CDR Salamander

What year do you think this quote by Richard Fisher, the CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas came from?

I have since been occasionally reminded of this scene, by those calm sunny seasons in the commercial world, which are known by the name of ``times of unexampled prosperity.'' They are the sure weather-breeders of traffic. Every now and then the world is visited by one of these delusive seasons, when ``the credit system'' as it is called, expands to full luxuriance; everybody trusts everybody; a bad debt is a thing unheard of; the broad way to certain and sudden wealth lies plain and open; and men are tempted to dash forward boldly, from the facility of borrowing.

Promissory notes interchanged between scheming individuals, are liberally discounted at the banks, which become so many mints to coin words into cash; and as the supply of words is inexhaustible, it may readily be supposed what a vast amount of promissory capital is soon in circulation. Every one now talks in thousands; nothing is heard but gigantic operations in trade; great purchases and sales of real property, and immense sums made at every transfer. All, to be sure, as yet exists in promise; but the believer in promises calculates the aggregate as solid capital, and falls back in amazement at the amount of public wealth, the ``unexampled state of public prosperity!''

Now is the time for speculative and dreaming or designing men. They relate their dreams and projects to the ignorant and credulous, dazzle them with golden visions, and set them maddening after shadows. The example of one stimulates another; speculation rises on speculation; bubble rises on bubble; every one helps with his breath to swell the windy superstructure, and admires and wonders at the magnitude of the inflation he has contributed to produce.

Speculation is the romance of trade, and casts contempt upon all its sober realities. It renders the stock-jobber a magician, and the exchange a region of enchantment. It elevates the merchant into a kind of knight-errant, or rather a commercial Quixote. The slow but sure gains of snug percentage become despicable in his eyes: no ``operation'' is thought worthy of attention that does not double or treble the investment. As he sits musing over his ledger, with pen behind his ear, he is like La Mancha's hero in his study, dreaming over his books of chivalry. His dusty counting house fades before his eyes, or changes into a Spanish mine; he gropes after diamonds, or dives after pearls. The subterranean garden of Aladdin is nothing to the realms of wealth that break upon his imagination.

Could this delusion always last, the life of a merchant would indeed be a golden dream; but it is as short as it is brilliant. Let but a doubt enter, and the ``season of unexampled prosperity'' is at an end. The coinage of words is suddenly curtailed; the promissory capital begins to vanish into smoke; a panic succeeds, and the whole superstructure, built upon credit, and reared by speculation, crumbles to the ground, leaving scarce a wreck behind:

What do you think? Last week? 2000 following the .com collapse? Late '80s about the S&L crisis?

No. Washington Irving...well over a century ago in The Great Mississippi Bubble.

You know what I say about the critical role of knowing your history when it comes to warfare - economics is no different.

Hat tip Jason at CounterColumn via Mike.

Labels: Economics

Like every year - the review of what I read...in case you have not been following the updates on the right.

Labels: Books

Time to make you fine, loyal, and wise readers mad at me again.

I never ask that you need to agree with me; just ponder some of what I am pondering.

Americans have a deep and understandable aversion to gasoline taxes. In a culture more single-mindedly devoted to individual freedom than any other, tampering with access to the open road is met with visceral opposition. That's why earnest efforts to alter American driving habits take the form of regulation of the auto companies--the better to hide the hand of government and protect politicians from the inevitable popular backlash.

But it's not just love of the car. America is a nation of continental expanses. Distances between population centers can be vast. The mass-transit mini-car culture of Europe just doesn't work in big sky country.

This combination of geography and romance is the principal reason gas taxes are so astonishingly low in America. The federal tax is 18.4 cents per gallon. In Britain, as in much of Europe, the tax approaches $4 per gallon--more than 20 times the federal levy here.

...the virtues of a gas tax remain what they have always been. A tax that suppresses U.S. gas consumption can have a major effect on reducing world oil prices. And the benefits of low world oil prices are obvious: They put tremendous pressure on OPEC, as evidenced by its disarray during the current collapse; they deal serious economic damage to energy-exporting geopolitical adversaries such as Russia, Venezuela, and Iran; and they reduce the enormous U.S. imbalance of oil trade which last year alone diverted a quarter of $1 trillion abroad. Furthermore, a reduction in U.S. demand alters the balance of power between producer and consumer, making us less dependent on oil exporters. It begins weaning us off foreign oil, and, if combined with nuclear power and renewed U.S. oil and gas drilling, puts us on the road to energy independence.
...
Today we are experiencing a unique moment. Oil prices are in a historic free fall from a peak of $147 a barrel to $39 today. In July, U.S. gasoline was selling for $4.11 a gallon. It now sells for $1.65. With $4 gas still fresh in our memories, the psychological impact of a tax that boosts the pump price to near $3 would be far less than at any point in decades. Indeed, an immediate $1 tax would still leave the price more than one-third below its July peak.

What to do? Something radically new. A net-zero gas tax. Not a freestanding gas tax but a swap that couples the tax with an equal payroll tax reduction. A two-part solution that yields the government no net increase in revenue and, more importantly--that is why this proposal is different from others--immediately renders the average gasoline consumer financially whole.

Here is how it works. The simultaneous enactment of two measures: A $1 increase in the federal gasoline tax--together with an immediate $14 a week reduction of the FICA tax. Indeed, that reduction in payroll tax should go into effect the preceding week, so that the upside of the swap (the cash from the payroll tax rebate) is in hand even before the downside (the tax) kicks in.

The math is simple. The average American buys roughly 14 gallons of gasoline a week. The $1 gas tax takes $14 out of his pocket. The reduction in payroll tax puts it right back. The average driver comes out even, and the government makes nothing on the transaction. (There are, of course, more drivers than workers--203 million vs. 163 million. The 10 million unemployed would receive the extra $14 in their unemployment insurance checks. And the elderly who drive--there are 30 million licensed drivers over 65--would receive it with their Social Security payments.)

Revenue neutrality is essential. No money is taken out of the economy. Washington doesn't get fatter. Nor does it get leaner. It is simply a transfer agent moving money from one activity (gasoline purchasing) to another (employment) with zero net revenue for the government.

.... and we need to cut diesel tax by a half to help bring our auto diesel usage in line with Europe's ~30-50%. Diesel gets ~25-30% better mileage and is easily mixed with biodiesel where it makes sense, etc. We aren't talking about a 1978 GM diesel either. Modern diesels are outstanding engines. Next time you are in Europe, rent a VW turbo diesel and you will know what I am talking about.

Less money in the pockets of the Saudis and Hugo - and will take a huge chunk out of our crippling trade deficit etc, etc, etc.

Win, win, and win.

Labels: Energy

I feel bad that it has taken me this long to find one of the very bright rising stars of the Conservative side of the line. If you would, I would like for you to take some time to meet S.E. Cupp. The co-author along with Brett Joshpe of Why You're Wrong About the Right that you can purchase by clicking here or the picture of it below. You can catch up with her at her blog here, or make her a friend on FaceBook. ...and truth be known - yes, I do like her much better as a Brunette with glasses. Sigh. Brains and brainy beauty ... reminds me of Mrs. Salamander (active defense engaged).



Two videos to round your knowledge base.

Labels: Republicans

Wonder why the Obama National Security Team is Center/Center-right in its outlook? Nothing new or magic - what Kaplan wrote in The Atlantic seven years ago still applies - and shows that in many ways Obama isn't the misty-eyed knee-jerk ideologue many thought - at least so far when it strictly comes to national security.

The Cold War was scarcely a decade old. The Soldier and the State constituted a warning: America's liberal society, Huntington argued, required the protection of a professional military establishment steeped in conservative realism. In order to keep the peace, military leaders had to take for granted—and anticipate—the "irrationality, weakness, and evil in human nature." Liberals were good at reform, not at national security. "Magnificently varied and creative when limited to domestic issues," Huntington wrote, "liberalism faltered when applied to foreign policy and defense." Foreign policy, he explained, is not about the relationship among individuals living under the rule of law but about the relationship among states and other groups operating in a largely lawless realm. The Soldier and the State concluded with a rousing defense of West Point, which, Huntington wrote, "embodies the military ideal at its best ... a bit of Sparta in the midst of Babylon."

The subject that Huntington has more recently put on the map is the "The Clash of Civilizations" that is occurring as Western, Islamic, and Asian systems of thought and government collide. His argument is more subtle than it is usually given credit for, but some of the main points can be summarized.

• The fact that the world is modernizing does not mean that it is Westernizing. The impact of urbanization and mass communications, coupled with poverty and ethnic divisions, will not lead to peoples' everywhere thinking as we do.

• Asia, despite its ups and downs, is expanding militarily and economically. Islam is exploding demographically. The West may be declining in relative influence.

• Culture-consciousness is getting stronger, not weaker, and states or peoples may band together because of cultural similarities rather than because of ideological ones, as in the past.

• The Western belief that parliamentary democracy and free markets are suitable for everyone will bring the West into conflict with civilizations—notably, Islam and the Chinese—that think differently.

• In a multi-polar world based loosely on civilizations rather than on ideologies, Americans must reaffirm their Western identity.

The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon highlight the tragic relevance not just of Huntington's ideas about a clash of civilizations but of his entire life's work.

Read it all. True today as it was then ... and I now have another book
to read.

Hat tip Powerline.

Labels: Long War, Obama

The Navy doesn't want to miss out - I've got your Littoral Combat right here.




At little more on the Israeli Typhoon gun system here.

Hat tip Jawa.

Labels: Israel, NSFS

Sure, the words are one thing.

A single-file line of schoolchildren walked past a military checkpoint Sunday as a bomb-loaded SUV veered toward them and exploded, ending the lives of 14 young Afghans in a heartbreaking flash captured by a U.S. military security camera.

The video shows the SUV slowly weaving through sand-bag barriers at the checkpoint just as the children, most wearing white caps, come into view. They walk along a pathway between the street and a wall, several of them pausing for a few seconds in a group before moving forward again.

The vehicle moves toward the security camera while the children walk in the opposite direction, nearly passing the SUV when the footage ends in a fiery blast.

Photos of the bombing's aftermath showed bloodied textbooks lying on the ground beside small pairs of shoes. Afghan officials said the children were attending a final day of class for the year to find out whether they would move up to the next grade.

Abdul Rahman, a doctor at a hospital near the blast, said the children were 8 to 10 years old.

22 total killed.

...pupils were receiving their exam results and end-of-year education certificates, police said.

But it is the video that you need to see.



CNN is too busy worshiping Palestinians to show it to you though. At least the NYT and AP have it up.

Labels: Afghanistan, Terrorists

What is Chinese for "....shores of Tripoli.."

Three Chinese naval

"We have made special preparations to deal with pirates, even though these waters are not familiar to us," it quoted mission commander Rear-Admiral Du Jingcheng as saying.

The crack special forces are expected to give the fleet an edge in seeing off the pirates, with one of the soldiers able to "handle several enemies with (his) bare hands," Xinhua said.

"Our primary target is not striking them but dispelling them," Du said. "If the pirates make direct threats against the warships or the vessels we escort, the fleet will take counter measures."

The destroyers Haikou and Wuhan, which will leave from the southern resort island province of Hainan, were two of China's navy's most sophisticated warships, Xinhua said. The vessels are scheduled to leave for the waters off Somalia on Friday to help tackle rampant piracy in a sign of the country's rising global clout and diplomatic and military ambitions. The fleet -- two destroyers and a supply ship -- would have about 800 crew, including 70 special operations troops, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Chinese hyperbole is always fun to read. They will be traveling with the Supply Ship Weishanhu, at bottom.

I remember a young, small Navy that earned its street cred going after pirates that others tolerated .... remember, we may not study naval history all that much, but the Chinese still do.

This will be interesting to watch. I know what I would do if I were the Chinese ... and it involves very easily having the US Navy lose face at very little cost.

Labels: China, Long Game

In a way, this is rather sad. Sad for Mrs. Edwin Schlossberg, New York, The Democrat Party, and the USA - where she was given so much time for a chance to be a US Senator without anyone voting for her.

Behold those who would call themselves your better. If you can't get the feel from the transcript - you can get the audio at the bottom.

"I'm really coming into this as somebody who isn't, you know, part of the system, who obviously, you know, stands for the values of, you know, the Democratic Party," Kennedy told the Daily News Saturday during a wide-ranging interview.

"I know how important it is to, you know, to be my own person. And, you know, and that would be obviously true with my relationship with the mayor."
...
"Andrew is, you know, highly qualified for this job," she said. "He's doing a, you know, a great job as attorney general, and we've spoken throughout this process."
...
"You know, I think, you know, we're sort of, uh, sharing some of this experience. And um, as I've said, he was a friend, a family member, and um so, and uh obviously, he's, you know, he's also had an impressive career in public office."
...
"It's really, you know, it's not about just the Kennedy name," she said. "It's about my own work and what I've done with those values."

Next - but before she leaves the public stage, can we please have her debate Gov. Palin (R-AK) - please... then maybe she can start with local politics, or at least the House of Representatives. Maybe, you know.

Labels: Democrats

There is very little daylight between the NYT and the Obama Administration in waiting. In that light, we all should digest the good, the bad, and the ill-informed from this. It should be no shock that this in aligned with much of the Democrat defense think tank work.

Heck, I'll fisk it.

In recent weeks, this page has called for major changes in America’s armed forces: more ground forces, less reliance on the Reserves, new equipment and training to replace cold-war weapons systems and doctrines.

What? The NYT all of a sudden wants to spend more money on defense? They now know what persistent conflict means? Wait for it ...

Money will have to be found to pay for all of this, and the Pentagon can no longer be handed a blank check, as happened throughout the Bush years.

Oh, nevermind.

Since 2001, basic defense spending has risen by 40 percent in real post-inflation dollars. That is not counting the huge supplemental budgets passed — with little serious review or debate — each year to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Such unquestioned largess has shielded the Pentagon from any real pressure to cut unneeded weapons systems and other wasteful expenses.

Largess? Oh, must be the non-MRE food I am eating. As a result, there is plenty of fat in the defense budget. Here is what we think can be cut back or canceled in order to pay for new equipment and other reforms that are truly essential to keep this country safe:Yes, remember the "Who needs F-14 and F-15 when the F-4 is fine? Why a F-16 when the A-7 is fine?" Same idea.

End production of the Air Force’s F-22. The F-22 was designed to ensure victory in air-to-air dogfights with the kind of futuristic fighters that the Soviet Union did not last long enough to build. The Air Force should instead rely on its version of the new high-performance F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which comes into production in 2012 and like the F-22 uses stealth technology to elude enemy radar.

Would it be impolite to mention that the F-35 still isn't in production? Who would is stand up to the latest generation of fighters being produced in Russia and Europe once you join up inside visual range?

Until then, it can use upgraded versions of the F-16, which can outperform anything now flown by any potential foe. The F-35 will provide a still larger margin of superiority. The net annual savings: about $3 billion.

The F-4 argument.

Cancel the DDG-1000 Zumwalt class destroyer. This is a stealthy blue water combat ship designed to fight the kind of midocean battles no other nation is preparing to wage. The Navy can rely on the existing DDG-51 Arleigh Burke class destroyer, a powerful, well-armed ship that incorporates the advanced Aegis combat system for tracking and destroying multiple air, ship and submarine targets. The Navy has sharply cut back the number of Zumwalts on order from 32 to two.

Yikes! How many errors can you get in one paragraph? NYT, drop me an email next time you need a fact checker. Let me help you out a bit...I don't even like the DDG-1000, but you are making me do this...

• Anything the size of a pocket battleship and emitting all that radar is not stealthy. The PPT and tri-fold may say that - but anyone who has been at sea knows different.
• You have 180 degree lock-off. DDG-1000 was designed for just the opposite of a blue-water battle - it was designed originally as a land attack destroyer - as it right up next to the shore.
• China is preparing to engage on blue water warfare - as are the Indians - as are the Russians ....
  

