CDR Salamander

Eight of the municipality's nine schools have closed because there are so few children. The maternity ward has long since shut its doors.

"We have almost used up the cemetery we have now," said Todor Todorov, mayor of this town in the Rhodope Mountains of southern Bulgaria. "We're in a hurry to find terrain for a new one."
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Bulgaria's population will decline by 34 percent from 2005 to 2050, from 7.7 million to 5 million.
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there are just 1.5 workers for every 2 pensioners and the ratio is getting worse. ... The fertility rate - the average number of children per woman - is now 1.3 in Bulgaria, the same as in Germany. The rate needed to keep the population level is 2.2. ... 144 villages that now have populations of 0. An additional 337 villages have 10 or fewer residents.

The village of Balkan Mahala, about 12 kilometers, or seven miles, from Luky, has an official population of eight. But its residents, the members of two families, said the real number was five because one family moved away last year. There are about 30 houses scattered across the hills, with stone roofs and spacious yards, most of them abandoned.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 17:02

By the end of July 1944 the division has been transferred to Normandy. Last elements arrived on August 1 and the unit was attached to First Canadian Army. It entered combat on August 8 during the Operation Totalize. The division twice suffered serious bombings by Allied aircraft yet it achieved a brilliant victory against the Wehrmacht in the battles for Mont Ormel, 262 Hill and the town of Chambois. This series of offensive and defensive operations came to be known as the Battle of Falaise in which a large number of German Wehrmacht and SS divisions were trapped in a huge Chambois pocket and subsequently destroyed. Maczek's division had the crucial role of closing the pocket at the escape route of those German divisions. Hence the fighting was absolutely desperate and the 2nd Polish Armoured, 24th Polish Lancers and 10th Dragoons supported by the 8th and 9th Infantry Battalions took the brunt of German attacks trying to break free from the pocket. Surrounded and running out of ammo they withstood all the incessant attacks of multiple fleeing panzer divisions for 48 hours until they were relieved.
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After the Allied armies broke out from Normandy, Polish 1st Armoured Division pursued Germans along the coasts of the English Channel. It liberated, among others, the towns of Ypres, Ghent and Passchendale. A successful outflanking manouevre planned and performed by gen. Maczek allowed liberation of the city of Breda without any civilian casualties (October 29, 1944). It spent the winter of 44-45 on the south bank of the river Rhine, guarding a sector around Moerdijk in the Netherlands. In early 1945 it was transferred to the province of Overijssel and started to push along with the Allies along the Dutch-German border, liberating the eastern parts of the provinces of Drenthe and Groningen with towns such as Emmen, Coevorden and Stadskanaal.
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In April 1945 1st Armoured entered the Reich in the area of Ems. On May 6 the division seized the Kriegsmarine naval base in Wilhelmshaven, where gen. Maczek accepted the capitulaton of the fortress, naval base, East Frisian Fleet and more than 10 infantry divisions. There the Division ended the war and was joined by the Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade. It undertook occupation duties until 1947, when the division was disbanded. The majority of its soldiers were not able to return to Poland and stayed in exile.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 16:07

Admiral T. L. Sprague was under the erroneous impression that Admiral William Halsey's 3d Fleet was providing protection to the north and so was taken by surprise when at 06:45 'Taffy 3's" lookouts observed anti-aircraft fire to the northward and within 3 minutes were under heavy fire from Admiral Kurita's powerful Center Force of 4 battleships, 6 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers, and 11 destroyers.

The only chance for survival of the little group of American "Jeep" carriers and "tin cans" lay in fleeing to the south hoping that aid would arrive before their complete destruction. While the carriers launched all available aircraft to attack their numerous Japanese adversaries and then formed a rough circle as they turned toward Leyte Gulf, Hoel and her fellow destroyers Johnston and Heermann, worked feverishly to lay down a smoke screen to hide their "baby flattops" from the overwhelmingly superior enemy ships. At 07:06, when a providential rain squall helped to hide his carriers, Admiral Clifton Sprague boldly ordered his destroyers to attack the Japanese with torpedoes. Hoel instantly obeyed this order by heading straight for the nearest enemy battleship, Kongō, then 18,000 yards (16.5 km) away. When she had closed to 14,000 yards (12.8 km) she opened fire as she continued her race toward the smoking muzzles of Kongō's 14 inch (356 mm) guns. A hit on her bridge which knocked out all voice radio communication did not deflect her from her course toward the enemy until she had launched a half salvo of torpedoes at a range of 9,000 yards (8.2 km). Although Hoel torpedoes all failed to strike their target, they caused Kongō to lose ground in her pursuit of the carriers by forcing her to turn sharply left and to continue to move away from her quarry until they had run their course. Minutes later Hoel suffered hits which knocked out three of her guns, stopped her port engine, and deprived her of her Mark-37 fire control director, FD radar, and Bridge steering control. Undaunted, Hoel turned to engage the enemy column of heavy cruisers. When she had closed to within 6,000 yards (5.5 km) of the leading cruiser, Haguro, the fearless destroyer launched a half-salvo of torpedoes which ran "hot, straight and normal." This time she was rewarded by the sight of large columns of water which rose from her target. Although Japanese records deny that these torpedoes hit the cruiser, there is no evidence to indicate any other explanation for the geyser effect observed.

Hoel now found herself crippled and surrounded by enemies. Kongō was only 8,000 yards (7.3 km) off her port beam and the heavy cruiser column was some 7,000 yards (6.4 km) off her port quarter. During the next hour the ship rendered her final service by drawing enemy fire to herself and away from the carriers. In the process of fishtailing and chasing salvos she peppered them with her two remaining guns. Finally at 08:30, after withstanding over 40 hits, an 8 inch (203 mm) shell stilled her remaining engine. With her engine room under water, her No. 1 magazine ablaze, and the ship listing heavily to port and settling by the stern, Hoel's captain, Commander Leon S. Kinterberger, ordered his crew to "prepare to abandon ship." The Japanese fire at the doomed ship continued as her surviving officers and men went over the side and only stopped at 08:55 when Hoel rolled over and sank in 4,000 fathoms (7300 m).

Only 86 of Hoel's complement survived while 253 officers and men died with their ship. Commander Kinterberger described the courageous devotion to duty of the men of the Hoel in a seaman's epitaph to the action: "Fully cognizant of the inevitable result of engaging such vastly superior forces, these men performed their assigned duties coolly and efficiently until their ship was shot from under them."

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 16:23

Islam: A Short History, by Karen Armstrong, 2000. Retired Gen. Anthony Zinni, who commanded American troops in the Middle East, once argued that "a fundamental rule of counterinsurgency is to make no new enemies." Ignorance of the religious and cultural beliefs of a society makes such mistakes inevitable -- and dangerous. Armstrong's book is a strong antidote to ignorance.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 14:45

I would like to say one thing, in what is my conception of the Republic, security is the responsibility of the State, I am against militias, I am against the private ownership of firearms, and I’m trying to make you think about that. If you are assaulted by an armed burglar, he’ll use his weapon more effectively than you anyway so you’re risking your life. If the criminal is not armed and you are and you shoot, your life will be ruined, because killing someone over a theft is not in line with the republican values that are mine. The private ownership of firearms is dangerous. I understand your exasperation for having been burglarized two times, I understand the fear that your wife and daughter may have but the answer is in the efficiency of the police and the efficiency of the judiciary process, the answer is not in having guns at home.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 05:34

My conclusion on the situation in Ramadi overall is that while I had been led to believe it was getting worse, it's probably actually getting somewhat better and there's every reason to believe this trend will continue as more and more Iraqi Army, Iraqi Police, and Combat Operation Posts are introduced. Moreover, the lesson to be learned here is that if the insurgents and terrorists can be defeated in Ramadi they can be defeated anywhere. The guerilla war is definitely winnable. The two greatest threats are lack of patience and the possibility that the sectarian fighting elsewhere (there's none in Ramadi because it's almost purely Sunni) will render the counterinsurgency effort moot. (NB: he means full scale Civil War - which is different than sectarian fighting) Yet even if that happens, the connections and friends we've made in Al Anbar province will serve us in a post-Iraq world. Al Qaeda wants the Sunni area of Iraq as a permanent base. No matter what happens, we've already put a dent in that ambition and we've laid the groundwork for denying them that base.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 12:08

Peter S. Optekar of Hayden, Idaho, said this week that Adm. Rempt was prejudiced against Midshipman Owens from the outset, and should remove himself from the case immediately.

"He is playing with the life of a very, very fine person," said Mr. Optekar, a member of the Class of 1963.

Mr. Optekar said Adm. Rempt had dinner at his home in Idaho a few days after the trial ended in late July and said, in front of five Naval Academy grads and their wives, that he bowed to political pressure when he brought charges against Midshipmen Owens
"Peter, I had no choice; if I did not, we'd have every feminist group and the ACLU after us," Adm. Rempt allegedly said to Mr. Optekar.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 12:02

Naval Academy Superintendent Vice Adm. Rodney P. Rempt has selected Naval Flight Officer and academy graduate, Capt. Margaret D. Klein to serve as the 82nd Commandant of Midshipmen.

