Yahoo! News - Iraq May Give Amnesty to Insurgents

Amnesty:

By now, you've probably read about the new Iraqi government's propsed offer of amnesty to insurgents. If you haven't, the details are here:

A spokesman for Iyad Allawi went as far as to suggest attacks on U.S. troops over the past year were legitimate acts of resistance--a sign of the new government's desire to distance itself from the 14-month U.S.-led occupation of Iraq.

"If he (a guerrilla) was in opposition against the Americans, that will be justified because it was an occupation force," the spokesman, Georges Sada, said Saturday. "We will give them freedom."

Choking the brutal 14-month insurgency is the No. 1 priority of Allawi's government, and the prime minister is expected to make a number of security-related policy announcements in coming days. Besides the amnesty plan, those include the resurrection of Iraq's death penalty and an emergency law that sets curfews in Iraq's trouble spots, Sada said.

The amnesty plan is still in the works. A full pardon for insurgents who killed Americans is not a certainty, Sada told The Associated Press. Allawi's main goal is to "start everything from new" by giving a second chance to rebel fighters who hand in their weapons and throw their weight behind the new government.

This seems entirely reasonable to me. The government must demonstrate that it is not an American puppet, and that can only be done by taking positions that are counter to US desires. Further, an amnesty drives a wedge between foreign terrorists and the communities in which they run. Exactly to the degree that those communities perceive the new government as independent, they may wish to lay down arms.

Such amnesties are common in the history of civil wars. They do not always succeed. The British attempted one in New York during the Revolutionary War, but only a few thousand "rebels" took advantage of it. After the American Civil War the amnesty was offered to most Confederate soldiers (but not necessarily their officers -- Robert E. Lee, though one of the foremost in the efforts to reunite the nation, asked for but never received amnesty). There remained a violent insurgency in the South for several years, until the "Redemption" movement swept away most of the constitutional changes forced on Southern states by martial law. It was only at that point that the insurgents ceased fighting.

On the other hand, these programs do work sometimes. Iraq seems like a good candidate. The several discrete groups that have been fighting the Coalition have broken apart--al Sadr's army, defeated on the battlefield, may be in a mood to declare victory and cease fighting. If you make them outlaws, they have no option but to carry on the war. Let them go home, and most of them very well may.

There is one final factor that has been completely forgotten by the American press. It is this: Iraqis have not known peace for twenty years. Their sons were impressed to fight in the longest conventional war of the 20th century: the Iraq-Iran conflict. Those who survived were forced to fight the Allies of the Gulf War. Those who survived that saw the suppression of the Shi'ite uprising and the Kurdish uprising. There was, suffusing all of this, the terror of the Mukhabarat. Then, their sons were once again impressed into duty against the Coalition; and after that, guerrilla war and wild-eyed terrorists roaming their cities.

There is every reason to believe that a populace so wearied will take any chance at peace, if they can only be made to believe in it. It's not a bad idea to start by forgiving past offenses -- Saddam and a few of his high-level cronies excepted. That is a promise to the Iraqi people that they will not see their sons turned against their neighbors. From now on the only foe is those who would destroy the new and, genuinely, the common order.

CTV.ca | CTV News, Shows and Sports - Canadian Television

A Day in the Life of Colin Powell:

The Scottish King of Arms, Lord Lyon, has gone out of his way to matriculate a coat of arms for Colin Powell. Apparently Powell's father, Luther, was born in Jamaica and therefore a subject of the Crown of the United Kingdom. While the British nobility would never have considered giving Luther arms on his own account, now that he has a famous son they are bestowing a coat of arms on him psthumously. This, of course, means that the arms descend to General Powell. They are "Azure, two swords in saltire points downwards between four stars argent, on a chief of the second a lion passant gules." That is, two crossed swords (points down, hilts up) on a blue field, with four silver stars just beside each of the intersections of the swords. Above that is a red lion walking past on a silver field. The motto is "Devoted to Public Service."

And what service it has been lately. Still, of all the European meddling in American politics, this part is the least bothersome. It's most akin to the way in which Jimmy Carter was granted a Nobel prize to spite Bush, except that Lord Lyon is too much a gentleman to actually say, "The fact that we are going to such lengths to honor Powell is of course a rebuke to Donald Rumsfeld." Whatever--the General was once a great warrior, even if he hasn't been a great Secretary. Surely he deserves a coat of arms if anyone does.

NEJM -- Semper Fi

Life In the Land That Time Forgot:

This is a dispatch from Parris Island. I don't know what to say about it, except that it is right. It captures everything about the misery, the hate and the heat, the suffering of training and the sorrow that comes in its aftermath. It's a bad world, as my old Aussie friend often says.

The doctor who writes closes it well, following the anguish of a mother who lost her only son with a song drifting over the swamp:

When I go outside, I can hear the shouts floating across the water, the young recruits out there sounding off in unison as they go out for their morning run, flat-out gung-ho at 6 a.m. The shouting sounds as if it is coming not just across the marshes but across the decades, and I swear sometimes that I can hear what they are shouting — all that Marine tough-guy talk:

Lock and load!

Ready on the left!

Ready on the right!

Ready on the firing line!

Failure is not an option!

Good to go.

Thank God for that chorus, but what a price to join it! What bitter thanks are offered to its singers: death, and separation from love, and the attentions of a divided citizenry and a divided Congress.

Yet they are owed thanks, and kinder attentions. On the behalf of the keepers of the flame--an Order of which they are chiefer members than I myself--I thank them, and pledge them my friendship and trust. Semper Fidelis, as the lady says.

BLACKFIVE: Senators and Congressmen Against The Troops

Y'all Back Home Read This:

I hope you'll all reflect on this post from BlackFive. However, those of you back in the great state of Georgia will please notice that Majette, who wants your vote for the US Senate, voted against this bill. That's not to be forgotten in November. I can't vote against her, being temporarily a Virginia citizen, though a Georgian by heart. Y'all can, and ought to do.

Thanks to Doc Russia for the link to B-5. Sorry you're having such a rough week, Doc.

IOL: South Africa

Guns and Families:

"How will we protect our families now? Criminals prefer unarmed victims... and so does the African National Congress."

Thus begins an article on the new "Firearms Control Act" in South Africa. It quotes one Charl van Wyk, chairman of Victims Against Crime, who said: "A law that made it impossible to defend one's family was an illegitimate law." Indeed it is.

On which topic, I purchased a revolver today. It's a new Smith & Wesson M66, which is a K-Frame chambered for .357 Magnum. Come autumn, I would like to augment it with a carbine in the same caliber, although I may buy a rifle for the deer-hunting season instead as I gave my last longarm to my father to defend his home. He'd made do too long with my grandfather's single-shot break action 20-gauge shotgun, a fine weapon against squirrels and rabid dogs, but of little use in running off determined bandits. I passed over to him my Mossberg 500, which will make the job much easier.

I reflect that my father is highly unusual among my clan in that he has not concerned himself with owning or carrying firearms. My great-great-grandfather, Tom Clanton, was one of the most famous gunfighters in post-Civil War Tennessee. He used a lever-action rifle to kill seven men in one night. Interesting fellow--he'd held a whiskey-making license for the Union Army (my father's family were Union men, having abandoned the Quaker faith in favor of warfighting for human liberty; my mother's family were Confederates, having no use for foreign interlopers telling them what to do. I come by both positions honestly). After the war he ended up in conflict with the proto-KKK "night riders," in a series of conflicts that ended very badly for them and left him to grow old and feared. He was acquitted of eight killings, those seven plus one other fellow who turned in his still to the authorities. That last was deemed justifiable homicide by the jury.

His son, my great grandfather, was involved in his first gunfight in the Tennessee hills as a teenager. The occasion was a girl, of course--if I were starting this family history earlier, you'd see that motif has been regular one. His enemies ambushed him, and he would have been killed but that one of the local elders--a black man, as it happens, who remembered his father with kindness--took him aside, warned him, and pressed a revolver into his hand. He survived, and grew quite old in turn. Along the way, he managed to earn enough money as a farmer to send seven sons to trade school.

My grandfather was one of these. He became a welder, and the first tradesman of the family. He was three times rejected by the US Army during WWII: in spite of his repeated attempts to enlist, when they realized that he was a welder they rejected him and sent him back to work at the shipyards. He eventually worked at Oak Ridge, where the first atomic bombs were constructed. After the war, he ran a body shop and service station for long-haul truckers on the new interstates. He carried a handgun everywhere, as did his wife and eldest son, my uncle. In spite of their longstanding friendships with the black community, the service station was not spared in the violence of the Civil Rights movement. They had to defend it, although I understand it was without fatality on any side.

My grandfather did what his father had done, and saved so that his sons could do better than he had. Both of them went to college. My father, who was a drill sergeant in the US Army, took a white-collar position. For whatever reason, he didn't carry on the family habit of going about armed, although his father continued it nearly until he died at the age of eighty. He did carry on the tradition of educating his children, although I was able to help out with scholarships and work. I hold three degrees in history and philosophy.

I myself have enough concealed-carry licenses that, with reciprocity, I can carry from Key West to Vermont as long as I avoid a few of the less civilized states. Looking back over the roll of years, I can't see any good reason not to do so. The family holds itself together in spite of, not because of, the movements of nations. That mine exists, and has survived and prospered, is not due to the Civil War or WWII or the Civil Rights Movement. It is due to family love, courage, hard work, savings, and a good revolver close to hand. That is the recipie I suggest to you all, for whatever trials Fate may have in store.

