and 57% believe that the country overall is on the way up.

In Iraq, 65% believe their personal life is getting better, and 56% are upbeat about the country's economy.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 05:43

After two decades of use, the U.S. Department of Defense is getting rid of its Beretta M9 9mm pistol, and going back to the 11.4mm (.45 caliber) weapon. ...SOCOM has been given the task of finding a design that will be suitable as the JCP (Joint Combat Pistol). Various designs are being evaluated, but all must be .45 caliber and have a eight round magazine (at least), and high capacity mags holding up to 15. The new .45 will also have a rail up top for attachments, and be able to take a silencer. Length must be no more than 9.65 inches, and width no more than 1.53 inches.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 09:23

The Pentagon has directed the Navy to assume a ``greater presence'' in the western Pacific by adding at least one aircraft carrier and five nuclear submarines over the next decade, according to a draft of the Pentagon's review of strategy and forces.

The increase will put half the Navy's aircraft carriers and 60 percent of its submarine fleet in the Pacific and is largely driven by the Pentagon's concern over China's increased military might, according to a congressional defense analyst.

China announced last March that its military spending in 2005 would grow by 13 percent. That followed increases of 11.6 percent in 2004, 9.6 percent in 2003 and 17.6 percent in 2002.

China's military buildup is ``unprecedented'' and ``is proceeding quite rapidly,'' U.S. Pacific Command commander Admiral William Fallon told Congress at the time. It includes short- and intermediate-range missiles, submarines and Russian- made Su-30 fighters, Fallon said.

``The fleet will have greater presence in the Pacific Ocean consistent with the global shift of trade and transport,'' says the final draft of the review now circulating on Capitol Hill.

``Accordingly, the Navy plans to adjust its force posture and basing to provide at least six operationally available and sustainable carriers and 60 percent of its submarines in the Pacific to support engagement, presence and deterrence,''

As part of the increased presence, the review recommends that the Pentagon in 2012 increase production of the General Dynamics Corp.-Northrop Grumman Corp. Virginia-class attack submarine to two annually from the current rate of one a year.

In a section on emerging military powers, including Russia and India, the report says ``China has the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States.'' The pace and scope of China's build-up already puts other regional military balances ``at risk,'' the draft says.

``China is likely to continue to make large investments in high-end military capabilities, emphasizing electronic and cyber-warfare, counter-space operations, ballistics and cruise missiles, next-generation torpedoes and advanced submarines,'' it says

These emerging capabilities, the vast distances of an Asian theater and basing challenges the U.S. would face in a potential conflict ``place a premium on forces capable of sustained operations at great distances into denied areas,'' according to the draft.

Labels: Long Game

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 10:46

Under somewhat dubious circumstances, France sent troops to its former West African colony in September 2002 after a coup attempt against president Laurent Gbagbo during which rebel forces won control of the northern part of the country, despite the reluctance of the Ivorians to accept them, wanting a neutral force.

This is only the latest episode in the unhappy relations between France and the Ivory Coast. This West African country, having been a French colony since 1893, was formally made independent in 1960, although its economic assets and major businesses have since remained largely under French control. The French own 45 per cent of the land and, curiously, the buildings of the Presidency of the Republic and of the Ivorian National assembly are subject to leases concluded with the French.

Resentment of French "neocolonialism" has been behind much of the political unrest in the country, which took a turn for the worst last November when the Ivorian air force bombarded a French base at Bouaké, killing nine French soldiers, after president Gbagbo had accused the French of siding with the rebel forces in an attempt to depose him.

The French army had already fired without warning on unarmed Gbagboist demonstrators in November 2003, seriously wounding three of them and then, on direct orders from Chirac, France responded in what was seen at the time as a gross over-reaction - by destroying the country's entire air force, sparking riots in Abidjan. Some 70 Ivorians were killed and over 1,000 injured by French troops firing on unarmed crowds. In a move which further infuriated the Ivorians, the French chief of the general staff dismissed claims of a "massacre", only admitting that his troops might have "wounded or killed a few people", while "showing very great calm and complete control of the violence."

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 10:39

IN the past several years, American evangelicals, and I am one of them, have amassed greater political power than at any time in our history. But at what cost to our witness and the integrity of our message?

Recently, I took a few days to reread the war sermons delivered by influential evangelical ministers during the lead up to the Iraq war. That period, from the fall of 2002 through the spring of 2003, is not one I will remember fondly. Many of the most respected voices in American evangelical circles blessed the president's war plans, even when doing so required them to recast Christian doctrine.

The war sermons rallied the evangelical congregations behind the invasion of Iraq. An astonishing 87 percent of all white evangelical Christians in the United States supported the president's decision in April 2003. Recent polls indicate that 68 percent of white evangelicals continue to support the war. But what surprised me, looking at these sermons nearly three years later, was how little attention they paid to actual Christian moral doctrine. Some tried to square the American invasion with Christian "just war" theory, but such efforts could never quite reckon with the criterion that force must only be used as a last resort. As a result, many ministers dismissed the theory as no longer relevant.

The single common theme among the war sermons appeared to be this: our president is a real brother in Christ, and because he has discerned that God's will is for our nation to be at war against Iraq, we shall gloriously comply.

Such sentiments are a far cry from those expressed in the Lausanne Covenant of 1974. More than 2,300 evangelical leaders from 150 countries signed that statement, the most significant milestone in the movement's history. Convened by Billy Graham and led by John Stott, the revered Anglican evangelical priest and writer, the signatories affirmed the global character of the church of Jesus Christ and the belief that "the church is the community of God's people rather than an institution, and must not be identified with any particular culture, social or political system, or human ideology."

David Brooks correctly noted that if evangelicals elected a pope, it would most likely be Mr. Stott, who is the author of more than 40 books on evangelical theology and Christian devotion. Unlike the Pope John Paul II, who said that invading Iraq would violate Catholic moral teaching and threaten "the fate of humanity," or even Pope Benedict XVI, who has said there were "not sufficient reasons to unleash a war against Iraq," Mr. Stott did not speak publicly on the war. But in a recent interview, he shared with me his abiding concerns.

What will it take for evangelicals in the United States to recognize our mistaken loyalty? We have increasingly isolated ourselves from the shared faith of the global Church, and there is no denying that our Faustian bargain for access and power has undermined the credibility of our moral and evangelistic witness in the world. The Hebrew prophets might call us to repentance, but repentance is a tough demand for a people utterly convinced of their righteousness.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 05:57

Labels: Art

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 16:14

Boeing is finally showing off one of its more poorly kept secrets. Its planners are polishing the design for an EP-3E-replacement signals intelligence aircraft for the U.S. Navy…The new design, revealed Jan. 24, comes in response to the death of the Army/Navy Aerial Common Sensor contract offered by Lockheed Martin.

Playing off the basic P-8A Multimission Maritime Aircraft (a 737-800 with a longer 737-900 wing), Boeing officials say they will already have a hot production line (ITAR compliant for classified military work), a proven open electronic architecture and common crew workstations that can be adapted to virtually any surveillance task. MMA is to make its first flight in 2009 and have its first operational unit in 2013. Production could then pick up with the sigint aircraft in time to meet the end of the EP-3's flying life.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 11:31

Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army officer who wrote the report under a Pentagon contract, concluded that the Army cannot sustain the pace of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to break the back of the insurgency. He also suggested that the Pentagon's decision, announced in December, to begin reducing the force in Iraq this year was driven in part by a realization that the Army was overextended.
...
He wrote that the Army is "in a race against time" to adjust to the demands of war "or risk `breaking' the force in the form of a catastrophic decline" in recruitment and re-enlistment. (you can almost hear the authors breathlessness)
...
Krepinevich's analysis, while consistent with the conclusions of some outside the Bush administration, is in stark contrast with the public statements of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and senior Army officials.
...
Krepinevich is executive director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a nonprofit policy research institute. (BTW, read his stuff (link above on his name) in total. It is much better than you think, and asks hard questions and no-soft-edges comments with solid research. Here is the "Thin Green Line." Read that especially for his NATO comments. That is worth a post all by itself.

George Joulwan, a retired four-star Army general and former NATO commander, agrees the Army is stretched thin.

"Whether they're broken or not, I think I would say if we don't change the way we're doing business, they're in danger of being fractured and broken, and I would agree with that," Joulwan told CNN last month.
...
Michael O'Hanlon, a military expert at the private Brookings Institution, (Strobe Talbot, President) said in a recent interview that "it's a judgment call" whether the risk of breaking the Army is great enough to warrant expanding its size.

Army Secretary Francis Harvey, for example, opened a Pentagon news conference last week by denying the Army was in trouble. "Today's Army is the most capable, best-trained, best-equipped and most experienced force our nation has fielded in well over a decade," he said, adding that recruiting has picked up.

Rumsfeld has argued that the experience of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan has made the Army stronger, not weaker.

"The Army is probably as strong and capable as it ever has been in the history of this country,"

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:59

Lt. Bryan D. Black, a Naval Academy oceanography instructor, faces a court-martial Jan. 31 for making an offensive sexual comment to a female midshipman and using crude terms in mixed company.

