CDR Salamander

After visualizing the conditions of future combat, the general is responsible for explaining to civilian policymakers the demands of future combat and the risks entailed in failing to meet those demands. Civilian policymakers have neither the expertise nor the inclination to think deeply about strategic probabilities in the distant future. Policymakers, especially elected representatives, face powerful incentives to focus on near-term challenges that are of immediate concern to the public. Generating military capability is the labor of decades. If the general waits until the public and its elected representatives are immediately concerned with national security threats before finding his voice, he has waited too long. The general who speaks too loudly of preparing for war while the nation is at peace places at risk his position and status. However, the general who speaks too softly places at risk the security of his country.

Despite the experience of their allies and the urging of their president, America's generals failed to prepare their forces for counterinsurgency. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Decker assured his young president, "Any good soldier can handle guerrillas." Despite Kennedy's guidance to the contrary, the Army viewed the conflict in Vietnam in conventional terms. As late as 1964, Gen. Earle Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated flatly that "the essence of the problem in Vietnam is military." While the Army made minor organizational adjustments at the urging of the president, the generals clung to what Andrew Krepinevich has called "the Army concept," a vision of warfare focused on the destruction of the enemy's forces.

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) estimated in its 1998 war plan that 380,000 troops would be necessary for an invasion of Iraq. Using operations in Bosnia and Kosovo as a model for predicting troop requirements, one Army study estimated a need for 470,000 troops. Alone among America's generals, Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki publicly stated that "several hundred thousand soldiers" would be necessary to stabilize post-Saddam Iraq. Prior to the war, President Bush promised to give field commanders everything necessary for victory. Privately, many senior general officers both active and retired expressed serious misgivings about the insufficiency of forces for Iraq. These leaders would later express their concerns in tell-all books such as "Fiasco" and "Cobra II." However, when the U.S. went to war in Iraq with less than half the strength required to win, these leaders did not make their objections public.

Iraq is America's Valmy. America's generals have been checked by a form of war that they did not prepare for and do not understand. They spent the years following the 1991 Gulf War mastering a system of war without thinking deeply about the ever changing nature of war. They marched into Iraq having assumed without much reflection that the wars of the future would look much like the wars of the past. Those few who saw clearly our vulnerability to insurgent tactics said and did little to prepare for these dangers. As at Valmy, this one debacle, however humiliating, will not in itself signal national disaster. The hour is late, but not too late to prepare for the challenges of the Long War. We still have time to select as our generals those who possess the intelligence to visualize future conflicts and the moral courage to advise civilian policymakers on the preparations needed for our security. The power and the responsibility to identify such generals lie with the U.S. Congress. If Congress does not act, our Jena awaits us.

Finally, Congress must enhance accountability by exercising its little-used authority to confirm the retired rank of general officers. By law, Congress must confirm an officer who retires at three- or four-star rank. In the past this requirement has been pro forma in all but a few cases. A general who presides over a massive human rights scandal or a substantial deterioration in security ought to be retired at a lower rank than one who serves with distinction. A general who fails to provide Congress with an accurate and candid assessment of strategic probabilities ought to suffer the same penalty. As matters stand now, a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war. By exercising its powers to confirm the retired ranks of general officers, Congress can restore accountability among senior military leaders.

The Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, sponsored by Sen. Barry Goldwater and Rep. Bill Nichols, caused a major defense reorganization, the most significant since the National Security Act of 1947. Operational authority was centralized through the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs as opposed to the service chiefs. The chairman was designated as the principal military advisor to the president, National Security Council and secretary of defense. The act established the position of vice-chairman and streamlined the operational chain of command from the president to the secretary of defense to the unified commanders.

Since 1986, Goldwater-Nichols has made tremendous changes in the way DOD operates-joint operations are the norm-Arabian Gulf, Zaire, Haiti, and Bosnia. Implementation of the act is an on-going project with Joint Vision 2010 (1996) and Joint Vision 2020 (2000). Both documents emphasize that to be the most effective force we must be fully joint: intellectually, operationally, organizationally, doctrinally, and technically. The joint force, because of its flexibility and responsiveness, will remain the key to operational success in the future.

Labels: Iraq

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 20:01

Race is a huge issue on selection boards. Most officers by the 15-yr mark have see "The Brief" that Millington has put out for a long time. A lot depends on the board WRT the degree of the influence. Now and then there are personalities driving an agenda. As with many things, timing is critical. You would not like what is said or happens sometimes - things well beyond the precept.

A very weak link in what is about as fair of a system humans could design. Having a picture makes it less fair. Having a name makes it unfair. Having people trace race when many of us ... ummm ... people in front of the board are of mixed race and in an honest world would be "other", is unfair.

Having Flag Officers push select lists to board members based on race is borderline criminal - but some Flag Officers get away with it.

It has been so for a long time, and the reasons there are different percentages of minorities among officers, especially for Americans of Sub-Saharan Indigenous Extraction (ASIE) are concerned, are both obvious and unfixable in the short to medium term.

A very high percentage of ASIE are educated in low quality public schools in single parent households compared to other ethnic groups. That is a classic race-neutral formula for under-achievement.

Military service, especially among officers, often runs in families. It gets better every year, but fewer ASIE have a father or grandfather that they know who was in the military as an officer. It takes generations to reach that balance, if you ever can.

As a result, those ASIE who do well or come from intact middle-through-upper class households and therefore achieve the same academic standards as other ethnic/social groups are a much smaller percentage of the whole as the other groups. Those few are highly sought after by industry. Industry is willing to pay much more for their services than the military. To expect the Navy, a service that traditionally has the fewest ASIE officers of any, to reach a model in tune with an inaccurate ethnic description of the country is self-delusional.

I will bring up two people in the military I know fairly well just to give you an example. One's father is an ASIE, his mother is of European extraction. He grew up in a very upper-middle class neighborhood going to private schools. His wife is of European extraction and his kids have light brown hair, fair skin, and blue eyes.

I have another whose parents came to the USA from some island in the Caribbean. They were solid middle-class and he went to college on an academic scholarship. He married an ASIE whose father was a doctor. They both are, and have been, embarrassingly marched about as examples of "diversity."

They have less in common with the enlisted ASIE than their working-class Chief of European extraction. It is pathetic and patronizing, for them, me, or the Navy to pretend otherwise.

And don't get me started on the guy who had a Hispanic last name, blond hair/blue eyes upper-class family who was counted as a "Hispanic" minority for scholarship reasons.

Anyway, that is part of the comforting lie we as a Navy tell each other. It is just a lie - no other way to describe it.

Thing is, the new Midshipmen and Seamen of 2007 were mostly born in 1988/89. I think in '89 one can say that everyone has the same starting point - but the people who are setting high policy were all born from '45-'55 - boomers and all they represent and the baggage they carry.

Labels: Boomers, Diversity

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:34

Labels: Navy

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:02

Bearing Point in Alexandria, VA received a $99 million firm-fixed-price contract for Advisory and Assistance Services for Air Force Smart Operations 21 (AFSO 21), which is based on both Lean and Six Sigma business process improvement tools. AFSO 21 is the centerpiece of the Air Force strategy to understand and optimize the basic processes round which it organizes.

Labels: Bu11sh1t Bingo

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:56

Labels: Cartoon

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 09:03

Labels: Soviet Union

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 01:48

SMS Emden was launched in 1908, and became the Kaiserliche Marine'sTsingtao, in China, and was part of the German East Asia Squadron. On the same day as the Australian Government received notification that the Empire was at war, Von Spee's squadron was ordered to avoid the superior Allied naval forces in the Pacific, and it headed for Germany, by way of Cape Horn. The sole exception was the Emden, under Korvettenkapitänvon (Lt Commander) Karl Müller, which headed towards the Indian Ocean, with the objective of raiding Allied shipping. Müller frequently made use of a fake fourth smokestack, which — when the ship flew the Royal Navy ensign — made it resemble the British cruiser HMS Yarmouth and similar vessels.

The SMS EMDEN was detached from the East Asiatic Squadron for independent operations in the Indian Ocean. By early November Emden, under von Müller, Emden had sunk 30 Allied merchant vessels and warships. It had also shelled and damaged British oil tanks at Madras, in India. A collier named Buresk, was captured with its cargo intact, and was re-crewed with German seamen to accompany the Emden as a supply vessel. Other victims of the Emden included an obsolescent Russian cruiser and a French destroyer off Malaya, at the Battle of Penang, on October 28. By the end of October, no less than 60 Allied warships were looking for the Emden (the little outdated ship that was) .... forcing up insurance premiums, and drawing warships away from other theatres.

On 9 November 1914 Emden landed a shore party at Direction Island to destroy the cable station. The operators managed to get off a warning signal before the station was closed down.

We quickly found the telegraph building and the wireless station, took possession of both of them, and so prevented any attempt to send signals. Then I got hold of one of the Englishmen who were swarming about us, and ordered him to summon the director of the station, who soon made his appearance, - a very agreeable and portly gentleman.

"I have orders to destroy the wireless and telegraph station, and I advise you to make no resistance. It will be to your own interest, moreover, to hand over the keys of the several houses at once, as that will relieve me of the necessity of forcing the doors. All firearms in your possession are to be delivered immediately. All Europeans on the island are to assemble in the square in front of the telegraph building."

The director seemed to accept the situation very calmly. He assured me that he had not the least intention of resisting, and then produced a huge bunch of keys from out his pocket, pointed out the houses in which there was electric apparatus of which we had as yet not taken possession, and finished with the remark: "And now, please accept my congratulations."

"Congratulations! Well, what for?" I asked with some surprise.

"The Iron Cross has been conferred on you. We learned of it from the Reuter

We now set to work to tear down the wireless tower. telegram that has just been sent on."

At about 0620 on 9 November, wireless telegraphy operators in several transports and in the warships heard signals in an unknown code followed by a query from the Cocos Island Wireless Telegraphy Station, 'What is that code'. It was in fact the German cruiser EMDEN ordering her collier BURESK to join her at Point Refuge. Shortly afterwards Cocos signalled 'Strange warship approaching.'

SYDNEY, the nearest warship to the Cocos group, was ordered to proceed at full speed. By 0700 she was 'away doing twenty knots' and at 0915 simultaneously sighted the island and the EMDEN some seven or eight miles distant.

The RAN ship was a state-of-the-art Town class light cruiser, commissioned in 1913 and commanded by Captain John Glossop, an RN officer.
..
Sydney was larger, faster and better armed — (8) 6 inch (152mm) guns — than Emden, which had (10) 104mm (4.1 inch) guns.

EMDEN opened fire at a range of some 10,500 yards using the then very high elevation of thirty degrees. Her first salvo was 'ranged along an extended line but every shot fell within two hundred yards of SYDNEY.' The next salvo was on target and for the next ten minutes the Australian cruiser came under heavy fire. Fifteen hits were recorded but fortunately 'only five burst.' Four ratings were killed and several wounded.

SYDNEY's first salvo went 'far over the EMDEN'. The second fell short and the third scored two hits. Meanwhile, EMDEN's captain (Captain Von Muller), aware that his only chance lay in putting SYDNEY out of action quickly, maintained a high rate of fire said to be a salvo every six seconds. It was to no avail. SYDNEY took advantage of her superior speed and fire power and raked the German cruiser. Her shells wrecked the enemy's steering gear, shot away both range finders and smashed the voice pipes providing communications between the conning tower and the guns. Shortly afterwards the forward funnel toppled overboard and then the foremast carrying away the primary fire control station and wrecking the fire-bridge. Despite the damage and the inevitable end, Muller continued the engagement. Half his crew were disabled until 'only the artillery officer and a few unskilled chaps were still firing.' Finally, with his engine room on fire and the third funnel gone, he gave the order 'to the island with every ounce you can get out of the engines.' Shortly after 1100, EMDEN was seen to be fast on the North Keeling Island Reef. She lost 134 men killed in action or died of wounds.

By this time we had returned to the Emden, which was flying distress signals, and arrangements had now to be made for the transhipping and receipt of about 80 German wounded.
...
One German surgeon, Dr. Luther, was intact, but he had been unable to do much, and for a short time was a nervous wreck, having, had 24 hours with so many wounded on a battered ship with none of his staff left and very few dressings, lotions and appliances. The state of things on. board the Emden, according to Dr. Ollerhead was truly awful.

Men were lying killed and mutilated in heaps, with large blackened flesh wounds. One man had a horizontal section of the head taken off, exposing mangled brain tissue. The ship was riddled with gaping holes, and it was with difficulty one could walk about the decks, and she was gutted with fire. Some of the men who were brought off to the Sydney presented horrible sights, and by this time the wounds were practically all foul and stinking, and maggots 1/4 inch long, were crawling over them, i.e., only 24 to 30 hours after injury.