Right Thinking Girl: Love In A Time Of Danger

"The War on Terror is Not a Real War"

Someone I know said just those words to me earlier this week. I couldn't help but remember them when I read this moving account by a young woman trying to help a 9/11 survivor sort things out. If it's not a war, I don't know what word we can use for it.

Backcountry Conservative: Medals of Honor Stolen

Stolen Medals:

Apparently someone broke into the museum on the hanger deck of the USS Yorktown (CV-10), not too far from Charleston, South Carolina. (A quick digression--it's a great trip to head out there and tour the ship, and the nearby submarine.) Jeff Quinton reports that several Medals of Honor were stolen.

The FBI is investigating. I think they are correct to assume that it's likely the thieves will try to sell the things out of state. If you hear of or see anyone trying to sell Medals of Honor, you can contact the FBI and report it.

San Francisco rolls out the red carpet for the Clintons

Clarity:

Thank you, Senator Clinton, for providing us with such a clear picture of your program in a few simple words. Rhetoric never gets better than this:

We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.

Understood. Out.

America's Missed Photo Opportunity (washingtonpost.com)

Press Corps Whines:

The Washington Post today has a piece called America's Missed Photo Opportunity, subtitled, "Suprise Transfer of Sovereignty Lacks Memorable Positive Picture." The piece begins with the press' idea of what such a moment should look like:

Salah Nagm, the head of news at the Middle East Broadcasting Centre that runs the Arabic satellite channel al-Arabiya, said it was possible that the ceremony would join other historic images -- momentous handshakes on the South Lawn of the White House or Anwar Sadat's visit to Israel -- that are graven on the memory of this region. He couldn't know, of course, what the event would look like. But as a man who deals in images, he knew it might have enormous impact.

But instead:

No one, it seems, had bothered to call the Arabic-language channel that says it has the largest viewership in Iraq. Their cameras were not even in the room when Iraq was reborn as a sovereign nation (or "so-called sovereign" in the local parlance).

"I don't know what they were thinking -- they didn't tell anybody," said Abdul Kader Kharobi, an assignment editor at al-Arabiya, a few hours after the transfer at 10:26 a.m. local time. There was no frustration in his voice, just disgust and a lot of weary irony. The Americans have been all but incompetent in manufacturing images, he said, and yet what does it matter? After Abu Ghraib, and after what he believes was a sham investigation into the March 18 killing of two al-Arabiya journalists in Baghdad by U.S. soldiers, who believes the Americans anyway?

Kharobi first learned that the transfer might happen early from statements by the Iraqi interior minister, who was in Turkey for the NATO summit. But, he said, despite the best efforts of one of his reporters to get more information out of members of the Iraqi delegation, no one offered anything specific. It seemed like a rumor, or confusion.

Ten minutes later, he learned that the transfer was already a done deal. And so the event that might have produced the most public, ceremonial moment in the birth of a new country was a private, invitation-only event. A war of images, of toppled statues and looted museums, of captured Americans and mangled children, a war whose ending was marked with a premature victory celebration on an aircraft carrier more than a year ago, was given another ambiguous marker. Iraqis were once again nominally in charge of their country, but al-Arabiya, for the moment, had no way of proving it to its viewers.

The day continued like that. There had, in fact, been a camera in the room in Baghdad, and the video that emerged showed a weary-looking L. Paul Bremer on a yellow sofa. The actual transfer of power came with the exchange of a large blue portfolio, but who was running the camera at this critical moment? And why was someone standing in the way?

"The camera was positioned very badly," said Kharobi, who, despite deep skepticism of American intentions, is hopeful that peace, at least, will follow soon.

We are used to the press attempting to present the US as inept, and seeking voices that will accomodate their desire. The sea of anti-Americanism in which these comments swim is as deep as the Persian Gulf. Who expected this fellow to say anything positive?

Still, there are several responses that ought to be made:

1) Images aren't as easily manufactured or controlled as the press would like to believe. The particular picture that comes to symbolize an event depends on visceral public reaction more than it depends on the press. You can put an image up over and over, but if it doesn't speak to what the public itself believes to be true and right, it won't take.

2) Images can also be constructed after the fact. Say "Washington crossed the Delaware" to anyone in the United States, and an image leaps to mind. The image itself is improbable, a later invention of a fertile mind.

Similarly, the photograph of the Marines raising the flag atop Mt. Suribachi was taken after the battle was over. The original raising of the flag--which occured under fire--was not photographed. So, they went back and staged it again with a bigger flag, and got some pictures for the folks back home.

3) Last, and most important: it is the success of an event, not the image, that counts. We all remember the "momentous" handshakes of the Israeli peace process, but who cares? The peace process was a fraud. We remember Chamberlain holding his documents high, too, but only with scorn.

There have been times in history when images have changed the course of human events. The Tet Offensive is one such--the press' images convinced Americans that the fight was being lost, when in fact Tet was a success for America and South Vietnam. What should have been a celebratory atmosphere became, instead, an erosion of support.

Still, it's not the image that counts. Victory counts. The only reason to worry about images is to prevent the press from having its way, and once again convincing Americans that we are losing when in fact we are winning.

Yahoo! Mail - grimbeornr@yahoo.com

Freedom Week:

Greyhawk of the Mudville Gazette has noticed that Iraq's Independence Day and our Independence Day come within a week of each other. He has therefore declared the entire week to be a new holiday, "Freedom week." He urges celebrations, and surely they are deserved. Iraq's security may not be assured yet, but honestly, neither is ours--and it never will be. The naysayers who point to the need for security in order to celebrate "true" liberty in Iraq fail to understand the nature of the thing called liberty. It is always a fight. Some places seem relatively safe, but there is no safety. There is only courage, and devotion to arms in the pursuit of justice. That devotion we name "chivalry."

Greyhawk is asking for donations to a fund that aids servicemen, called Soldier's Angels. You might drop by and have a look around their site.

True Believers

True Believers:

The handover was two days early. What sort of man now leads Iraq? A month ago, one would have expected a cautious fellow, suspicious of his American friends, but experienced at playing both sides in the intelligence game. Allawi might have been just that kind of Prime Minister, but for one thing: a bloody assassination spree led out of Fallujah, the very town he had struggled to protect by restraining the United States. Zarqawi created a new understanding in Allawi's mind when the terrorist promised to kill the PM.

Today Allawi gave a short speech. His choice of words lets you know that he has become a true believer, and has openly decided where Iraq's best interests lie:

At a hurriedly arranged ceremony to swear in the new government, Mr Allawi promised to crush the "outlaws" responsible for the violence which has left hundreds dead.

"I warn the forces of terror once again. We will not forget who stood with us and against us in this crisis."

With us or against us. Sometimes, even in the heart of the middle east, such simplistic clarity is possible.

Marine Corps News> Marines take the reins of Camp Al-Mahmudiyah

Marines at Mahmudiyah:

Those of you following (as I am) the career of "Da Grunt," fighting man of the 2/2 Marines, will notice that his unit has taken over Camp Al-Mahmudiyah. This is a return-trip for them, as they had been deployed there in March. This is an interesting place to me for one main reason: it's an example of "cultural sensitivity." "Camp Al-Mahmudiyah" was established by the 101st Airborne, who called it Forward Operating Base St. Michael. It has not been a pleasant place in spite of the name change. It might have been better to have continued to invoke St. Michael, whose name was the war cry of the angles according to Catholic tradition. Then again, the Marines expect to guard the streets of Heaven when they die, as it says in the Marine Corps Hymn. I suppose they might feel that they could let Michael have the day off, being in the same line of work.

Cambodian lessons in anti-terrorism

Thailand Ponders Counterterrorism:

I am developing a fondness for the good people of Thailand. This article ran originally in the Bangkok Post:

Whatever the immediate effects, it is important to know, and vital to exploit the fact that the terrorist gangs have such tiny leadership cores. To be clear, authorities must double and then redouble efforts to identify and then to track and stop the leaders of al-Qaeda, JI and allied terrorist groups. It is beginning to appear that cutting off the head of the terrorist gangs can prevent attacks. Since the US invaded Afghanistan and put the Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders to flight, there has been no successful terrorist attack in America. Similarly, since Thai and Indonesian police arrested JI leader Abu Bakar Bashir and operations chief Hambali, the violent movement has had only one terrorist attack. The bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Indonesia last year appalled most of the JI members, because nearly all victims were Indonesians. Clearly, the arrests of the JI leaders was a huge setback.

Emphasis added. That's a happy phrase: "Cutting off the heads of the terrorist gangs." They are, of course, speaking figuratively.

Michael Moore.com : Mike's Message : FAQ

Whew, Close Call:

I spent part of the afternoon watching the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, a movie that has probably been the unconscious inspiration for a large part of my life. The end of the movie arrives, credits roll, and there near the very top is an inauspicious name. Fortunately, it's just a case of mistaken identity:

I am also not the Michael Moore who directed Elvis in 'Blue Hawaii' and Harrison Ford in 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' or the Michael Moore who was the Assistant Director on 'Spiderman,' or the one who was in 'Stalag 17'.

Glad to hear it.

Guardian Unlimited Books | By genre | Observer review: The Origins of the Final Solution by Christopher Browning

L'audace:

Audacity is not limited to the French, it seems. Out of the AFP today (no link as yet):

Saudi Arabia's foreign minister on Sunday urged the West to cooperate in breaking down the infrastructure and financial assets of terrorists, in talks with Western diplomats in Jeddah. 'We tackled the question of the financing of terrorism and discussed ways to fight terrorist infrastructures and those who condone the phenomenon and defend its followers,' Saud al-Faisal told reporters in this Red Sea port city.