Classic example why you should worry about anyone who gets their only national security information from the NTY. We will have to rely on DDG-51s now that Zumwalt has been put out of its misery, so that last suggestion they give is meaningless. Horse already out of the barn.

Cutting the last two could save more than $3 billion a year that should be used to buy more of the littoral combat ships that are really needed. Those ships can move quickly in shallow offshore waters and provide helicopter and other close-in support for far more likely ground combat operations.

LCS cannot and will not be able to support troops ashore in but a very limited manner. Including mission modules, $3 billion will buy you no more than 4 LCS max, less if you crash a half-dozen or so FIRESCOUTS along the way.

Halt production of the Virginia class sub. Ten of these unneeded attack submarines — modeled on the cold-war-era Seawolf, whose mission was to counter Soviet attack and nuclear launch submarines — have already been built. The program is little more than a public works project to keep the Newport News, Va., and Groton, Conn., naval shipyards in business.

Gee, email Bubblehead NYT if you need to understand subs. This is just pathetic. VA class is an affordable answer to SEAWOLF and is the one program we have that is ahead of schedule and below budget...and our national security requires the industrial base in Newport News and Groton staying in business. Just stupid paragraph from every angle.

The Navy can extend the operating lives of the existing fleet of Los Angeles class fast-attack nuclear submarines, which can capably perform all needed post-cold-war missions — from launching cruise missiles to countering China’s expanding but technologically inferior submarine fleet. Net savings: $2.5 billion.

How about we build VA and refuel a few LA instead?

Pull the plug on the Marine Corps’s V-22 Osprey. After 25 years of trying, this futuristic and unnecessary vertical takeoff and landing aircraft has yet to prove reliable or safe. The 80 already built are more than enough. Instead of adding 400 more, the Marine Corps should buy more of the proven H-92 and CH-53 helicopters. Net savings: $2 billion to 2.5 billion.

Just when, finally, they are in the Fleet and proving their worth? That argument should have been made 10 years ago. Old argument that just doesn't work. We'll take a few CH-53 for the Navy though - everyone agrees it was stupid to get rid of those we had.

Halt premature deployment of missile defense. The Pentagon wants to spend roughly $9 billion on ballistic missile defense next year. That includes money to deploy additional interceptors in Alaska and build new installations in central Europe. After spending some $150 billion over the past 25 years, the Pentagon has yet to come up with a national missile defense system reliable enough to provide real security. The existing technology can be easily fooled by launching cheap metal decoys along with an incoming warhead.

I would comment more but can't. This is just not accurate - nuff said.

We do not minimize the danger from ballistic missiles. We agree there should be continued testing and research on more feasible approaches. Since the most likely threat would come from Iran or North Korea, there should be serious discussions with the Russians about a possible joint missile defense program. (We know the system poses no threat to Russia, but it is time to take away the excuse.) A research program would cost about $5 billion annually, for a net savings of nearly $5 billion.

Who here can tell my why sharing some of our most sensitive and high-tech research with autocratic Russia might be a bad idea. Anyone?

Negotiate deep cuts in nuclear weapons. Under the 2002 Moscow Treaty, the United States and Russia committed to reduce their strategic nuclear weapons to between 1,700 and 2,200 each by 2012. There has been no discussion of any further cuts. A successor treaty should have significantly lower limits — between 1,000 and 1,400, with a commitment to go lower.

Yawn. OK, but while we are at it, let's build and test modern, more reliable, and safer designs. Sounds like a good plan - if both steps are done.

President-elect Barack Obama should also take all ballistic missiles off hair-trigger alert and commit to reducing the nation’s absurdly large stock of backup warheads. These steps will make the world safer. It will give Mr. Obama a lot more credibility to press others to rein in their nuclear ambitions.

The Strangelovian paranoia at the NYT is kind of funny. Hairtrigger? Silly. Pre-emptive unilateral negotiation? Mindless.

It is hard to say just how much money would be saved with these reductions, but in the long term, the amount would certainly be considerable.

Trim the active-duty Navy and Air Force. The United States enjoys total dominance of the world’s seas and skies and will for many years to come.

Ummmm, not if we follow your plan.

The Army and the Marines have proved too small for the demands of simultaneous ground wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. They are the forces most likely to be called on in future interventions against terrorist groups or to rescue failing states. Reducing the Navy by one carrier group and the Air Force by two air wings would save about $5 billion a year.

Actually, not a bad idea if you needed to find a spare $5 billion ....

Making these cuts will not be politically easy. The services are already talking up remote future threats (most involving a hostile China armed to the teeth with submarines and space-age weapons). Military contractors invoke a different kind of threat: hundreds of thousands of layoffs in a recession-weakened economy. We are all for saving and creating jobs, but not at the cost of diverting finite defense dollars from real and pressing needs — or new programs that will create new jobs.

Such as ..... details ....

The cuts above could save $20 billion to $25 billion a year, which could be better used as follows:

Increase the size of the ground force. The current buildup of the Army and the Marine Corps will cost more than $100 billion over the next six years. Trimming the size of the Navy and Air Force,..

Yes...

deferring the deployment of unready missile defenses and canceling the Osprey will pay for much of that.

Pay for the Navy’s needed littoral combat ships. These ships, which operate in shallow waters to support ground combat, cost about $600 million each. Canceling the DDG-1000 destroyer (more than $3 billion per ship) and the Virginia class submarine (more than $2 billion each) will help provide that needed money.

No.

Resupply the National Guard and the Reserves. At the present rate for replacing weapons left behind or destroyed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Guard will still be more than 20 percent short of what it needs in 2013. Canceling the F-22 will provide enough money to do better than that years sooner.

No.

Some of these changes would have been made already if the Pentagon procurement system were more responsive to present needs and less captive to service and industry lobbyists.

True.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates complains about what he calls “next war-itis,” the system’s built-in preference for what might be needed in potential future wars over what is clearly needed now.

True.

Privately, most of the service chiefs concede that their budgets, which have seen little discipline since 9/11, have some margin for cuts.

I don't care who you are, that there is funny.

Congress will need to develop a lot more realism and restraint.

Baaawaaahahahaha!!

Lobbyists pushing costly and unneeded weapons systems find ready allies in lawmakers looking to create or protect federally financed jobs in their districts. Big contractors like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and General Dynamics have become masters at spreading those jobs around to assemble broad Congressional voting blocs. Work on the F-22 has been parceled out to subcontractors in 44 states.

Has always been that way, won't change.

Mr. Gates, who will stay on, must make reforming the procurement system a priority. The era of unlimited budgets is over, and Mr. Gates needs to make tough calls and stick to them. Congress must give more weight to the nation’s overall needs and less to parochial interests.

Fixing the Pentagon’s procurement process will require the full backing of Mr. Obama. We believe American taxpayers are eager to support changes that would make the country more secure while making more effective use of their money.

Baby & Bathwater. Review CONOPS prior to execution.

Labels: Food Trough, Media

Things can't be looking good for a politician from the Western USA when this is in an article about his 2010 re-election campaign.

Sen. Reid traveled to the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico late last month to meet with campaign contributors.

Dude, you are from Nevada!!!!! Then again, the pickings may be a little slim from those who he is supposed to represent.

Sen. Reid, however, faces a potentially tough fight. A recent Research 2000 poll of likely voters put his approval rating at 38% and his disapproval rating at 54%, a possible reflection of voters' displeasure with gridlock and partisanship in Washington. And while Nevada broke for President-elect Barack Obama by 12 percentage points in November, the state voted for President George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004.

Can the Nevada Republican Party find someone, anyone, to pick this low hanging fruit?

Who might square off against Sen. Reid is unclear. Nevada's Republican lieutenant governor, Brian Krolicki, declared his candidacy last month but was subsequently indicted for suspect accounting practices during his time as state treasurer. He has denied the charges.

Another potential GOP candidate is former Rep. Jon Porter, who lost his House seat representing an area outside of Las Vegas in November after serving three terms. The Research 2000 survey showed Sen. Reid beating Mr. Porter 46% to 40% in a potential 2010 race, an uncomfortably narrow margin for an incumbent.

Sigh, can't beat sup'n with nut'n. Losers - are you going to blow this too?

Good luck with that .....

Labels: Politics

Labels: Broadside, Cartoon

Change can't wait.

Washington Redskins owner, Daniel Snyder, announced at a press conference today that his football team will be changing its name.

“Let’s face it, the term ‘Redskins’ is offensive to many people and continuing to use it as the name of an NFL franchise is totally inappropriate,” said Snyder. “This is long overdue.”

Snyder went on to say that, since the team had over the past 75 years made millions of dollars off of merchandise featuring images of Native Americans, it only made sense to use some of that money to help improve the lives of Native Americans. He announced that the team would be giving a large percentage of its revenue to Native American community and activist groups.

Actually, you should read the entire Friday edition of the NYT-se today ... it is all good. Here is a shot of the, ahem, front page.


PS: It's satire, in case you didn't get it. Read the whole paper, the links and comments all work. What a riot.

Labels: Humor, Moonbats

Here is the cr@p,

Pakistan began moving thousands of troops from the Afghan border toward India, officials and witnesses said Friday, raising tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors and possibly undermining the U.S.-backed campaign against al-Qaida and the Taliban.

The country also announced that it was canceling all military leave in the aftermath of last month's terror attack on the Indian financial capital of Mumbai.

India has blamed Pakistani militants for the terrifying three-day siege; Pakistan has demanded that India back this up with better evidence.

Pakistan's latest moves were seen as a warning that it would retaliate if India launches air or missile strikes against militant targets on Pakistani soil - rather than as an indication that a fourth war was imminent between the two countries.

The United States has been trying to ease the burgeoning crisis while also pressing Pakistan to crack down on militants Washington says were likely responsible for the Mumbai attack. The siege left 164 people dead after gunmen targeted 10 sites including two five-star hotels and a Jewish center.

On Friday, U.S. intelligence and military officials were trying to determine if the reported troop movements were true and - if so - what Pakistan's intent might be.

Here is the double-cr@p.

Any significant troop movement would likely dash President-elect Barack Obama's strategy of having Pakistan concentrate on the threat emanating from the lawless tribal regions close to Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders are believed hiding out.

Obama said nothing publicly about the Pakistan situation Friday.

"This is a serious blow to the war on terror in the sense that the whole focus is now shifting toward the eastern border," said Talat Masood, a former general and military analyst. "It will give more leeway to the militants and increased space to operate."

That is exactly what the terrorists in Bombay wanted. Draw the PAK forces from their neck in NWFP and SWAT. Make no mistake, less PAK pressure there means more USA, UK and alliance personnel killed and injured.

PAK has an almost pathological hate and fear of her sister India. Also make no mistake that we have established the international template for striking terrorists wherever they are - especially if the host nation isn't doing enough to go after them itself.

Want to know why President-elect Obama picked a Centrist/Center-Right national security team? Because he knows _________ and _________ - and he knows it is no time for playing around with cute ideas that can't survive outside the hothouse that is academia. And we'll leave that at that.

Labels: India, Long War, Pakistan

Time to revisit the first Battle of Narvik. The reason is that I think we need to look at some of the lessons we can glean from the HNoMS Norge and HNoMS Eidsvold. We learned some good things that you must and can do, even with old equipment, from the Norwegians at the Battle of Oslo - but further north at Narvik, the other side of the coin is sadly obvious - to not to try to learn from their mistakes is to ignore their sacrifice.

The destroyers, moving closer to Narvik, were spotted by Norwegian vessels, which promptly reported the sighting and alerted the old coastal defence ships HNoMS Eidsvold and HNoMS Norge. Both Norwegian ships prepared for combat: the guns were loaded and life preservers issued to the crew. Around 04:15am, the Germans spotted Eidsvold, and Eidsvold immediately signalled the leading German destroyer with an aldis lamp. When the Germans failed to respond to the signal, a warning shot was fired across their bow while the Eidsvold flew a two flag signal, ordering the destroyer to halt.

The Germans had orders to occupy Norway peacefully if at all possible, so the German flagship Wilhelm Heidkamp stopped and signalled that it would send an officer to negotiate. From a distance of about 200 metres, a small launch ferried Korvettenkapitän (lieutenant commander) Gerlach over to Eidsvold. Gerlach and a signalman were taken to the bridge to speak to Captain Willoch. At the same time, the gun crews of both the 21 cm guns and the 15 cm guns aboard Eidsvold kept the German destroyer in their sights, at point-blank range.

Gerlach tried to convince Willoch that the Germans had arrived as friends and that Willoch should surrender peacefully. Willoch pointed out that he was bound by duty to resist, but asked for a ten-minute break to consider the matter. He used this time to contact his superiors, including the captain of Norge, further inside the fjord, informing them of his intent to engage the German forces. In the meantime, a second German destroyer crossed behind Eidsvold and took up a position 700 metres from the vessel, ready to fire her torpedoes.

Gerlach tried once again to convince Willoch to surrender, but Willoch refused. As Gerlach left Eidsvold, he fired a red flare, indicating that the Norwegians intended to fight. At this point, Captain Willoch shouted: "På plass ved kanonene. Nå skal vi slåss, gutter!" ("Man the guns. We're going to fight, boys!").[3] Eidsvold turned towards the closest destroyer and accelerated, while the battery commander ordered the port battery (three 15 cm guns) to open fire.

The Germans, afraid that Eidsvold might ram the destroyer, fired two or four torpedoes from Wilhelm Heidkamp at the old ship. Two or three of the torpedoes hit before the port guns could fire, according to Norwegian sources: one under the rear turret, one midship and one in the bow. It is likely that the torpedoes ignited one of the magazines aboard, because Eidsvold was blown in two and sank in seconds around 04:37am, propellers still turning. Only six of the crew were rescued by the Germans, 175 died in the freezing water.

Deeper inside the fjord, the explosions were heard aboard Norge, but nothing could be seen until two German destroyers suddenly appeared out of the darkness and Captain Per Askim of Norge gave orders to open fire at 04:45am. Four rounds were fired from the 21 cm guns (one from the fore gun and three from the aft) as well as seven or eight rounds from the starboard 15 cm guns, against the German destroyer Bernd von Arnim, at a range of about 800 metres. Due to the difficult weather conditions, the guns' optical sights were ineffective: the first salvo fell short of the target and the next ones overshot it.

The German destroyers waited until they were alongside the pier before returning fire. Bernd von Armin opened fire with her 12.7 cm (5 inch) guns as well as with machine guns, but the weather gave the Germans problems as well. The destroyer also fired three salvos of two torpedoes each. The first two salvos missed, but the last struck Norge midships and she sank in less than one minute. 90 of the crew were rescued, but 101 perished in the battle which had lasted less than 20 minutes. The destruction of Norge signaled the end of Norwegian resistance in the port.

What are your ROE? Are you ready to make the call a warfighter is paid to make? You? Do you demand perfect information to defend your nation?

Are your Sailors as trained on their weapons as they need to be? Damage control? Combat readiness? Balls?

To learn and see more, there are good pics of some of the ships from the various Battles of Narvik can be found here, and other of my posts on Narvik here.

Labels: Fullbore, Norway, WWII

In response to a bunch of FOD thrown up as a result of Pastor Rick Warren's selection for his inauguration, President-elect Obama said something that I hope he hoists onboard; as it is the American that 'ole Salamander sees shining on the hill - but that many are trying to kill.

....there are going to be a wide range of viewpoints that are presented. And that's how it should be, because that's what America's about. That's part of the magic of this country ... we are diverse and noisy and opinionated," Obama said.

If he would only let his Navy be noisy and opinionated about Diversity ... then he might even get my vote down the road ... or at least have me think about it.

I know, I was being Dobbsish with the Diversity comment - but I had to listen to a Diversity Bully's pedantic cant again and it is under my craw.

That snide remark of mine aside - I know talk is talk and action is action --- but at this point the PEOTUS is turning out a lot better than I thought he would for the most Leftist Senator .... maybe he is already "growing in office."

