That explains a lot Senator

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

Thank you for giving us the background for your thinking. No, that's OK, no need to backtrack - we got it.

To honor Kevin Granata

Who is Kevin Granata? Well, let's back up a bit. This will probably be one if the the last post I make on the VA Tech slaughter. I find myself more in the John Derbyshire (of Derb Radio fame) and Mark Steyn school vice the J-Pod school. Have been from the start.

I am also on the same train of thought as John of Argghhh!!! - but even more so - I won't even butcher his name. It won't even be hinted at.

The one thing a psychotic, evil, narcissistic person wants more then anything else is to be seen, heard, and talked about. I will do none of it.

There are some heroes from this slaughter. As 5-6 people I work with, we all think active defense, and that is our training. After 20 years of official training and a lifetime of most of our "nature and nurture" it is hard to think any other way. It is just mentally difficult to understand this,

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

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

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

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

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

By now, most are familiar with the heroism of Professor Librescu,

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

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

That brave old man - a Holocaust survivor - was left to hold the door against a 23 yr old man by himself - by himself in a room full of young men. No one helped him as Professor Librescu tried to save others. No one.

Back to Kevin Granata - who we have heard little of. Who was he?

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

Multiple places state that Professor Granata served in the military, but I couldn't find what service. It really doesn't matter - we are all trained to head towards the sound of gunfire. Though unsuccessful, I find exceptional honor in his attempt. If he had help, perhaps many could have been saved.

We need more such men - are we raising out boys to be such men? It is an unpopular question - but there it is. Another part of my training I presume - I am supposed to ask unpopular questions.

Bravo Zulu Professor Granata; Shipmate.

The critical French election

France has a chance - and things are very close. They can move towards a more responsible position in the world ... or select a leader that is part of the dead-end EuroSocialist-Feminist Pact.

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

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

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

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

That woman is not worthy of the position of President of France - a nation that can be a great nation.

Canadian Tanks & ASW

On the ground side of the war, we see another example where the cold, hard, time-proven facts of warfare have destroyed the pet theories of those who overestimate their insight into the future of war.

You see, up until they were involved in Afghanistan, the Canadian Army was going to get rid to their tanks and move towards a Stryker/LAV like "all wheeled force" as a evolutionary tank just wasn't "sexy" and "transformational" as the new toys.

Something happened after the PowerPoint.

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

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

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

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

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

Read the whole story, and then come back.

Here is what this has to do with ASW. Both US and Allied ground forces are having to rethink all their plans, as good learning institutions do, as a result of the very real facts they are re-learning on the ground in actual combat. We in the Navy are not.

There are "known unknowns" out there that will bite us in the tail the next time our Fleet has to engage in actual combat at sea. There will be a next time.

These surprises will come, we know that. What is important is that you don't get surprised by those things you know to be true. It would be as if you walked out in the morning and said, "Holy Cr@p! The sky is blue!"

We have not had a ASW challenge since WWII, but some have. The Indians, Pakistanis, Argentinians, and British all have in the last three decades. What their experiences tell us is that you need numbers. Lots of ships that can dedicate themselves to ASW. These are the same lessons from WWI and WWII.

Don't talk to me about gee wizz "war winning" technology breakthroughs that will make ASW a walk in the park. Those things will help, but the fundamentals to close to direct path contact, POSSUB HIGH, and put a hole in the hull remain. Those things require numbers in both training, platforms, and weapons. Proven weapons, and a diversity of weapons that will assist in avoiding the shock of an effective countermeasure, or a single point of failure of a poorly performing weapon.

Out training is suspect, our numbers above, on and under the sea are shrinking. The MK48 is a fine weapon, but we don't have enough SSN to cover everyone or to dedicate to nothing but ASW. That leaves the LWT and those who rely on it. Those who know, know. We don't have depth charges. No depth bombs. No hedgehogs. For ships and aircraft - it is the Light Weight Torpedo or nothing. The we have reached the point that from a surface perspective we almost don't have and ASW ability. Our helos are doing about everything but ASW. Our P-3s are few, broken and doing a lot of ISR. S-3 are gone. Just like you can save me the "..you don't understand the ASW CONOPS as described in....." or "...there is limited to no use for anything but a torpedo against a submarine; your PK is..." I know all that, but I also know ASW and I know what submarines have and will do. I also know that such bravado was spoken prior to Operation DRUMBEAT.

