...internal military correspondence obtained by The Associated Press, U.S. commanders were telling Washington that many civilian casualties could be avoided by using a new non-lethal weapon developed over the past decade.

Military leaders repeatedly and urgently requested - and were denied - the device, which uses energy beams instead of bullets and lets soldiers break up unruly crowds without firing a shot.

It's a ray gun that neither kills nor maims, but the Pentagon has refused to deploy it out of concern that the weapon itself might be seen as a torture device.

On April 30, 2003, two days after the first Fallujah incident, Gene McCall, then the top scientist at Air Force Space Command in Colorado, typed out a two-sentence e-mail to Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"I am convinced that the tragedy at Fallujah would not have occurred if an Active Denial System had been there," McCall told Myers, according to the e-mail obtained by AP. The system should become "an immediate priority," McCall said.

Myers referred McCall's message to his staff, according to the e-mail chain.

McCall, who retired from government in November 2003, remains convinced the system would have saved lives in Iraq.

"How this has been handled is kind of a national scandal," McCall said by telephone from his home in Florida.

...in August 2003, Richard Natonski, a Marine Corps brigadier general who had just returned from Iraq, filed an "urgent" request with officials in Washington for the energy-beam device.

The device would minimize what Natonski described as the "CNN Effect" - the instantaneous relay of images depicting U.S. troops as aggressors.

A year later, Natonski, by then promoted to major general, again asked for the system, saying a compact and mobile version was "urgently needed," particularly in urban settings.
...
In October 2004, the commander of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force "enthusiastically" endorsed Natonski's request. Lt. Gen. James Amos said it was "critical" for Marines in Iraq to have the system.

Senior officers in Iraq have continued to make the case.
...
"We want to just make sure that all the conditions are right, so when it is able to be deployed the system performs as predicted - that there isn't any negative fallout," said Col. Kirk Hymes, head of the Defense Department's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate.

Reviews by military lawyers concluded it is a lawful weapon under current rules governing the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a Nov. 15 document prepared by Marine Corps officials in western Iraq.

Private organizations remain concerned, however, because documentation that supports the testing and legal reviews is classified. There's no way to independently verify the Pentagon's claims, said Stephen Goose of Human Rights Watch in Washington.

"We think that any time you have an emerging technology that's based on novel physical principles, that this deserves the highest level of scrutiny," Goose said. "And we really haven't had that."

According to AP statistics, more than 27,400 Iraqi civilians have been killed and more than 31,000 wounded in war-related violence just since the new government took office in April 2005.

The Active Denial System is a directed-energy device, although it is not a laser or a microwave. It uses a large, dish-shaped antenna and a long, V-shaped arm to send an invisible beam of waves to a target as far away as 500 yards.

With the unit mounted on the back of a vehicle, U.S. troops can operate a safe distance from rocks, Molotov cocktails and small-arms fire.

The beam penetrates the skin slightly, just enough to cause intense pain. The beam goes through clothing as well as windows, but can be blocked by thicker materials, such as metal or concrete.

Mike Booen, Raytheon's vice president for directed energy programs, said the company has produced one system that's immediately available.

A Dec. 1, 2006, urgent request signed by Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Robert Neller sought eight Silent Guardians.

Neller, then the deputy commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq, called the lack of such a non-lethal weapon a "chronic deficiency" that "will continue to harm" efforts to resolve showdowns with as little firepower as possible.

Labels: fools, Politics

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:02

07 DEC : It has started. Just before 1430, I was passing the lounge and just happened to stop to look at a magazine. At 1430, a program on the radio was interrupted to announce that the Japs had attacked Hawaii. Almost immediately a radio messenger with "Air raid on Pearl Harbor xx This is not a drill." They are said to have sunk 2 battleships - said to be West Virginia and Oklahoma. It is unbelievable. Practically my first thought was to send home my Christmas presents that I had bought a month ago. I had the package all wrapped and mailed when censorship was ordered. I hope that I won't have to unpack them. Rumors are thick and fast. I guess that I'll have to give up all thought of getting out for at least 5 years. I hate the thought.
...
11 DEC : Germany and Italy declared war today and so we did we. The brazers made the crack bigger. A conference this morning decided that it will take at least 36 hours more to do it right. We haven't the time for escort and Canadian convoy are mixed up in it all and sailing cannot be postponed. So they're going to hold the casting together with strongbacks and I'll have to take the leak and like it.

Labels: Fullbore

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:42

Labels: Democrats, Education

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 17:03

Hat tip ADB.

Labels: Humor

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 16:44

Jason Tomlinson should be a commissioned officer preparing to begin a Naval career in surface warfare. Instead, the standout football player is still a midshipman and is working at the Naval Station facility on the Severn River.

Tomlinson elected not to graduate from the Naval Academy last May, a personal decision that stunned his coaches and fellow players with the football program. By all accounts, Tomlinson was on course - both academically and militarily - to graduate and simply chose not to do so.

"I came to realize during my senior year that the military just was not for me. I had been thinking about it for a long time, I prayed about it a lot and I had to do what I felt was right in my heart," Tomlinson said yesterday when contacted by The Capital.

"I did not think it would be fair to the men I would be serving alongside and leading to go into this with reservations and misgivings. My heart wasn't in it."

Labels: USNA

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 13:14

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton will give to charity the $23,000 (€17,000) in donations she has received from a Hong Kong-born fundraiser who is wanted in California for failing to appear for sentencing on a 1991 grand theft charge.

The decision came Wednesday as other Democrats began distancing themselves from Norman Hsu, whose legal encounters and links to other Democratic donors have drawn public scrutiny in the past two days.

Sens. Edward Kennedy and John Kerry, both of Massachusetts, also planned to turn over Hsu's contributions to charity. Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein of California; Al Franken, a Senate candidate in Minnesota; Reps. Michael Honda and Doris Matsui of California; and Rep. Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania also said they would divest Hsu's contributions.

Labels: China, Clinton, Sestak

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:20

Labels: Navy

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:05

The Jews, as a class violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department and also department orders, are hereby expelled from the department [the "Department of the Tennessee," an administrative district of the Union Army of occupation composed of Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi] within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order.

Post commanders will see to it that all of this class of people be furnished passes and required to leave, and any one returning after such notification will be arrested and held in confinement until an opportunity occurs of sending them out as prisoners, unless furnished with permit from headquarters. No passes will be given these people to visit headquarters for the purpose of making personal application of trade permits.

In the fall of 1862, Grant's headquarters were besieged by merchants seeking trade permits. When Grant's own father appeared one day seeking trade licenses for a group of Cincinnati merchants, some of whom were Jews, Grant's frustration overflowed.