Labels: Obama, Religion

Now that Christmas is past I feel a little more open to being grumpy again. It is also time that I put my Economist's hat on again.

Since my Libertine Libertarian youth I have been a Monetarist. I was there when Keynesian Economics was killed, gibbeted and left on the ramparts as a warning for all to see what happens to those who follow false economic doctrine. I remember the '70 and the stagflation that resulted from Nixon-Ford-Carter Keynesian economics. I remember the painful medicine of the early '80s that we had to go through to fix the foolishness of the previous decade. We should know better - some like the national treasure Thomas Sowell do - most don't it seems.

Those who have caused this crisis; from the Diversity Bully Foolishness that is/was the cause of the sub-prime mortgage mess to those who are leading our economic policy are even older I than I am - they know this story even better than I do. I was just the geeky kid who watched the news after football practice and read every news magazine he got his hands on - and then went on to college to discover the WSJ, The Economist, National Review, and High Times. But I digress.

Most of you should remember the S&L crisis of the late '80s. What brought that on? Greed and crime brought on by those who sold their soul for a few extra percentage points in the short term - they thought history had nothing to teach them - they were smarter and the rules were new.

The dot-com boom and bust in the late '90s even more remember. What brought that on? Greed and a suspension of belief in a balance sheet and the lessons of economics that are easily traced back to renaissance Holland. Remember those who left their jobs to day-trade for a living. Those people thought history had nothing to teach them - they were smarter and the rules were new.

And now the housing bubble. Those who were caught in the housing bubble in SoCal in the early '90s should have seen this coming. Housing prices can never increase exponentially above median income for a long period of time - classic ponzi scheme. Remember those who left their jobs to flip houses for a living? Those people throught history had nothing to teach them, they were smarter and the rules were new.

So, here we are. The US gov'munt is printing money like it is going out of style ... which it is. Massively increasing the supply of money in a desperate attempt to have the public fix private crime. The Treasury Secretary used to run Goldman Sachs. What was ground-zero for the 30-to-1 leveraging off of the Diversity Bullies' sub-prime backed, worthless securities? Goldman Sachs. Who is one of the largest recipients of the TARP funds? Goldman Sachs.

Who was Paulson's predessor at Treasury? Of course, John Snow. What is John Snow doing now? Of course, he is the CEO of Cerberus. What is Cerberus? Well, it is the private equity firm that bought Chrysler. Who is trying to get money out of the gov'munt to protect their stupid investment? Chrysler.

What is the major reason that GM, Chrysler, and Ford have such a hard time making any money? Simple. Over the last few decades, they have made deals with their unions that are simply unsustainable. I remember one of my economics professors in the 80s warning about this. They try to make cars as cheap as they can in order to make room for all the benefits that the unions have demanded. Their cars, especially GM, look, drive, and feel cheap. It isn't the workers either; Mercedes, BMW, Toyota, Nissan, and more have plants in the USA and they make outstanding products - that are even exported to Europe and Asia. What is the difference? No unions. Reasonable business plans, and solid management.

The financial bailout; does it demand change in the leadership that brought about the collapse of their companies? Is there a drive for criminal investigations into the balance sheet shenanigans? No. Who used to work for who. Who have what money to what politician's campaign. Who have the same lobbyists. It is all there.

The auto bailout, does it demand a change in leadership from both the companies and the unions? No. How much money do unions give to politicians. What politicians take it. Who have the same lobbyists. It is all there.

Sometimes in a market economy you have to allow failure. Failure and bankruptcy is how the economic body rids itself of waste. Bad management, bad products, bad business plans are punished by being allowed to die. By dying they clear the field for other, better things to take their place. If they are not removed, they clog up the system and bind it up with inefficiency and stagnation. When companies fail, there are people who get hurt - but I ask you which system is better; the free market of socialism as they had in Eastern Europe? Even in Europe itself, which are the strongest countries? Those with the most free market policies. Which are the worst? the ones with the most guv'munt say in their economic structures.

Let them go bankrupt. In the medium term and long term we will be a better nation for it. We should not be full of fear to do what is right. When you have a skin cancer, you don't just hide it with make-up - no you go to the Doctor and have it cut out before it kills the entire body.

---

Where are the perp-walks? Where are the investigations? Where are the Grand Jurys? The gov'munt went after Scooter Libby like a bulldog on a pork chop - but for those who have caused trillions of dollars of economic damage through their fraud, we see nothing.

This petty corruption is a cancer on our society and economy. Without accountability, we sink to the level of nations we claim to be the better of.

---

...and we print money and more money and more money. There is a cost to this. When the guv'munt floods the market with dollars, the law of supply and demand will in time take its course. Inflation will follow, and all that money has to come from somewhere, it comes from public debt. Public debt that you are putting on the back of your children and grandchildren. That dept service will eat up more and more of our budget. We are already at the point where we borrow money just to pay the interest on our existing debt load. How does that work for your personal accounts? It isn't all that different for the guv'munt either.

Are you lost? Well, read this and then come back - it is a good start.

Debt and an inflated money supply will lead to one thing - inflation - it will come. Add to that increasing taxes as the Democrats let the Bush tax cuts expire in 2010. Add to that increasing regulation that will come with the Democrats. Add to that the protectionism they are heading towards. Add to that expanded social programs and their demands on the budget. Add to that the pro-union activity that will feed the cancer we already have in many sectors - especially public service unions. Add that up and more and you have stagnation. Stagflation.

---

So, what can you do? Simple - first get your own house in order. Review your personal debt load - and get rid of it. Suck it up, down shift and unload debt. Start with your credit-card debt. Do you have $10,000 in credit card debt at 10-30%, yet you have a $10,000 CD only paying you 3.6%? Cash in the CD and get rid of the credit card debt....and then make sure you have a zero balance at the end of each month.

Never lease a car either - and don't take out a car loan. Need a new car - fine, save for it. If your self worth is wrapped up in your car, you need to re-evaluate your life. No car is worth going into debt over. If you can get yourself down to only a mortgage, then you are at a good balance spot. Now, pay down that mortgage and/or refinance to a 15 yr if you can and should.

Now that you have your personal life in order - go after your guv'munt. Democrat, Republican or Independent - if your Rep. or Sen. voted for the bailout of companies that had to do nothing in return, which is all of them from what I can see, then vote against them in the primary and general. I don't care what their views are on the other issues. If we have a guv'munt that feels it can repeat the mistakes of Argentina and not reap the same result, then the other issues will mean nothing as we will lose our Republic within two generations.

Hold your companies accountable. Are you a shareholder? Act like one. Review the companies you own - it is too late if you have not already sold - but what is the best company to own, Wells Fargo or Citi?

Accountability. Demand it. You won't always get it - but you never will unless you start. This isn't a right or Left thing - it really isn't. It is about power, money, status, and greed. Don't forget that our nation was designed to protect the people from those who run guv'munt and their natural desire for more power, more money, more status, and more greed.

If you are still with me, let me leave you with a simple summary of the facts. Back in High School, I guy in the class below me had a bumper sticker that just about established the foundation you need to have to understand what is waiting for us if we don't get control of the Bailout Nation. Everything has its price. In summary;

Labels: Economics

Snerk.

Michael Tennenhouse, 18, said he was home in Springfield on winter break, taking in impeachment hearings at the Capitol, when he came across a nativity scene, a menorah and an atheist group's display in the rotunda. The exhibits have stirred up controversies, all of which struck Tennenhouse as silly.
...
So Tennenhouse filled out an application to put up the Festivus pole ("the lady burst out laughing"), which was approved the same day.

Tennenhouse found a blue aluminum pole (Festivus poles are to be "unadorned") that was part of a pool skimmer and stuck it in a Christmas tree holder.

There is, of course, always a bigoted Grinch.

Dan Zanoza, chairman of the Springfield Nativity Scene Committee, said the state's decision to allow the pole was "unfortunate."

"Festivus is nothing—it means nothing, it represents nothing," he said. "At least the atheist sign had a viewpoint."

Hat tip HotAir.

Labels: Religion

From Sid, a pic that IMAO is simply sublime.

Some background;

August '60 in Sanford when VAH-1 was flying out to the Independence for her first deployment. Eighteen A-3s went aboard.

Christmas '60 was for that kid what it remains today for the children of all deployed servicemembers. Remember them today if you have a chance - all I can do right now is think of mine. Sniff.

Labels: Aircraft

I do so love the British military.

It was dusk in Helmand. And as the sun set over the baked earth, commandos wearing Santa hats gathered round the war memorial and began a simple chorus of carols.

Then the Taliban attacked.

There was no time for the troops to think or even to take off their festive hats.

Any hopes of a Christmas truce, when hostilities cease and foes become friends for a few precious hours, were dashed in an instant.

It is a tradition that stretches back to the trenches of the First World War, when British and German soldiers shared drinks, sang carols, exchanged gifts and even enjoyed an impromptu game of football in no-man's-land.

But things are different in Afghanistan. At the first sound of enemy fire the Royal Marines of 40 Commando threw down their hymn sheets and sprinted to the mortar lines 200 yards away. Within a minute, they were returning fire.

For three-quarters of an hour, they battled with the insurgents, ear defenders over their festive headgear - the only reminder of the peace the evening had promised.

Then, as the skirmish ended and darkness fell, the servicemen and women returned to the memorial at Forward Operating Base Inkerman, and resumed the carol service, thankful there had been no British casualties.

One sober note about the British in Afghanistan this Christmas ...

Since Nov 1, 14 British soldiers have died compared with six Canadians, three Americans, five Danes, two Spaniards and one soldier each from Australia, France and the Netherlands.

The full casualty figures for the forgotten war is here. Let them have their fun.

Hat tip Mark and Jules.

Labels: Afghanistan, Britain

Once again ....

Labels: Dutch

From IowaHawk - - who else?

Labels: Democrats, Humor

The porcupine wants more and longer quills.

"Aircraft carriers are a symbol of a country's overall national strength as well as the competitiveness of the country's naval force," Chinese Ministry of National Defence spokesman Senior Colonel Huang Xueping told reporters.

"China has a large sea territory. It is the sacred responsibility of our armed forces to protect our sea territory and to maintain our maritime sovereignty and rights and interests. China, taking into account all relevant factors, will earnestly research and consider (building aircraft carriers)."

Her neighbors are ... thrilled ...

"We need to do some research before we can judge whether (the carrier) is directed at Taiwan," said Ministry of National Defence spokeswoman Chih Yu-lan.

I'll take that contract if you are looking at putting it out to bid Chih - I'll come in under budget and ahead of time.

Might be time to review some of our tactics down the road ...

Hat tip Jawa.

Labels: Carrier, China, Long Game

In the latest annual, anonymous survey at the (Naval) academy, West Point and the Air Force Academy, respondents reported 34 instances of unwanted s3xual contact during the 2007 academic year, down from 40 reported cases in 2006 and 42 cases in 2005.

So, sounds like good news, right? Harumph - you don't understand the grievance industry well, do you? You just can't please some people.

...Cynthia Smith, a Defense Department spokeswoman.

"We want these numbers to go up," she said yesterday. "We want to create environments in which cadets and mids can come forward to get the care they need."

Good googly moogly - you mean we haven't? GMAFB, the MIDN and Cadets are soaked in it. We get good news on s3xual 'contact' (is that the same as assault, or is this another example of watering down seriousness? For arguments sake from here on out I will assume assault, but I smell water...) and we won't celebrate it? We won't tell ourselves, "Now let's reinforce success...."

No; now we are saying that our females are either victims or liars ... or both?

Of course, you understand, the grievance industry cannot have an improved environment - no - that is bad for business, and make no mistake, it is a business that gets a lot of money by keeping a crisis on the front burner even if they have to create the heat themselves.

As the father of daughters, I take real s3xual assault very seriously - and you should hear Momma Salamander on the subject: no, this is not a male vs. female topic. This is right vs. wrong - this is honesty and clear headed accountability.

Another thing I know is that this is the most s3xualized generation we have ever sent to the Academy, and the Type-A females that we have in our military institutions are if anything over-briefed on this topic. Do some keep quite? Sure - are more keeping quite? No way.

The drop is a good news story - we should nod our head and be glad. I look forward to their next survey on false s3xual assault claims. Maybe those are sharply down as well. That too would be good news.

Something to ponder when you think about who was and who was not on the right side of history over the last 18 months.

The number of daily attacks in Iraq has dropped nearly 95 percent since last year, a U.S. military official said yesterday.

Iraq suffered an average of 180 attacks per day this time last year. But over the past week, the average number was 10, Army Brig. Gen. David G. Perkins, a Multinational Force Iraq spokesman, said.

“This is a dramatic improvement of safety throughout the country,” Perkins told reporters during a wide-ranging news conference in Baghdad yesterday.

He added that the country’s murder rates have dropped below levels that existed before the start of American operations in Iraq. In November, the ratio was 0.9 per 100,000 people.

Be proud of what we have done, that is a lower rate than before Saddam was thrown out; the 2007 murder rate in the US was 5.9 per 100,000.

Hat tip James S. Robbins in The Corner.

Labels: Iraq

Prep-n things for LCS, the USS Bert-n-Ernie ... errrr MCINERNEY (FFG-8) did some work with FIRESCOUT a little bit ago. The folks in the pic are the team that did all the structural installs, lot of the wiring, fab’d up all of the foundations. Not much smaller than a SEASPRITE, is she?

Hat tip Byron.

Labels: Frigate, LCS

Labels: Humor, Terrorists

And probably weighs less...

Greyhawk's Book Club has a new offer ... I like the sound of it.

In the second decade of the twenty-first century the world is struck by two catastrophes, a new mini-ice age and, nearly simultaneously, a plague to dwarf all previous experiences. Rising out of the disaster is the character known to history as “Bandit Six” an American Army officer caught up in the struggle to rebuild the world and prevent the fall of his homeland—despite the best efforts of politicians both elected and military. The Last Centurion is a memoir of one possible future, a world that is a darkling mirror of our own. Written “blog-style,” it pulls no punches in its descriptions of junk science, bad strategy and organic farming not to mention all three at once.

...though you may want to read the reviews in case you don't like the political bent of THIS blog.....

Labels: Books

When a Staff Weenie loses it; he loses it. One exercise too much methinks.

---

FRAGO No XXX I DTG: 321225 Z APR 18
SUBJECT: WRITE FRAGO {QUICK AND DIRTY}
VALIDITY: THIS FRAGO WILL BE CANCELLED ON: On Order
DRAFTER DATA CJOC DIRECTOR, 867-5309
RELEASING OFFICER'S COL Sanders.
SIGNATURE:
TITLE: CJX Division Head

REFERENCES:
A. OPLAN 01812
B. JCO 001 DTG G+122 2000Z
PRECEDENSE:
ACTION: Immediate
INFO: Immediate
MSGID: IXXX(OP/FRAGO XXX I (WRITE FRAGO QUICK AND DIRTY)

FROM: HQ
TO: HQ LCC
HQACC
HQ MCC
HQ POCC
HQ SOCC
HQ JLSG
HQ CBRN Bn
INFO: HQ SHAPE

SITUATION You are the Staff Officer at desk level and you have been directed to write a FRAGO on very short notice. You are given the Direction and Guidance to write it, "quick and dirty" which you take to mean as quickly and efficiently as possible.
1. MISSION 010: STAFF OFFICER WILL WRITE A FRAGO IOT HAVE MORE TIME TO TAKE A COFFEE BREAK.
2. EXECUTION:
--a. Concept of Operations:
---(1) Commander's Intent:
----(a) Staff Officer writes, or if possible passes off to your colleague the responsibility of writing, this FRAGO in order to maintain the security of leisure time in the coffee bar.
---(2) Scheme of Manoeuvre: The Staff Officer, supported by all other SO's in his branch, is to develop outline CONOPs to meet COM's intent and be prepared to conduct the operation of writing a FRAGO. Don’t spell maneuver like and American.
---(3) Endstate: Superior Officers denied intent to use up all your coffee break time. Write the FRAGO (or better yet, pass it off to your colleague so you don't have to do it) immediately and get it over with!
--b. Tasks:
---(1) SO Tasks: The FRAGO SO is the Supported Component.
---(2) ACC SO Tasks: Confuse FRAGO SO by making zooming noises and wild gestures with your hands.
---(3) LCC SO Tasks: Frustrate FRAGO SO by insisting he become your Operational Reserve.
---(4) POCC SO Tasks: Conduct PYSOPS against FRAGO SO attempting to convince him to stop writing the FRAGO.
---(5) SOCC SO Tasks: Support FRAGO SO by never being around when he needs you and then show up at the last second before DSACEUR makes a visit to your planning team thereby impressing him that SOCC is contributing.
---(6) CBRN Bn: Who? You guys are your own CC??? CBRN= Concerned But Really Not.
---(7) JLSG Tasks: Jolly Lovable Silly Guys. Thanks for feeding us.
---(8) Operational Reserve. How the hell are we going to use this? J5 Plans has spent countless hours on this we still don't know.
--c. Coordinating Instructions: Initial outline plan to be submitted to HQ by ASAP.
3. SERVICE SUPPORT: No change to Reference B.
4. COMMAND AND SIGNAL: No change.

