While Sestak defines "is"

Here's his Republican opponent.

Hope that Mattis-Petraeus win the argument

As we have documented here since the CINC's West Point Speech last year - there is a significant disconnect between what President Obama, Vice President Biden and others have been saying and what SECDEF-COMCENTCOM-COMISAF have been saying.

Strange public discussion. Though the CINC and his spokesmen continue to speak Time-Based planning WRT JUL 2011 - the uniformed leadership and SECDEF continue to focus on Conditions Based.

Thing about Conditions Based Planning, you can't reverse engineer it to a calendar. You cannot predict to a month if Decisive Conditions have been met. Additionally - it takes months from the point you make a decision to where forces can start to decrease if measured by total force levels. The only way to do that is if you tell Unit X that they are not deploying to relieve Unit Y. If you plan on forces to decrease by JUL 2011 in an organized manner - the decision needs to be made by Christmas to do it right. That would require you to predict Conditions, something you cannot do.

Now, if in JUL 2011 a Operational Review was completed that stated that, "Decisive Conditions have been achieved at A, B, and C. As a result, we will redeploy units X and Y and when their deployment is over, they will not be replaced." That would be fine ... and force levels would start to drop a few months later - just like we saw in Iraq when Decisive Conditions were met.

Here is my concern. As we get closer and closer to JUL 2011, the CINC and the DOD story lines do not get any closer. I don't see the likes of Mattis and Petraeus fudging conditions - so I wouldn't worry about that. We cannot afford in a Strategic context to have either our uniformed leadership tell happy-talk half-truths for domestic political reasons - again - nor can we have a situation where the civilian leadership and uniformed leadership are in open conflict. Watching this get patched together will be interesting - and in a few years will spawn quite a few Doctoral works.

11 months is not a long time in the Planning world when you are talking about bringing forces home in an orderly manner.

Listening to Petraeus here - the gap is still un-bridgeable. Watch.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

MSNBC video can be clunky - so via Allah, here is some of the transcript - though you can get more from the MSNBC site.

MR. GREGORY: Let me talk about U.S. troops. I asked you before, when we talked about this July deadline of next year, how stifling is the, the concept of this deadline and this Washington debate to what you’re trying to do here?

GEN. PETRAEUS: I don’t find it that stifling. I’m not bowed over by, you know, the knowledge that July 2011 is out there. In fact, the president has been very clear, Vice President Biden’s been very clear as well, more recently, that this is a date when a process begins that is conditions based. And as the conditions permit, we transition tasks to our Afghan counterparts and to security forces and, and in various governmental institutions, and that enables a “responsible drawdown of our forces”…

Let me point out one other item about July 2011 if I could. Because what I have often noted was that in the speech that the president made at West Point, there were two messages. One was a message of substantial additional commitment, additional 30,000 troops, again more civilians, more funding for Afghan forces, authorization of 100,000 more of them and so forth; but also a message of increased urgency. And that’s what July 2011 really connotes. It is to all the participants, those in Kabul, some of us in uniform, again our civilian counterparts, that we’ve got to get on with this, that this has been going on for some nine years or so, that there is understandable concern, in some cases frustration, and that, therefore, we’ve got to really put our shoulder to the wheel and show during the course of this year that progress can be achieved. And, and, again, one manifestation of that is out there that you have this date.

He is trying hard to give the CINC running room - I hope he takes it.

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Sal, what about the Ground Zero mosque?

A lot of you have emailed bits about the mosque proposed near Ground Zero since the very start, and others have emailed me since asking why I have yet to comment on it. Well, as I wait for the family to wake up so I can mow the yard - here you go.

I haven't for a simple and selfish reason; disgust. Almost 5 years ago, back in SEP 05 I did a post titled, "NYC to build Mosque at WTC site."

I remember picking that title as it was one of the most mindless actions I could think of. It was, of course, a parody. It was the only think I could think of that was worse than what they proposed on the site of Flight 93's impact area.

Then, as now, things are rather simple. Let me be lazy and quote myself from SEP 05 - it applies to the then "parody-now-fact" as well.

This is complete madness. Like a lot of these things it boils down to one or two things:

1. The designers, politicians, and judges are completely ignorant rubes who were not homeschooled by Anne and therefore have no knowledge of history, symbols and propriety.

2. The designers knew exactly what they were doing and the politicians, judges and citizens are so paralyzed by political correctness and afraid of being called nasty names that they cannot and will not stop this affront to decency.

I don’t buy #1. Say what you want about the designer’s politics, but they are not ignorant and uneducated. My next travel claim is on #2.

It is even worse.

I'm not going to use up much space here - it is so obvious. Just read this as it is close to what I would do. The name tells you all you need to know.

Well - the name is the easy give away about what is going on here. Cordoba House. Sure they can change the name if they want - but it doesn't matter. They showed their cards from the start. From relatively neutral Wiki.

The Caliphate of Córdoba (Arabic: خلافة قرطبة Khilāfat Qurṭuba) ruled the Iberian peninsula (Al-Andalus) and North Africa from the city of Córdoba, from 929 to 1031. This period was characterized by remarkable success in trade and culture; many of the masterpieces of Islamic Iberia were constructed in this period, including the famous Great Mosque of Córdoba. In January of 929, Abd-ar-Rahman III proclaimed himself Caliph (Arabic: خليفة) of Córdoba in place of his original title Emir of Córdoba (Arabic: أمير قرطبة 'Amīr Qurṭuba). Abd-ar-Rahman III was a member of the Umayyad dynasty; the same dynasty who held the titles of Emir of Córdoba since 756. The rule of the Caliphate is known as the heyday of Muslim presence in the Iberian peninsula.

I love NYC - not an easy thing for a Southerner to say. NYC, however, is ruled by fools.