'Terrorism cannot survive attacks on its infrastructures, which are also found in Western countries. That is why we have asked Western countries to cooperate with us to stand up to this scourge,' he added.

You can always count on the Middle East to be at the forefront of new ideas. Still, I don't know if we should engage in anything so heavyhanded. If we give him this, next he will be suggesting a "Global Coalition Against Terrorism" or something radical like that.

L'actualit� internationale sur Lefigaro.fr

Another Victory:

Following the news today, one would think that Turkey was the scene of the latest disaster for the war in Iraq. Google News at this hour lists only news about the Turkish hostages taken in Iraq, and nothing else from Turkey on its front page. Search for "NATO," and you still find that the top collection of items is about the protests in Turkey aimed at George Bush's attendance at the NATO summit.

Meanwhile, the conservative (for the French) newspaper Le Figaro ran this piece of analysis yesterday:

Un compromis devra pourtant etre trouve. La France est consciente que ses theses sont tres minoritaires au sein de l'Otan. Paris ne s'oppose pas a une "demarche d'unite" de l'Alliance en Irak. Mais ce ne serait pas l'Otan en tant que telle, plutot certains Etats membres volontaires, qui participeraient a la formation des cadres de l'armee irakienne... La France envisage elle-meme de creer, peut-etre en Jordanie ou dans un emirat du Golfe, une ecole de formation de gendarmes irakiens.

Quant a "l'assistance technique" que l'Otan pourrait apporter aux nations engagees dans la force multinationale en Irak, les autorites francaises n'ont rien contre, a condition qu'elle soit discrete... La querelle franco-americaine est surtout affaire de symboles.

That is, in English:

A compromise [with America] will have to be found. France is conscious that its views are greatly in the minority in NATO. Paris does not oppose a a 'show of unity' for the alliance in Iraq. But, it can't be NATO as a whole, but rather a volunteer effort by member states who participate in the formation and training of the Iraqi army. France herself envisions the creation, perhaps in Jordan or in the Emirates, a school for training the Iraqi police.

When it comes to offering 'technical assistance' to Coalition forces in Iraq, France doesn't have a problem with NATO doing so as long as it is discrete. The quarrel between France and America is all about symbols.

France probably thinks it is winning the war of symbols, if it takes as its measure the obedience of the news media in continuing to portray Bush as an isolated loser whose coalition is falling apart. Indeed, the opposite has happened: the Coalition has expanded to include even France. Not only NATO, but the EU has voted to support the operation.

The NATO summit, all but unmentioned on front pages distracted by protests and hostages, has been a victory for the United States, the Coalition, and Iraq's new government. It is not possible to fight terrorists without developing a resistance to terror. You have to look past their efforts to frighten and to fray by fomenting discontent among the peoples of the West. Look past, and you see the first hints of a new dawn in Iraq, the first such light to brighten Mesopotamia in more than thirty years. Our enemies are doing their worst, and we our best. It seems this extends even to 'turning the other cheek' to the French desire to see us scorned in public, even as they aid us in private.

Fair enough. Forgiveness is noble, and the pursuit of justice is a higher calling than vanity or pride. But France should beware that there are other smiths forging symbols. Those smiths seek for their material weak convictions, and hearts they think might be moved by horror's lever. "Provocative weakness" draws eyes from many halls kept in the wastelands of the world.

Run Silent, Run Deep (washingtonpost.com)

"Run Silent, Run Deep":

Don't miss this review of a new book on the submarine service. It's a history of submariners worldwide, and it sounds like an interesting take on the business.

Leonardo da Vinci... refused to actualize his design for a submersible for the benefit "of men who practice assassination at the bottom of the sea."

A coroner's court in Kinsale, Ireland, agreed with Leonardo that assassination was indeed the business of submarines, when on May 10, 1915, it declared "the Emperor and the Government of Germany" guilty of murder in the sinking of the Lusitania. Any doubts that the chivalry of maritime combat had become one of the first casualties of submarine warfare had been laid to rest barely three weeks into World War I, when the U-9 singlehandedly sank the British 7th Cruiser Squadron off the Hook of Holland. And there was another, especially sinister feature to this encounter -- after having torpedoed the British cruiser Aboukir, the captain of the U-9 then lingered to pot the two British cruisers that rushed to rescue the Aboukir's drowning crew. The message was clear: Any captain who slowed to rescue shipwrecked sailors or loitered off an invasion beach offered his ship and crew to ambush by these heartless killers of the deep.

To some degree that characterization is even more apt in the age of the "boomer." In theory, the boomers lay under water precisely in order to engage in nuclear assassination--in order that, even if America's cities and silos were wiped out by the Soviets, we could still return the fire. The threat they represented was one of the major reasons not to engage in "nuclear war-fighting," as the Soviet doctrines called it. America never believed in nuclear war-fighting: our military preferred the Mexican standoff. The Chinese, who were even more sanguine about the possibility of winning a nuclear exchange, are the current foes who have to be kept at bay.

It's an interesting argument. I've had two close friends in the submarine service, and I have to say that they make good friends. People who learn to keep their cool in those close quarters for months at a time, and under the kinds of stresses that go with the nuclear service, are people you can rely on utterly. However morally complicated the role of the submariner, the man himself is likely to be one of the best the Navy has to offer.

It's also amusing that there are a series of hand gestures I've never seen anyone use except submariners. They replace the more common sweeping hand gestures that most Americans use with gestures close to the body, elbows in, short and sharp. I don't know if they're even aware of it, but I'm sure it comes from a life of having to gesture in places with very little room, and many buttons that you shouldn't strike by accident.

SteynOnCanada

O Canada:

Mark Steyn has a good column this week on Canada's elections. One of the issues he thinks gets less debate than it deserves is the health care system:

The other day, as I was reading about the Liberals' exciting $9 billion "plan", my eye fell on a small story in a side column at the foot of the page about two twin boys born at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton. That's in Alberta. Their mother, Debrah Cornthwaite, had begun the day by going to her local maternity ward at Langley Memorial Hospital. That's in British Columbia.

They told her, yes, your contractions are coming every four minutes, but sorry, we don't have any beds. And, after they'd checked with "BC Bedline", they brought her the further good news that there was not a hospital anywhere in the province in which she could deliver her babies. There followed seven hours of red tape. Then, late in the evening, she was driven to Abbotsford Airport and put on a chartered twin-prop to Edmonton, in the course of which flight the contractions increased to every two-and-a-half minutes.

Would you want to do that on your delivery day? They don't teach it in Lamaze class. Instead of being grateful to the greatest health care system on the planet, Mrs Cornthwaite's husband Brandon has been deplorably "divisive" and compared it to that of a Third World country. He has a point. There are circumstances in which citizens of developed nations occasionally find themselves having to be airlifted to hospital -- if they live, say, deep in the Australian bush or the interior of Alaska. But the Cornthwaites are a stone's throw from the province's biggest city.

Sorry, no beds. Try the neighbouring jurisdiction.

With Canadian healthcare sliding toward its logical conclusion -- a ten-month waiting list for the maternity ward -- here's a question to ask your Liberal chums: Do you seriously think your $9 billion "plan" will make two cents' worth of difference? Anymore than did your $21 billion "plan" to save heath care back in 2000? And, whether it’s $9 billion or $21 billion or a hundred billion trillion gazillion, won't most of it just get sucked up in the maw of bureaucracy? And the rest will go to miscellaneous expenses like chartering Cessnas for pregnant moms?

This is the real reason why socialized medicine won't work in the United States. American women are just too violent. I refuse to even imagine what my wife's reaction would have been to such a proposal--"We've got no beds, but sit tight for seven hours, and then we're flying you to Alabama." Whee.

Belmont Club

Victory:

Why do people still expect us to lose in Iraq? Because they themselves can't imagine victory. Yet the Belmont Club outlines exactly what victory looks like:

By the time the uprising was over, silenced in a cease-fire June 4, the U.S. military success appeared decisive. While 19 U.S. soldiers had been killed in combat and scores wounded, military officials estimate that 1,500 insurgents were killed. Sadr's militiamen had been driven from positions many had died defending.

The US estimates that 20 civilians were killed in operations around Najaf. The Najaf hospital claims 81. When the Russians retook Grozny after a disastrous first foray, they returned to the operational formula of Marshak Konev in Berlin and rained down 8,000 artillery shells per hour on the town, killing perhaps 27,000 before attempting it again. The vastly more powerful Americans did not, yet triumphed. They are inept, as everyone knows.

Indeed, it does seem that people believe this. American 'heavyhandedness' is said to have turned Iraq into a "terrorist-breeding hellhole." Yet, when our enemies slaughter civilians in multitudes, with car-bombs aimed at the innocent, we are told that this too moves the world against us. If we kill the innocent, people turn to terrorism to get back at us. If our enemies kill the innocent, people turn to terrorism--why, exactly?

The truth is otherwise than what is reported. Heavyhandness does not belong to America, but to our foes. Victory will be ours, because we merit it. In the end, mercy is a quality that moves hearts. It will be recognized among those who suffer from the bombs, even if it is not recognized among those who have never, themselves, looked death in the face.

Allah Is In The House

Allah Be Praised:

Allah is back on top of his game. "Whoa, Solider! Let's not turn our enemies into enemies!" A 5.56mm NATO is a .223 Remington to me... well, almost. Bring on the Jew rounds!

Althouse: Gore and "brownshirts."