Practically nothing had been done to the wounded sailors, ... Some had legs shattered and just hanging; others had shattered forearms ; othes were burnt from head to foot; others had large pieces of flesh torn out of limbs and body. One man was deaf and dumb, several were stone deaf, in addition to other injuries. The worst sight was a poor fellow who had his face literally blown away. His right eye, nose, and most of both cheeks were missing. His mouth and lips were unrecognisable. The tongue, pharynx, and nasal cavity were exposed, part of his lower jaw was left and the soft tissues were severed from the neck under his chin, so that the face really consisted of two curtains of soft tissue hanging loosely front the forehead, with a gap in the centre, like an advanced case of rodent ulcer. In addition, the, wound was stinking and foul with copious discharge. The case was so bad that 1 had no hesitation in giving a large dose of morphia immediately, and after cleaning the wound as well as possible, a large dressing was applied, and he was removed to the fresh air on deck. The odour was appalling and it was some time before the sick bay was clear of it. The patient lingered from four to six hours afterwards in spite of repeated liberal closes of morphia.

Another face injury was almost as bad. Practically the whole right side of the face was completely blown away. His temporal, pterygoid, and maxillary regions were deeply exposed, and temporo-mandibular articulation was entirely removed. One had not time to examine these cases for minute details, but they were very instructive, and showed how hard it is to kill a man with face injury. In addition, the wound was septic and most offensive. I had no hopes for his life when he arrived, but he seemed to struggle on and five days later, on arrival at hospital at Colombo, it seemed likely that he would live. Later news tells us that the patient is doing well and they hope to fit him out with an artificial right half to his face.
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Another face injury was rather severe. He had his right cheek turned down as a flap from the level of the upper lip, in addition the mandible was fractured and a piece of skin, fascia, and muscle the size of a large plate was blown out of the middle of the inferior surface of the left thigh. Later, when we were attending this case, it was suggested to me that the limb be removed. but though there was much destruction of tissue and the wound was very foul, I refused to allow this to be done and after events proved the wisdom of this, as the wound cleaned up and the limb was saved.

There were many cases of severe burns, two of which had head injuries in addition, and died on board. One of these was an engineer, who had suffered from pneumonia for six weeks on board the Emden. Altogether four deaths occurred on board us from among the German wounded. Most of the remaining cases had multiple lacerated shell wounds, with smaller or larger pieces of flesh blown away or penetrating tortuous holes, with metal buried in the tissue. Quite often this metal, was found just under the skin on the opposite side of the limb. Most of the wounds were charred. In one case a large amount of gluteal tissue was taken out in the region of the right anterior superior iliac spine, with fracture of the ileum. This man, in addition had a compound fracture of the right arm and numerous other wounds. A man was very lucky if he had less than three separate shell wounds. He was in a very low condition when we landed him, and it is doubtful if he will live.

In cases where large vessels of the leg or arm had been opened, we found tourniquets of pieces of spun yarn, or a handkerchief, or a piece of cloth bound round the limb above the injury. In some cases, I believe the majority, they had been put on by the patients themselves. One man told me he had put one on his arm himself. They were all in severe pain from the constriction, and in all cases where amputation was required, the presence of these tourniquets made it necessary to amputate much higher than one would otherwise have done, but no doubt their lives had been saved by the tourniquets. There was very little evidence of any skilled treatment before they arrived on board.

Naturally the German surgeon had been very much shaken and handicapped. His station in action was the stokehold, which was uninjured. His assistant surgeon was less fortunate, his station being the tiller flat aft, and when they were badly struck, fire broke out above him, whereupon he went up and was blown overboard, slightly wounded. The steering party remained in the tiller flat and were unhurt. After being blown overboard the surgeon managed to get ashore, and during the night he lay helpless and exhausted, dying of thirst, along with a few others who had also got ashore. After much persuasion he got a sailor to bring him some salt water, of which he drank a large quantity, and straightway became raving mad and died.

Cease fire sounded at 11.15 a.m. after we had been working two solid hours In confined atmosphere, and a temperature of 105 degrees F. The strain had been tremendous, and S.B.S. Mullins who had done wonderfully well with me, started off to faint but a drink of brandy caved him, and likewise myself.

Labels: Australia, Cruiser, Fullbore, Germany

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 05:31

The senior leadership is just lost. Their priorities and party line have no connection to reality. What they are pushing and investing time and effort in has no relation to what the crews are doing onstation, what the Combatant Commanders need, and what our nation wants for the war we are fighting now. Over and over the senior leadership said, "We are a Maritime Force. Tomorrow, no one will care what you do today."

Right now we are fighting a real war with real enemies and real people getting killed; people we should be supporting more. Our crews are doing overhead ISR** but all the senior leadership wants to talk about is Maritime this and that, as if we are doing a dozen on-tops*** on Chinese submarines every day. We can walk and chew gum at the same time, but all they want to do is walk and have everyone hide the gum in their mouth.

They are living a fantasy world and don't want to talk about what is needed now to help us win at war - they are focused on winning the budget battles in 2010 for peace-time issues. They won't even encourage us to talk about the ISR our crews are doing. They tell us to keep quite about it. It is driving me mad.

Labels: Navy

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 19:26

Michael Pillsbury, a former Pentagon official and specialist on China, stated in recent testimony to a congressional commission that China's military has produced public writings advocating "covert deployment of a sophisticated anti-satellite weapon system to be used against the United States in a surprise manner without warning."

"In my view, even a small-scale anti-satellite attack in a crisis against 50 U.S. satellites — assuming a mix of targeted military reconnaissance, navigation satellites and communication satellites — could have a catastrophic effect not only on U.S. military forces, but on the U.S. civilian economy," Mr. Pillsbury said in recent testimony to the U.S. China Economic Security Review Commission.
Mr. Pillsbury called for the Pentagon to establish a dialogue with Chinese military specialists who have written about the anti-satellite weapons, noting that for the past decade the Chinese have refused to give visiting military or defense specialists access to the ASAT weapons developers.

Mr. Pillsbury said tighter U.S. export controls on China might "impede China's potential acquisition of anti-satellite systems."

Labels: Long Game

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:34

While many of the other Europeans seemed to adjust to life in Draguignan with relatively few complaints, many of the English speaking assistants continued to ask each other the same question: why does nothing here work? The bank, the government, the school system, all seemed to be part of a general conspiracy to make our lives as complicated and difficult as possible, and yet the other assistants working at my school (Italian and Spanish) seemed both better able to cope with, and more able to get results from, the reluctant bureaucracies plaguing our daily lives. Many of the things we got worked up about (having to wait a month for a checking account) didn’t seem to phase them: we obviously had radically different expectations about how things should work.

In the South of France, most establishments, including banks, supermarkets, and doctor’s offices are closed for two or three hours during lunch, don’t open at all on Sunday, and often take off Mondays as well. During public holidays (which are frequent) nothing is open except the hospital and one emergency pharmacy. (The exception to this pattern is the schools, which are open all week, including Saturday morning). For those of us coming from such capitalistic countries as the US, this seems illogical and downright lazy. Practicality and efficiency are not valued in France the same way they are in the United States or the UK; having time to spend with one’s family, or relaxing in a café, seems to be more important than putting in a full day’s work. The French don’t see their lifestyle as lazy or incompetent, however. They see it more as an exchange of efficiency for a more agreeable way of life. One French student explained it thus: if you want to work long hours and make money you can go someplace like England (thanks to EU arrangements). If you want to relax and make less money, you can stay in France.

Labels: Europe

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:30

A fire erupted early this morning in a first-in-its-class Navy warship nearing completion at Marinette Marine Corp. in Marinette.

The blaze broke out just before 5:30 a.m. in a berthing area where workers were using welding and grinding equipment, said Marinette Fire Lt. Bill Becker.

It was extinguished in about an hour. "It was a good size fire," Becker said. "I went through six teams of firefighters putting it out."

No injuries were reported. The cause of the fire is under investigation. Fire officials did not immediately release a damage estimate.

The 377-foot ship, named Freedom, is being finished as it floats in the Menominee River.

It is the first-ever littoral combat ship, or LCS. About 80% completed, the combat ship is to be delivered to the Navy next year.

Labels: LCS

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:05

Labels: Democrats

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 20:53

Labels: Australia, New Zealand

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 05:55

In the late summer of 1963, President John Kennedy dispatched two observers to South Vietnam. Their mission was to provide the president an assessment of the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem, the president of the Republic of Vietnam. The first, Major General Victor Krulak, USMC, the special assistant for counterinsurgency for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited some ten locations in all four Corps areas of Vietnam. Based on extensive interviews with U.S. advisers to the South Vietnamese army, Krulak concluded that the war was going well.

The second observer was Joseph Mendenhall of the State Department, who had been recommended to the president by Averell Harriman and Roger Hilsman. Mendenhall, like Harriman and Hilsman a longtime advocate of replacing Diem, visited three South Vietnamese cities where he spoke primarily to opponents of the South Vietnamese president. Unsurprisingly, he concluded in his report that if Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu remained in power, the Diem government was certain to fall to the Viet Cong, or the country would descend into religious civil war.

Both Krulak and Mendenhall briefed Kennedy on September 10. So diametrically opposed were their conclusions that the president quipped, "The two of you did visit the same country, didn't you?"

After reading Mark Moyar's remarkable new book, Triumph Forsaken, readers accustomed to the "orthodox" view of the Vietnam war--entrenched in the academy and the press for decades--will no doubt have the same sort of "Kennedy moment." Could Moyar possibly be writing about the same war that is described (in the orthodox view) as, at best, a strategic error and, at worst, a brutal imperialist war of aggression--in any case, a tragic mistake?

...many American reporters relied on a Vietnamese journalist named Pham Xuan An, a Reuters stringer later revealed to be a Communist agent whose very mission was to influence the American press. As journalists such as Stanley Karnow later admitted, Pham was very good at his job.

Sheehan and Halberstam, in turn, greatly influenced the new U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam, Henry Cabot Lodge, against Diem.
...
If there is a villain in Moyar's account, it is Lodge. Influenced by American journalists, he saw Diem as an intransigent opponent of reform. But it was Lodge who proved to be heavy-handed and closed-minded, vices that led him to support the ouster of Diem as part of a personal vendetta. Moyar describes Lodge's duplicity: He told the president that he was unable stop the anti-Diem coup, but it was Lodge who instigated it in the first place, in defiance of Kennedy's wishes. In that sense, Kennedy was hoist on his own petard: He had sought to neutralize Lodge, a likely 1964 Republican presidential candidate, by sending him to Saigon; but when evidence of Lodge's dupli city became clear, Kennedy did not replace him for fear that Lodge would turn his ouster into a campaign issue.

It is generally accepted, even by orthodox chroniclers, that the coup and the subsequent assassination of Diem and Nhu were mistakes of the greatest magnitude. Ho Chi Minh understood the coup's import immediately: "I can scarcely believe that the Americans could be so stupid," he remarked. The Hanoi Politburo recognized the opportunity that the coup had provided the Communists: "Diem was one of the strongest individuals resisting the people and Communists. Everything that could be done in an attempt to crush the revolution was carried out by Diem. Diem was one of the most competent lackeys of the U.S. imperialists." And indeed, the coup provided the incentive for the Communists to push for a quick victory against the weak South Vietnamese government before the United States intervened.

The basic alternatives for Vietnam are the same now as they were in 1961: they are no different, no more palatable, no less of a nightmare.

First, there is a great deal of talk about the possibility of a neutral Vietnam. But under present conditions this is out of the question . . . The first step toward a neutral Vietnam would undoubtedly be the withdrawal of all U.S. forces in the country and a cutback in American military aid; this would create a vacuum so that the Communists, the only truly organized force in the South, could subvert the country at their leisure . . . There would simply be no force to resist them, and if Hanoi offered us and the South Vietnamese a neutral solution, it would only mean a way of saving face for the United States.

What about withdrawal? Few Americans who have served in Vietnam can stomach this idea. It means that those who committed themselves fully to the United States will suffer the most under a Communist government, while we lucky few with blue passports retire unharmed; it means a drab, lifeless and controlled society for a people who deserve better. Withdrawal also means that the United States’ prestige will be lowered throughout the world, and it means that the pressure of Communism on the rest of Southeast Asia will intensify. Lastly, withdrawal means that throughout the world the enemies of the West will be encouraged to try insurgencies like the one in Vietnam.

Labels: Media, Vietnam War

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 05:39

The brother of a pilot whose hijacked airplane was flown into the World Trade Center in 2001 announced Tuesday he is running for Congress.