Black’s comments were made during an August field trip to Norfolk, Va. Despite later apologizing to the midshipman, per Navy policy — and the midshipman’s acceptance of that apology — Black was charged by academy officials with conduct unbecoming an officer.

While walking past the decommissioned battleship Wisconsin in downtown Norfolk, Va., Black allegedly said among his students, “Battleships are just so freaking awesome, it gives me a hard-on just talking about it.”

That in itself probably might have been brushed off as the crude bluster of a junior officer.

But Black allegedly then turned to a female midshipman second class and made a more personal, pointed comment. “Even [name] would get a hard-on, wouldn’t you ... oh, that’s right, you can’t do that, so I guess it would be tweaking your nipples.”

In a statement read by the prosecution at a Jan. 13 pretrial hearing, the midshipman said she was “appalled” at the comment, but that Black said he was sorry the next day. She said she accepted his apology.

Under established Navy procedures, that should have been the end of it. But Black’s oceanography department colleague, Lt. Cmdr. Shelly Whisenhant, pushed the matter up the chain of command. Whisenhant would not comment on the matter.

David Segal, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland, specializes in military culture. He says the large-scale public proceedings of a court-martial can backlash.

“One of the costs of overreaction is women who feel offended are reluctant to go forward,” he said.

As for Gittins, he thinks the academy has fallen victim to political correctness at the expense of forging hardened warriors.

“We are creating a ‘let’s pretend’ society,” Gittins said. “They’re going to see a lot worse than this in the war on terrorism shortly after they get their commissions.”

Lory Manning couldn’t disagree more. A retired Navy captain, Manning served 25 years in the Navy, commanding a signal station on Diego Garcia and serving on the staffs of the chief of naval personnel and chief of naval operations. She directs the Women in the Military Project for the Women’s Research and Education Institute in Washington, D.C.

“In the old days, 20 or 25 years ago, this was the ‘man’s navy,’ and if you didn’t like it, you can get out of the ‘man’s navy,’” she said. “It’s not the ‘man’s navy.’ It’s the citizen’s navy.”

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 15:14

The first underlying cause of the war was the increase in the region's relative importance as a source of petroleum. On the one hand, the rest of the world's oil reserves were being rapidly exhausted. On the other, the breakneck growth of the Asian economies had caused a huge surge in global demand for energy.

A second precondition of war was demographic. ... By the late 1990s the fertility rate in the eight Muslim countries to the south and east of the European Union was two and half times higher than the European figure. ... In 1950, there had three times as many people in Britain as in Iran. By 1995, the population of Iran had overtaken that of Britain and was forecast to be 50 per cent higher by 2050.

The third and perhaps most important precondition for war was cultural. Since 1979, not just Iran but the greater part of the Muslim world had been swept by a wave of religious fervour, the very opposite of the process of secularisation that was emptying Europe's churches.

So history repeated itself. As in the 1930s, an anti-Semitic demagogue broke his country's treaty obligations and armed for war. Having first tried appeasement, offering the Iranians economic incentives to desist, the West appealed to international agencies - the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Security Council. Thanks to China's veto, however, the UN produced nothing but empty resolutions and ineffectual sanctions, like the exclusion of Iran from the 2006 World Cup finals.

As in the 1930s, too, the West fell back on wishful thinking. Perhaps, some said, Ahmadinejad was only sabre-rattling because his domestic position was so weak. Perhaps his political rivals in the Iranian clergy were on the point of getting rid of him. In that case, the last thing the West should do was to take a tough line; that would only bolster Ahmadinejad by inflaming Iranian popular feeling. So in Washington and in London people crossed their fingers, hoping for the deus ex machina of a home-grown regime change in Teheran.

This gave the Iranians all the time they needed to produce weapons-grade enriched uranium at Natanz. The dream of nuclear non-proliferation, already interrupted by Israel, Pakistan and India, was definitively shattered. Now Teheran had a nuclear missile pointed at Tel-Aviv. And the new Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu had a missile pointed right back at Teheran.

The optimists argued that the Cuban Missile Crisis would replay itself in the Middle East. Both sides would threaten war - and then both sides would blink. That was Secretary Rice's hope - indeed, her prayer - as she shuttled between the capitals. But it was not to be.

The devastating nuclear exchange of August 2007 represented not only the failure of diplomacy, it marked the end of the oil age. Some even said it marked the twilight of the West. Certainly, that was one way of interpreting the subsequent spread of the conflict as Iraq's Shi'ite population overran the remaining American bases in their country and the Chinese threatened to intervene on the side of Teheran.

Yet the historian is bound to ask whether or not the true significance of the 2007-2011 war was to vindicate the Bush administration's original principle of pre-emption. For, if that principle had been adhered to in 2006, Iran's nuclear bid might have been thwarted at minimal cost. And the Great Gulf War might never have happened.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 14:21

Strasbourg officials have banned the hand-outs and police in Paris have closed soup kitchens in an effort to avert racial tension.

The charities have defended offering what they call traditional cuisine to French and European homeless people.
...
A leading French anti-racism movement has urged Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy to ban pork soup give-aways throughout the country.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 10:04

Supporting the troops is a position that even Calvin is unwilling to urinate on.

I want to hang with you in Vegas.

It's as if the one lesson they took away from Vietnam wasn't to avoid foreign conflicts with no pressing national interest but to remember to throw a parade afterward.

Besides, those little yellow ribbons aren't really for the troops. They need body armor, shorter stays and a USO show by the cast of "Laguna Beach."

The real purpose of those ribbons is to ease some of the guilt we feel for voting to send them to war and then making absolutely no sacrifices other than enduring two Wolf Blitzer shows a day. Though there should be a ribbon for that.

The truth is that people who pull triggers are ultimately responsible, whether they're following orders or not. An army of people making individual moral choices may be inefficient, but an army of people ignoring their morality is horrifying.

An army of people ignoring their morality, by the way, is also Jack Abramoff's pet name for the House of Representatives.

I do sympathize with people who joined up to protect our country, especially after 9/11, and were tricked into fighting in Iraq. I get mad when I'm tricked into clicking on a pop-up ad, so I can only imagine how they feel.

So you're willingly signing up to be a fighting tool of American imperialism, for better or worse. Sometimes you get lucky and get to fight ethnic genocide in Kosovo, but other times it's Vietnam.

And sometimes, for reasons I don't understand, you get to just hang out in Germany.

I know this is all easy to say for a guy who grew up with money, did well in school and hasn't so much as served on jury duty for his country.

But it's really not that easy to say because anyone remotely affiliated with the military could easily beat me up, and I'm listed in the phone book.

All I'm asking is that we give our returning soldiers what they need(Well, most need something beyond 5.56mm and 9mm – but that is a different subject for a different day): hospitals, pensions, mental health and a safe, immediate return. But, please, no parades.

Seriously, the traffic is insufferable.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 05:29

OIF is a joint venture, and dedicated, courageous Americans from all 4 Services and the civil sector risk their lives daily throughout Iraq, but the Army is the pivotal, supported force, and thus the most germane to the issue.

My own experience, serving at the heart of a U.S. dominated command within the Coalition from December 2003 to November 2004, suggests something of an enigma, hence the spur to study the subject further. My overriding impression was of an Army imbued with an unparalleled sense of patriotism, duty, passion, commitment, and determination, with plenty of talent, and in no way lacking in humanity or compassion. Yet it seemed weighed down by bureaucracy, a stiflingly hierarchical outlook, a pre-disposition to offensive operations, and a sense that duty required all issues to be confronted head-on. Many personnel seemed to struggle to understand the nuances of the OIF Phase 4 environment. Moreover, whilst they were almost unfailingly courteous and considerate, at times their cultural insensitivity, almost certainly inadvertent, arguably
amounted to institutional racism.

To balance that apparent litany of criticisms, the U.S. Army was instrumental in a string of tactical and operational successes through the second half of 2004; so any blanket verdict would be grossly misleading.

Other sources offer similarly divergent evidence. Extreme critics point to Vietnam and predict a long and bloody struggle, leading eventually to a withdrawal with political objectives at best partially secured. However, there is no weight of a priori evidence to support that view yet, and one senses that its proponents almost wish for failure in order to make some other wider political point. A more balanced view came from a senior British officer, in theatre for 6 months in 2004, who judged that the U.S. Army acted like ‘fuel on a smouldering fire’, but that this was ‘as much owing to their presence as their actions’.

The most striking feature of the U.S. Army’s approach during this period of OIF Phase 4 is that universally those consulted for this paper who were
not from the U.S. considered that the Army was too ‘kinetic’. This is shorthand for saying U.S. Army personnel were too inclined to consider offensive operations and destruction of the insurgent as the key to a given situation, and conversely failed to understand its downside. Granted, this verdict partly reflects the difference
in perspectives of scale between the U.S. and her Coalition allies, arising from different resourcing levels. For example, during preparatory operations in the November 2004 Fallujah clearance operation, on one night over forty 155mm artillery rounds were fired into a small section of the city. Given the intent to maintain a low profile prior to the launch of the main operation, most armies would consider this bombardment a significant event. Yet it did not feature on the next morning’s update to the 4-Star Force Commander: the local commander considered it to be a minor application of combat power.