Wolfe Rides Again:

Apparently Ann Althouse had the same thought as me, about nine hours earlier. Great minds, etc. Via Sage of Knoxville, who said earlier this week that he was less likely to link to blogs that "call him names." This one was intended as a compliment--my family is from Knoxville, although I myself was born in Georgia, and raised just over the border in the North Georgia mountains.

Wizbang

"Digital Brownshirts?"

I've just heard from friend-of-the-Hall Jarhead Dad, who is back from a long run. He put me on to this story from Al Gore's recent speech, which I'm citing from Wizbang:

The Administration works closely with a network of "rapid response" digital Brown Shirts...

Now of course when you hear "Brown Shirts" you think at once of Hitler's loyal followers from the early days of Nazism, the ones he had killed at the Night of the Long Knives. Gore would, on first face, appear to be comparing pro-administration bloggers and followers-of-blogs with this bunch of fascists.

But then, after a moment, I remembered the story about Naomi Wolfe...

By contrast, Gore's way is not to be chummy but not to be petty either. He has never held it against Time magazine for breaking a story about his hiring of author Naomi Wolfe as a secret adviser... Air Gore was a grumpy place, and the alpha male in earth tones with his earnest town-hall meetings couldn't catch a break for much of the campaign.

So you see, Gore isn't being petty. He's just trying to offer you a compliment, in his awkward sort of way. Brown shirts are, of course, earth tones: exactly the sort of clothes he's heard that "alpha men" wear.

I Don't Like the "New Freedom"

"The New Freedom":

The worst domestic political idea since socialism has appeared today, direct from the desk of President Bush. It is called "The New Freedom Initiative". And just what is "the New Freedom"?

President Bush plans to unveil next month a sweeping mental health initiative that recommends screening for every citizen and promotes the use of expensive antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs favored by supporters of the administration.

The New Freedom, then, is the freedom to submit yourself for regular evaluations from pseudoscientists who have a vested interest in proving that you are sick. The New Freedom is the freedom to accept that it is normal to be on mind-altering drugs. The New Freedom includes, doubtless, increased state freedom to drug persons it finds unpleasant or difficult--little boys in school, for example. Or "conservatives," perhaps. Or liberals.

The New Freedom probably also includes less individual freedom to refuse such treatments. We have seen that the state has already begun to force us to drug our children, under threat of jail or having our kids stolen.

Chad Taylor of Rio Rancho, N.M., suspected that his son Daniel was suffering side effects from Ritalin, a drug he was taking for attention deficit disorder:

"He was losing weight, wasn't sleeping, wasn't eating," Taylor told ABC News affiliate KOAT-TV in New Mexico. "[He] just wasn't Daniel."

"So Taylor took Daniel off Ritalin, against his doctor's wishes. And though Taylor noticed Daniel was sleeping better and his appetite had returned, his teachers complained about the return of his disruptive behavior. Daniel seemed unable to sit still and was inattentive. His teachers ultimately learned that he was no longer taking Ritalin. School officials reported Daniel's parents to New Mexico's Department of Children, Youth and Families.Then a detective and social worker made a home visit. 'The detective told me if I did not medicate my son, I would be arrested for child abuse and neglect,' Taylor said. A spokesman for New Mexico's Department of Children, Youth and Families told KOAT-TV that they could not comment on the case because of state confidentiality laws. John Francis, a detective for the Rio Rancho Department of Public Safety, said that Taylor was not threatened but told KOAT-TV that parents could be charged in situations like his."

The Rio Rancho schools have frequently appeared in our "Zero-Tolerance Watch" series. Threatening to jail a father for refusing to give his child behavior-modification drugs, though, seems particularly outrageous--a far bigger threat to the average American's liberty than anything in the Patriot Act.

I don't like the New Freedom. I prefer the Old Freedom. The freedom where we are free men gifted with the minds our Creator made for us, rather than the ones "psychologists" would prefer we have.

Free minds, which we may hone, like swords, in the way we desire.

Free minds, which may choose to love our children as they are, and refuse to let the state drug them.

Free minds, who can decide when the government has finally betrayed us, our liberty, and the Republic.

Caveant, Consules, Ne Quid Detrimenti Respublica Capiat.

Bangkok Post --- News & Archive

Guns In Thailand:

As some of you may know, the last few months have seen an upsurge in religious violence in Southern Thailand. It will not surprise you to discover that the leaders of this violence are Muslims decrying the impossibility of living under a non-Muslim state. The favored victims of these heroes of jihad, it will be equally unsurprising to learn, are teachers, elderly Buddhists (one of whom was beheaded recently), and the unarmed. Just for safety's sake, however, the assailants seem to prefer to speed by on motorcycles as they spray bullets or swing machetes at these teachers and old folks.

The Thai government has tried a number of things to placate them. They have promised a major economic initiative to enrich the south and improve standards of living. They tried to print a booklet of Koranic verses that spoke to peace and the need to obey lawful authority, but the Muslim leadership in Thailand threw a fit. Excerpting the Koran--which is said to be the actual word of God, merely recited by Mohammed--is almost as bad as translating it. In either case, you are taking the perfect word of God and altering it. The clerics argued that even printing excerpts of the Koran counted as "interpreting" Islam, and that the government (largely Buddhist) had no business doing it.

So they did not. Instead, they printed a pamphlet challenging a book that the Islamist leaders had written. They also asked southern Thai Muslim clerics to rule on whether or not the book urging jihad was proper. The clerics ruled that, while the book was not proper, the government's response was worse; and so they ordered the government's pamphlets destroyed.

The Thai government took even this in a stride, and is now working to have the clerics write a response of their own. In the meanwhile, the murders go on.

Teachers in Thailand, underwhelmed by their government's efforts on their behalf, are doing what all wise men do. They are arming themselves. This has caused some alarm among the journalistic elite of Thailand, which has begun printing editorials opposed to the notion. These trot out every old canard against the private possession of arms.

'A pistol is no use against a drive-by shooting.' (Well, but what about the fellows with machetes? And what if they miss? You could always return the fire.)

'Teachers are untrained in the use of arms, and so would be easy prey for militants who just wanted more arms.' (Not so easy prey as they are now. I expect we'll see shortly which the militants prefer--unarmed victims, or the chance of winning a pistol at the risk of their neck.)

"It is the task of the state to ensure ordinary people's safety. It should not be left to the individual to arm and defend himself." (Exactly wrong. The free citizen has both the right and the duty to protect the common peace. Indeed, it cannot be otherwise protected.)

'Pistols are an expensive luxury for Thai teachers, who must live on 10,000 baht a month.'

OK. That last one makes sense. Fortunately, help is on the way:

Gun shops in Bangkok are offering discounts to teachers in Thailand's troubled Muslim south where a spate of almost daily attacks show no signs of abating despite government promises to restore peace.

Schools have been common targets for arson and gun attacks, leading to teachers being given permission to apply for licences for firearms for self-defence.

Several Bangkok gunsmiths have appointed teachers as salespeople to lure potential customers to the capital with promises of discounts, said Pairat Vihakarat, who heads a teachers union with 20,000 members in five southern provinces. "A colleague of mine told me he would rather carry a gun than have 20 friends go about with him. Everyone can equally be killed here," Pairat said.

Hundreds of teachers and civil servants from the southern provinces have been lured by discount offers from gun shops in the capital.

Maybe we should start a "Guns for Thai Teachers" fund. The way to beat Islamist terrorism is through the resolute individual. Those who will not be bowed, who will not be terrorized, are the hope of civilization and the very road to Victory.

JDOJ

'Just Doing Our Job':

The 24th Marine Regiment issues some awards and commendations. Be sure to read about the corpsman, Cinelli, who proves again why Marines love these squids as well as if the corpsmen wore the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor themselves.

Amazon.com: Books: The Archaeology of Weapons: Arms and Armour from Prehistory to the Age of Chivalry

Oakeshott:

The Sage of Knoxville links today to The Archaeology of Weapons by Ewart Oakeshott. He says that he thinks it's the book that got him interested in Roman Legion arms and armor. Let me add a plug for the book too.

This book is a wonderful read, and highly informative on all forms of arms and armor from ancient Greece to the Later Middle Ages. The section on Viking arms is my personal favorite, because it explains the translation of names and runes engraved into the blades.

The great lesson it teaches, however, is one that is often missed, which is that arms and armor advance because of each other. People often get the notion that a certain kind of armor was used by knights or Roman soldiers 'because that is what they knew how to build.' What is missed is why they had learned to build that sort of armor, which is always that it was an innovation to answer the challenges posed by the weapons of the period. Weapons change, likewise, to address the advances in armor.

The book is also worth reading because Oakeshott has fine voice. No one who has worked his way through college, and especially graduate school, will be able to read his introduction without cheering wildly:

One other thing, about which I have been severely criticised by the highest authorities. My style is "chatty", full of anecdotes which are such anathema to the academic mind. I make no apology for this, even to them. I didn't write this in academic purity for scholars. I wrote it to be read, even enjoyed, by anyone who was interested in this fascinating subject. There are few footnotes (but many illustrations); there are spelling mistakes in the Bibliography, printer's errors in the text; but it has been read and enjoyed by two generations, and now it sets out again to interest and enthuse a third.

Now that's how a man ought to write, isn't it?

The Liberal Conspiracy - Satire, Informed Commentary and 9-11 Research

Saudi Oil Fields:

My good friend Sovay has been asked a question:

Someone asked me today: If al-Qaeda were to overthrow the Saudi government and take control of the country, we'd still have to buy oil from them, wouldn't we?

