lgf%3A Protest Warrior Cracked

Crackers:

Via Allah and Charles, I see that Indymedia has decided to perpetrate some terroristic threats:

Indymedia NY

Indymedia DC

The DC site is my favorite of the two, because it includes a little quote to help you understand what's being suggested:

"The earth is not dying, it is being killed. And those that are killing it have names and addresses."
--Utah Phillips

And so here we have, on offer, names and home addresses; addresses for hotels in NY where delegates will be saying; email addresses, with sites where you can download DOS and email-bomb tools; home phone numbers; and a number of other charming ways to make people's lives miserable, for no better reason than that these folks support Bush and are trying to participate in honest politics.

Speaking of honest politics, I read somewhere that Bush has been asked to "stop" the Swift Boat Vets ads. This request follows a front-page NYTimes piece that the Swiftie funding is coming from people close to the Bush campaign.

Indymedia is funded to the tune of $376,000 by the TIDES Foundation, which is in turn funded to the tune of $4 billion by Mrs. Teresa Heinz-Kerry. I understand that she is close to the Kerry campaign.

I'm sure we'll be seeing the front page NYTimes article on this web of connections any day now.

Hopefully it will not begin, "The anarchists who beat to death several RNC delegates (naturally unarmed in accord with Manhattan's sane and responsible gun control laws) got the addresses from a site called Indymedia. Records show that the group received the bulk of its initial financing from one foundation with very close ties to the Kerry campaign and family." If it doesn't, though, it won't be Indymedia's fault. It'll be the fault of the anarchists who are too cowardly to follow through on their own rhetoric, or of the NYTimes, which treats you very differently depending on who you support.

OpinionJournal - Extra

A Question for Texans:

Is it worth it?

Atlanta police get a new motto

APD's New Clothes:

The Atlanta police have a new motto. I wish I'd known in advance; we could have had a contest.

On the other hand, I don't know if we'd have bettered the one they actually picked: "Answer the Call." Hmm...

[Director Kelly of the APD's foundation] said it didn't help matters when a person was told by a 911 operator to quit calling to report shooting because the caller rang in too much.

"This is aspirational," Kelly said. "The Police Department doesn't want this problem to be there forever. They want to solve that problem."

Aspirational.

Image Gallery Page 3

What M-79?

One of the charges against Kerry made by the Swiftees is that he injured himself with a grenade launcher -- essentially, that he fired too close and took a piece of shrapnel. In the heat of battle, could have happened to anybody, right? Indeed, according to the 35th Infantry, it was one of the "Lessons Learned" in Vietnam: " lot of men have been wounded by their own grenades, when they hit a tree limb or bush. The same is true of the M-79 grenade launcher."

So how to dispute the charge? Well, the easiest way would be simply to say it didn't happen; not many can prove otherwise, unless Kerry releases his full military records as he promised months ago he would, and still has not. The second easiest way, if in fact it didn't happen, would be to release the records.

Or you could have one of your buddies go out and claim that you had no M-79s on the SWIFT boat. That seems to be the option the Kerry camp has chosen:

But they also firmly reject the claim that Kerry somehow wounded himself by using an M-79 grenade launcher. "I am reasonably sure we didn't have an M-79," Zaladonis said. "I didn't see one. I don't remember it."

That is indeed an exceptional statement. You can see pictures here of a SWIFT boat in action, with the M-79 front-and-center. Down at the bottom, you'll see that the support craft (the Armored Troop Carrier) had an entire rack devoted to these M-79s; why shouldn't one of them have made its way to Kerry's boat?

Or you can read this account of life on a SWIFT boat, written at a time when Kerry's candidacy was not an issue:

But don't let their small size fool you -- the Swifts were heavily armed. A gun tub was placed above and behind the pilothouse and equipped with twin .50-caliber machine guns. In the afterdeck, on the fantail, there was an 81mm mortar with a single .50 caliber attached to it in piggyback fashion.