It should be stressed that this does not imply some sort of inherent brutality or lack of humanity: examples are legion of the toughest U.S. soldiers in Iraq exercising deeply moving levels of compassion in the face of civilian suffering, and often under extreme provocation. The issue is more a conceptual one about relative views of the value of lethal force.
...
Yet it would be simplistic and misleading to suggest that U.S. senior commanders
simply did not understand the importance of popular support. At least 2 evidently did. Major General (MG) David Petraeus, as Commanding General (CG) of the 101st Division and responsible for Northern Iraq in the period after the fall of Saddam, swung his troops routinely between offensive operations and an equally vigorous domestic construction and restoration programme.14 He is widely accredited with maintaining relative peace and normal functionality in Mosul, a city with an ethnic mix easily liable to ignite into civil conflict. Likewise, MG Pete Chiarelli, CG of 1st Cav Div, responsible for the demanding and volatile Baghdad area of operations
in 2004, referred in briefings to his Division’s SWETI ops: Sewage, Water, Electricity, Trash, Information. He considered his role to be as much city chief executive as soldier. Before his Division’s deployment to Iraq he took his senior commanders and staff on a seminar with U.S. industrialists, because he realised from the outset that they would need to understand how to manage a population and restore and rebuild a city at least as much as they would need to know how to kill and capture terrorists.
...
However, to apply the judgement of cultural insensitivity universally would be similarly misleading. Troops could undoubtedly be damagingly heavy-handed, as they could in any army, but there were many reported instances of U.S. Army courtesy and empathy with the local population. As an illustration of the contrasts, one senior Iraqi official who worked closely with the Coalition had his house twice subjected to routine search by U.S. Army personnel.15 On one occasion the troops displayed exemplary awareness of cultural sensitivities, such as appropriate treatment of women in the household. On the other, the aggressive behaviour of troops from a battalion newly arrived in theatre led to his formal complaint, with consequent apology from a U.S. General Officer.

Commanders and staff at all levels were strikingly conscious of their duty, but rarely if ever questioned authority, and were reluctant to deviate from precise instructions. Staunch loyalty upward and conformity to one’s superior were noticeable traits. Each commander had his own style, but if there was a common trend it was for micro-management, with many hours devoted to daily briefings and updates. Planning tended to be staff driven and focused on process rather than end effect. The net effect was highly centralised decision-making, which worked when serving a commander with a gift for retaining detail and concurrently managing a plethora of issues, but all too readily developed undue inertia. Moreover, it tended to discourage lower level initiative and adaptability, even when commanders consciously encouraged both.

On balance the available evidence indicates these U.S. Army trends:
• Exceptional commitment, sense of duty, and unquestioning loyalty to the wider cause, the mismission,
the force and superior officers.
• Insufficient adaptability to the requirements of Phase 4 caused by:
•• Process rather than effects orientated command
and control regimes.
•• A hierarchically conscious command ethos, which encouraged centralisation, and conversely discouraged low level initiative or innovation even when senior commanders stressed the need for them.
•• Commander over-optimism, which could sometimes compound the disinclination to adapt plans, since it raised undue confidence in higher headquarters that existing plans were on track.
• A shortage of manpower from which to draw troops into theatre, leading to very varied levels of expertise, which tended to compound the issues noted above.

In his seminal book Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, LTC John Nagl contrasts the development of organisational culture in the British and U.S. Armies, in order to determine why the former succeeded in Malaya but the latter failed in Vietnam.24 The book pre-dates OIF by a year. Nonetheless the parallels with the evidence arising from OIF Phase 4 are too marked to ignore, a feature which evidently did not escape the notice of the COS of the Army, General Peter J. Schoomaker, who in 2005 ordered copies for every 4-Star General Officer currently serving, and provided a Foreword to the second edition.25 Nagl notes that ‘The American Army’s role from its very origins was the eradication of threats to national survival’, in contrast to the British Army’s history as ‘an instrument of limited war, designed to achieve limited goals at limited cost’. And, ‘As a consequence, its historical focus was almost unfailingly and exclusively to be a conventional war-fighting organisation’.

Improve skills and tactical repertoire for IW across the wider force—broaden the knowledge base outside Special Operations Forces and Marines. In short, much seemingly apposite work is in progress.

However, to conclude, as some do, that the Army is simply incompetent or inflexible, is simplistic and quite erroneous. If anything the Army has been a victim of its own successful development as the ultimate warfighting machine. Always seeing itself as an instrument of national survival, over time the Army has developed a marked and uncompromising focus on conventional warfighting, leaving it ill-prepared for the unconventional operations that characterise OIF Phase 4.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:50

There is no other Army in the world that could even have attempted such a venture. It is, rather, an attempt to understand the apparently paradoxical currents of strength and weakness witnessed at close hand over the course of a year. Ultimately, the intent is to be helpful to an institution I greatly respect.

My own experience, serving at the heart of a U.S. dominated command within the coalition from December 2003 to November 2004, suggests something of an enigma, hence the spur to study the subject further. My overriding impression was of an Army imbued with an unparalleled sense of patriotism, duty, passion, commitment and determination, with plenty of talent, and in no way lacking in humanity or compassion. Yet it seemed weighed down by bureaucracy, a stiflingly hierarchical outlook, a pre-disposition to offensive operations and a sense that duty required all issues to be confronted head-on. Many personnel seemed to struggle to understand the nuances of the OIF Phase 4 [stabilization] environment. Moreover, whilst they were almost unfailingly courteous and considerate, at times their cultural insensitivity, almost certainly inadvertent, arguably amounted to institutional racism.

This sense of moral righteousness combined with an emotivity that was rarely far from the surface, and in extremis manifested as deep indignation or outrage that could serve to distort collective military judgment. The most striking example during this period occurred in April 2004 when insurgents captured and mutilated four U.S. contractors in Fallujah. In classic insurgency doctrine, this act was almost certainly a come-on, designed to invoke a disproportionate response, thereby further polarizing the situation and driving a wedge between the domestic population and the coalition forces. It succeeded.

It would be nice if he understood that the problem with, (1) Wanting to smash, and (2) then stopping before it was done was not the idea of the U.S. Marines in charge of Fallujah. That was all Army and civilians (see No True Glory for the details). Small point and all, but he makes a huge error by not discussing the Marines and how they have a VERY different way of fighting and execution in Iraq than the U.S. Army.

The U.S. Army's laudable and emphatic "can-do" approach to operations paradoxically encouraged another trait, which has been described elsewhere as damaging optimism. Self-belief and resilient optimism are recognized necessities for successful command, and all professional forces strive for a strong can-do ethos. However, it is unhelpful if it discourages junior commanders from reporting unwelcome news up the chain of command. The U.S. Army during this period of OIF exemplified both sides of this coin.

Armies reflect the culture of the civil society from which they are drawn. According to [retired Army Col. Don] Snider [a West Point senior lecturer], the Army is characterized, like U.S. domestic society, by an aspiration to achieve quick results. This in turn engenders a command and planning climate that promotes those solutions that appear to favor quick results. In conventional warfighting situations this is likely to be advantageous, but in other operations it often tends to prolong the situation, ironically, as the quick solution turns out to be the wrong one. In COIN terms the most obvious example is the predilection for wide-ranging kinetic options (sweep, search and destroy) in preference to the longer term hearts and minds work and intelligence led operations.

The Army's "Warrior Ethos" is also illuminating in this respect. It was introduced in 2001. At its core is the Soldier's Creed. Note that it enjoins the soldier to have just the one type of interaction with his enemy -- "to engage and destroy him": not defeat , which could permit a number of other politically attuned options, but destroy . It is very decidedly a war-fighting creed, which has no doubt served well to promote the much sought conventional warfighting ethos, but cannot be helping soldiers to understand that on many occasions in unconventional situations they have to be soldiers, not warriors.

As important, the Army needs to learn to see itself as others do, particularly its actual or potential opponents and their supporters. They are the ones who need to be persuaded to succumb, because the alternative approach is to kill or capture them all, and that hardly seems practicable, even for the most powerful Army in the world.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 15:31

Naomi Wolf, one of America’s foremost feminist thinkers, has found a spiritual awakening in God after experiencing a “mystical encounter” with Jesus.

Wolf, best known as the author of the Beauty Myth, a groundbreaking 1991 polemic against the cosmetics industry that radicalised a generation of young women, revealed the cause of a hitherto unexplained mid-life crisis that set her on a “spiritual path”.
...

Wolf admitted that, during a therapy session to treat writer’s block, she encountered what she described as a holographic image of Jesus.

“I actually had this vision of Jesus, and I’m sure it was Jesus,” said Wolf. “But it wasn’t this crazy theological thing; it was just this figure who was the most perfected human being that there could be – full of light and full of love.”

More bizarrely, she experienced this as a teenage boy. “I was a 13-year-old boy sitting next to him and feeling feelings I’d never felt in my lifetime,” said Wolf. “[Feelings] of a boy being with an older male who he really loves and admires and loves to be in the presence of. It was probably the most profound experience of my life. I haven’t talked about it publicly.”