A handful of the illegal traders were Jews, although the great majority were not. In the emotional climate of the war zone, ancient prejudices flourished. The terms “Jew,” “profiteer,” “speculator” and “trader” were employed interchangeably. Union commanding General Henry W. Halleck linked “traitors and Jew peddlers.” Grant shared Halleck's mentality, describing “the Israelites” as “an intolerable nuisance.”

In November 1862, convinced that the black market in cotton was organized “mostly by Jews and other unprincipled traders,” Grant ordered that “no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward [into the Department of the Tennessee] from any point,” nor were they to be granted trade licenses. When illegal trading continued, Grant issued Order No. 11 on December 17, 1862.

Subordinates enforced the order at once in the area surrounding Grant's headquarters in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Some Jewish traders had to trudge 40 miles on foot to evacuate the area. In Paducah, Kentucky, military officials gave the town's 30 Jewish families—all long-term residents, none of them speculators and at least two of them Union Army veterans—24 hours to leave.

A group of Paducah's Jewish merchants, led by Cesar Kaskel, dispatched an indignant telegram to President Lincoln, condemning Grant's order as an “enormous outrage on all laws and humanity, ... the grossest violation of the Constitution and our rights as good citizens under it.” Jewish leaders organized protest rallies in St. Louis, Louisville and Cincinnati, and telegrams reached the White House from the Jewish communities of Chicago, New York and Philadelphia.

Cesar Kaskel arrived in Washington on Jan. 3, 1863, two days after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect. There he conferred with influential Jewish Republican Adolphus Solomons, then went with a Cincinnati congressman, John A. Gurley, directly to the White House. Lincoln received them promptly and studied Kaskel's copies of General Order No. 11 and the specific order expelling Kaskel from Paducah. The President told Halleck to have Grant revoke General Order No. 11, which he did in the following message:

A paper purporting to be General Orders, No. 11, issued by you December 17, has been presented here. By its terms, it expells (sic) all Jews from your department. If such an order has been issued, it will be immediately revoked.

Grant revoked the order three days later.

0n January 6, a delegation led by Rabbi Isaac M. Wise of Cincinnati, called on Lincoln to express its gratitude that the order had been rescinded. Lincoln received them cordially expressed surprise that Grant had issued such a command and stated his conviction that “to condemn a class is, to say the least, to wrong the good with the bad.” He drew no distinction between Jew and Gentile, the president said, and would allow no American to be wronged because of his religious affiliation.

After the war, Grant transcended his anti-Semitic reputation. He carried the Jewish vote in the presidential election of 1868 and named several Jews to high office. But General Order No. 11 remains a blight on the military career of the general who saved the Union.

General Order Number 11

Headquarters
District of the Border
Kansas City, Missouri
August 25, 1863


First, ___ All persons living in Jackson, Cass and Bates Counties, Missouri, and in that part of Vernon included in this district, except those living within one mile of the limits of Harrisonville, Hickman Mills, Independence and Pleasant Hill and Harrisonville, and except those in the part of Kaw Township, Jackson County, north of Brush Creek and west of the Big Blue, embracing Kansas City and Westport, are hereby ordered to remove from their present places of residence within fifteen days from the date hereof. Those who, within that time, establish their loyalty to the satisfaction of the commanding officer of the military station nearest their present places of residence will receive from him certificates stating the fact of their loyalty, and the names of the witnesses by whom it can be shown. All who receive such certificates will be permitted to remove to any military station in the district, or to any part of the State of Kansas except the counties on the eastern border of the State. All others shall remove out of the district.

Officers commanding companies and detachments serving in the counties named will see that this paragraph is promptly obeyed.

Second, ___ All hay and grain in the field, or under shelter in the district, from which the inhabitants are required to remove, within the reach of the military stations, after the 9th of September, next, will be taken to such stations and turned over to the proper officers there; and reports of the amounts so turned over made to district headquarters, specifying the name of all loyal owners and the amount of such produce taken from them. All grain and hay found in such district after the 9th of September, next, not convenient to such stations, will be destroyed.

Third, ___ The provisions of General Order No. 10 from these headquarters will be at once vigorously executed by officers commanding in the parts of the district, and at the stations not subject to the operations of paragraph first of this order, especially in the towns of Independence, Westport and Kansas City.

Fourth, ___ Paragraph 3, General Order No. 10, is revoked as to all who have borne arms against the government in the district since August 20, 1863.


By order of the Brigadier General Ewing,
H. Hannahs, Adjutant

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:41

Vietnam: Nothing destroys conventional wisdom like the truth. Those on the anti-war left don’t like to be reminded that the fruits of their policies are death and defeat. But the lie they agree upon is not history.

In 1975, Sydney Schanberg wrote a piece for the New York Times about the consequences for the region of our abandonment of South Vietnam. It bore the Orwellian title: “Indochina Without Americans: For Most A Better Life.” Substitute “Iraq” for “Indochina” and you have the Iraq plank in the 2008 Democratic
party platform.

Last Saturday, the Los Angeles Times ran a piece by Andrew J. Bacevich, a Boston University history professor and Vietnam War veteran, that fellow vet John Kerry
could have written, and which could have borne a similar title regarding Iraq without Americans. Professor Bacevich takes President Bush to task for reminding
the Veterans of Foreign Wars last week that, far from enjoying a better life, the people of Indochina, after they were betrayed by Democrats, became victims of the
“killing fields” of Cambodia, inmates of the re-education camps of Vietnam or, if they were lucky, boat people in the South China Sea.

The consequences of following the Democrats on Iraq, Bush said, would result in a similar human catastrophe and a greater terrorist threat to America. Bacevich’s piece is titled “Vietnam’s Real Lessons,” yet it is he who ignores the truth by writing about a “U.S. defeat” in an “unconventional war.”

The U.S. military was never defeated in any battle. Not until 1975, after a Democratic Congress cut off aid in a fit of post-Watergate pique, did Saigon fall to an army of
570,000 North Vietnamese regular soldiers and some 900 Soviet tanks, well supplied and armed by their Soviet and Chinese benefactors.

For two years, South Vietnam stood on its own without U.S. boots on the ground. Had we continued military and economic aid, it would be standing today — like South
Korea, which we did not abandon.

South Korea was no Athenian democracy back then, and yet we did not throw it to the wolves. Bacevich says we should look at “the condition of Vietnam today.” He
should look at the condition of South Korea.

One of the first actions of the Democratic “Watergate babies” was to vote to deny South Vietnam $800 million in military aid, including ammunition and spare parts.
Five weeks after that vote, a surprised and delighted North Vietnam began planning an armored invasion of the South, knowing we had grown war-weary and would not
help. Bacevich speaks of a “Republic of Vietnam, created by the United States,” that was not “able to govern effectively or command the loyalty of its people.” Yet, as history shows, Vietnam did not fall to a popular uprising by pajama-clad patriots.