Klein, 49, a native of Weymouth, Mass. will relieve current Commandant of Midshipmen Capt. Bruce E. Grooms in December.
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Klein, a 1981 graduate of the Naval Academy is currently serving as Chief of Staff to Commander, Carrier Strike Group Eight, embarked in the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Strike Group. She was designated a Naval Flight Officer in 1983 and served three operational tours in Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron Three (the "Ironmen"”) flying in the EC-130Q and the E-6A “TACAMO” aircraft. Klein had command of the Ironmen in her final tour, during which the squadron won the Battle E and Maintenance Excellence Award.

Klein’s extensive operational experience includes service on the USS Kitty Hawk Battle Group Staff during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Her major command was Wing Commander of Joint Service Task Force 124 and Strategic Communications Wing One in Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma.

Capt. Grooms has been selected for promotion to Rear Admiral and assignment as deputy director, Submarine Warfare Division, N87B, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Washington, D.C.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 13:47

Dear Sgt Salamander,

I hope you don't mind me emailing you - I spotted your blog and hoped that you might be able to help with a feature I'm working on.

I'm the commissioning editor on The Guardian newspaper in the UK, and I'm currently compiling a collection of letters, emails, blueys, e-blueys and even texts between people who have fought in Iraq or Afghanistan and their families and friends back home that we will run as a feature. It will be a totally non-political article, aiming to get across the experiences of the soldiers who are fighting or have fought in these wars, in their own words.

We will include a whole range of correspondence - everything from soldiers talking about the weather, where they're sleeping and what they have to eat, to how they're feeling and what frightens them. We'll be including material from people who are currently serving, and also the correspondence of those who have tragically died in the war. The feature will be a tribute to the lives and bravery of soldiers fighting on behalf of the US and the UK.

We've had a really amazing response so far, and everyone I've spoken to feels this feature is vitally important. A lot of families have had enough of war coverage being limited to statistics and facts, without proper acknowledgement of the enormous sacrifices and bravery of our soldiers.

Obviously, any correspondence that is passed on to me will be treated with the utmost care and respect, and nothing will be printed without express permission. Everything will also remain entirely anonymous and we won't include any material that could compromise security.

If you think you might be able contribute letters or emails, or know someone who would, I would be very grateful. Meanwhile, don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

Many thanks for all your help!

Best wishes,


Becky Barnicoat
Commissioning Editor
Weekend Magazine
020 7713 4941
becky.barnicoat@guardian.co.uk
www.guardian.co.uk

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 12:17

Water can be a scarce resource in many regions of Iraq. However, there are some areas, namely along the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys, that thrive because of the direct access to water.

These liquid highways can also serve as an avenue for insurgents to traffic their goods, be it improvised explosive device materials or people. In northern Diyala Province, there is a man-made lake in the village of Hamrin that could serve as a quick getaway for insurgents.

Soldiers from the squadron'’s support unit made a few repairs and changes to the boat trailer prior to it getting on the water.

"“We serviced the engine to make sure everything ran,"” said Staff Sgt. Phillip Kitchen, team chief, Service and Recovery Section, Dragoon Troop, 2-9 CAV. "The prop that was on it when we got it was destroyed, so we had to re-do the prop; sand it down, grind it down, make it better. The boat had a hole in it so we had to patch the underside of the boat so that it wouldnÂ't leak in."”

Labels: Army, Riverine

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:50

The Labor Department Friday announced that the number of jobs increased between April 2005 and March 2006 not by 5.8 million but by 6.6 million.
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The federal budget deficit has been cut in half in three years, three years faster than George W. Bush called for. Why? Tax receipts were up 5.5 percent in FY 2004, 14.5 percent in FY 2005, and 11.7 percent in FY 2006. That's up 34.9 percent in three years. And that's after the 2003 tax cuts.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:46

In the wake of recent mishaps, the Indian Navy has decided to review the training of crews, following four accidents involving its ships during the last 10 months in which of one of them - INS Prahar - sank off the Goa coast in April.
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the stealth frigate INS Trishul which was severely damaged after a collision with a merchant vessel M V Ambuja Laxmi outside the Mumbai harbour
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the stealth frigate INS Talwar accidentally dropped its anchor on its own anti-submarine sonardome and had to be rushed for repairs.
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the Nilgiri class frigate INS Dunagiri collided with the merchant vessel M V Kiti off the Mumbai coast.
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INS Prahar, a missile corvette sank in April after it collided with the Merchant vessel Rajiv Gandhi.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:18

Nobody would ever accuse Poland and Germany of having an easy relationship. But things have rarely escalated to this degree.

In an incident just now hitting the German front pages, the Polish coast guard fired on a private German cruise ship on Tuesday as it fled Polish waters with two plainclothes customs officials from Poland on board. Whether the shots were merely blanks, as the Polish claim, or whether live ammunition was used, as the head of the German cruise company alleges, remains unclear. Regardless, the incident threatens to escalate into a full-scale diplomatic tiff.

The tale starts with a simple cruise. The "Adler Dania," was on its way to visit the Polish Baltic Sea port of Swinoujscie and hoping to sell some duty free alcohol and cigarettes to its predominantly German passengers on the way. Hardly an unheard of mission in the Baltic Sea.

Inasmuch as the ship's itinerary included a brief stop in Poland, Polish plainclothes customs officials boarded the ship in the German port of Heringsdorf to have a closer look. They waited until the ship had entered the port of Swinoujscie before making their move.

It didn't go well. According to the German captain -- as related to SPIEGEL ONLINE by the Adler shipping company's director Alwin Muller -- the two Polish customs officials presented questionable identification and demanded to inspect the ship's alcohol and cigarette supplies. The captain, Heinz Arendt, thereupon elected to turn his ship around and bolt for German waters. He was apparently concerned, in light of the customs raid, that the ship's entire stock of goodies would be confiscated were he to land at the port. It has happened before, the cruise company complains.

The two sides in the altercation have competing versions as to what happened next. Muller claims that three to four shots were fired on the ship from a hand-held weapon. A spokesman for the Polish coast guard assured SPIEGEL ONLINE that only two warning shots from a flare gun were fired.

The Polish side claims that the ship actually landed in Swinoujscie (NB: that is Swinemunde for you Germanophiles out there. Check the map, natch, to most Germans that is occupied Pomerania)-- leading the Polish press to breathlessly claim that the Polish customs officials were prevented from disembarking against their will. Reuters has even reported that kidnapping charges were to be filed against Captain Arendt. Charges have already been filed against the Germans for attempting to dodge customs and hindering customs officials from doing their jobs.

Au contraire, counter the Germans. The Polish customs officials did not have the appropriate identification. As such, the officers are being charged with being in Germany illegally and for forcing their way into parts of the ship where passengers were not allowed.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 12:42

A new working uniform for all ranks is on its way to the fleet, possibly arriving as soon as the first half of fiscal 2008.

CNO-designated Command Master Chief (SS) Robert B. Carroll, head of Task Force Uniform, said the fleet will begin to see the battle-dress-style Navy Working Uniform “sometime in fiscal year 2008.”

A more specific answer is not possible yet, Carroll said, because there are still contracts to be awarded, as well as other details out of the direct control of the Navy that make pinpointing an exact date difficult.

However, Carroll and TFU have previously said the uniform would begin to be fielded in the fleet about “18 to 24 months” following Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Mulllen'’s approval March 3 — a schedule that TFU estimates it is still on track to meet.

As more sailors are assigned to Army ground units in Iraq and Afghanistan, more of them will look like soldiers.

Under an Army program called the Rapid Fielding Initiative, soldiers get a kit of state-of-the-art combat gear, much of it based on commercial outdoor products and designed for warmth and comfort.

With many of the 8,500 sailors serving as individual augmentees in the Middle East assigned to Army commands, sailors are getting that gear, too.

For the sailor, the new kit means wearing Army combat boots, the camouflage Army Combat Uniform, the Advanced Combat Helmet, flame-retardant gloves, ballistic spectacles, knee and elbow pads, a fleece jacket and bib pants, a hydration system, silkweight thermal underwear, lightweight load-carrying equipment and other odds and ends. The individual-issue set is worth roughly $2,000, for which the Navy reimburses the Army.

“It covers the whole thing: How do I survive? How do I be more lethal? How do I be more comfortable?” Bonheim said.

Sailors in Army uniforms may perplex the old-fashioned, but in a combat zone, it’s practical for the team to look the same. Wearing one uniform is good for unit cohesion, Bonheim said, but it also means sailors won'’t stand out in a crowd.

“It’s a force-protection issue,” he said.

Labels: Uniforms

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:17

What's more, some of the best and brightest American officers are being steered away from Iraqi units. Everyone in the U.S. armed forces knows that the way to the top is to command American units, not to advise foreign units — even if the latter task is more difficult and more important.

One Army officer who has served in Iraq and would be well qualified for an advisory role told me recently that he was asked to become an ROTC instructor at home but not an advisor in Iraq. Those he sees being sent to help Iraqis tend to have "marginal career prospects." "No one is diverted from a school or command," he told me. "No one is sent after a successful command."

Thousands of students from Saudi Arabia are enrolling on college campuses across the United States this semester under a new educational exchange program brokered by President Bush and Saudi King Abdullah.

The program will quintuple the number of Saudi students and scholars here by the academic year’s end. And big, public universities from Florida to the Kansas plains are in a fierce competition for their tuition dollars.

The kingdom’s royal family — which is paying full scholarships for most of the 15,000 students — says the program will help stem unrest at home by schooling the country’s brightest in the American tradition.
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“These 15,000 students will really jump-start education and that will be a great addition to the Kingdom,” said Goodman. “At its base, it’s about mutual understanding.”