Physics, Facts, and Fundamentals. The need and use of the tank today would be fully understood by Guderian, von Manstein, or Patton. The future requirements for ASW likewise are known - yet because they are expensive and hard we allow ourselves to let them go without much thought. Sad really. I am afraid that we won't get the chance for a reality check until a CVN or T-AKE or LPD goes down.

No green flares in the real world.

Like Tall Ships?

Then it is time for you to get underway for Norfolk.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I could tell you a story about HarborFest '87 .... but I won't.....

Hat tip Tim.

Why Rush is right....

Due to the fact I can't listen to a radio where I work - I don't hear Rush. It has been reported is a variety of places that Rush Limbaugh stated that given what we know now, and understanding that things can change on a dime in politics, there is a 80% chance that Sen. Clinton (D-NY) will be the next President.

You know, he is right. Here is why.

The Republican race right now is in a scrum and the core of the Republican party is not happy. The reason is that on average, the Republican care about the ideas of Conservatism. They feel betrayed by the former Republican Congress that went native - and have never been all that happy with GWB. They held their nose and voted for him, and they never really trusted him. That is without taking into consideration national security issues. They do not trust any of the "electable" candidates out there right now and it shows. Even the less than ideal Fred Thompson looks good when they look at the balance of McCain, Giuliani, and Romney.

The Democrats, however, care about power. Sure, they have their ideas that they will chase down - but most of all they want power. They had the 2000, 2002, and 2004 election stolen from they by the cruel twists of history and an imperfect system of election leaders. 2006 made them feel better - but to get the power they want to make the changes they want to make to better mold this nation to their image - they want it all. Not only do they want it all, they want a leader that is not shy about taking power and using it for all it's worth.

There are more people who fear Clinton than respect her. They know she is an incredibly polarizing factor in politics - but they see a perfect storm in '08 in the likely event, in their eyes, Iraq ends in a humiliating defeat and they gain more House, Senate, and then Presidential power. Once they have all three branches, then they can take out the heavy tools and get to work.

That is their vision. In their heart, they like the clear Leftism and sooth feel they get with Obama - but they know he is a political carebear. They want what Hillary is offering - pure, brutal, direct power. She knows it.

She has the machine. She has the money. She is looking at the Republican field and is aching for a chance to destroy the poor naif that tries to run against her in the general election.

Hillary is not to be dismissed. She knows that she has 40% of the electorate sewn up. She knows 40% will never vote for her. She knows the the squishy middle is open to give the Democrats a try so that there will be some chance a change in the White House can make war and strife go away.

Of course, it won't - and Hillary knows it. She also knows that this is her one shot for what she has always worked for - higher and greater levels of power.

I hope you are not sick of the '08 election yet. This is going to be a long, hard, slog. This will be nasty, expensive and not for the faint of heart.

Prepare yourself - if the Republicans do not start to rally around a front runner in the next 4-6 months, they will be too weak to keep up. Hillary isn't all that worried about Obama. She has a plan A-Z to deal with him. One way or another, he will either become part of her team or will be destroyed.

One last thing, something I will perhaps post on another day - I will know when it will be a 95% chance that Hillary and/or a Democrat will be President; Labor Day.

Labor Day '07. And it is all about Iraq. How and why is for another day. I need to go to work.

One light at the end of the tunnel though is that Hillary could self-destruct - but I think that is less likely than the Republican front runner being destroyed.

I think though, I may start something new on May Day. First of Month Metrics and Campaign Assessment or something. I will have to ponder.

Berkeley comes to the "Green Zone"

You need to go and read as much of Jane Stillwater's blog as you have time for - especially you Commissar.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What makes them like that?" I wondered.

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

Jane sounds to me like what I call an honest Leftist. Why honest? Becasue she wants to see the truth, and isn't afraid to face it and evaluate her positions based on the truth. Not ideology, not spin, not a desire to have the "correct" ideas so she is like by the "correct" people. Just the truth.

Like many of the Left though, once they start to see, their peers try to throw the blinders on them. She is trying hard though. Is she now part of what I would call the "pro-victory" crowd? No, far from it. What is important is that she has moved from the Moonbat Left to perhaps the far-Left. That is progress, and in many ways, she should be given credit for going to see for herself.

I still believe Michael Yon and Bill Roggio are much better and more clear headed - but as for Jane; thanks for giving yourself a chance to look at the problem up close.