Air Force Lt. Col. James Ogonowski is the first Republican to announce his intention to run for the seat of Democrat Rep. Martin Meehan, who is leaving Congress to become chancellor of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.

Ogonowski's brother, John, was one of 92 people killed aboard American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles on Sept. 11, 2001.

Ogonowski, 49, plans to retire from the Air Force next month after a 28-year career. He announced his candidacy at a memorial dedicated to his brother near the house where they grew up in Dracut, in northeast Massachusetts.

Ogonowski describes himself as a fiscal conservative and social moderate.

Two other Republicans are considering a run for Meehan's seat: former NFL defensive lineman Fred Smerlas and Lawrence Mayor Michael Sullivan.

Six Democrats have announced their candidacy, including Niki Tsongas, wife of the late U.S. Sen. Paul Tsongas; Lowell City Councilor Eileen M. Donoghue; and state Rep. Barry Finegold.

Labels: Politics

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 05:29

In my first month as CENTCOM Commander, I have traveled to many countries and met face-to-face with leaders to discuss the situation in the region and to enlist support for our efforts. A number of impressions frame my overall assessment, which is one of guarded optimism.

Our top priority is achieving stability and security in Iraq.
...
Though sectarian interests are working overtime to try to divide them, large numbers of Iraqi people are indicating they are tired of the violence and willing to cooperate with Iraqi and coalition security forces.
In Afghanistan, I believe that the foundation of security and governance is in place. The vast majority of people are in favor of representative government and prosperity, not Taliban brutality, and they are standing up and fighting for their countryʼs future. Capacity of the Afghan Security Forces, particularly the Afghan National Army (ANA), is growing and the ANA is eager and well led.
...
The Iranian regime provides material support to violent extremists in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Palestine. It supplies Shiʼa militia groups in Iraq with training, funding, and weapons, including particularly lethal Improvised Explosive Devices (IED). It also continues to provide money and weapons to Hizballah, which threatens the legitimate government of Lebanon.

Iranʼs most destabilizing activity has been the pursuit of nuclear weapons technology in defiance of the international community, International Atomic Energy Agency, and United Nations Security Council. A nuclear-armed Iran would further threaten regional stability, potentially trigger an arms race, and increase the potential for extremists to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

The Syrian government continues to meddle in Lebanon. Its support for Hizballah is destabilizing the country and it stonewalls the investigation into the Rafik Hariri assassination.

Over the past five years, terrorists, suicide bombers, and foreign fighters have traveled through Syria to attack Iraqi and Coalition forces. The government in Damascus has tolerated the presence and operations of Iraqi Sunni insurgents who have fueled the fighting in Baghdad and elsewhere in the country.

In Lebanon, the government is confronted by opposition groups and violent protests, but the Lebanese Armed Forces are maintaining a fragile order. Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese have stood up publicly against assassination and terror, and for their elected government and a peaceful, prosperous future.
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In the Horn of Africa, Sudan continues to defy the international community and resist the deployment of an effective United Nations peacekeeping force to Darfur.
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The African Union mission to Somalia is unable to provide security beyond its garrisons, resulting in a country vulnerable to the return of al-Qaida and associated movements.
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More than 800,000 people of the region serve in their nationʼ security forces, risking their lives to combat terror. They are casting a powerful vote for hope, and ultimately victory, by fighting, and often dying, to ensure their countries do not succumb to extremism and terror.

As we move forward, our initiatives are organized into five focus areas: setting conditions for stability in Iraq; expanding governance and security in Afghanistan; degrading violent extremist networks and operations; strengthening relationships and influencing states to contribute to regional stability; and posturing the force to build and sustain joint and combined war fighting capabilities and readiness.
...
With the ongoing surge of Iraqi and U.S. security forces and renewed interagency commitment, I believe we can establish greater security in support of the emerging Iraqi political process. The surge of additional military forces into Baghdad in Operation Fardh al-Qanoon (Law and Order) has disrupted extremist elements, at least temporarily reduced ethnic violence, and has been welcomed by the majority of the cityʼs people.
...
That said, I recognize that we have a limited opportunity in which to capitalize on the potential offered by the surge.

There is a general sense of optimism and determination among the Afghan leaders and people. They regularly voice their appreciation for our assistance, and believe things have improved since last year. We must help them succeed.

"The Long War," a phrase coined by former U.S. Central Command chief John Abizaid to convey the time needed to defeat the religious extremism fueling al-Qaida, has been jettisoned by his successor, Adm. William Fallon.

Fallon, who replaced Abizaid as Centcom's top officer March 16, considered the term inconsistent with the goal of reducing the U.S. military presence in the Middle East, according to the command.

Fallon wants the focus to be on curbing the violence in Iraq and shifting responsibility for the country's internal security to the Iraqis.

Referring to the broader battle as a lengthy ideological conflict distracted from the more immediate benchmarks and suggested there was no plan to leave the region, said Marine Corps Lt. Col. Matt McLaughlin, a command spokesman.

"The change in vernacular is a product of our ongoing effort to use language that describes the conflict for our western audience while understanding the cultural implications of how that language is construed in the Middle East," McLaughlin wrote in an e-mail.

"In this case, the idea that we are going to be involved in a 'Long War,' at the current level of operations, is not likely and unhelpful," McLaughlin said. "We remain committed to our friends and allies in the region and to countering al-Qaida inspired extremism where it manifests itself. But one of our goals is to lessen our presence over time, [and] we didn't feel that the term 'Long War' captured this nuance."

Labels: Long War

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 05:20

Labels: Democrats, Iraq

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 22:49

The next thing I know here comes a fire ball out of the overhead and it blows me and the other guys that were chained together through our EAB’s into the crews mess. I remember thinking that those guys are all dead the fireball rolled right over their backs and didn’t do the damage that it could have. By now though we cant see a thing in the midships compartment. It is completely black. We lost comms a few minutes later and we could feel the flames rushing across the battery well under our feet. The next thing that I remember was someone passing the word to abandon ship.

Labels: Submarine

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 20:25

Sen. Patrick Leahy last week put a hold on $55.2 million in military aid to Colombia, citing the increasing number of reports of collaboration between Colombian officials and right-wing paramilitaries. The scandal, widely called "para-politics," has rattled Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's government, hurting the president both in Colombia and in the United States.
...
The incidents of collaboration with paramilitaries, including the one involving Gen. Montoya, took place in 2002, the year Mr. Uribe was elected. (Several of the legislators at the time were not even Uribe supporters.) And although "para-politics" may taint Mr. Uribe's government, it doesn't change the fact that Colombia is safer, more peaceful and on a better path since 2002. Murders have been on a substantial and fairly steady decline. Mr. Uribe quickly made good on his promises to go after the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), guerrillas that at one point had amassed some 20,000 soldiers. By increasing the size of Colombia's security forces, Mr. Uribe was able to weaken FARC, particularly in central Colombia, and was also able to negotiate the deal with the paramilitaries.
...
Democrats, Mr. Leahy included, have in the past been critical of U.S. aid to Colombia, so it's a little surprising that he now would put a hold on military assistance. This is clearly a mistake. U.S. aid is essential for Colombia to secure the progress that has been made -- progress that represents a small success story in Latin America. Democrats would be wrong to undermine U.S. support now.

Labels: Colombia, Democrats, Latin America

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 18:28

Labels: Democrats, Iraq

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:28

Nine U.S. soldiers were killed and 20 wounded Monday in a suicide car bombing against a patrol base northeast of the capital in Diyala province, a volatile area that has been the site of fierce fighting, the military said.

The attack came on a day when insurgents struck across Iraq, carrying out seven other bombings that killed at least 48 people.

Of the 20 wounded in the attack on Task Force Lightning in Diyala, 15 soldiers were treated and returned to duty while five others were evacuated to a medical facility for further care, the military said. An Iraqi civilian was also wounded.

Identities were not released pending notification of relatives.

Labels: Media

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 23:03

Labels: Clinton

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:33

Imam Fouad ElBayly, president of the Johnstown Islamic Center, was among those who objected to Hirsi Ali’s appearance.

“She has been identified as one who has defamed the faith. If you come into the faith, you must abide by the laws, and when you decide to defame it deliberately, the sentence is death,” said ElBayly, who came to the U.S. from Egypt in 1976. ...

Although ElBayly believes a death sentence is warranted for Hirsi Ali, he stressed that America is not the jurisdiction where such a crime should be punished. Instead, Hirsi Ali should be judged in a Muslim country after being given a trial, he added.

“If it is found that a person is mentally unstable, or a child or disabled, there should be no punishment,” he said. “It’s a very merciful religion if you try to understand it.”

Labels: Ayaan, Islam

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:21

Labels: Culture Wars, Guns

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:17

Iran thinks they won. They are right.

Labels: Britain, Iran

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 05:33

Labels: Cartoon, Democrats, Iraq

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 00:19

Labels: Germany, Humor

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:39

"Either we will become heroes or we will be court-martialled. Let's just do our duty for our country."

The total German naval attack comprised 1 heavy, 1 armoured and 1 light cruiser, 14 destroyers, 14 torpedo boats and miners and 41 freighters and tankers.

Hitler's planned to take the Norwegians by surprise and forcing them to surrender within hours (like he did in Denmark). But the first surprise he encountered was when the pride of his Navy, the brand new heavy cruiser "Blücher" - that was to spearhead the surprise attack on the nation's capital - at 4 AM, at full speed, no lights.

The heavy cruiser Blücher now moved slowly with darkened lanterns towards the old fortress built in 1847, obviously believing they could just sneak past. Erichsen stood at the main battery with his men to demonstrate that he as the boss was in the front line. As the German ships appeared from the darkness and morning fog, the loomed like giants ahead. A nervous, newly graduated lieutenant fiddled with the range finder and reported, "Distance 3,000 meter". "Nonsense!", Erichsen grumbled and shouted, "Distance 1,200 meter - Gun no. 1, Fire!" He never calculated to get off more than two shots with the museum-aged guns and his untrained men (some of them were the cooks!), so he had to get a hit!

By sheer luck, the first 28-cm shell hit the Blücher's forward gunnery control station, effectively disabling the ship's forward guns. The second main battery round hit the aircraft hangar, destroying the ship's Arado Ar 196 reconnaissance seaplanes and igniting aviation fuel and infantry munitions stored on deck. There was only time for the main battery to fire these two rounds, due to their slow reload time. After losing its fire control system the Blücher was rendered unable to effectively respond to the fortress' bombardment. Blucher's main 20,3 cm guns never opened fire.

While fire was raging aboard the Blücher, the secondary Norwegian coastal batteries pelted her with guns ranging in calibre from the two small 57 millimetre pieces at Husvik, designed to protect the fortress' missing naval mine barrier, to the three 15-cm guns of the Kopås battery on the eastern side of the fjord. The larger guns wrought havoc on board the cruiser while the 57-mm guns were successful in suppressing the fire from her light artillery as the Blücher slowly slid past the fortress. All in all thirteen 15-cm rounds and about thirty 57-mm shells hit the German cruiser as it passed the guns of the fortress' secondary batteries.

After passing the line of fire of the fortress' gun batteries the cruiser was burning and severely damaged, but its captain still had hope of being able to save his ship. At this point, however, the Blücher entered the sights of Kommandørkaptein Anderssen and two of his three torpedo tubes at a range of only 500 meters. The torpedoes the retired officer was aiming at the pride of the Kriegsmarine were 40-year-old Whitehead weapons of Austro-Hungarian manufacture. These torpedoes had been practice-launched well over 200 times before being fired in anger, and no-one was certain if they would function or not. As Kommandørkaptein Anderssen pushed the firing mechanism the weapons showed themselves to work perfectly, first one and then another torpedo raced out of their tube at three meters below the surface towards the ghastly-looking burning warship. The first torpedo hit near the Blücher's forward (Anton) turret, and the second in the engine room, leaving her drifting out of control in the narrow fjord. The third torpedo tube was left loaded in case more ships were to follow close behind Blücher. After firing the two other tubes were reloaded and readied for the next target.

With all engines knocked out by the second torpedo hit, the cruiser anchored near the Askholmene islets to try and fight the ferocious fires raging throughout the vessel. The Blücher's torpedoes were also fired against land to avoid them being brought to explosion by the uncontrolled fires aboard. The crew's struggle would still prove hopeless when the fires reached the midship ammunition hold for the 15-cm guns and a huge gap appeared in the ship's side.