Airport workers are finding themselves subject to surprise screenings as the government issues new security tactics at airports nationwide. The changes are a direct response to this year's foiled plot to blow-up America-bound airplanes.

Baggage handlers, gate agents, ramp workers and other airport employees who in the past were not subject to any security searches before the enter restricted and secure areas are now being targeted in this latest government effort to make airports safer.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:12

In early 1942, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Mississippi rejoined the Pacific Fleet. She spent most of 1942 along the U.S. west coast and went to the South Pacific late in that year. In 1943, she took part operations against Kiska Island, in the Aleutians, and in the capture of the Gilbert Islands. During the latter operation, on 29 November 1943, Mississippi experienced another turret explosion, which took 43 lives. Following repairs, she participated in the capture of Kwajalein in February 1944 and bombarded Japanese-held islands in February and March. Later in the year, she was part of the force that invaded Peleliu and Leyte and defeated a Japanese task force in the Battle of Surigao Strait. Mississippi provided gunfire support for the Lingayen landings in January 1945 and for the conquest of Okinawa in March-June. The battleship was damaged by suicide planes in both operations. She was present in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945, when Japan formally surrendered and returned to the United States soon thereafter.

Mississippi was converted to a gunnery training and weapons development ship in 1946, and given the new hull number AG-128. In this role, she carried a variety of old and new guns and radars, while serving with the Operational Development Force in the Atlantic. During the mid-1950s, she was test ship for the Navy's first surface-to-air guided missile, the "Terrier". Decommissioned in September 1956, USS Mississippi was sold for scrapping in November of that year, after almost forty years of service.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:13

Most intriguing is the little-known story of how Adm. Vern Clark, the independent and outspoken chief of naval operations, almost became Bush's first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2001. As Woodward put it, "Clark was the one officer who might survive Rumsfeld and preserve some sense of dignity and independence for the uniformed military." Even though Clark bonded with Bush by stressing his deep-seated religious beliefs, the nomination was cleverly scuttled by Rumsfeld, who did not want a Joint Chiefs chairman offering independent advice to the president. Instead of Clark, Bush appointed make-no-waves Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, who proved predictably compliant during the planning for the invasion of Iraq.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 16:38

Do you mean that using the phrases "for official use only" or "top secret" will increase your hit count?

Pretty simplistic mechanism. The phrases "for official use only" or "top secret" could simply be someone just typing them. Typing the phrases "for official use only" or "top secret", what a quaint notion 'typing'. Does that show my age? Would the kids still use a sentence like 'Typing the phrases "for official use only" or "top secret"' or would they use something like - 'Entering the phrases "for official use only" or "top secret"' or maybe 'keyboarding the phrases "for official use only" or "top secret"'. Seems too simple, I mean anyone could use the phrases Typing the phrases "for official use only" or "top secret" and have no access to anything remotely considered confidential. I mean I could type the phrases "for official use only" or "top secret"...

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 13:45

“It was the place that made us feel good during the Cold War, especially after the Cuban missile crisis and the Russians had developed intercontinental ballistic missiles,” said Lt. Gen. William Odom, a former National Security Agency director.

Keating said the new the control room, in contrast, could be damaged if a terrorist commandeered a jumbo jet and somehow knew exactly where to crash it. But “how unlikely is that? We think very,” Keating said.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 13:29

Norway's centre-left government said on Wednesday it would not send special forces to Afghanistan, rejecting NATO calls for reinforcements to southern Afghan regions where foreign soldiers face growing resistance.

Last month officials from the U.S.-led NATO military alliance called on Norway to boost its presence in Afghanistan from its current 480 troops, and diplomats had said that Norwegian officials signalled they would abide.

The decision followed heightened tensions between the parties in Norway's Labour-led coalition government as politicians from the Socialist Left Party (SV), a junior coalition partner, opposed sending more soldiers.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:43

Naval Special Warfare (NSW) Command commemorated the creation of the new Special Warfare Operator (SO) and Special Warfare Boat Operator (SB) ratings in a ceremony Oct. 2 in Coronado, Calif.

The new ratings replace previous source ratings, which had been used to distinguish SEALs (Sea, Air, Land) and Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen (SWCC) by job classifications.

‚“When candidates made it through Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL school (BUD/S) and Basic Crewmember school, they were required to switch over to one of the chosen source ratings, such as gunnerÂ’s mate and boatswain‚’s mate,‚” said Ronald Cooper, executive director for Naval Special Warfare Center for SEAL and SWCC.

For many years, the idea of having SEAL and SWCC ratings was discussed.

‚“It‚’s been talked about for at least 20 years that I know of,‚” Cooper said. ‚“The problem was, the NSW community always advanced well under the previous rating system. It was always a concern about limiting our advancement if we went to a new rating. Once we resolved that, the new ratings were looked at a little more favorably.”

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:13

The U.S. armed forces has become a prime engineer of liberal social experiments, while condoning double standards for how men and women are punished for sexual misconduct, say people fighting what they consider political correctness on campus and in the military.
"The military is not a conservative organization," said Elaine Donnelly, who heads the Center for Military Readiness (CMR). "It is on the cutting edge of liberal social change."

She accused the Army of violating its own regulation against embedding female soldiers in support companies that deploy with land combat units. She said the Pentagon too often agrees with "ideological feminists" who "want to change the culture of the military in rather radical ways."
"Women in the military are not the problem," she said. "It's the policy-makers." There are, she said, "many generals making policy in the Pentagon who have daughters in the military."

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 15:37

Whether it’s dropping off a SEAL team or launching missiles inland, the Zumwalt is going to have to slip in unnoticed. It will be quiet—the diesel engine’s noise will be stifled by an inch-thick rubber coating that Syring likens to elephant skin—and stealthy. The spinning dishes and antennas common to today’s ships easily register on enemy radar, so the DDG1000 will instead feature communications hardware that lies flat, embedded in the skin of the deckhouse. This sleek design, combined with a hull that slopes inward from sea level up, rather than outward like most ships, will scatter the energy from an enemy’s radar. According to Syring, on scanners the Zumwalt will look like a fishing boat.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 15:04

Linda Frum interviewed Steyn for the National Post:

LF: Your book is very gloomy. After I read it, I glanced over at my three-year-old daughter and was filled with fear for her future.
MS: Well, I'm in this for the three year-olds. My youngest child is six now, but my little girl and your little girl, when they're our age, they will find a large number of places in what we think of as the free world, the developed world, far less congenial than we would. I mean, you and I would think nothing of hopping on a plane, going to London, Paris or Berlin. Those are going to be very uncomfortable places for a young, middle-aged Western woman circa 2020, 2030, and it's precisely because we've taken for granted this very unusual period in history. We take it for granted that it's a permanent state of affairs. It isn't. It requires incredible vigilance and incredible effort to preserve it.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:02

"To everybody in this community, you can expect one thing: I am not a reformer; I am a transformer. I am going to transform this district into — not a No Child Left Behind Act district. That is a low star. This is a global, global economy. This is a world in which our children have to compete globally. We're going to shoot for world-class."

-- David L. Brewer III

David Brewer has a distinguished military career, and now he's transforming into the latest hope for the public schools of Los Angeles. In a rather extraordinary political move, The LA Board of Ed has made their choice for the new Superintendent of the LA Unified School District and as the LA Times reports, they're very excited about him:

The top local teachers union official was in no mood to celebrate. "The idea that he has no grounding in K-12 is disturbing," said A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles. "And the idea that UTLA and the broader community were not consulted. I don't want to hear that his wife and family were teachers. That doesn't do it."

"A classroom is different from a battlefield," he added. "The goals and objectives are completely different. And it's disconcerting to a certain portion of teachers who are fighting against military recruitment on campus."

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:32

Civil war is in the air in Indonesia. Christians are daily being slaughtered and the government does little to protect them.

Two of our longtime blog-friends, Stan the Infidel and Big White Infidel, are furious over the treatment of Christians in Indonesia. What the media paints as 'sectarian violence' is really Muslim persecution of Christian minorities.

Stan and Big White are headed to Rev. Irianto Kongkoli's funeral in Palu. Rev. Kongkoli was a Christian minister gunned down in public early this morning. This comes on the heels of a bombing on Saturday and after three Christians were executed for their alleged participation in sectarian violence. Violence that has largely targetted Christians and over which no Muslim has been prosecuted.

If their reaction is any gauge of Christian sentiment in Indonesia, then expect an escalation of the violence. Especially pay attention to Stan's extended comments here.

I would urge the Christians of Indonesia, and especially our friends Stan and Big White, towards self-restraint and non-violence. Not that I am a pacifist, I am not, but I am a realist. One should only fight battles if they can win. This is not a battle that can be won through violence.

There is something that you can do to show your solidarity with Indonesia's persecuted Christians. Boycott Indonesia.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 11:52

France plans to withdraw around 200 special forces from southern Afghanistan at the start of next year following a recent upsurge of violence, the French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche reported on Sunday.
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Nine French troops have died in fighting in Afghanistan and Le Journal du Dimanche said the relatively high death toll had played a part in
the decision to withdraw the forces.

"The decision to withdraw the elite troops was taken at the highest level by the president of the republic and the army chiefs of staff," the report said,

Commanders of the French contingent of the United Nations force in Lebanon have warned that they might have to open fire if Israel Air Force warplanes continue their overflights in Lebanon, Defense Minister Amir Peretz told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:25

The FBI raided the homes of Rep. Curt Weldon's daughter and a close friend Monday as it investigates whether the congressman improperly helped the pair win lobbying and consulting contracts.

