Archive for September, 2005
Thrillseekers scout out forbidden urban sites
This isn’t anything new, but still interesting.
Mysterious ‘stealth’ boat plying Columbia River
An old news story on the stealth speedboat I noted in June.
A trillion barrels of oil?
Austin Bay on the potential of shale. I’ve long wondered about this. I’m pro-nuke for electricity, but no matter how many electric cars and alternative-fuel power plants we build, we’re going to need petroleum to fly and for the military.
I don’t know what to make of the British military raid on a Basra prison
Defense Tech has lots of links.
How many other ways can nature corncob us?
The title alone is worth a link, but Minister Buckethead points us to various disaster scenarios.
Revisting Samarra
Fourth Rail on the first Stryker Brigade’s first stomping ground and what happens when you don’t follow up.
Second Time’s the Charm
Expat Yank continues to keep an eye on the Orange Revolution.
U.S. Defense Spending Is Actually Shrinking
I was just wondering about this the other day.
Billion dollars plundered from Iraq’s military
AlJazeera has the scoop.
Mars getting warmer, may have quakes
The only cars on Mars are solar powered.
Air Force microsatellite passes key first tests
XSS-11 successfully completes series of orbital rendezvous maneuvers
Marines in Spaaaaaace!
Anyone here remember STARBLAZERS? More here.
The “New Waveland Cafe”
Links and such about Waveland and Gulfport, Mississippi, which took the brunt of Katrina.
Pentagon Student Database Another Example of the Government’s Out-of-Control Information Grab, ACLU Says
You all know I’m no fan of the ACLU. You all know I’m very pro-military and eager for our armed forces to increase in size and get the best recruits that they can. But this might be stretching the limits a bit far. I’d like more details, but on the surface it looks a bit shady to me.
DARPA’s Walrus: Goo goo g’joob
I’ve wanted to do a bigger post on this, but I can see that I’m just not going to get to it. Check it out.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lobbies for O’Connor’s replacement
Doesn’t sound like the sort of post that would make you laugh, does it? But you’re wrong.
The errors must have slipped in under the radar
A Shark Tank story I meant to link to about ten months ago.
Rocket launch paints sky with breath-taking scene
Better go look. Seen first-hand by Armed Liberal at WoC.
N. Korea Urges U.S. to Give Reactor for Nuclear Program
Seems terribly familiar. Maybe it’s from the plot of a bad movie? Or is it just a late-night re-run?
732 Running the Deck
Photos and basic descriptions of an A4 Skyhawk from launch to recovery and back to launch aboard the USS John F Kennedy. A sort of “Friday Catapult Blogging” entry.
Whether it’s due to public backlash over the supposed slow response to Katrina, or simply because they realized that state and local authorities cannot be counted on to do their jobs, military preparations are well along in anticipation of Rita.
A U2 took photos so that post-storm photos can be compared to them when organizing the relief effort. Six of the Navy ships in the area performing Katrina relief are preparing to head for Rita’s stomping ground. Troops are being pre-positioned, and others are on alert.
F7 and F8 flying over the USS Roosevelt. Bigger version at Old Glory Prints. You can buy one for $40.
Storm Forces NASA To Pass Space Station Control To Russia
I didn’t even think of this:
NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston was to close Wednesday due to the threat posed by Hurricane Rita and control of the International Space Station will be handed to Russia, the US agency said.A small, emergency rideout crew will remain on site but the center, near Houston, was not to reopen until the storm threat has passed, NASA said in a statement. Hurricane Rita was expected to hit the Texas coast this weekend.
The space center is home to NASA astronauts and also directs space shuttle missions and manages activity on the International Space Station.
“Primary flight control of the station will transition to the Russian Mission Control Center in Korolev, outside Moscow. As usual, a group of NASA flight controllers is positioned at the Russian control center to assist with operations,” NASA said.
I don’t even know what to say about this. Scott Burke’s coolness and skill saved the day. And he did it with style.
I guess we’ll have to wait to see what got them into that situation in the first place, but there’s no doubt that Burke did what needed to be done int the way it needed to be done when it was all on the line. You can’t ask for more.