At 06:22 a.m. the Blücher sank bow first into the depths of the Oslofjord, taking hundreds with it below. After the ship had disappeared from the surface large quantities of oil floated up and covered the close to two thousand sailors and soldiers fighting for their lives in the freezing water. This oil rapidly caught fire, killing further hundreds of Germans.

All in all, some 800–1000 Germans died, going down with the ship or burning or freezing to death in the fjord.

While the Blücher had been sunk the remaining naval force destined for Oslo had long since turned around and retreated back down the fjord. Not knowing of the torpedo battery, the commander of the Lützow assumed the flagship had hit mines and at 04:40 decided to turn back and land the invasion forces out of range of Oscarsborg.

Before the force made its escape the fortress had managed to damage the Lützow,the 15-cm guns of the Kopås battery scoring three hits and knocking out the ship's forward ("Anton") 28-cm gun turret. After pulling out of range of the fortress guns the Lützow employed her remaining "Bruno" turret to bombard the defenders from a range of 9-10 kilometers down the fjord. The fortress was also subjected to heavy Luftwaffe bombing later on the same day, to which the fortress could only reply with two 40-mm AA guns, but again without Norwegian casualties. One of the anti-aircraft guns became unserviceable after only 22 rounds; the other gun kept up its fire until 1200 hrs, but to little effect. After a break in the attacks the Luftwaffe bombers returned at 1330 hrs and soon strafed the remaining Norwegian AA gun, forcing the crew to seek shelter in the nearby forrest at around 1400 hrs. In all, the fortress was subjected to around nine hours of air attack.

Although the naval attack on Oslo had been thwarted by the actions of Oscarsborg, the city was seized by forces that was airlifted in to Fornebu Airport. In light of the capture of the capital, and with news of German landings at the village of Son south of Drøbak, Colonel Eriksen decided that further fighting without adequate infantry support was in vain. The fortress was surrendered intact on the morning of April 10.

The effect of halting the German fleet was huge. On board Blücher were troops specially designated to capture the King, the Norwegian government, the Storting (Norwegian Parliament) and the national gold reserve. The delay made it possible for all these to escape from Oslo. If the King and government had been captured, it is most likely that Norway would have capitulated fairly soon to reach a deal with the German similar to that gained by the Danes. Instead, the Storting was able to convene at Elverum and give the government a wide authorization to continue until a Storting could again assemble. In fact, the Norwegian government was able to continue the defense of Norway until it had to go into exile in London.

Labels: Fullbore, Germany, Norway, WWII

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:23

"I believe ... that this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week," Reid said,

Labels: Iraq, Senate

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 23:43

The gunman entered wordlessly and began shooting. Students scattered to get as far away from the door as possible. One bullet hit Partahi "Mora" Lumbantoruan, an Indonesian doctoral student. His body fell on top of fellow graduate student Guillermo Colman. Then the shooter aimed his two guns around the room, picking off people one by one before leaving. Colman, protected by his classmate's prone body, was one of only four in the room to survive.
...
the door opened and a shooter stepped in. He was holding guns in both hands. Bishop was hit first, a bullet slicing into the side of his head. All the students saw it, an unbelievable horror. The gunman had a serious but calm look on his face. Almost no expression. He stood in the front and kept firing, barely moving. People scrambled out of the line of fire. Trey Perkins knocked over a couple of desks and tried to take cover. No way I can survive this, he thought. His mind raced to his mother and what she would go through when she heard he was dead. Shouts, cries, sobs, more shots, maybe 30 in all. Someone threw up. There was blood everywhere. It took about a minute and a half, and then the gunman left the room.
...
The first thing Violand saw was a gun, then the gunman. "I quickly dove under a desk," he recalled. "That was the desk I chose to die under."

He listened as the gunman began "methodically and calmly" shooting people. "It sounded rhythmic-like. He took his time between each shot and kept up the pace, moving from person to person." After every shot, Violand thought, "Okay, the next one is me." But shot after shot, and he felt nothing. He played dead.

"The room was silent except for the haunting sound of moans, some quiet crying, and someone muttering: 'It's okay. It's going to be okay. They will be here soon,' " he recalled. The gunman circled again and seemed to be unloading a second round into the wounded. Violand thought he heard the gunman reload three times. He could not hold back odd thoughts: "I wonder what a gun wound feels like. I hope it doesn't hurt. I wonder if I'll die slow or fast." He made eye contact with a girl, also still alive. They stared at each other until the gunman left.
...
Cheng and a female student went to the door and peered out. They saw a man emerge from a room across the hall. He was holding a gun, but it was pointed down. They quickly shut the door. More popping sounds, getting louder, closer. The class was in a panic. One student, Zach Petkowicz, was near the lectern "cowering behind it," he would later say, when he realized that the door was vulnerable. There was a heavy rectangular table in the class, and he and two other students pushed it against the door. No sooner had they fixed it in place than someone pushed hard from the outside. It was the gunman. He forced it open about six inches, but no farther. Petkowicz and his classmates pushed back, not letting up. The gunman fired two shots through the door. One hit the lectern and sent wood scraps and metal flying. Neither hit any of the students. They could hear a clip dropping, the distinct, awful sound of reloading. And, again, the gunman moved on.
...
Webster ducked to the floor and tucked himself into a ball. He shut his eyes and listened as the gunman walked to the back of the classroom. Two other students were huddled by the wall. He shot a girl, and she cried out. Now the shooter was three feet away, pointing his gun right at Webster.

"I felt something hit my head, but I was still conscious," Webster recalled. The bullet had grazed his hairline, then ricocheted through his upper right arm. He played dead. "I lay there and let him think he had done his job. I wasn't moving at all, hoping he wouldn't come back." The gunman left the room as suddenly as he had come in.

When Webster opened his eyes, he saw blood everywhere. Some of it was his, though he didn't realize it until he saw blood pouring out the sleeve of his sweat shirt. The girl nearby was unable to speak, only moaning. Blood seeped from her mouth.

Professor Librescu's class, seems to have been the gunman's last stop on the second floor. The teacher and his dozen students had heard too much, though they had not seen anything yet. They had heard a girl's piercing scream in the hallway. They had heard the pops and more pops. By the time the gunman reached the room, many of the students were on the window ledge. There was grass below, not concrete, and even some shrubs. The old professor was at the door, which would not lock, pushing against it, when the gunman pushed from the other side. Some of the students jumped, others prepared to jump until Librescu could hold the door no longer and the gunman forced his way inside.

Matt Webster, a 23-year-old engineering student from Smithfield, Va., was one of four students inside when the gunman appeared. "He was decked out like he was going to war," Webster recalled. "Black vest, extra ammunition clips, everything." Again, his look was blank, just a stare, no expression, as he started shooting. The first shot hit Librescu in the head, killing him.

Kevin Granata had heard the commotion in his third-floor office and ran downstairs. He was a military veteran, very protective of his students. He was gunned down trying to confront the shooter.

Labels: Culture Wars, Hereos

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 22:42

At an outdoor rally just days before the French are to cast their ballots for president, Ségolène Royal, the Socialist candidate, came with a special message.

"I want to address myself to the women," Royal declared in the town of Achicourt in northern France on Sunday. "I need the women's vote."

She called on women to write "a new page in the history of France" by making her the first country's female president. "The entire world is watching you," she told them.

While Royal's plea is revolutionary, it could backfire. The wooing of women voters as women is alien to republican France, where all citizens - and voters - are supposed to be treated as equals and where gender, race, ethnicity and religion are supposed to be ignored.
...
"The female wage-earner is today's proletariat," she said, as she denounced profit-making enterprises for cutting rather than creating jobs.

Labels: France

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 22:36

It would seem that the Canadian Forces are taking some of the lessons re-learned during Operation Medusa in Afghanistan to heart. Canada's DND:

"The heavily protected direct fire capability of a main battle tank is an invaluable tool in the arsenal of any military. The intensity of recent conflicts in Central Asia and the Middle East has shown western militaries that tanks provide protection that cannot be matched by more lightly armoured wheeled vehicles.... [Canada's existing Leopard C2/1A5] tanks have also provided the Canadian Forces (CF) with the capability to travel to locations that would otherwise be inaccessible to wheeled light armoured vehicles, including Taliban defensive positions."

In October 2003, Canada was set to buy the Styker/LAV-III 105mm Mobile Gun System to replace its Leopard C2 tanks. In the end, however, the lessons of war have taken Canada down a very different path - one that now has them renewing the very tank fleet they were once intent on scrapping, and backing away from the wheeled vehicles that were once the cornerstone of the Canadian Army's transformation plan. And so it goes...

As noted above, existing Leopard 1A5-CAN tanks (designated C2) have been a welcome addition to the fighting in Afghanistan, and their MEXAS ceramic-composite armor kits and combat engineering attachments increase their versatility. Canada's LAV-III wheeled armored personnel carriers have played useful roles, using their sensor suites and 25mm autocannon in road overwatch and patrols. The Panjwaii district's mud-brick compounds and its irrigation ditches, however, presented the LAV-IIIs with limits they could not easily overcome - and would have done the same for the LAV-III/Stryker MGS systems, had Canada gone ahead with that purchase.

Canadian sources tell DID that in addition to direct fire support from the Leopard C2s' 105mm gun, the tanks' heft and traction are equally significant because they can crumble low-lying brick walls by using front-mounted engineering attachments like dozer blades - or just their own weight. This clears a path for other forces, and allows the tanks to continue moving forward and providing fire support.

Labels: Army, ASW, Navy

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:37

Sail Virginia 2007, a celebration of tall ships and local history, is more than two months out, yet it already rivals anything the Norfolk waterfront has seen in decades.

Twenty-five tall ships from as far away as the Netherlands and India will sail to Norfolk - more than double the 12 ships that visited for OpSail in 2000. Organizers said they will end up with as many as 50 ships in all, including military and other vessels.

Placed end to end, the tall ships alone will stretch the length of more than 10 football fields.

"It's by far the largest production that we've undertaken," said Karen Scherberger, Festevents' executive director.

Preparations began nearly a decade ago and are now climaxing for the $4 million extravaganza June 7 through 12. Organizers are recruiting hundreds of actors and volunteers, working to construct a Colonial village, and arranging new moorings for the visiting tall ships and a warm welcome for their international crews.

The event marks the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown and will be held in conjunction with the traditional, three-day Harborfest.

Labels: Tall Ships

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:49

Labels: Clinton, Politics

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:13

"When I first came to Iraq," I told one of the reporters in the press room today, "my thinking was very cut and dried -- that we needed to withdraw American troops from here immediately, like, next week. But now that I've been here for a while, I've come to realize that the situation here is a lot more complex." It is VERY complex. It's time for me to sit down and really think about this. Should U.S. troops stay in Iraq? Or should they leave? At this point, it seems pretty much like a coin toss to me.

One U.S. soldier I talked to said, "I think that the situation here in Iraq is very similar to back when the mob ruled Chicago in the 1930s and the Untouchables had to go in and clean up the town. We can't leave here until we've cleaned the place up."

And another soldier I talked with agreed. "I wouldn't be here if I didn't believe in this mission. We just can't leave right now. There'd be a bloodbath."

So I got to thinking that maybe it IS a good thing for American troops to stay here. But then I got a wake-up-call from my friend Angela. "Jane, did any of the soldiers you talked to ever ask you about what is going on in the rest of the world and why everyone -- besides Bush and the neo-cons -- wants the Americans out of Iraq? And what about torture and all? Was anyone willing to comment on that? What about the more than one million dead Iraqis -- any comment there? And what about the two million who have left the country and fled?" Good grief! I forgot about that. Am I being brainwashed over here? Am I being lured into accepting the Bush version of the occupation by all that fabulous food served at the DFac?

I need to be fair and balanced! I need to interview an Insurgent! "What are my chances of getting an interview with The Other Side?" I asked a fellow reporter.

"Just about zero. Unless you are willing to tie yourself to a stake in the Red Zone and wait to get kidnapped...." Hummm. Exactly how far am I willing to go for a story?

"What about if I go out interview an insurgent out at Abu Ghraib?"

"You wouldn't even be able to get near the place." So I settled for taking a spin around the block in a Humvee. Those things are so cool. When you are behind the wheel of one of those puppies, NOBODY gets in your way!

When I got back from joy-riding, I talked with a journalist who had been kidnapped by Islamic fundamentalist extremists about a year ago and he said, "Basically those guys are psychopaths and will kill anyone who gets in their way -- Muslim or non-Muslim."

"What makes them like that?" I wondered.

"Many of them, like Saddam Hussein himself, grew up in the streets, practically feral. These guys don't want to TALK to anyone. They don't want to negotiate. Basically, they really just don't care." And we want to leave and abandon Iraq to these guys? I think not.