---

Hat tip NATO spy.

Labels: Humor, NATO

So, who for SECNAV? Some funny - seriously, funny - names have been floated out there; from the "this will be fun re-run" of Sen. (nee SECNAV) Webb (D-VA), to the "this would be an unmitigated nightmare and retention issue" of Rep. (nee RADM) Sestak (D-PA), to the "that might be an interesting and almost inspired pick" of Robert Work.

Still, nothing that raises and eyebrow and a "hmmmmm."

Drum-roll please .....

Some top retired military leaders and some Democrats in Congress are backing William White, chief operating officer of the Intrepid Museum Foundation, to be the next secretary of the Navy -

Wait for it.

- a move that would put the first openly gay person at the top of one of the services.

Snerk. I can't stand agenda politics.

Being that I have to do this standard disclaimer because the Radical Pink always leave drive-by trollish comments here without reading the whole post + DADT tag whenever this comes up - CDR Salamander actually has no problem with openly gay people serving. Never have. Repeal DADT - don't care. Now, back to bid'ness.

I am sure that Bill is a great and talented bloke; but seriously - at this stage of the game I don't think we can afford a history-museum guy (BTW, who can tell the best joke about the Obama Administration's plan for the military with the pic that came with the story?).

He does have a lot of support,

"He would be fabulous," said retired Gen. Hugh Shelton, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1997 to 2001, pointing to Mr. White's extensive background as a fundraiser for veterans' and military causes.

... err that should be phenomenal, not fabulous (sorry, can't help myself - I only kid).

Sounds like a great VA guy perhaps - but in the procurement and strategic mess the Navy is in right now, perhaps not the right guy.

"He's very capable," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, New York Democrat, whose district includes the Intrepid Museum, a retired aircraft carrier berthed on the Hudson River in New York City.

YIKES! Don't let Rep Nadler write my FITREP!

In summary, White sounds like a great guy, just not who we need for the job. That leaves, of the names floated, Webb or Work. I'd take Webb just for the fireworks and the office pool on how long it will be until he quits. I wonder if he would take it if offered? After all, the whole reason that he ran for the Senate - that Iraq was a lost cause and we need to retreat - has been proven false. He could use the challenge - but once in the Senate, it takes a lot for someone to want to leave. I doubt he wants it unless he is already sick of the Senate.

That leaves Work. You can read his stuff on Sea Basing, LCS, Surface Combatants, Fleet Constitution, Technology, and Strategy at the links - one nit-pic, I don't care much for his constant reference to "naval battle network". Solid pic compared to the others - if he wants the job.

---

UPDATE: RUMINT, d@mn good RUMINT BTW, has it being none of the above - but one that was in the rumor mill. I will let the Obama administration make the announcement official - but he is a sharp individual with a close relationship with the President-elect. He knows the Navy and has some energy behind him as well. He also seems to be known as an, ahem, @55h0le by many.

Good. We need one of those. If it is him, we should wish him well and give him plenty of running room, and yes - he makes me go "hmmmmmm," in a good way.

---

UPDATE II - Electric Boogaloo:In comments, Galrahn outs my RUMINT - and did so earlier this week (not my fault - my bandwidth and computer time ain't what it should be - there, excuse of the day). Former Navy Aviator and one term State Senator from Texas, and Friend of Obama (FOO) - Juan Garcia. His WIKI bit is a good enough backgrounder - if you want to get depressed though, read the comments over at Gal's. I will remain an optimist, because I am all Hopey and Changey ... but I will miss SECNAV Winter. If Garcia is a big bud of Wesley Clark though - I am just going to get drunk. Gal, if Garcia is a dog's breakfast this time next year then I will send you a bottle of single malt or something from the Bourbon Trail - your choice.

Labels: DADT, Navy

Operation TORCH, again - one month and 66 years later.

Back to the basics a bit. I want to spend some time on what I consider one of the most aesthetically pleasing ships - and one h311 of a warship - this nation has ever built, the NORTHAMPTON Class Heavy Cruiser, USS AUGUSTA (CA-31).

I mean, come on - just look at her.

I want you to review a few spots here, here, here, here, here and here about AUGUSTA and TORCH - but for the sake of time - just read this one diary entry and ponder.

War Diary, November 10, 1942.

Patrolling station near the transport area since midnight.. At 0615 prepared to repel enemy air attacks. At 0850 the New York and Cleveland stood into the transport area. No events of importance until 1120 at which time we received word that two enemy destroyers were bombarding our troops on the beaches and roads north or Casa Blanca. We received orders to proceed at best speed to destroy them but were warned to stay out of range of the battery at El Hank. The air group had reported the previous day that the Jean Bart had been "gutted by fire". At 1135 we opened fire on one of the destroyers with the 8" battery and scored four and possibly five straddles on her. At 1145 while still out of range of the battery at El Hank, the Jean Bart opened fire on us with two gun salvos and scored several straddles before we were able to withdraw beyond her range. One of these projectiles landed so close to the bow that we rode through its splash drenching the forward half of the ship with its yellow dyed water. However, no hits were registered and we returned to the transport area feeling very fortunate that no damage had been sustained and indignant at the falsity of the report that the Jean Bart had been "gutted by fire". Admiral Hewitt then ordered that another dive bombing attack be made on the Jean Bart by our carrier planes. This was carried and a report received that seven out of ten 1000 lb bombs had hit her. Anchored in the transport area about 1300 and made plans for a co-ordinated attack on Casablanca ships and shore batteries by the Augusta, New York, Cleveland and four destroyer while the Army attacked the city from the rear.

A.G. Caden, Lt. Cmdr, USN,
Communication Officer

All that less than a year after the war started.

Labels: Cruiser, WWII

As President-elect Obama seems to be going gangbusters WRT his "Quadrilateralization" strategy (knob to 11 from Clinton's "Triangulation") strategy (see foreign policy team and Purpose Driven Inaugural ) - why not finish the job and be a much better President than I though McCain might be - let's kill Affirmative Discrimination as well.

Let's let Edward Blum set it up,

As Obama wrote in his book, "The Audacity of Hope," "An emphasis on universal, as opposed to race-specific, programs isn't just good policy; it's also good politics." This case may determine if he really meant it.

Well, here is your chance,

Will President-elect Barack Obama be a real agent of change, as he has promised, or will it be business as usual for racial and ethnic preferences in the Obama administration? A ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington may give us an opportunity to find out.

The November decision in the case of Rothe Development Corp. vs. Department of Defense struck down a race-based affirmative action contracting program mandated by Congress more than two decades ago. Within weeks of settling into the Oval Office, President Obama and his administration must decide whether to appeal. They should let the court opinion stand.

Here here! As a mixed-race, upper class head of a family - does he really think that his daughters should be given preferential treatment just by the color of their skin? Naw ... I don't think so.

Enough already. Not only is it time to dismantle the disparity-study industry, but we should end the use of race, ethnicity -- and gender -- in the awarding of federal contracts as well. If Washington wants to offer a helping hand to small, emerging businesses, that's fine, but limiting these opportunities to minorities and women is wrong.

Do that and your path to 2012 would be unassailable - let's leave the 20th Century behind.

Labels: Diversity, Obama

Ungh. Every few years it seems a very smart and well meaning person just got through reading something about supply chain management or just-in-time and we get the laser dot on the forehead about the supply system.

The Navy keeps an average of $7.5 billion worth of spare parts and other goods it doesn't need every year because of poor planning and management, congressional investigators say in a report to be released today.

The Government Accountability Office report says the Navy hasn't heeded repeated warnings since 2001 about longstanding problems with the military's inventory management. The report from the GAO, Congress' non-partisan investigative agency, says the Navy's failure to keep track of changing requirements and a lack of communication among the proper officials led to surpluses of spare parts ranging from submarine sonar sets to engine fan blades for fighter jets.

The GAO found "incredible waste," says Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., one of the lawmakers who commissioned the report.

Consider the source, I guess.

Seriously though, who here thinks we have too many spare parts? Things can always be improved, especially in expediting and delivery, but when it comes to spares ... we're fat? No, not from what I see. Inefficient, of course - we're the military. Be glad we aren't hyper efficient.

Something that isn't mentioned enough is the fact what surplus there is in certain areas is there because it is needed. We have been lucky for the most part during this war - we haven't had to feel the hard facts of what war can do to equipment like the Army and the USMC. Some of our aircraft and a few specialty areas sure ... but not in the mainline Fleet.

No, in war isn't where you want to have a part-time peacetime MBA inspired spare parts system ..... or is that what we have anyway?

Are we looking at what the Navy version of the .50 cal ammo challenge .... the ..... well you get the idea.

Labels: Navy

Kind of like this.

Labels: Cartoon, Humor

There are few things out there US and UK officers like to do more than pick each other apart. Like two brothers always trying to judge one by the other, from the outside it looks like conflict; it really isn't.

It is understood that there has been “tension and resentment” over the air of superiority adopted by British commanders such as Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster, who suggested that his American counterparts needed to take lessons from Britain’s experience in Northern Ireland and Malaya.

David Kilcullen, an adviser to the US State Department, told a recent seminar that there had been “lots of fairly snide criticism” from the British whose attitude had been: “Look at us, we’re on the street in our soft caps and everyone loves us.”

He added that such claims had been undercut by the performance since then. “It would be fair to say that in 2006 the British Army was defeated in the field in southern Iraq.” At the same event, Daniel Marston, an American consultant who until recently was a senior lecturer at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst and has been embedded with troops in Afghanistan, said that Britain was being forced to learn some humility after being “embarrassed by their performance”.

It is just two nations who expect a lot out of each other. In the end, we both know that both do the West's heavy lifting.

Any tension out there is for this reason,

Mr Brown hinted at some of his doubts when he told reporters in Kabul: “We are the second largest force in Afghanistan and we will expect as part of the burden-sharing that other countries will do more.” Senior diplomatic sources say there is also frustration in Britain’s military over the lack of a coherent mission statement for the Nato forces in Afghanistan. This has led to problems with US forces sometimes wrecking carefully nurtured community relations in their pursuit of al-Qaeda.

Carter Malkesian, an expert at the Centre of Naval Analysis, said: “Among those in the Department of Defence who are paying attention to these operations, Britain’s reputation has probably fallen. But they still recognise that the British Army, among all the allies, are those that fight the most and fight the best.”

A British officer in Afghanistan expressed surprise at the criticism from the US. “They have few enough allies who will actually do any fighting,” he told The Times.

That is the story - not the US and UK giving each other weggies.

Labels: Afghanistan, Britain

Where illogic and hate ends - in illogical hate.

The Carleton University Students’ Association has voted to drop a cystic fibrosis charity as the beneficiary of its annual Shinearama fundraiser, supporting a motion that argued the disease is not “inclusive” enough.

Cystic fibrosis “has been recently revealed to only affect white people, and primarily men” said the motion read Monday night to student councillors, who voted almost unanimously in favour of it.

Every year near the beginning of fall classes, during university orientation for new arrivals, students fan out across the city and seek donations from passersby. According to the motion, “all orientees and volunteers should feel like their fundraising efforts will serve their (sic) diverse communities.”

Nick Bergamini, a third-year journalism student on the student council, said he was the only elected councillor present to vote against the motion. The decision is an example of campus political correctness gone too far, he said.

“They’re not doctors. They’re playing politics with this,” said Mr. Bergamini. “I think they see this, in their own twisted way, as a win for diversity. I see it as a loss for people with cystic fibrosis.”

I guess Sickle-Cell Anemia is next - there was enough pressure on this to fix the problem and return the fundraiser, but the fact it happened gives you a look into their mind.

Hat tip Michelle.

Labels: Diversity, Education

Those eyes .... and where is the filter on that ......


Of course it is The One. What I want to know; where was this photo during the election? That would have been fun.

No fun allowed. SNL & The Daily Show knows that....

Hat tip Drudge.

Labels: Obama

More details on last week's post on the Dutch turning to the right .... the mainstream right - where I like to think I am.

Now the Dutch government has announced new plans to strictly regulate the sex industry, massage parlours and brothels more by imposing a tough licensing system to drive out organised crime.

"The country is turning more conservative," said historian and author Han van den Horst. "There is a move away from sex, drugs and rock'n'roll towards some pretty bourgeois values."

The murder of the anti-Islam film-maker Theo Van Gogh and the rise of populist anti-Muslim politicians such as Geert Wilders have led to strong perceptions that liberal immigration policy has damaged secular and egalitarian values in one of Europe's most crowded countries.

"The change started out as a rightist phenomenon, but is now becoming more of a mainstream feeling. It is gaining legitimacy and credibility among the working classes," said Mr Houtman.

I need to get back to Amsterdam, it really is a great city.

Labels: Culture Wars, Dutch

Lawrence Di Rita brings up some good points about Shinseki - and why he has to make the effort to clear the air.

The announcement that retired Army chief of staff Eric Shinseki will be President-elect Barack Obama's nominee for secretary of veterans affairs has energized one of the most enduring myths of the Bush presidency. Among the media coverage in recent days: Gen. Shinseki "clashed with the Bush administration on its Iraq war strategy" (Associated Press). In "questioning the Pentagon's Iraq war strategy" (The Post), Shinseki "warn[ed] that far more troops would be needed than the Pentagon had committed" (New York Times). For his candor, he was "vilified" (Boston Globe) by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Shinseki has a chance during his confirmation hearings to set the record straight: None of those statements is correct.

He goes on to thoroughly review the myth. Well worth your time.

Labels: Iraq

It is so much easier deploying with Sailors. Feet dry and trying to keep up with Soldiers and Marines. Just not my speed - way too much working out peer pressure. Kind of like this.

Labels: Humor

Being that he doesn't agree with the rest of us, I don't want him being too frustrated today.

Grab you shoes and give it a go!

BTW, it only took me three throws.

Hat tip LGF.

Labels: Humor

Let us all take a moment to praise Rear Admiral Thomas Eccles, the deputy commander for ship design, integration and engineering at Naval Sea Systems command.

He has spoken truth. Note the bold.

He cited the littoral combat ship, which was designed with a top speed of more than 40 knots, but which also uses a lot of fuel. Navy planners should have asked whether the ship needs to be so fast, he said, given the quantity of fuel that the planned fleet of 55 LCSs will consume.

“The value of the speed is high, because I need it to go places we couldn’t normally go as rapidly and flexibly, and there’s really some value in that, and maybe that’s the price we want to pay. But I don’t think that there was a fully informed decision process arrived at in the development of LCS, in which somebody answered the question the way we might go after it today,” Eccles said.

You don't say?