Vietnam: That's quite an impressive array of armament.

Herrera: In addition to those weapons, we had M-79 grenade launchers; fragmentation, incendiary and concussion grenades; AR-15s, shotguns, .38- and .45-caliber pistols. Also, we were equipped with radar, sea-to-shore radio and a PRC-25 field radio.

So the standard load included M-79s, as this source also agrees. There's also this history of an encounter on 12 APR 1969, very close to the time Kerry was in country:

To this end, a hasty defense perimeter was formed. Campbell, with Piper and Broderick on the fantail, maintained constant M-79 grenade fire into the north bank. Luckily, the 43 boat canted toward the river and provided some natural cover for them. Crew members, discarding the .50 caliber weapons as useless, grabbed M-16 rifles and set up firing positions covering the south bank, thereby providing the stricken unit with a 360 degree perimeter.

So, that SWIFT boat was loaded up not just with "a" M-79, but enough for three men to maintain constant fire with these break-action weapons.

So my question is: Why is it that Kerry's boat was so exceptional? The only SWIFT boat ever used for secret missions was also the only one lacking multiple M-79s.

UPDATE: Sovay mentions in the comment that there was more to the story than the quote I'd seen. Apparently this event happened at a time when they were not on their SWIFT boat, but on patrol in a skimmer. This still seems a bit odd, for reasons outlined in the comments, but it is an explanation that explains.

%27It Isn%27t War%27 %28washingtonpost.com%29

Journalism & the Military:

The Washington Post prints today an article of precisely the sort I least expect to see from them. Entitled "It isn't War," it is an account of the problems in Iraq that arise from a failure to understand the lessons of the history of war. It's too short, overly simple, looks at only one example besides Iraq (the American Civil War in the West), but it is nevertheless correct.

The link to the piece on the front page says, "Military Affairs Writer: It Isn't War." I was to say the least surprised to see that, having just finished saying that the Post seems to have no one who understands the military science at all. Does this mean I was wrong? Do they have a military affairs writer?

Well, no. At the end, I saw the tagline: "Richard Hart Sinnreich writes on military affairs for the Lawton (Okla.) Sunday Constitution."

It's rare to find a journalist who understands the business of warfighting. Apparently even one of the nation's two most important newspapers can't keep one of their own on staff, instead occasionally borrowing him from a minor paper in Oklahoma. Maybe the Washington Post ought to think about what that says about their usual quality of reporting. If they want me to take them seriously, they could do worse than to start by hiring this fellow... and a few more like him.

Digital Chosunilbo %28English Edition%29 %3A Daily News in English About Korea

More Groundlaying?

An anti-DPRK paper in South Korea has this report:

A Chinese state-run institute criticized North Korea in saying that the North has been hampering the improvement of Sino-U.S. relationships and committing political persecution domestically. China is not responsible for supporting Pyongyang on all fronts, the institute asserted.
According to Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun, the latest edition of the Chinese bimonthly diplomatic magazine “Strategy and Management” criticized North Korea’s political inheritance system and nuclear weapons development and suggested that China needs new diplomatic policies in line with its national interests. A researcher working with Tianjin Social Science Academy's Foreign Economic Research Institute wrote the article.

It is very unusual that a researcher of a Chinese state-run institute would lash out at North Korea. China sometimes indirectly conveys its stance through researchers, when it thinks that there may be diplomatic conflicts.

In connection with the recent system of North Korea, the article blasted that although the North Korean people are living in terrible conditions due to successive natural disasters, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is committing massively political persecution and pursuing ultra-leftist politics in order to maintain dynastic political control.

Concerning relations with North Korea, it pointed out that North Korea has ignored amity in international issues and has not provided full support to China in critical situations. China does not have moral responsibility to support this kind of country on all fronts, the article stressed. In connection with Sino-U.S relations, the articles said that due to irresponsible behavior by North Korea, Sino-U.S relations have not improved.

Confer.