Labels: Iraq

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:57

Labels: Humor

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:21

Well, John Edwards' campaign for president spent $400 on February 20, and another $400 on March 7, at a top Beverly Hills men's stylist, Torrenueva Hair Designs.
...
Edwards' campaign also spent money at two spas: Designworks Salon in Dubuque, and Pink Sapphire in Manchester.

Labels: Edwards, Politics

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:20

...John Lucas, who works with a Virginia law firm, emails that Va. Tech is a "gun-free zone." Well, for those who follow the law. There was an effort to change that but it failed: "A bill that would have given college students and employees the right to carry handguns on campus died with nary a shot being fired in the General Assembly." That's unfortunate. Had the bill passed, things might have turned out differently, though we'll never know now.

Dear Michelle,

I was in Norris Hall today when the shootings took place. I thought I'd give you my account in case you wanted more information.

It was just a regular day in class; the door was open and we heard a pop-pop-popping noise. Sounded like some kind of construction but it was getting disruptive so we went to close the door, and one of the girls stepped out in the hallway to see what it was. She saw the gun and ran back inside the room and slammed the door shut and we all got down on the floor.

We heard pretty much continuous shooting for the next minute or so, and I said, "Shouldn't we barricade the door," because we were sitting ducks with no way out inside that room if he opened the door. A couple more people floated the idea that "We need to barricade the door, NOW." But I was too scared to even move, much less move the teacher's desk.

Finally one of the guys in the front of the classroom was brave enough to get up and move the desk in front of the door to prevent outside entry. About twenty seconds later, the shooter rattled the doorknob trying to get in. When he couldn't get in he fired two shots through the door (single solid piece of wood) and left. We heard him go in to 206 (the room across the hall) and shoot the people in that room. If we hadn't put the barricade up when we did, I and all my classmates would be dead.

After two armed southwest Virginia law students stopped a campus shooting rampage in January, a Second Amendment group at a northern Virginia law school decided it was time to change their own school's ban on guns.

"We are trying to build a detailed and persuasive brief that would include statistics on increases in safety, decreases in violent crime when you do have concealed carry permit holders in a jurisdiction," said Orest J. Jowyk, president of the Second Amendment group at George Mason University School of Law.

"I think the middle ground is to allow concealed handgun permit holders to carry just like they can anywhere else in Virginia," he said. "You provide extra safety to the student body that way."

Jowyk began researching his law school's gun policy following the January incident in which a disgruntled student at Appalachian Law School, Peter Odighizuwa, allegedly shot and killed the school's dean, a professor and a student on campus before being subdued by two armed students, Mikael Gross and Tracy Bridges.

Gross and Bridges reportedly ran to their cars to fetch their own guns and returned to confront Odighizuwa, who surrendered after allegedly initiating a fistfight.

Labels: Culture Wars, Education, Media

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 16:09

“I’m sure the people involved in this have been just brilliant about it and I’m being cynical,” said the naval analyst. “I could be wrong. But I’ve got to tell you, you take underwater damage with a hull like that and bad things will happen.”

The senior surface warfare officer noted numerous discussions among other surface warfare officers about the somewhat dismal history of tumblehome ships.

The shape was popular among French naval designers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and a number of French and Russian battleships — short and fat, without any wave-piercing characteristics — were put into service. But several Russian battleships sank after being damaged by gunfire from Japanese ships in 1904 at the Battle of Tsushima, and a French battleship sank in 90 seconds after hitting a mine in World War I. All sank with serious loss of life. Both the French and Russians eventually dropped the hull form.

“The Navy has tended almost subconsciously to believe that they might not get hit,” he said. “But getting hit there is just real bad. You have to figure that some of the ships are going to take hits.”
The Zumwalt’s designers have developed a new automated fire-fighting system, a critical need in a ship with a crew of only 125 sailors. But fighting floods is more difficult without muscle power, and that worries surface officers.

Moreover, the naval analyst said, with automated damage control, “a lot depends on how your software is written. That means if your stability goes wrong at the wrong time and you find out you’ve got a software problem, you begin to submerge.”

The prospect of a new cruiser has reignited a debate over the need for stealth itself.

“There’s no requirement for stealth,” said a retired senior line officer. “If you’re operating a million-watt radar, the question might be: Why invest in this hull in the first place? And why suffer the peril of an inherently instable hull form?”

The naval analyst scoffed at the stealth requirement. “They’ve gone to enormous lengths in order to be stealthy. And there are serious problems with that. It’s not clear that that’s going to work,” he said. “Stealth was BS to start with and is still BS.”

Critics point out that even if a stealth design is initially successful, some form of counter inevitably will be found.

“They’re not invulnerable, not undetectable,” Brower said. “In a quasi-peacetime environment, they can be detected by anyone with a Piper Cub and a pair of binoculars and a Fuzz Buster.”

Labels: DDG-1000

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:25

Labels: Islam, Religion

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:13

Labels: Humor

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 23:42

Labels: Afghanistan, Iraq

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 23:29

Although the singing sensation has been invited to perform for record company bosses in America she is determined to stay in the UK.

She told The Times: "I prefer the pace of life in Brighton or in Burnham-on-Crouch."

Commenting on her chart-topping success, Oliver Schusser, director of iTunes Europe said: "This is an incredible achievement when you consider Kate Walsh is unsigned and still outsold several major international artists."

Miss Walsh has two older brothers, her father John is a policeman and mother Ruth a Secretary.

She said she had the chance to sign with a small independent record label but decided to make the album herself in Mr Bidwell's terraced house home, where he has converted a bedroom into a studio.

Her big break came as a result of iTunes promoting her music online and giving her the "single of the week's spot".

Commenting on the internet phenomenon where unknown artists can become stars overnight, she said: "It's amazing. It's great news for all the people who can have the confidence to go out there and do it themselves.

"You don't need loads of money to make an album and they don't need the backing of a record label. There's no advertising or marketing involved, you don't go on how much money has been spent."
...
The homemade album has proved a unexpected hit with iPod fans who had downloaded it from the iTunes website in their thousands - knocking Take That and Kaiser Chiefs from the top spots.
...
The classically trained pianist from Brighton said she built up a fan base by putting her music onto her MySpace page and eventually persuaded iTunes to sell it.

Miss Walsh said she her songs were inspired by Burnham-on-Crouch in Essex, a seaside town where she grew up and still has family.

She added: "I was a classical pianist until the age of 18. I never thought I could have a career as a female singersongwriter.

Labels: Music

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 20:10

Labels: Afghanistan

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 21:56

Labels: Marines

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:35

DA NANG, Vietnam (AP) - "MIG coming! MIG coming!" yelled the lookout and seconds later the after deck of the destroyer Higbee was aflame. The North Vietnamese jet dropped a 250 pound bomb onto the deck of the destroyer, wounding four seamen and destroying a gun mount that housed two 5 inch guns.

The U.S. Command said at least three enemy jets attacked an American task force in the Tonkin Gulf off the coast of North Vietnam late Wednesday afternoon. The command said one of the planes was shot down, two enemy torpedo boats were believed sunk and shrapnel from shore battery fire caused minor damage on the cruiser Oklahoma City, the flagship of the 7th Fleet.

Capt. Ronald Zuilkoski, skipper of the Higbee, said the MIG attacked his ship at least twice before the bomb hit the deck. "In the first two passes, bombs fell left and right of the ship," he said, "but on the third try one hit the deck and exploded under the mount. She flew so low over the deck that you could see everything."

Luckily the gun mount was empty, the 12 man gun crew having been ordered out while a round stuck in one of the barrels (hang fire) was being hosed down to keep it from exploding. But three men in the ammunition storage compartment under the mount were wounded. Other men pulled them out as the ammunition began to explode. The exploding ammunition ripped open a large section in the Higbee's left side. Flames and clouds of black smoke from leaking oil engulfed the deck as the crew fought the fire.

Another warning sounded: "Missile! Missile homing in!" "We heard the missile warning, but we had to stay with the fire or we would have lost the ship," said Hull Tender 2nd Class John J O'Brien, 40 of Camden, NJ "It was fantastic - everyone worked together. They did what they were trained to do even though too much happened at one time - flames were every where."

John T. Allardyce, 26, another Hull Tender 2nd Class, from Allentown, Pa., was up forward." I felt the bomb hit," he said. "It shook the boat forward and then I heard the call for help from O'Brien's section in the rear." Allardyce said the bomb explosion damaged the water (fire main) system, "but we managed some how to get the thing under control." "The guys really worked together," said Allardyce. "You'd call for one man to come and help and two would show up."

The Higbee entered DA Nang harbor early today. It's after deck looked like a junkyard floating in a pool of dirty oil. It tied up alongside the repair ship Hector and near the destroyer USS Buchanan DDG 14 which the U.S. Command said was damaged by shore fire Monday.

To see a map of the Battle Area click here.

---

THE BATTLE OF DONG HOI - VIET NAM - 19 APRIL 1972

A MIG 17 came out of the mountains, went "feet wet" and passed directly over the USS Sterett It then made a turn up the track of the strike force that included the USS Oklahoma City and Lloyd Thomas DD 764 and dropped two 250 pound iron bombs on the next ship in line the USS Higbee DD 806. Moments before this, the USS Higbee experienced a hot round in her after gun mount. This hang-fire condition forced evacuation of the mount as a precautionary measure. One of the MIG's bombs dropped on the vacated after mount and the other one dropped into the water along side her fantail. Just as the MIG pulled up from her bomb run and banked to starboard toward the safety of the mountains, The USS Sterett achieved a missile "lock-on" and fired two Terrier missiles, one of which downed the MIG. Higbee's steering gear had been damaged by the attack. She encountered no fatalities and damage control teams had the fires quickly under control. USS Sterett stood by, as Higbee fought her fires, completed her turn and proceeded out of the area, still with her rudder inoperative. USS Sterett continued to stand by Higbee. On her own power Higbee headed for DaNang, South Viet Nam, since DaNang was the closest friendly port.

For the more information about the USS Sterett actions on this April day visit the Sterett Home Page at

http://www.sterett.org/battle.htm

Labels: Destroyer, Fullbore, Vietnam War

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:50

The Navy has terminated its contract for the third Littoral Combat Ship because it could not come to terms with builder Lockheed Martin on a modified contract, officials announced Thursday afternoon.

In January the Navy issued a “work-stop” order on LCS 3, as it is known, after a series of steep cost overruns on the first and third ships in the class. The top brass tried to negotiate new terms with Lockheed to control costs, but talks ultimately stalled, said Navy Secretary Donald C. Winter.

“While this is a difficult decision, we recognize that active oversight and strict cost controls in the early years are necessary to ensuring we can deliver these ships to the fleet over the long term,” he said in a statement.

The other two ships in the class, LCS 2 and 4, are a drastically different triple-hull design built by General Dynamics, and are not affected by Winter’s decision.
“General Dynamics’ ships will continue on a cost-plus basis as long as its costs remain defined and manageable. If the cost performance becomes unacceptable, then General Dynamics will be subject to similar restructuring requirements,” the Navy announcement said.

Labels: LCS, Shipbuilding

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 21:38

Labels: C.A.I.R., Sestak

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:29

Seaman Batchelor's claim that he cried himself to sleep after his Iranian captors likened him to the comedy character Mr Bean made him a laughing stock.

One serving soldier posted: "Batchelor didn't do the reputation of servicemen much good either! Being broken by being called Mr Bean FFS! - that must be on a par with Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition and the comfy cushions."

Comments left on unofficial forces' websites, the Rum Ration and the British Army Rumour Service laid into Ms Turney and Mr Batchelor.

Another servicemen says of Mr Batchelor's complaint that his iPod was stolen by the Iranians: "What I wish to know is why a young lad on a boarding party detail needed to take his iPod? If he listened to The Ride of the Valkyries as he sped towards the target ship, what did he listen to on his trip to Iran?"

In response others on Rum Ration suggest: "Crying by Don McLean, perhaps?, The Beat Surrender, Always Look On The Bright Side Of life? and Onward Christian Soldiers."

Another contributor said of Ms Turney, who sold her story to the Sun: "Made me squirm when she said 'President of Iran gave me a toy doll for my daughter and am keeping it after the bomb disposal experts cleared it'.

"Believe me dear, the Iranians don't need to get any more publicity from blowing up you or anyone else ... you're providing all the publicity for them for free."

Another angry contributor wrote: "They should be expelled from the Armed Forces. Maybe HMS Cornwall could make a series like The Loveboat or be used for Big Brother? The Royal Navy seems intent on becoming a complete laughing-stock."