Agents searched four locations in the Philadelphia area and two in Jacksonville, Fla., said Debbie Weierman, an FBI spokeswoman in Washington. The congressman's home and his offices were not among the locations searched, she said.
...
Federal investigators are looking into whether Weldon used his influence to help the company secure lobbying contracts worth $1 million from foreign clients, two people familiar with the inquiry told The Associated Press.

Weldon, a 10-term Republican from the Philadelphia suburbs and vice chairman of the House Armed Services committee, is in a close race for re-election on Nov. 7 against Democrat Joe Sestak. Last week, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee mailed fliers to voters in Weldon's district accusing Karen Weldon of getting help from her father on lobbying projects.

Labels: Sestak

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:04

Napolean's army had just completed a decisive rout of the Prussian army near the cities of Jena and Auerstadt, now located in eastern Germany. The blood of some 55,000 dead and wounded colored the fields red.
...
The battles of Jena and Auerstadt spelled the end to any significant Prussian resistance to the French until Napolean's withdrawal from Russia in 1813. It's debatable, though, whether Napolean's military brilliance or Prussian incompetence was more decisive. Jena historian Werner Greiling said the difference was in the decisiveness of the leaders and the soldiers' willingness to follow orders. "All of Napolean's soldiers were convinced of their commander's leadership qualities," he said.

History buffs from clubs and associations throughout Europe gathered together to create the spectacle. This time the French were outnumbered -- some 485 Germans outfitted themselves in 19th century war duds, alongside 180 French and 160 British -- but they still won.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:00

This Handy Candy Teen Nurse costume by Disguise will start the boy's hearts beating on Halloween. Comes with a cute red and white striped dress with an attached petticoat. With an apron, hat and stethoscope to complete the look.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 15:17

CBGB hosted its final concert Sunday night after a 33-year residence in downtown New York as the iconic, grungy bastion of punk.

The concert, headlined by rock poet Patti Smith, was to be the final note sounded in a drawn-out battle to preserve the legendary club. A homeless advocacy group that owns the property, the Bowery Residents Committee, is not renewing CBGB's lease, which expired in August 2005. The club will close Oct. 31.

The club's run may be ending at its Manhattan location, but it will continue in different ways, Smith said.

"CBGB's is a state of mind," she said at pre-show news conference. "The new kids have to have their own places."

CBGB's closure has prompted protests, tributes and vigils for more than a year - a cycle ended when CBGB's owner, Hilly Kristal, gave up his legal fight to stay.

CBGB, hailed by many as the birthplace of punk, opened in December 1973 and over the years helped spawn the careers of such acts as the Ramones, Blondie, the Talking Heads and Television. Though the club's glory days are long gone, it has remained a symbolic fixture on the Manhattan music scene.

Blondie singer Deborah Harry performed at CBGB on Saturday, part of a weeklong send-off for the club.

With a capacity of barely 300, CBGB was founded as a place of freedom for different musical acts. Its letters stand for the music Kristal originally planned to present there - country, bluegrass and blues - but it quickly came to represent the physical epicenter of early punk and the storied downtown scene of 1970s New York.

Kristal plans to move the club to Las Vegas, and its store, CBGB Fashions, will move on Nov. 1 to a nearby location at Broadway and Bond Street.

"I'm thinking about tomorrow and the next day and the next day and going on to do more with CBGB's," Kristal said Sunday.

The Bowery Residents Committee, which holds a 45-year lease on the building, houses 250 homeless people above the club. CBGB is its lone commercial tenant.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 13:54

Command master chief badges will return to the traditional size and uniform location, thanks to an Oct. 3 move by new Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (SW/FMF) Joe Campa.

In addition, non-CMCs who are serving in a senior enlisted adviser role are now allowed to don the badge. The changes were announced in NavAdmin message 274/06.

The changes reverse earlier policy spearheaded in 2004 by then-MCPON (SS/AW) Terry Scott. Scott mandated that only those serving in a designated command master chief or command senior chief billet could wear the badge, and he introduced a smaller version of the device that was then relocated above the right breast pocket — the same place officers wear their command at sea pin. The larger badge was previously worn near the left pocket.

“That [larger] badge has long been a symbol of deck plate leadership in the Navy,” Campa said. “I think that we have gotten away from our basic mission of communicating with our sailors on the most basic of levels — I hope the symbolism of returning to the larger badge and manner of wear can help us reset ourselves as a chiefs’s mess and reconnect with our sailors.”

More important, Campa said, the rule change is more inclusive of those who serve as senior enlisted advisers but who aren’t in the command master chief rating.

“The standard for those senior enlisted advisers is the same that we hold our command master chiefs to, so there should be no doubt that they should also get the recognition by being able to wear the pin as well,” he said.

This means every enlisted khaki, E-7 through E-9, who has been designated by his commanding officer as a senior enlisted adviser can wear the appropriate badge commensurate with his rank.

Chiefs who want to make senior may not be forced to have a college degree after all.

In what could become a stunning about-face of policy, the Navy’s new top enlisted sailor is “revisiting” the current mandate that chiefs have an associate degree to be eligible for advancement to senior chief in 2010.

That requirement, driven in large part by former Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy Terry Scott, is currently set to kick in for the chief’s board that will meet in the summer of 2009. Navy officials are increasingly worried that not all sailors will have equal access to education to meet that deadline. The result: New MCPON (SW/FMF) Joe Campa is reviewing the policy.

Campa warned that a change is not guaranteed and cautioned sailors not to read too much into his review — yet.

“Right now, the degree requirement is still the official policy, and sailors need to act as if it’s going to stay that way,” Campa told Navy Times on Oct. 5.

“I am revisiting the issue because it is a big one for our chiefs’ mess, but I want to emphasize that no decisions have been made.”

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:40

There can be no ifs or buts about General Sir Richard Dannatt’s position this weekend. This is not a finely balanced question. The general should resign, and if he will not, then the Prime Minister should instruct the Defence Secretary to remove him. If neither Tony Blair nor Des Browne dare do it, then we have learnt all we need to know about the paralysis now afflicting the Government.

That some of us might agree with every word Sir Richard said to the Daily Mail about Iraq and about the Government’s treatment of wounded servicemen is beside the point. There is a constitutional principle at stake, and it is fundamental. The Armed Forces are not in charge of government policy; ministers are — democratically elected ministers. The Armed Forces are there to implement policy, not attack it. They can and must offer advice, of course, but the advice that Service chiefs offer ministers must be absolutely private. It is not their job to try to influence public debate by making statements to the news media. The general knows HM Government’s policy in Iraq: the Prime Minister has made it very clear. It is to stay for as long as it takes to establish and guarantee a democracy there. There is absolutely no way this can be reconciled with an imperative to withdraw “some time soon”

Gen Sir Richard Dannatt, the new Chief of the General Staff, is well placed to use this tactic. A serious-minded evangelical Christian, he is visibly honest. Although he has plenty of experience in Whitehall, he is respected by colleagues for putting the interests of the Army above those of his own career. He is clearly worried by the strains on his soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. He wanted to tell the Daily Mail just how much hardship they faced, and how much more support (for example, in the medical treatment of the returning wounded) they needed.

Yet his interview, and his explanation of it on the Today programme yesterday, suggest that he has not mastered the simple-soldier ploy. What he said strayed into politics as if by mistake. He does not seem to understand how news works. Senior soldiers cannot afford to be that simple.

Throughout our history, serving British generals have on the whole shut up. They have followed the Duke of Wellington who said, using a term from Moghul India: "I am nimukwallah. I have eaten the King's salt." They believe in being frank to power, but only in private. If they start to express their views all over the place, they become a force of opinion in the land. Eventually, their opinion is backed by force. That is what happens in banana republics.

The relationships between politicians and senior military figures have often involved creative tension. An exasperated Winston Churchill declared of General Montgomery that he was “in defeat unbeatable, in victory unbear-able”. Those comments were not, however, made to the country at large during the very heat of battle. General Sir Richard Dannatt’s interview, by contrast, was on the record and offered, despite the apparent unease of ministers, as British troops are engaged in conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has been hailed, not least by those against all involvement in Iraq, for his candour. His judgment is less certain than his wisdom on this occasion.

The Chief of the General Staff himself appeared to appreciate the damage that he had done by under-taking another round of interviews and issuing a “clarifying” statement yesterday. An individual who had stated in print that “spinning, at the end of the day, is not helpful”, appears to have discovered that spin has its uses. It is to be hoped that the combination of this retraction and Tony Blair’s message of support for the head of the Army will close the matter. For if the clash had been left where it was, General Dannatt would have been marooned in a position where he could not be sacked, yet the politicians with whom he operates may well have lost confidence in him.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:36

BOSSASO is an exit point from the Horn of Africa and it is bursting. This port in northern Somalia already has 300,000 people, up from 50,000 in the 1990s. ... It is a typical Horn of Africa slum. Only the air is free. Several families split the rent on a cardboard shack. Fires sometimes break out, fanned by sea breezes, often burning people alive. Wells are private: filthy water is a commodity for sale. There are few jobs for the men. Women venture out to sift through the rubbish that blooms and shines like armour in seemingly every open space in Bossaso. Islamists pass through the slums, looking for likely recruits. Disease is a bigger worry. A local doctor reckons that a new epidemic could easily break out: polio and typhoid are already on the prowl.