The 1968 Tet offensive by the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese was a military disaster. Gen. Giap failed in his plan to seize and hold 13 of 16 provincial capitals and trigger a popular uprising. The communist forces lost upwards of 50,000 killed and as many wounded.

After Tet, the Viet Cong were effectively finished as a fighting force, with the NVA taking over. North Vietnam’s 1972 Easter offensive also failed.

It was these failures that led to the January 1973 Paris Peace Accord. Butwhena Democratic Congress legislated an end to U.S. operations in Indochina that summer, it also stopped U.S. air support of a friendly Cambodian government under
siege by Hanoi and the Khmer Rouge.

Former Rep. Tip O’Neill, D-Mass., who was later to becomes speaker of the House, declared at the time that “Cambodia is not worth the life of one American flier.”
There—as they say, professor—is history.

Labels: Iraq, Kerry, Media, Vietnam War

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 13:34

Labels: Germany, Music

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 13:14

The surge in global wheat prices is finally catching up with France. After English breadmakers and Italian pasta makers, it is now the turn of French boulangers to put up prices of the country’s staple – the baguette.

With international wheat prices at a 10-year high, bakeries across France are expected to raise the price of the baguette by about 5 cents in the coming weeks.

Nicolas Sarkozy, French president, has taken a bold step towards loosening his country's tough labour laws with a call for more flexibility on the Sunday trading ban.

Speaking during a visit to the Gironde region of France, he said reform of Sunday shopping opening hours would be to the benefit of the country's tourist industry.

"Why prevent tourists from spending their money onSundays?" he asked, noting that 78m tourists visit France every year, making it one of the most visited countries in the world. "If the employee is willing to work, if the shop owner is willing to open, why prevent them?"

With a few exceptions, Sunday trading is outlawed in France under the country's century-old labour code. Stores which provide "urgent'' economic needs, such as restaurants, bars, tobacco shops, newspaper kiosks, florists and pharmacies, are exempt from a nationwide ban.

Labels: France

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 01:26

One of the biggest sources of political donations to Hillary Rodham Clinton is a tiny, lime-green bungalow that lies under the flight path from San Francisco International Airport.

Six members of the Paw family, each listing the house at 41 Shelbourne Ave. as their residence, have donated a combined $45,000 to the Democratic senator from New York since 2005, for her presidential campaign, her Senate re-election last year and her political action committee. In all, the six Paws have donated a total of $200,000 to Democratic candidates since 2005, election records show.
...
t isn't obvious how the Paw family is able to afford such political largess. Records show they own a gift shop and live in a 1,280-square-foot house that they recently refinanced for $270,000. William Paw, the 64-year-old head of the household, is a mail carrier with the U.S. Postal Service who earns about $49,000 a year, according to a union representative. Alice Paw, also 64, is a homemaker. The couple's grown children have jobs ranging from account manager at a software company to "attendance liaison" at a local public high school. One is listed on campaign records as an executive at a mutual fund.

The Paws' political donations closely track donations made by Norman Hsu, a wealthy New York businessman in the apparel industry who once listed the Paw home as his address, according to public records. Mr. Hsu is one of the top fund-raisers for Mrs. Clinton's presidential campaign. He has hosted or co-hosted some of her most prominent money-raising events.

Labels: China, Clinton

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 12:46

For as investors and financiers recoil in shock from this summer's violent market swings, and as a crisis in the subprime mortgage lending sector has triggered gyrations in stocks, many are now reaching for the history books with a newfound enthusiasm - or desperation - to assess how this crisis will play out. "Everyone is muttering about 1987, 1998 or 1929," says one senior hedge fund manager. "I don't know much about 1907, but probably I should."

From some perspectives, this sudden fascination with the past marks something of a U-turn. After all, the financial sector has spent much of this decade operating with a short-term view that was focused on the future, not the past. Indeed, as recently as this spring, it was rare to find any financial trader who spent much time pondering events more than a decade old - or beyond the data points typically found on a trading terminal.

That partly reflected the fact that financial traders are often too young to remember many economic cycles. However, more importantly, many of the instruments that have been in the eye of the recent market storm have only risen to prominence this decade. Thus the "historical" data bankers feed into their computer models to assess market swings, or measure their levels of risk-taking, is often based on just a few years of records. That can potentially distort the way these computer models work, since it means that bankers are effectively presuming that the future will be similar to the past - but based purely on very recent experience. "What is remarkable is that the risk models currently applied [in some markets] do not reflect the experience of the autumn of 1998, only a few years ago," says Harald Malmgrem, a Washington-based economist.

However, the other reason for the recent lack of interest in history is that many bankers have believed - at least until recently - that this decade's burst of market innovation had rewritten the rules of finance.

As a result, the indifference towards the past is being replaced by a violent thirst for historical knowledge, as financiers reacquaint themselves with the unpalatable truth that almost every bubble is accompanied by a belief that innovation has changed the rules - a belief that typically proves to be false. "This neo-modern credit market is not very dissimilar after all from its classical predecessors," says Jack Malvey, an analyst at Lehman Brothers. "The catalysts differ, but market reactions feel similar [to crises before] . . . in our view long-term economic and capital markets history is the best teacher and best model [to understanding the present]."

Labels: Me

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 12:11

Labels: Navy

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 11:56

Labels: Marines

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 11:55

General Pace - you have the power to fulfill your responsibility to protect the troops under your command. Indeed you have an obligation to do so.

You can relieve the President of his command.

Not of his Presidency. But of his military role as Commander-In-Chief.

You simply invoke the Uniform Code Of Military Justice.

The United States Code: Title 10, Subtitle A, Part II, Chapter 47, Subchapter X, Section 934.
...
you have the legal responsibility - under Article 134 of the Uniform Code Of Military Justice - to protect the troops under your command by relieving the President of his MILITARY command.

If you have reason to believe that the President is responsible for "disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces" and for "conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces, and crimes and offenses not capital" then you have the obligation to act.

In addition to relieving him of his command as Commander-In-Chief, you also have authority to place the President under MILITARY arrest.

(the blame for many of our lost opportunities belongs to).. risk aversion in career officers, whose promotions require spotless (“zero defect”) records—no mistakes, no bad luck, no “flaps.” The cautious mind-set changed for a time after 9/11, but quickly settled back in. High-tech communication serves to clog, rather than speed the process. With worldwide satellite communications, high-level commanders back at the base or in Washington can second-guess even minor decisions.

McMaster’s nonpromotion has not been widely reported, yet every officer I spoke with knew about it and had pondered its implications. One colonel, who asked not to be identified because he didn’t want to risk his own ambitions, said: “Everyone studies the brigadier-general promotion list like tarot cards; who makes it, who doesn’t. It communicates what qualities are valued and not valued.”