In his latest interview with the Daily Mirror, Mr Batchelor, the youngest of the 15 sailors, said he saw the money as small compensation and complained he could not afford to buy a car.

"I'm really hurt by all the criticism. People think I'm some kind of millionaire now, dining out on lobster and champagne - but I'm not. The money I've received will simply pay for a few driving lessons. I'm not sure it will cover the cost of an actual test, let alone a car.

"I see the payment more as compensation for spending the time telling the story to reporters when I should have been out with my family and friends. But it was important that the world heard about what I went through."

Ms Turney received an estimated £60,000 for selling the story of her time as a captive to The Sun and Tonight With Trevor MacDonald.

A poll on the Rum Ration website has 92 per cent of members agreeing that Mr Batchelor was "wrong to sell his story". Warmonger posts: "Let's face it irrespective of wherever she (Turney) goes this will hang around her neck like the proverbial albatross for a long time yet to come! Jade Goody would hand back her BB contestant fee for the chance to have her time in the house again.

"The Iranians might be a bunch of s****, but they seem much better at handling the propaganda machine. If the fuss gets any more intense they'll probably wish they were back in their cells."

BTDT posts on the Army Rumour Service: "I see no reason why they should not be allowed to sell their stories. I do, however, believe that they should be required to leave the service first."

...he believed they had behaved with "considerable dignity and a lot of courage" during their time in Iranian hands.
...
"Clearly, whenever things go wrong - and certainly this is not an incident we at all wanted - we will review everything that we normally do," he said. "Was the intelligence correct? We will look at the equipment, we will look at the procedures, we will look at all the things that happened. We certainly wouldn't want this to happen again."

He confirmed that the review would also look at the rules of engagement for UK forces operating in the area, but he rejected suggestions that the crews could have fought back against their captors.

"It is quite clear to me, in the context of the operation that morning, with the force that was shown against them, they made exactly the right decision. I stand by what they did. This was not open combat. This was not an attack on a street. This was doing absolutely legal boarding operations in a legal part of the world where they were illegally acted upon.

"When you are in that situation as Servicemen, you have a situation in front of you, you have rules of engagement, and then you have to make a judgment with respect to the danger of your life of what you do. From what we think we know - and obviously this will be confirmed in the debriefing - I think they acted extremely sensibly."

Labels: Britain

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:24

"I just returned from my fifth visit to Iraq. Unlike the veterans here today, I risked nothing more threatening than a hostile press corps. And my only mission was to inform my opinions with facts. We still face many difficult challenges in Iraq. That is undeniable. But we have also made, in recent weeks, measurable progress in establishing security in Baghdad and fighting al Qaeda in Anbar province. To deny the difficulties and uncertainties ahead is an egregious disservice to the public. But as General Petraeus implements his plan to correct the flawed strategy we followed in the past, and attempts to spare the United States and the world the catastrophe of an American defeat, it is an equal disservice to dismiss early signs of progress. And now we confront a choice as historically important as any we have faced in a long while. Will this nation's elected leaders make the politically hard but strategically vital decision to give General Petraeus our full support and do what is necessary to succeed in Iraq? Or will we decide to take advantage of the public's frustration, accept defeat, and hope that whatever the cost to our security the politics of defeat will work out better for us than our opponents? For my part, I would rather lose a campaign than a war.
...
"It is the right strategy. General Petraeus literally wrote the book on counter insurgency. He is a determined, resourceful and bold commander. Our troops, many of whom have served multiple tours in Iraq, are performing with great skill and bravery. But the hour is late and, despite the developments I just described, we should have no illusion that success is certain. But having been a critic of the way this war was fought and a proponent of the very strategy now being followed, it is my obligation to encourage Americans to give it a chance to succeed. To do otherwise would be contrary to the interests of my country and dishonorable.
...
"I know the pain war causes. I understand the frustration caused by our mistakes in this war. I sympathize with the fatigue of the American people. And I regret sincerely the additional sacrifices imposed on the brave Americans who defend us. But I also know the toll a lost war takes on an army and a country. We, who are willing to support this new strategy, and give General Petraeus the time and support he needs, have chosen a hard road. But it is the right road. It is necessary and just. Democrats, who deny our soldiers the means to prevent an American defeat, have chosen another road. It may appear to be the easier course of action, but it is a much more reckless one, and it does them no credit even if it gives them an advantage in the next election. This is an historic choice, with ramifications for Americans not even born yet. Let's put aside for a moment the small politics of the day. The judgment of history should be the approval we seek, not the temporary favor of the latest public opinion poll.

Labels: Iraq, McCain

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 18:08

Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, an American military spokesman in Baghdad, said that American officers had helped officials in Najaf plan security for the event, but that the Iraqis had taken the lead.
...
“We say that we’re here to support democracy,” Colonel Garver said. “We say that free speech and freedom of assembly are part of that. While we don’t necessarily agree with the message, we agree with their right to say it.”

The colonel declined top give any information on the whereabouts of Mr. Sadr, although American military officials said weeks ago that they believed he was in Iran. Mr. Sadr’s aides declined to say where he was, but previously they have said he was still in Iraq.

Citizens of Iraq assembled in Najaf Monday to conduct a demonstration against the U.S. presence in their country.

Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called for the protest on the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad, when Coalition forces toppled the Saddam Hussein regime.

The number of participants that took part in the event ranged from 5,000 to 7,000, based on aerial photographs, said U.S. Army Col. Steven Boylan, a military spokesman with Multi-National Force-Iraq.

Labels: Iraq

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:24

Labels: Politics

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:06

The Roman Catholic bishop who oversees the armed forces has provoked fury by praising the Iranian leadership for its "forgiveness" and "act of mercy" in freeing the 15 British sailors and marines last week.

Bishop Burns said Iran demonstrated 'faith in a forgiving God'

The Bishop of the Forces, the Rt Rev Tom Burns, said that the religious beliefs of the Iranians had played a large part in their decision to release the hostages after holding them for more than two weeks.

His words were echoed by a leading Anglican figure, the Right Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, who said Iran had acted within the "moral and spiritual tradition of their country" and contrasted this with Britain's "free-floating attitudes".

Labels: Britain, Dhimmi, Religion

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:18

Hawaii is acutely conscious of — you could say hung up on — racial, ethnic and cultural differences.

People in this motley state, less a melting pot than a tossed salad, invented a host of slang terms for themselves. A pidgin English field guide would list buk-buks, pakes, buddaheads, katonks, mokes, titas, popolos, yobos, blalahs, haoles and portagees. These labels can be affectionate or angry, though they are usually used neutrally or with just mild rudeness, often in the kinds of ethnic jokes that passed out of polite favor on the mainland long ago.

Hawaii’s fixation on social taxonomy is also seen in the local habit of linking identity to diploma. The first question locals ask one another is where they went to high school. Implicit in the answer are a lot of assumptions about ethnicity and class, whether the school is Punahou (elite white and Asian), Iolani (elite Japanese), Farrington (working-class Filipino and Samoan) or whatever.

There is, in this crowded paradise, a slot for everybody.Or almost everybody.

For Mr. Obama, fitting in at Punahou could have been hard, given its reputation as a cliquish school dominated since missionary days by the rich white people who founded it. Mr. Obama, a scholarship student, wasn’t rich and didn’t look white.
...
In one sense, he wasn’t alone. Being black isn’t common in Hawaii, but being biracial is. There’s a Hawaiian word for it — hapa, or half — that traditionally refers to combinations of white with Hawaiian or Asian, though many use it for any racial blend. Being hapa is hardly cause for discrimination in mixed-up Hawaii, but it can be problematic. Dwelling on it can tie a person in knots. It can be disorienting to feel forced to choose between identities when you are both and neither. It can be infuriating to be stared at by people trying to puzzle out what you are.

Vexations like these, felt by growing numbers of multiracial Americans, have helped to spur a blossoming of hapa awareness on the mainland. People are trying out the idea of a hapa culture that is greater than the sum of its parts. There are hapa conferences, hapa college clubs and hapa Web sites. More and more people consider the pursuit of hapaness to be the answer to the paradox of bifurcation. Certainly, it is powerful evidence of the irrepressible yearning for identity. So is Mr. Obama’s story, his restless searching for a solace that Hawaii could not offer.

I asked him recently about that search. He described a long process of pulling together the parts of his life before finding a skin he could live in. The multitudes that he contains — Kenya, Kansas, Hawaii, Indonesia, Harvard, Illinois — could have been arranged in infinite ways. But he settled in long ago as an African-American in Chicago, a professor turned politician in one of the most segregated cities in America.

The first thing he asked me was what high school I had gone to.

Labels: Obama

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:14

Elizabeth Edwards says she is scared of the "rabid, rabid Republican" who owns property across the street from her Orange County home...

Edwards views Johnson as a "rabid, rabid Republican" who refuses to clean up his "slummy" property just to spite her family, whose lavish 28,000-square-foot estate is nearby on 102 wooded acres.
Johnson, 55, acknowledges his Republican roots. But he takes offense to the suggestion he has purposefully left his property, including an old garage he leases for use as a car shop, in dilapidated condition.

Johnson said he has lived his entire life on the property, which he said his family purchased before the Great Depression. He said he's spent a lot of money to try and fix up the 42-acre tract.

"I have to budget. I have to live within my means," Johnson said. "I don't have millions of dollars to fix the place."

Johnson, who has posted a "Go Rudy Giuliani 2008" sign on a fence just 100 feet from the entrance to the Edwards' driveway, has criticized Edwards for the scale of their nearby home. The property and home, which includes an indoor basketball court, an indoor handball court and an indoor pool, is valued at $5.3 million.

The Edwardses are still putting the final touches on the property, which they purchased in 2003.

"I thought he was supposed to be for the poor people," Johnson said. "But does he ever socialize with any poor people? He doesn't speak to me."Johnson said he has put his property on the market, in part blaming the high property taxes for his decision to leave. He also wants to move for another reason.

"I don't want to live somewhere where someone's always complaining about me," he said.

Labels: Edwards, Politics

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:10

As Britain's returning "heroes" are selling their stories for six-figure sums (in dollars), here's one who can't get a look-in:

Private Johnson Beharry's courage in rescuing an ambushed foot patrol then, in a second act, saving his vehicle's crew despite his own terrible injuries earned him a Victoria Cross.

For the BBC,however, his story is "too positive" about the conflict.

The corporation has cancelled the commission for a 90-minute drama about Britain's youngest surviving Victoria Cross hero because it feared it would alienate members of the audience opposed to the war in Iraq.

Well, it was a very exciting idea. About two, two and a half years ago, the CPB, as it calls itself, put out requests for proposals from 440 filmmakers, came up with ideas. We, working with Martin Burke, my other colleague, Alex Alexiev, helped put together the proposal. It was 35 out of 440 that was deemed meritorious enough to get a research and development grant. It was then down selected further, to be just one of twenty films that received a very substantial grant to actually make the movie. And at every step along the way, there was a rigorous competition, there was an opportunity for, you know, other films to go head to head with ours. And in each of these instances, with the help of a very distinguished board of advisors that CPB commissioned, ours was selected, because the story of these anti-Islamist Muslims, these endangered species, was recognized to be so compelling and so powerful, and the filmmaking of Martin Burke so, well, high quality, that we were given the go ahead. And in fact, the CPB at one point said we were going to be one of eight films. It’s now turned out to be one of eleven films that were going to be rolled out on the 15th of April, coming up very shortly. In fact, Robin MacNeil was on the Diane Rehm show, you played that tape earlier, for the purpose of promoting this series of films. Unfortunately, ours is not going to be one of them, as he said, in his own words, because it is alarmist, and extremely one-sided. And I just plead with Pat Harrison, a wonderful woman who runs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and who has been very helpful to us to this point, to help allow us to have the opportunity to show this film on another network, since PBS is not going to do it, as soon as possible, because frankly, it’s very timely. American people need to know about it, and I think frankly, they need to know about it more than they need to know about Robin MacNeil’s vision of Muslims in America, which it turns out, according to his website, he, by the way, got a film as part of this series when he became the moderator, that was not selected as part of the competition. It wasn’t even submitted as part of the competition. It was one of a number of examples, Hugh, of instances in which it appears that the people at PBS were so determined to keep our film from being shown, that they actually commissioned another film outside of the competition to cover some of the same subject matter. But interestingly enough, according to Robin MacNeil, the Muslims in America are the Muslims of the Muslim Student Association, a very well known Wahabi front organization, credited with recruiting terrorists on American college campuses. And that’s the subject of his film, his vision of American Muslims, as opposed to the anti-Islamist Muslims that are featured in ours. And that’s the man who’s deciding, it appears, at least in league with others, deciding as to which of the films is one-sided, or alarmist. And I’m afraid…

HH: Let me give a phone number for Pat Harrison.