Wolf emphasised that her spiritual renewal strengthened her commitment to feminism as her life mission. “I believe that each of us is here to help repair the world,” she said. “My particular mission seems to be about helping women remember what’s sacred about them or what’s sacred about femininity .”

She also expressed apprehension that her faith would be hijacked by religious groups. “I don’t want to be co-opted as the poster child for any religion or any agenda,” said Wolf, who was brought up in a liberal Jewish household. “There are a lot of people out there just waiting for some little Jewish feminist to cross over. I don’t claim to get where this being fits into the scheme of things but I absolutely believe in divine providence now, absolutely believe God totally cares about every single one of us intimately.”

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 11:36

From 1 March onwards people who want to settle in the Netherlands (e.g. to join family members or to marry someone living there) will have to pass a preliminary test at the Dutch embassy in their country of origin. In this so-called “integration test” the immigrants have to prove that they have sufficient knowledge of the Dutch language and the geography, history and political system of the Netherlands. The fee for taking the test is 350 euros. Those who do not pass are not allowed to enter the Netherlands. Those who do pass have only taken the first hurdle. After their arrival in the Netherlands they will have to pass a second – more difficult – exam.

Dutch Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende’s government of Christian-Democrats and free-market Liberals is also considering other measures. One of these might be to establish military camps to discipline troublesome youths. There are 40,000 jobless youths in the Netherlands, who have left school without degrees. The majority of them is of foreign origin. Many become involved in criminal activities. A majority of Dutch parliamentarians, including members of the Socialist opposition, supports a plan to discipline them in military style.

On Tuesday Job Cohen, the mayor of Amsterdam, called for action to deal with “French situations” in his city. “There is unrest in the city,” the mayor said after talks with local authorities. The meeting was organised in the wake of several incidents involving mainly Moroccan youths which have occurred since the beginning of this year. “There is an underlying feeling whereby it would only take minor incidents to cause an outburst,” Cohen said. Cars have been vandalized, residents have been threatened, Jews and homosexuals harassed, and a police station attacked after a 17-year-old scooter rider, fleeing the police, died in a crash on 10 January.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 05:56

The U.S. Navy boarded an apparent pirate ship in the Indian Ocean and detained 26 men for questioning, the Navy said Sunday. The 16 Indians and 10 Somali men were aboard a traditional dhow that was chased and seized Saturday by the U.S. guided missile destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill, said Lt. Leslie Hull-Ryde of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command in Bahrain.

The dhow stopped fleeing after the Churchill twice fired warning shots during the chase, which ended 87 kilometers (54 miles) off the coast of Somalia, the Navy said. U.S. sailors boarded the dhow and seized a cache of small arms.

The dhow's crew and passengers were being questioned Sunday aboard the Churchill to determine which were pirates and which were legitimate crew members, Hull-Ryde said.

Sailors aboard the dhow told Navy investigators that pirates hijacked the vessel six days ago near Mogadishu and thereafter used it to stage pirate attacks on merchant ships.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 05:02

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has had a terrible start to 2006. Early this year the alliance was due to begin expanding its Afghanistan security assistance mission into the country's south. But as violence increased across the country in recent weeks, the Dutch parliament began debating whether to vote against the deployment of 1,200 Dutch troops to the Nato mission, throwing the alliance's operational plan into disarray. Having staked their credibility on the success of the Afghanistan mission, Nato diplomats are now working to soothe Dutch concerns and avert a potential fiasco.

Divisions within Nato over the "war on terror" burst into the open when the commander of Dutch forces launched an extraordinary public attack on the record of the American military in Afghanistan. Gen Dick Berlijn said yesterday that four years of "unnecessarily harsh" American combat operations had brought "little or no" benefit to the restive south of the country, other than the toppling of the Taliban.

Holland's coalition government and parliament are locked in a bitter debate over whether to send 1,200 Dutch troops to join a new Nato mission of 6,000 troops in southern Afghanistan.

With Dutch memories of their military's disastrous involvement in the former Yugoslav conflict still raw, the row has threatened to topple the government.

Gen Berlijn, the chief of the Netherlands defence staff, backed the sending of Dutch troops, saying they would bring sensitive peace-keeping skills to the operation. But in the same interview with the Dutch magazine Elsevier, he expressed grave concerns about the exact relationship on the ground between peacekeeping Nato forces and American combat forces engaged in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF).

Dutch politicians have expressed fears that peacekeeping troops will come under attack from insurgents motivated by their loathing of American forces. The general did not dismiss such concerns outright, saying: "If it is necessary to hunt terrorists in an area, then the OEF commander will have to discuss this extremely carefully with the Nato commander.

"There must not be a situation in which we work on reconstruction one day and the bulldozers of the OEF flatten everything again the next."

The reason this situation even exists is the fact that NATO cannot grasp the need to have all military under a unitary Chain of Command. Fractured CoC only leads to failure. Even if everyone is from the same country. We learned that the hard way in Iraq (read No True Glory for the details). This guy should not be at the head of a serious military. Yes, I understand the ISAF/OEF split has been quasi-working for a couple of years, but now is the time to leave the JV and get ready for Varsity Football. Either that, or

... just as Nato prepares to begin its most difficult task yet in Afghanistan - taking over security operations from US forces in the still-unsettled south - that new-found faith in Europe is being tested. For nearly a year, Nato planners have relied on British, Dutch and Canadian forces to make up the core of 6,000 troops there.

The three countries were committed to hard work in a potentially violent area and, unlike other Nato allies, they did not hamper their soldiers' rules of engagement with restrictive "caveats" that prevented them performing crucial missions.

But the Netherlands has thrown a spanner in the works. .., it is unclear whether the Dutch parliament will approve it early next month. ... But it also could delay the deployment scheduled for mid-year, leading to a domino effect as Nato looks for other countries to fill the gap.

The US has already said it will reduce its forces by 2,500 in March. due to Nato deployment. "[If] parliament decides the Netherlands won't take part . . . then we'll look for another ally," Kurt Volker, of the US State Department's European bureau, said this week. "It would delay the ability to implement this but it's a Nato mission and we're determined to see it succeed."

Just who would fill the gap is unclear and a western defence official said Nato leaders had intentionally not discussed potential replacements in order to turn up the heat on the Dutch.

Asked this week whether the UK would be able to fill in for the Dutch, Martin Howard, head of operational policy at the defence ministry, said: "I would have thought we would find it quite difficult."

But just at the moment that Nato's 26 member states are finally facing up to their military obligations, the alliance faces a new crisis over the disinclination of a number of European states to put their soldiers in harm's way. This week's announcement that Nato's planned deployment to southern Afghanistan was to be delayed by several months was blamed on the Dutch government, which has had second thoughts about placing its soldiers' lives in jeopardy.

But at least the Dutch are prepared to consider the possibility, which is more than can be said for Europe's main military powers - with the notable exception of Britain. Germany, France, Italy and Spain have all deployed troops in Afghanistan, but on the strict understanding that they be stationed in parts of the country - such as the relatively pacified north - where their soldiers' lives will not be imperilled.

Such blatant failures of will are most unwelcome at a time when the threat to Western security is greater than ever. Quite apart from the danger posed by al-Qa'eda, the West could soon find itself obliged to take action to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons arsenal. And if Nato is to prevail over the menace posed by militant Islam, it must show resolve, not weakness.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 11:45

"I tell you naught for your comfort,
Yea, naught for your desire,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.

Night shall be thrice night over you,
And heaven an iron cope.
Do you have joy without a cause,
Yea, faith without a hope?"

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 15:10

HOUSTON - A firefighter took a promotion exam just 12 hours after giving birth because of a state law requiring all promotion candidates to be tested at once.
ADVERTISEMENT

Beda Kent gave birth Jan. 10, slept for a little more than two hours and popped some painkillers before taking the exam. She scored 104 out of 110 and expects to return from maternity leave in March as a captain with a $6,000 raise.

"I wanted that promotion," Kent said of the job she had sought for two years.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 10:23

Iran is moving its foreign currency reserves out of European banks as a pre-emptive measure against any possible U.N. sanctions over its nuclear program, the Central Bank Governor said Friday.

Ebrahim Sheibani told reporters that Iran has started transferring the foreign currency reserves from European banks to an undisclosed location, the semiofficial Iranian Students News Agency reported.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 09:57

After more than 1½ centuries, the U.S. Repeating Arms Co., manufacturer of the Winchester rifle is closing its money-losing factory in New Haven, Conn., where "the gun that won the West" has been made since 1866.

"We have been facing a cash drain year after year. It's the only plant in the group that's losing money," complained Robert Sauvage, spokesman for FN Herstal SA, the Belgian arms company that has owned the New Haven factory since 1991 and seen its work force fall from 700 to the current 186, all of whom will lose their jobs when the plant closes on March 31. During the Second World War, the New Haven facility employed as many as 19,000 workers.

When Herstal bought the facility, the plant was making 300,000 rifles a year. Last year, it made fewer than a third of that number.

After the plant closes, the company will continue to make higher-end Winchester rifles at facilities in Belgium and elsewhere in Europe, but it will drop four of its historic models including the Model 94 lever-action rifle made famous by John Wayne and Buffalo Bill.