A retired Army two-star general, who requested anonymity because he didn’t want to anger his friends on the promotion boards, agreed. “When you turn down a guy like McMaster,” he told me, “that sends a potent message to everybody down the chain. I don’t know, maybe there were good reasons not to promote him. But the message everybody gets is: “We’re not interested in rewarding people like him. We’re not interested in rewarding agents of change.”

Members of the board, he said, want to promote officers whose careers look like their own. Today’s generals rose through the officer corps of the peacetime Army. Many of them fought in the last years of Vietnam, and some fought in the gulf war. But to the extent they have combat experience, it has been mainly tactical, not strategic. They know how to secure an objective on a battlefield, how to coordinate firepower and maneuver. But they don’t necessarily know how to deal with an enemy that’s flexible, with a scenario that has not been rehearsed.

“Those rewarded are the can-do, go-to people,” the retired two-star general told me. “Their skill is making the trains run on time. So why are we surprised that, when the enemy becomes adaptive, we get caught off guard? If you raise a group of plumbers, you shouldn’t be upset if they can’t do theoretical physics.”

Capt. Kip Kowalski, an infantry officer in the Captains Career Course at Fort Knox, is a proud soldier in the can-do tradition. He is impatient with critiques of superiors; he prefers to stay focused on his job. “But I am worried,” he said, “that generals these days are forced to be narrow.”

Kowalski would like to spend a few years in a different branch of the Army; say, as a foreign area officer, and then come back to combat operations. He says he thinks the switch would broaden his skills, give him new perspectives and make him a better officer. But the rules don’t allow switching back and forth among specialties.

”I have to decide right now whether I want to do ops or something else,” he said. “If I go F. A. O., I can never come back.”

In October 2006, seven months before his essay on the failure of generalship appeared, Yingling and Lt. Col. John Nagl, another innovative officer, wrote an article for Armed Forces Journal called “New Rules for New Enemies,” in which they wrote: “The best way to change the organizational culture of the Army is to change the pathways for professional advancement within the officer corps. The Army will become more adaptive only when being adaptive offers the surest path to promotion.”

According to administration and military officials, the Joint Chiefs believe it is of crucial strategic importance to reduce the size of the U.S. force in Iraq in order to bolster the military's ability to respond to other threats, a view that is shared by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.

Pace's recommendations reflect the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who initially expressed private skepticism about the strategy ordered by Bush and directed by Petraeus, before publicly backing it.

“…we could not win the war without the help of the population, and of the Chinese population in particular; we would not get the help of the population without at least beginning to win the war.”
- Colonial Secretary Oliver Lyttelton to Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Field Marshal Montgomery on 23 DEC 51 on Malaya.

Montgomery to Lyttelton:
“Dear Lyttelton,
Malaya.
We must have a plan.
Secondly we must have a man.
When we have a plan and a man, we shall succeed: not otherwise.
Yours Sincerely,
Montgomery (F.M.)

31 July 1960. In its Special Edition proclaiming the end of the Emergency, the Straits Times commented, “Perhaps there is no great point in recalling all the tragic and idiotic blunders, all the false optimism, all the unrealism of the first phases of the war, but it is not possible to appreciate fully the heroism of the Security Forces unless the stupidities of some of those in command are remembered.” Pp. 103.

“Twenty years after the debacle at the Kasserine Pass, it was hard to find a General in the U.S. Army who worried that he or his colleagues might squander resources and waste the lives of soldiers. The junior officers of World War II, now the generals of the 1960s, had become so accustomed to winning from the later years of that was that they could no longer imagine they could lose. (The failure in Korea they rationalized away as the fault of a weak civilian leadership which had refused to “turn loose” the full potential of American military power against Chins.) They assumed that they would prevail in Vietnam simply because of who they were.” Pp.133. Neal Sheehan, “A Bright Shining Lie” – pp.287

“I don’t believe the way the Vietnam problem – which is basically not a military problem – was handled in the early days was the right one. I didn’t carry out my tactics in Malaya by raising masses of local troops and putting them all in British uniforms and giving them enormous loads to carry so that they became completely immobile. We did it by equipping them and training them as near as possible to the enemy they had to compete with in a particular terrain. This applied not only to the local forces, but also to all the British units. Their street fighting and jungle techniques were worked out with the very greatest care. I only used bombing in the jungle or mountains in Malaya in order to flush out the Communists.”
- Field Marshal Templer in ’68. Pp204

Rather than squarely face up to the fact that army counterinsurgency doctrine had failed in Vietnam, the army decided that the United States should no longer involve itself in counterinsurgency operations. The “Weinberger doctrine” of 1983 made such involvement less likely by creating a series of tests that in practice precluded American participation in any wars that did not allow full exploitation of American advantages in technology and firepower. The army returned to its organizational roots, creating a force that triumphed in the extremely conventional Gulf War of 1990-91. The day after that victory, President George Bush crowed, “By God, we ‘ve licked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all.”

In fact, the Gulf war simply confirmed the army’s Jominian concept of fighting purely military battles with high-technology weaponry and overwhelming firepower. By refusing to acknowledge that most wars, unlike the Gulf, are and will be bought on battlefields populated by people who may support one side or than other (or one of many), the army continued to prepare itself to fight wars as it wanted to fight them. Pp.207.

As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.

Labels: Iraq, Long War, Me, Media, Politics, Senate, Vietnam War

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 16:41

Iraq's top Shi'ite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish political leaders announced on Sunday they had reached consensus on some key measures seen as vital to fostering national reconciliation.

The agreement by the five leaders was one of the most significant political developments in Iraq for months and was quickly welcomed by the United States, which hopes such moves will ease sectarian violence that has killed tens of thousands.
...
Maliki's appearance on Iraqi television with the four other leaders at a brief news conference was a rare show of public unity.

The other officials present were President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd; Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi; Shi'ite Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi, and Masoud Barzani, president of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.

Iraqi officials said the five leaders had agreed on draft legislation that would ease curbs on former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party joining the civil service and military.

Consensus was also reached on a law governing provincial powers as well as setting up a mechanism to release some detainees held without charge, a key demand of Sunni Arabs since the majority being held are Sunnis.

The laws need to be passed by Iraq's fractious parliament, which has yet to receive any of the drafts.

OIL LAW

Yasin Majid, a media adviser to Maliki, told Reuters the leaders also endorsed a draft oil law, which has already been agreed by the cabinet but has not yet gone to parliament.

Labels: Iraq

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:19

What we have, said a British patriot in one of the darkest days of the war, is “the British way of life.” That way of life is ever so vulnerable if examined under lacerating glass, and indeed that is exactly what happens every week at the Oxford and Cambridge Unions, where the students tear themselves and their country to pieces for a noisy evening and then submit decorously to the ruling of the Union’s President, and get on with the British way of life.