FG: May I give you a new number?

HH: Yes, please go ahead.

FG: Because I had a correction on it. 202-879-9600. And again, I hope people will call Pat Harrison, the president of CPB, at 202-879-9600, thank her for allowing this film to be made over the objections of PBS, by the way, and plead with her, please, to see her way clear to ensuring that the American people can see this film on another outlet soon, as I think they deserve to. It’s after all their money that went into making it in the first place.

Labels: Dhimmi, Islam

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:02

Labels: Humor, Obama

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 23:39

Two Marines in their dress uniforms - the ones with white hats, khaki shirts and blue trousers with red stripe - say they were accused of recruiting at a Target department store here and told to leave.

"We weren't recruiting," according to Cpl. Carlos Rodriguez, 22, who said he returned in October from his second combat tour in Iraq. "I just popped in to say hi to a guy I went to high school with. He works there."
...
"I didn't want to make a scene," Rodriguez said. "We were representing Marines anyway just by wearing the uniform, so I kept my mouth shut."

Then, Rodriguez said, "this retired Navy SEAL came up behind us and he said, 'You forget what... country this is,' and he goes off on (the assistant manager) saying, 'You have no right to throw them out of Target just because they are talking to one of your employees.' "

"He got everything out in the open that I was thinking, so I kind of left with a grin," Rodriguez said.

Labels: Culture Wars

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 18:31

Lt Carman said if he told his story it would be to thank the people of Wales for the support they gave him - and if he were offered money, it would probably go to charity.

Felix CARMAN, Lieutenant, Royal Navy
c/o Ministry of Defense
Main Building, Whitehall,
London, SW1A 2HB
United Kingdon

Labels: Britain

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 18:12

By 2010, China's submarine force will be nearly double the size of the U.S. submarine feet The entire Chinese naval fleet is projected to surpass the size of the U.S. fleet by 2015.

This leads to an obvious, final question: What do naval strategic planners in the one continent assume about the future of the world that the planners in the second continent do not? Why is Chinese public television showing programs about the rise of Elizabeth I's navy at the same time that the British Ministry of Defense is mothballing or scrapping warships with names that go back over 400 years?

Armchair strategists will rush in with many answers to that question: For example, that Asia is more likely to see interstate conflicts in the future than Western Europe, China is determined to curb U.S. hegemony in the Pacific and everyone else is scared of China's military build-up, and, in any case, these faster-growing economies can afford both guns and butter. All of that may be true. But the plain fact remains that, in an age of great geopolitical uncertainties, the leading European nations are ignoring the ancient Elizabethan caution: "Look to thy Moat." Can that really be wise?

Jason Ma, “ASW Concept Of Operations Sees ‘Sensor Rich Way Of Fighting Subs,” Inside the Navy, February 7, 2005. A January 2005 article stated: The Navy cannot fight diesel subs with “force on force,” such as sending one sub to defeat another sub, because that is not cost effective, [Rear Admiral John Waickwicz, chief of Fleet Anti-Submarine Warfare Command] told Inside the Navy. For example, the new Virginia-class subs cost about $2 billion each, while advanced diesel subs cost hundreds of millions of dollars each.

Instead of force on force, ASW tactics will emphasize using networked sensors and communications to allow one platform — like a sub, Littoral Combat Ship, or aircraft — to defeat multiple diesel subs, he said. “You have to be able to destroy them at a very large rate, because potential enemies may have a large number” of subs, he explained.

“We don’t have that luxury to go one against one anymore,” he added, noting that individual ASW platforms will rely on their greater capability to take on multiple subs. (Jason Ma, “Admiral: Navy’s ASW Tactics To Be Aggressive And Offense-Minded,” Inside the Navy, January 17, 2005.)

In December 2004, the Navy approved a new concept of operations (CONOPS) a new general approach — to ASW. As described in one article,

The Navy’s new concept of operations for anti-submarine warfare calls for the use of standoff weapons, networked sensor fields and unmanned vehicles to detect and attack diesel submarines in littoral waters, rather than a reliance on “force on force” engagements.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark approved the CONOPS Dec. 20, according to a Navy spokesman. The five-page document will guide the development of a comprehensive ASW master plan that is expected to be classified, though it might have an unclassified version.

The CONOPS envisions hundreds or thousands of small sensors that would “permeate the operating environment, yielding unprecedented situational awareness and highly detailed pictures of the battlespace.” Attack submarines that today carry sensors and weapons could in the future provide logistical support to and serve as command and control bases for off-board sensors and “kill vehicles,” the CONOPS states. The networking of autonomous sensor fields with manned and unmanned vehicles will change ASW from a “platform-intensive” to a “sensor-rich” operation, it adds.

At a June 20, 2005, conference on the future of the Navy organized by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Admiral Vernon Clark, who was the Chief of Naval Operations until July 22, 2005, stated:

[The Chinese are] building submarines at a rapid rate. They’re buying them from other countries. They’re building their own capabilities. And let me just to make a long story short, I published a new ASW concept [of operations] a couple of months ago. I fundamentally don’t believe that the old attrition warfare[,] force on force anti-submarine warfare[,] construct is the right way to go in the 21st century. [The questioner] mentioned that I had spent part of my past life in the submarine warfare business. I have. I trailed the Soviets around. I know what that’s about. And what I really believe is going to happen in the future is that when we apply the netted force construct in anti-submarine warfare, it will change the calculus in that area of warfighting forever. And it will be a courageous commander who decides that he’s going to come waltzing into our network.

As discussed earlier, the Navy plans to shift to a new, less platform-intensive ASW concept of operations. The Navy also plans to introduce new ASW-capable platforms in coming years, including a substantial number of Littoral Combat Ships (LCSs). Fully realizing the new ASW concept of operations, however, may take some time, particularly in light of the technical challenges involved, and LCSs will not be available in large numbers until after 2010. This raises a potential question of whether the Navy will have enough ASW-capable ships and aircraft between now and 2010, and whether the Navy should reactivate recently retired ASW-capable platforms and keep them in service until the new ASW concept is substantially implemented and larger numbers of LCSs and other new ASW-capable platforms join the fleet.

Advocates of this option could argue that the recent retirements of ASW capable platforms occurred before the dimensions of the PLA Navy submarine modernization effort were fully understood. Opponents could argue that even with these recent retirements, the Navy retains a substantial number of such platforms, including SSNs, Aegis cruisers and destroyers, remaining Oliver Hazard Perry (FFG- 7) class frigates, carrier- and surface combatant-based SH-60 helicopters, and remaining P-3s. They could also argue that there are more cost-effective ways to improve the Navy’s ASW capabilities between now and 2010, such as increased ASW training and exercises (see discussion below).

The possibility that the LCS’s AAW system might be overwhelmed or exhausted by attacks from multiple ASCMs raises the question of whether the AAW capability planned for the LCS should be increased. Options for increasing the LCS’s planned AAW capability include, among other things, adding another 21- round RAM launcher or supplementing the currently planned RAM launcher with a battery of Evolved Sea Sparrow (ESSM) missiles. In assessing such options, one factor to consider would be whether installing additional RAMs or ESSMs would require an increase in the planned size and cost of the LCS.

Labels: Long Game

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:31

...the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Jonathon Band, said the way the patrol crew had dealt with their captivity was a credit to the UK.

‘I think they acted with considerable dignity and a lot of courage,’ he said. ‘They appear to have played it by the rules. They don’t appear to have put themselves into danger [or] others into danger … they don’t appear to have given anything away.’

Labels: Britain, Cartoon, Iran

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 00:15

Navy Secretary Donald Winter urged an overhaul of Navy shipbuilding practices Tuesday, saying the current system "is simply not meeting our expectations."
...
"We have to be ready and willing to make some real significant changes," he told reporters at a later news conference.

Labels: Shipbuilding

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:46

USS BUCHANAN first line period in 1972 consisted of 63 continuous days of operation in combat zone off Vietnam

On station off the DMZ March 30, 1972 she was one of the first gunline ships to fire against the North Vietnamese invading force. During those first days of April, BUCHANAN provided gunfire support for evacuation of U.S. Marines at the forward ground observer post, Alpha Two, the defense of Dong Ha and the evacuation of the Vietnamese Naval Base.

On the Cua Viet River on numerous occasions, BUCHANAN took enemy troops and tanks under direct fire and has been credited with the destruction of four enemy tanks at the DMZ and numerous enemy troops killed in action at the approaches to the Dong Ha bridge.

On April 5, with Commodore T.R. Johnson, ComDesRon 31 embarked, BUCHANAN led an operation against North Vietnam. On the afternoon she fired the first rounds into North Vietnam since "Sea Dragon" operations creased in 1968.

On April 10 BUCHANAN was directed to proceed to Danang Harbor for regunning alongside the tender USS Samuel Gompers. This marked the first time that a US Navy ship was assigned tender availability in a forward combat area during the Vietnam conflict.

Regunning completed, BUCHANAN once again put to sea and continued operations off the coast of North Vietnam, Several times a day her guns hammered supply routes, SAM sites, enemy troop concentrations and coastal defense sites.

On April 16, she led the first strike against the Do Son Peninsula off Haiphong Harbor in company with the Seventh Fleet command ship, USS Oklahoma City, USS Richard B. Anderson and USS Hamner.

On the following day, while engaged in a sharp exchange of gunfire with hostile shore batteries, one enemy artillery shell found its mark. The shell penetrated the superstructure and exploded, killing one man and slightly wounding seven others. Material damage was quickly isolated and three hours later BUCHANAN was again striking enemy targets. On April 18, BUCHANAN retired to Danang for battle damage repair.

On April 19 the Task Force BUCHANAN had just left was attacked by MIG's. The USS Higbee DD 806 was severely damaged by direct hit to after Mount. She joined BUCHANAN at Destroyer Tender in Da Nang to undergo repairs. During the battle two MIG's were shot down by USS Steret

After a brief four-day period as plane guard for the attack aircraft carrier, USS Kitty Hawk, BUCHANAN returned to the gunline.

BUCHANAN once again headed for the northern reaches of the Gulf of Tonkin on May 8 and participated in operations in the vicinity of the Do Son Peninsula.

One operation involved suppression of hostile shore batteries while enabling other U.S. Navy Forces to mine the Haiphong Harbor entrance, On the night of May 10, BUCHANAN in company with USS Newport News, USS Providence, USS Oklahoma City and USS Hanson once again returned to the Do Son Peninsula to participate in operations involving the most formidable cruiser-destroyer strike group assembled in the Western Pacific since World War II.

Striking against military targets in the Haiphong area, BUCHANAN is the only U.S. Navy ship to have participated in every surface strike operation off Haiphong Harbor since operations were initiated of April 5.

In 63 days, BUCHANAN had struck North Vietnamese military targets 49 times and also delivered over 7700 rounds against enemy emplacements while receiving hostile fire on almost every mission. She was the first U.S. Navy vessel to engage the enemy as the North Vietnamese forced their way across the DMZ and is now the last of the "Charter members" in combat action to return to port.

Labels: Fullbore

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:32

My Sailors would not have been taken prisoner.

My expectations is that American sailors are never seized in a situation like that. And individuals and units are guided by the right of self-defense. They don't have to ask permission to take action to protect themselves.

Labels: CNO, Navy

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 20:29

Labels: Britain, Iran

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 12:05

I believe that the European Union more accurately reflects what the world will look like at the end of history than the contemporary United States. The EU's attempt to transcend sovereignty and traditional power politics by establishing a transnational rule of law is much more in line with a "post-historical" world than the Americans' continuing belief in God, national sovereignty, and their military.

Labels: Europe

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:23

The government of Belgium's French-speaking region of Wallonia, which has a population of about 4 million, has approved a tax on barbequing, local media reported.

Experts said that between 50 and 100 grams of CO2, a so-called greenhouse gas, is emitted during barbequing. Beginning June 2007, residents of Wallonia will have to pay 20 euros for a grilling session.

Labels: Belgium, Environment

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:37

Labels: Islam

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:20

Labels: Britain, Iran

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 16:07

One problem for the Navy is that over the years it has lost its "domain knowledge and understanding" and has attempted, in many cases, to pull more of that capability from industry than it has in the past, Winter said.

"[We're] asking industry to come up with solutions, as opposed to going in and saying 'we want a ship of this type and this design with these features and capabilities,'" he explained. "We've had a tendency to depend upon industry to optimize those configurations."

The Navy has to define what it wants for the future, Winter asserted.