It does need to be said however that there were many people who were bringing up lots of questions about LCS, its design, its program, and its priorities. However, we as a Navy silenced those individuals, threatened them professionally if they spoke out, and bullied many solid officers into being yes men spouting happy talk for the better part of this decade.

Chickens roost'n....but it is good that at the higher levels at NAVSEA, honest discussion is starting to take place. Now let's move on to survivability .....

Labels: LCS, NAVSEA

Not these guys or these - but Iraqis.

"You guys are like jawas. Is that your sand crawler?”

A great report by Michael J. Totten on his experience with the Army's finest hunt'n bad guys in Sadr City. Read it all.

Labels: Iraq

President Bush in Iraq. A few hundred people wearing very heavy shoes.

How much of this have you seen? I don't have the bandwidth to upload, but go to DVIDS website here and see the video of President Bush at Camp Victory in front of the people who know his policies best.

Say what you want - we do know that he is the one that gave us victory. CJCS didn't; the Iraq Survey Group didn't; the anti-victory Republicans and Democrats didn't.

President Bush did. Without his leadership, Gen. Petraeus would not have been given the running room he needed. Fact.

BTW, there are plenty of, ahem, Sailors out there in the crowd - you just can't tell because, ahem, they are wearing Army uniforms.

Labels: Iraq

I've started adding my posts to my twitter profile and I have a question to those of you who use twitter - is that SPAMish? Is it a pain to be notified of my posts (1-4 a day), or is that one of the reasons you are on twitter - to see what I am pondering?

I still add a weird comment now and then, but thought I would do the BlogPostAlert as well. What 'cha think?

Labels: Blogg'n

Via Glenn, Politico gives us a glimpse of the nature of discourse in the next 4 to 8 years.

President-elect Barack Obama’s Transition today launched “Open for Questions,” a Digg-style feature allowing citizens to submit questions, and to vote on one another’s questions, bringing favored inquiries to the top of the list.

It was suggested when it launched that the tool would bring uncomfortable questions to the fore, but the results so far are the opposite: Obama’s supporters appear to be using — and abusing — a tool allowing them to “flag” questions as “inappropriate” to remove all questions mentioning Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich from the main pages of Obama’s website. . . . So far, Obama’s team does not seem to have stepped in to allow uncomfortable questions to rise to the top, and instead is allowing his supporters to sanitize the site.

Two follow-on quotes that I think catch it all; first from Gawker.

“The same Obamatards who voted up total blowjob questions on the Digg-like question section of Change.gov have, all too predictably, almost completely obliterated any question mentioning ROD BLAGOJEVICH. In fact, if you mention ROD BLAGOJEVICH in your question, at all, even totally politely in a relevant way, your question will not only be voted down but ‘removed’ (says the site) as ‘inappropriate,’ visible only through a specific search for ROD BLAGOJEVICH.” Hmm, group censorship of uncomfortable subjects. Nothing creepy about that on a political site. Hope and change!

...and one of Glenn's readers.

Notice the problem with Obama’s websites?

Neither he nor his staff is censoring the comments…. but they’ve set the site up to allow others to do so.

Neither he nor his staff asked for any illegal foreign contributions, or for contributions from obviously false donors….. they just disabled the standard controls and credit card checks to allow it to happen.

They didn’t have any ties to whacky characters with extreme ideas…. but the campaign website allowed anyone to set up a “blog” and put out the propaganda.

In each case, Obama and his staff were careful to leave no directly illegal / unethical fingerprints of their own….. but they sure made it easy for “supporters unknown” to do so through their IT systems.

Deniability — it’s built right in.

Yep - they are a funky bunch.

Labels: Thugocracy

They think this is bad - they should see what I have on my iPod - or Chap.

U.S. military interrogators have often blasted music at detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. According to the British law group Reprieve, these are among the songs they have used most frequently:

Hat tip Steven.

Labels: Long War, Music

I wish I had this much talent. I am so bitter and full of envy, I am going to quote in full.

The Somali pirates, renegade Somalis known for hijacking ships for ransom in the Gulf of Aden, are negotiating a purchase of Citigroup.

The pirates would buy Citigroup with new debt and their existing cash stockpiles, earned from hijacking numerous ships, including most recently a $100 million Saudi Arabian oil tanker. The Somali pirates are offering up to $0.10 per share for Citigroup, pirate spokesman Sugule Ali said earlier today. The negotiations have entered the final stage, Ali said. ”You may not like our price, but we are not in the business of paying for things. Be happy we are in the mood to offer the shareholders anything,” said Ali.

The pirates will finance part of the purchase by selling new Pirate Ransom Backed Securities. The PRBS’s are backed by the cash flows from future ransom payments from hijackings in the Gulf of Aden. Moody’s and S&P have already issued a AAA investment grade rating for the PRBS’s.

Head pirate, Ubu Kalid Shandu, said “We need a bank so that we have a place to keep all of our ransom money. Thankfully, the dislocations in the capital markets have allowed us to purchase Citigroup at an attractive valuation and to take advantage of TARP capital to grow the business even faster.”

Shandu added, “We don’t call ourselves pirates. We are coast guards and this will just allow us to guard our coasts better.”

Eagle1 has yet to respond.

Labels: Humor, Pirates

OK, ignore the title of this post and listen to this clip.



That my friends is (at least the male voice) the irreplaceable Mark Steyn of SteynOnline, the MacCleans magazine kerfuffle, and great bits like this from imprimis - not to mention his book, America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It. Fun.

Labels: Music

Labels: Broadside, Cartoon

Sum'n like this.

Labels: Humor

A little perspective on Teh Che.

Hat tip Reason.

Labels: Latin America, Moonbats

With Sid's help, I may have been the first out of the holiday-year's end book lists - but Anne is already bragg'n - show off. Bookie and ninme - get with the program girls!

Now, back to a Navy-centric list. Point of order - I am poaching this from a list of derived from an email exchange between myself, Maggie, Eagle1, Galrahn, xformed, and cwogden.

More ideas - here you go!

Labels: Books

I. Want. The. Video.

Seriously, send it in - I will keep you anon - and I will publish it here.

Let us all see the horror.
(NB: this is an UNCLAS OPREP that is all out there on the intertubes - though I have slightly modified it -- just because - so get off my back B2)

O 302030Z NOV 08
FM CTF xx
TO COMSECONDFLT
COMUSNAVCENT
COMFIFTHFLT
COMNAVAIRLANT NORFOLK VA//00//
COMNAVAIRLANT NORFOLK VA//00//
INFO COMCARSTRKGRU NUM
COMCARAIRWING NUM
BT
UNCLAS OPER/ENDURING FREEDOM// MSGID/OPREP 3NUS,USMTF,2007/CTFxx/004/NOV/INI// REF/A/DESC:DOC/CNO/18APR2008//
REF/B/DESC:DOC/CUSNAVCENT-C5F/18JAN2008//
REF/C/DESC:CON/CTF 50/30NOV2008//
NARR/REF A IS OPNAVINST 3100.6H SPECIAL INCIDENT REPORTING.
REF B IS CUSNAVCENT-C5F OPORD 1000-07.
REF C IS CTF xx INITIAL REPORT TO CxF VIA SIPRNET CHAT.// FLAGWORD/NAVY UNIT SITREP/-// UNCLAS
TIMELOC/281700ZNOV2008/2333N1-06211E0/INIT//
GENTEXT/INCIDENT IDENTIFICATION AND DETAILS/ INAPPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR.//
RMKS/1. INCIDENT: INAPPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR 2.
DATE: 28NOV2008 3. TIME: 1700Z/2100D 4. LOCATION: 2333N1-06211E0 5. DESCRIPTION:
A. ON THE EVENING OF 28 NOV, CVW-X CONDUCTED A "FO'C'SLE FOLLIES" ABOARD USS DEAD PRESIDENT. TOWARD THE END OF THE "FOLLIES," VFA-xx SHOWED AN INAPPROPRIATE VIDEO THAT INCLUDED A SCENE WHEREIN A FEMALE OFFICER, WHO HAD BEEN SURREPTITIOUSLY FILMED IN THE WARDROOM EATING DINNER, WAS EDITED TO SEEM SEXUALLY SUGGESTIVE. THIS OCCURRED DESPITE CLEAR AND REPEATED DIRECTION FROM THE STRIKE GROUP COMMANDER AND AIR WING COMMANDER TO KEEP THE CONTENT OF THE VIDEOS CLEAN AND DECENT. SQUADRON COMMANDING OFFICERS WERE DIRECTED TO REVIEW AND APPROVE ALL VIDEOS BEFORE BEING SHOWN.
B. IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING FO'C'SLE FOLLIES, CCSG-x DIRECTED THE AIRWING COMMANDER TO THOROUGHLY INVESTIGATE THE MATTER AND TAKE CORRECTIVE ACTION. THE STRIKE GROUP COMMANDER ALSO DIRECTED THAT APOLOGIES BE MADE TO THE FEMALE OFFICER BY THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE VIDEO.
C. ON THE MORNING OF 29 NOV, THE FEMALE OFFICER, WHO WAS NOT PRESENT AT FO'C'SLE FOLLIES, WAS NOTIFIED BY THE AIRWING COMMANDER, THE DESRON CSO, AND THE VFA-xx CO AND XO OF THE VIDEO AND APOLOGIES WERE OFFERED. AT HER REQUEST, SHE VIEWED THE VIDEO.
D. ON 30 NOV, THE AIRWING COMMANDER HELD NJP FOR THE THREE JUNIOR OFFICERS WHO MADE THE VIDEO. THEY EACH RECEIVED A NON-PUNITIVE LETTER OF REPRIMAND. THE SENIOR MEMBER OF THAT GROUP WILL BE IMMEDIATELY DETACHED FROM THE AIRWING AND SENT BACK TO CONUS ON THE FIRST AVAILABLE COD. ADDITIONALLY, THE
VFA-xx SQUADRON COMMANDING OFFICER, WHO HAD REVIEWED AND APPROVED THE VIDEO FOR SHOWING, RECEIVED A LETTER OF INSTRUCTION THAT DIRECTED HIM TO TAKE IMMEDIATE AND AGGRESSIVE STEPS TO CORRECT THE COMMAND CLIMATE IN VFA-xx.
E. ALSO ON 30 NOV, CCSG-x NOTIFIED CxF OF THE INCIDENT AND REQUESTED AN OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE BE SENT TO THE CARRIER TO REVIEW ALL ACTIONS TAKEN AND PRESCRIBE ANY FURTHER STEPS NEEDED.
F. ADDITIONAL ACTIONS TAKEN TO ADDRESS THIS ISSUE INCLUDE: THE AIRWING COMMANDER COUNSELED THE ASSEMBLED VFA-xx WARDROOM CONCERNING THE INAPPROPRIATENESS OF THE VIDEO'S CONTENT; A COMMAND CLIMATE SURVEY HAS BEEN REQUESTED FOR THE AIRWING; A MAINTENANCE AND SAFETY SURVEY HAS BEEN REQUESTED FOR VFA-xx, AND ALL FUTURE FO'C'SLE FOLLIES HAVE BEEN CANCELLED. THE STRIKE GROUP AND AIRWING COMMANDERS WILL ALSO ADDRESS ALL CVW-x OFFICERS CONCERNING THIS ISSUE ON 05 DEC, THE NEXT NO-FLY DAY.
6. MEDIA INTEREST: POSSIBLE.
7. ABLE TO CONTINUE PRESENT MISSION.
8. POC: LCDR THE JAG CCSGx JUDGE ADVOCATE,
THEJAG(AT)CVNxx.NAVY.SMIL.MIL/COM: 757.443.xxxx/DSN:
312.646.xxxx.//
BT

Are you sure about Para 7? LBG, I need a hug.

It would be nice if we gave that much effort to those in the Potomac Flotilla who have been at the shipbuilding helm for the last decade or so.

Skippy - let's go get a drink.

---

UPDATE: For those who want names named, here is the NavyTimes write-up.

Hat tip "G."

Labels: Diversity

To prepare the battlefield for tomorrow's DivThu - Dee Dee still doesn't get that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar - but perhaps that is a bad analogy considering her past.

He isn’t putting his hand on her “chest,” as most of the articles and conversations about the picture have euphemistically referred to it. Rather, his hand—cupped just so—is clearly intended to signal that he’s groping her breast. And why? Surely, not to signal he finds her attractive. Au contraire. It’s an act of deliberate humiliation. Of disempowerment. Of denigration.

As Skippy might say, someone needs to get _____.

Labels: Clinton

They're not going to go for a quick gun grab - no; they're going to boil the frog.

You can almost see them shaking like a Chihuahua....as they get ready to pound the gun grab'n drums at the first chance ... or now.

The report examined how guns travel from the legal market to the black market and into criminals' hands, as well as the relationship between a state's gun laws and the probability that it will be a source of guns recovered in out-of-state crimes.

"Many law enforcement officials have long maintained that a pattern of illegal gun trafficking exists between states," the report says. "This report confirms these accounts, suggesting there is an interstate illegal gun market driven, at least in part, by the relative ease of access to guns in particular states."

The study, which will be released this month, found:
· The 10 states with the highest crime-gun export rates had nearly 60 percent more gun homicides than the 10 states with the lowest rates. The high-export states also had nearly three times as many fatal shootings of police officers.

· States requiring background checks for handgun sales at gun shows have an export rate nearly half the national average. None of the 10 highest export states, including Virginia, requires the checks, according to the report. Maryland does.

The usual subjects in congress already have their bills ready to go - they just need their MSM stalking horses to prepare the background --- and hope that somewhere, someone kills a lot of people, children hopefully, so they can go in for a dramatic grab.

Think that is harsh? Talk to the anti-gun types, they'll tell you - it has worked before.

Labels: Guns, Media

We could save lots of money!

I have heard better arguments against the Carriers - but then again, I'm not a professor of defense analysis at the U.S. Naval Frigg'n Postgraduate School.

Over the next few decades the Pentagon is planning to spend more than $50 billion on its Gerald R. Ford class of aircraft carriers. The first of these 100,000-ton ships is due for completion in 2015, with others following as vessels in the existing 12-carrier fleet are retired. Since aircraft carriers are near helpless without a protective ring of about ten destroyers, frigates and cruisers, the military wants to invest in newer versions of these, too, at a cost of an additional $50 billion.

This plan constitutes a huge waste of taxpayer money and exemplifies the Defense Department's fixation on preserving legacy systems designed for a kind of war that the U.S. is likely never to fight again.

Pathetic. The same argument used against the Royal Navy in the '70s. That worked out well.

Hat tip Large Bill.

Labels: Carrier

Oh, my! I am at a loss for words that won't make Kristin get mad at me.

Labels: Clinton, Palin

My schadenfreude meter is pegged right now,

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (bluh-GOY'-uh-vich) has been arrested in Chicago on corruption charges stemming from the selection of the successor to President-elect Barack Obama's U.S. Senate seat. U.S. Attorney's office spokesman Randall Samborn says both Blagojevich and his chief of staff John Harris were arrested Tuesday. Authorities aren't yet releasing details about those charges. However, a federal law enforcement official tells The Associated Press the governor is accused of corruption charges. The official says the charges stem from the selection process of a successor to Obama.

With Rep. Jefferson (D-LA) gone, the Democrats might have thought corruption through their party would drop off the front pages. Nope.

As for the press, they go through the process of doing everything but BROVO-LIMA-ALPHA-ing his name - but do they tell you what party he is a member of? No. No one does .... seriously - only Fox and Bloomberg in the first dozen or so stories I checked use the "D" word.

Goodness knows, when Republicans have problems - every other word is "Republican." If the press' bias didn't make me laugh so hard - I might actually get angry.

Lex, Allah, and Meer are all over it.

Labels: Democrats

Wasn't me!

Labels: Blogg'n

This is why America rules; while Europeans teach their girls how to wear a scarf properly - we train our girls how to properly operate a crew served weapon .... and blow stuff up.


Hat tip Jawa.