But the threat to it is not, this time around, in the shape of a continental army threatening invasion, or Nazi bombers darkening the sky. The threat now is the Muslim immigration. There are fewer Muslims in Britain than in France — two million — but that’s still a lot. For many years Britain faced the problem of its commitment to members of its empire: Any citizen could leave Malaysia or Pakistan or India or Jamaica and simply show up, declaring himself a British resident. That problem was hotly debated in the days of Enoch Powell, when he insisted, departing England for a constituency in Northern Ireland, that some limits had to be observed or the British way of life would disappear.

The crisis is focusing now on the schools. The Muslim community has demanded its own schools. Wherein what, exactly, will be taught?

There are many interpreters of the true meaning of the commandments of the Koran. But among them are men and women who are prepared to end their own lives for the satisfaction of defying the British way of life. Four such persons, in the summer of 2005, attached themselves to bombs and blew up handy British targets, including three Underground trains.

What one got then from assorted imams, and continues to get now, is reverent disapprovals of incidental killings as contrary to the faith. But in the name of Jihad — holy war — such homilies against murder and arson are satellized by the dominant commands of the Koran to make war against infidels.

One hears exactly what one would expect from British authorities. The new prime minister, Gordon Brown, spoke at his first news conference of the “importance we attach to nonviolence.” That attachment makes unpalatable “the extreme message of those who practice violence and would maim and murder citizens on British soil.”

You said a mouthful, Prime Minister. But it is time for the mother of parliaments to look unruly, unassimilable creeds in the face and say: No more.

Oddly, the British way of life tolerates an established religion. In the end, the English are not hampered by toplofty commitments to freedom of speech and of conscience. Still, when the United States was seriously inconvenienced by our commitment to freedom of religion, we found means to handle Mormon polygamy. All the world waits to see how Parliament handles this threat to the British way of life.

Labels: Britain, Islam

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:31

Mike Peake meets an award-winning inventor who sold his house to launch a revolutionary range of protective sportswear

He shot into the spotlight at the recent Entrepreneur of the Year awards in London, when he leapt in the air and landed with a thud on his knees. Palmer, 40, was showing off the mesmerising potency of the product that had just earnt him top gong. It is called d3o, it was sewn into his trousers and, in layman’s terms, it is the kind of armour plating that Batman donned before fighting baddies.

Labels: Technology

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:09

Labels: Europe, Humor, Music

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:03

Labels: Cartoon, Dhimmi, Media

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 15:48

Labels: Broadside

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 05:59

What really intrigues me right now is the dead silence in the conservative blogosphere about this one. I don’t recall any of my favorite conservative sites discussing this article. That’s really unusual. And for those of you who count yourselves among my liberal readers, and are inclined to think badly of conservatives, let me assure you right away that the reason for that silence isn’t simply because this story goes against the prevailing wisdom in the conservative blogosphere — namely, that that the War can still be won and that the surge is working. One of the things I’ve loved about the conservative blogosphere is its willingness to tackle all fact and opinion articles, whether the bloggers see the articles as occasions for celebration, deconstruction or despair. No matter the article, if it’s about a hot topic, as this one is, silence is never the response.

Labels: Blogg'n, Iraq

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 13:54

Labels: Sestak

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 11:10

Belgium is rapidly unraveling. Following the June 10th Belgian general elections, won by Flemish-secessionist parties, the Belgian parties seem unable to form a government coalition.

Belgium is a multinational state, the model for the European Union’s efforts to turn Europe into a single multinational state. Belgium is made up of 60% Dutch-speaking, free-market oriented Flemings and 40% French-speaking, predominantly Socialist Walloons. The Belgian Constitution stipulates that the government should consist of 50% Flemings and 50% Walloons. Belgian governments always have to rely on a majority in both Flanders and Wallonia, since major decisions need the support of both parts of the country. In practice this means that 20% of the population (i.e. half of the Walloons) can veto every decision. This has made the Parti Socialiste (PS), the Walloon Socialist Party, the power broker in the country.

The refusal of the PS to reform the welfare state system has caused growing Flemish frustration, and turned what used to be a linguistic conflict into a dispute about economic and welfare policies. While Flanders pays most of Belgium’s taxes the bulk of the money flows to Wallonia. There a welfare-receiving electorate votes for parties which for over three decades have been blocking any attempts at reforming the collapsing welfare system.

...

Last week, Prof. Em. Robert Senelle, one of Belgium’s most prominent constitutionalists, a Flemish Socialist and formerly a teacher of the Belgian Crown Prince, advised the Flemings to annul the Belgian Constitution and solemnly declare Flemish sovereignty. Following this advice Filip Dewinter, the leader of the secessionist Vlaams Belang party, the largest party in the Flemish Regional Parliament, called upon the Flemish Parliament to convene and declare Flanders an independent country.

Yesterday another Flemish constitutionalist, Prof. Paul Van Orshoven said thatTennis Court Oath. The Tennis Court Oath refers to 20 June 1789, when the representatives of France’s third estate [the bourgeoisie] declared themselves to be the true representatives of the nation. “In the spirit of the Tennis Court Oath it is permitted that, even if it violates the Belgian constitutional rules, a simple majority of the Dutch-speakers in the Belgian Chamber of Representatives and the Senate declare to secede.” “intelligent people” should consider a Flemish secession from Belgium. “Because the situation cannot go on where a minority denies the majority its legitimate and democratic aspirations.” Prof. Van Orshoven said that if Flanders secedes this obviously violates the Belgian Constitution, which requires that the Walloons approve of such a decision. He referred, however, to the historical precedent of the

Apart from the media in Belgium and the neighbouring Netherlands, the international papers and broadcasters have hardly reported about the disintegration of the EU’s host country. On Tuesday a survey of the Dutch [Netherlandish] television network RTL4 showed that 77% of the inhabitants of the Netherlands are in favour of the Netherlands and Flanders merging into one country.

In Belgium, an internet poll of Flanders’ largest newspaper, Het Laatste Nieuws, showed 50.9% in favour of reuniting Flanders and the Netherlands. The Flemish provinces were part of the Netherlands until 1831, when the international powers established the Kingdom of Belgium.

Labels: Belgium, Dutch

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:50

Labels: Humor

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:42

Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works, famed for the U-2 and Blackbird spy planes that flew higher than anything else in the world in their day, is trying for a different altitude record: an airplane that starts and ends its mission 150 feet underwater.

The Cormorant, a stealthy, jet-powered, autonomous aircraft that could be outfitted with either short-range weapons or surveillance equipment, is designed to launch out of the Trident missile tubes in some of the U.S. Navy's gigantic Cold War-era Ohio-class submarines. These formerly nuke-toting subs have become less useful in a military climate evolved to favor surgical strikes over nuclear stalemates, but the Cormorant could use their now-vacant tubes to provide another unmanned option for spying on or destroying targets near the coast.