I don't know the answer to that question, but it's a frightening possibility. Not a likely possibility, but it's the type of scenario that makes you realize how important it is to end our total dependence on foreign oil.

I know the answer to this question. It is not, in fact, a possibility.

Al Qaeda has enjoyed some startling successes as a terrorist group--literally startling, as they have made it their mission to move beyond the low-level blackmail-style operations that have characterized Muslim terrorism for most of the last thirty years. It is important not to overestimate the enemy, however, just as it is important not to underestimate him. Al Qaeda has been able to do what it has been able to do because terrorist operations are very cheap. Bin Laden did not inherit his $130 million because his family cut him off. As we saw from reading this week's 9/11 report, al Qaeda has been funded largely from charities operating as fronts, or partial fronts. That cash flow has largely stopped due to a worldwide effort by police and intelligence organizations. While there are new sources of funding in play (narcotics, for example, and possibly direct-aid from a few particularly bold governments such as Iran), these funding measures must by their nature remain small-scale to remain hidden.

The result is that al Qaeda can't field even a functional guerrilla force. Guerrilla operations are much more expensive than terrorist ones, and require a much more highly developed command infrastructure. Both the funding and the infrastructure would be targets that could be disrupted, and would have to be protected, again in the face of worldwide intelligence and law-enforcement--but here also military--efforts.

The guerrilla opposition we've seen in Iraq has been slightly effective, but only in the propaganda war. They have won not one single victory against US or coalition forces. After a year of combat, our forces have suffered an extremely low combat loss rate. You can find the numbers here. For casualties and fatalities, the combined number of dead and non-RTD wounded for 3 June is 3,769. The number deployed has hovered at about 160,000 Americans, which would put losses at 2.3%. However, we have rotated entire divisions in and out--the 3rd ID replaced by the 4th ID, and so on. If you count the total number of Americans who have been deployed in Iraq (thus giving these vaunted guerrillas the chance to kill them), the figure is under one percent.

The wailing and gnashing of teeth we have heard from the media over combat loss rates below one percent is indicative of two things: first, that the media (like the majority of the population) understands nothing about military science; and second, that the opponents of the war feel that the removal of the Saddam threat was not worth one single American life. There are enough people who feel that way for the very modest successes of the guerrillas to appear greater than they are. In fact, they have performed relatively poorly. Although some individual units in the Marine AOR have been exceptions (probably Hezbollah, from what I've heard, and you should read The Belmont Club on this topic and the one here as well), even they have not been adequate to hold any ground that we haven't simply chosen to let them keep rather than risk the lives of the civilians among whom they were hiding. Nor has any force in Iraq been able to engage any US force for as long as 24 hours without being forced to withdraw, or being routed or destroyed.

To hold the Saudi oil fields, even a much better guerrilla force would not be adequate. You cannot occupy and control ground with guerrillas; you need conventional forces. Conventional forces are more expensive and more complicated to field by an order of magnitude--just as terrorist operations can be quite cheap, and require little organization compared to guerrilla operations, so arming and feeding infantry divisions is that much harder than running a battallion-strength band of irregulars who largely feed themselves. Again, that organizational structure would be a target of the sort we can hit, and the money would be on a scale impossible to hide. A government has to be bold to fund terrorists in secret these days; it would have to be suicidal to fund them openly in overthrowing a neighbor country and US ally.

Now factor in this: the large Saudi oil fields are largely in Shi'ite areas. Al Qaeda would find the very forces it has been relying upon for survival in Pakistan and Afghanistan turned against it. The same would largely be true even for one of the Shi'ite militant movements--their religion would be the same, but the tribal concerns that have bedeviled us would bedevil any Iranian Persian groups, or Lebanese fighters, operating in the heart of Arabia.

It is more possible that there could be an internal coup in Saudi Arabia, and that a group more hostile to the US than the current ones might take over general control. In order to survive, however, they would need to continue providing oil to the West, even if not to the United States: the stability of Arabia is built on regular payoffs to tribal leaders, and those payoffs will have to continue if the tribes aren't to be up in arms. The only source for the monies for those payoffs is the oil; therefore, the oil must be sold.

As the US gets only 19% of our oil from Saudi Arabia, it is likely that we could make up the difference elsewhere if we had to do so--for example, from purchases from the Iraqi oil fields, which contain the largest remaining oil reserves in the world. The French, who import most of their oil from Saudi Arabia (and most of the rest from Norway) would be more likely to be troubled by any artificial shortfalls, should the new government think itself stable enough to risk them.

Helmets

Helmets To Hardhats:

A fellow from H2H wrote me today to ask me if I'd link to his site. H2H is a federally-funded program to help former military men and women find promising jobs in construction. I've seen them mentioned in ads around D.C., and they got a good writeup in Defenselink, which is the DoD's own website.

I'm always willing to help out the troops in whatever small ways I can. If you're planning to get out--and I certainly encourage you to stay in--drop by and visit their site. You'll find the link down to the right, just below the Milblogs logo. It looks like this:

Just the Facts

Land of the Pure:

The Bush Administration just declared Pakistan (whose name translates into "land of the pure") as a Major Non-NATO Ally. You may be curious about what that means. Now you know.

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have. - Thomas Jefferson

Operation Shoe-Fly:

Once again demonstrating the fundamental decency of the US military, the 214th Aviation Regiment has undertaken an unofficial operation to help the children of Afghanistan. Dubbed Operation Shoe Fly, it's an attempt to provide shoes for the kids. Any of you who are parents, and quite a few of you are, might go through your closets to see what the kids have outgrown. You can also send new shoes.

Ship the shoes to:

Operation Shoe Fly
B Co, 214th Aviation Regiment
Bagram, Afghanistan
APO AE 09354-9998

We've got some good people out there.

ORACULATIONS

Alarm! Alarm!

I'm sure you probably heard that 'a group of diplomatic, military and intelligence officials' printed a petition in the LA Times that was opposed to the Bush policy in Iraq. No big deal, you probably thought--you can find twenty or thirty former military people who will sign anything. This is because the military is so huge, and draws fairly broadly from America, which is also huge. Add in the State department and the intelligence services (presumably to include the FBI), and you've got so many people it would just be a matter of making the phone calls.

Indeed, I didn't give it a second thought either. It was only while reading around today that I discovered that a blog called Oraculations had put together a list of biographies on the signers. Unsurprisingly, most have ties to leftist groups--that's how they knew there was a petiton to sign, right? But then there is one really alarming thing:

Retired Adm. Stansfield Turner, the CIA Director under Carter (let's all remember that fiasco) who is pissed that Tenet was fired. This unbiased guy is a member John Kerry's Senior Military Advisory Group, now advising John Kerry.

Carter's CIA director is one of John Kerry's senior military advisors? I can't think of a single more damning thing that could be said.

INDOlink - US News - US Forces �Kill� 80 Militants In Afghanistan Operation

How I-War and War Relate:

Read over this article to see why a propaganda war is indispensible for guerrillas. The waters are muddy enough now that an independent news service doesn't know where to turn. Ultimately they just report everyone's numbers and let the reader guess which are true. They're so turned around they even put "kill" in scare quotes.

Jihad Unspun - A Clear View On The US War On "Terrorism"

Jihad Unspun: Vote for Kerry, Then Push Him Around

The weekend edition of Jihad Unspun contains a piece by anti-warrior Chalmers Johnson. It is not hard to see what the pro-Qaeda boys like about Johnson's argument. A victory for his faction would be the end of resistance to Islamist groups seeking to dominate the Muslim world.

[L]et me nonetheless end by noting that the political system may not be capable of saving the Republic. It is hard to imagine that any president of either party could stand up to the powerful vested interests surrounding the Pentagon and the secret intelligence agencies....

I believe that if the Republic is to be saved it will be as a result of an upsurge of direct democracy.... The first victory of this movement came on March 14 with the election of Spanish prime minister Jose Zapatero. If democracy means anything at all, it means that public opinion matters. Zapatero understood that 80% of the Spanish people opposed Bush's war in Iraq, and he immediately withdrew all Spanish forces. It's a great pity that Kerry criticized Zapatero for this. We need to duplicate the Spanish victory in Tony Blair's Britain, Silvio Berlusconi's Italy, Junichiro Koizumi's Japan, and in our own country.

Jihad Unspun would also like to see a repeat of the Spanish elections in America. Still, this appears to be a rather halfhearted endorsement. 'Vote for Kerry... but it probably won't be enough... we'll really need 'direct democracy,' by which I mean rule by protest-march rather than by Constitutional processes.' Oddly, given that he wants to prefer 'direct democracy' to these legal processes, Johnson argues that his movement is about the "Constitution and the need to restore its integrity as the supreme law of the land."

Still, apart from his sense that Kerry (unlike Bush) could be intimidated by protest into withdrawing from Iraq, Johnson has some praise for the man himself. Along the way he also explains his opinion of the volunteer military.

Kerry's stand as a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War is one of the most honorable aspects of his background. It is a tragedy that we have become so militaristic he must disown the courageous stand he took thirty-five years ago in order to be elected. This reflects one of the major differences between our military during the Vietnam War and our military today. Then it was a citizens' army. Members of the armed forces were a democratic check on militarism because they were not volunteers. They were naturally concerned about the purposes of the war, how it would end, and whether their government and officers were lying to them. Today we have a professional military. People who serve in it are volunteers with a vested interest in advancing their careers through armed conflict.

