World's Worst Hatchet Job

So, it started. As you would expect, like some 4 year Kubuki dance, all the appropriate journalists who write for the appropriate publications are making the appropriate noises about and against whoever is the Republican candidate is.

Nicholas D. Kristof's work on Africa is great - he should stick to that. This pathetic hit piece on Sen. McCain (R-AZ) is just, well, pathetic.

Even for those of us who shudder at many of John McCain’s positions, there is something refreshing about a man who wins so many votes despite a major political shortcoming: he is abysmal at pandering.

...Mr. McCain truly has principles that he bends or breaks out of desperation and with distaste. That’s preferable to politicians who are congenital invertebrates.

I disagree with Mr. McCain on Iraq, taxes, abortion and almost every other major issue. He has a nasty temper, which isn’t ideal for the hand holding a nuclear trigger. For a man running partly on biography, he treated his first wife, Carol, poorly. And one of the meanest put-downs in modern political history was a savage joke that Mr. McCain publicly related about Chelsea Clinton when she was 18 years old; it was inexcusable.

Yet Mr. McCain himself would probably acknowledge every one of these flaws, and he is a rare politician with the courage not just to follow the crowd but also to lead it. It is refreshing to see that courage rewarded by voters.

It is almost as if Kristof felt guilty that he had to smear mud on McCain - like he was forced to.
Nicholas D. Kristof's work on Africa is great - he should stick to that. This pathetic hit piece on Sen. McCain (R-AZ) is just, well, pathetic.

I think he will lay off McCain for awhile - McCain brings out his worst writing. However, it does help us know where Kristof's biases are. Let's see,

Even for those of us who shudder at many of John McCain’s positions, there is something refreshing about a man who wins so many votes despite a major political shortcoming: he is abysmal at pandering.

...Mr. McCain truly has principles that he bends or breaks out of desperation and with distaste. That’s preferable to politicians who are congenital invertebrates.

I disagree with Mr. McCain on Iraq, taxes, abortion and almost every other major issue.

Ok. Kristof is therefore;
- Pro-abortion.
- Pro more taxation.
- Anti-victory.

....and from McCain's website we can take the 180-out and further determine that Kristof is;
- Pro- un-Constitutional Judicial activism.
- Anti-lobbying reform.
- Against border security.
- Loves the present immigration system (sic).
- Anti-environment.
- Anti-gun.
- Anti-NASA.

Thanks Mr. Kristof; we now know how to read your non-African stuff....

Now, who does get McCain? Christopher Buckley, for one.

And yet the sum of Mr. McCain seems (to me, anyway) far greater than the parts. How many elections offer such an inspired biography as his? And who among “us” — with the exception of Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi, who issued a statement saying that the thought of Mr. McCain in the Oval Office sent “chills up my spine” — would not sleep soundly knowing that the war hero was on the job calculating how to dispatch more Islamic fanatics to their rendezvous with 72 virgins, without an interlude of waterboarding, while in his spare time vetoing Senator Cochran’s latest earmark.

Mr. McCain’s speech at that big-O Overwrought conservative conference was a model of — I’m glancing at my New Yorker cartoon — mollification.

I’d love to have been inside his brain — or to have had a mind-reading crawl run across the bottom of the TV screen — as he was offering his emollient words. I’m guessing it was something along the lines of, “All right, you blinking, high-maintenance idjits, if this is what it takes, I’m willing to do it, but honestly I’d rather be doing vodka shots with Hillary Clinton.” But then defiance — defiance of the gleeful kind — is a quality I’ve always associated with conservatism.

Read it all.

Bookie has a new home

Like all the fickle women I love; Bookie just isn't happy where she is.

Check out her new place and update you bookmarks for BookWormRoom.

Australia playing both sides in WESTPAC

Note first China's newest Fast Attack Missile boat.

Now note HSV (as Springbored tells us, will most likely be a basis for the JHSV).

Now the General Dynamics' (with help by the company in question) LCS bid.

Notice the familial resemblance? Of course, Austal (correction; make that Australian companies) is making money off all three.

Nice. Very nice. Move along; nothing to see here. Move along.

Voice of a lion - SSG David Bellavia

About it.




Who is David Bellavia? If you don't know, this might help.

A peek at 5GW

In the book I am reading right now, The Sling & the Stone , Col. Hamms, USMC (Ret.), mentions;

...the academic community has engaged in a robust, opinionated debate concerning the future of war. Although most aughors agree that warfare is clearly moving to the next era or generation, they strongly disagree about the reasons for the transition and the form it will take. They ca agree that warfare is fundamentally changing but have not reached a consensus of what those changes are.

Though he is talking about 4GW - I think even that is a done deal and we are moving on to something else. I think we may have seen a hint of the transition from 4GW to 5GW - perhaps.

