Archive for March, 2005
Iraqi Baathist Exit Strategy: Turn in Zarqawi
Plan ‘A’, obviously, was to return Saddam (or at least the Baathists) to power.
Plan ‘B’, if that failed, was to turn Iraq into a storm of chaos and destruction, unruled and unrulable.
Plan ‘C’ was to at least keep the Iraqi government from setting up shop and getting the Americans out of the cross hairs.
Plan ‘D’, probably, is to go out in a blaze of glorious martyrdom.
And while there are plenty of folks who would be satisfied with Plan ‘D’, most of them aren’t the martyrs themselves.
Despite the huge lie of WMDs and the obvious plans to steal the oil, it seems that many Iraqis might be perfectly happy to live in a new democratic nation and take control of their destinies. And some of them are the dead-enders.
There is room to maneuver, here. I wrote previously that a willingness to negotiate with some of the insurgents is important, though we (and especially the new Iraqi government) needs to be picky about who it lets off the hook and who it doesn’t.
Expect to see stories about how the Shia and Kurd dominated government is much harder on Sunni rebels than on others. They probably won’t mention that the overwhelming majority of rebels are Sunni.
The waves of pro-democracy protests continue.
Tsunami city in many corners of the globe.
I honestly believe that there is more than a little bit of ‘fad’ craze going on, though it’s certainly a fad that I wouldn’t mind seeing catch on for more than a month or two.
Remember, though, that all these people clamoring for democracy have never known it before, and therefore can’t really be expected to manage it. It’s probably for the best that they remain as they are.
After all, I’m told that Iraq is far worse off now than under Saddam.
The latest hot spots: Belarus, Taiwan, Bahrain, Iran, and, of course, Kyrgyzstan. I’ve been shirking my duty, lately. I’ve barely been covering these places. Or even Lebannon for that matter. All the links I grabbed are via Instapundit.
President loses support among men, other core backers
A Gallup poll shows Bush’s approval rating slipping from 52% to 45%. The slip includes a significant drop in numbers of what are normally considered to be his strongest supporters. Reasons given in the article include Terri Shiavo, gas prices, and Social Security.
I didn’t participate in the poll, but a reason that my support may have slipped (slightly) would be the continued irrational approach to illegal immigrants.
I’ve wondered why this continues to bother me so much. After careful consideration and reflection, I think I’ve figured it out.
It still bothers me so much because it still hasn’t been fixed.
A commenter in the previous post points out that some “Tighty-Righties” ARE, in fact, all over W on ‘W’ about this at Free Republic. I look over FR irregularly, sometimes poring through it carefully and sometimes not even bothering to visit for days (or even weeks) at a time. Although I think it is light years ahead of Democratic Underground in both content and discussion, it’s still fairly top-heavy with ignorant boobs.
And, I’d like to point out, those “Tighty-Righties” are exactly the folks that slipped in the Gallup poll. Like me, they almost all still support Bush overall. But there’s no doubt the guy isn’t above petty politics.
I’m just very frustrated over Homeland Security, and I think the biggest single problem (though there are many, many problems) is the illegal immigrant issue.
I’m all for letting people into America. After they’ve passed a basic check. If they don’t follow the rules, they automatically fail. And you don’t fix the problem by relaxing the laws and granting amnesty to those that have broken them in the past.
I don’t pretend that people are mad enough about this to have lowered his approval rating. Which, in itself, is sad. But there are a number of issues that his core supporters think he’s wrong on. And this is probably at the head of the line. If ‘W’ suffers for this, it’s his own fault.
Unfortunately for the human race, the Geek Contest at the Ministry of Minor Perfidy goes on. Now MO commenter Buckethead has joined the fray, and it is u-g-l-y.
I would like to point out that my sense of revulsion at the spectacle has nothing whatsoever to do with any resemblance to my own younger days. Nothing at all. Especially the gaming.
Go read and put your two cents in.
Chely Wright, the country musician mentioned previously on MO, signs autographs at Marine Corps Base Quantico, VA. Pic found on Frontline Photos from 3/24/05.
Buffalo Joins Brigade Combat Team Arsenal
Defend America:
CAMP TIGERLAND, BAGHDAD, March 24, 2005 — A new addition has been added to the Tiger Brigade family and taken up residence with the 1088th Engineering Battalion. The Buffalo is the most recent equipment to defeat improvised explosive devices and just like its name suggests, the 23-ton machine is made of monstrous proportions, and appears to be virtually unstoppable.It is a heavily-armored vehicle designed for route clearance, giving patrols a closer look at suspected improvised explosive devices. This way it can be confirmed that an improvised explosive devices is present before bringing an Explosive Ordnance Disposal team onto the scene.
U.S. Army 1st Lt. Cecil Piazza of Company A, 1088th Engineer Battalion, has played an active role in bringing the new addition to the 256th Brigade Combat Team. He explained how the machine works.
“It (the Buffalo) is equipped with a 30-foot extension, called an Ironclaw, which is operated from within the vehicle. Once an improvised explosive device is spotted by a route clearance team, it can be investigated without getting physically on the ground to look at it.”
The operator uses the Ironclaw to probe debris and dirt from around the questionable device and also has an extra set of eyes mounted on top to help decipher the identity of the object. Working hand in hand with a television screen inside the vehicle, a 200X Zoom video camera has a bird’s eye view of everything. According to Spc. Chris Johnson from Iowa, La., it has the capability to help the crew see clearly.