The most immediate risk is of war breaking out between Somalia's Islamists, based in the capital, Mogadishu, and the “secularist” Somali government holed up in Baidoa and backed by “Christian” Ethiopia and the United States
... The Islamist advance in Somalia was a response to political anarchy, not a symptom of population or environmental pressures. But UN relief agencies are sounding the alarm on these pressures. They are specially concerned about south Somalia and Ethiopia's vast Ogaden desert, where malnutrition rates are far higher than the 15% which signals a humanitarian emergency (nutrition rates in the Horn generally are the lowest in the world). A drought last year resulted in massive loss of livestock in both regions. A Somali war involving Ethiopia would be fought asymmetrically, with Islamist guerrillas striking across Somalia and inside Ethiopia, raising the chances of catastrophic famine.
...
the Horn's uncontrolled population growth appears even more explosive. The borderlands have among the highest fertility rates in the world, particularly so among the Somalis. Women in these areas are likely to have six or seven children, against three in the cities. Over half the population is aged 15 or under. There has been little progress in family planning. In remote areas there is no provision for birth control at all. A recent study by the Ethiopian government, which is making tentative steps to reduce population growth, found that only 3% of Somali women in Ethiopia had access to contraception, compared with 45% of women in Addis Ababa.

Some parts of the borderlands already look like something out of “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed”, a study of environmentally ruined societies by Jared Diamond, an American academic. The Horn is among the most degraded ecosystems in the world, with only 5% of its original habitat remaining. According to Conservation International, an NGO, the main culprits in the borderlands are overgrazing and cutting down trees for fuel and charcoal.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 20:16

Again, purists must remember that 300 seeks to bring a comic book, not Herodotus, to the screen. Yet, despite the need to adhere to the conventions of Frank Miller’s graphics and plot — every bit as formalized as the protocols of classical Athenian drama or Japanese Kabuki theater — the main story from our ancient Greek historians is still there: Leonidas, against domestic opposition, insists on sending an immediate advance party northward on a suicide mission to rouse the Greeks and allow them time to unite a defense. Once at Thermopylae, he adopts the defenses to the narrow pass between high cliffs and the sea far below. The Greeks fight both en masse in the phalanx and at times range beyond as solo warriors. They are finally betrayed by Ephialtes, forcing Leonidas to dismiss his allies — and leaving his own 300 to the fate of dying under a sea of arrows.

But most importantly, 300 preserves the spirit of the Thermopylae story. The Spartans, quoting lines known from Herodotus and themes from the lyric poets, profess unswerving loyalty to a free Greece. They will never kow-tow to the Persians, preferring to die on their feet than live on their knees.

If critics think that 300 reduces and simplifies the meaning of Thermopylae into freedom versus tyranny, they should reread carefully ancient accounts and then blame Herodotus, Plutarch, and Diodorus — who long ago boasted that Greek freedom was on trial against Persian autocracy, free men in superior fashion dying for their liberty, their enslaved enemies being whipped to enslave others.

Labels: Movies

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:27

The presence of UK armed forces in Iraq "exacerbates the security problems" and they should "get out some time soon", the head of the British Army has said.

Chief of the General Staff Sir Richard Dannatt told the Daily Mail that the military campaign fought in 2003 had "effectively kicked the door in".

He also said that initial planning for the post-war period had been poor.

He added: "Whatever consent we may have had in the first place, may have turned to tolerance and has largely turned to intolerance."

"I think history will show that the planning for what happened after the initial successful war fighting phase was poor, probably based more on optimism than sound planning," he said.

"The original intention was that we put in place a liberal democracy that was an exemplar for the region, was pro West and might have a beneficial effect on the balance within the Middle East.

"That was the hope, whether that was a sensible or naive hope history will judge. I don't think we are going to do that. I think we should aim for a lower ambition."

Britain's army chief, who set off a political storm by calling for troops to be withdrawn from
Iraq "soon," said Friday he meant a phased withdrawal over two or three years, and denied that he was attacking government policy.

"It was certainly not my intention in a very general background interview ... to have this hoo-ha which people have thoroughly enjoyed overnight and tried to suggest that there is a chasm between myself as head of the army and the prime minister," Dannatt said.
...
On Friday morning, he insisted Britain stood "shoulder to shoulder with the Americans, and their timing and our timing are one and the same."

"We'll probably reduce our soldiers over the course of the next year or two or three — let's wait and see. That's what I mean by sometime soon," Dannatt said in an interview with Sky News.

"We don't do surrender. We don't pull down white flags. We're going to see this through," Dannatt said in an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. radio.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:10

Essentially, we've stuck the M777 ULFH (Ultra Light Field Howitzer, a brit-designed gun) on a light tracked chassis, and added robotics to reduce crew size.

Archer is a self-propelled 155 mm artillery gun based on a commercial off-the-shelf chassis, originally made for construction equipment, allowing for a system that is both simple and inexpensive to maintain. The three-man crew - as opposed to the normal six to 10 - operates all activities through computers in the splinter-proof cab. Each gun carries shells required to perform its mission. An Archer gun provides the same operational capability as four to six traditional guns.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 11:08

The security situation in Iraq has improved somewhat since his last visit, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Saturday.

"Before, I was confined to the Green Zone. Things have improved to the point where we're able to travel outside the Green Zone. We went to the Sunni Triangle today and met with Marines," Durbin said in a conference call with a half-dozen reporters.

"It is, I think, a more secure environment than I felt a year and a half before, but the battle of Baghdad is still raging.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 14:50

The most important of his wars was one with the Saracens, who came across the Pyrenees from Spain and invaded the land of the Franks, intending to establish Mohammedanism there. Their army was led by Abd-er-Rahman (Abd-er-Rah’-man), the Saracen governor of Spain.

On his march through the southern districts of the land of the Franks Abd-er-Rahman destroyed many towns and villages, killed a number of the people, and seized all the property he could carry off. He plundered the city of Bordeaux (bor-do’), and, it is said, obtained so many valuable things that every soldier “was loaded with golden vases and cups and emeralds and other precious stones.”

But meanwhile Charles Martel was not idle. As quickly as he could he got together a great army of Franks and Germans and marched against the Saracens. The two armies met between the cities of Tours and Poitiers (pwaw-te-ay) in October, 732. For six days there was nothing but an occasional skirmish between small parties from both sides; but on the seventh day a great battle took place.

Both Christians and Mohammedans fought with terrible earnestness. The fight went on all day, and the field was covered with the bodies of the slain. But towards evening, during a resolute charge made by the Franks, Abd-er-Rahman was killed. Then the Saracens gradually retired to their camp.

It was not yet known, however, which side had won; and the Franks expected that the fight would be renewed in the morning.

But when Charles Martel, with his Christian warriors, appeared on the field at sunrise there was no enemy to fight. The Mohammedans had fled in the silence and darkness of the night and had left behind them all their valuable spoils. There was now no doubt which side had won.

The battle of Tours, or Poitiers, as it should be called, is regarded as one of the decisive battles of the world. It decided that Christians, and not Moslems, should be the ruling power in Europe.

Charles Martel is especially celebrated as the hero of this battle. It is said that the name MARTEL was given to him because of his bravery during the fight. Marteau (mar-to’) is the French word for hammer, and one of the old French historians says that as a hammer breaks and crushes iron and steel, so Charles broke and crushed the power of his enemies in the battle of Tours.

But though the Saracens fled from the battlefield of Tours, they did not leave the land of the Franks; and Charles had to fight other battles with them, before they were finally defeated. At last, however, he drove them across the Pyrenees, and they never again attempted to invade Frankland.

After the death of Mohammed the Saracens, as Mohammedans are also called, became great warriors. They conquered many countries and established the Mohammedan religion in them. In 711 the Saracens invaded and conquered a great part of Spain and founded a powerful kingdom there, which lasted about seven hundred years.

They intended to conquer the land of the Franks next, and then all Europe.

They thought it would be easy to conquer the Franks, because the Frankish king at that time was a very weak man. He was one of a number of kings who were called the “Do-nothings.” They reigned from about 638 to 751. They spent all their time in amusements and pleasures, leaving the affairs of the government to be managed by persons called MAYORS OF THE PALACE.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 13:56

Vice Admiral Stavridis’s Deconstructing War has a fatal flaw in its foundation, but his concluding recommendation is spot on.

Everything new, isn’t. That is the simple response to his fatal flaw. He states, “…new thinking is required.” (VADM Stavridis, Deconstructing War, Proceedings DEC05 pg. 42) Accurate at first blush, but there is actually little new in the “new” he is looking for. What is needed is an expanded understanding of history and our place in it, and a reduction in the minting of new buzz phrases and exaggerated responses to a growing challenge. The opening sections of Deconstruction War is a classic case of the conceit of the now, where all is seen in reference from one’s generational experience. He scripts an unnecessary atmosphere of crisis and confusion – grasping for answers to what seem like previously unknown challenges. While his points on change, chaos, and uncertainty sound daunting; they are not unusual, unique, or for that matter as dramatic as he makes them when taken in the scope of historical experience. This is not a time for panic or distress, but a time for a calm understanding of what needs to be done and to take comfort that other’s have engaged and overcome challenges much greater than we as a Navy and a nation face.