Labels: Guns

Is blog'n new? Is MilBlog'n new? Not really.

Though I have been at this since '04, there are others who have been at it longer, quite a few. The concept, or more accurately the, well, je ne sais quoi of blog'n has been around for awhile - only the technology was not been there for some who would have been great bloggers.

In a blogger you should find a bit of a questioning mind mixed up with a little self-conscience earnestness, arrogance, and bravado - focused on something that person is passionate about. For MilBlogers, it is what we have dedicated the meatier parts of our lives to, the Constitution and the nation and people it serves. For Navy Milblogers, it's the Navy as well. There are a few schools of thought out there that do not like the critical angle some blogs and their posts take - they see it unprofessional, underhanded, and perhaps tinged with a bit of disloyalty. That is a fair opinion, but perhaps not quite right - at least I don't think so. No, the "attitude" of MilBlog's, their personality - used when needed - has a long and cherished pedigree. Here are a few of my heroes, in case you wonder where I find my muse & moxie sometimes.

“Any commander who fails to exceed his authority is not of much use to his subordinates.”

-Admiral Arleigh Burke

"Mr. Chairman, all the thrust in Christendom couldn't make a Navy fighter out of that airplane."

-Vice Admiral Tom Connolly

"The Navy has both a tradition and a future--and we look with pride and confidence in both directions."

-Admiral George Anderson, CNO, 1 August 1961.

"After I had finished my tour as Naval Attache in Paris, 1897 to 1900, they would not let me come home. Anyway they sent me to the Kentucky on the way out [to the Asia Station]. I had never seen one of our battleships before. They were built while I was abroad. I was acquainted with the foreign ones. When I saw that battleship I was absolutely astounded. It is almost incredible that white men who have reached the present stage of civilization could have built a ship like that."

-Admiral William Sims

See, nut'n new under the sun. I can't hold a candle to these men, but I can try to follow the example they set; and that is why I do what I do. In light, and in spite, of the above - I would like to share a honor that was recently given to my alter ego, CDR Salamander. I have been a member of the United States Naval Institute since I was a Midshipman. I have subscribed for over two decades to both Proceedings and Naval History magazines. The USNI is taking the next step on the Web - it has opened a group blog, the USNI Blog. I will be sharing the honor of blogg'n there with some folks you know, such as Chap, Eagle1, Galrahn, SteelJawScribe, Springboard, and some perhaps new like Frogman, Peter Stinson & James Dolbow, Eric Wertheim, and of course our SOPA(s), Admiral Stavridis, USN & Admiral Allen, USCG. You'll still find me over at MilBlogs and here as well - but USNI will let me dive into more Navy stuff than usual - should be fun. I am a bit humbled by the company and look forward to blog'n with all - though in all honesty I feel like shimmy'n on over to Eagle1, tap his elbow with my Bud Longneck and asking in a whisper,

"How in the h311 did we get invited to this party?"

Oh, and I promise to be on my best behavior while in my neighbor's house. Today is Day 1 for the blog, come on by and visit. In case you are wondering - here is the D&G,

We are pleased to open this dialog with all who wish to discuss policy and other matters related to the Nation’s defense. Visitors can expect to see a wide range of issues and opinions from our guest bloggers. We at USNI will not set the agenda or control it in any way. But we have encouraged our editorial staff, editorial board, and the entire USNI family to comment on your thoughts as develop in this open forum.

Blog Freely,
Bill Miller, Publisher, USNI

Labels: Blogg'n

Don't you Chap; kind of simple?

Labels: McCain, Obama

I owe Greyhawk a beer.

WaPo: Obama Picks Shinseki to Lead Veterans Affairs.

Why I like this pick: if Shinseki says he needs, say, 650,000 (random number) additional hires in the V.A. he'll get them. There can be absolutely no argument made against this - in the media, on Capitol Hill, or elsewhere.

Downside (as all Army vets who've emailed me on this have pointed out): V.A. berets.

Gold.

Labels: Army

A quote can jolt you now and then.

As is my want, I was wandering around history.navy.mil in the AM - and then later read some more from the DEC SeaPower. I had to go back and review - that little Sailor in my head told me there was a disturbance in our little universe. Here it is.

---

The Navy has a great tradition, especially in warfighting. It is not the ship, it is not the weapons - is has been, is, and always will be the leader. In times of crisis, the Navy looks to its leaders to set the tone and establish the priorities to achieve victory - in combat and out. In the end though, it is in combat that everything meets its ultimate evaluation.

We are informed and influenced by those who have come before and the sacrifices they have made and have ordered others to make. We should always look to their example to ensure that we meet that standard.

To that end, I want to review a few things for you from history.mil's quote page. Some you will know well, some not.

"I have not yet begun to fight!"

Captain John Paul Jones said this during the famous battle between Bonhomme Richard and Serapis on 23 September 1779. It seems that some of Jones's men cried for surrender, but not John Paul Jones! Captain Richard Pearson of Serapis asked Jones if he had surrendered. Jones uttered the immortal words: "I have not yet begun to fight!" So, at least, Lt. Richard Dale later recalled.

I have always see that quote from JPJ as the keystone to our Navy. The next major conflict brought us another.

"Don't give up the ship!"

Tradition has it that Captain James Lawrence said these heroic words after being mortally wounded in the engagement between his ship, the U.S. frigate Chesapeake, and HMS Shannon on 1 June 1813. As the wounded Lawrence was carried below, he ordered "Tell the men to fire faster! Don't give up the ship!"

Although Chesapeake was forced to surrender, Captain Lawrence's words lived on as a rallying cry during the war. Oliver Hazard Perry honored his dead friend Lawrence when he had the motto sewn onto the private battle flag flown during the Battle of Lake Erie, 10 September 1813.

Though a Yankee invader, ahem, another great leader set another stone during The Late Unpleasantness.

"Damn the torpedoes, Full speed ahead!"

Admiral David Glasgow Farragut (1801-1870). Aboard Hartford, Farragut entered Mobile Bay, Alabama, 5 August 1864, in two columns, with armored monitors leading and a fleet of wooden ships following. When the lead monitor Tecumseh was demolished by a mine, the wooden ship Brooklyn stopped, and the line drifted in confusion toward Fort Morgan. As disaster seemed imminent, Farragut gave the orders embodied by these famous words. He swung his own ship clear and headed across the mines, which failed to explode. The fleet followed and anchored above the forts, which, now isolated, surrendered one by one. The torpedoes to which Farragut and his contemporaries referred would today be described as tethered mines.

If we move the timeline up a bit to WWII, Sid last week reminded us of another.

Informed by COMDESPAC of the intention to remove the torpedo tubes from his DE in order to ship aboard more anti-aircraft armament, and asked of his opinion, the CO wasn't going to have it. The mustang Lieutenant said to the Admiral,

"Since we have 5 inch 38 guns, someday somebody is going to forget we are boys and will send us to do men's work. I want a man's weapons. If somebody is going to think we are big enough to be destroyers, and if I am to be used as a destroyer, I want a destroyer's main offensive weapon, which is a torpedo."

The Lt. further added, with a smile,

"Well Admiral, as far as my ship is concerned, the torpedo tubes will be removed over my dead body. I've got torpedo tubes and I expect to use them, and I expect sometime to get a hit with them."

Then Lieutenant Robert Copeland made good on his rash promise too. At the Battle of Samar.

And so, in 2008 what are we doing to meet these standards? What are our Navy leaders thinking when it comes to warfighting? Being that this involves speed and therefor LCS, let's go back to the master.

"I wish to have no Connection with any Ship that does not Sail fast for I intend to go in harm's way."

Captain John Paul Jones, 16 November 1778, in a letter to le Ray de Chaumont.

The first part, check. What about the second part?

The title of the article is, ISYN, "Out of Harm's Way."

Capt. Buzz Sorce, deputy director of surface warfare for surface ships and surface combat systems in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, said the ASW weapon issue is "challenging."

Speaking of over-the-side tube-launched torpedoes, Sorce said a ship close enough to a submarine to launch them already was in mortal danger.

"You might as well just launch shark repellent," he recalled one of his officers saying.

"The concept behind the mission package and the ship is that we take the ship out of the torpedo danger and submarine threat area and send the remote sensors in," Source said. "We did go into that [issue] with eyes wide open and decided to stick with the helicopter [for weapons delivery]."

He also cited the advantage of the LCS high speed in torpedo evasion, complicating a submarine's attack. The freedom-class LCS has reached speeds in excess of 40 knots in trials.

"Speed, coupled with shallow draft, significantly impacts the performance of homing torpedoes in shallow water," Doss said.

Is this the core of some of our leaders, or are these simply good leaders trying to survive in a system and a set of orders they have been dumped in? I think, and for our nation's security - hope, that it is the latter and not the former.

I know with each passing week I seem to be wearing blue on LCS, but here is your homework for today. As I have used up my time on just this quote and could spend all day on it (gotta work 'ya know), I ask you to read the article on LCS and then in comments bring up the parts that offend you the most.

I have a top 5 list. The quote above and the ASW tactical myopia behind it is the largest hole I see (worth a 1,000 words in itself). What is yours, my small band against the LCS horde? I know Sid will ride with me, even if he does have a funny accent.

Jerusalem is out there somewhere if we can put up enough of a fight.


If the ASW myopia isn't enough for you, I recommend Galrahn's discussion here mostly focused on LCS and ASUW. Gal is trying hard to love LCS, he really is - but read his cautious concern where you find it .... and then do the math to make it right .... then think about the per unit cost and what we are getting.

Labels: LCS, Leadership

No Sunday Funnies today for obvious reasons - the 7th on a Sunday and all. Take a step outside this AM and look around.

Then what I would like for you to do is take a moment to review a few of the pics from the Hawaii War Records Depository.


To remember is to honor.

Labels: WWII

I haven't looked in on the Dutch lately .... let's see what they are up to.

Well, turning to the right some more I see. Here is why. When I say Amsterdam, most of you think of this perhaps,







Well the reality looks more like the right .... which is why ....

A sex worker, at right, takes a puff from a cigar in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2008. Amsterdam unveiled plans Saturday to close up to half of the famed brothels and marijuana cafes in its ancient city center as part of a major cleanup operation. The city says it wants to drive organized crime out of the district, and is targeting businesses that "generate criminality," including prostitution, gambling parlors, "smart shops" that sell herbal treatments, head shops and "coffee shops" where marijuana is sold openly. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

As with most things in life - you correct back to the norm. Sure, the Dutch norm is a bit different, but this is very good news. Amsterdam is a great city ... but .... and it is that "but" that the Dutch look like they want to fix.

I need to get back to the continent when this deployment thingy is over, and revisit Amsterdam. Maybe get my picture taken next to this landmark.

Labels: Dutch

Sometimes I get hate mail to the effect "What makes you think you are qualified to voice an opinion of this area? You are not a journalist, ..." and so on and so on.

Well, not like I a need an excuse to exercise my right to free therapy, James Taranto in the WSJ gives a perfect example why I am just as qualified to spout off as the next schmuck.

President-elect Obama wants to give an "Islam speech" - the questions is which venue to do it in. After Abe Greenwald and other of my betters talk about Dearborn vs. Cairo and all that - James gives a "in my fantasy world" comment on the real reason such a speech should be given.

Seems to us, though, that there is another alternative: clarity. Obama could speak frankly about the repression, misrule and fanaticism that are sadly common in the Muslim world, while at the same time repudiating anti-Muslim extremism in the West.

Ummmmm, errrrrr; here is where James steps in it.

But there is a city that, although not a national capital, is for all intents and purposes the capital of all Islam--a place where Obama could credibly speak to all Muslims, Sunni and Shiite, from Morocco to Malaysia to Michigan.

Not only that, but Obama's very presence--along with that of his secretary of state, chief of staff, the rest of his entourage and the traveling press from all over the world--would demonstrate that Islam is a more tolerant faith than many Westerners, including this columnist, have thought.

Is it really that simple? Can we be serious? Yes, we can.

All the new president has to do is give a speech in Mecca.

Maybe this is James' point - but a review of Saudi law WRT Mecca might be helpful. For goodness sake - French Special Forces that helped the Saudi's during The Siege of Mecca had to convert to Islam before they could enter the city.

A lot of the reason there is a global religious war was the presence post-Gulf War I of Western forces in the Saudi Kingdom. Having and apostate from Islam give a speech in Mecca itself? Great way to start a real war .... that's for sure.

James, please tell me you were being too clever by half? If not, drop me a line and let me help out with some fact checking - me or Chap; we would be more than happy to help out with the finer details of the Islamic world.

Is this a petty swipe for a small error? Sure, I make spelling and other typos all the time - but I don't have an editor etc; this is a critical substance. One of the problems we have in this war is the press is woefully under-informed of the Muslim world in general and Islamic terrorism specifically. They need to do much more research if they want to made suggestions on what the CINC must do. An ignorant public in war is prepped for defeat. An ignorant press is professional incompetence.

---

UPDATE: Geezzzzz ..... let me quote myself,

Maybe this is James' point .... James, please tell me you were being too clever by half?

Well, it turns out that James is being too clever by half. In comments, follow Chap's links to the podcast and you will see that Mecca was his point. I feel much better, as James is usually right on the target and clear. Perhaps he is just having a bad day (or I am) or the clear portions were edited out. His extended remarks are much clearer than the original post....and that is good news.

Did I jump the gun? Maybe, but no one can tell me it was clear - or that press understanding of Islam has been of fine quality the last decade. James continues to meet the fine standards, and I should read tea leaves more often....or I should write my qualifiers more clearly and break out my individual vs. general criticisms better ...

Chap, less Sadlacks, more fiber....even if you make a good point. ;)

Labels: Media

Teh leeder. NB: Kristin, cover your ears.


Hat tip CAPT Ed.

Labels: Media

Because she sends me links like this.

Labels: Music

Join something interesting here; and don't forget to follow the Salamander.....

Labels: Blogg'n

Doing the job we won't do.

Pirates beware -- Blackwater Worldwide may be looking for you, and soon. That prospect certainly would shiver Bartholomew Roberts, better known as "Black Bart," down to his timbers if the infamous pirate hadn't been dead for the past 285 years.

The North Carolina-based security firm, which came under fire from Congress over a shooting incident in Baghdad last year that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead, announced in October that its 183-foot ship, the McArthur, stands ready to assist the shipping industry as it struggles with the increasing problem of piracy in the Gulf of Aden and elsewhere.

"Billions of dollars of goods move through the Gulf of Aden each year," said Bill Mathews, Blackwater's executive vice president. "We have been contacted by ship owners who say they need our help in making sure those goods get to their destination safely. The McArthur can help us accomplish that."

The refurbished ship has what the company has described as state-of-the-art navigation systems, full Global Maritime Distress and Safety System communications, SEATEL broadband satellite communications, dedicated command and control battlefield air support, helicopter decks, a hospital, multiple support vessel capabilities, and a crew of 45 highly trained personnel.

Formerly a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research vessel, the McArthur was put in service in 1966 and decommissioned in 2003. Reconfigured and modified in 2006, the ship is now considered a Blackwater Worldwide maritime security support craft. Blackwater´s aviation affiliate can provide the helicopters, pilots and maintenance required to support escort missions in the Gulf of Aden.

Company spokesmen said the dramatic increase of pirate attacks on merchant vessels in the Gulf of Aden had led to parallel cost increases for the shipping industry, resulting in 10-fold insurance increases this year alone. They said that with the added danger pay offered to crews willing to make the journey, pirate ransom demands that reach into the millions, and lengthy negotiations for hijacked ships, if left unaddressed the cost of the piracy boom to the shipping industry -- and consumers buying their goods -- will only increase.

"Some shippers have taken the step of arming their crews, or hiring private security to ride on board cargo ships," the company said. "Rather than having armed guards on a cargo vessel, the McArthur´s ability to accompany a ship and deploy helicopters to patrol the area provides a safer option for the shipping industry.