Once upon a time, while trying to figure out how to rid my home’s yard of moles, I stood in Home Depot looking over the plethora of mole traps. I didn’t buy any that day, and my wife asked why. I told her that, since there were about ten different types of traps for the same little rodent, none of them must work very well.
That’s what we’re seeing with IEDs in Iraq. Every couple of weeks we hear about the latest thing in anti-IED operations. No doubt, as time goes on, we will get a handle on the problem. But the fact that solution after solution is rolled into Iraq means that we are struggling to get it under control. If something really worked well at all, we’d stop trying so many new things.
But my hat is off to our developers who continue to work the problem and to our soldiers who beta test the new ideas. In the field.
Turning T-55s Into Streetfighters (March 25th entry)
The Iraqi 1st Mechanized Brigade was activated in January. They’re equipped mostly with Soviet-built T55 tanks, BMP light armored vehicles, and French-designed Panhard M3 armored personnel carriers (which were donated by the UAE). The tanks, though old, will provide the backbone for the new force.
These have used additional armor and screens to provide protection from RPG warheads. The T-55 tanks being used are also getting the additional protection, as the side and rear armor of the T-55s can be penetrated by some types of RPG warheads. Another way to keep T-55s from blowing up is to send them into action with less than a full load of ammo. The T-55 is built to carry about 45 100mm shells. But in most urban warfare situations, only about a dozen are needed. The empty space can be used to carry more machine-gun ammo, drinking water or whatever. Especially whatever won’t explode if an RPG does penetrate the thin side armor. When an RPG penetrates an armored vehicle, it does so in the form of a super hot jet of gas, and a few bits of molten metal. If no ammo or crew are hit, there’s some loud noise, a new smell and that’s about it. The crew just goes on about their business. But if the hot gas jet hits something explosive, there’s an explosion, and that’s the end of the tank.
The unit is still getting its feet wet, but as they gain experience they will become more and more important as Iraqis struggle to establish order in their new nation.
Besides the relative cheapness of equipping Iraqi forces with T55 tanks due to the large numbers available and the loads of spare parts laying around, it also guarantees that the Iraqi army is more of a defensive-oriented force. T55s can provide great support for Iraqi military and police forces battling insurgents and terrorists, but they’re no match for modern armored forces. In the future, the Iragi military will set up a tank depot factory in Taji to refurbish T72s, which will be a great improvement over the T55 but still no match for state of the art main battle tanks.
Baby steps.
Tank Crews Want Better Streetfighting Gear
Here’s a great article on ideas to improve the already-formidable urban capabilities of the M1 tank.
Among them: slat armor similar to that on the Stryker to protect the rear of the tank, which is vulnerable to RPGs due to the turbine exhaust.
I find it incredibly ironic that the tankers want the same “bird cage” add-on armor that the anti-Stryker folks derided as proof that the Stryker was a death trap.
Also discussed are the commander’s and loader’s machine guns, which are often more useful in an urban setting than the main 120mm gun. These weapons are incredibly handy, but the soldiers must stand in the turret to operate them. The article notes that some crews have rigged armor protection from scrounged materials, but that
Another suggestion is to install a RWS (Remote Weapons Station) for the commanders .50 caliber gun (like the RWS used with great success by the Stryker), so the commander can operate the weapon from inside the tank. The .50 caliber is a very useful weapon in city fighting, but the RWS adds another bit of complex gear to the tank, and is only really useful in urban warfare, where the tank is likely to be taking a lot of small arms fire.
First of all, I’m curious to know whether the RWS has been truly “used with great success”. There’s no doubt that it has been effective, but I’d like to know if the lack of stabilization has been a detriment to Stryker crews. If so, there’s an alternative that’s similar to the RWS but is motion-stabilized: the CROWS.
Murdoc wonders if a heavily-armored “light gun” tank with a 25mm chain gun main turret and four or five remote operated machine guns might be something worth looking at. Well, I guess that’s sort of a Bradley with extra machine guns. And that 120mm sure comes in handy some times, I’m sure. But it still might be worth looking into a specialized urban tank, possibly a modified M1 or M2 Bradley, that incorporates all the latest lessons learned and requests from the boots on the streets.
Brave Men and Women Winning the War on Terror
Chuck Simmins has a new series up on You . Worth looking at. One of the first he covers is Rick Rescorla.
In shift, U.S. to sell F-16 jets to Pakistan: India also will get planes but is upset about move
Anti-Bushies will gleefully point out the folly of selling American war machinery to all comers.
The United States has agreed to sell sophisticated F-16 fighter planes to both India and its next-door rival Pakistan, administration officials said Friday, and India immediately expressed displeasure to President Bush.The diplomatically sensitive move — which the administration was ready to announce later Friday — rewards Pakistan for help in the war on terrorism but angers India, a U.S. ally and a fellow democracy.
But critics will probably overlook the multilateral angle of this conflict. Pakistan is an ally (of sorts) in the war. India has been an ally (of sorts) for some time.
They aren’t friends, to say the least and they’ve both got nuclear weapons.
We want their help, and in the case of Pakistan, that help is crucial to a meaningful, lasting victory in Afghanistan. So, do we sell them planes? Let the Rooskies sell them planes? The Chinese? Arms embargo one or the other? Embargo both? Sell the Indians even MORE planes? This highlights some of the problems of a multilateral approach. Tough decisions must be made.