This is a bit illogical. Although servicemen can vote, the military does not elect the president. Indeed, as we saw in Florida 2000, in a contested election the ballots of deployed servicemen are highly likely to be discarded due to the uncertainty of their arriving with all the requisite stamps. Lawyers representing a candidate who suspects that the military will not favor him can move to have those ballots discarded, and expect to succeed.

The reason Kerry has to disown his VVAW stance in order to be considered is because of a change in the populace as a whole. It is true that Kerry feels that he has to step away from the VVAW, and his earlier remarks that American forces should only be deployed under UN command and with blue helmets. That reflects not a change in our military, but in our society.

UPDATE: Apparently the jihadis aren't the only ones lukewarm about Kerry. As the Rottie points out, the speaker here is one of Kerry's campaign co-chairs.

AnAmericanSoldier

A Glass To the 4th Platoon "Bushmasters":

Drop by and see Drill Sgt. Rob over at "An American Solider." Graduation day is just past, and he's already got a retrospective on the cycle. It'll make any military man smile to read his reply to "PVT Krumme," and his tangent includes a story that had me telling my wife tales of fistfights past.

DM

Digital Marine:

Welcome to Digital Marine. DM is a new Milblogger, and his site is too good not to link. I've added it to the "Other Halls" section of the permanent links, down and right.

bloodletting.blog-city.com

Assault Weapons Ban:

Our own Doc Russia urges us on in the attempt to defend our rights. I have also contacted my representatives and Senators, and urge everyone to do the same. I wrote the following letter, which differs sharply from the 'form letters' I have seen suggested. Therefore, I offer it for your consideration.

Dear Sir,

I trust that you do not need to be educated on the right to keep and bear arms. In case you may be wavering, however, please note this constituent's opinion: Sen. Feinstein's recent attempt to renew the ban on so-called 'assault weapons' must fail.

I am a regular voter, and shall be watching you closely in this regard. I trust that I can rely upon you do perform your duty to uphold the Second Amendment, but not so much that I will fail to attend to the vote.

You will have heard from the NRA that a study mandated by Congress, a follow-up study, federal surveys, and police reports have shown that these guns are rarely used in crime.

The truth is that this is beside the point. In the current age, when America's enemies directly target her civilian population, the old ideal of the citizen-soldier must be reborn. No police organization, nor any 'homeland security' device or legislation can be everywhere. We, the free citizens of a free republic, can be.

We are, in fact, everywhere that the enemy wishes to strike. We alone can defend the republic in all the weak and lonely places. We, acting as citizens, can defend the republic without endangering civil liberties through intrusive police powers. We must be able to equip ourselves to perform this civic duty.

Citizens must be called to their ancient duties--the same duties that have pertained to the free man since the time of Alfred the Great, of Richard the Lionheart, of Robert the Bruce, and of Washington and Jackson. We have both the right and the duty to uphold the republic and the common peace. We must also have the tools.

CB

CB Terror:

One of the problems of policing is that you can't be everywhere. You have to make some decisions about priority. You can police the suburbs, but if all the crime is downtown that may not be the best use of your time. On the other hand, if you spend all your money downtown, you may find the criminals moving their operations to the suburbs.

The same is true when trying to figure out how to set up a national defense against chemical and biological terror. It may be--in fact, it is--the case that some of these chemical and biological weapons present a greater danger than others. Rather than building up your defenses against all known agents, it's a better idea to determine which ones are the largest threat, and optimize defenses against those before you worry about the smaller-scale threats.

How do you judge the relative danger? There are a few useful questions. Just how deadly are chemical and biological weapons? How hard are they to make? If a terrorist wanted to get his hands on some, would he need specialized tools, or are there "dual use" technologies that could do the job?

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) has written a report on chemical and biological terrorist threats that seeks to answer exactly those questions. It's apt to be driving the debates in Congress for quite a while. Follow the link and read up--you'll be better informed, and better able to keep your politicians from playing games in favor of doing what really needs to be done.

Grim's Hall

Communist Propaganda, Again:

Readers of the Mudville Gazette will have seen this story on the joys of being a PRC POW:

"The Chinese army had always exercised 'revolutionary humanitarianism' towards war captives. Beat and curse were not allowed, nor a kick, because this were iron disciplines of an army. Chinese soldiers were forbidden from searching pockets of Americans, letting them keeping their cigarettes and other private items....

Our Volunteer cadres never beat or abused prisoners who made mistakes, but talked with them. If they really made serious mistakes, they would be placed in confinement, at most for one week.

Didn't know that the People's Republic of China was a paradise of human rights? You must have missed the article from a week or so ago, when we learned that the PRC is more respectful of religious rights than the US, too.

BLACKFIVE: The Cigar Marine and Don King

Ooh-Rah!

I always liked Don King. I never quite knew why--there was no obvious reason--but apparently my instincts were right on. That's a good story, B-5.

Intelligence dissemination system providing new capability

ISR:

JFCOM (Joint Forces Command) has proposed a new Real-time ISR system by 2008. ISR is an abbreviation for "Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance." It is part of C4ISR, which is itself a part of information operations generally. C4, in this case, is "Command, Control, Communications, Computers." When you add the two parts together, C4 & ISR, you get a mental model of how the military thinks about the information needs of the warfighter. (These things can be broken out in several ways; you'll people talk about C3I by itself, or C2I, or, as here, just ISR.)

The idea here is to develop a system, which warfighters can access, that will provide intelligence reports and SR data on a nearly to-the-minute basis. It doesn't take much imagination to see the benefit of having access to updated sat imagery, yesterday's reports from the DIA that may touch on your target, and maybe a scouting report from Marine Recon.

It seems to me that there are two critical challenges, one pratical and one technical. The practical challenge will be getting the intelligence aspects of this up to speed--intelligence products are analysis as much as information, and the analysis has to be done before the product is ready to be disseminated to the end-user. There will always be in any intelligence ops a competition between the desire to get these things out fast ("Hurry up with that report from al-Anbar province--we've got a series of ops there at 0200 Zulu!") versus getting things right ("Last week's reports were so rushed that we didn't notice two critical flaws, with the result that we lost men."). Putting things into a computer pipe increases the pressure for speed--think about how much less patient you are for news in the age of the Internet v. when you had to wait for tomorrow's morning paper ("Why aren't the results from the Belmont up yet? That race was over five minutes ago!"). Further, the analysis will have to be increasingly clear--they are talking about dissemination direct from DIA, not to a trained field intel officer, but to the tank-driver or platoon commander. Their needs will require clarity of analysis (in a hurry!). Keeping the balance will be that much more challenging under these twin pressures.

The technical challenge is security. Putting all this information on tap in one platform will mean that a security failure is devastating. Should an enemy (say, Chinese hackers) manage to access the system, we'll find ourselves in real trouble, real fast. Keeping on top of that will be the work of giants.

Khalid bin Al-Waleed: The Sword of Allah

Naked Dhiraar:

One of the things I've been reading lately are English translations of the old Muslim myths. Those of you who have been reading the Hall for a year or more will remember that we talked a lot about mythology during the invasion of Iraq. Mythology, out of which arise people's visions of who they are and what they ought to be, is probably more important than any political speechmaking. It is in the symbols of mythology where wars are really won, or really lost.

Here's a piece that I pass on largely without comment, except to say why it struck me as interesting. In the wake of certain recent events, we have heard a great deal about how being seen naked was an unmitigated humiliation for Arabs. Yet I find that one of the great heroes of early Islam was called Naked Dhiraar:

Because of the Roman archers, Dhiraar kept on his coat of mail and helmet, and in his hand carried a shield made of elephant hide, which had once belonged to a Roman. Having gone halfway to the Roman line, he stopped and raising his head, gave his personal battle cry:

I am the death of the Pale Ones;
I am the killer of the Romans;
I am a scourge sent upon you;
I am Dhiraar bin Al Azwar!

As a few of the Roman champions advanced to answer his challenge, Dhiraar quickly disrobed; and the Romans knew him at once as the Naked Champion. In the next few minutes, Dhiraar killed several Romans, including two generals, one of whom was the governor of Amman and the other the governor of Tiberius.

HMS Exeter

HMS Exeter:

We had a post recently about HMS Exeter, which is going to be engaging the PLA in exercises on the mainland. Still no word on how they're going to get the ship on shore--my own guess is that it'll be towed on rickshaws.

While searching for answers, I checked The Royal Navy's Offical Exeter Page. This part is the honest truth:

The ship was launched in 1979 by Lady Mulley and entered service in 1980. She is the 5th Ship to bear the name Exeter, her predecessor being famous for her role in the Battle of the River Plate and the sinking of the German "Pocket Battleship" the Graf Spee on 13 Dec 1939. The current Exeter saw service in the Falkland Island War in 1982.

Ship's Motto Semper Fidelis (Always Faithful)

Now how do you like that? Speaking of the Royal Navy, the Royal Marine Commandos have a flash game, if you want to see how they do their recruiting.

The Green Side

Another Letter from Dave:

Over at The Green Side, there's another letter from "Dave," whose previous letter home was featured here at Grim's Hall. The second one is at least as good as the first. If he could be asked, I imagine that Mr. Reagan wouldn't mind sharing the page with this Marine at all.

Here's an excerpt. For those of you who aren't associated in some fashion with the USMC, let me begin by noting that "aggressive"--unlike in civilian life, where it's normally employed as a synonym for "unemployable" or "unstable"--is considered a high compliment among Marines.