Simply astounding. Or, as Phil Carter says, that’s some Shit hot flying
Okay, so the logo is a bit goofy.
But if you click on it you will find a handy list of every US senator and representative, organized by state, and the amount of pork in their state that they’ve committed to cut in order to help cover the cost of the Great New Orleans Bailout.
So far, California representative Nancy Pelosi is the ONLY ONE to have committed to anything.
That, my friends, is P-A-T-H-E-T-I-C. Grudgingly, I must give the whacko some credit on this one.
In Murdoc’s humble opinion, we shouldn’t need a reason to cut pork. But the astoundingly massive amount of money being pledged to Katrina relief simply staggers the imagination, and if the size of the check gives us an excuse to trim the fat a bit in other areas, let’s take advantage of it.
While I think the overly-dramatic headline on the link to this story might be a bit much, it’s better than sitting around figuring that the feds are just going to show up and make everything all right.
UPDATE: I was waiting to see more than the two or three pics of the Houston evacuation before commenting on this, but Generation Why? has the goods:
One point: I don’t see anyone in the bus at the tail end. We’ll have to wait and see, I guess. (via Sensing)
Forces Bolstered In Western Iraq
Additional US and Iraqi forces are moving into the western area of the Anbar province in an effort to bolster security and to keep insurgent and terrorist groups displaced during recent offensives, such as seen in Tal Afar, from re-establishing bases of operations and logistics.
The buildup, called Operation Sayaid, is aimed at securing the border area around the restive town of Qaim and suppressing other insurgent activity in the villages that hug the winding banks of the Euphrates west of Baghdad.In recent public remarks, Iraqi Defense Minister Sadoun Dulaimi signaled plans to step up military operations in the valley. Gen. George W. Casey, the senior U.S. commander in Iraq, said in an interview that his forces were intent on “restoring Iraqi control of its border by the end of November, before the December elections.”
I’ve long wondered why we didn’t seem to be doing much about the Syrian border area despite the obvious material and personnel flowing in from that direction.
Although U.S. Marines have conducted a series of raids in the far west, most lasting about a week, the longer-term presence of U.S. and Iraqi troops there has been relatively small.Out of 32,000 U.S. service members in the province, only one Marine regimental combat team — fewer than 5,000 troops — and some Special Operations forces have operated in the far western region.
Consequently, insurgent fighters have continued to move freely in many places, according to U.S. officers. Zarqawi’s network, in particular, is said to have established safe houses throughout the valley to shelter foreign fighters who enter from Syria before moving on to stage attacks in Baghdad and elsewhere.
“It’s not something we haven’t known about,” said a senior U.S. officer involved in overseeing military operations. “It’s just something we’re now in position to do something about.”
To be honest, I’m not really buying that.
If it was a shortage of troops, they would have requested more. I realize that we’re all “stretched thin” and everything, but if a few extra thousand boots on the ground starting in late 2003 would have hampered a fair amount of enemy activity they would have put the boots there in late 2003.
I’ve not really ever bought into the “flypaper theory”, at least not as the grand strategy that our Iraq plan was built around, but the fact that until recently we’ve done so little to secure the Syrian border lends the theory some credibility.
It really seems to me that if securing the border had been a priority, they would have done more immediately. And if it hadn’t initially been a priority, it would have quickly become one as the scale of the insurgency became apparent. The fact that we’ve waited so long to really get serious about the Syrian border area indicates to me that some sort of plan has been followed all along, though I can’t figure out what it could be if “flypaper” ain’t it.
As I noted earlier, the military claims that they’re seeing far fewer well-trained insurgents these days. Back in November and December, forces in the Mosul area were surprised by the ability and discipline of many insurgents they encountered, and that many of them appeared to by either foreigners or at least not local to the Mosul region. I noted at the time that many of them were probably displaced Fallujah fighters, but as efforts against the seasoned insurgents have dwindled their numbers, more and more of opposition seems to consist of younger and less-capable fighters.
Donald Sensing writes on the decreasing numbers of terrorists and insurgents at One Hand Clapping and Winds of Change.