“The world is simply moving so much faster today than at any point in any of our lifetimes; and it appears a good bet that this sense of speed – indeed, this sense of acceleration – will only continue.” (ibid, pg.42)

That statement could have been written in 1869, 1919, 1945, or 1969. The relative change in information flow and technology shift are the same. Those who witnessed the completion of the steam engine, the wireless, the elimination of the bison, the anarchists’ assassinations, the atomic bomb, and the social revolution of the late 1960s saw change as great if not greater than what we see now. Even within the limits of my much shorter lifetime, it is a safe bet that 1967-72 and 1987-92 can more than give 2000-2005 a run for its money.

A Generation X or Baby Boomer’s lifetime, or that of anyone in the last 150 years provide small sample of examples. Those who watched the walls of Athens torn down in 404 B.C., the European armies retreating west to the boarders of present day Austria in the face of unrelenting Mongol victories from 1229-1241, those who fought next to Emperor Constantine XI in May of 1453, the coalition that rode with King John Sobieski of Poland to drive the Ottomans from Vienna in 1683; they would all understand a culture and a society under threat and the seismic shifts that can happen in the life of a man that can force a people, a culture, and a military to rethink established norms. They would not be impressed by the danger the West faces right now. They would understand the problem, but would not see it as drastic, at this phase, as some make it to be. They would counsel aggression no doubt, but exaggeration – no.

“We live in a world of extraordinary technological and scientific change. Adding up all the major discoveries of the first 5,000 years of recorded history, the sum total of accomplishment likely would amount to much less than what we have produced over the past 50 years.” (ibid, pg.43)

Everything that can be invented has been invented.

Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office, 1899 (attributed)

This comment, more than anything else, is unnecessary hyperbole. From 1955 we have seen much, from the speed of information, to spaceflight, to the genome. As great as these are, they are but flickers of children’s brilliance standing on the shoulders of giants. The giants that brought us from Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages to where Von Braun dared to help us race the Soviets to the Moon.

Overestimating the degree of our challenges is to invite paralysis, rash action, and poor decisions. Yes, an atomic bomb going off in New York City would be an absolute disaster – Ricin spread by a crop duster over Los Angeles would be a horror; but as a relative impact on the U.S. and our diverse economy, population, an leadership; it would be a hit much easier to absorb for the host culture than the loss of Kiev in 1240, Baghdad in 1253, or Berlin in 1945.

The fall of those cities had an impact on an order of magnitude greater than we would face with the loss of NYC or LA. However hard for the 21st Century mind to grasp, mankind has faced events in the last 5,000 years far beyond anything we face today. Though some challenges may be greater from a static analysis, so is our ability to engage those challenges and pursue them to a result in our favor.

“In many ways, we may have indeed reached the “end of history” that Francis Fukuyama wrote about so eloquently at the conclusion of the 20th Century. The days of massive coalitions of national armies, navies, and air forces contesting each other may be coming to a close.” (ibid, pg.43)

Greater minds than mine have already debunked Fukuyama’s work, but from Alfred Nobel to the delusions of post-Versailles Treaty Europe; those who considered and hoped for an end to major conflict have been crushed by the weight of human nature and history. Though VADM Stavridis did backtrack some on “the end of war” thread, the comment itself calls into question everything else that follows.

“The principles of war operation best in nation-on-nation conflict for which they were developed … the very nature of ‘what war is’ has changed irrevocably with the advent and dispersal of weapons of mass destruction … War has always been chaotic. Now it is pure chaos.” (ibid, pg.43)

No, sir. The legions of Aztec warriors dying of smallpox and still trying to understand the gun and the horse during the siege of Tenochtitlan in 1521 would understand pure chaos. We fight in an ordered world that encounters moments of chaos, not the other way around. To convince yourself that all is “pure chaos” is to preemptively surrender to any opponent that understands the trends, patterns, and habits that have defined human behavior in the last 5,000 years.

Our challenges are much more manageable, but the processes are the same. The only difference is the specific application and the intellectual rigor to address our changing situation.

Intellectual rigor, or Intellectual Capital, is where VADM Stavridis hit the nail on the head. We need to develop the right leadership bench to address developing challenges, the “Unknown Unknowns” as described so well by Secretary Rumsfeld. In the last four years the world has changed, as it always does. Unfortunately, on average the way we detail, promote, select, an reward Navy officers has not changed appreciably since I sat in a simulator as an Ensign learning to track an Echo II off the Azores.

Break the back of the Technical Education Bias. To execute VADM Stavridis’s plan to have the right mix of officers to respond to the changing world we face, we need to prepare to build that team. With the present bias towards technical areas of study, his plan is stillborn. He proposes an officer skill set to produce that new thinking that will not exist in our Navy to any large degree without a radical departure from accepted practices. Our navy needs to break the back of our accession, promotion, and selection process. Not adjust, not tweak, but break it down to parade rest and rebuild it.

The Americans who have the natural skill sets needed for language, business, and theory asked for by VADM Stavridis are being turned away at the door wholesale by a myopic accession bias towards technical areas of study in both undergraduate and post-graduate study. Want to study International Relations or Econometrics – no. Want to study Operational Analysis or Electrical Engineering at Navy Postgraduate School – yes. Though engineers and advanced application of mathematics are important, the excess institutional bias towards these skills results in an imbalance in the navy’s aggregate skill set and a resulting stunted, limited intellectual gene pool to meet emerging challenges. In most wardrooms, especially pre-9/11 you would get and almost unanimous response to “Who has ever seen the formula PV=nRT?” Likewise, 95 percent of the time you would have been greeted by uncomfortable silence by the question, “Who has ever read Hopkirk’s, The Great Game.”

To get the best out of an intellectually diverse population, you encourage an intellectually diverse a population to begin with. Without eliminating of a shortsighted policy that hunts for Physics majors but shuns Classics majors – tearing that policy/habit up root-and-branch – any other efforts will be stillborn – and we will be stuck with Wardrooms full of people indifferent to anything that does not have a formula.

Reconfigure the career path. In his plan, he takes as an example an officer in his “apprenticeman years” and puts him on a different path – the dreaded “non-traditional” career path. If you snap-up front-runners at Length of Service (LOS)-5 inside today’s uncracked, hidebound Millington Diktat, there are barriers that our Navy will throw in that officer’s path every step along the way.

Let’s assume that the officer in question is in aviation. Without fixing the fundamentals, we put him on The Plan. Finishing his first tour at LOS-5, he spends a year at a company of some kind (LOS-6), another non-Navy service tour (LOS-9), and a year at the Joint Command and Staff College or equivalent (LOS-10). You need at least a year in there for wiggle room, language immersion (the only way to be fluent), and PCS, which brings that officer to LOS-11. That gets him to his (assume aviation) Department Head Tour, spitting him out at LOS-13. He is now looking at the CDR and Command Screen Board. A large percentage will not be able to make that timeline. The vast majority will find themselves on the professional sidelines. Some will get through, but as it stands no, most will be set up for failure.

The thing that his immediate Chain of Command will be yelling at him about the proposed career path is, “You will never survive six years of non-competitive FITREPS. You may make CDR, but that will be it. (…and if you come from a non-TACAIR community…) You don’t have a boat tour? Command? Mmmm. If you were the #1 competitive LT your first tour, and my #1 DH, I might see a Special Mission Command.” That translates to an officer that might make CAPT and has an exceptionally limited chance for Flag. As a result, he will not have a significant opportunity to use the skills he spent the better part of a decade and a half developing. If you want to create a cadre of overqualified terminal-Commanders, this is a great plan. If you want a better than average percentage of these officers to screen for Major Command and compete for Flag, you have a pipe dream.

What will that hard-charger (remember, at the LOS-5 point this fresh LT is only in his late 20s) going to choose? What will the Skipper tell his #1 LT? Go the new path, or interview for the Flag LT job in San Diego? Perhaps the FRS Instructor billet? In the real world of the talented and ambitious Junior Officer, what percentage will want to take The Path? Unless the rules of the game and the facts on the ground are changed, what is waiting for that LT as he steps through the door of The Path? What stops the LT from moving on to positions that significantly impact our Navy’s future? These are all things under the control of our Navy. These are the things that need to be addressed first.

What will stop that highly trained officer at LOS-10 from saying to himself, “Forget the Navy. I can do more for my country, have a greater impact on the future, and go further in the FBI with my education and language skills than in the Navy. I didn’t go to Dartmouth and Georgetown to find myself treading water at 42.”

What will stop that officer from leaving is rock-solid truth about his options in the Navy. Not promises, not spin, not salesmanship, not buzzwords, but fact-based truth. To give that officer the right facts so he will make the right decision for both the Navy and himself will require radical, aggressive action.

On par with cleaning the Augean Stables, the Navy needs to clear the field for our future officer corps. Not just with the flavor of the officers it accesses. The selection board system as it exists today works well within its limitations and design, but it has inherent flaws and traditions that will push to the side many of the officers VADM Stavridis wants. We need to kill the stultifying “Select in Their Own Image” habits and career advice. The absolute top of the Navy needs to aggressively prevent the credibility corroding habits of some senior officers who promote their own self-defined priorities and biases attached to individual names. As we saw with the 14 Feb 2006 dissolved Commander Board – this happens. This time it was caught and the right action taken. This was not an isolated event. You can catch written material. It is much more difficult to catch phone calls, emails, and face-to-face “material” given to board members about personnel in front of a board. Additionally, community influence needs to be further reduced to protect those who depart the community stovepipe. A way around the “up or out” nature of our officer corps needs to be developed, nurtured, and expanded.