This is no easy task. The tubes are as long as a semi trailer but about seven feet wide-not exactly airplane-shaped. The Cormorant has to be strong enough to withstand the pressure 150 feet underwater-enough to cave in hatches on a normal aircraft-but light enough to fly. Another challenge: Subs survive by stealth, and an airplane flying back to the boat could give its position away.

Labels: Submarine

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 16:07

The general in charge of U.S. Central Command Marines praised Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt in dropping all charges against him this month in the shooting deaths of four Iraqi civilians in Haditha, Iraq, in November 2005.

"The experience in combat is difficult to understand intellectually and very difficult to appreciate emotionally," stated Marine Lt. Gen. James Mattis, the commander, in a letter dismissing all charges against the corporal without prejudice on Aug. 8.

Gen. Mattis quoted former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who said that combat is an "incommunicable experience" and that "detached reflection cannot be demanded in the face of an uplifted knife."

"Marines have a well-earned reputation for remaining cool in the face of enemies brandishing much more than knives," Gen. Mattis said, noting the "brutal reality" of daily life in Iraq.

"Where the enemy disregards any attempt to comply with ethical norms of warfare, we exercise discipline and restraint to protect the innocent caught on the battlefield. Our way is right, but it is also difficult."

Gen. Mattis stated that an exhaustive investigation showed Cpl. Sharratt "acted in accordance with the rules of engagement" in Haditha, and he noted that by dropping the charges, Cpl. Sharratt could "fairly conclude that you did your best to live up to the standards followed by U.S. fighting men throughout our many wars, in the face of life or death decisions made by in a matter of seconds in combat."

The three-star general put the current conflict in context by noting that in Iraq "our nation is fighting a shadowy enemy who hides among the innocent people, does not comply with any aspect of the law of war, and routinely targets and intentionally draws fire toward civilians.

"As you well know, the challenges of this combat environment put extreme pressures on you and your fellow Marines," he said. "Operational, moral and legal imperatives demand that we Marines stay true to our own standards and maintain compliance with the law of war in this morally bruising environment."

Gen. Mattis' letter contrasts sharply with comments made in May 2006 by Rep. John P. Murtha, Pennsylvania Democrat, who accused the Marines in Haditha of killing Iraqis "in cold blood" and then covering up the purported atrocity.

Labels: Iraq, Marines, Murtha

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 10:34

In the pre-dawn hours on Corregidor, Japanese troops push towards the Malinta Tunnel, against fierce but uncoordinated opposition. The Americans have more than 15,000 men on Corregidor, 5,000 of them paperchasers in the Malinta Tunnel, but very few fighters, so they cannot organize a major counterattack. The Japanese are frustrated, too, having lost two-thirds of their landing craft. The Japanese have 21 boats to move 14,000 men. General Homma is thrown into an "agony of mind" by American ferocity.
But by dawn, the battle reaches its climax at Water Tank Hill, as O and P companies of 4th Marines counterattack, backed by the few remaining guns, which are now manned by cooks, clerks, and radiomen. US Navy Lt. Charles Brook, who has wondered since boyhood what it would be like to charge an enemy, gets his dream, but also gets a leg mangled by a grenade. By 9 am, the Americans are bogged down, as Japanese artillery takes over. By 10, the Japanese finally unload tanks on their beach. The Japanese now can drive into the Malinta Tunnel and massacre the nurses and wounded.

The Americans have no antitank weapons. Corregidor is finished...there are no reserves, no guns left, and Wainwright has a message from President Roosevelt saying that Wainwright "and your devoted followers have become the living symbols of our war aims and the guarantee of victory."

Wainwright gives the codeword "Pontiac" ordering his men to destroy their weapons and raise white flags. Col. Howard will become the first officer to ever surrender a US Marine Regiment. All across the island, US troops destroy their weapons or raid the remaining food and liquor stocks.

The Japanese send word that they will only deal with Wainwright. With his aide, Maj. Tom Dooley, Wainwright drives to Water Tank Hill and climbs on foot to the Japanese positions, noting that there are three Japanese dead for every American. The Japanese take Wainwright by launch to Cabcaben in Bataan. Homma arrives in a shiny Cadillac and in perfect English demands Wainwright surrender all the Philippines. Wainwright refuses. Homma says he will send Wainwright back to Bataan to "do what you damn well please," and continue fighting. The exhausted Wainwright draws up a surrender of the entire archipelago, and signs it just before midnight. The Japanese take the exhausted Wainwright back to Corregidor, and he flings himself on his cot, exhausted, reviewing the bitterest and most humiliating day of his life.

The channel through Corregidor's northern mine fields, through which boats must pass to meet rescue submarines, could no longer be used because of the Jap gun batteries now lining the shores of Bataan. There had never been a channel through the southern mine fields, which made it look as if we were bottled up by our own deadly obstructions.

There were mine sweepers among the Navy ships huddled in Corregidor's South Harbor, but no one had ever devised a sweep wire that could be pushed ahead of the ship, and if it were towed astern in the usual manner, the sweeping vessel would inevitably be blown up by the thickly planted mines. There was only one glimmer of hope. If small boats, starting close inshore, could sweep a narrow channel without chancing on mines near the surface, the big sweepers could follow behind and widen the breach -- provided they were lucky enough not to stray a few feet off the straight and narrow path. All this work would have to be done at night, making accurate navigation almost impossible.

No matter how dangerous the job, there were always enthusiastic navy men to undertake it. The versatile motor launches of the Canopus were turned over to experienced Mine Force sailors, and became miniature sweepers. Navigational lights were rigged on shore, hooded to screen their purpose from watchful Japanese eyes. Night after night, for two weeks, the daring crews gambled their lives against their skill -- and luck -- until success finally crowned their efforts. Many mines had exploded near venturesome boats, but never quite close enough to destroy them. Again a path to the sea was open, making it possible for submarines to come in and rescue a few chosen passengers.

Capt. E.L. Sackett C.O. U.S.S. Canopus

Indeed, earlier during the day of her scuttling, the Quail had made a daylight 600 yard sweep-while under fire-to permit an evacuation to the Spearfish. The crew-or more accurately the third left aboard as the majority were ashore at Corregidor in "IA" status-didn't get to go.

Labels: Fullbore

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:23

Recently, two men who were on the opposite sides of the debate over the Vietnam War came together to write an article. One was a member of President Nixon's foreign policy team, and the other was a fierce critic of the Nixon administration's policies. Together they wrote that the consequences of an American defeat in Iraq would be disastrous.

Here's what they said: "Defeat would produce an explosion of euphoria among all the forces of Islamist extremism, throwing the entire Middle East into even greater upheaval. The likely human and strategic costs are appalling to contemplate. Perhaps that is why so much of the current debate seeks to ignore these consequences." I believe these men are right.