"It's the Navy's fleet, it's not a contractor's fleet, and ships, for the most part, don't operate by themselves. Ships operate with other ships whether it is a CSG (Carrier Strike Group) or ESG (Expeditionary Strike Group) or any operations, and it's just not other ships, it's aircraft and other systems that support them," Winter said. "I think we have to go back and reassert the Navy's role in terms of defining what it is we are, we also have to develop ... re-develop, the ability to manage the contractors."

There has been a theme in the Pentagon, for many years, that says the services just have to outsource...let the contractors do it...competitive pressures will take care of everything, Winter said.

Labels: SECNAV, Shipbuilding

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:53

Labels: Humor

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:52

Rolls-Royce has been selected to supply the U.S. Navy's most advanced surface combatant ship with the world's most powerful marine gas turbine.

Four MT30 gas turbine generator sets will be supplied for two DDG-1000 Zumwalt Class destroyers, with deliveries of the 36MW MT30 sets to begin in 2009.

An MT30 generator set currently provides power to the U.S. Navy's DDG-1000 Land Based Test Site in Philadelphia and the MT30 has also been selected to power the first two Lockheed Martin Littoral Combat Ships.

Labels: DDG-1000, Shipbuilding

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:39

All,

This week, rather than concentrate on a single theme, I would like to touch on several things that I hope you find informative and interesting.

As you are aware, alignment with the Warfare Enterprises is one of NAVSEA's Top Five priorities. There are 6 existing Warfare Enterprises: Naval Aviation, Surface, Undersea, Expeditionary, NetWarfare ForceNET and the latest emerging Enterprise - Special Operations. The focus of the Warfare Enterprises is Current Readiness that is enabled by a workforce fully educated and trained to deliver and sustain that readiness through common LEAN processes. NAVSEA is unique in that it is actively engaged with all six warfighting enterprises. In addition to the Warfare Enterprises, the Navy is in the process of standing up a Provider Enterprise (PE). Unlike the Warfare Enterprises, the focus of the PE is on providing future Navy capabilities and support to current Fleet readiness. NAVSEA is a "provider" in the PE and we are the senior SYSCOM of the five SYSCOM Providers. There are two expected outputs of the PE: deliver future capability at cost and to provide support to current Fleet readiness at cost. Recently PE objectives were developed to help focus our efforts. Some of the objectives include:

* Deliver output necessary to support requirements for current readiness
* Deliver current acquisition programs to cost, schedule and performance
* Reduce future acquisition program procurements costs
* Reduce future acquisition program total ownership costs
* Deliver right balance of skilled personnel to the Enterprise.


The next steps will be to identify measures and targets that we will use to monitor progress and performance. This is a journey that we are embarking on with our ASN(RD&A) partners as well as the other enabling Commands; e.g. CNI, BUMED, ONR, and MPT&E. We are on an aggressive schedule and expect to be fully operational as a Provider in the next twelve months. Both VADM Sullivan and I play an active role in the stand-up of the PE as well as in the governance of its execution. There will be more to follow on this in later messages.

Shifting gears to the people side of our business. This week NAVSEA headquarters personnel have been participating in "Lean Week," which is designed to help synergize the Lean projects here at headquarters each month. Several Lean Events including a PEO Ships Rapid Improvement Event, PEO LMW PMS 480 Executive Planning Session, SEA 00D Rapid Improvement Event/Just-Do-It, a PEO IWS 6.0 Executive Planning Session and SEA 10 Project work. This is the first of what will become a monthly activity at Headquarters. Command-wide, over 1600 Rapid Improvement Events and projects are planned for FY 07. Great work everyone and let's keep it up!

It's amazing how quickly we've arrived at the time for NSPS mid-years. Regardless of what pay plan you are on mid-year performance reviews are the opportunity for us - supervisors and employees alike - to assess how well employees are progressing toward achieving our objectives and make any necessary course corrections. Remember this is a two way street. All employees need to be proactive. Do not wait on your supervisor/rating official to schedule time for this discussion - initiate the scheduling yourself. This is important so please take time to prepare for your meeting with your supervisor and keep in mind that you need to "own" your objectives. That means you should be able to demonstrate to your supervisor how you're achieving your objectives and show how you're tracking your progress. You will especially need to have this information at hand when the final ratings are due next fall.

Allow me another shift - Congress this month designated 25 March each year as National Medal of Honor Day. March 25, 1863 was the day the first Medal of Honor was presented. Since that time 3,444 service members have received the nation's highest military honor for courage under fire, with 112 Medal of Honor recipients still living. The two most recent recipients, USMC Cpl. Jason Dunham and USA Sgt. 1st Class Paul Smith, were both recognized posthumously for bravery in the war in Iraq. Just last week the Navy announced that the newest Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer (DDG 109) will be USS JASON DUNHAM in his memory. We also join in saluting the Tuskegee Airmen who were honored with the Congressional Gold Medal yesterday. These men left a remarkable legacy to those who wear the uniform of the United States and are owed a debt of gratitude from us all for their valor during World War II. The sacrifices and bravery of all Medal of Honor recipients remind us again and again that the price of freedom is not free.


One final reminder for the folks in the Washington DC area next week. Please plan on attending the Navy League's Sea Air Space Symposium at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel. It is April 3-5 and well worth the visit.

Finally, it is Cherry Blossom Festival time in DC. For those of you who live here or who have visited the city during the festival you know just how beautiful it is. Regardless of where you live, I'm sure your city is becoming alive with Spring. I just started my gardening "chores" last week and was invigorated by being outside again! I can't wait to get back out there again this weekend!

So, as always I hope you make time to get outside and enjoy the fine weather with your families. Be safe and be healthy!

Vr/

xxxxxxx yyyyyyy
Big Time SES, NAVSEA

Labels: Bu11sh1t Bingo, NAVSEA

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 18:31

Labels: Clinton

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 18:21

Lloyd Brown, the last known surviving World War I Navy veteran, has died. He was 105.
...
Brown was born Oct. 7, 1901, in Lutie, Mo., a small farming town in the Ozarks. His family later moved to Chadwick, Mo. In 1918, 16-year-old Brown lied about his age to join the Navy and was soon on the gun crew on the battleship USS New Hampshire.

"All the young men were going in the service. They were making the headlines, the boys that enlisted," Brown told The (Baltimore) Sun in a 2005 interview. "And all the girls liked someone in uniform."

Labels: Navy, WWI

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 18:16

The U.N. will do nothing for men seized on a U.N.-sanctioned mission. The European Union will do nothing for its "European citizens." But if liberal transnationalism is a post-modern joke, it's not the only school of transnationalism out there. Iran's Islamic Revolution has been explicitly extraterritorial since the beginning: It has created and funded murderous proxies in Hezbollah, Hamas and both Shia and Sunni factions of the Iraq "insurgency." It has spent a fortune in the stans of Central Asia radicalizing previously somnolent Muslim populations. When Ayatollah Khomeini announced the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, it was not Iranians but British, Indian, Turkish, European, Asian and American Muslims who called for his death, firebombed bookstores, shot his publisher, fatally stabbed his translator and murdered anybody who got in their way.

So we live today in a world of one-way sovereignty: American, British and Iraqi forces in Iraq respect the Syrian and Iranian borders; the Syrians and Iranians do not respect the Iraqi border. Patrolling the Shatt al-Arab at a time of war, the Royal Navy operates under rules of engagement designed by distant fainthearts with an eye to the polite fictions of "international law": If you're in a ''warship,'' you can't wage war. If you're in a ''destroyer,'' don't destroy anything. If you're in a "frigate," you're frigging done for.

On Sept. 11, a New York skyscraper was brought down by the Egyptian leader of a German cell of an Afghan terror group led by a Saudi. Islamism is only the first of many globalized ideological viruses that will seep undetected across national frontiers in the years ahead. Meanwhile, we put our faith in meetings of foreign ministers.

"It is better to be making the news than taking it," wrote Winston Churchill in 1898. But his successors have gotten used to taking it, and the men who make the news well understand that.

Schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, a Government backed study has revealed. It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial.

There is also resistance to tackling the 11th century Crusades - where Christians fought Muslim armies for control of Jerusalem - because lessons often contradict what is taught in local mosques. ...

The study looked into ‘emotive and controversial’ history teaching in primary and secondary schools. It found some teachers are dropping courses covering the Holocaust at the earliest opportunity over fears Muslim pupils might express anti-Semitic and anti-Israel reactions in class.

...Britain's 1.6 million Muslims, (are)about 2.7 percent of the population,...

On a chilly night this winter, this pristine town in some of Britain's most untouched countryside voted to allow a former Christian church to become a mosque.
...
"We've been trying to get a place of worship for 30 years," said Sheraz Arshad, 31, the Muslim leader here, his voice rattling around the empty old Mount Zion Methodist Church that will house his mosque. "It's fitting it is a church: it is visually symbolic,
...
The Mount Zion Methodist Church became a factory for making scarves for export to the Middle East in the 1960s, when Christian church-going in Britain had already begun to decline.

Today, Britain has fewer than 500,000 practicing Methodists, and of its Christians, only about 6 percent are regulars at church, according to Peter Brierley, executive director of Christian Research.
...
At St. Mary Magdalene Church, where the first stone was laid in the 12th century, the congregation has dropped to about 90 people on Sunday, and the average age of congregants is 75, said the Anglican vicar, Philip Dearden. Christenings are now rare, and he has only seven weddings booked for the year.

"Lancashire is the last place to see secularization in Britain," Mr. Dearden, 64, said. "We're seeing it now quite drastically. People don't have a conscience about religion; they don't come anymore."

In the nearby town of Kendal, an Anglican vicar, Alan Billings, has written a book, "Secular Lives, Sacred Hearts: The Role of the Church in a Time of No Religion."

He says the growing opposition to new mosques among the white population reflects an anxiety in Britain that has become more exposed since the London suicide bombings in July 2005.

"Often it's expressed as low objections, more cars, more people," said Mr. Billings, who is also a frequent contributor to the BBC's religious programs. "But it is really a deeper anxiety about what is happening in society. It is the fear of what will happen to the culture and feel of Britain."

At a Saturday gathering of about 50 believers, almost all of them white-haired, Mr. Billings warned that the church was under pressure. Islam could now be seen as an alternative to Christianity, he said.

On a recent Sunday, only one child turned up to Sunday school classes. The story books, paper and pencils lay unused as an elderly teacher tutored the 6-year-old boy in an otherwise empty room.

In contrast, Shamim Ahmed Miah, 26, a British-born mufti of Pakistani origin in Accrington, a town next to Clitheroe, teaches 30 Arabic and Koranic students, ages 5 to 15, in three sessions daily.

Mr. Miah coaxed 10 primary school students, seated at desks in a brightly lighted community center, to recite the Arabic alphabet. He handed out sheets of paper to each student for them to draw some letters. "Be gentle, this is an art," Mr. Miah said.

Mr. Arshad is considering inviting Mr. Miah to be the imam in Clitheroe. "He's progressive," he said.
...
In Blackburn, the constituency of Jack Straw, the leader of the House of Commons, there are 30,000 Muslims among a population of 80,000. But in a telltale sign for the future, the number of children 10 years and younger is evenly divided between Christian and Muslim.
...
As for the new mosque, there will be no obvious changes to the church's exterior, though the cross at the top will come down.

Labels: Britain, Iran

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 22:15

The first littoral combat ship under construction at Austal USA's Mobile shipyard is facing a cost overrun of between 50 percent and 75 percent, a Navy spokesman said this week.

In a Monday interview, Lt. Cmdr. John Schofield did not have a dollar figure for the anticipated overrun. But if the original construction contract cost of $223 million is used as a starting point, the ship's expected price tag has jumped by about $110 million or more.

Schofield, who said he was summarizing recent remarks by Navy Secretary Donald Winter, did not return an e-mail and several phone messages Tuesday seeking more information about the overrun.

He also did not respond to an e-mail seeking confirmation of a report Tuesday in the Wall Street Journal's online edition that the cost of the Austal ship is now pegged at $325 million, or slightly less than a 50 percent increase. The Journal did not say where it got that figure.

...on Capitol Hill, worries are mounting over the bills for what was supposed to be a relatively cheap program.

The reported cost overruns on the Austal ship are "disturbing, but much more information is needed," U.S. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland said in a statement Tuesday. Bartlett is the top Republican on the House Armed Services Seapower subcommittee.

While the panel's chairman, U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., could not be reached for comment, Bartlett said the two of them "are working together to get more information before jumping to conclusions about how Congress should respond."

Labels: LCS, Shipbuilding

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 21:25

Labels: Tall Ships

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 20:33

Labels: Russia

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:51

Labels: Cartoon

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 00:01