Herstal, which is owned by Belgium's Wallon (OMC, comment please) regional government, has no intention of moving production to lower-cost locations. "We're not for globalization," he said, noting that the company's 3,000 employees are all in Europe, Japan and the United States. Its only foray into a cheaper location was a plant in Portugal that opened in 1976. At least half of Herstal's sales are to the military.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:12

In North Carolina, the owners of a 4,600-square-foot home that cost $1.2 million wanted it to be as "green" as possible, so they spent $120,000 on solar power.

In Colorado, using recycled materials, an architecture professor built a 4,700-square-foot home that uses geothermal heating and cooling and was on the market recently for $930,000.

And in Southern California, a husband-and-wife architect team who say that they "came of age during the '60s and '70s at U.C. Berkeley" also relied on recycled materials--in building a second home six hours from their primary residence.

By now these environmentally conscious "green" houses are a staple of home design magazines, where they are presented as exemplars of both good taste and good intentions. The Colorado house, for instance, has won awards from the state and the Colorado Renewable Energy Society and has appeared in the Washington Post and on Home and Garden TV.

The question, of course, is what on earth are all these people thinking? How "green" can huge and, in many cases, isolated houses be? Wouldn't it be better to risk traumatizing the children by squeezing into a 3,000-square-foot home, especially one close to shopping, schools and work? How many less affluent, less guilt-ridden Americans can afford to build such environmental show houses?

These houses aren't just ridiculous; they're monuments to sanctimony. If architecture is frozen music, these places are congealed piety, demonstrating with embarrassing concreteness the glaring hypocrisy of upper-class environmentalism. The sad thing is that, by pouring so much money into ostentatious eco-design, the people who built homes like this have purchased status at the cost of doing some real environmental good.
...
If you've taken these sensible steps toward living in a truly greenish house--or better yet, a condo, God forbid--you can use some of the ample money you saved in ways that are more likely to do some good. You could give it to a land conservancy, for instance, which will preserve open space by buying it outright. If you're worried about global warming, organizations such as carbonfund.org will use your money to reduce carbon emissions, however modestly, by subsidizing wind power, methane capture from landfills and other such ventures. Or you could simply house another family; just take the cost difference between the 4,500-square-foot enviro-palace and a comfortable house half its size and give the savings to an outfit like Habitat for Humanity.

Or you can just forget the whole thing and add on to your own place. But if you do, make sure to harvest all the social approbation you can, like the architect in Venice, Calif., who is described as "a staunch proponent of green design" by Alanna Stang and Christopher Hawthorne in an excerpt from their book "The Green House: New Directions in Sustainable Architecture." Squeezed like sardines into a mere 2,500 square feet, the architect and his family expanded their home to 4,400. The sustainably harvested wood, solar panels and parabolic collector to focus the sun's rays must have cost a fortune, but perhaps that's why they call it "green."

Labels: Boomers, Culture Wars, Environment

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 14:59

The U.S. Defense Department paid contractors $8 billion over five years in bonuses on weapons programs that were often dogged by severe cost overruns, performance problems and delays, the Government Accountability Office said.
...
Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co., for example, received $1.7 billion, or about 91 percent of $1.847 billion available on four major programs, including the Joint Strike Fighter, even as these programs “experienced significant cost increases, technical problems and development delays,” the draft said. Other major programs the agency cited included the Boeing-United Technologies Corp. RAH-66 Comanche helicopter, canceled in April 2004, and two other Lockheed programs: the F/A-22 fighter and a satellite system to detect enemy missile launches. Bonuses paid on these troubled programs ranged from 74 percent to 100 percent of the potential award, the agency said.

“These practices undermine the effectiveness of fees as a motivational tool and marginalize their use in holding contractors accountable,” the audit agency said. “They also serve to waste taxpayer funds.”

Most U.S. military contracts pay companies a base fee of no more than four percent of the contract's original projected cost plus either “award fees” that are paid periodically or an “incentive fee” calculated at the contract's end that's based on whether the cost is over or under projection. The bonuses can total as much as 23 percent of the contract's projected cost. They are recommended by a board of service officials who work on the program and the final decision is made by a higher-level program official not connected with day-to-day oversight. Contractors can appeal the decision.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 13:22

IT should come as no surprise that an arch-conservative Web site is questioning whether Representative John Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who has been critical of the war in Iraq, deserved the combat awards he received in Vietnam.

After all, in recent years extremist Republican operatives have inverted a longstanding principle: that our combat veterans be accorded a place of honor in political circles. This trend began with the ugly insinuations leveled at Senator John McCain during the 2000 Republican primaries and continued with the slurs against Senators Max Cleland and John Kerry, and now Mr. Murtha.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:22

A 155-year tradition will come to an end at 0530 Sunday, when Lance Cpls. Edward Voumard and Kyle Boeser turn over their guard post at Gate 8 of the Naval Academy to sailors.

They will be the last Marines to guard the academy.

My own opinion is based on first-hand accounts on the rather embarrassing state of affairs that Adm. Rempt has created at the Academy as told by current officers stationed at Annapolis. One such example occurred recently during President Bush's address at the Academy. Prior to the television camera's coverage of the president's speech, Adm. Rempt instructed the Brigade of Midshipmen to sing songs for the president and other dignitaries present. From what I was told, the Commander-In-Chief looked absolutely stunned at the sight, and I can only imagine his thoughts as Adm. Rempt turned a serious and important national security address into some sort of carnival atmosphere.

But Adm. Rempt's desire to function as circus ring leader apparently was not the first time. While attending the 2005 homecoming football game, myself, my wife, and some of my classmates (many of whom had recently returned from combat tours) were shocked as the Brigade of Midshipmen sauntered into Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium without the slightest hint of military bearing. Instead of marching in--as has been done for over a century--the midshipman walked along as if on their way from a bar while naive civilians threw them food, bottles of water, and other beverages. The midshipmen proceeded to knock one another over while lunging for the food before stuffing their faces on the go. My wife--herself the daughter of a former (Major NATO country's Army) service member--described the scene as if "feeding time at the local zoo." Adm. Rempt seemed to enjoy the sight as he wizzed to and fro through the lines of midshipmen in his golf cart. To say the least, it was a shocking eye-opener as to what the U.S. Naval Academy has devolved into.
...
I fault the alumni and other current leaders for not stepping in sooner to stop the madness that is occurring at Annapolis...

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 04:53

The United States Army announced today that it is terminating the $879 million Lockheed Martin, System Design and Development (SDD) contract for the Aerial Common Sensor.

"After carefully evaluating Lockheed's proposals, we decided that the prudent course of action at this time was to terminate the contract and bring the various players -- industry, the acquisition and user communities, the Navy and Air Force -- back to the drawing board to make sure we all have a firm understanding of what the requirements are and the various challenges we need to overcome to make this program succeed. We are not terminating the program. I think -- I know -- that we learned a great deal in the early stages of this contract during the system's design maturation phase and we intend to take this knowledge forward.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 15:25

According to a military probe, a female soldier had sex with 13 servicemen while on duty at an IAF base two years ago but failed to seduce the non-commissioned officer in charge into engaging in oral sex.

Based on the inquiry’s findings Halutz decided to dismiss the 42-year-old NCO for “inappropriate conduct," stating that he failed to stop the orgy and did not report the incident to his superiors.

According to the petition, the NCO turned down an offer for oral sex by the female soldier but touched her breast “with no sexual intension.”

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 12:19

A map due to be unveiled in Beijing and London next week may lend weight to a theory a Chinese admiral discovered America before Christopher Columbus.

The map, which shows North and South America, apparently states that it is a 1763 copy of another map made in 1418.

If true, it could imply Chinese mariners discovered and mapped America decades before Columbus' 1492 arrival.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 05:42

The redheaded late-night talk show host Conan O'Brien has been promoting President Tarja Halonen's re-election bid as part of a long-running joke about their supposed physical similarities.

"Why do I support Tarja Halonen? Because she's got the total package: a dynamic personality, a quick mind, and most importantly — my good looks," the comedian, whose show is broadcast on cable in Finland, said in a statement to The Associated Press.

In one show, O'Brien presented a mock ad for Halonen in which he and two Finns were discussing the election while fishing on a frozen lake.

When they talk about rival candidate Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen, a dead fish shoots out of the hole in the ice, prompting a joke about how the mere mention of his name causes fish to commit suicide.

"Fish recognize a bad leader," O'Brien says in broken Finnish to laughter from his studio crowd.

Halonen's opponents are not amused.

"He's just making fun of the whole election," said Harri Jaskari, campaign manager for former Finance Minister Sauli Niinisto. "If this decides the election, then we're in trouble. It gives a very poor picture of Finnish democracy."

Markus Haapamaki, Vanhanen's campaign manager, was less worried.

"It's not really affecting our campaign," he said. "Personally, I'm fed up with it, and it's continued too long to offer anything interesting."

In Helsinki, people did not seem to take offense at O'Brien's use of their presidential election for comic relief. ... Anu Linnus, a 22-year-old economics student, said O'Brien's backing could indirectly affect the election.