In Iraq, our moral obligations and our strategic interests are one. So we pursue the extremists wherever we find them and we stand with the Iraqis at this difficult hour - because the shadow of terror will never be lifted from our world and the American people will never be safe until the people of the Middle East know the freedom that our Creator meant for all. (Applause.)

I recognize that history cannot predict the future with absolute certainty. I understand that. But history does remind us that there are lessons applicable to our time. And we can learn something from history. In Asia, we saw freedom triumph over violent ideologies after the sacrifice of tens of thousands of American lives - and that freedom has yielded peace for generations.

The American military graveyards across Europe attest to the terrible human cost in the fight against Nazism. They also attest to the triumph of a continent that today is whole, free, and at peace. The advance of freedom in these lands should give us confidence that the hard work we are doing in the Middle East can have the same results we've seen in Asia and elsewhere - if we show the same perseverance and the same sense of purpose.

Labels: Iraq, Kerry, Vietnam War

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:33

Navy officials have been hinting that a 20,000-ton-plus ship could be in the works.

Sources said early analyses of the CGN(X) showed a 25,000-ton ship, which the Navy said was too large. More realistic, one source said, would be about 23,000 tons.

Another cost for developing a new power plant for the nuclear cruiser, even if an existing reactor was used, would be time to design a new propulsion system.

“Five years of research and development would be needed to come up with the turbines, reduction gear, shaft and propeller,” said one experienced naval engineer. The Navy now plans to order the first CG(X) in 2011, with the last ship included in the FY 2023 budget.

Under pressure from the Navy to develop a new cruiser based on the DDG 1000 Zumwalt-class hull form, and from Congress to incorporate nuclear power, a group of analysts working on the next big surface combatant may recommend two different ships to form the CG(X) program
....
One ship would be a 14,000-ton derivative of the DDG 1000, an “escort cruiser,” to protect aircraft carrier strike groups. The vessel would keep the tumblehome hull of the DDG 1000 and its gas turbine power plant.

The other new cruiser would be a much larger, 25,000-ton nuclear-powered ship with a more conventional flared bow, optimized for the ballistic missile defense (BMD) mission.

According to sources, the AoA looked at two possible nuclear powerplants based on existing designs: doubling the single-reactor Seawolf SSN 21 submarine plant, and halving two-reactor nuclear carrier plants.

Doubling the 34 megawatts of the Seawolf plant would leave the new ship far short of power requirements — and not even match the 78 megawatts of the Zumwalts.

But halving the 209-megawatt plant of current nuclear carriers would yield a bit more than 100 megawatts, enough juice for power-hungry BMD radars plus an extra measure for the Navy’s desired future directed-energy weapons and railguns.

Another cruiser alternative studied in the late 1980s was variously entitled a Mission Essential Unit (MEU) or CG V/STOL. In a return to the thoughts of the independent operations cruiser-carriers of the 1930s and the Russian Kiev class, the ship was fitted with a hangar, elevators and a flight deck. The mission systems were Aegis, SQS-53 sonar, 12 SV-22 ASW aircraft and 200 VLS cells. The resulting ship had a waterline length of 700 feet, a waterline beam of 97 feet, and a displacement of about 25,000 tons. Figure 27 is a painting of that ship concept.

Details of the AoA have been closely held, but sources have confirmed that two different designs are being considered. They also say the analysis will recommend dropping the Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) from the CG(X) program.

The KEI is a large ballistic missile-defense rocket under development by Northrop Grumman as a ground- or sea-based weapon to intercept ballistic missiles in their boost, ascent and midcourse flight phases.

The KEI is much larger than the SM-3 Standard missile developed by Raytheon to arm Navy cruisers and destroyers for the BMD role. The 40-inch diameter KEI is nearly 39 feet long, while the 21-inch diameter SM-3 stands just over 21 feet tall. Both missiles use a kinetic energy warhead, intended to ram an enemy missile.

Sources said a missile launch tube for a KEI would need to be so large it would take the place of six SM-3 launch cells.

“That’s a poor exchange ratio,” said one naval analyst familiar with the AoA.

Tactics generally call for at least two interceptors to be launched for each incoming target. Just how many missile cells the AoA is considering for each cruiser variant remains under wraps.

Labels: Cruiser

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:57

The Navy has removed a video from YouTube that shows sailors aboard the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan using safety equipment inappropriately.

The video titled "Women of CVN76: That Don't Impress Me Much," was shot by a naval airman and includes fleeting shots of the door to the ship's nuclear power plant and of a sailor dancing around in a full-body radiation suit.

Under Pentagon rules, images of any part of a ship's nuclear plant cannot be shown to foreign nationals.

A Navy spokesman says Nothing in the video compromises operational security, but officials were concerned about the "lack of propriety" in the use of safety equipment.

The Navy says it has "counseled" the airman who produced the video.

Labels: Navy

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:30

The U.S. Naval Academy's new superintendent announced yesterday stricter rules for midshipmen, declaring that students at the Annapolis military academy need to spend more time preparing for war and less time on distracting extracurricular activities.

Students, who are returning to campus for Monday's start of the school year, will have reduced off-campus liberty hours, more mandatory study hours and more limited extracurricular activities, Vice Adm. Jeffrey L. Fowler told reporters.

"This is not just a college scholarship program," Fowler said during the interview in the superintendent's conference room. "My job is to make sure we minimize distraction."

"Academy to become more like military."

"The taxpayers have paid money to develop officers here, and it's my job to ensure we minimize those distractions."

Labels: USNA

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 11:47

A few years ago, the American Legion would say only that the United States must "continue to involve as many nations as possible" in rebuilding Iraq. In July, however, the group's national commander, Paul Morin, derided the Democratic lawmakers' attempt to legislate a withdrawal of US troops as "Operation Turncoat."

Likewise, after saying little about the war, VFW officials in recent months have begun to echo some White House arguments -- including the contention that victory in Iraq is essential to battling terrorism.

Others say the groups' vigorous appeal for patience stems from the fact that the bulk of their membership served in Vietnam.

"The perception is that we lost the Vietnam War and that is not true," said Kurpius, who is a Vietnam veteran. "That really bothers me. I don't want that to happen to another generation of veterans . . . so we are a little more vocal."

Iraq war veteran 1st Lt. Pete Hegseth served in 2005-06 with the 3rd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division. Now serving with the New York Army National Guard, Lt. Hegseth is executive director of Vets For Freedom, a nonpartisan group established by veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to "educate Americans about the importance of achieving success in these conflicts."
...
It is important that we give [U.S. Iraq commander Army Gen. David] Petraeus the time, the troops and the resources necessary to see his counterinsurgency strategy through. So our "Ten Weeks to Testimony" is really a crystallization of our larger mission, and we are boiling it down to 10 weeks over the summer, leading up to and until Gen. Petraeus reports [to Congress on progress in Iraq] in the middle of September and really mobilizing our veterans to get active in the states and then in Washington, D.C.