Senior Pentagon officials are using a classified Army study on the 2006 war between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah to retool the U.S. military's combat strategy for future wars.

That means focusing on heavy armor, such as Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles; more body armor; and unmanned aircraft that can monitor enemy activity and fire missiles at enemy fighters.

Such an approach conflicts with the current emphasis on counterinsurgency operations, which are being waged in Iraq and Afghanistan. Counterinsurgency tactics could leave U.S. forces vulnerable to the kind of coordinated attacks that stymied Israel.

"It's not just counterinsurgency," said Rickey Smith, of the Army Capabilities Integration Center-Forward Office. "This was a wake-up call to all of us as analysts."

Yes, yes, by Thor's Hammer; yes!!!

"People think of an irregular force, that they might not be as competent as a regular army," said Col. Tom Slafkosky of the Center for Army Analysis. "In fact, they may be much more dangerous and competent because they're much more motivated to fight, and they will take the initiative."

Kind of like Obama supporters .... but I kid .... I kid because I love ... Back to business; here is the core. Speaking of Obama supporters, I think I am, gasp, on the same sheet as Brookings,

"It's still going to boil down to a human contest," Smith said. "But we don't want it to be a fair fight. We want to win with overwhelming force."

Members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Secretary Pete Geren and Marine Commandant James Conway have seen the classified version of the briefing.

"The Army's lesson is that it has to focus on a continuum of threats," said Dov Zakheim, former Defense Department comptroller and now a vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton. He has not seen the briefing but has studied the conflict.

Spending billions on the Army's Future Combat System to confront the threat would be the wrong approach, said Michael O'Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution.

Adding updated communication equipment to vehicles such as Strykers and MRAPs would save billions, he said. "I'd be more inclined to keep a large enough ground force and keep it well trained," he said.

It looks like MG Scales, USA (Ret.) may see a little 5GW as well.

Retired Army major general Robert Scales, who has seen the briefing, called Hezbollah's tactics a revolution in warfare. "This is the first time an irregular force has been equipped with precision weapons," he said.

Scales' solution: more U.S. infantry troops riding to battle in vehicles that can withstand roadside bombs and armed with real-time information about the enemy's movements. While air power is important, he said, ground troops are critical to rooting out the enemy.

"The Israelis could have put 2,000 F-16s over Lebanon," he said, "and it would not have made a lick of difference."

Potential U.S. adversaries know about Hezbollah's success, too, Slafkosky said. "They share this stuff all the time on the Internet."

Such threats, Vandiver said, are "proliferating. They can only get bigger, badder and harder."

Pretty impressive work for McPaper. I hope it makes your puzzler puzzle. As a final note, I find myself with Gen. Mattis, USMC on average with the 4GW folks - none of this is really new. Alexander the Great would fully understand what is going on. We just need to keep our eyes and minds open.

PhD or JD?

Maybe I will go back to school full time and move from Imperial to Local concerns.

The proposal for a new G.I. Bill has attracted considerable attention in the past year and has 32 Senate co-sponsors.

But the bill, S22 in the Senate and HR2702 in the House, has been stalled by the Bush administration and the Pentagon, which cite cost concerns and worry that a new educational benefit would encourage sorely needed troops to end their service and enroll in school.

The legislation would pay tuition and fees, plus a monthly stipend of $1,000, for those who have served on active duty for at least two years since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Reservists, who Webb said will be added to the legislation in the next few weeks, would qualify for the benefit based on their time on active duty.

In an election like we have lining up, expect this to pass. If the Dems want to both inoculate themselves from "don't support the troops" attacks and make more friends in the military, well, this won't hurt. With the Bush Administration opposed, this is a huge give to Obama or Clinton; all they need to do is pick it up. For that matter McCain should be all over this. Hint. Hint.

History returns to the Balkans

Interrupting our Sunday quiet; UDI. Unilateral Declaration of Independence.

Womb warfare over the last century has given Kosovo, home to the Serbian people, to the Albanians. Today Kosovo, tomorrow Malmo - I guess.

Interesting precedent in its own, but let's look at it in the 2008 context.

Russia is trying to return to the stage. They don't like what is being done to their historical little Slavic brother Serbia.

Note all the flags you see in Pristinia (and in Mitrovica's Serbian enclave). Those are not Kosavar flags. Those are mostly Albanian flags....in what is Serbia.

Also note all the American flags in the crowd. That little salt does not help the pain in the Russian wounds.

Just watch.



What an ugly part of the world. I know what I would feel if I was a Kosovar Albanian, but still. Ungh.

The Balkans, always produces much more history than it can consume locally. Think the Russians will let this slide with only a whimper? 50/50 for the optimist.