There is only one Cordoba that should be near Ground Zero.

Keeping an Eye on the Long Game: Part XXXI

If you liked what Michael Auslin had to say on Midrats last week, then you will want to read all of what he has to say in his article in the WSJ, Pacific Command Pushes Back,

For years, Pacific Command—which oversees all American military operations from the west coast of America to the east coast of Africa—has talked more about "dialogue" with China than the threat the country's opaque military build-up presents to America and its allies. That view largely echoed the stance of their civilian bosses, from Presidents Reagan to George W. Bush.

No more: In Congressional testimony earlier this year, new Pacific Command chief Admiral Robert Willard noted China's "unabated" military buildup and concluded that it appeared "designed to challenge our freedom of action in the [Asia-Pacific]." Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last month that he's "moved from being curious" about what China is doing, "to being concerned about what they're doing." And new Pacific Fleet Commander Patrick Walsh said that China is putting the South China Sea's vital trade routes "at risk" over its various territorial claims.

Many U.S. officers and senior civilian employees at Pacific Command with whom I spoke last week agree with this view. Now they want their bosses in Honolulu and Washington to back up their talk with action so that the U.S. doesn't "give up any water space" to China. They cite, in particular, China's territorial claims over the South China Sea; its illegal seizure of Philippine and Vietnamese islands; and its skirmishes with fishing boats off the coast of Indonesia and Vietnam.
...
There needs to be a firmer push for trilateral and quadrilateral meetings among America and its closest partners in the region, including Japan, South Korea and Australia. The meetings should focus on core security issues such as missile defense, antisubmarine warfare and surface patrols. Simultaneously, Washington needs to forge more strategic ties to Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and other countries worried about China's rise and who occupy geostrategically important locations.

Serious, sober thinking. Asia isn't waiting.

Fullbore Friday

My Grandfather's Navy, thanks to the good people over at the National Film Preservation Foundation.

Take the time to click here for the whole video. Well worth your time. Here is the background.

U.S. Navy of 1915 (1915)
Production Company: Lyman H. Howe Company. Transfer Note: Digital file made from a 35mm negative. Running Time: 11 minutes (silent, no music).

We are indebted to independent scholar Charles “Buckey” Grimm for identifying this 11-minute piece of the celebrated “lost” three-reel documentary U.S. Navy of 1915, produced by the Lyman H. Howe Company. (The piece had formerly been known only as “U.S. Navy Fragment.”) The film was made with the full support of the Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, who believed in the power of motion pictures to convince isolationists of the importance of building a strong American navy. A former newspaperman who knew the value of publicity, Daniels allowed Howe’s camera crew remarkable shipboard access. The results show sailors as they go about their day—doing repairs, cleaning the deck, exercising, as well as demonstrating naval might. The film drew praise as capturing “the pulse-beat of the complex life that throbs through our dreadnoughts from reveille to ‘taps.’”

This was not first time the Navy had turned to film to tell its story. Early on, the Navy had collaborated with the Biograph Company on a now-lost series of 60 short films showing sailors and officers at work. The series screened at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair and 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland before being put to use in a Midwest recruitment tour. Naval facilities and ships also figured prominently in early newsreels and narratives. The service took care to ensure that depictions presented it in a favorable light and reserved the right, for commercial films shot with official approval, to reuse them for the Navy’s own purposes.

Buckey identified the fragment through careful detective work involving the ships and ordnance on display in the fragment. For example, the “E-2” class submarine, pictured in the opening scene, was taken out of service in 1915, and the shells mentioned in a intertitle—“It costs the U.S. government $970.00 for each 14 inch projectile fired”—were added to the naval arsenal the year earlier. The clincher was matching a frame from the documentary with an image used in a newspaper piece to illustrate the Howe film. Buckey reported his research at the 2010 Orphan Film Symposium at New York University.

Born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania in 1856, Lyman Hakes Howe got his start as a traveling salesman. In the 1880s he switched to lecturing and demonstrated a miniature working coal mine on the road. When movies came along, he was among the first to make the transition. He devised his own projector, the Animotiscope, which upgraded the Edison machine by adding a second reel, and playing a phonograph to add sound. Soon he was making his own travelogues and newsreels. Little survives of his output other than this fragment.

About the Preservation
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia generously lent the nitrate print to make the preservation copies. Edge codes on the source material date from 1917, suggesting this print of an earlier film may have been distributed to demonstrate American naval strength after the United States entered World War I. New prints are available at the Library of Congress and the NFSA.

My favorites? Swim call while taking on stores. PT - and the fact they worked in what we now call a dress uniform.

Hat tip Steve.

Episode 33: The Rise of China & the Fading of DADT

Midrats has been struck for the second time with a Failure to Launch. Both our Primary and Back-up FTL'd ... and we did not have a Ready Spare. From here on out, we will have a Ready Spare ... so hopefully this won't happen again. We'll try to reschedule out guests. Please accept my apologies and thank you for your patience.

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This Sunday, 15 August at 5pm EST, my co-host EagleOne and I will start the show by building off of last week's discussion of the changing face of international and security issues in the Western Pacific.

For the first half hour we will have as our guest Seth Cropsey, Senior Fellow from The Hudson Institute to discuss the rise of China and her growing influence throughout Asia and globally.

For the second half of the hour, we are going to update a subject we last covered back in Episode 7 in February. As our guest we will have retired Navy Reserve Commander Zoe Dunning, Board Co-Chair of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network on to discuss the lobbying efforts on behalf of repeal of "Don't Ask Don't Tell" and a status report on where the debate stands.

Join us live if you can and pile in with the usual suspects in the chat room during the show where you can offer your own questions and observations to our guests. If you miss the show or want to catch up on the shows you missed - you can always reach the archives at blogtalkradio - or set yourself to get the podcast on iTunes.

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