We had vets on [Capitol] Hill in July, about 40 of them on very short notice, and in August we are ... empowering them locally to get involved in town hall meetings and writing to [newspaper] editors and really making sure these members [of Congress], while they're home in the August recess, are really hearing from veterans from their local area, who have been there recently and are telling them we need to complete the mission.

"They are choosing to point their organizations in a certain direction, but they have failed to capture the new generation of veterans," said Paul Reickhoff, executive director and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, which has been critical of the Bush administration's war strategy. Reickhoff was an Army platoon commander in Iraq.

Unlike the Legion and VFW, Reickhoff said, his group has not taken a position on the war or the surge strategy. He acknowledged that the American Legion and the VFW both have "tremendous influence," but their recent outspokenness "compromises their ability to advocate on behalf of veterans."

Labels: Iraq, Vets

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:02

Yesterday a senior Russian general warned the Czech Republic it would be making a "big mistake" if it permitted the US to use its territory. Yuri Baluyevsky, Russia's military chief of staff, said Prague should hold off any final decision on the shield until after next year's US presidential elections.

"I do not exclude that a new administration in the United States will re-evaluate the current administration's decisions on missile defence," he said, after a meeting in Moscow with the Czech defence minister, Martin Bartak.

Labels: Democrats, Russia

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:32

Labels: Belgium, Dhimmi, Europe

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 17:12

“We’ve begun to change tactics in Iraq, and in some areas, particularly in Al Anbar Province, it’s working,” said Mrs. Clinton, the New York Democrat and candidate for her party’s presidential nomination. “We’re just years too late changing our tactics.

We can’t ever let that happen again. We can’t be fighting the last war; we have to be preparing to fight the new war.”

...a military solution was unattainable and the best way to honor the service of American troops was to “bring them home."
...
“There is a vigorous debate in our own nation and probably among many of you about the right way forward in Iraq,” Mrs. Clinton said. “I know we may disagree about whether there is or isn’t a military solution to this war.”
...
“We will have some very hard decisions to make. I’m not sure there are any good options.”

The reception for Mrs. Clinton was respectful yet tepid. Mr. McCain received loud applause when he suggested that a troop pullout would be “a mistake of colossal historical proportions.”
...
“As long as there is a prospect for not losing this war,” he said, “then we must not choose to lose it.”

Labels: Clinton, Iraq, McCain, Politics

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 13:18

Maj. Gen. Pavel Androsov, the commander of Russia's long-range aviation forces, said its long-range strategic bombers, once part of the Soviet Union's nuclear forces, had held new flight exercises that included passing by a United States naval base in Guam and trips to the North and South Poles. The bombers also fired eight training missiles at unspecified targets and hit them all, according to General Androsov, who spoke at a news conference. The path of the test flights and the performance of the missiles could not be independently verified but appeared to be another instance of Russia, flush with money from its oil and gas exports, trying to reassert itself as a military and global power.

"We have decided to restore flights by Russian strategic aviation on a permanent basis," Putin told reporters after inspecting joint military exercises with China and four Central Asian states in Russia's Ural mountains.

"Today, August 17 at 00:00 hours, 14 strategic bombers took to the air from seven airfields across the country, along with support and refueling aircraft ... From today such patrols will be carried out on a regular basis.

Labels: Russia

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:54

Bernard Kouchner, the French Foreign Minister, heard appeals from Iraqi leaders for French help as he paid a visit to Baghdad that underlines the thaw in Franco-American relations since Nicolas Sarkozy succeeded President Chirac.

Dr Kouchner, who made his name as a leftist human rights campaigner, arrived unannounced in Baghdad last night on the first trip by a French Minister since Mr Chirac mounted a global front against the 2003 invasion.

He said that he is there to listen to all of Iraq's divided communities and came with no new proposals. France remains convinced that the Iraqis must restore their nation themselves, he said.

But Dr Kouchner's presence underlines France's new openness towards the Iraq conflict since Mr Sarkozy's election in May. In 2003, Dr Kouchner was one of the few French public figures who refused to condemn the US-led invasion, though he did not condone it.

Labels: France, Iraq

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 15:41

I think a picture about tells it, but there is more at CounterTerrorismBlog, and you can play with the graph here. CAIR is the green dot.



Rep. Sestak (D-PA), RADM USN (Fired and Retired) - your comments please?

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

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 15:17

Labels: Humor, Uniforms

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:37

Labels: Me

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:06

Labels: Me

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 14:36

!!CAPTION CONTEST!!

Labels: Shipbuilding

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:49

West Point and all of the service academies promote math and engineering above all other disciplines. Thayer wanted math savvy artillery officers. The Navy sought officers with a firm grasp of engineering to keep their ships running and navigate the seas under the harshest of combat conditions. And the Air Force desired officers capable of operating the service's cutting-edge technology. It's the perfect academic infrastructure for a young cadet, if we expect him to fight the Cold War.

Unfortunately, we are fighting a new war. Tomorrow's war. This is a war where we fight an enemy who understands that the battlefield lies in the human heart, not in the skies or on the seas. And while the liberal arts curriculum is precisely the school of thought needed to effectively prepare our cadets to fight in the 21st century, not one of the service academies offers a Bachelor of Arts degree.

An Army platoon leader would be better equipped to administer to tribes in Anbar province if he had a degree in International Affairs and a minor in Arabic. A Marine infantry Lieutenant might be more effective unifying warlords in Afghanistan if he spent his four years at Annapolis studying the history of central Asia. U.S. Special Forces have been deployed to over 180 different countries since 9/11, and, to be sure, the military offers them the education needed to meet that goal. But in all that training an academy cadet will only get as much foreign study as he can squeeze into his schedule between orbital mechanics and advanced calculus.

Labels: Education, USNA

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:40

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Wednesday that he would possibly send troops into Pakistan to hunt down terrorists, an attempt to show strength when his chief rival has described his foreign policy skills as naive.

The Illinois senator warned Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf that he must do more to shut down terrorist operations in his country and evict foreign fighters under an Obama presidency, or Pakistan will risk a U.S. troop invasion and losing hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid.

Labels: Obama

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 13:58

Labels: Humor

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:55

This image provided by NASA shows Boeing's X-48B Blended Wing Body at Rogers Dry Lake October 24, 2006. The experimental jet that resembles a flying wing successfully flew for the first time in a program that could lead to more fuel-efficient, quieter and higher-capacity aircraft, NASA said Thursday July 26, 2007. The remotely controlled, 500-pound, three-engine jet with a 21-foot wingspan took off July 20, climbed to an altitude of 7,500 feet and landed about a half-hour later, NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center said.

Labels: USAF

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:43