During one of the ordered pauses in the Falluja fight, we chopped a rifle company off the line with a very aggressive battalion commander. Basically he was told that we thought the muj were running lose in the area and that he should head up there and "develop the situation." I have gotten to know this guy pretty well here. He is a very good commander and a tough guy. In fact, I remember telling him that if he went past a certain point, he would be decisively engaged. We had estimated that if he got into a decisive engagement, he could be outnumbered by as much as 5:1. You can imagine what he did. He took his Marines right to that point.

Sure enough, the fight was on. It was a 360 degree engagement that lasted 8 hours. An 8 hour firefight is an eternity. To put it in perspective, this guy was in both OIF 1 battle for Baghdad as well as the Falluja fight. He states that the firefight up near this town was the toughest he has been in. We fired quite a bit of artillery and brought in a number of sorties of close air for them. By the time it was over, the estimates (now confirmed) are that they killed over a 100 muj. We could not understand why they kept coming but they did (more on that later). Throughout it all, very accurate mortar fire up to 120mm was falling inside the Marine position. Automatic weapons and RPGs were crisscrossing through the perimeter. The Marines just
laid their in the micro terrain and squeezed of well aimed shots.

The Battalion Commander stayed that day until his guys broke the muj and he "owned the field" (his words). He then withdrew back to his original position. In the same town, we now have Marines living 24/7. They are conducting joint patrols with the Iraqi Police and the ICDC (Iraqi Civil Defense Corps). When they first arrived, the people were very standoffish and even hostile. Now we are getting more and more walk up intelligence (where the locals literally risk their lives in order to walk into our lines and tell us where the muj are). The reason for the turnaround is simple. We have pushed through the bow wave of intimidation and terror that dominated the town when the muj were there. The Marines did it through aggressive raiding and downright obstinate refusal to budge regardless of the costs. The people were watching the entire time and have made up their own minds where their best future lies. It has gotten to the point where the mujahadeen are now firing mortars indiscriminately into the town as it is the only effective means of maintaining any kind of influence over the people.

Facta Non Verba

Facta Non Verba:

Rest in peace, Ronald Reagan, American, former President, honorary Doctor of Philosophy, honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath. Of those titles, only the first two were of any real import, save that they showed the honor that men felt he deserved even in his own lifetime. I suspect that the honor in which he is held will only increase now that he is dead. It was not only the British, but the Swiss who saw nobility in him; the Swiss government registered arms in his name in 1984:

The arms are: Or, a bear rampant sable, armed and langued gules holding between its forepaws a mullet argent; on a chief of the second, standing on a ducal coronet of the first a falcon argent, armed and langued of the third, wings displayed and inverted. Crest: On a gentleman's helmet proper a demi-horse sable, unguled or, charged on the shoulder with an actor's mask of the last. Motto: "Facta non verba".

The motto translates, "Deeds not words." It was quite a list of deeds.

UPDATE: Some curiousity has arisen about the heraldry. I can't guess what it's meant to symbolize, except one part: the black bear on the field of gold. The Latin name of the black bear is "Ursus Americanus," that is, "The American bear."

UPDATE: From the day of the funeral procession:

No commentator I heard noticed that the Baroness Thatcher curtsied to the coffin--a gesture which protocol reserves at state funerals to the corpses of royalty. I am sure the Queen will not reprimand her.

Afgha.com - Famed Afghan gold to dazzle the world

Kelly's Heroes:

Now we know why we really went to Afghanistan... "Famed Afghan Gold To Dazzle The World":

The world could soon catch a glimpse of Afghanistan's fabled Bactrian gold, as preparations get under way to exhibit some of the 20,000 pieces that make up the country's most important ancient treasure trove.

Dates and locations have yet to be finalised, but the US, France, Germany, Japan and Greece are among the countries interested in hosting the 2000-year-old haul that has remained intact despite years of war and upheaval.

Hosting, yes... that's the word. It's all about the gold!

While other important archaeological sites are plundered or have been ruined by war, the Bactrian gold, discovered by a Soviet team near the northern town of Shiberghan just before the Red Army invasion of 1979, has had a number of narrow escapes, adding to its allure and mystery.

The Red Army found it, and it wasn't plundered? That is a narrow escape.

The favourites to host the collection first are the Americans and French, and Rahin hopes interest in the treasure will generate funds to build museums and combat looting.

Now what does this remind me of? Oh, yes...

BELLOQ: Dr. Jones, you choose the wrong friends. This time it will cost you.

Never can trust the French. Hand me my hat.

Bad Reporting

Bad Reporting of Naval News:

Today we have two examples of the worst in news service writing. The first is from the Associated Press:

A British Navy warship [The HMS Exeter] with 249 sailors aboard arrived in Hong Kong for a five-day routine port call on Friday, a consular official said.... The port call in Hong Kong is for ``rest and recreation'' but the vessel will participate in a series of training exercises with the People's Liberation Army on the mainland, Gould said.

How do you suppose they're going to get the ship onto the mainland?

The second example is from the Agence France-Presse:

A US navy carrier battlegroup is to launch a 'show of force' in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea off west Africa as part of an unprecedented global operation to demonstrate America's command of the high seas, a US diplomatic source told AFP on Friday.

Really? The diplomat said we were going to stage an exercise off "oil-rich" west Africa? The State Department's even worse than I thought.

BLACKFIVE

D-Day at 60:

Black Five has organized a MilBlogger's tribute to the D-Day operations. As we approach the 60th "birthday" of European freedom, it's worth taking the time to read through these retrospectives. The MilBlogs have mustered a lot of expertise and skill for this exercise, and the results are impressive.

Social Harmony

Social Harmony:

I was reading an article the other day, in the local newspaper, about an elderly Korean gentleman who has moved into town and opened a martial arts studio. He chastened the reporter who had come to interview him not to suggest that the martial arts were 'all about fighting.' "No!" he said. "The purpose is social harmony."

That is exactly right. The secret of social harmony is simple: Old men must be dangerous.

Very nearly all the violence that plagues, rather than protects, society is the work of young males between the ages of fourteen and thirty. A substantial amount of the violence that protects rather than plagues society is performed by other members of the same group. The reasons for this predisposition are generally rooted in biology, which is to say that they are not going anywhere, in spite of the current fashion that suggests doping half the young with Ritalin.

The question is how to move these young men from the first group (violent and predatory) into the second (violent, but protective). This is to ask: what is the difference between a street gang and the Marine Corps, or a thug and a policeman? In every case, we see that the good youths are guided and disciplined by old men. This is half the answer to the problem.

But do we not try to discipline and guide the others? If we catch them at their menace, don't we put them into prisons or programs where they are monitored, disciplined, and exposed to "rehabilitation"? The rates of recidivism are such that we can't say that these programs are successful at all, unless the person being "rehabilitated" wants and chooses to be. And this is the other half of the answer: the discipline and guidance must be voluntarily accepted. The Marine enlists; the criminal must likewise choose to accept what is offered.

The Eastern martial arts provide an experience very much like that of Boot Camp. The Master, like the Drill Instructor, is a disciplined man of great personal prowess. He is an exemplar. He asks nothing of you he can't, or won't, do himself--and there are very many things he can and will do that are beyond you, though you have all the help of youth and strength. It is on this ground that acceptance of discipline is won. It is the ground of admiration, and what wins the admiration of these young men is martial prowess.

Everyone who was once a young man will understand what I mean. Who could look forward, at the age of sixteen or eighteen, to a life of obedience, dressed in suits or uniforms, sitting or standing behind a desk? How were you to respect or care about the laws, or the wishes, of men who had accepted such a life? The difficulty is compounded in poor communities, where the jobs undertaken are often menial. How can you respect your father if your father is a servant? Would you not be accepting a place twice as low as his? Would you not rather take up the sword, and cut yourself a new place? Meekness in the old men of the community unmakes the social order: it encourages rebellion from the young.

The traditional martial arts tend to teach young men to undertake flashy and impressive, but not terribly effective, fighting techniques. Only as you grow older do the masters of the art teach you the real secrets--the subtle, quick, physically simple ways in which the human body can be destroyed. In this way, the old retain their power over the young--although they lack the speed and strength, they have in discipline in training more than enough to maintain the order. Social harmony is maintained in the dojo: the young revere the old, and seek to emulate them. Your father may be a servant, but he is still a warrior--and a more dangerous one than you. The father, being past that age in which biology makes us vicious, guides the son or neighbor to protect society rather than to rend it. It is not particularly different in the military.

If we would have a stable society, we must have dangerous old men. This means that, if you are yourself on your way to becoming an old man, you have a duty to society to begin your preparations. The martial arts are not the only road--my own grandfather did it through a simple combination of physical strength, personal discipline, and an accustomed habit of going armed about his business. There was never a more impressive figure--or, at least, there was never a boy more impressed than was I.

The martial virtues are exactly the ones needed. By a happy coincidence, having a society whose members adhere to and encourage those virtues makes us freer as well--we need fewer police, fewer courts, fewer prisons, fewer laws, and fewer lawyers. This is what Aristotle meant when he said that the virtues of the man are reflected in the society. Politics and ethics are naturally joined.

ProfessorBainbridge.com: Using Chesterton to Reply to Solum on the Martial Virtues

Virtue:

I normally don't link to things that The Sage of Knoxville links to first, simply because I assume most people will have seen it. However, Professor Bainbridge's post on civil and military virtue is one that everyone should take a moment to read. I'm not sure that the subject heading will entice everyone--few are interested in reading about, let alone practicing virtue--but the matter could not be more important:

The professional soldier gains more and more power as the general courage of a community declines. Thus the Pretorian guard became more and more important in Rome as Rome became more and more luxurious and feeble. The military man gains the civil power in proportion as the civilian loses the military virtues. And as it was in ancient Rome so it is in contemporary Europe. There never was a time when nations were more militarist. There never was a time when men were less brave. All ages and all epics have sung of arms and the man; but we have effected simultaneously the deterioration of the man and the fantastic perfection of the arms.