The Village Voice%3A Features%3A When John Kerry%27s Courage Went M.I.A. by Sydney H. Schanberg

A Statement Against Interests:

From The Village Voice, on Vietnam POWs and John Kerry:

Here are details of a few of the specific steps Kerry took to hide evidence about these P.O.W.'s.

* He gave orders to his committee staff to shred crucial intelligence documents. The shredding stopped only when some intelligence staffers staged a protest. Some wrote internal memos calling for a criminal investigation. One such memo—from John F. McCreary, a lawyer and staff intelligence analyst—reported that the committee's chief counsel, J. William Codinha, a longtime Kerry friend, "ridiculed the staff members" and said, "Who's the injured party?" When staffers cited "the 2,494 families of the unaccounted-for U.S. servicemen, among others," the McCreary memo continued, Codinha said: "Who's going to tell them? It's classified."

Kerry defended the shredding by saying the documents weren't originals, only copies—but the staff's fear was that with the destruction of the copies, the information would never get into the public domain, which it didn't. Kerry had promised the staff that all documents acquired and prepared by the committee would be turned over to the National Archives at the committee's expiration. This didn't happen. Both the staff and independent researchers reported that many critical documents were withheld.

* Another protest memo from the staff reported: "An internal Department of Defense Memorandum identifies Frances Zwenig [Kerry's staff director] as the conduit to the Department of Defense for the acquisition of sensitive and restricted information from this Committee . . . lines of investigation have been seriously compromised by leaks" to the Pentagon and "other agencies of the executive branch." It also said the Zwenig leaks were "endangering the lives and livelihood of two witnesses."

* A number of staffers became increasingly upset about Kerry's close relationship with the Department of Defense, which was supposed to be under examination. (Dick Cheney was then defense secretary.) It had become clear that Kerry, Zwenig, and others close to the chairman, such as Senator John McCain of Arizona, a dominant committee member, had gotten cozy with the officials and agencies supposedly being probed for obscuring P.O.W. information over the years. Committee hearings, for example, were being orchestrated to suit the examinees, who were receiving lists of potential questions in advance. Another internal memo from the period, by a staffer who requested anonymity, said: "Speaking for the other investigators, I can say we are sick and tired of this investigation being controlled by those we are supposedly investigating."

* The Kerry investigative technique was equally soft in many other critical ways. He rejected all suggestions that the committee require former presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and George H.W. Bush to testify. All were in the Oval Office during the Vietnam era and its aftermath. They had information critical to the committee, for each president was carefully and regularly briefed by his national security adviser and others about P.O.W. developments. It was a huge issue at that time.

* Kerry also refused to subpoena the Nixon office tapes (yes, the Watergate tapes) from the early months of 1973 when the P.O.W.'s were an intense subject because of the peace talks and the prisoner return that followed. (Nixon had rejected committee requests to provide the tapes voluntarily.) Information had seeped out for years that during the Paris talks and afterward, Nixon had been briefed in detail by then national security advisor Brent Scowcroft and others about the existence of P.O.W.'s whom Hanoi was not admitting to. Nixon, distracted by Watergate, apparently decided it was crucial to get out of the Vietnam mess immediately, even if it cost those lives. Maybe he thought there would be other chances down the road to bring these men back. So he approved the peace treaty and on March 29, 1973, the day the last of the 591 acknowledged prisoners were released in Hanoi, Nixon announced on national television: "All of our American P.O.W.'s are on their way home."

The Kerry committee's final report, issued in January 1993, delivered the ultimate insult to history. The 1,223-page document said there was "no compelling evidence that proves" there is anyone still in captivity. As for the primary investigative question —what happened to the men left behind in 1973—the report conceded only that there is "evidence . . . that indicates the possibility of survival, at least for a small number" of prisoners 31 years ago, after Hanoi released the 591 P.O.W.'s it had admitted to.

With these word games, the committee report buried the issue—and the men.