As critics point out, some of what we’re doing in Iraq is actually increasing terrorism and the number of practitioners of terror, and that we’ll never totally stamp out terrorism or the insurgency. In some cases and places, we’re no doubt inspiring terrorist-wannabees faster than we’re killing or capturing them, and this obviously isn’t a strategy to win the war.
But let’s look back into history for a moment.
Japan began the war against the United States with large numbers of highly-trained naval pilots. Many had been battle-tested in China and many more would gain experience during the early months of the war while the Imperial Japanese Navy ran roughshod across the Pacific. There was no doubt that, man for man, the Japanese pilots were superior and that they had superior equipment.
But even with such a large advantage, many pilots were being lost as the fighting continued, especially as American pilots who survived their initial battles became more savvy and developed tactics to counter the Japanese. At the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway, Japan lost the cream of her naval aviation force. The Americans, too, suffered greatly, but there was a difference. In America, pilots by the thousands were being trained in extensive programs designed to churn out large numbers of capable aviators. Japan had nothing of the sort, and basically fought the war with what it had on December 7th, 1941.
As pilots were lost in combat or accidents, replacements were few and far between. And most of those that could be mustered were not up to the standards of earlier days. As the Americans became stronger and stronger, the Japanese became weaker and weaker. By the end they were left with nothing but raw recruits trained just enough to get their rickety old planes into the air and be herded toward the approaching US fleet so they could dive to their deaths in an attempt to take some Yankees with them. And as we captured or destroyed operating bases, even this became more difficult.
Sound familiar?
The kamikaze attacks were horrific and caused thousands of deaths. But it obviously wasn’t a winning strategy. We’re seeing similar things in Iraq, where the number of VBIED attacks seems to have lessened dramatically, and the insurgents we’re going up against are younger and less-prepared. Meanwhile, the Iraq military is growing in size and strength almost daily, and as they do so they’re freeing more and more American troops to go on the offensive.
So whatever the reason is that we haven’t attempted to secure the Syrian border area until now, as we do so the insurgents and terrorists will find themselves backed into ever-shrinking zones of safety and peopled with less-capable personnel.
U.S. Claims Success in Iraq Despite Onslaught
Body Counts Now Cited as Benchmarks
The Washington Post:
After generally rejecting body counts as standards of success in the Iraq war, the U.S. military last week embraced them — just as it did during the Vietnam War. As the carnage grew in Baghdad, U.S. officials produced charts showing the number of suspects killed or detained in offensives in the west.
Now, if we were to simply use body counts as a scorecard that told the whole story, this would be trouble.
Here are a few little snippets from the same story:
August was the third-deadliest month of the war for U.S. troops.
and
Lynch spoke at the close of a two-day onslaught of bombings and shootings that killed nearly 190 people, the bloodiest days in Baghdad since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.Over 17 days this month, guerrillas across Iraq killed at least 116 Iraqi forces and 346 Iraqi civilians in drive-by shootings, bombings and other violence, according to Iraqi officials.
So I guess I’m confused. Are body counts worthwhile or not?
The basic story seems to be this: “The US military has begun using numbers of killed and captured insurgents as some sort of measuring stick by which we apparently are supposed to be able to judge the situation in Iraq. Meanwhile four more American soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb, pushing the toll of American forces killed in Iraq past 1,900.”
UPDATE: Incidentally, according to these numbers, the US has suffered 22 KIAs in the first 20 days of this month. Compare that to the 80 lost last September, and US forces have been involved in some fairly intense offensives along the Syrian border. Generally, offensive operations increase the likelihood of casualties.
Let’s say this rate holds. Think we’re likely to see “US deaths down nearly 60% since last year” headlines?
Air Force says farewell to most powerful ICBM
Air Force Link:
The deactivation began in October 2002 after President Bush set a plan in motion in 2001 to reduce the country’s missile forces from 6,000 to between 1,700 and 2,200.
The Minuteman III missile remains in service and steps are being taken to upgrade them, some improvements being made with parts of the scrapped MX missiles. Defense Industry Daily has more.