"I don't think people are going to vote for Tarja because she's on the show, but it helps her image," she said.

Polls showed Halonen with a solid lead on the eve of the election, but it was not clear whether she would get the more than 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 16:05

Pakistani men with the remains of a missile fired at a house in the Bajur tribal zone near the Afghan border.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 12:01

Midshipman Foxton said she never intended to complain of sexual harassment. Then, another officer on the cruise, Lt. Cmdr. Michelle Whisenhant, asked her to make a statement about the incident a few days later.

"She said the reason she was asking me to make a statement was that it would go into his record or his file. She said it wouldn't go any further than making a statement," Midshipman Foxton testified.

Testifying at a preliminary hearing in the case of Lt. Bryan Black, Marine JAG officer Maj. C.J. Thielemann said the academy's superintendent, Vice Adm. Rodney P. Rempt, is under heavy pressure to make the academy more welcoming for women and is looking to make an example of Lt. Black. (NB: Skippy nailed this one)

"If another admiral came in, I would have the same concerns," Maj. Thielemann testified at the Washington Navy Yard.

A professor of leadership and law at the academy, he conducted the first investigation in the case.

He said professors at the academy are more careful about their language than they are in the fleet or Marine Corps. He'd never before heard a professor at school use language as offensive as Lt. Black is charged with, but he didn't think it was criminal.

Maj. Thielemann concluded his investigation by recommending that Lt. Black be issued a "non-punitive letter of caution and counsel."

Adm. Rempt, however, insisted on holding an admiral's mast, an administrative hearing that could have resulted in Lt. Black being confined to quarters for 60 days and issued a letter of reprimand.

"If an officer goes to a ... mast and receives that punishment, his career is done," Maj. Thielemann

"I don't believe he could get a fair hearing, given the environment," Maj. Thielemann said.

Lt. Black testified that he rejected the mast after he learned that the academy was going to take the unusual step of opening the proceeding to faculty and staff members to make an example of him.

It was to be "in the foyer of the admiral's administrative building so that everyone could see," Lt. Black said.

The defense won on several points during yesterday's hearing.

Lt. Black succeeded in getting four counts reduced to one: conduct unbecoming an officer. He also had been charged with two counts of using indecent language and one count of failure to obey a lawful order.

Also, Marine JAG Lt. Col. Paul McConnell, who presided over the hearing, ruled that Midshipman Foxton is to be called by her name at trial and may not be referred to as "victim," for fear of prejudicing the jury against Lt. Black.

Trial is scheduled to begin on Jan. 30, but Col. McConnell said it will be delayed for "weeks" because of scheduling conflicts.

Adm. Rempt did not attend the hearing and an academy spokesman said the prosecutor, Navy Lt. Charles Kisor, couldn't be interviewed.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 05:13

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen is shockedmisrepresenting at the way in which some Muslims are Denmark in the Islamic world. “I am speechless that those people, whom we have given the right to live in Denmark and where they freely have chosen to stay, are now touring Arab countries and inciting antipathy towards Denmark and the Danish people,” Rasmussen told journalists yesterday.

Rasmussen was responding to the recent visits by certain imams, Muslim intellectuals and representatives of Danish Muslim organizations who toured a number of Muslim countries to “explain” the Danish cartoon affair to local political and religious leaders and media. The affair started last September when the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons of Muhammad.

Carsten Juste, the editor of Jyllands-Posten repeated late last week that the daily will not apologise for publishing the cartoons: “We will not apologise, because we live in Denmark under Danish law, and we have freedom of speech in this country. If we apologised, we would betray the generations who have fought for this right, and the moderate Muslims who are democratically minded.”

“We cannot tolerate this in a democratic society,” said Selbekk. Asked if he was himself afraid of reprisals he said: “We have gone astray if we begin to concede on this issue out of fear. Many have already done much to prevent this problem from being hushed up. We hope that by publishing the cartoons we can do our bit.”

Labels: Denmark, Long War

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 17:07

Navy Lt. Bryan Black, a U.S. Naval Academy faculty member, thought he was just shooting the breeze when he told a midshipman that getting on a battleship turned him on.

Such was the sentiment, at least, though the language was saltier than the Chesapeake Bay, where an inspired Black was serving as safety officer on an oceanographic cruise aboard a "yard patrol craft."

Unfortunately for Black, among the midshipmen was at least one sensitive female. He also made some equally spicy comments about his ex-wife, of whom he apparently is no longer fond, that were overheard by, but not spoken in front of, female midshipmen.

Now he faces a special court-martial and three criminal charges.

I can't write what Black specifically said, but suffice it to say I've heard worse walking the half-block from my office to Groucho's Deli without need of smelling salts.

Not so Samantha Foxton(PS-Who if you look at this site, unless there is more than one Samantha Foxton, that she is at least a Junior(2nd Class Midshipman),) apparently, who complained that Black's remarks bothered her. He apologized. At that point, Black thought the matter had been put to rest, as did the first investigating officer, who recommended that Black receive a letter of reprimand and counseling.

That sounds reasonable, but these are not reasonable times. Once Foxton's female superior, Lt. Cmdr. Michelle Whisenhunt, caught wind of Black's rich commentary on the seductive powers of seafaring vessels, the freefall began. Whisenhunt conducted her own investigation, interviewing only women, and now Black is charged with (1) failure to obey a lawful general order or regulation; (2) conduct unbecoming an officer; and (3) indecent language.

Black's case surfaced last fall at the same time that U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), a member of the Naval Academy's Board of Visitors, was asking academy leaders why sexual harassment persists after years of studies, surveys, investigations and recommendations. (Hint: years of studies, surveys, investigations and recommendations that pose women as victims and men as abusers? Just a thought.)

Under such pressures, the superintendent of the Naval Academy, Vice Adm. Rodney Rempt, has announced a zero-tolerance campaign against sexual harassment. Rempt has urged midshipmen and staff to attend for the third consecutive year a production of "Sex Signals," an adults-only play, ironically billed as realistically graphic, about how mixed signals between men and women can cause misunderstandings.

Let's see: Salty language in real life bad; salty language in play depicting real life good. No wonder sailors sometimes get confused.

Despite ongoing concerns about sexual harassment, complaints are, in fact, down, according to recent surveys, including one published, but not highlighted, by the Department of Defense (Service Academy 2005 Sexual Harassment and Assault Survey).

Moreover, a 2004 report by the Defense Department's inspector general found that fraudulent complaints are considered a problem by 73 percent of academy women and 72 percent of men.

This is not necessarily good news if you're in the business of victim advocacy--and it is a business, perhaps soon to become a career choice if Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) has her way. Slaughter is the sponsor of a 95-page bill that would create a Pentagon Office of Victim Advocacy. We may never win the war on terror, but we'll by golly win the war on hurt feelings.

Slaughter's bill has met with little success thus far, but the Pentagon is working on the idea. Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, reports that the Pentagon contracted with the Wellesley College Centers for Women to study the idea of an OVA and make recommendations. Wellesley has submitted a report for which it was paid $50,000, but the Pentagon has not released it.

Meanwhile, we'll have to wait until Jan. 30, the court-martial date, to learn what really happened as Black waxed poetic last fall, because Foxton and Whisenhunt have declined to be deposed under oath. Why? Because they "just don't wanna," says attorney Gittins.

Those who lament that boys will be boys will have to concede that, sometimes, girls will be girls.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 10:12

Labels: Germany

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 14:11

Click the pic for the video.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 12:08

Those who promote these pessimistic ideas always cite the same examples: the warlords in Afghanistan; the mislabeled "insurgents" in Iraq; the ongoing terrorist campaign being waged by Al-Qaeda; America's poor image in the Arab world; and disagreements between Europeans and Americans on various foreign policy and social issues. Based on these factors, they hold that the world today is much more vulnerable than it was before 2001, and therefore much more dangerous.

The truth, however, does not reside in a comparison of today's world with the apparently tranquil world that existed on September 10, 2001. Instead, we should compare the world as it is today with a hypothetical world in which the United States and the international community, instead of reacting as they did, had chosen to do nothing following the Al-Qaeda attacks-in other words, a world that surrendered to the temptation of appeasement of terrorists.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 04:25

Labels: USNA

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 16:38

Israeli Major General Ariel Sharon walks with Major General Yeshayahu Gavish (R) in the Negev Desert, Israel, in this June 1, 1967.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 16:01

Sulawesi is half-Christian, but jihadis there think the island should be sanitized for Islam. The idea is to win a limited war for shariah law in an area where radicals think they can set up an Islamic government.