Would you wish to serve under a Commander in Chief such as this? Would you send your son?

Blogs for Bush%3A Kerry%2FMoveOn.Org 2004

B4B:

Scotsman.com News - Health - Prozac seeping into water supplies

Medicating the Masses:

Prozac in the water supply.

Grim%27s Hall

Swifties, II:

Something came to me while I was responding to Eric in the comments below. It's important enough that I thought I'd post it to the big board. He had pointed out that Sovay begins one post by saying that the matter is over her head. I replied:

Well, it's over almost everyone's head. Almost no one [that really should read, "relatively few"... there are some of us who do have, but a minority of Americans] has the background in military science to evaluate these claims, and thereby to recognize the trouble with some of Kerry's statements. The class of people who don't understand why his statements are probably false includes not just Sovay, but most American citizens, and very nearly all American journalists (NYTimes, call your office).

Bloggers who are trying to evaluate these claims tend to forget that. It's not just that these people are carrying water for Kerry--although many of the journalists seem to be--or that they just want to believe that Kerry is clean, and the SBVs are making "outrageous" claims. They don't have the faintest idea how to evaluate the claims themselves, so they fall back on what they do know -- which is why the NYTimes piece focuses on friendships and connections between certain SVBs and Republicans, or tracking the financing of the SBVFT. That's all they know how to do.

Because there is almost literally NO military expertise in journalism today, the whole field of investigative reporting is closed to them. The single most productive field for inquiry is unavailable, because even if they dug up the information, they wouldn't know what to make of it.

I think this says a lot about the reasons why we aren't getting more traction with this story in the mainstream press. They honestly lack the background to evaluate the claims. All they can do is what they usually do: look for conflicts of interest, and pretend that human cynicism explains everything.

BLACKFIVE%3A This Is Not My Bear...

Bear Stories:

Grim's Hall always has time for bear stories. Today's is from BlackFive: "Bear Guzzles 36 Beers, Passes Out At Campground."

Patterico%27s Pontifications%3A %3Ci%3ENew York Times%3C%2Fi%3E Hit Piece on the Swift Vets Finally Comes Out

Swifties:

Well, the New York Times has now weighed in. Hat tip Sovay, who noticed the piece and finds it completely convincing, so much so that she titles her piece "Swift Boat Liars."

Patterico wasn't quite so pleased with it:

...The piece makes one telling point. It provides quotes praising Kerry from three of the Vets who currently condemn him -- A Roy F. Hoffmann, Adrian L. Lonsdale, and George Elliott. I think this is fair commentary -- the only fair commentary in the piece. If three Vets praised Kerry in previous years, that's a fair point. They should explain why they are saying something different now.

That makes three of over 250 veterans who are in the group.

What is both amazing and utterly predictable is that the "Christmas in Cambodia" story is saved for the very end. This is the one accusation made by the Vets where the facts are clear -- and the facts show that Kerry was not truthful, as even the Kerry campaign has had to admit. How does the New York Times characterize the "Christmas in Cambodia" story?

Take a deep breath. It says that the story is "the one allegation in the book that Mr. Kerry's campaign has not been able to put to rest." Not "the allegation that has forced Mr. Kerry's campaign to explain that Mr. Kerry has not been telling the truth." Just the one allegation that they haven't yet "put to rest...."

Simply unbelievable. Nothing about the magic hat. Nothing about his gun-running missions. Nothing about the memories being "seared -- seared" into Kerry's head.

The longer this goes on, the more troubling I find it. There are, as the gentleman points out, 250 sailors represented by SBVFT. They are speaking out against just one sailor, John Kerry. Kerry's defenders say they want to make sure that Kerry's service is not slandered, which is a fine and noble goal. They ought to take care not to slander 250 men in their rush to defend their own, one, man.