There the good Professor relies upon Chesterton, who wrote just before the horrors of the first World War. He then turns to General Washington:

An energetic national militia is to be regarded as the capital security of a free republic, and not a standing army, forming a distinct class in the community.

It is the introduction and diffusion of vice, and corruption of manners, into the mass of the people, that renders a standing army necessary. It is when public spirit is despised, and avarice, indolence, and effeminacy of manners predominate, and prevent the establishment of institutions which would elevate the minds of the youth in the paths of virtue and honor, that a standing army is formed and riveted for ever.

Is that not precisely where we are? Do we not see each year bringing more public odium upon the Boy Scouts? What do you suppose would be said about an organization that was today 'established to elevate the minds of the youth in the ways of honor and virtue' except for cries that it was 'Hitler Youth' redux? Does not each year bring more demands that "effeminancy of manners" be set aside as an outdated concept, while the practice of such manners by men be accepted? Is not public spirit degraded by people who say that the poor soldiers in Iraq joined the military only because of their poverty and the hope of college money? By people who say they are slaves?

Aristotle taught that the ethics of a man should be precisely mirrored in the politics of the state--that, if you can develop the right kind of man, the state will follow. Aristotle begins his treatment of right ethics with the virtue of bravery. His overview sounds familiar after Washington:

[W]isdom is goodness of the rational part, gentleness and courage of the passionate, of the appetitive sobriety of mind and self-control, and of the spirit as a whole righteousness, liberality and, great-spiritedness.

There is a further treatment of each of those concepts here, for the interested. See also the writings of other men, less famous but many as brave as any Ancient Greek, at the Mudville Gazette.

How to restore the martial virtues in the public generally? It is a difficult undertaking--indeed, it is plagued by several 'chicken and egg' problems, as most of the public steps you could take to encourage them require the acceptance of the virtues that you're hoping to encourage. How would you get a state legislature to vote to institute courses in military science at the high school level? (There is another question as to whether that would work--Plato's Laches begins with the question of whether practice-fighting in armor encourages bravery in the young. That bravery in fighting should be encouraged was never in question for them.) How to approve any such program? You'd need a strong bloc of voters to speak to their legislators.

Where to get them? Through argument--and yet I was approached just the other day on the streets of D.C. by a fellow from something called the Center for Nonviolence, who was canvassing in the opposite direction. He was rather dismayed, even shocked, by my assertion that nonviolence in and of itself was not something to be encouraged. Nonviolence is not a virtue. Nonviolence is a state--usually a pleasant one, but demonstrably inferior to, and to be set aside in favor of, the state of justice. Violence can be a very good thing. Yet this "Stop the Violence" movement has won so many converts that I hear children echoing the slogan the way they might say "Go Team!"--as a blandly acceptable premise that should win approval from all quarters.

We would have a lot less of the sort of violence people wish to stop if we encouraged more people to be prepared to fight bravely for the common peace. This I'll treat separately in another post.

Marine Corps News> 1st FSSG parachute pros bypass Iraqi highway hazards to air drop supplies

Parachute Pros:

JHD sends the following with this comment: "Talking about pissing the rags off! he-he! Grunts can stay out longer and the rags can't track them. Next thing you know a Strike Team hits them and they have no clue where they came from!" He's talking about the 1st FSSG, "Force Service Support Group," Air Delivery Platoon. They run a KC-130, which is a fairly big monster, but they claim they can drop to you without giving you away:

The KC-130 cargo plane, loaded with 22,000 pounds of food and bottled water, took off in total darkness, with its running lights extinguished and the pilots and crew donning night-vision goggles for the hour-long flight.

"We come in low and fast. We give the enemy very little opportunity to acquire us," said co-pilot Lt. Col. Jeffrey V. Young, 42, a reservist from Marine Aerial Refueler Transport Squadron 234, based in Fort Worth, Texas, which was one of the two squadrons supporting the mission.

The plane slowed as it approached the drop zone. Then, as the pilot pulled the aircraft up hard and increased power, the loadmasters in the cargo hold opened the back door.

"They release their gate and everything just slides out," said the pilot, Capt. Matthew W. Crocker[.]

Now that sounds like a fun ride.

US human rights hypocrisy attacked

Communist Propaganda:

Regular readers know that I lived in the People's Republic of China for a while back before 9/11. The Chinese are a rising power who intend to dominate the entire East and Southeast Asian region. Part of their strategy is an ongoing "information warfare" assault on the United States, particularly an attempt to degrade the US' standing to bring China to heel on human rights.

Here's a good example, from Xinhua: Chinese Religious Leaders Condemn US Religious Freedom Report.

The report, claiming the commission "remains especially concerned about the human rights situation in China", said that a total of 11 countries, including China, have engaged in or tolerated systematic, ongoing and egregious abuses of freedom of religion.

Zhang Jiyu, vice president of the China Taoism Association, said that the United States, in the name of religion, has been wielding evil assaults at China's religious policies and freedom situation simply by paying attention to hearsay materials and evidences.

"The U.S., in the pretext of human rights, is grossly meddling in China's internal affairs on issues such as Hong Kong and Falun Gong cult issues," Zhang said.

Is it still hearsay when we heard you say it yourself?

DefenseLINK News: Leaders Named for Interim Iraqi Government

Heh:

From the DOD today, we have this story on newly appointed leaders of the Iraqi government:

The interim government that will run Iraq after the June 30 transfer of sovereignty took shape today, as U.N. officials in Baghdad announced the members of the government's presidential council and recommended the composition of a new cabinet to the country's prime minister-designate.

Lakhdar Brahimi, special envoy for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, announced that Ghazi al-Yawar will be Iraq's president, and that Ibrahim Jaafari and Rowsch Shaways will serve as deputy presidents.

Brahimi also announced today that on May 31 he forwarded his recommendations for the composition of the new Iraqi cabinet to Prime Minister-designate Ayad Allawi. News reports indicated names of other new cabinet members and that the existing governing council had dissolved itself....

Brahimi's statement said consultations in forming the interim Iraqi government have been going on without interruption for the last four weeks. "These consultations have involved the (Iraqi) Governing Council, the Coalition Provisional Authority, and a very large number of representatives of the Iraqi public, including political parties, professional associations, trade unions, tribal and religious leaders, academics and intellectuals, women's and youth organizations, and others," the statement said.

As has been widely noted, the UN envoy was involved in exactly none of these decisions. Indeed, the US State Department was roundly ignored by the Iraqi Governing Council as well. The IGC took charge and, by unanimous internal consent, delivered a fait accompli about which State and the UN have to pretend to be happy.

It's always tempting to assume that a defeat for the UN is a victory for civilization, and in fact this appears to be the case. For more than a year the IGC has squabbled, quarreled, bickered and (especially the efforts of Grand Ayatollah Sistani, which caused the abandonment of a already-active plan to transfer power to a government chosen by local 'town hall' sessions) shot the process in the back. Suddenly, however, the IGC has stepped up and become exactly what it was supposed to be all along. It became a functional government, which has just dissolved itself to make way for its replacement.

What caused this? My personal suspicion is that it was the raid on Chalabi's INC. The official record of charges against him was that he was an Iranian agent, as proven by the fact that he had demonstrable ties to Iran and occasionally passed information their way. Every member of the IGC, considering this, realized that they themselves had at least as strong a connection to Iran as Chalabi--many of them, in fact, had been living in Iran this last little while.

We have, therefore, a new Iraqi government that is genuinely sovereign. It is free in the only way you can really be free--by driving off those who would control you. This is precisely what the government and the UN has claimed to desire all along.

Is it a good thing? Probably. It certainly limits the likelihood of civil war, as this new government has the unanimous support of the outgoing IGC, which includes some powerful figures who lend to the new government some measure of their credibility. We are informed that these new appointees have little support among the Iraqi people; but the CPA has less, and the UN even less than that. "Support us, or the foreign devils will return" is an appeal that is widely understood wherever you may travel. It is probably as good a start as could be hoped--certainly imperfect, but so is the world.

Sgt Hook: Lost?

Hook:

I'll refer you to Sgt Hook for a review of the situation in Afghanistan. Many of you who frequent the Milblogs ring will have seen this linked from the Mudville Gazette. In it Sgt. Hook takes on Robert Novak, and gives an impressive account of the 25th Infantry Division ("Tropic Lightning").

Wasp Switches to M-16 Rifle for Better Security

Not on the Same Page:

Today the Pacific Fleet's news service is reporting that the USS Wasp will be adopting a new battle rifle for her watchmen. We've all been eagerly awaiting the XM8: will the Navy get to field-test the weapons?

Well, no. Actually, the Wasp is finally catching up to the Army, by choosing the weapon that became the standard Army battle rifle in 1969.

After 15 years of use, USS Wasp's (LHD 1) ordnance division VG is finally saying goodbye to the ship's traditional rifle, the M-14, and hello to a more compact, quick-action rifle, the M-16.

The sudden[!] transition is expected to improve external shipboard security by allowing watch standers to intercept potential enemies with a faster and lighter weapon.

One wonders what they were using 15 years ago. "Muskets ready!"

Hall By Candle

Grim's Hall: Candles At Noon

Click here for the Memorial Day candle picture.

Semper Fidelis, De Oppresso Liber