As people shopped for groceries at an open-air market on New Year's Eve in the Indonesian coastal town of Palu, a homemade bomb loaded with nails killed at least eight people and ripped apart a kiosk selling pork. Christians on the island of Sulawesi eat pork on New Year's, but devout Muslims, of course, don't. Indonesian police believe the bombing is the latest tragic installment in a long-simmering religious struggle, like the decapitation of three Christian girls on another part of the island last October. Militants with machetes attacked the girls in a cocoa plantation while they walked to a Christian school, and -- just to make sure they made their point nice and clear -- they left one of the heads lying outside a church.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 14:23

Skimming over the Vietnamese village of My Lai in a helicopter with a bubble-shaped windshield, 24-year-old Hugh Thompson had a superb view of the ground below. But what the Army pilot saw didn't make any sense: piles of Vietnamese bodies and dead water buffalo. He and his two younger crew mates, Lawrence Colburn and Glenn Andreotta, were flying low over the hamlet on March 16, 1968, trying to draw fire so that two gunships flying above could locate and destroy the enemy. On this morning, no one was shooting at them. And yet they saw bodies everywhere, and the wounded civilians they had earlier marked for medical aid were now all dead.
...
On that historic morning, Thompson set his helicopter down near the irrigation ditch full of bodies. He asked a sergeant if the soldiers could help the civilians, some of whom were still moving. The sergeant suggested putting them out of their misery. Stunned, Thompson turned to Lieutenant Calley, who told him to mind his own business. Thompson reluctantly got back in his helicopter and began to lift off. Just then Andreotta yelled, "My God, they're firing into the ditch!
...
Thompson finally faced the truth. He and his crew flew around for a few minutes, outraged, wondering what to do. Then they saw several elderly adults and children running for a shelter, chased by Americans. "We thought they had about 30 seconds before they'd die," recalls Colburn. Thompson landed his chopper between the troops and the shelter, then jumped out and confronted the lieutenant in charge of the chase. He asked for assistance in escorting the civilians out of the bunker; the lieutenant said he'd get them out with a hand grenade. Furious, Thompson announced he was taking the civilians out.
...
Thompson coaxed the Vietnamese out of the shelter with hand gestures. They followed, wary. Thompson looked at his three-man helicopter and realized he had nowhere to put them. "There was no thinking about it," he says now. "It was just something that had to be done, and it had to be done fast." He got on the radio and begged the gunships to land and fly the four adults and five children to safety, which they did within minutes.
...
Before returning to base, the helicopter crew saw something moving in the irrigation ditch–a child, about 4 years old. Andreotta waded through bloody cadavers to pull him out. Thompson, who had a son, was overcome by emotion. He immediately flew the child to a nearby hospital. Thompson wasted no time telling his superiors what had happened. "They said I was screaming quite loud. I was mad. I threatened never to fly again," Thompson remembers. "I didn't want to be a part of that. It wasn't war." An investigation followed, but it was cursory at best.
...
A month later, Andreotta died in combat. Thompson was shot down and returned home to teach helicopter piloting. Colburn served his tour of duty and left the military. The two figured those involved in the killing had been court-martialed. In fact, nothing had happened. But rumors of the massacre persisted. One soldier who heard of the atrocities, Ron Ridenhour, vowed to make them public. In the spring of 1969, he sent letters to government officials, which led to a real investigation…
...
Not all soldiers at My Lai participated in the carnage. Some men risked courtmartial or even death by defying Calley's direct orders to shoot civilians. Eckhardt doesn't think these men were heroes, because they didn't try to stop the murderers. But Colburn thinks they did the best they could. "We could just fly away at the end of the day," he notes. The ground troops had to live together for months.
...
Colburn and Thompson lived in relative anonymity until a 1989 television documentary on My Lai reclaimed them as forgotten heroes. David Egan, a Clemson University professor who had served in a French village where Nazis killed scores of innocents in World War II, was amazed by the story. He campaigned to have Thompson and his team awarded the coveted Soldier's Medal. It wasn't until March 6, 1998, after internal debate among Pentagon officials (who feared an award would reopen old wounds) and outside pressure from reporters, that Thompson and Colburn finally received medals in a ceremony at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
...
But both say a far more gratifying reward was a trip back to My Lai this March to dedicate a school and a "peace park." It was then they finally met a young man named Do Hoa, who they believe was the boy they rescued from that death-filled ditch. "Being reunited with the boy was just...I can't even describe it," says Colburn. And Thompson, also overwhelmed, doesn't even try.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:28

JF: But as background, I want to say without exaggeration, and without trying to become histrionic here, I see the trends...I've seen them for years, in Europe, of depopulation as you've mentioned. And their immigration is coming from the South, which is mainly Islamic. And there are, I think there are 98 Islamic countries in the world, and 97 of them do not have religious freedom. The only one that does is Mali, where Timbuktu is, you know. It's in a desert, so you can hardly count it. Sorry about any Malians who are listening to this program. And that's what's going to happen to Europe. Once there's an Islamic majority, it is going to not...it's going to eliminate religious freedom. However...and therefore, Western civilization as we know it. However, in the United States, we also are not having children. There's abortion. There's contraception. There's the ideal of a one or two child family. But where is our immigration coming from? From Ecuador, from Mexico, from Cuba, from Guatemala. And these people are Christians. And so, I believe without being...you know, having hubris as an American, I believe that Christians in the United States are the ones who will be able to save not just Christianity, but Western civilization, if we maintain our fidelity to the scriptures, our fidelity to Christ, our fidelity to family life, and our fidelity to fertility and fruitfulness in marriage. So I believe we are in a world historical century, which is going to depend upon the strength of Christianity in these United States.
...
HH: And so what happens in Europe?

JF: Well, Hugh, I've got one of the very few things that I've said, which I'm proud of, because it's become kind of almost a slogan to some, is that home schools are the monasteries of the new dark ages. That is...and you non-Catholic Christians have a lot more of them than we Catholics do, but we've got a lot. And I think that is where families are having children. They're passing on the faith to their children. They're giving them wisdom and the knowledge of our culture. And we have an advantage here, because the homosexuals, and the pro-abortionists, and the pro-contraception people, are not having children by definition.

HH: That's in the Steyn article as well.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 05:49

1. Throughout my life, my best friends have been female, to this day I would rather hang out with women, and my life before marriage and sanity was full of friendly women, but some men think I am gay.

2. I don't like couches and chairs. I prefer sitting/lying on the floor. Talking, TV, reading, whatever. I like floors.

3. I really don't like watching sports on tv.

4. I collect both antique tea-cups and firearms.

5. There is a fifth thing, but she has tried to get it out of her mind, and really doesn't want to dwell on it.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 05:09

So criticize us for our sins; lend us your advice; impart to America the wealth of your greater experience — but as a partner and an equal in a war, not as an inferior or envious neutral on the sidelines. History is unforgiving. None of us receives exemption simply by reason of the fumes of past glory.

Either your economy will reform, your populace multiply, and your citizenry defend itself, or not. And if not, then Europe as we have known it will pass away — to the great joy of the Islamists but to the terrible sorrow of America.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 12:15

As Jean-François Revel wrote, “Clearly, a civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself.”

And even though none of the prognostications of the eco-doom blockbusters of the 1970s came to pass, all that means is that thirty years on, the end of the world has to be rescheduled. The amended estimated time of arrival is now 2032. That’s to say, in 2002, the United Nations Global Environmental Outlook predicted “the destruction of 70 percent of the natural world in thirty years, mass extinction of species… . More than half the world will be afflicted by water shortages, with 95 percent of people in the Middle East with severe problems … 25 percent of all species of mammals and 10 percent of birds will be extinct …”

Etc., etc., for 450 pages. Or to cut to the chase, as The Guardian headlined it, “Unless We Change Our Ways, The World Faces Disaster.”

Well, here’s my prediction for 2032: unless we change our ways the world faces a future … where the environment will look pretty darn good. If you’re a tree or a rock, you’ll be living in clover. It’s the Italians and the Swedes who’ll be facing extinction and the loss of their natural habitat.

We know it’s not really a “war on terror.” Nor is it, at heart, a war against Islam, or even “radical Islam.” The Muslim faith, whatever its merits for the believers, is a problematic business for the rest of us. There are many trouble spots around the world, but as a general rule, it’s easy to make an educated guess at one of the participants: Muslims vs. Jews in “Palestine,” Muslims vs. Hindus in Kashmir, Muslims vs. Christians in Africa, Muslims vs. Buddhists in Thailand, Muslims vs. Russians in the Caucasus, Muslims vs. backpacking tourists in Bali. Like the environmentalists, these guys think globally but act locally.

It’s also horrendously depressing, and should make every woman of childbearing age want to lie back and think of Western Civilization.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 11:07

Gang terrorizes train in France

By Marc Burleigh
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
January 5, 2006

PARIS -- A gang of more than 20 youths -- thought to be North African immigrants -- terrorized hundreds of train passengers in a rampage of violence, robbery and sexual assault on New Year's Day, French officials said yesterday.
The five-hour-long criminal frenzy was "totally unacceptable," French President Jacques Chirac told reporters. "Those guilty will be found and punished, as they deserve."
The gang of between 20 and 30 youths boarded the train, heading from Nice on the French Riviera to Lyon, in eastern France, early on Jan. 1, as it carried 600 passengers home from New Year's Eve partying overnight.

Once inside, they went wild, forcing passengers to hand over mobile phones and wallets, and slashing seats and breaking windows.

A 20-year-old woman cornered by several of the marauders was sexually molested.
"It was a real scene of pillage on the train," said the regional state prosecutor, Dominique Luigi, adding that the passengers were in a state of "panic."
Train staff alerted police, and the train pulled into a station to wait. The three officers who initially turned up later were joined by reinforcements.
A waitress in a bar near the station said two young women from the train had come inside in tears.