Some of these questions -- I put all the Bronze Star issues into this category -- can probably be resolved by recognizing that people's memories of combat are often vastly different, one to another, as with any high-stress event. Some of them may simply be mistakes or misunderstandings. I expect Kerry to be exonerated on many of these charges, including the Bronze Star, which is enough to say that I think he was for at least that one moment a real war hero.

But some of these charges aren't going to be resolved without shame coming hard on someone's head. It's going to be Kerry's, or it's going to be 250 other fighting men.

The Christmas In Cambodia story has already been admitted to be false. Navy SEALs have written to say that no swift boats were used for Cambodian insertions; the Navy's entire chain of command for the region has said so. All of Kerry's boat companions have written to say that they don't recall ever being in Cambodia. MACV-SOG had its own boat service, which used PTF "Nasty" boats rather than SWIFT boats, and therefore had no need of taking on an inexperienced LTjg to do what they had experienced operators to do, or using a SWIFT boat for a mission that a PTF could do better. The CIA likewise had its own budget for these matters.

This leaves two remaining possibilities consistent with Kerry telling the truth:

1) He was performing missions that were illegal in the real sense, having not been approved by anyone in the chain of command. This is not entirely implausible; our SEAL noted that they sometimes did things without asking because they didn't trust the chain of command. If they thought young Kerry was a sucker, some operators might have convinced him to do something that would have gotten him into a lot of trouble if it had been discovered. It's much more likely they would have used one of their own for this mission (again, per the SEALs), but it is not completely impossible that someone decided to con the LTjg into doing it for them. Problem for Kerry: his boatmates still don't remember this mission.

2) All 250 sailors are lying, including Kerry's entire chain of command; his boatmates who do support him are also lying about the Cambodian incursions.

And none of that touches the geography issues, which are still unexplained. There is not yet enough information to evaluate these claims, except to say that Kerry's story to date is not consistent with the facts of how the rivers run. Attempts to find another river nearby that does comply with Kerry's story are underway, and that's fine. It may be that this is going to prove to be another area in which it is only the vagaries of memory that are in dispute.

The Cambodia story remains a serious problem, however. Defenders of Kerry should take care not to slander 250 servicemen to protect the principle of not slandering servicemen. Until there are answers, we can't say for certain which group is telling the falsehood: the one career politician, or the 250 men from all walks of life.

Blogs for Bush%3A It Was Actually John Kerry Before It Was Bob Kerrey

B4B:

Grim's Hall has joined the Blogs for Bush, as some of you may have noticed. I have recently explained what I think is a sufficient cause to vote against Kerry in the upcoming election, regardless of all other factors. Grim's Hall, while recognizing Bush's flaws, will nevertheless fight for him as the best man on the field.

We have a fair number of liberal readers here, however, although most of them don't comment much in the comments section. (You know who you are.) I don't wish to drive them off, as many are friends and some are family. I will therefore be gathering "Blogs for Bush" material under the heading B4B, and those of you who are already rock-solid certain to vote for Kerry or Nader can skip the entries. Those of you who are almost certain are encouraged to keep an open mind, although I doubt these articles will convince you, as they appear to be preaching to the choir.

This week, B4B has three articles they'd like mentioned:

It Was Actually John Kerry Before It Was Bob Kerrey

Does Kerry Really Condemn MoveOn?

51% of Democrats Blame America for 9/11

I must admit to a certain disdain for the politics: on the first question, I object to kicking a man while he's down (Ed: and it's hard to get lower down than Kerry, these days... Quiet, you!); on the second, I'm not sure why it matters; but on the third, I can see the point. There are a certain number of Democrats, myself included, who are voting for Bush this year largely because they don't wish to support the party of blaming America, and especially wish to avoid voting into power candidates who blame America. The policies that result from that position are bad ones, as they leave our foreign policy timid, our military constrained, and our enemies therefore bolder and freer -- to say nothing of leaving them alive, which I already consider a major concession, to be offered only in exchange for great service.