The McArthur is a multipurpose maritime vessel designed to support military and law enforcement training, peacekeeping, and stability operations worldwide.

Arrggggghhh - give 'em a letter of marque! As always, stop by Eagle1 for your pirate update. He was pirate before pirate was cool.

Labels: Pirates

You know those Ruskies hanging out in the Caribbean with Hugo's thugs ---- well, lookie what fun they are bring to the Caribbean not seen since the late '80s. High res here.

Say what you want about the Russians, but they make beautiful ships.

Labels: Russia

I guess we're on a WWII Royal Navy kick for awhile.

I can't even imagine.

TO DIE in a hospital bed was not the end Ted Briggs expected. He thought he had copped it when, at 16 and on Atlantic patrols on HMS Hood in 1939, he looked up to see a black object “as big as a London bus” tumble gently out of the sky and pepper the deck with shrapnel. Or, some months later, when a stick of bombs from an Italian aircraft blew him down the ladder from the flag deck, giving him a cut on the nose that bled like a torrent. Or the moment when, inching out along an upper yardarm to retrieve a halyard (for he was a signal boy), he saw the engine-room safety valves pump out a column of red-hot steam, and expected to be boiled alive.

The life of a boy-sailor on the navy’s prize battlecruiser was no cakewalk. From Fall-in at 05.25 to Turn-in at 20.45—swinging into a hammock under a heavy wool blanket, his mouth still dry with gritty cocoa—came constant swabbing and scrubbing of the grey corticine decks, interspersed with instruction and drill. That was in time of peace. But Mr Briggs knew only two months of quiet before he was ordered to hoist flag “E” and “show up 46”: “Commence hostilities against Germany.”

He had not joined the Royal Navy to fight. He had joined because, one day in the summer of 1935, he saw from the beach at Redcar in North Yorkshire a long, slim, huge ship at anchor far away. It was the Hood on a visit to Hartlepool. Mr Briggs, a straightforward man, was embarrassed to mention her “beauty” and “grace”, but that was what he felt. It was a love affair. He tried to join the navy the next day; a man told him, since he was 12, to come back later. The day he eventually went on board the Hood, at 16 at Portsmouth, was the time he first felt that peculiar mixture of queasiness and wild excitement that assailed him each time he was piped to Action stations and the big guns opened fire.

In his many writings and talks about the Hood, Mr Briggs recalled great happiness on board. Though patrols near the Arctic to intercept German ships brought mountainous seas and soaking, freezing spray, the “mighty Hood” was a vessel on which he felt cared for. He was proud of her and the tasks he did for her: officers’ messenger to and from the cabins of the braided top brass, and signal boy, running up the flags as needed and securing them, on the high yardarms, with Inglefield clips.

The Hood was an old ship, rusty and slow, built in 1916 and never properly refitted or armoured since. She performed well in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean, leading the force that destroyed the fleet of Vichy France at Mers-el-Kebir in 1940 (an action Mr Briggs found “revolting” though, as ordered, he tremblingly clipped up the white-and-red bunting that meant “Open fire”). But her plating groaned in heavy seas, and water sloshed almost continually over the afterdeck. “Briggo” learnt quickly the niceties of crapping without being washed away. But, boy as he was, he fretted about the ship. Well over his head, officers with “scrambled egg” on their chests did not worry until too late about the thinness of her deck-armour.
Roll out the barrel

On May 23rd 1941 the Hood hoisted her battle ensign. She had been shadowing the better-armoured Bismarck, a “jumped up” ship as Mr Briggs thought of her, for 30 days or so in the North Sea; now she was closing in. As the German ship fired her 15-inch shells, Mr Briggs, high on the compass platform, saw a vast sheet of flame blow up in front of him. Within minutes the Hood was listing at 40 degrees, and it was clear “she just wasn’t coming back”.

The deck was already awash. With a Burberry and a number-three suit over his life-vest, Mr Briggs struggled to undress, ripping off his gas-mask and his battle-helmet. When the water surged over him he quickly resigned himself to warm and cradling death. But almost at once he was propelled like “a champagne cork” back to the surface. A sudden air-pocket had saved him. He broke surface to see the bows of the Hood vertical in the sea. The sight recurred in his dreams ever after.

Some 1,415 men died when the Hood went down, perhaps the most demoralising disaster for Britain in the second world war. Three were saved. Mr Briggs clung to a life-raft, singing “Roll out the Barrel” to stay awake, until he was rescued after three hours by HMS Electra. Back on land he found himself a hero, plied with sweets and cigarettes and allowed the luxury of long baths with Lifebuoy soap. Yet when he reached his mother’s house in Derby he collapsed in tears, “a gibbering, quivering young lad from the war returning”.

He served as a signalman on other ships, retiring in 1973 with the rank of lieutenant, but the Hood never left him. An inquiry was held into the sinking; it found that a German shell had pierced the deck-armour and exploded in a magazine. Mr Briggs had his doubts. He blamed the unstable multiple rocket-launchers, a whim of Churchill’s that the crew had always hated; he also blamed Admiral Holland, the commander-in-chief, for putting “our lovely old girl” in the van of the attack.

In 2001, almost 80, he visited the wreck site to release a plaque to his lost comrades. Far beneath the water the Hood lay broken in half. But her rudder was locked in obedience to the last signal Mr Briggs had seen hoisted, two blue-flag 2, a 20-degree port turn into the Bismarck’s guns.

Hat tip SailorBob.

Labels: Battleship, Britain, WWII

NB: My family has benefited from such policies as described below, so I know of what I speak. Yes, even 'ole Phib's family can find a way to get hold of "set-asides."

A good Diversity Thursday story from the WaPo's Joe Davidson's Federal Diary.

...a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit struck down a Pentagon program that included a 5 percent set-aside for companies run by African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans and Native Americans.

Here is what the policy did.

Last month, the panel ruled that the Defense Department erred when it failed to use a "price evaluation adjustment" tool, which allowed the Pentagon to increase bids from white-owned companies by 10 percent before comparing them to firms owned by people of color.

In an increasingly mix-raced culture subject to race-identity confusion (Nigerian immigrant = descendant from African slaves; kid born in Madrid to a Doctor = a kid born in Puerto Rico) and fraud - this is why these policies just do not survive any logic test - nor do any of the affirmative discrimination policies.

The Defense Department allowed International Computer and Telecommunications, a firm then owned by a Korean American couple, to win a computer contract even though its $5.75 million bid was $180,000 more than one submitted by Rothe Development, a San Antonio company owned by a white woman. Rothe sued the government in 1998.

Joe ain't too happy with it all - and shocker here, neither is Congress.

The goal, even at 5 percent, is important because it makes diversity in contracting a priority. Making government acquisition programs work for everyone is not only desirable, but crucial.
...

Towns, now chairman of the House subcommittee on Government Management, Organization and Procurement, is in line to become chairman of the full committee on Oversight and Government Reform. He plans to hold hearings next year and perhaps move legislation that should satisfy the thirst for strict scrutiny.

"I question the court's finding that there is little evidence of discrimination in federal contracting," Towns said. "We in Congress hear every day from small and minority-owned businesses who have trouble accessing the federal market, and in fact have held hearings documenting these problems. Next year, Congress should hold hearings and pass whatever laws are necessary to ensure that the federal government can continue to encourage development of small and disadvantaged businesses."

Congress should be able to build a solid record of evidence that demonstrates pervasive, nationwide racial discrimination and pass federal contracting legislation -- hopefully Supreme Court-proof -- to correct it. But whether that record will be enough for an increasingly right-leaning Supreme Court remains to be seen.

Let me guess - statistics will be called evidence. How does it work for the Bosnian immigrant at the same level as the Nigerian immigrant again?

Affirmative action is like a Timex watch -- it takes a licking but keeps on ticking. Despite this latest ruling, time has not run out on affirmative action yet.

Shall I start the chant? Why not - Joe, the next President's father was African. Can we MoveOn.now? Welcome to the 21st Century.

Hat tip Mike.

Labels: Diversity

Some have to stand for those who can't. If you ever wondered how much some have invested in a culture of death - this should give you some perspective.

Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg is to be stripped of his executive power to veto laws passed by parliament after threatening to block a Bill to allow euthanasia in the tiny state.

The hereditary sovereign, 53, who is the last Grand Duke in the world, caused a constitutional crisis when he gave notice that he objected to Luxembourg following its neighbours Belgium and the Netherlands in permitting euthanasia before a second-reading vote in the Chamber of Deputies next week.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the Prime Minister, also opposed the Bill but decided that the Grand Duke had overstepped the mark in threatening to deny the will of parliament.

Mr Juncker will propose a change to the constitution to downgrade the role of the Grand Duke to promulgating laws with his signature rather than approving them, giving him a purely ceremonial duty in line with the other European constitutional monarchies.

It also shows a great example of moral courage. Grand Duke Henri; BZ.

Hat tip ninme, who BTW I don't link to enough. She has cool stuff like where we should go if we truly think Bombay should be called Mumbai - and one Boar ...errr...Boer fighting turtle.

Labels: Europe

Counting beans on FREEDOM. Nice to see what is important out there.

BTW, the CO and his crew are just doing the best he can here, nothing bad on him - they are just dealing with what is thrown at them, and do a good job - note they don't volunteer to play the game - the reporter has to inject it.

The Navy's newest and most unique warship, USS Freedom (LCS 1), is not only a platform for reconfigurable mission capabilities and the train-to-qualify concept, it is also a prime example of the diversity encouraged by the Secretary of the Navy.

With a total complement of 80 Sailors split evenly between the "blue crew" and the "gold crew," Freedom's team include numerous ethnicities among the male and female Sailors, including six born overseas.

"(The crew) is across the whole spectrum of the kind of Sailors we want to have representing our country, and it's transparent to us," said Cmdr. Don Gabrielson, commanding officer of Freedom's blue crew. "We think more about who you are and not what you are."

For many Freedom Sailors, having a diverse ethnic crew on such a small ship presents a variety of opportunities on both work-related and social levels.

"We have a lot of fun and work hard; the personalities on this ship bring us all together," said Chief Store Keeper (AW) Tony Morrison, Freedom's supply officer and a native of Derry, Ireland.

"I think it's great that we've got so many different cultures on board because everybody learns a little bit about everything," said Operations Specialist 1st Class (SW/AW) Rocio G. Fooks, who was born in Rota, Spain, and spent the majority of her childhood and teenage years overseas.

In addition to promoting diversity, it is clear that the Navy must be sure to create an equal opportunity environment in all work places - a condition that goes without saying on Freedom.

"I think what we're doing here is really a strong indication of the quality of Sailors that we have in the Navy today," said Gabrielson.

100% of your daily allowance of fried air from the Navy internal PSYOPS department.

Hat tip Phil.

Labels: Diversity

I have a memory. I remember the arguments. I remember the promises. I remember the PPT. I am still waiting for honest discussions. I am sick of revisionist history and excuses for professional incompetence and malpractice.

...the 313-ship fleet envisioned by Adm. Gary Roughead, the chief of naval operations, requires "modernization of our current ships, keeping them viable and getting our extended service life [out] of the hulls. " said Read Adm. James McManamon, deputy commander for surface warfare at Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA). "You can't get there simply by buying a lot of new ships all the time."

That is why we have so little credibility on The Hill. In shipbuilding, we have sold our virtue so cheaply that few believe anything said by anyone from the Potomac Flotilla - even when we eventually run out of lies to tell to ourselves and others.

Shame, there are good people trying exceptionally hard to make things work - but they are smeared by those who went before, gundecking via happy talk until their PRD came.

If we were honest with the taxpayers and ourselves about what costs were - if we didn't throw away a century of evolutionary success to chase the sexy revolutionary lie - if we maintained our ships better - if we ... well ... you know the story.

It's ugly when the music stops.

Sad thing is you can get there "..buying ships all the time." You just buy the right ship at the right price at the right time. That is what you get paid the big bucks for. No excuses - no one in the Fleet is buying it.

Hat tip Mike.

Labels: Shipbuilding

About seven years too late on my account.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England said today that he will not be staying with Secretary Gates in the Obama Administration. “I congratulate President-Elect Obama for retaining Bob Gates as secretary, and I salute Bob Gates for his continued commitment,” England said.

“However, it’s time for me to leave. When I came into government in early 2001, I anticipated serving for two to four years. After almost eight years, it’s now time for me to turn over the reins to a successor. Also, it’s most appropriate for the new administration to name its own deputy.”

England said he will stay for some time past Jan. 20, if requested, to assure a smooth transition.

Hat tip C.

Where do you start with this gaggle? It kind of speaks for itself - I guess.

All that came to my mind was that they sure don't "look like America" - and they all reminded me of these red things.

Labels: Moonbats

This is kind of funny, especially if you have ever had long arguments with your German war college classmates over some fine point of doctrine.

I would bet that this is some German at some NATO staff somewhere ... it has to be ... who has his lederhosen in a wad over two things:

1. An American is doing something not IAW German doctrine.
2. Uncle Sam is slowly taking back the keys because swishy-swishy NATO can't do the job.

The U.S. general commanding NATO forces in Afghanistan has ordered a merger of the office that releases news with "Psy Ops," which deals with propaganda, a move that goes against the alliance's policy, three officials said.

The move has worried Washington's European NATO allies -- Germany has already threatened to pull out of media operations in Afghanistan -- and the officials said it could undermine the credibility of information released to the public.

Yes, someone has gone to the press over changes in someone's C2 diagram.

U.S. General David McKiernan, the commander of 50,000 troops from more than 40 nations in NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), ordered the combination of the Public Affairs Office (PAO), Information Operations and Psy Ops (Psychological Operations) from December 1, said a NATO official with detailed knowledge of the move.

"This will totally undermine the credibility of the information released to the press and the public," said the official, who declined to be named.

It would be nice if some people would put out as much effort in getting their nation to actually contribute outside a FOB to win a war than taking about how many hobnails can fit on a boot - or sump'n like that.

But another ISAF official confirmed that the amalgamation of public affairs with Information Operations and Psy Ops was part of the planned command restructure. This official, who also declined to be named, said the merger had caused considerable concern at higher levels within NATO which had challenged the order by the U.S. general.

What is German for "No Daddy ... not the keys!!!"

The United States has 35,000 of the 65,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, operating both under ISAF and a separate U.S.-led coalition operation, but both come under McKiernan's command.

Washington is already scheduled to send another 3,000 troops to arrive in the country in January and is now considering sending 20,000 more troops in the next 12 to 18 months, further tipping the numerical balance among ISAF forces.

"What we are seeing is a gradual increase of American influence in all areas of the war," the NATO official said. "Seeking to gain total control of the information flow from the campaign is just part of that."

Talk talk talk. Walk walk walk.

Oh, and this is for you Anthony M.


Hat tip NATO spy.

Labels: Afghanistan, Europe, NATO

Hat tip JL.

Labels: Humor, Navy

One of the great disappointments of my voting life is going back home.

Florida Sen. Mel Martinez (R) has decided against seeking a second term, a decision he will formalize shortly in the Sunshine State, according to an informed party source.

Martinez's decision was based on a desire for more free time and a less scheduled life, said the source. The first term senator also was an almost certain Democratic target in two years time although those familiar with Martinez's political prospects insisted his strengths in South Florida, coupled with his political base along the I-4 corridor, made his path to reelection possible.

Martinez's retirement ensures a competitive and costly open seat race in Florida. State Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, widely seen as Democrats' strongest potential candidate, has apparently decided that she would not run but may well reconsider that decision given Martinez's expected announcement today. Democratic Reps. Ron Klein and Kendrick Meek as well as state Sen. Dan Gelber are likely to consider the open seat race.

On the Republican side, there may well be a push to recruit former Gov. Jeb Bush into the contest although that seems like a long shot. State Attorney General Bill McCollum will almost certainly be mentioned as will state Senate President Jeff Atwater and former state House speaker Marco Rubio. Reps. Vern Buchanan and Connie Mack also may consider a run.