"They told me there had been groping. They talked about sexual assaults. They were really traumatized," she said.

The train resumed its journey with the heavy police presence on board but, just before Marseille, the youths pulled the emergency stop and many escaped.

Only three -- two 19-year-old Moroccans and a minor, all living in France -- were arrested. Both men were being held for robbery and one also was facing charges of sexual assault. The minor was to be judged separately.
Three others -- a man and two boys -- were arrested briefly in Marseille but were released despite reports they were carrying a knife, a screwdriver and a small amount of hashish.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who has championed hard-line security policies in France, partly blamed the state rail company SNCF for not communicating better with the police.
"The problem is that law-enforcement services didn't know that there was a promotional fare going," he said.

Raucous train ride outrages France

By Doreen Carvajal
International Herald Tribune
THURSDAY, JANUARY 5, 2006

As public outrage spread days after a group of youths terrorized passengers during a two-hour spree of violence on a suburban train on New Year's Day, President Jacques Chirac pledged Wednesday to punish those involved in the incident.

rau·cous Pronunciation Key (rôks) adj.

1. Rough-sounding and harsh: raucous laughter.
2. Boisterous and disorderly: “the raucous give and take of American democracy” (Charles Kuralt).

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 11:26

One would have to be willfully blind -- a useful idiot, in Lenin's phrase -- to believe such a reeking falsehood. But when it comes to Castro, useful idiots have never been in short supply. From Norman Mailer to Jean-Paul Sartre, from Jesse Jackson to Ted Turner, a long line of admirers has swooned over the bearded tyrant, lavishly praising his wisdom and charm -- and never showing the slightest interest in his real record: cruelty, repression, and a death toll in the tens of thousands. ... Werlau, who lived in Chile during the Pinochet dictatorship, saw firsthand how international awareness of human rights atrocities helped Chile reinstate its democracy. ''The Castro regime executed more people in just its first three years than the Pinochet regime killed or 'disappeared' in its entire 17 years in power," she says. ''Yet Castro's victims, who number so many times more -- and who include not just political opponents but entire families assassinated for trying to flee -- remain unknown, ignored, or forgotten.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:04

Power gradually extirpates for
the mind every humane and gentle virtue.
----Edmund Burke. A Vindication of Natural Society

Within a few years of the war's end ... 15,000,000 .. German civilians would be thrown out of Poland, the Baltic States, Memel, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Yugoslavia, and the Eastern areas of Germany (this is as though the Netherlands, Afghanistan, or Greece were totally emptied of all humans by force). .. 500,000 to 3,700,000 Germans, probably near 1,900,000, would die or be killed in this process (in addition to those that died during the wartime evacuation and flight) ... Poland is of special interest because of the large number of Germans its regime killed. But these are not the only ethnics that it murdered. .. adds to this the Polish post-war killing of Jews (lines 8 to 12) and Ukrainians (lines 15 to 17). .. these numbers are very conservative and do not take into account the murder of war-time collaborators; nor the execution of captured guerrillas then fighting the pro-Soviet Polish regime, and guerrilla sympathizers. But I can find no estimates of such a toll in the sources. .. the total democide for these years .. places Poland among the megamurderers.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 15:31

It is, however, surprisingly difficult to apologize to her. I started by admitting the joke was a cheap shot, to which she grunted in agreement.

Mostly though, for the entire conversation, she did the reporter trick of not talking so I'd keep babbling and saying more incriminating things. By the time I hung up, I was pretty sure I'd made things worse.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 11:14

Gazing through the telescopic sight of his M24 rifle, Staff Sgt Jim Gilliland, leader of Shadow sniper team, fixed his eye on the Iraqi insurgent who had just killed an American soldier.

His quarry stood nonchalantly in the fourth-floor bay window of a hospital in battle-torn Ramadi, still clasping a long-barrelled Kalashnikov. Instinctively allowing for wind speed and bullet drop, Shadow's commander aimed 12 feet high.

Click to enlarge

A single shot hit the Iraqi in the chest and killed him instantly. It had been fired from a range of 1,250 metres, well beyond the capacity of the powerful Leupold sight, accurate to 1,000 metres.

"I believe it is the longest confirmed kill in Iraq with a 7.62mm rifle," said Staff Sgt Gilliland, 28, who hunted squirrels in Double Springs, Alabama from the age of five before progressing to deer - and then people.

"He was visible only from the waist up. It was a one in a million shot. I could probably shoot a whole box of ammunition and never hit him again."

Later that day, Staff Sgt Gilliland found out that the dead soldier was Staff Sgt Jason Benford, 30, a good friend.

Iraq factfile

The insurgent was one of between 55 and 65 he estimates that he has shot dead in less than five months, putting him within striking distance of sniper legends such as Carlos Hathcock, who recorded 93 confirmed kills in Vietnam. One of his men, Specialist Aaron Arnold, 22, of Medway, Ohio, has chalked up a similar tally.

All told, the 10-strong Shadow sniper team, attached to Task Force 2/69, has killed just under 200 in the same period and emerged as the US Army's secret weapon in Ramadi against the threat of the hidden Improvised Explosive Device (IED) or roadside bomb - the insurgency's deadliest tactic.

Above the spot from which Staff Sgt Gilliland took his record shot, in a room at the top of a bombed-out observation post which is code-named Hotel and known jokingly to soldiers as the Ramadi Inn, are daubed "Kill Them All" and "Kill Like you Mean it".

On another wall are scrawled the words of Senator John McCain: "America is great not because of what she has done for herself but because of what she has done for others."

"Hunters give their animals respect," he said, spitting out a mouthful of chewing tobacco. "If you have no respect for what you do you're not going to be very good or you're going to make a mistake. We try to give the benefit of the doubt.

"You've got to live with it. It's on your conscience. It's something you've got to carry away with you. And if you shoot somebody just walking down the street, then that's probably going to haunt you."

Although killing with a single shot carries an enormous cachet within the sniper world, their most successful engagements have involved the shooting a up to 10 members of a single IED team.

"The one-shot-one-kill thing is one of beauty but killing all the bad dudes is even more attractive," said Staff Sgt Gilliland, whose motto is "Move fast, shoot straight and leave the rest to the counsellors in 10 years" and signs off his e-mails with "silent souls make.308 holes".

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:13

Longshanks: Scotland; my land. The French will grovel to anyone with strength, but how will they believe our strength when we cannot rule the whole of our own island?

PARIS Rowdy revelers in France torched 425 vehicles overnight in scattered New Year's Eve unrest that has become an annual problem in troubled neighborhoods, the national police chief said Sunday. Last year, 333 cars were burned. Police Chief Michel Gaudin also said there were no major clashes this year between youths and police overnight, as had been feared. In what has become an annual tradition every New Year's Eve, youths set several hundred cars ablaze in France as festivities get out of hand.

Police were especially cautious this time because of the wave three weeks of rioting and car burning that started in late October. A state of emergency imposed during the rioting is still in effect, and 25,000 police were on alert for the holiday.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:27

The first time I saw Mike Luckovich’s drawing of the word “WHY?”, made up of the names of 2,000 troops killed in Iraq, was when my mother was putting it up on our refrigerator. It bothered me that no one did a response showing how others feel. On Nov. 8, I got an updated list of the names of the war dead and started writing them, spelling out “FREEDOM.” Six days later, it was done. I only worked on it in my free time at school. It took me about 12 hours to get it done, so needless to say I devoted many of my classes to this, and stayed late after school to work on it. I didn’t take it home and show it to my mother until I had prints made. She and I have different views of things. She said that, as a mother, she didn’t like it that so many people have been killed. She was not happy when I placed my work next to Luckovich’s “WHY?” on the fridge, but it hasn’t been taken down. I may seem as if I am too young to have an opinion on matters like these. I am not saying that my opinion is right, for an opinion is just that — someone’s views on something. But, like a child’s voice, an opinion is often not heard. DANIELLE ANSLEY Danielle, 17, of Fairburn, is an 11th-grader at Arlington Christian School.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 09:42

13 (c) Upon a roadway divided into three marked lanes for
14 traffic under the rules applicable thereon. However, upon any
15 limited access roadway having two or more lanes for each
16 direction of travel, any vehicle driven in the left-most lane
17 shall yield right-of-way to any vehicle traveling at a higher
18 speed by moving to the nearest lane to the right at the first
19 practicable and safe opportunity; or

The year 2005 wasn't the only thing being toasted away in some South Carolina bars. Partygoers and bar owners could finally say good riddance to the minibottle. For 22 years, South Carolina law required bartenders to use the tiny 1.7-ounce bottles most often associated with airplanes and hotel minibars.

The minibottle rule started as a temperance issue, and it hung on through the yeas as lawmakers resisted repeated calls by bars and restaurants to change it.

Then, last year, South Carolinians voted the minibottles out, and lawmakers followed through earlier this year by approving regulations to give bars and restaurants the choice to pour from the big bottles starting Jan. 1.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 05:28