Sharp Knife

Sharp Knife:

Thanks to Noel, who provided me with some ammo in a debate earlier today (re: antisemitism), and then came up with this Steyn quote, appropriate to the redeployment of our 70,000 troops:

This will undoubtedly be welcome news to the likes of Goran Persson, the Swedish prime minister, who famously declared that the purpose of the European Union is that "it's one of the few institutions we can develop as a balance to US world domination". It must surely be awfully embarrassing to be the first superpower in history to be permanently garrisoned by your principal rival superpower.

I laughed for quite a while after reading that.

Mudville Gazette

Greyhawk:

The Mudville Gazette has been particularly active lately.

CrimLaw

From Southern Appeal:

A new, and successful, tactic in criminal law: "The Damn Yankee Defense."

Froggy Ruminations%3A SEALs %26 Swift boats

A SEAL Speaks:

Now here is someone who will know the answer to Hugh's question: were swift boats used for insertion operations? This fellow is a former SEAL, and the son of a SEAL to boot. He says no; the SF used swift boats, but not the SEALs; and swifties were definitely not for cross-border insertions.

I've met a couple of SEALs in my time. Very impressive lads. Not so much their physical prowess, although that is extremely high; still, I've met their equals from other services (although not their betters). What is really impressive to me is the combination of that physical prowess with the technical expertise. The SEALs I've known have always been highly technical: in addition to SCUBA gear, and being trained paratroopers, they were also competent with at least one other piece of machinery that would normally be an operational specialty on its own. One of the guys I knew was an electronic weapons officer for a Naval fighter; the other trained dolphins and knew how to use several kinds of underwater equipment.

SF are impressive too, don't get me wrong. Their language skills are something I've always aspired to myself, although I've lacked both the training and the chance to travel as widely. Everyone's heard of how physically difficult the Q-course is, but the real trick is the DLAB (Defense Language Aptitude Battery). I took it once and scored an 82, but you have to have scored at least an 85 to pass. It's an artificial language test, very tricky but a lot of fun. I did very well on the written portion, but my hearing isn't great and the listening portion wrecked my score. Alas, misspent youth, gunfire without adequate hearing protection, etc.

Anyway, you can go and read what this hero and son of a hero has to say. His father was there; he asked him too.

The New York Times > Magazine > Questions for Ray C. Fair: Bush Landslide (in Theory)!

I Love Game Theory:

Not just because it is a fantastic model for understanding the world, but also because it creates exchanges like this:

Are you a Republican?

I can't credibly answer that question. Using game theory in economics, you are not going to believe me when I tell you my political affiliation because I know that you know that I could be behaving strategically. If I tell you I am a Kerry supporter, how do you know that I am not lying or behaving strategically to try to put more weight on the predictions and help the Republicans?

I don't want to do game theory. I just want to know if you are a Kerry supporter.

Backing away from game theory, which is kind of cute, I am a Kerry supporter.

I believe you entirely, although I'm a little surprised, because your predictions implicitly lend support to Bush.

I am not attempting to be an advocate for one party or another. I am attempting to be a social scientist trying to explain voting behavior.

Leaving aside my irritation at the term "social science," I have to say that I love it. Hat tip: Southern Appeal.

Byron York on John Kerry, David Alston & Vietnam on National Review Online

Retrenchment:

Kerry's campaign explains that Captain Ed is wrong to say that he hadn't served with Alston. However, the retrenched explanation once again creates new inconsistencies with the established storyline: once again, you have to shift all the dates Kerry has used in the past to account for the new story. It really is time to sign that Form 180, and just let people see the records.

UPDATE:

Hugh Hewitt is apparently spending a lot of time and energy on research into these allegations. I'm familiar with the SOG, but it was before my time. I'm afraid I have nothing to add on the question of whether or not they used swift boats.

BOROWITZ report.com

Olympic Jitters:

"Olympic security officials in Athens, Greece conceded today that they had failed to notice a giant wooden horse that had been wheeled to within meters of the Olympic stadium sometime late last week."