“New Thinking” is unquestionably needed, but it needs to start with some changes in career fundamentals. Without going after the fundamental problems everything else is simply an entertaining academic exercise.

Grow the skill sets we want. Reward those skills. The rest will follow. This crop takes two decades to grow. 2025 will be here before you know it.

Labels: Education, Maritime Strategy, Navy

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:09

A MASSIVE mosque that will hold 40,000 worshippers is being proposed beside the Olympic complex in London to be opened in time for the 2012 Games.

The project’s backers hope the mosque and its surrounding buildings would hold a total of 70,000 people, only 10,000 fewer than the Olympic stadium.

Its futuristic design features wind turbines instead of the traditional minarets, while a translucent latticed roof would replace the domes seen on most mosques. The complex is designed to become the “Muslim quarter” for the Games, acting as a hub for Islamic competitors and spectators.

• The 2012 Olympics are in London, UK. Ask the Chinese and they will tell you that when you host the Olympics, you are given a chance to showcase your nation, its values, etc.
• Lots of construction, billions of $, £, €, whatever. What is built and finds itself on the TV screen will become iconic symbol of that host nation and the Olympics; just ask the Germans.
• Religion, thankfully, has always been in the background, if altogether forgotten, during all Olympics.
• The UK is not, for now, and Islamic State.
• Islamic nations have never been a significant player in athletic events. Just the opposite, they have a pathetic track record outside the Pakistani Cricket team. In the Olympics they are usually one of the “*” countries.
• Saudi Arabia has no religious freedom at all. If you even hold a Christian Bible study in your hours, you will be arrested, and if a Saudi yourself, killed.

This will be the largest Mosque in Europe; ironically in West Ham. On top of everything else, it is a modernistic nightmare that will, not ironically, not fit at all with anything British or Muslim.

Because it is funded largely by Saudi Arabia, it is going to be of the fundamentalists Wahhabi bent – and all that comes with it. In case you were wondering.

“It will be something never seen before in this country. It is a mosque for the future as part of the British landscape,” said Abdul Khalique, a senior member of Tablighi Jamaat, a worldwide Islamic missionary group that is proposing the mosque as its new UK headquarters.

Tablighi Jamaat has come under scrutiny from western security agencies since 9/11. Two years ago, according to The New York Times, a senior FBI anti-terrorism official claimed it was a recruiting ground for Al-Qaeda. British police investigated a report that Mohammad Sidique Khan, leader of the July 7 London bombers, had attended its present headquarters in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. In August, Bavaria expelled three members of the organisation on the grounds that it promoted Islamic extremism.

The “British” government has made it such that the locals in West Ham cannot stop the construction or appeal its approval. How do the London Olympics and the mega-Mosque come into play together? The Mosque will be about 500 meters from the Olympic center, and will be the dominate building there for the world to see during the main Olympic events.

2012 – Londonistan steps into the front stage. Congratulations, Dhimmi. This last little bit seals the deal.

... close to where the mosque location, the Kingsway International Christian Centre, Europe's biggest evangelical church, accommodating 12,000 worshippers, is being torn down to make way for the Olympic stadium.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:30

• Communist and totalitarian governments lie.
• Do you really think they care what you say?
• They only talk to buy time.
• If you think you can talk them out of getting nukes, you are wrong.
• Nuclear weapons are the height of 1940's technology. Bad guys will make them.
• There will be more.
• This is reality.
• The only way to stop a nation from building nuclear weapons is to invade them.
• If you are not going to invade them, you have to destroy them.
• If you want to destroy them, you have to blockade them until you starve them out - which BTW is an act of war.
• If you do not do that prior to having a deliverable nuclear weapon (much harder than building one in a mine shaft) you have to accept the fact that they might use their weapons, in some way, in desperation.
• If they use theirs, you will have to use yours.
• Millions will die.
• ...or you can accept the fact that the nuclear genie is out of the bottle (thanks for China and Pakistan) and next will be Iran, then Saudi Arabia, then Egypt, perhaps Taiwan - an outside chance Japan - for starters.
  

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:39

Top Pentagon procurement officials on Wednesday reviewed the Navy's DDG-1000 guided-missile destroyer program, but made no decisions, Defense Department spokeswoman Cheryl Irwin said.

One industry source, who asked not to be named, said he expected the Pentagon to proceed as planned in fiscal year 2008, with continued funding for the two lead ships being built by Northrop Grumman Corp. and General Dynamics Corp.

The Pentagon's Defense Acquisition Board, which oversees the purchase of major weapons systems, wanted to review work on the destroyer before the Navy can exercise contract options for construction of the two lead ships, Irwin said.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 19:32

China, though, is expanding and improving its military. Last year alone it increased its defense spending by about 14 percent.

"Why do I care? China doesn't have a major impact on my district." But in wondering if the United States is paying enough attention to the growing nation, Forbes added, "China is not North Korea or Iran. If anyone has a confrontation with China, there won't be a winner and loser. There will be all losers."

China also might have its own aircraft carrier coming online in the near future. Since the mid-1980s, China has been purchasing scrap carriers from other countries and studying the parts to build their own.

If China were to get three aircraft carriers, Forbes said, the United States might be forced to rethink its own aircraft carrier fleet, which Congress just shrunk to 11. Forbes, who visited a Chinese shipyard early last year, said "Their drydocks were full. They were churning out ships in six months."

The United States should be paying close attention, he said, because one of China's military goals is to be able to "make us blink."

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:36

d. Need for voluminous operation orders, instructions, etc.

Due to previous experience and indoctrination this command was able to function efficiently without the usual volumes of operation orders, instructions, etc. The only operation order received was that of CTF 51. Except for the day of arrival when we asked for the night rendezvous, we got along very well. however, the arrival of only one grid chart in the first delivery of Officer Messenger mail delayed our taking station for bombardment until sufficient copies could be obtained.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:08

Fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier found his own way to comment on the 'size zero' debate - by putting a larger model down the catwalk to show off his clothes.

Dressed in a daring black corsetry, the plus-sized model dwarfed her fellow waif-like catwalk queens.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 13:10

Russia handed over to China a destroyer equipped with state-of-the-art weaponry. The handover, which took place in St. Petersburg, finalized the $1.5 billion deal, which analysts say will boost Beijing’s clout in its standoff with Taiwan.

“The handover act was signed today, and a Chinese flag was hoisted on the ship,” a Russian defense industry source told Reuters, requesting anonymity.

The warship was the fourth Project 956E ’Sovremenny’ (Modern) class destroyer built at the Northern Shipyard in Russia’s St. Petersburg and sold to China under a 2002 deal through Russia’s state arms trader Rosoboronexport.
...
“Concern about these ships in both Taipei and Washington is justified by the fact that Taiwan and perhaps even the U.S. Navy lacks an effective defense against the ship’s SS-N-22 Sunburn (3M-80E Moskit) supersonic anti-ship missile,” Washington-based think-tank the International Assessment and Strategy Center said on its Internet site, “This missile travels at about three times the speed of sound and can perform violent manoeuvres that can defeat most defenses designed to ward off subsonic anti-ship missiles.”

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 08:03

"The Turkish Armed Forces will never make concessions demanded of it for the sake of the European Union," Admiral Yener Karahanoglu told the naval academy in comments quoted by the NTV channel.

Turkey began EU entry talks last year but is not expected to join for many years. The European Commission is expected to criticize Ankara’s reform record and the continued political influence of the military in its annual report in November.

Karahanoglu said domestic and foreign groups bent on destroying the armed forces were stepping up their efforts.

"I feel sorry for these poor wretches who are preparing their own ends. These groups either will leave Turkey or will be drowned in the sea of Anatolia," Karahanoglu said.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 08:01

Until a few years ago, the clues were too sparse to justify a search, said Abele, whose father, Mannert Abele, was the Grunion's commander. "We really didn't do anything about it because there was nothing, no information," Abele said. "What were we going to do?"

Abele and his two brothers all married and had children. Bruce, the oldest, started working in computers in the late 1950s and later invested in Boston-area real estate. Brad, the middle son, owned a management recruiting business and John helped found the multibillion dollar medical equipment company Boston Scientific Corp.

They contacted Robert Ballard, discoverer of the Titanic. He declined to participate in a search, but briefed the Abeles on the complications of searching for deep-sea wrecks. Geological formations sometimes conceal a vessel; it could be perched precariously on an undersea cliff; the water pressure and landing impact could have broken the Grunion into small pieces, making it harder to find.

They also hired a marine survey firm, Williamson and Associates, for an expedition in August to Kiska. The Seattle-based company focuses on mapping ocean and river bottoms for oil and cable companies, government agencies and academic institutions and, occasionally, explores for wrecks. Williamson at first told the Abeles that surveying the tip of the Aleutian archipelago would be too expensive, Bruce Abele said, but after six months of negotiating, the firm agreed to send sonar technicians and equipment aboard a Bering Sea crab boat to the frigid waters licking the base of Kiska volcano.

The U.S. Navy, citing lack of resources, is not involved in the search and the Abeles prefer to keep the cost to themselves.