McCullum and Mack will both run. If Jeb decides to give it a go, I expect Mack to pass. McCullum though - no - he wants back in DC ... which is why Jeb will get my vote.

If Jeb doesn't run, expect McCullum to be odds on to win the Republican nod ... and lose in the general.

Hat tip Michelle.

Labels: Politics, Republicans, Senate

You know you do.

Labels: Fred Thompson

Not because of this guy or this guy ... but because it is consistent with Phibian's world view. Do you need another reason?

When did Bombay become Mumbai?

Officially, in 1995. That year, the right-wing Hindu nationalist party Shiv Sena won elections in the state of Maharashtra and presided over a coalition that took control of the state assembly. After the election, the party announced that the port city had been renamed after the Hindu goddess Mumbadevi, the city's patron deity. Federal agencies, local businesses, and newspapers were ordered to adopt the change

I can't stand religious nationalism of any stripe - and the silly name changing that goes with it.

Let Munchen be Munich. Let Koln be Cologne. Let Aachen be Aken ... or Aix en Chapelle ... or whatever. Anyway, I have been too nice to the Indians for Skippy's taste lately anyway.

Labels: India

A couple of years ago I made the point that The Long War (as I still call it Fox) is a religious war. Not because we see ourselves as Crusaders fighting as Christians with our Jewish and Pagan auxiliaries against the Saracens; no.

It is a religious war because the enemy gets a vote. The aggressor gets to define the reasons for war. That is why people are being slaughtered.

Restaurant workers there ushered guests closest to the kitchen inside. The assailants jumped in front of another group that tried to run out the door. "Stop," they shouted in Hindi. They corralled 16 diners and led them up to the 20th floor. One man in the group dialed his wife in London and told her he'd been taken hostage but was OK. "Everybody drop your phones," one of the assailants shouted, apparently overhearing. Phones clattered to the floor as the three women and 13 men dug through their purses and pockets and obeyed.

On the 20th floor, the gunmen shoved the group out of the stairwell. They lined up the 13 men and three women and lifted their weapons. "Why are you doing this to us?" a man called out. "We haven't done anything to you."

"Remember Babri Masjid?" one of the gunmen shouted, referring to a 16th-century mosque built by India's first Mughal Muslim emperor and destroyed by Hindu radicals in 1992.

"Remember Godhra?" the second attacker asked, a reference to the town in the Indian state of Gujarat where religious rioting that evolved into an anti-Muslim pogrom began in 2002.

"We are Turkish. We are Muslim," someone in the group screamed. One of the gunmen motioned for two Turks in the group to step aside.

Then they pointed their weapons at the rest and squeezed the triggers.

Some in our nation and in the West just do not want to believe what they are seeing. Those who claim to be able to teach our children are the worst. When clear, calm, thought on the very real threat in front of us is there - they retreat to their comfortable intellectual hidey-hole.

William Kristol is all over it.

Consider first an op-ed article in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times by Martha Nussbaum, a well-known professor of law and ethics at the University of Chicago. The article was headlined “Terrorism in India has many faces.” But one face that Nussbaum fails to mention specifically is that of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Islamic terror group originating in Pakistan that seems to have been centrally involved in the attack on Mumbai.

This is because Nussbaum’s main concern is not explaining or curbing Islamic terror. Rather, she writes that “if, as now seems likely, last week’s terrible events in Mumbai were the work of Islamic terrorists, that’s more bad news for India’s minority Muslim population.” She deplores past acts of Hindu terror against India’s Muslims. She worries about Muslim youths being rounded up on suspicion of terrorism with little or no evidence. And she notes that this is “an analogue to the current ugly phenomenon of racial profiling in the United States.”

So jihadists kill innocents in Mumbai — and Nussbaum ends up decrying racial profiling here. Is it just that liberal academics are required to include some alleged ugly American phenomenon in everything they write?

Good googly-moogly Martha; maybe they will kill you last after all.

...and if you ever still questioned why the Republicans deserved to lose in '06 - check out one of the braintrusts that the voters threw out back then.

Jim Leach is also a professor, at Princeton, but he’s better known as a former moderate Republican congressman from Iowa who supported Barack Obama this year. His contribution over the weekend was to point out on Politico.com that “the Mumbai catastrophe underscores the importance of vocabulary.” This wouldn’t have been my first thought. But Leach believes it’s very important that we consider the Mumbai attack not as an act of “war” but as an act of “barbarism.”

Why? “The former implies a cause: a national or tribal or ethnic rationale that infuses a sacrificial action with some group’s view of heroism; the latter is an assault on civilized values, everyone’s. ... To the degree barbarism is a part of the human condition, Mumbai must be understood not just as an act related to a particular group but as an outbreak of pent-up irrationality that can occur anywhere, anytime. ... It may be true that the perpetrators viewed themselves as somehow justified in attacking Indians and visiting foreigners, particularly perhaps Americans, British and Israeli nationals. But a response that is the least nationalistic is likely to be the most effective.”

That is about as clear and professional as Indian Commando tactical proficiency.

Labels: Long War

Is one month after the 1st TUE in NOV, roughly.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.

H. L. Mencken
US editor (1880 - 1956)

Hat Tip "Those who know, know."

Labels: Politics

From the SEP 08 Proceedings is a must read by Norman Friedman on A Shift to Soft Power. Read the whole, somewhat disjointed, thing to get your puzzler puzzl'n - but here is the boil-down point.

In July, Defense Secretary Robert F. Gates approved a new national defense strategy that formally made the war against terrorists the overriding priority. It emphasized the role of allies and partners in a world in which, as many have said, the United States is still the most powerful country but no longer overwhelmingly powerful by itself. The sort of large-war projects that currently occupy much of the defense budget will have to be cut. To the extent that such projects are insurance against a future collision with China or Russia, the document reportedly recommends cooperation to reduce competition.

....
Just as British imperial power seemed to be at a peak, the British found themselves fighting an insurgency in South Africa. Their heavy naval investment, the high technology of that day, did them little good, and their army found itself ill-prepared to deal with an enemy better trained and armed than those it usually faced in colonial warfare. Is Iraq our Boer War? The British won, but they discovered that they were far weaker than they had imagined and realized they needed allies. They considered an alliance with Germany, their rising rival, and found that the conditions offered were unacceptably onerous. Within a few years they were turning to the French. The course of World War I can be read as an example of how expensive alliances can be, in that the British found themselves helping defend France at all costs. Is China our Germany?

What of soft power? In the years leading up to World War I, London was the financial center of the world economy, much as New York is now. Like the current U.S. Navy, the Royal Navy realized that it was associated with the global economy. Historian Dr. Nicholas Lambert has found that, to a far greater extent than has been imagined, the Royal Navy's leaders looked to economic attack as a means of winning. This was much more than the usual naval weapon of blockade; it was a novel and comprehensive approach to national strategy. Leading British economists showed that attacks on German credit could quite possibly cause rapid national collapse. However, they soon also realized that the British and German economies were so closely linked that an all-out economic attack on Germany would cause a British crash. The British government therefore rejected this approach. In effect the British realized that globalization had created what amounted to mutual assured destruction, a point often raised before 1914 by those who argued that major war was no longer possible.

Tragically the German General Staff, which guided German national policy, was economically illiterate; it did not understand the nature of the deterrent threat. There was no effective civilian government that could veto war on such grounds. Worse, the German leadership seems to have seen war as a way of buttressing itself against a rising demand for power by the German population, as reflected in the Reichstag, the German parliament (whose power was strictly limited). The nuclear weapons that provided deterrence during the Cold War were a lot easier for national leaders to understand.

As for current soft power, many have remarked that the Chinese and U.S. economies are so tightly joined that no sane U.S. administration will calmly contemplate war. This is a 1914 situation. How well does the ruling Chinese Communist Party understand that its country's prosperity underlies its power and that it in turn depends on the United States? If it does, then it will be open to Secretary Gates' cooperation. If not . . .

Hmmm.

Labels: Maritime Strategy

Watch the video.


Now - if you wonder what an unarmed society opens itself to ..... in most places in the USA that have "must carry" laws - someone would have been shooting back.

Not in India - the wages of gunophobia.

Labels: India, Terrorists

Earlier this year, I asked one of the 32nd Degree Salamanders, Sid, to recommend a "Top 5" list of books that everyone interested in the Navy should own. Sid always has a very keen eye on history, naval literature, and a general sound sense of himself and the world around him. Those who read comments know Sid is about as sharp as they come.

So, with only a few editorial adjustments - below is Sid's list of recommended books for you to think about for Christmas. Get them for yourself or someone you know who has an interest in things naval. I already have 3 of the 5 - so I have already bought myself my Christmas. You know me an books - love them so much I just want to get naked and roll around in them.

Without further babble on my part; Sid you have the Con.

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I started to get interested in things navy at a quite tender age. When not trying hard to become J-57 FOD, one of my pastimes was pulling down all the Proceedings and checking out the cool ads. A few years later, my first book report in the third grade was on a slim volume about John Ericsson. By the fifth grade I was clambering about the Naval War College library, making a racket, and wishing I could understand the knowledge in those several stories high stacks of books.

Yeah...I know...GEEK!

Well, the good CDR Phibian allowed that I put some of that accumulated geekness to good use and come up with a list of navy related books that may be of interest to his readers.

So here are five books that I think y'all will enjoy. No particular order to them as they are all good. Each was written by folks whom Chap might peg as "Implementers". In spite of being thrust into circumstances that rendered accepted doctrine moot, each summoned knowledge and character from within and prevailed. They got the job done, and each wrote a whale of a tale.

Innovation is the star that Daniel V. Gallery steered by. It prepared him to seize the opportunities that came his way during a 44 year navy career and engineer the kind of luck that any Irishman would be envious of. That luck, born at the intersection of preparation and opportunity, served him well in battle. From the signature wrestling hold that allowed him a spot on the US Olympic team, to his capture of the U-505, and finally in conflicts inside the then building Beltway, RADM Gallery proved a wily and loyal warrior.

RADM Gallery was also a masterful wordsmith (a proclivity that seems to come easily to the Irish), and wrote 8 books along with numerous magazine articles about various naval subjects. Every one of them is a natural page turner. If you haven't read some of Gallery, your naval education is incomplete. His books are getting ever harder to find, but the one essential read would have to be his autobiography Eight Bells (Original title: Eight Bells and All's Well).

Second on the list is South From Corregidor by then LCDR John Morrill. It too is hard to find, but if you can obtain a copy, you will have a gem of a seastory in your hands. (Wonder if USNI could republish these treasures?)

The cowriter of the book, Pete Martin, noted that heroes tend to be quiet men, and this prewar photo of the young naval officer and his family, belies little of the mettle behind one of the greatest examples of seamanship -and more importantly leadership- this navy has witnessed. Then LCDR Morrill, after weeks of keeping the mined entrances to Manila Bay open for resupply while under unremitting Japanese fire, finally had to scuttle his command the USS Quail (AM-15). Won a Navy Cross for those efforts too, but LCDR Morrill was just getting started.

Not content to be taken prisoner on Caballo where he and his crew were standing the 1941 version of "IA", he and 17 of the crew who were able and willing, embarked on a 31 day, 2000 mi journey to Australia through enemy held waters...in this.

LCDR Morrill could have rested on his laurels at that point, but he had a keen understanding of joint warfare and he wanted to fight. Instead of taking the high profile navigator job aboard a cruiser, he chose instead to join the part of the navy known as the "disposal school for ensigns." EagleSpeak covers this sequel well, where he transformed a flotilla of diminutive craft into serious warships and took them half way around the world to visit harm upon the enemy. John Morrill. Sailor. Leader of sailors. Warrior.

Informed by COMDESPAC of the intention to remove the torpedo tubes from his DE in order to ship aboard more anti-aircraft armament, and asked of his opinion, the CO wasn't going to have it. The mustang Lieutenant said to the Admiral,

"Since we have 5 inch 38 guns, someday somebody is going to forget we are boys and will send us to do men's work. I want a man's weapons. If somebody is going to think we are big enough to be destroyers, and if I am to be used as a destroyer, I want a destroyer's main offensive weapon, which is a torpedo."

The Lt. further added, with a smile,

"Well Admiral, as far as my ship is concerned, the torpedo tubes will be removed over my dead body. I've got torpedo tubes and I expect to use them, and I expect sometime to get a hit with them."

Then Lieutenant Robert Copeland made good on his rash promise too. At the Battle of Samar.

A slim volume, A slim volume, The Spirit of the Sammy B is an oral history chronicling the not quite six month life of the Samuel B. Roberts by her skipper, RADM Robert Copeland. This book proves good things come in small packages.

When the British withdrew the HMS Endurance from her patrol as a cost cutting measure, the Argentinians calculated that the British would not fight for the windswept islands they knew as the Malvinas and forcibly took them. They calculated that the current British government would follow the pattern that had been in place since Wilson; a preference for diplomatic solutions over military confrontation. However, they badly miscalculated the resolve of Margaret Thatcher who mobilized her fleet within 48 hours. The 1982 Falklands campaign is the last major sea action fought by any navy. At the time, many doubted the Royal Navy, substantially diminished by successive cutbacks since the 1960s would prevail. The Brit's quickly assembled force sailed most of the world away from any useful support and engaged in a brutal littoral war. But in the word of the Battle Group commander, "it was a bit tight."

The Falklands War is a cautionary tale for the USN of the early 21st century, which could be called upon to wage a similar campaign on similarly short notice. And it is a cautionary tale for those who do not believe the littorals comprise the most lethal battlespace once can find themselves in.

One Hundred Days: The Memoirs of the Falklands Battle Group Commander, by Adm Sandy Woodward, recounts his experience as the RN Battle Group commander. His main qualification for the job was simple geography. Near Gibraltar conducting NATO exercises, he was the closest Flag to the fight. Woodward details the fog and friction of war, along with the fog and friction of an ad hoc command arrangement. One Hundred Days is a sobering tale of modern naval warfare viewed without the benefit of Tom Clancy's rose colored lens.

Who is the hero here?. The fresh caught Captain on the right, Matt Bell, has spent a lifetime willingly stepping up to the plate to defend this country's interests and has flown in combat. His proud papa on the left, Jim Bell, spent seven years and change as an unwilling guest of the North Vietnamese. During that time he gained a legendary reputation for resistance in the face of deprivation and torture, and barely survived the experience of being cuffed to Ralph Gaither when both had the tail end charlie position during the infamous Hanoi March. As is the nature of true heroes, you can sit right next to the man and have no clue. But the hero I'm referring to is neither of them. It is Dora Griffin Bell, author of The Heroes' Wife.

The year 1967 is remembered by many for its Summer of Love. For those at home on and around Naval Air Stations, it was a time of enduring continuous combat losses. On his second combat cruise in May 1967, Dora Griffin's husband Jim, along with his RAN Jack Walters, was flying a BDA mission over Hanoi when his RA-5C was hit by a barrage of AAA. The grainy footage shot by the Vietnamese -and often seen spliced into Discovery Channel accounts of John McCain's shootdown as the wreckage fell into a lake- shows the Vigilante bursting into a fireball and pitching up violently before disintegrating. Both pilots survived the 700 knot ejection badly injured, and both were interviewed by a French journalist in the Hanoi Hilton. Dora had no idea for the next five and half years that her husband died only two days later.

The Heroes' Wife describes her life over those years, and is a poignant account that can provide an inspiration to those spouses today who are seeing their loved ones off to repeated tours in far away wars. The account also proves the worth of a strong military spouse network as well.

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Sid, an outstanding list - thank you for the time to put together - and the extra effort to take the pic to go with the list. A good Christmas to you and yours.

Next Monday I will put together another book list to help with your Christmas list based on a responses received via an email chain earlier last month.

This Christmas, give the most valuable thing you have - your time to those you love. Material gifts are secondary - and if you have to get a material gift, think books.

Labels: Books