The Aquila, carrying more than a dozen crew members and sonar surveyors, set out from Dutch Harbor on Aug. 6, said Pete Lowney, a family friend from Newton who joined the crab fishing fleet in Dutch Harbor more than a decade ago. Lowney has fished king and snow crab for years under the Aquila's captain, Kale Garcia.
...
In mid-August, the sonar picked up a 290-foot-long object with the sharp angles and jutting shadows of something man-made wedged into a terrace on the steep underwater slope of the volcano. The Grunion, however, was 312 feet long. The Williamson team believes the bow may have plowed beneath a mat of thick sediment, hence the apparent shortage of about 20 feet. Skid marks show the vessel slid to rest about 1,000 meters from the surface, Wright said.

Over the years, earthquakes along the tectonic subduction zone could have piled on more debris, he said. Wright, a retired Navy captain who has worked with Williamson since 1986, is 95 percent sure the shadowy images are those of the vanished sub. The Grunion is the only known sunken vessel in the area and the sonar captured the distinct outline of a submarine conning tower, he said.

Yutaka Iwasaki, who translated and sent him a report written in the 1960s by a Japanese military officer who served in the Aleutians. A maritime magazine had recently reprinted the report. It described a confrontation between a U.S. submarine and the officer's freighter, the Kano Maru, on July 31, 1942, about 10 miles northeast of Kiska — the Grunion's patrol area.

The sub dispatched six or seven torpedoes. All but one bounced off the boat without exploding, or missed, the officer wrote, although the hit knocked out his engines and communications. He said he returned fire with an 8-centimeter deck gun, and believed he had sunk the sub.

Labels: Submarine, WWII

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:10

Even the security situation inside the city improved. Previous summers in Samarra had been extremely violent, but the summer of 2006 was different. Days passed without a significant attack inside the city. Less than 150 Americans, along with Iraqi counterparts, controlled a town of over 120,000 Sunni Arabs through targeted raids and sniper operations. One local insurgent even begged city leaders for amnesty in exchange for good conduct. Our unit killed or captured hundreds of insurgents, knocking the wind out of the local insurgency--but never crushing it.

I believe, as the president noted, that "the safety of America depends on the outcome of the battle in the streets of Baghdad." Why then do we have just enough troops in Iraq not to lose? Most of the people I've spoken with since coming home--those both for and against the war--believe we must finish the job in Iraq. Americans understand a defeat in Iraq would have horrible consequences for America and its allies for decades to come. America has the capacity to win and the will to support a winning strategy.

Why then are we pursuing a bare minimum approach?

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 08:25

Lift 500 plus tons, cruises at 100 mph, travel 12000 miles in 7 days, and fly at altitudes up to 20,000 feet.

• Does not require sea and air port infrastructures;
• Can operate with vertical take off and landing in and out of third world countries;
• Could provide tremendous positive impact to humanitarian efforts throughout the world.;
• Will provide a lower cost option of transporting cargo world wide, point to point.

Labels: Airships

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:51

SPIEGEL: The administrator of one of Berlin's opera houses, the Deutsche Oper, has cancelled the Mozart Opera "Idomeneo" out of fear of an Islamist reaction. Is this the first sign of Germany bowing down to Islam?

Tibi: It's not the first sign, but rather a repeated one. Recently we have been seeing more and more acts of submission, the most recent case being the Pope's apology. When it comes to Islam, there is no freedom of the press nor freedom of opinion in Germany. Organized groups in Islamic communities want to decide what is said and done here. I myself have been dropped from numerous events because of threats.

SPIEGEL: When something insults Muslims, we often tend to just back off -- doesn't this help defuse the conflict?

Tibi: No. That is simply giving up. And the weaker the partner is viewed by the Muslims, then the greater the anger which they express. And this anger is often carefully staged. The argument over the cartoons for example was completely orchestrated. Nothing was spontaneous. A lot of people don't know if Denmark is a country or a cheese. Where did they get the Danish flags? Protests like these are weapons in this war of ideas. Or take another example: The president of the Iranian parliament was visiting Belgium where he had an appointment with a female Belgian colleague. He refused to shake her hand, so she didn't meet with him. He left Belgium and accused her of racism. The accusation of cultural insensitivity is a weapon. And we have to neutralize it.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:48

In Spain, I am a rebel. I go to the supermarket without makeup and have been spotted, repeatedly, wearing gray sweat pants and sneakers on a Madrid city bus.

But I wasn't always this daring. When I moved here eight years ago, at age 31, I tried to get with the Mediterranean program. The Spanish women looked so chic and feminine in their tight skirts and lipstick, dolled up to buy a head of lettuce. Why not shed my New York cynicism along with those shapeless hippie dresses and reach out to my inner Barbie?

The cute high-heeled mules lasted a month. They hit the back of the closet after a near spill on the cobblestones. The low-slung trousers became a lost cause, too. I grew tired of squeezing my hips into sizes that seemed cut for a child.

Barbie slipped away, the Birkenstocks returned, and I joined the ranks of expatriate women from sensible- shoe cultures who struggle to maintain their morale - or recognize themselves in the mirror - in a southern European world of ever-matching leather belts and bags.

Jennifer Marsella, a 32-year-old teacher from Rhode Island, lived in Rome and Siena, Italy, in her 20s, and she was so overwhelmed by the stylish women that she made a few uncharacteristic purchases: a pair of black satin Versace trousers, one size too small, and big black-and-gold Versace sunglasses.

She blames the costly shopping spree on the passeggiata, or traditional evening stroll, when Italian women show off their expertly knotted scarves and strappy gold sandals, making the rest of us feel scruffy.

"One day I was walking down the street with the paint-on pants and high heels," she said, "and I said to myself, 'Who am I kidding? This is so not me.'"

"I don't think American women ever get over the feeling of being less-than," Miller said, "but they resolve themselves that 'I will never be French, I will never be thin like that, I will never learn to tie a scarf like that.'"

"For some people, it feels like it's selling out to wear a miniskirt to work or high heels," she said. "They say, 'Isn't this what our mothers fought for?' - as though they were betraying the feminist movement."

Jasinski, an athletic 1.78 meters, 5 feet 8 inches, tall, has trouble fitting in herself.

She said stores carried such small sizes that she had to buy her clothes at a "big woman's shop." She was delighted by a recent government decision to keep anorexic-looking models off the Madrid catwalk during the town's fashion week.

But what is the alternative to the parade of wispy women in impossible shoes? A South Florida restaurant filled with overweight retirees in shiny pink warm-up suits, perhaps?

Lorraine Wise, a New Yorker who has lived in Madrid for 28 years, prefers chain-smoking Spaniards in high- heeled espadrilles to that.

"People really dress atrociously in the U.S.," she said. "Knit Bermuda shorts with a belly sticking out is not acceptable here, and maybe it's for the best."

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 12:55

While Danish milk products were dumped in the Middle East, fervent rightwing Americans started buying Bang & Olufsen stereos and Lego. In the first quarter of this year Denmark’s exports to the US soared 17%. The British writer Christopher Hitchens organised a buy-Danish campaign. Among the thousands of emails sent to Rose was one from an American soldier serving in Iraq. “He told me he was sitting in Iraq, watching a game of football and drinking a can of Carlsberg,” Rose said.

Rose is not the only person to have prospered from the crisis. Re-elected last year, Mr Rasmussen last week became Denmark’s longest-serving Liberal prime minister. Danish troops are still in Iraq and Afghanistan. More than this, his sceptical line on immigration appears to have been vindicated as other EU countries follow suit.

Denmark has now drifted to the right - as has neighbouring Sweden, which last week booted out its Social Democrat government. The chill hand of pragmatism has even arrived in Christiania, the Danish capital's hippy commune, as the government announced last week it intended to charge the hairy denizens rent.

At the moment the assimilationists - who insist immigrants should become more Danish - are in the ascendant. The government is considering Danish language tests for foreigners applying for a passport. If anything, the cartoon row has forced Europeans to reconsider what it is that makes them European.

"It provoked a debate here in Denmark about what are we really and what is our identity," Hans-Henrik Holm, a professor of international relations at Denmark's College of Journalism at Aarhus University said. "A lot of Danes know more today about Islam and religion. We have to wake up to the fact that we don't live in a Hans Christian Andersen quiet provincial country any more."

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 08:10

A hardline Muslim teacher who caused a furore by denouncing pupils for celebrating Christmas has been made a Government schools inspector.

Israr Khan’s Ofsted appointment was described by a former colleague as ‘absolutely astonishing’.

Mr Khan, now headmaster of an Islamic school, launched into his tirade during a concert rehearsal at Washwood Heath Secondary School in Birmingham in 1996 after the choir including around 40 Muslim youngsters, had sung a number of popular Christmas songs, including carols.

He leapt from his seat, yelling: “Who is your God? Why are you saying Jesus and Jesus Christ? God is not your God - it is Allah.”

As children in the audience began booing and clapping, a number of choir members - both white and Asian - walked out, some in tears.

Mr Khan, a maths teacher, was asked to work from home pending an investigation but there was no disciplinary action.

It has been claimed that Washwood Heath school was then a ‘hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism’. Rashid Rauf - the airline terror bomb suspect whose extradition is currently being sought from Pakistan - was a pupil there at that time.

Mr Khan left Washwood Heath a year later to found the independent Islamic Hamd House Preparatory School in Small Heath, Birmingham, where he is headmaster. Earlier this year, he was appointed as a governor of Anderton Park Primary School, in Sparkbrook, Birmingham.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 08:06